Cuba. Where do I start?

Where do I start to talk about Cuba?

A prequel in the Miami hotel, ostensibly close but a world away from Cuba, where a plethora of pillows was unable to conceal the fact that my bed was a subwoofer for the karaoke downstairs, where semi-drunk people sang semi-offkey versions of semi-current pop songs?

Or an introduction via the insanity of the modern world, where 40 minutes on a plane take you from that world, tipsy tourists trouncing Timberlake, to the liquid hips and notes of Cuban salsa? A flight so short they barely have time to hand you a soda, but transfers you from the problems and advantages of modern America to the significantly different problems and advantages of modern Cuba.

Do I begin at or our first stop, minutes from the airport, at the Plaza de la Revolucion? We filtered among the Germans and Russians across 72,000 square meters of merciless cement, which broiled our feet while our eyes drifted up like steam to the 100 ton steel outlines of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos on the facades of the Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Communications buildings. The two iconic guerrilleros looked over the tops of our wide-brimmed hats, burning-despite-caked-on-sunscreen faces, and clicking DSLRs at the Jose Marti Monument, where Fidel has customarily addressed a million Cubans at a time, ie half the population of Havana.

No, none of that has the almost tangible flair of Cuba.

Nor did Cuba start at the Hotel Nacional, a tower of opulence made of marble, gold, glass, and gangster money, which became state property after the revolution. We walked between honeymooners and the well-to-do, continued our advanced course in mojitos, and tried to pay attention to our guide despite the distraction of an ocean just THAT shade of blue. Gorgeous, but still not Cuba.

For me, Cuba really started on the Malecon. That’s where the entry stamp for my soul was placed.

Basking and lounging for five miles from the mouth of Havana Harbor to down past the Hotel Nacional, the Malecon is a wide concrete stage where waves dance during storms, but the rest of the time the performance is human, Cuban, intimate and welcoming.

During the day...I’m not exactly sure what people do on the Malecon during the day. It looked like some fishing and a lot of hanging out, as our bus passed on the way to meeting talented artists, hearing celestial choirs, or gawking at stunning ballet dancers. It looked relaxing, though with a sun like that, I can only assume they were catching fish already boiled by the time they left the water. But by night? That is when Cuba happens, in drifts of music, bounces of conversation, sloshes of kissing, and hurricanes of laughter.

Life is lived in the open here, not sequestered behind closed doors in front of flickering screens, and walking that esplanade is a slideshow of the human experience. Babies might be nursing or napping, while kids play ball in front of families passing rum and tales. Sisters joke with brothers, friends greet cousins, and wandering musicians will play a tune or ten for a peso or two.

No, I don't have a picture of sexuality. Sorry.

Cuba is an erotic land, where shame and the demonization of sexuality have not taken root as they have in Puritan-schizophrenic America. I can’t claim to understand this, but suspect it was assisted by the accidental embargo on Hollywood’s impossible physical standards, our iron maiden gender roles, and (so-called) “women’s” magazines and their misogynistic advertising sadism. Maybe it’s the absence of these mutilating scripts and pressures, or maybe it’s just the fertile sensuality of Cuba itself, but somehow the Cubans never learned that they’re supposed to be ashamed of sexuality, private about passion, and removed from the physical lusciousness of being alive.

So the Malecon also sways with a current of kisses, entwined limbs, and touching torsos. It’s not remotely pornographic, not nearly indecent, and profoundly more tasteful than our commercials. And in contrast to our youth-obsessed mania, you are as likely to see a fifty-year old caressing his long-time lady as you are the scalding desire of adolescents. It’s frickin beautiful.

Merely witnessing the sheer Life on the Malecon is nourishing to a soul grown withered and weary in the Fear, Distance, and Isolation of “Western” Culture, but the Cubans do much more than simply exist in real-life elegance. They invite you to share it.

Accustomed to passing strangers with an American air of “Don’t worry, I’m no threat to you, but you’d better not come after me”, I was surprised and delighted when strangers showed themselves to be friends I just hadn’t met yet, calling out to me to come over, talk, meet, laugh with the family. Share your story, share this rum, share our lives.

Solidarity. It’s more than a political buzzword.

I’d long wanted to go to Cuba, and knew enough to feel confident that I had come via the two best organizations possible for such a trip, Altruvistas and Ethical Traveler, but I confess, wandering through the limp tourist morass of the Plaza de la Revolucion, and checking into the weary elegance of the Hotel Nacional, I had wondered if a tour would allow me to actually meet some Cuba.

But that first night, exhausted and adjusting, walking for an hour or two between families of new friends (I had three sets of phone numbers, addresses, and invites to come visit by the time we got back to the hotel), I felt myself to be in Cuba.

And I liked it.

Memories from Andros

I came of age in a two week ceremony of illicit rum, charismatic tarantulas, and a desperate wispy crush on a lithe girl named Molly. She broke my heart with innocence, but still we drifted over coral reefs, hand in hand, shy smiles letting water into our snorkeling masks.

I have no pictures of my own from then,
but was somewhere above Coakley Town

One of The World'sTen Best Ethical Destinations for 2014 is the Bahamas, and I missed most of what they said about it (60% of the country's GDP comes from tourism), lost in a Caribbean drift of recollection.

I owe eternal thanks to my high school English teacher and a science teacher I never had, but who somehow knew of me anyway, for nominating me for the Student Challenge Award, in cooperation with Earthwatch, an organization that connects volunteers with scientific researchers around the world.

In my application essay I mentioned my obsession with sharks, and made some comment about being willing to go to Hawaii. The example expeditions were in Oregon, Nevada, and Vallejo, swell places to be sure, but I thought I was being a tad roguish by mentioning somewhere as tropically idyllic as Hawaii. Turns out I wasn't aspiring high enough.

They sent me on an all-expenses-paid two week research trip to an untouristed town in the Bahamas, where we tested samples of sea sponges for antiviral and antibacterial properties (did you know sea sponges basically don't get sick?), sampled and measured the chemical properties of water taken from various depths of the country's picturesque blue holes, and accompanied a botany class from George Mason University on their field walks through the jungle. I remember their professor was infatuated with orchids, and reminded me of a charismatic Hemingway.

We tagged butterflies for population estimates, gathered garbage off a remote beach to help study ocean currents, and heard some living history from a village witch doctor with projectile teeth no one noticed, since we were busy not looking at the two gigantic goiters throbbing and wobbling on her neck.

The woman, speaking Caribbean English that had to be translated by our program director, had prescribed herself a local herb as an antidote to a curse placed on her by a jealous rival. It worked against the curse, but also blocked her iodine absorption, so now she carried two ripe flesh mangoes below her jaw.

The curses of obeah, a Caribbean variant of voodoo, are not to be trifled with. She also told us about a local millionaire, who, flush with the invincibility of the hyper-wealthy in a developing nation, raped a local girl then went on vacation. Little did he know that this girl's mother was an obeah priestess, and as he was disembarking from his private plane on the runway in Miami, a powerful wind of obeah justice blew him off the steps and into the propeller.

We stopped staring at her goiters and listened respectfully after that. (And drove home past his former mansion, reclaimed by the jungle, but which had stood unlooted for years, the expensive possessions within tainted by the curse, until a hurricane was deemed to have cleansed it.)

That trip was my first non-family-vacation overseas experience, and exposed me to many of the truths that have delighted and sustained me since then. The incomparable succulence of local food eaten in situ after a long hot day of whatevering. The powerful appeal of foreign cultures, languages, and customs. And the brazen hospitality of people who have so little, by western standards of wealth, but who smile wider, brighter, and more frequently than any of us in the “First” World.

Poor arrogant First Worlders. First to what, exactly? First in line to work long hours to buy stuff we don't need? Come to de islan, dey goin show you what is impotant.

My experience on the incomparable isle of Andros, in a town so small they hadn't decided whether it was spelled Stanyard Creek or Staniard, was an intense one, which makes it all the more bizarre that the seed of wanderlust it sowed was dormant for nearly ten years. Instead I worked long hours...to buy stuff I didn't need. Hell, I didn't even do that, I worked long hours to foster a bank account I didn't use.

How tragically responsible of me.

But now, with a few more stamps in my passport, I can sit back and remember that trip, blow a kiss to Molly, taste the coconut rice and freshly caught fish, and laugh at the typically ridiculous kid I was when I bought one of those colorful woven Jamaican/rasta/Bob Marley beanies and wore it home like it was the new me. (I still have it, in the suitcase where I store my extra stuff when I'm abroad. I've never worn it since but can't throw it away. Anybody want it?)

I remember heat lightning in the distance at night, land rover rides through the jungle when the trees sprang up again behind us when we finished running them over, and the endless rubber chewiness of conch fritters, served in the house of a town leader, because we needed a third place to eat in our rotation, and the town only had two restaurants.

Wendy, one of the locals who helped us out, made me the cake for my eighteenth birthday. I don't remember what I wished for as I blew those candles out, but in that place, with those people, there really wasn't a need to ask for more.

Tiger Temple...oh THAT's it.

I counted 211 steps down from the top of the kitschy Tiger Temple. With a spackling of bird crap about every other flight of stairs, 8 steps per flight, that's roughly 13 crap zones. Charming temple. Really.

But the golden pagodas peaking over the edge of the dramatic cliff far overhead promised something altogether more interesting waited up there.

The sign at the bottom said there were 1,237 stairs. Now you're talking.

It was not nearly as long as Adam'sPeak in Sri Lanka, but was surprisingly steep. I arrived at the top completely soaked in sweat, and much happier than I'd been at the first kitschy “temple.”

THIS was a view. The landscape of southern Thailand is incredible, with green jungle washing up and onto epic karst eruptions of pure geologic artistry. Mother Earth is a sculptor.

Add a clean fresh breeze blowing the sweat off your back, just enough raindrops to make it interesting, and a few gold Buddha statues abiding it all with perfect equanimity, and you've earned the price of the sŏrngtăaou.

I found two young English parents with a precocious little girl who appreciated my offer to take their picture. The parents appreciated it at least, the little one just wanted to run up and down the stairs to the altar that looked out over the green landscape.

“Mummy, I want to show you sumfing!”

Back at the bottom I found Wat Tam Seua, “Tiger Cave”, which gives the tiger name to the area due to a rock formation that looks like a tiger's claw, or, depending on which site you read, they used to keep a tiger in the cave at the back. Given the tiny size of the cave, I hope it was the rock formation.

There's no tiger in there now, but there is an unearthly emerald-green Buddha.

I was digging into a plate of sticky pad thai at a stall outside when the sŏrngtăaou driver back to Krabi appeared. “How much you pay?” I told him. He sort of walked away. Does that mean “no”?

Whatever. It was a swell day, so I strolled out to the road with a song on my lips and started stepping through the 8 km to Krabi. The clouds were threatening rain as usual, but humans are remarkably waterproof, my trusty Timbuktu bag is as well, and after growing up with cold California rain conceived in Alaska, the warmth of a monsoon shower feels more like a reward than a tribulation.

Motorbikes sped past with theatrical puttering, and the breeze was fresh. I felt good, and the songs just kept getting better. Feeling the flow.

A guy just climbing on the motorcycle in his front yard asked where I was going.

“Krabi” I told him. He nodded, pointed at the clouds and gestured at the back of his bike.

I'm developing a love of motorcycles, and I was already smiling when we approached the first red light. I was expecting to stop among the little flock of puttering moto's in front, but oh no, not us.

He gunned the engine and we were up on the sidewalk, over some debris, thump back onto the road and across four lanes of traffic, then cut the far corner of the intersection and along we went down the road, free as the birds that crap all over the kitschy temple.

At the next red we didn't even slow, just a casual head turn to look as we flew through it.

Now THIS was worth the price of admission! Cute kitsch temple, great hike, amazing view, now this ride? The day just kept getting better!

Thank you, random dude! I'm sorry I couldn't thank you more than “Kop kun kap! Thai people...very good!” but you seemed to understand.

Catching up

A week or so of incredibly slow internet connections have left this blogspot site falling behind the wordpress version.


There is more to Anuradhapura than my emotional problem
http://vagabondurges.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/anuradhapura-monkeys-tuk-tuks-and-something-sacred-for-2400-years/


Who knew elephants like to dress up too? In Kandy for Buddha's birthday.
http://vagabondurges.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/happy-sad-bieber-im-feeling-it-all/



And a lack of information suits me just fine as I got ready to head for the hills.
http://vagabondurges.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/if-id-had-a-clue-i-wouldnt-have-met-the-wigi/


The power was out in this town for the last two days and is only recently restored, so we'll see if tonight's post about food makes it on here...

Feeling it all fall apart in Anuradhapura

Tortured thoughts of her kept me up late again last night, despite the exhaustion making my limbs ache. She filled every dream and nothing was ever right, and I was halfway though a thought about her when I woke up.

Another day trying to see the beauty of it all through shit-colored glasses.

It's something after 7:00 when I walk out to get food from the Family Bakery on the main road, where the women will smile shyly as I order, and they will ask if I have change when I try to pay with a 1,000 rupee note ($8) but I need the smaller bills for the bus to Jaffna today.

The roads are good here, smooth pavement between reddish dirt shoulders where plants grow so ferociously they are like sedentary explosions. Men in tired slacks ride bicycles slowly, while younger men in crisper shirts zip past on motorbikes.

Women in brightly colored saris give cameras a meaning as they walk slowly along the road with consummate dignity. Someday I'll get a picture of it... One in forty makes brief eye contact with me. One in a hundred smiles back. None are unfriendly, it's just the way it is here.

The men all meet my eyes and say good morning, usually with a smile. As I walk around this town I feel like the guest of honor strolling the grounds the morning after his speech, but my only performance was how much I can sweat during dinner...

The flock of schoolgirls in bright white skirts giggles as I approach, and responds eagerly to my “good morning!” with a chorus of replies. Just past them the boys are swaggering a little, but grin even wider and all reply as well.

The town's motorcycle cop has a stern mustache and hard eyes that make me double check that I have broken no laws in the last...ten years. He stops me on the way out, his manner relaxed, his uniform sleeves bright white, with red reflective tape accenting the gloves.

“Excuse me sir. Yesterday I saw you walking that way, now you are doing so again.”

“Yes, I am going to get breakfast.”

“You are still here.”

“I am still here. For another couple hours.”

“Very good sir.”

I buy a devilled chicken bun for breakfast and two vegetable buns to have in my bag for the ~5 hour bus ride.

On my way back the officer does a U-turn to pull up beside me.

“Excuse me sir. Come here.” My mind does another quick check. I don't have my passport on me, could that possibly be a problem? “How long you have been in Sri Lanka?”

“About a week. I was in Colombo, Kandy, and now here in Anuradhapura.”

“What is your country, sir?”

“The United States, America.” I say, since different people respond to different versions.

“Aah! America! What are the differences between your country and Sri Lanka?”

I search for something interesting but innocuous. A passing car honks at the bushes. Good enough.

With a smile, “People here honk more often.” His answering smile is bright under his dark mustache. I am encouraged that he does not chew betel nuts.

“In your country sir, how is the police?”

I don't know what to say to that, and he helps me out. “There the law is very strong, yes?” I agree with him. “And in your country there are many murders.”

I waffle a bit. “Well, there are many people, but yes, there are many murders.”

“And in your country anyone can have a gun?”

I decide not to try and remember felon gun restrictions. “Yes, anyone can have a gun.”

“There is no need for a...” he taps his pocket, “a permit?” I tell him we do require permits and he asks if I have a gun in my country. I tell him no.

“I am sorry to be bothering, sir, but I am police officer and when I see person from another country, I like to talk to him to work on my English.”

I assure him I don't mind at all, tell him he speaks very well (he does) and ask where he learned it. He gestures at the street with a smile. “Here. Have a nice day sir!”

Near my hostel there are three brothers who are always out riding bicycles. Yesterday I made race car sounds with the oldest as he rode his overly-large rusty bicycle barefoot and at top speed down the road, his youngest brother perched on the rack behind him with wide eyes.

They are out again today, and smile shyly at me. When I say good morning they burst into grins and say good morning back. They keep waving until I am out of sight.

Mornings like these, non-events in some respects, are exactly why I travel. That walk should have me high all day, but as I open the door to the spare room with smears on the walls and mosquitoes in the bathroom, I remember how I've felt the entire time I've been here...I try to hold onto the good feeling, but it is not easy.

Time for a new place.

Grandpa for the day

Rockface tombs above Fethiye

When we got to Aydin, the driver of the dolmuş shuttle bus gestured me to go with an older Turkish man who was also headed to Fethiye, and could show me where to buy a ticket.

The older guy didn't look quite sure what to do with the American stray who had suddenly been dropped in his lap. We established that I speak no Turkish, then when he tried German I answered in Dutch and we agreed, with much hand gesturing, that the two languages are similar.

The ticket seller asked my temporary Grandpa's name, but didn't feel like trying a foreign one so issued side-by-side tickets to Mehmet, meaning technically I couldn't get on without him. My Turkey-gramps was not yet done with me, I guess.

We stood in the bus station for about an hour, surrounded by clouds of cigarette smoke from the bus company men. The vendors smoked with one hand while they passed bread with the other. Passengers, men and women, stood by their bags and sucked in nicotine. Adolescent boys held cigarettes between lips that don't yet require shaving. I'm pretty sure I saw a stray cat or two puffing away in the shadows.

When our bus came, my loaner Grandpa and I stood outside to keep an eye on our baggage underneath it, agreeing through gestures that it was a noddingly good idea to wait until they closed it before getting on.

It was only a four and a half hour ride to Fethiye, but the bus companies aren't in too much of a hurry, and we had two rest stops. Each time, Gramps and I would stand outside the bathroom (“Tuvalet”) and try to converse with GermaDutchesturing and much chuckling.

My new grampy is a thorough man, and when we arrived in Fethiye he gestured me to wait while he made a phone call, then explained “mein tochter...ah...English...hotel...du”. His daughter did indeed speak English, and she told me about a shuttle into town and where the budget hotels were clustered.

I already have families in two countries, but suddenly it felt like a third.

Teşekur edirim, Turkish grandpa!

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.

Niagara Falls: Eminem v. your grandma in the zombie apocalypse

Something went wrong in Niagara Falls. It's a place utterly defined by a piece of stunning natural beauty, artwork of the gods, yet is framed by the flabby vultures of casinos, savory as piles of crusted pus.

Good morning!

That was my feeling in Niagara, at least the first half, as it struck me as a prime example of the overlapping and concurrence of the sacred and the profane. What should be a temple to tangible spirituality, awe, and gratitude is instead devoted to the counterfeit capitalist god of the dollar.

The town seemed to be dominated by aggressive-looking Eminems with bad posture under oversized clothing who only left the house to walk their pit bull to the corner store to buy more booze. I looked at the towering casinos and wondered how they'll come down. Environmental catastrophe, war, and zombie apocalypse are my best guesses. I love the idea of their deliberate disassembly by a humanity that has rediscovered its divine capacity and benevolently retires the mistaken decadence of the past century...but I think zombies are more likely.

On the ride out I'd again marveled at people's ability to peer in and tap on their cell phones for hours on end, and I suspected the zombies are already here. They're not the risen dead, just the mentally and spiritually e-mutiliated.

But then I had lunch. As my blood sugar rose, my spirits went with it.

I enjoyed my fast food, white bread sandwich provided by Tim Horton's (aka the Canadian Starbucks) while sitting on the floor in front of large windows tinted white by endless mineral deposit of evaporated spray.

The first person I people-watched while I ate my “hearty” vegetable soup was a girl of indeterminate age who flung three pieces of paper over the edge. My jaw dropped, chicken salad splattering everywhere, as I marveled at someone so immune to beauty that they would want to throw their garbage into it.

But I kept chewing, and noticed the father and daughter who threw snowballs instead and watched them fall into the torrent, then clapped. And there were the couples, kissing in front of the vista while a friend took their picture, smiles all around. Or the honeymooners, holding hands crammed in a pocket against the chill.

I went outside, felt the spray on the back of my neck, and laughed out loud.

The last piece of my perception was the town itself. I come from a tourist destination too, and am well accustomed to hearing people bitch about visitors. They don't know where they're going, jack up prices, and take all the parking! Mah! MAH!

What are we, a whole town of Dick Cheneys?

But it seems to me that, as I mentioned in my last post, humans have the capacity to choose their reality. You can bitch about the foreigners, or you can take pride in the place you live, that people would want to come visit it.

On my walk to the falls I passed houses with giant “NO TRESPASSING” signs in their windows, on their trees, and even guarding a vacant lot. There was little sign of local life, and I wondered if they had all either fled or been eaten in the casino buffet. “Mmm, roast local, delicious!”

But as I stopped to take one more picture of the beautiful chasm of the Niagara River with its mineral green water and ice chandeliers, an elderly lady coming up the path called out “Would you like me to take your picture?”

Sure, why not, I think I have about 4 pictures from the past 4 years of traveling (when K is not with me). I thanked her.

“I'm a local, and people have done it for me when I travel, and I'd be glad to do it for you. Where are you from?” We chatted for awhile about destinations, California, and the Falls. Canadians do seem to be as nice as I always suspected (except when they're driving, even they can't stay friendly in those mobile anger chambers) but this lady takes the cake. In fact, I bet she bakes the cake, and every day's your birthday.

Did you know you have a Canadian grandmother? I've met her, she's rad. She lives in an interesting town next to a beautiful natural wonder.

Toronto's been fun, but off to Iceland tonight...

The coffee's always ready at The Alley Cafe

I’m in San Francisco’s Easy Bay, spending my last two days in America at my sister’s house, where her hairless cat is addicted to love like nothing I’ve ever seen. I’m afraid I’ve only fed his addiction, so I escaped his reaching paws and relentless meows to walk down to the diner my sis recommended.

The booths are thin dark wood frames around ruby red vinyl benches where butts have been leaving imprints for…years. I tried to find out exactly how many (years, not butts) but found only a facebook page filled with comments like “my grandpa used to take me there when I was young and now I take my son.”

The floor is brick-patterned tiles in shades of coffee with varying amounts of milk, or maybe the range of grease stains found on a cook’s apron. But not this cook. Her shirt is spotless, and the orange of the local baseball team, whose name is on the face of the clock, the framed newspaper clipping by the door, many of the caps scattered among the booths, and is welcome to my eyes in the city of my childhood.

I am the only one who needs to look at the menu, and I bet it’s a large portion of eaters who order “g’morning Marjorie” without needing to add “I’ll have the usual.” I’m only assuming the affable waitress’s name is Marjorie, it could just as easily be Annie, Maggie, or Patty.

Within a minute of my sitting down, a man with some black left in his bushy mustache but none in his paper-white hair brings me the already well-read local newspaper, and everyone at the counter talks to everyone else. Conversation in the Alley Café is the melody above the rhythm of crackling grease.

Laughter is loud while the potbellied man with gaps between his teeth orders his breakfast straight from the cook, French toast, three eggs, and maple bacon, then he goes back to his story about being in the Air Force. That's pretty close to what I order; my egg is sunny-side up without needing to be specified, the bacon is nice and crisp, and the bread in the French toast is so white it feels like glue before I'm even done chewing, but that's fine for today.

Syrup comes warm in the little pitcher with the sliding top, filled to the brim and no drips on the front. The bottles of Tabasco sauce are large, and the little packets of jam come in a wicker basket, strawberry, orange marmalade, and Concord grape. I spread their familiar flavors on the toast of my childhood while my grandpa stirred his coffee.

There’s only one cook, and I was warned to be prepared for a long wait for my food, but that seems to be by design in this neighborhood diner, where neighbors catch up and faces are familiar.

48 hours before I leave it, I’ve found America.

A home for everyone.

Azogues is not in the guide book for Ecuador. A fifty-cent bus ride north of Cuenca, it's a pretty nice place, judging by my minimal exposure, but I don't think UNESCO is knocking on the door.

The ones who were knocking were K and I, on the door of an orphanage named "Un hogar para todos" which translates to "A home for everyone." Through the metal bars of the gate we could see a trampoline, a cracked plastic tricycle with purple pedals, and a few mismatched segments of doll bodies.

An orphanage is a rough place to be a doll.

Our knocks brought a stout woman, hair pulled back in a sensible bun, stains the size of children's streaking fingers all over the bottom foot of her red-striped shirt. She looked at us with polite caution, standing a few feet back from the gate.

"Good afternoon. Yes?"

"Good afternoon. We're...um...here to visit? We're the family of L----? We called yesterday? Is Nancy here?"

K's aunt and uncle adopted two children from this orphanage years ago, and was our connection to it. We were there to deliver some support, see the changes to the place over the last few years, and visit with good people.

Caution gave way to friendliness. As she showed us to our room, there didn't seem to be anyone else around. Just lots of doll crime scenes. She went back to the kitchen to continue making food, but for whom?

In one sunny room we found two severely developmentally disabled children laying on the mat, gazing up at the windows. They had soft smiles and seemed content, except one's face would occassionally contort and emit a blood-curdling scream before fading back into vague happiness.

K and I looked at each other, both with blank faces, rattled, both hoping the other would somehow make it all understandable.

In a small room next to the kitchen we found half a dozen small children, the 5 year olds helping to feed the younger. A row of 4 high chairs against the wall held four tiny boys who peered at K and I with the instinctive interest of the 1 year old, great big brown eyes.

We asked to help, and soon I was trying to spoon rice and small pieces of fish into Mateo, a cherub who preferred standing on the seat to sitting in it, and who was unenthusiastic about lunch. He preferred handing me an anonymous plastic piece of a broken toy, then asking for it back, at which point he'd wave it around before throwing it at me.

I managed to coax two bites in over the course of five minutes, and was feeling pretty good about myself when the blast came, lips blurbling and pieces of soggy rice and fish spraying all over the chair, floor, and me.

I am not a parent. This was a new experience for me.

I persevered, getting another bite in. Airplane noises and swooping spoons were useless, but I snuck a second one in when he yelled. Then, perhaps predictably, came the second blast. Sticky moist rice on my cheek. He was an unfamiliar contraption, and I wanted to beg "how do these things work?"

I did finally get one and a half mini-spoonfuls in before giving up, and letting one of the 5 year olds carry him off into the playground. I set the metal bowl of uneaten food on the table, not sure what to do next.

I didn't have long to wait before finding out...

For my birthday I want...Ecuador.

First thing this morning there were some strangers singing to me in bed.

Luckily I heard K as she came up the stairs say to them “it’s my boyfriend’s birthday” and “can you open the door for me?” so I had time to sit up before my serenading began. It was a fantastic way to start the day.

From there we moved straight into big bowls of fresh fruit we bought at the market yesterday. Strawberries, grapes, and uchuvas, straight from the small hands of tiny indigenous women in bowler hats. Those three officially make my favorite fruit salad. Add some natural yogurt and surprisingly good granola, with a cup of hot tea on the side, and my day was made before I even got out of bed.

It was a nice slow morning, finishing the last book of the Hunger Games. (I didn’t set out to read them, but in a sequence of unbelievable luck we encountered each one precisely when we wanted it on hostel or restaurant shelves, free of charge. I have never seen K get as into a book as she does when reading these ones, and I openly admit that I enjoyed them too.)

The morning was so relaxing that the candle in the bathroom fit right in, and it took me a minute to realize the power was out. It was still out at noon, when I was supposed to skype with my mother, so we went electricity hunting in Cuenca. Unsuccessfully.

But the sun was out in strength, and the breeze was precisely calibrated to complement it, so we ensconced ourselves at a coffeeshop table, despite the handsome barista’s warning that they had no service due to the power outage, and I spent a comfortable hour on a project I’m working on. When the barista yelled “woohoo!” I knew the power was back on, though the cars continued to blaze right through the now active stoplights. (Driving here, as in seemingly all “developing countries”, deserves its own post.)

I got to talk to my mother and K’s folks, and was feeling the birthday groove.

Then we had a delicious vegetarian set lunch for two bucks that fueled a pleasant afternoon wander around a new part of the city. Cuenca is a beautiful place, with colonial architecture and an Andean flavor that earned it UNESCO World Heritage status in 1996. The architecture, cathedral, and passion for desserts make Cuenca wonderful, but it is the people who make it extraordinary.

Literally within the first hour of arriving in Cuenca two days ago, K and I stopped to take a picture of a lock, as we do, and were hailed by a distinguished gentleman who invited us into his shop. We are well versed in turning down such entreaties, but something about this silver-haired senor could not be resisted. An artist of note, Gustavo showed us some of his work, and along with his wife, showered us with more hospitality than we’ve experienced all trip.

I have been unbelievably blessed with hospitality while traveling (a bow with my forehead on the floor to the temporary homes I’ve found in Nepal, Seattle, Belgium, Hungary, Scotland, Spain, and Zambia) but this was a unique experience. Here was someone who met us on the street, had no connection or relationship with us whatsoever, and within a few minutes I had his name, business info, and contact number, plus those of his sons, on a card in my shirt pocket, an apparently honest invitation to call any time for anything, a standing offer to stop by again any time for a cup of coffee, and an invite to join the family on Friday night to blend my birthday to their celebration of his daughter’s Master’s Degree graduation.

We walked away from the workshop a tad stunned.

Yesterday as we walked around town a taxi stopped and honked at us. We are fairly inured to aggressive taxi drivers, but this seemed excessive. Then we noticed Gustavo in the front seat, reaching across to wave at us and confirm that my birthday was today, extending best wishes ahead of time, just in case.

This evening we stumbled home, podged and fighting food comas after a massive dinner of Indian food, which was delicious despite the sign advertising “flafel” in the window, and where we luckily didn’t see the cockroaches until after we ate (there was one crawling right next to that rotating meat consortium they hack at to make shwarmas…mmm…crunchy).

The notion of surmounting our blood sugar barriers and venturing out into the street again was not met with a ton of enthusiasm, but the memory of Gustavo and his wife’s genuine hospitality overcame us, plus we didn’t really expect to be able to find them anyway.

“We’ll just go to the restaurant they mentioned and see if they’re there. If not, we come home.”

We found the restaurant and peered through the window to see Gustavo’s giant smile and enthusiastic hand waving us in. The next thing I knew I was being introduced to and toasted by a long table of about 20 well-dressed Ecuadorians. I wished I’d worn that one fancy-pants shirt I brought (and not yet worn). I sat and hoped they wouldn’t notice my repair-stitching on the sleeve of my shirt and the fly of my pants, nor smell the miles I’ve walked in these sandals.

People we’ve never met seemed genuinely happy to have us at their table, where they gave us glasses of excellent wine and toasted us with smiling eyes.

Undoubtedly this family is exceptional, but I suspect they are not alone in Ecuador. The staff of the hostel makes us feel at home here, but not in the kinda creepy/clingy way they did in that one place in Bogota. And going into an antique shop yesterday we met Laura, an elderly Ecuadorian woman who married a Dutchman and spoke to us in wonderfully accented Dutch. After poking around her shop (which is also her house and a museum) for an hour, she felt like our third grandmother, and when we ran into her this afternoon all three of us were happy to see each other. I even love her dog for crying out loud.

I was impressed with Costa Ricans, and Colombians on the buses were quick to offer help. But Ecuadorans? Can I “friend” the entire country?