One of those days

And the bicycle goes where, exactly?

Yesterday was just one of those days. Tasks taking longer, lung-based cold draining further, nothing going forward as fast as I needed it to. (And also, of course my health insurance company messed up the automatic billing and cancelled my coverage just in time for my first doctor’s visit in two years. Why wouldn’t they?) Large scale worries and small scale misfires just sort of leached the feeling of effectiveness from my abdomen. Not a terrible day, just the kind that feels like a low slow growl.

But then! Then I was headed over to the city for Korean happy hour appetizers with three dearly beloved friends. The fresh air of bicycle motion was already soothing, though the day’s misalignment continued as every single stoplight turned red at my approach.

You can go, as long as you don't enter.

I’ve ridden from my house to BART (the subway) approximately seven quajillion times, and I well know that one stretch is the most dangerous. An American-style street of two busy lanes on the left and slanted parking spaces on the right, bikes are advised to float ten feet off the ground I guess.

After merely two mazillion passes, I’d developed an automatic habit of scanning for reverse lights to make sure none of those parked cars wanted to put a windshield between me and my destination, but the sheer normalcy of the passage, splattered with deeply-felt frustration, helped me not notice that the first parking spot was empty.

I don’t know if the driver signaled, since I was alongside them, but it doesn’t really matter. I should have been aware of the possibility of that right turn, crossing right in front of me, if not on top of me.

As it was, they pulled right, so I pulled right, and we both entered the space together, factory-shaped automobile metal somehow not impacting DNA-made me meat, with a good five inches to spare. Good five inches.

I looked at the driver, who looked back at me, both waiting to see if the other would rage and threaten. I love neither of those, so just sort of went around and back on my way.

See now the Dutch, the Dutch
know how to run a bike lane.

Air moving again, limbs still intact, I felt two tugs for interpretation. One, I could be overwhelmed with the frustration and fear of the moment and the day and the week, pour it all into a Republican-style rage of blame against another. Or, I could take that startling moment as a gentle but clear reminder from the universe to get my perspective in order. Sitting on hold while I stress at a long To Do List? Not that bad.

So on Super Tuesday, I elected to vote against anger and fear, and helped myself to a serving of gratitude and serenity after nearly going through a car window. Enjoyed time with friends, determined to take my own advice not to be in such a g’dang hurry all the time, and am happy to be blogging about it today. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have hold music to listen to. And that’s just fine.

Oakland riots after Ferguson decision

There are helicopters in the sky of Oakland tonight. I have a Thanksgiving blog typed up, ready to go. But there are helicopters above me, still.

The rumble of three overhead, hours ago, provoked a single word: “Ferguson.” A quick check showed that Officer Darren Wilson will not be indicted in the killing of Michael Brown. Photos coming out showed a dense protest of bodies blocking a freeway on-ramp. “That’s...right here,” said my friend, “around the corner.”

The protest had closed off both directions of Interstate 580 when I got there. Signs, chants, and a community’s pain were on display. They wanted to express outrage at police impunity and race relations in our country.

“Justice for Michael Brown!” they chanted. “Arrest Darren Wilson!” they shouted. “No justice, no peace, no racist police!” They wrote: “Black lives matter.”

The wall of cops stood calm, passive, taunted by males of just that age, in all black, on skateboards, behind bandanas, with middle fingers raised. I stood close to those officers, saw the various hues of their skins and the uniform resolve in their eyes, human, but dedicated to their profession. Someone piled garbage in the street, and soon it was on fire. I asked an angry young lady if she ever feels like we’re shouting at the wrong people. She looked at me blankly, walked away.

Over the next couple hours, the police steadily herded the crowd away from the interstate, and the crowd dwindled until the last lingering cops ate hot dogs as I reclaimed my bicycle. Home was close...but these are important times, an important night, so I went downtown. Just to see.

They’d already broken a few shop windows when I got there. The mood was different now. In quiet moments before the storm, on side streets and empty corners, I thanked the officers for their patience, and reminded them that only a small percentage of us were violent, that the rest wanted to voice our anger at affairs in our shared nation. In their eyes I saw the answer “We don’t like it either. But we can’t say that right now.”

I wonder how things would go, if they could? What if the front row held the protective gear, and those behind held signs saying “We think black lives matter too.”? What if the cops just didn’t show up?

Because you know how this goes. The night gets later, the ratio of rationale to rage skews. The fires get bigger. The chanting more aggressive, degenerating into “Fuck the police!” This crowd had no rational path left, just an inevitable one.

Bottles flew regularly now, broken glass on uniforms. Most of the faces around me showed concern, disapproval, the awareness that this was counterproductive, not the reason we were there, not achieving our goal, not articulating our stance. Damaging it. This wasn’t protest, it was hooliganism.

I managed to upload a small video on vagabondurges.com

Shifts in the police line had been provoking short stampedes all night, but no one tolerates attack indefinitely. I could feel it coming. I was surprised it took so long. The cops I had spoken with were now wearing gas masks. Tense minutes before the panic began in earnest, and in its wake came the bangs of rubber bullets, the hiss of tear gas cannisters, and the explosions of flash grenades.

All was chaos, all was noise, all was fear and attack. A protest against violence, against police brutality, had reached a point where the police were responding with brutal violence. It all made me so sad. Such a waste. Such shame. On all of us.

They pushed us back a half block at a time. The announcement was background noise, something about penal code such-and-such and how if we did not leave immediately we would be forcibly removed, with potential for significant injury, and arrested. They would reach a bonfire, and pause while the fire department extinguished it.

Shop windows shattered, looters ran out with armfuls of booze. Cell phone cases crunched across the sidewalk, the owner helpless and angry, a colleague crying “Why are you doing this? You’re hurting Oakland!” to a woman who was either drunk or just not playing with a full deck of cards.

Then the shields would come at us again, batons held ready, more broken glass. More rubber bullets and stun grenades. The crowd was reducing down to the most militant, most violent. When a rubber bullet rebounded off the wall next to me and off my leg, that was enough. Have you seen the pictures from Ferguson of what it does to a human body to be hit by one of these? It seems to basically liquefy the skin, leaving a hole in your most basic of armors, through which all your raw insides, damaged nerves and angry inner core can leak out.

Two shells sit next to me now, as I type. I tucked them in my pocket, looped around the police line, and rode home. Traveling the streets of Oakland tonight has a soundtrack of crackles as broken glass pops beneath your tires. Police cruisers, personnel vans, and the occasional armored bus account for 90% of traffic, and those helicopters are still patrolling overhead. Entire blocks smell of smoke, some of it burns.

How does this happen? A legitimate expression of a reasonable anger smashes up against the wall of our systemic indifference, and in the futility of that deflection, the adolescent idiocy of the hooligan is the only side that has an answer. So instead of a united expression of dissatisfaction, today we will have photos of vandalism, violence, and anarchy. The chance to say something, wasted.

Is this inevitable? I remember the Occupy Wall Street movement. That, to me, was this country’s best chance to hear itself, to regain its soul, to make changes, peacefully. That didn’t happen. The authorities doubled down, the 1% got even richer, and nothing was done to address the bleeding of this nation.

I was overseas when Oakland PD attacked the Occupy camp here, with the same tools but more brutality than tonight, and it is still a stain of disgrace on the city. Tonight? The police came out looking better than the protesters. Maybe Occupy was our big chance, our peaceful protest. Seeing how that went nowhere, what else is there to do but smash?

Why bother blogging?

I'm supposed to be writing a blog right now. Instead, I'm pretending to type while observing the hunched man across the communal table, who looks like Lewis Black fallen on hard times. His hair is greasy and thinning, spots on his amorphous button-up shirt, and a stained paper coffeecup close at hand, even though we're sitting in the coffeeshop.

He looks like a scientist who's spent too much time in the lab. He looks like the parents' least favorite bus driver. He looks like a calm madman, glaring at his crotch as if it holds the answer, and occasionally starting sentences like “I don't know why...” and “It would work if...” but never finishing them, just exploding in sighs and more staring.

Coffee, words, and a postre in El Salvador

Now from his lap he takes a clump of papers, green ink notes and revisions. He's a writer. Of course he's a writer. Crapola. It feels like A Christmas Carol, and he's the Ghost of Careers future. Why would I want to do that? A writer friend’s words come stabbing up from where they lodged in my ear: “You’re young enough, have you considered getting out of this bullshit profession before it’s too late?” Yes I have. Regularly.

Today is just one of those days. When everything is...just not...doable. I picked up the weights for my wee morning exercise, and...put them down again. Once doesn't count. Crunches are usually the easy part, but I lay down on K's old yoga mat and just...lay there. Feeling heavy. One, two. Three. So heavy. Breakfast happened. Cereal. The only crunching I'll do today.

Pollo and palabras in Peru

I should work on something more substantive, but the thought runs rancid in my stomach. Okay, let’s start with a blog. But here I am, almost five years into blogging, aware that whether I spend all day or twenty minutes producing a post, it will debut in a mild spasm of links and email notifications, then live maybe six hours before it withers, fossilized under a layer of sandwich instagrams.

Every now and then I get a notification of a comment in an old blog, and feel a spark of joy: those words live! Then I read the comment and find only google translated spam from accounts with names like Acne Scar Removal and Cheap Nike Air Max.

Havana lunch

(My personal favorite: “Thanks so much and I am taking a look forward to touch you.”)

So when I got a comment last night for a 2012 post about an orphanage in Ecuador, (link) I assumed it was just another spammer. But no! A real human read the post and now wanted to visit Hogar Para Todos. I emailed them the contact info, thinking Now that was a blog worth posting. It got information about something good out to more good people. That is what these e-things are supposed to do.

So that’s one. Then I noticed that one of y'all precious long-time readers had liked nine of my posts in a row. And the best part? The time-stamps showed that she actually read them. And to put frosting on the awesome: she donated to Alvaro's fund at the end of it. Another blog worth posting...

Journaling with mysterious food in Kuala Lampur

And I realized one other thing while rereading the blog about the orphanage. It’s...not great. Not awful, but...I’d write it differently today. So? So I’m not taking an MFA program, and haven’t been able to rummage up a writing group around here, but regular blogging does seem to be having an effect on helping me put words together. Given the more substantial project I’m working on, that alone is reason to continue.

So if old posts might come around the mountain (riding six white horses) and inspire someone in some way...

And if new posts might hold the attentions of other interesting people...

And if the blogging itself helps my main project...

But there's one other important factor: do I enjoy this?

Cai, diary, and Turkish breakfast in Fethiye

Well. My coffee's gone, but a vague smile remains. And somehow I don’t feel quite as heavy as I did this morning... I think I'll keep doing this. And, to help myself and my regular readers, I’m adjusting my posting intentions to every Tuesday and Friday.

And poor tortured Lewis? He never did finish one of those sentences, but when he left a minute ago, there was a certain giddyup in his gait, the ebullience of a man enjoying his life. Maybe this word-stuff isn’t so bad after all, at least, not once you get going.

See you on Friday, when I’ll tell you about the more uplifting rest of the day.

Sights, sensations, and allegations from Vilnius

I'd like to say my dominant memory from Vilnius was Uzupis, the bohemian neighborhood of the capital of Lithuania, the third and last of the countries I've visited from The World's Ten Best Ethical Destinations list for 2014.

Walls are not blank in Uzupis

Uzupis followed one of the quintessential paths of the European twentieth century, from origin through inhumane human suffering, to the blossom of hope. It was primarily Jewish until the Nazis brought genocide (an estimated 70,000 people from Vilnius and the surrounding area murdered), then the Soviets killed the dead, destroying the old Jewish cemetery that once stood nearby. For a few decades of neglect, the area was home to the homeless, drugs, prostitution, and decay, then their sometime offspring: art, inspiration, and a spirit of self-reliance.

Click to enlarge, or here

By Lithuanian independence in 1990, the area was already home to a bohemian set, and in 1997 Uzupis declared itself independent. How independent? The mayor of Vilnius lived there, independence day is April (Fools) 1, and the constitution? Click to enlarge. The area is just over half a square kilometer, and according to wikipedia, 1000 of the 7000 inhabitants are artists. I wonder if 6000 people would take issue with that statistic.

I walked along the river, admired the art, and chatted with crusty men smoking pipes and joints with pigment-stained fingers. The area is no ghetto anymore, and reminded me of Christiania in Copenhagen. I loved Uzupis. But it is not my strongest memory of Vilnius.

From there I walked up to “Bleak Hill” to see the three whitewashed crosses built in 1989 to replace the ones blown up by the Soviets in 1950, themselves replicas in a tradition dating back to 1636, when a couple missionary friars pissed off the local pagans and got themselves tortured to death. The remnants of the previous crosses lie just below, and you can see them for a moment before your eyes are inexorably drawn to the panorama of Vilnius below. It's a good looking city.

Beautiful, historical, cultural and religious. And still not my main memory. The strongest impression was left by a girl, but it's not what you're thinking.

After the crosses I walked the streets of Old Town, and around to St. Peter and Paul Church, a Baroque masterpiece that stands out, even on that continent of churches. On my way to food I had to stop off at the Frank Zappa statue, pausing to read the graffiti notes until my stomach got too demanding. Then it was time for the girl. I have no idea what her name was.

I actually first met her in Riga, where she was packing her bag on the beer-spotted carpet of a floppy hostel common room, Jimi Hendrix posters on the wall and Bob Marley on the stereo. She wrote my name in Korean on a torn guidebook page, and offered everyone valium and xanax from a shockingly large supply of both that she carried around in a sandwich bag.

That should have been my first warning.

But she seemed nice enough, and when she showed up in Vilnius, I greeted her with a smile and introduced her to the usual suspects from England, Australia, Canada etc. The lot of us went out to the bars, as you do, but her habit of carrying multiple sides of a conversation all by herself may have had something to do with the way everyone else drifted off.

I don't think anyone else heard it the first time she said to me “Well, I've forgot my condoms, but if you like we can find a bathroom for a bit of a shag.” I pretended not to hear either. So she repeated it. I politely declined. Add several beers, and she no longer saw me as a friend. I discovered this fact on the dance floor, when my dorky dancing was interrupted by her hands closing around my throat from behind. Let's just say, she was not a waif of a girl.

The rest of the night was a series of assaults, then allegations made against me to random guys on the street who turned out to be plain-clothes police. Their investigation quickly reached the factual basis of the situation, and their looks were pure laughing commiseration. I spent the night on an empty bunk upstairs, not trusting her sanity to sleep in the same dorm room.

In the morning I came downstairs and was greeted with the question: “Hey, guy, did you pee on that girl last night?”

Luckily the hostel owner was as astute as the police, and he quickly deduced “Yeah, I didn't think so, she was just that drunk, but she said you peed on her bed to make her look bad, and that next time she sees you, you're going to be sorry. She means it, man.”

I would have liked to stay longer in beautiful Vilnius, but I caught a bus out that afternoon.

Latvia, a second Ethical Destination memory

The two men could be twins, though they would have to be of the “long-lost” variety. One of them works in Washington, D.C. with all the other ambassadors, and flies out to San Francisco to accept the award when Latvia earns a spot on The Ten Best Ethical Destinations of 2014 list. He wears a tailored suit, speaks good English with a clipped Baltic accent, and presumably has a fair amount of ink on his tax return.

His brother with the identical jaw line wore battered jeans, worked below the table in a backbreaking tree removal job, and rode a rusty bicycle home through the snow with me from our Dutch class in rural Belgium. He spoke only a little English, and didn't know the name of his country in my language. “I am from Letland” he told me, and I smiled and nodded, embarrassed at my bad American geography. I could label a blank map of Europe without trouble, including major cities and places I'd slept, but had no idea where Letland was until he started talking about Riga.

My first night in Riga I was walking through this park at
11:00 PM, thinking I shouldn't be there, then saw women
walking alone, felt much safer, and a bit in love with the city

Riga... Ah yes. I remember Riga.

My dominant memory of Riga is rather salacious, best told in another medium, but that's okay, because I like the back-up too. I heard this second story from a brash Scotsman who drank his beer like water in a smoky bar in Wroclaw, Poland.

“You were in Latvia too? Riga?” He asked me, finishing the first third of his pint as I answered. “Did you stay out of the strip joints?”

At that point in my life I was desperately dull and ruthlessly well-behaved, so strip clubs were off the table and out the door, impossible. “Good call, in Riga” said the Scot, “You know they're all Russian mob, right?” I had heard this actually, it's not a secret in Riga.

It was just above freezing and still the miniskirts still came
out, even at the Freedom Monument. Okay with the guards.

“I was in one of them up there with a mate a couple months ago. We're having a pint, and this girl comes up, gorgeous girl, great tits, legs for days, and she starts flirting with him. Asks him to buy her a drink.” I give the wince to acknowledge that I'm aware that would be a bad idea.

“I know, right? But he figures 'What the hell, just one.' So he buys this bird a drink, and she's rubbing his thigh and whatnot, putting ideas in his head, but he's not that stupid, so when she asks for another he says no and we ask for the tab.”

It's not tab time in Poland yet, and he signals the barman for another pint.

“So the bill comes, and the girl's drink cost a hundred euro! He knew it would be more than the menu price, but a hundred? So he says 'No way I'm bloody paying that!' and as soon as the words come out of his mouth these two gigantic guys have him pinned up against the wall, and this third bastard, in an expensive suit, real dirtbag, Russian mafia for sure, comes over. He's smoking a cigarette, right, and he takes a drag and asks my mate 'You will pay ze bill?'”

A semi-drunk Scotsman does a pretty passable Russian accent.

"How much for Georgia?" A darker era for the US. Several
around Riga, sometimes with added Hitler mustaches.

“My friend says 'Hell no' and without a word the guy puts his cigarette out in my friend's arm. Ssssss. Now, my friend's a tough bastard, so he doesn't say much, but that hurts. This mafioso lights his cigarette again. 'You want to pay ze bill now?'

“But my mate's pissed off now, 'Fuck you' he says, and the mafia bloke takes another big pull on his cig, and sssss, puts it out on his arm again, right below the first one. I'm wondering how long this can go on, but after he lights his cigarette for the third time he says, real cold like:

'I am going to ask you for ze third time. But you should know, ze next one, it goes in your eye. Now. You want to pay ze bill?'”

I was briefly tempted to ask the Latvian ambassador about mafia strip clubs in Riga, but out of respect for his twin brother, biking home next to me with a smile and frozen fingertips, I kept it to myself.

Is that a good start or a bad one? Jungle birthday Part 2.

I'll just come out and say it: I was wearing flip flops. Old ones. This may surprise you, given that I was hiking six hours each way to spend the night in the muddy equatorial rainforest of Taman Negara in Malaysia, but I had two reasons.

Warning sign as you leave the boardwalks of the
easy tourist area for the real jungle.

First, previous experience with leeches showed that flip flops allow the best access for removal of the little bloodsucking bastards.

Second, they were pretty much my only option after I retired my (somewhat notorious) oversized sandals after they became Grade A Disease Vectors in Myanmar (don't ask).

They worked well for the first 4 hours on Day One, then their age became apparent, as the anchoring thong in the front popped out with increasing frequency. I bought the things two years ago in Nepal, and they had served me well, but in hindsight, for perhaps too long.

I didn't mind sticking the little plastic plug back in, it was the fact that doing so meant stopping, which gave a much longer opportunity to the vampirous tube-beasts who were swarming around, doing their little head-waving leech aerobics as they smelled the approach of something tasty.

Have you ever seen them do this? It would be cute if it wasn't so sinister. They look like tiny hyperactive Ray Charles impersonators...who feed on your blood.

There was time to stop and admire the scenery on Day One

Since leeches don't spread any diseases or do any real harm, my plan had been to just let them do their thing and drop off when they were done. How very Buddhist of me.

Yeah, no. That plan lasted until I saw the first one squirming out from my ankle, where it had attached and bitten through the skin. But the leeches weren't the worst thing.

This was the world's oldest rainforest, where intense competition has driven evolution for 130 million years (the area is just slightly above the equator, so even the ice ages didn't disrupt things). What do you think rules this forest?

Elephants, monkeys, or tigers? Only on the postcards. All of these are reportedly found in the park, but to my eye it was clear who dominates this dense world where a single hectare holds 14,000 plant species, 200 mammals, and 240 types of trees.

One of the construction workers
alongside the normal workers

Ants rule this place. Mean ones.

I stopped to take a picture of the first river of tiny black bodies, but by the tenth I was just stepping over the glossy stream. It was when I got careless that I learned more about them. To my disappointment I have been unable to find exactly what the little buggers were (hell, maybe they were termites!) so I'm going to make some shit up that makes sense to me.

There were tiny workers in superhighways half a dozen lanes wide and stretching for unbelievably long distances, which I learned when they commandeered a guide rope left to help me climb a steep slope.

Don't grab that rope.

Don't grab that rope

Then there were the construction workers, unbelievably larger than the workers. At first I thought these were soldiers, and feared them mightily, but now I suspect their job is to clear fallen leaves and sticks that obstruct the path. They seemed to pace the edge of the stream, and they're not the soldiers because those, I definitely met.

The soldiers. Assholes! I took off my sandal the first night to find four or five ants stuck to its edges, legs waving furiously. Curious. They were much larger than the workers, but not nearly as big as the construction workers. It took me a minute to figure it out.

They'd bitten my sandal, and they weren't letting go. I flicked at them. Brushed at them. Still there. I flicked harder and the bodies fell away...but the head stayed put, anchored into my thin sole with insectile tenacity.

So when my sandals would come off anywhere near an ant stream? (And everywhere is near an ant stream.) It hurt. They're good at getting you right in the tender spot on the bottom of the arch too. You have to lift your foot and rip them off, sometimes coming back for the head.

I wasn't enjoying this process much as I started walking through the mud. Then I reached a nice clearing by the river. It was pretty...and I definitely hadn't passed it on the way out.

Crap.

I backtracked, took another path and came to a wide shallow river...that I also did not cross the first day.

My sandals had given up completely and the thong was coming out every couple steps in the sucking mud, so I had to just take them off and go barefoot. In the jungle. Where billions of members of two particular species were very ready to go right through my skin, and I didn't know what else.

Someone left these bloody footprints in the hide
after their own meeting with the leeches

I backtracked. Bled. Sweated, stepped, and slipped. And bled some more.

Getting lost in the jungle sucks. Especially during the daily Leech Feeding, which is 24 hours long.

The girls and the German were long gone, so I was very much on my own, and sound just doesn't travel in vegetation that thick anyway.

I tried another path and ended up at the stream again, mirrored by tiny red seeps from my feet. I considered walking out via the water, trusting it would lead to the main river, but if that didn't work then I'd have a hell of a time finding where to start looking for trails again.

I turned back again and started jogging to give the biters as little chance as possible. Left hand on my shoulder bag, bulky with camera, journal, long pants and raincape thing, my right held the quickly-decaying plastic bag that held the remnants of my food, and my elbow pressed the water bottle pressed against my side.

When I slipped down a slope it gave the leeches a chance to climb all over me, but I think I escaped unscathed. I kept running. I was pouring sweat, feeling incredibly stupid, and lost in the jungle on my birthday.

Is that a good omen or a bad one? Whatever it is, I decided “Screw this, I'm taking the boat.”

I finally found the right path, jogged down it, and half an hour later reached the river at Kuala Trenggan, but instead of a village I found abandoned houses with broken windows. Not stopping to think about what would happen if it was totally deserted and I had to start the six hour trek back, I headed to the water...

Where I found the girls. They were surprised to see me. Literally within a minute or two the boat showed up. If I hadn't jogged, had gotten lost once more or fallen a few more times, I would have missed it and there was no way to call for another. But I made it.

THAT, I'll take as a positive omen for the year ahead.

It's all ending; it's all beginning.

On the night I left for Nicaragua, a year and a week ago exactly, I took a moment on the drive to the airport to take my hands off the wheel (the road was clear and it was just a moment) as an acknowledgment to the gods of Travel and Chance (who are cousins) that I was not in control of the world, then I took the wheel to start piloting my way as best I could.

This time I have no illusions; I am not remotely in control. The foundation of my life as I know it, the incarnation that began four years ago when I became more the person I am today, has crumbled out from beneath me.

I've made mistakes I never thought I would make, and I don't yet understand how. Four years ago I changed who I was, and I thought that meant I knew myself. Turns out I was wrong, I'm not yet there. I've had blessing beyond belief in this life; love and friendship to make the angels cry, but there is something missing, something in me that I've lost sight of.

I don't know exactly how to find it, but my path starts now. I am sitting in a corner cafe in the airport in Istanbul, where they charged me more for the orange juice (whose price is not obviously listed) than they did for the sandwich (which is), and looked uncomfortable when I remarked on it.

I guess that's the lesson: it's easy to be good when everyone is watching, but it's what you do when you can get away with it that counts.

K gets here on the next flight, T minus three hours and counting, and leaves on Sunday, D minus 3.5 days and counting.

So the next few days will be an Eden of company, then a Hell of farewell.

And after that?

I have no idea.

Anticipation, back hair, and falafel in Amsterdam

It was a few degrees below zero in Toronto but I felt fine, and as long as I didn't spend too much time in the shade I enjoyed my walks. It was a few degrees below zero in Reykjavik but I felt warm enough, and as long as I stayed out of the wind, and I enjoyed my walks.

It was a few degrees above zero in Amsterdam and I was frickin' freezing, lingered longer indoors and curtailed my walks, though in that city of canals, living history, and global exchange, I enjoyed every step. Was it the humidity? Had I burned off some burrito-bestowed belly insulation already? Was the enthusiasm of being overseas calming into a rhythm?

I don't know, but I'm glad I had enough traveler enthusiasm to protect me when I walked into my hostel in Amsterdam. Claustrophobic spaces of slowly splintering wood, stale smoke, and a bare florescent bar bulb a high pitch of scream abrading both ear drum and retina.

Welcome back to hostel living.

A scrawny traveler in dingy boxer shorts and back hair was asleep in twisted sheets, 1:30 PM, in a musty room with six metal bunk-beds, four battered lockers, and one window. It was hard to tell if one of the lockers was available, with two bottles of nearly empty hard liquor, an empty plastic bag, and a little plastic box (just the size for drug transport) rattling ominously.

The thought crossed my mind “Am I too old for this?”

I put the bottles, bag, and box next to the overflowing garbage can, slid my backpack in the locker, and went looking for someplace warm to drink a cup of tea.

I had one last night alone before meeting K at the airport and starting/returning to a whole new/familiar world of living, questions and answers, and relationship. And I was hungry for all of it.

But first the more immediate hunger that defines a substantial percentage of backpacker life. A chain I remember from Spain apparently lives in The Netherlands too, where the falafels are cheap, and you can fill the pita with as much veggie topping as you like. I spoke Dutch with an Indian woman, snow like salt crystals on chairs stacked beside useless outdoor cafes, and the bicycle traffic never stops.

It felt good to be there.

Riding on top of the world

Hostel Izhcayluma, nice place to wake up.

 It turns out that the quarter-century old impressions of a six year old are not necessarily accurate.

Because that was the last time I rode a horse, and I remembered the feel of a large warm animal between my legs but it being a pretty easy, relaxed experience. So relaxed in fact that when asked in Vilcabamba what level of experience I had in riding horses, I answered "intermediate."

Seems so clearly foolish in hindsight, but I figured "hey, I rode camels down sand dunes in the Sahara, horses have to be easier than that, right?"

When we met our guide, Holger, that morning, he asked "are you loco (crazy), super loco, or ultra-loco? I brought two horses for you guys (K and I, we were joined by a German lass named J), one is water, one is rocket-gasolina."

When we saw the horses I was immediately drawn to one, which turned out to be my rocket-gasolina steed, named Lucero. I mounted and felt fine. Then we started trotting and I was highly embarrassed at the prospect of dying that way. Holger looked at me and said "don't hold the saddle horn, that's very dangerous. Both hands in the air like this...and it's good for the abs."

I thought back to everything I knew about riding horses...Maximus in Gladiator saying "I tell my son to keep his heels down when he's riding his horse." Okay Maximus, let's go!

We started up a rocky ravine, Lucero repeatedly falling behind then at my insistence trotting over the sharp stones, but by the time we reached the panoramic views I was feeling much more self-assured, which was good because the views were stunning.

Holger: "Later we'll try to find some lassos."
Me: "Nah, I've already got a girlfriend."
Holger: (looks thoughtful) "Do you want a backup?"
Me: (also looking thoughtful) "Nah, one already feels like too much sometimes."
Needless to say, this conversation was in Spanish, though K understands the language far too well now...





We tied the horses at Holger's family holding, high in the epic hills, and climbed to the top on foot, along meandering cow trails through clouds of bright ladybugs and butterflies.

Someone's clearing land for farming way off in the distance. Hard place to earn a living.

 Up here the horses decided to gallop. It was one of the best feelings I can remember (especially once I managed to put the camera securely away.)

It's an interesting and exhilarating sensation to gallop towards a cliff...trusting that it's all going to be okay.

I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Helluva place for a date, no?






 

This is one of my favorite pictures I've taken in awhile. Raining in the Andes, with rider... I want to go back!

Well...I found something.

That didn't last long.  About 6 minutes after posting that last one, the temporary agency called and said it would be okay if I worked just 14:00 to 20:00, and I took it.

So if I never blog again, it's because a Call Center has eaten my soul.