El Fin...por ahora

I'm in the Stanford Center having just picked up my group photo and returned all my borrowed items, so I figured I would take advantage of the free internet one last time to write a final Santiago/travels in Latin America blog entry. So here's a few brief anecdotes that made me think about the world, my time in it, the prospects of returning home, etc...

- After handing in my final paper to Profe Micco about televison's role in contemporary Chilean politics (12 pages in Castellano, thank you very much) he took a few of us crazy American students out for some expensive Dutch Beer. And I thought to myself: how nice it is to make connections, to have ideas in a new part of the world, to not have internet in your host family's house so you can spend all day writing a paper sans distractions and actually feel good about it in the end and you wrote all in spanish, to challenge yourself by sitting down and thinking in a different language.

- While trying to find a card to give to my host family, I stumbled into a book store on Avenida Providencia and discovered there was a free concert inside. The placed was filled with young, hip , and cute chileans bobbing their heads to the sounds of two guys (one on drums with a full bushy chilean-jewfro hair the other on guitar in glasses, both wearing black ties and chuck taylors por supuesto) making the kind of electric, indie, alternative, folk rock that makes you feel instantly nostalgic and wistful and appreciative all at once. So of course I was hit with a wave a melancholy at the thought of leaving Santiago, a city bursting with undiscovered bookstores and possibilities.

- At the metro this morning, I looked into the mirrored wall of the station and accidently made eye contact with the reflection of a middle aged woman in the subway car next to mine. She smiled, tapped her friend on the shoulder, and they both waved. I waved back a we all giggled thinking about how silly it is that we can only connect with the people in opposite metro cars and even then only through their mirrored reflection, so busy moving around the planet at high speeds we forget to look around and see who' s right near us.

So those are some thoughts. I would share more, but before I leave Santiago I have museums to see, restaurants to eat at, hills to climb up.... Turista Suprema for life, baby. For those of you who have been following along (which by now, is probably just Eddie and Rachel) I hoped you thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I sure did. I'll keep posting to this blog with more stories and writing and less "this is what I'm doing now" so keep checking it out if that's something that interests you. But here ends this portion of blogging, but I hope el viaje nunca está terminado. ¿Cachai?

Que se vaya bien, besitos, vaya con dios, suerte, todo mi amor, y más,
Daniel Hiiiiiiirsch (por la ultima vez)

Villa Grimaldi

Preface: Things are going well with me… finishing up exams and papers (writing one about the role of television in Chilean politics...muy interesante) and trying to enjoy my last little bits of Santiago before I head back to the States. But before I leave, I want to make sure I share with you something really valuable that happened to me-- I took a tour of Villa Grimaldi, a former detention and torture camp during the Pinochet regime. I’ve decided not to post it outright in my blog because something about talking about torture alongside a discussion of how much fun I had at the beach last weekend and a goofy picture of me wearing a funny hat I bought in Buenos Aires felt slightly inappropriate. Also, I thought it best to spare any squeamish readers casually perusing the blog, because it’s pretty heavy stuff. But I highly encourage you all to follow the link below. It’s an account of by far the most important thing I’ve done in my travels and I think it’s a worthwhile read for everyone.

(Also, editorial note: some of the numbers I mention might be slightly off due to a bad memory for numbers. Quoted text is also from memory and translated from Spanish. However, all anecdotes are true.)

Please Read This

Faces of los disaparecidos

I leave Sunday, December 16th, and I’m faced with the difficult task of summing up about two weeks sans blog entries as well as trying to get the most out of the two weeks I have left. So here are a few key moments from the last two weeks neglecting to mention a whole lot, in non-chronological order just to be slightly edgy:

--“¡Vamos, vamos chilenos, esta noche podemos ayudaaaaar…..!” kept running through my head as a made my way up the winding alleys and stairways of the hills of Valparaiso, stopping every minute to take another photo of the Chile’s main port city with its hills littered with colorful houses, incredibly vibrant graffiti and street murals, and huge cargo boats heading off into the distant, blue Pacific. “Let’s go Chileans, this night we can help,” is the one of the theme songs of Chile’s annual Teletón, in which every channel broadcasts a 27 hour telethon to raise money for physical therapy for children with physical disabilities. It’s full of enthusiastic television personalities, over the top musical numbers, ridiculous comedy acts, sexy dancing girls, and a whole lot of Chilean pride. When I looked out over singular Valparaiso from the top of Cerro Alegre, humming the Teletón jingle in my head, I too could feel the goofy exuberance of Chilean nationalism.

-- “Do I smell chocolate?” I asked Eva as I swirled my glass of deep purple Malbec and took one hearty sniff. “Yeah, there’s some of that,” she responded looking doubtful of my future as an enologist. Meanwhile, our Italian-Argentine guide babbled on about los sabores viejos y maduros as he flipped his curly black pony-tail beside a huge oak barrel in the show room of his family’s traditional bodega. We were baked from the sun, and hopped up on riding bikes through tunnels of trees beside expansive vineyards, the Andes glittering in the distance. We might as well have been in Tuscany as we gorged ourselves on salami and bread earlier that day sitting in the shade giggling and flushed from the hearty Malbec of Mendoza, Argentina.


-- In the center of the former prison yard of the former prison that is now an cultural center with muraled walls and scattered barb wire sculptures on one of Valparaiso’s tall hills I entered the circus tent. Rueda is a performance piece with three actors that prominently features a tire swing. And it was awesome. Without words the actors communicate everything through their bodies, toes, fingers, hips. Swinging through the air, the lights of Valparaiso glittering around us, I too felt high on acrobatics and prisons cum art refuge.

-- To celebrate the first night of Hanukah I helped my host mother decorate their synthetic Christmas tree and ate fresh peaches, and reveled in the utter weirdness of celebrating Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere. Gloria hummed to herself while stringing up gold ribbons on the branches, and told me she would probably come back tomorrow and decide she didn’t like the way it looked and change everything. While placing a bushel of golden rubber grapes, I explained to her what us crazy Jews do for eight crazy nights, she made approving faces and responded with lots of “¡que divertido!” and “oh, interesante.”


--Tipsy on red wine and a sweet, highly alcoholic Brazilian drink that I can’t remember the name of eventhough the waiter told me three times, I looked around the room with jungle wallpaper and swirling colors at my Stanford cohorts laughing and chewing on savory meat that waiters serve them from big metal skewers. Thanking Helen and Peter Bing once again as I stuffed a tender cut into my gaping mouth and felt the oncoming thin gasp of queasiness.


-- A man in a green shirt raised his arms to a bronze statue of Jesus as my friend Shira and I passed on our way to Salvador Allende’s grave in the sprawling Cementario Nacional. We were slightly lost in this city of the dead with its wide avenues lined with trees shading the marble mansions of the affluent and dead, and pointing towards smaller side streets in their shadows. Even in death Santiago is a city divided by class, the poor resting eternally in project like stacked graves, their remains piled high in crumbling towering walls of cement boxes. In the hot afternoon sun, we walked to the outskirts of this necropolis to find a massive granite wall inscribed with the names of over four thousand people, los disaparecidos, those who went missing during the years of Pinochet. We made our exit as a stray cat crossed in front of us looking for refuge from the mid-day spring sun.

-- I sat in my professor’s office, Sergio Micco the former vice president of the Chile’s Christian Democrat party, as he madly searched for a book for me about television’s role in Chilean politics and muttered Chilean curses and laughed to himself. Meanwhile, I observed one shelf displaying tiny tin figures of twentieth century world leaders, Russian stacking dolls painted with the faces of Putin all the way down to Lenin, and The Little Black Book of Communism and The Little Black Book of Capitalism at opposite ends of the shelf.

-- I sipped a hearty mug of Escudo, Chile’s cheap national beer, and nibbled on my fried seafood empanadas and looked out at the Pacific Ocean, the faint sound of surf mixing with the soft bossa nova playing from within the restaurant. In the small town of Horcon, worn down boats and hippie craft stands line the shore and you have the faint feeling that you too could buy a little ocean side shack, sell macramé bracelets, and disappear forever.


As I come to the end of my time here, I feel all sorts of regrets…I wish I had tried harder to make Chilean friends, I wish my Spanish had improved just a little bit more, I wish I had spent less time at the Stanford center and with Stanford students, etc… But then when I collect these moments in my head, I can’t really feel that regretful and in weird ways I’ve learned all sorts of things.

I hope you all are well, and most likely I’ll see some of you soon.
Suerte.
Daniel Hiiiiiiiirsch

Dar Gracias

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope this blog entry finds you well, pleasantly stuffed and enjoying the company of family. Although I miss you all and wish I could be there enjoying the day, I have a lot to be thankful for down here in Chile. So while I should be working on homework before heading off for the weekend, I thought I’d share some fun things I’m thankful for:

Some Puerto Montt Fun Moments You might have missed:
- The elation of climbing along the cloud-shrouded, snowy side of Volcano Orsono to come out the other end with the sun in our faces and a incredible vista of Lago de Todos los Santos and the towering glaciers around its edges its most edmerald colored waters.
- Peulla and the petting zoo/animal Safari. Simply ridiculous.
- On the tourist boatride across Lake Llanquihue, I ran into an Irish guy I met while staying in Bellavista my first two days in Santiago. He was crossing over from Bariloche, Argentina. Verdadamente, un mundo chico. We went out for drinks later that night and said farewell and cheerio once again as he faded off into the night like so many other acquaintances I’ve met along the way.
- Before departing for the airport, Helen and Peter Bing financed a lunch in the small, quaint-as-hell town of Frutillar. Around the mid 19th century the Chilean government was having too much trouble putting down indigenous Mapuche resistence, so they imported a bunch of German farmers. Those eficient immigrants got to work and settled the southern lake district with gusto, cutesy archectecture, waterwheels, tourist black smith shops, chocolate, pristine landscaping, and a yearly classical music festival. Walking by the waterfront passing the Black Forrest style bungalos, I couldn’t help humming Edel Weis…you look so happy to see me.

Thursday, I got an email from my Irish friend telling me he was in Santiago once again and that we should go out for drinks. We did. It was fun. We are currently facebook friends, and I’ll be damned if I don’t make it too his lovely rolling green hill nation sometime soon.

Friday marked the month count down until I leave Santiago on December 16th. I celebrated it by going out for lunch with a friend to a neighborhood I’d never been before (Barrio Brasil home of University students and palm lined streets where the only thing for sale is used car parts) and feeling slightly depressed that I’m going to leave with a lot of neighborhoods like this unexplored. I decided before I leave I’m going to spend a day riding to the final stops of the metro lines, getting out, looking around, and feeling like I know Santiago a little bit better.
That night I went with some friends to a place called El Tunel. It’s a discoteque that used to be a subterranean strip club. It’s bad news… but a lot of fun.

Saturday, I forced myself out of bed with the strange memories of a strange night floating around my head to do something productive, or atleast worthwhile. I walked around the city and discovered a lovely new park and then went to El Museo de Artes Visuales in Barrio Lastarria, where I saw the exhibit of Chilean sculpture Pancha Núñez. She makes these huge mixed media sculptures with bright colors and whimsical source material. Worth a google image search. That night friends and I went to go see a play by Chilean university students about the war in Iraq. It was the first time in awhile I’d even thought about the war. How strange to see a Chilean take on a great American travesty. It certainly wasn’t pretty.

I feel the weight of the count down until I leave. I feel glad to be heading into the Andes to Mendoza tonight (Argentina’s wine country) with my friend Eva Dehlinger (as in Dehlinger winery in Sonoma county, Dehlinger) and then to Valparaiso the seaside city of central Chile next weekend. But I wish I had more weekends like this past one to enjoy the simple life of a Santiaguiño, late lunches with the family, strolls through the parks, free musuems on Sundays, hopping discoteques and with a free piscola upon entrance, and plenty of reasons to avoid doing homework.

Happy Turkey Day!

we now interrupt this program for a brief announcement...¡TERREMOTO!

So, for those of you who don't know there was a 7.7 earthquake in northern Chile this morning. I didn't even feel it a little bit in Santiago. I would have, had I been sand boarding in San Pedro de Atacama, but I was reading in my bed in Providencia. As far as I know, few people were seriously hurt. I'll watch the news and keep you posted.... Also if a Chilean movie called The Vida Me Mata (Life Kills Me), you should see it. Superbien. It's movie week in Chile so I'm heading to a Film Fair down town.
All the best,
Danny

Land O' Lakes at the End of the Earth

Chile has this complex in which it thinks of itself as the end of the world. The Andes seem to seperate it from the rest of South America and the expansive Pacific ocean from the rest of the world. Restuarants and brands of wine are named Finis de Terrae. This is a country that includes Antartica in its daily weather report. Looking out at Lake Llanquihue from the snowy side of Volcano Orsono as the late southern hemisphere sun poked through the chilly gray clouds as if some mad, inspired polytheistic diety wanted to create a great work of golden abstract expressionism on the water’s surface that stretched out into forever, I too could begin to feel like I had reached the outer edges of the earth.

This was the Bing Trip. The Bings of course are fabulously wealthy Stanford donors, that finance cultural events for Stanford study abroad programs (They financed our trip to the opera). They want to teach us kids how to be cultured. Traveling on the Bing budget, means traveling well. It means taking planes and private buses (and fancy catamerans) everywhere and staying at the Hotel Gran Pacifico, one of the nicest hotels in the industrial port town of Puerto Montt, with its pristine glass elevator overlooking the bleak city scape by the cloudy, cargo-ship-dotted bay. It also means being part of a huge pack of ridiculous American kids, partying in hotel rooms, taking copious amounts of digital photos, and being the loudest people in any given location. But because almost everything is paid for, it also means giving yourself permission to have fun and be one of those ridiculous American college students, even though it slightly diminishes your sense of moral superiority or synical edge, er something… but hey, you’re only twenty and in Southern Chile with generous benefactors once in your life…Live it up, son, live it up.

We checked into the Hotel GP on Thursday afternoon and had the afternoon free of paid programing to explore the city of Puerto Montt. Puerto Montt is the industrial hub of the Lake District, it sits on the north shore of the bay that wraps around Chiloe the large, remote island that makes up Chile’s southern Pacific coast. It’s a place that for most of the year is bleak and rainy, with only the bright colors of small, painted fishing boats and over abundant yellow flowered shrubs to liven up the place. When we checked in there was a huge barge heading south into the distance. With a three of my friends I went exploring. We walked along the waterfront until we came to the neighborhood of Angelmo wear people were selling all sorts of crafts to the passing tourists and huge slabs of raw salmon to the locals. We ate lunch in a little seafood restaurant in red building on stilts overlooked the water and housed other little seafood restaurant. I had Curanto a local speciality of steamed shellfish and potatoes and sausage and more. Needless to say it was delicious. Walking back, a man offered us a boat ride to the small island of Tenglo for 300 pesos (60 cents). We hopped on his boat and he took us across to the little green island and made vague plans to meet up later. We walked up the hill and found ourselves in a shrubby cow pasture, and down the other side to come to a rocky gray beach. Walking along the beach to get back to the other side, we passed a tiny community of shacks made of thin wood and painted aluminum. A group of small girls called out to us, imploring us to adopt a litter puppies of a stray dog birthed on their front lawn. They passed their puppies over the fence and we made conversation while holding the small bodies of new, furry, and tragic lives. We passed them back over the fence and regrettfully declined. The girls made sad faces as we walked away to wait in vain for a boat that would not come, and scurried around to find a new one and pay more so we could get back to our hotel and eat a buffet dinner and party like college students at the end of the earth.

Buenos Aires, unedited

Walking home last night down Calle Manuel Montt in Providencia, Santiago stomach full of Chilean Mexican food and the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute stuck in my head, I felt the giddy satisfaction you can only feel after one, long, full day preceded by one, long, crazy Argentinian weekend. I also wondered how I would fit it all into a long over due blog entry. So here goes: (Note to the faint of heart, I have made a few stylistic choices that defy gramatical conventions, also I have no English spell check on this computer)

After waking up early to finish a midterm on Friday morning I got on a subway to Santiago Airport, and then before I knew it I was heading through Argentine customs (which is way more lax than Chilean customs), and then I was in a cab heading towards el Obelisco de Buenos Aires, its long monothic self rising over the lit up and hustling city, Cristina Kirchner (or Senora K for marketing purposes) the country’s new president stared down at me from a massive billboard with heavy eye makeup and robust lips as if to say “Bienvenidos a Buenos Aires, Sé que te falta, y que debemos hacer,” and then I checked in to the 06 Central hostel in a renovated old town house right in the middle of Microcentro, then walked up Avenida Corrientes all billboards for dancing girls and high budget comedies and pizza parlors and tourists and hustlers and two twin Charlie Chaplin impersonators, Times Square of South America, and then I saw STREET TANGO, Calle Florida, and then I befriended a group of 40 Argentine orthodontia students staying in my youth hostel for a conference, they belted out Spanish tunes and played guitar, we went to a bariloche (Buenos Aires’s famed dance clubs) danced to heavy techno beats and 80s pop and Beyonce and Regaton, lots of unecessary strobe lights, too tired to stand at 4 in the morning I decided to leave while the party was still going on, my hot orthodonists friends looked shocked to see me go but this was only my first night (from my bed I heard them stumble in at 8:30 that morning), walked home avoiding the cracked up streets and muggers as best I could with Senora K’s comforting, sexy gaze keeping me safe, sleep.
And then I woke up. Cafe y medialunas (delicious, delicious croissants that go like hotcakes in BA for less than a dollar), then off to see the Pink House (their White House) and the Plaza de Mayo, Municipal Catedral of Buenos Aires, impressive, grand, old, crumbly, and I walked down Avenida de Mayo lined with blossoming trees and old historic cafes where old men in hats sip espresso and read Borges, and after failing to catch one of the three thousand city buses, so I walked in the enthusiastic spring sun of Argentina y a breeze from a river nearby to meet up with Maggie (a friend of a friend who’s now a friend) studying in Buenos Aires for the year, I also bought sunglasses for 15 pesos, she showed me around the quaint yet simultaneously upscale neighborhood, more historic cafes, and then we stumbled upon an antique car show, and then ventured into the Recoleta cemetary, a labyrinth of family mausoleums guarded by stray cats with shifty eyes, peering into any given one you could see stacks of coffins and ladders leading to dark tunnels underground, Eva Peron’s tomb and the body of a girl burried before death so her family made the mausoleum door glass so they could see if she wanted to get out…and then we went to the Recoleta fair saw crafts and hand made jewelry and and little boxes made from orange rhine, and then we saw children chanting “azul, azul, azul!” to the face of a blank canvas, and then I learned the fine art of sipping mate in the park (don’t fiddle with the bombilla, the metal straw the filters the tea leaves), and listened to some guy play guitar, also I met one of Maggie’s friends, Michelle, and the it was off to the MALBA (Museo de Arte de America Latina Buenos Aires) where I saw some freaky video art involving an Elephant and saw the best of the continent’s art from the last century and mostly just felt cool riding the glass elevator in the hip modern building, and then time for more café and medialunas to recharge, then a late dinner with Maggie and friends at this hip paradilla, or barbeque, the pride of Argentina, with a nice bottle of Malbec, sensational, we wisked away to San Telmo on the other side of the city to Maggie’s Brazillian/Peruvian friend’s super nice house, sipped beer and listend to an Incubus album with a Columbian, an El Salavadorian, a Swiss, a Dane, and a Texan, and talked about the things lost in translation, then after a slightly enebriated cab ride passing by the Pink house all lit up, I found myself in bed once more, another late night, savoring the smoky taste of Buenos Aires’s air, or maybe it was the after taste of steak.
AND THEN up again, it was Sunday in Buenos Aires and had to head to the San Telmo street fair, I passed mad funky sweet sick street art plastered on the sides of 300 year old buildings, took photos, and San Telmo was throbbing with pedestrians mulling around booths of crafts and antiques, old lady jewelry, flatted antique bottles, paintings of people dancing tango, ships in bottles, different types of mate cups y bombillas, I bought a hat and felt vaguely ridiculous, but also like a champion, saw more STREET TANGO, felt like a tourist, and headed for lunch at a random café where I had a burger and watched two old ladies sit in the sun and smoke endless cigarettes, gossipping about the neighbors, scolwing at people as they passed, and then headed to La Boca, yet another funky neighbor of Buenos Aires, Fodors: working class, colorful buildings, Boca Juniors futbol team, etc… but got lost along the way, stumbling around shady streets with unknown names, found a happening park with yet another street fair, cheaper crafts and stuff for locals, boys playing futbol and men sipping mate, dog walkers with fistfulls of leashes, finally found La Boca stadium, but grabbed a bus back to the hostel, some rest after a long walk, probably more café y medialunas, met up with Maggie and Michelle at Teatro Sarmiento to see a play (Buenos Aires has more theaters than any other city in the world I’m told), Fetiche (Fetish):6 actresss representing aspects of the same woman, a champion female body builder, Sex! Vagina! Jesus! Lip-Syncing! Transvetite strip tease! The Vagina Monologues on steriods! Pedro Almodovar on crack! wandered around the neighborhood Palermo, shishy boutiques, upscale restaurants, old streets, found a Meditaranean place Maggie had heard of, and had savory and tender lamb tagine and good wine once again.
AND THEN, suddenly, it was my last day in Buenos Aires, hurry, hurry, down to Puerto Madero, fake island of a port city, unfinished skyscappers and angular, modern, lobbies of multinacional hang tight with the strange canal and historic dikes of Buenos, and on the other side of a small concrete wall the city transforms into an ecological reserve expanding out into the distance, off the island back into the city, more towering Beux Arts buildings, Calle Florida, tried to eat lunch at a Kosher café, but a little Hasid popped his head from behind the door and in a language I couldn’t dicipher tried to tell me what was what, til finally he said in English “Come back next week,” wished I were a better Jew, got on Buenos Aires metro, called Subte, and went off towards the Palermo/Recoleta border, hopped into a old theater now bookstore, and stared up at the chandelier while holding a coffee table book of Argentine art, and touched the old lightboard backstage while sipping an espresso in the bookstore café, walked down Calle Florida, headed into Parque de Tres Febreros, sat for a minute and wondered what it all meant, then wandered into the botanical gardens, saw more stray cats with shifty eyes walking around like they owned the place, because in truth they did, sat on a bench and wondered what it all meant again looking out over the shady paths and naked marble ladies, met Maggie for a coffee and a piece of cake on the otherside of town at café Petit Paris with a view of Plaza San Martin, watched people pass by on their way to home from work and the sun disappear behind the big, pink tower, got our picture taken by stangers and with strangers, said hasta luego on the street corner after sharing Argentina’s national, novelty dessert treat the alfajor, walked back towards Calle Florida, felt the vague feeling of sadness to leave this place, Calle Florida was bumping even on a Monday night, bought a mate cup and bombilla for a friend, saw yet another performance of STREET TANGO, and a block later more STREET TANGO, decided that at some point in my life I will become a tango star and learn all the right moves in pinstripe pants and suspenders, walked to the Plaza de Congreso wearing my new hat, saw the massive edifice of Argentina’s Congress, met up with a few Stanford kids for Peruvian food, met international friends of friends, made plans to visit a girl named Sonya in Sophia, Bulgaria, had delicious Peruvian food and Stella Artois, found out the Stanford kids had the same flight as me (6am to Santiago) and were taking a latenight city bus to airport, sounded like a plan, back to hostel walking along Avenida de Mayo still chock full of café goers at midnight on Monday, wished I could join them, got my stuff at the hostel and met up again with Stanford kids at a bar, had a beer and hopped on the 86 at 2:30, two hours winding through the multitudenous barrios of Buenos Aires, the bus full old ladies, night crawlers, couples making out, and people starting the nightshift, stopping all over the place, finally at EZE airport and boarded our flight as the sun peaked , slept only to wake up to the sun reflecting off the snow capped Andes east of Santiago, home again, bus to the Metro, bus to my house, eat some kiwi my host mother had cut, said hello, and took a nap, that afternoon distinguished Bolivian author came to talk to all us Stanford kids, Edmundo Paz Soldán, talked about the new generation of Latin America, breaking out of the stereotypes of magical realism, check him out http://sololiteratura.com/edm/edmprincipal.htm , then got changes in tie and slacks, and off to the opera, at the opulent, historic Teatro Municipal de Santiago, the overture started of The Magic Flute and the stars of the set twinkled, pretty amazing opera, albeit a little tiring after a while, had a great hot dog at intermission outside the theater, crammed onto a metro, and had Mexican food with Stanford kids in our ties and nice clothes, and walked back to my house down Avenida Manuel Montt with a loose tie and untucked shirt, thinking that to be young enough not to care about getting suficient sleep and old enough to walk into a foreign city alone and unafraid is the best thing there is, to have the resources to see whole new parts of the world is unsurpassable, and that some one should figure out how to bottle the sensation I had while walking down Manuel Montt last night.

So there it is, all down, in a wild, rambling retelling. This weekend I’m heading south to Puerto Montt, Chile with a Stanford field trip. I yet again, I have reason to be thankful and take pause at the ridiculous state of my life. I hope you all are well.

¡Isla Negra, the New Jersey of Santiago, Cebiche¡ y Chilean Seabass, Midterms, Tango Time!

I'm sitting in the Stanford Center having just gotten out of Tango Class with a woman the Stanford Center brings in every other Wednesday. Oh man. I got to dance with the incredibly sexy instructor as well as a markedly unsexy Stanford girl. Either way, I'm hot on tango and feeling quite pumped to be heading to Buenos Aires this Friday. It's just what I needed to pump a little wind in my sails after a period of midterms and ailments. But to say I've been not doing anything interesting lately would be a complete lie, as evident by what follows:

On Friday I went to Isla Negra, Pablo Neruda's most famous abode, on a Stanford field trip. Like Chascona, the house itself felt alive with all sorts of doo-dads and ethnic art and 70's furniture along with a killer view of the Chilean coast line. The area around Isla Negra is all masive crashing waves, grocky beaches, and hills dotted with small modest beach houses. Not a high rise beach condominium in site. After climbing over some big rocks I found a deserted beach and enjoyed the sound of the ocean, thinking about how much I want Pablo Neruda to be my uncle. At the Bing (have I explained who the Bings are yet?) paid lunch I read one of Neruda's 20 poemas de Amor (#13).

Without anything better to do, on Saturday I decided to go out with a random smattering of Stanford kids. We went to an area called Vitacura. Which I have dubbed the New Jersey of Santiago. From what I saw it was all expensive car dealerships and lame dance clubs. We went to one of these clubs and the bouncer wouldn't let me in! I think he thought I looked too poor because my beard was relatively unkempt and I was wearing cut off shorts... or maybe I was a little too drunk. Either way, that dude/all of Vitacura sucks. I had to wait outside while my friend bargained with the manager by buying expensive alcohol.

On Monday night I went out to dinner for a friend's birthday-- a dinner her parents were paying for. We went to one of the nicest places in Santiago called "Astrid and Gaston." It was ridiculously good food. Maybe the best I've ever had in my life. We ate cebiche (raw sea food in lemon sauce), this incredible octopus tail, oozing chocolate truffle balls for desert. For my entree I got Chilean Sea Bass. Let me tell you, you haven't had Chilean Sea Bass until you've had Chilean Sea Bass in Chile. Oh man. Don't get me started on the wine. So let's all wish Jenni a very happy birthday. Thanks for the invite.

Meanwhile, I've been getting over a persistent cold and trying desperately to finish all my take home midterms before leaving on Friday. I'm living a ridiculous life.

Happy Halloween everybody. I'm dressed like a crazy American student in Chile.
All the best,

el gripe

After reading my last entry, I've left you all with a monster cliff hange: "I hope I don't die" followed by my longest stretch sans posting. Well, I'm alive, though slighthly sick.

Turns out being sick sucks even in foreign countries...I'd venture to say especially in foregin countries. The grade of tissue really doesn't compare with the good ole' USA. So that's been keeping me from doing many fun and exciting things worthy of reporting, also it's been keeping me from reporting. But in general, things are pretty good.

Updates:
-I've seen four movies since last post. One of which was Pedro Almodovar "Volver," which was well worth the watching. The other three Chilean originals! "Radio Corazon" is the number one movie in Chile right now. I think it's the highest grossing first weekend of any Chilean film. Based on a radio show, in which people call in to tell stories about their sex lives. Muy divertido. Today in my Spanish class we watched "Machuca." I highly recomend it. It's about three kids in 1973 at the dawn of the Pinochet regime. Really interesting and powerful.
-I have mid-terms next week, which means I actually have to do work. Someday I'll tell you about my classes, for now it seems relatively unimportant.
-Tomorrow, I go on a field trip to Isla Negra, Pablo Neruda's favorite home. It's on the coast near Valparaiso. Should be pretty cool. If I'm not feeling sick I might stay a day or two in Valparaiso
-I'm now on Skype at danieljayhirsch, we should chat sometime.
-Oh yeah, Chile won!!! 2-0 against Peru. The game was a blast. People sing at futbol games in Latin America, as well as smoke joints, light fireworks, and get in minor fist fights. I was a little disappointed about the level of tomfoolery and hooliganism. It was pretty tame. The club league fans are a bit more hardcore. Colo-Colo had a game on Sunday, and the metros were filled with little bits of paper. Best cheer: "Chi-chi-chi-le-le-le! Viva Chile!"

That's about it for now. Hope you all are well. I'll keep the updates coming.

¡Chile v. Peru!

I've heard that there´s about 82,000 people in the national stadium right now, and in a matter of minutes, I'm going to be one of them. That's right folks, tonight is Chile v. Peru in a futbol grudge match of death. I'm getting there a bit late, so let's hope I get a seat, but even more, let's hope I don't die in a Peru/Chile post partido rumble. Woo! ¡GOooooooooooooooool!

all the best.

San Pedro de Atacama

Gigantic dunes, rocks formations that look like they could come from the set of a Star Wars movie, flamingos chopping on tiny crill in the expansive salt flat, a crystal clear view of the night sky given the dry air and high altitude, and a tiny, dusty town housing all the tourists who want to see it all. This weekend has been fun, but Im a bit exhausted and missing Santiago. I did a lot of mountain biking and treking around and saw a lot, probably spent too much money, and have a slight sun burn, but feel like it was time well spent to see another side of Chile. It feels worlds away from the hustle and energy of the capital in the central valley...Theres probably more to say, but Ive gone well over my twenty minutes of computer time in this hostals computer. Leaving for Santiago tomorrow morning, more updates then.

Hope you all are well,
Danny

El Más Seco Disierto en el Mundo...

...Kind of. At least that´s what Chileans say about their pride of the northern region, the Atacama Desert. Either way, I´m heading there this evening for a long weekend, and I´m quite excited about it. The landscape is supposed to be out of this world. One famous spot is the Valley of the Moon, named so because it looks like a massive lunar crater. I might even go sand boarding, like snow boarding but with sand. Of course, San Pedro de Atacama is a tiny little desert town with a massive tourism infrastructure, so I'm a bit wary of being an exploitative tourist as per usual. But hell SAND boarding, soooo coool, man!

Since last post the Pinochets continue to be under investigation, some student groups committed acts of violence at a few campuses on the death date of Che Guevara, I saw a powerful play that I could barely understand, climbed Cerro San Lucia and got the best view of the city yet, saw more performances in Parque Forrestal, had classes, wrote a Spanish paper, went to a foreign student and Chilean student meet n' greet/colloquia, made some friends, eat several empanadas, and bought tickets to Buenos Aires.

More updates when I get back from the desert.
Hope you all are well,
Turista Suprema

Mientras Chile Exista Habran Pinochetistas

On a clear Saturday afternoon in Santiago, one can see the cordilleras rising above the city. Their high, snowcapped peaks seem to be within a mear few blocks' walk. Yesterday, the sky was clear and the mountains felt close enough to touch. Meanwhile, in front of the Hospital Militar as men in red shirts raised a plaster bust of Augusto Pinochet over their heads and older women waved the Chilean flag defiantly in the faces of camera clicking reporters, it was the past that seemed to sneak up closer than expected.


There's quite a bit to report from Chile.



Has this made international news? It's certainly a big deal in Chile. On Thursday night, all of the Pinochet family, as well as many close associates of the former dictator, were arrested for stealing millions of dollars out of public funds. 23 people in all are set to go to trial for embsconding (and transfering into American bank accounts) 20 million dollars of public funds. Lucia Hiriart, Pinochet's widow and , had some sort of heart attack upon hearing the news and was admitted to Hospital Militar in Providencia (i.e. my neighborhood, and a few blocks away from the Stanford center!).

In the two days that Hiriart has been in the hospital, there have been a handfull of small Pinochet rallies. Friday on the news there was footage of two teenage girls getting into a fistfight outside Hospital Militar. One a Pinochetista, the other a, presumably, more left leaning byclists. Byclists said something scathing about the former Supreme Commander whiling pedaling by, Pinochetista was not pleased, pretty soon the two found themselves clawing at the face of their political opposition in the first spot of the nightly news and on the front page of the majority of national Chilean newspapers.

Oh yeah, Friday was also the anniversary of the 1989 plebiscite/"No vote," in which a plurality of the Chilean population voted Pinochet out of power.


Naturally, Friday night I went back to La Casa en el Aire (my socialist bar from last week), to listen to some classic, Chilean, political folk rock and sip pisco under the stern but idealistic gazes of Allende and Che portraits. (went with two Stanford kids, so it was a little less fun than last time, although the guy performing stopped at one point and asked why we were speaking Gringo and where we from, he then preceded to play an incredible acoustic version of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall," the three of us rocked out while the rest of the Chilean filled bar stared blankly with their half smoked cigarettes wondering "¿What is this shit (que es esta mierda)?")

Saturday, in light of sleeping late and eating a huge lunch I decided to go for a walk around Providencia...i.e. walk to the Hospital Militar and gawk at any potential action. (When I have time, I´ll tell you about Fabia, my program's main organizer and Stanford´s risk management representative, but she would have been freaking out if she knew my afternoon plans) Sure enough, my political voyeurism paid off. When I got to the hospital there was already a horde of reporters, camera men, and news vans waiting outside the front gate. I watched from across the street, occasionally masking my intentions by standing at the bus stop but mostly just blantantly gawking. After a solid fifteen minutes of waiting, the press seemed to come to life and they began to hurry and cluster around the front gate as a small silver car tried to pull out into the street. From across the street, I could see the passenger in the back seat. It was a woman with brown hair and huge black sunglasses. I would later learn that this was one of the Pinochet daughters, I think it might have been Jacqueline, the youngest. All five of the children were released from jail on Saturday and went to visit their mother in the hospital. They go to trial tomorrow.


Not long after the first car pulled out of the hospital´s lot, the Pinochetistas arrived. The first wave were a group of four middle aged to elderly women carrying a large Chilean flag. As they approached the grassy lawn in front of the hospital they sang loudly in boisterous Spanish. The few words I caught: "liberty..something, something...PINOCHET!" Soon the group grew larger when a few men arrived, they carried small flags and the aforementioned Pinochet bust. After a few minutes of hugging, kissing, and back slapping, they grouped together to wave their flags and and hold up the Pinochet bust pointed up at the hospital. They were joined by another group of women who pulled right up front in a green pickup truck, blasting music and grooving out in their seats to the tunes of Pinochet Pop. One women propped a home made sign up onto a bus like a sort of mission statement: Mientras Chile Exista Habran Pinochetistas. As long as Chile exists there will be Pinochetistas.

From my post across the street I was mostly alone, save for two middle aged women in cardigans and spectacles who watched on with serious faces. I assumed they too were spectators, until from the green pick up trunk across the street the music blasted: "¡Dame (give me)...Pinochet! ¡Dame...Pînochet! Dame...." And suddenly a few feet to my right, I heard a passionate response of "¡Pinochet!" I now saw that this nice looking Chilean lady was gripping onto a small blue bumper sticker bearing the name of Chile´s former dictator.


As the Pinochet supporters chanted and the reporters waited for more of the Pinochet family to leave the hospital, lots of people passed by. The scene would provoke a short glimpse from passerby, and sometimes the occasional car slowing down to look. But for the most part people would just shrug and walk on, they had better things to do on a Saturday afternoon. My hostfamily, who I have discovered is mostly apolitical, watches the news about the Pinochets as if it´s a spinoff of an old telenovela. They make comments at footage of the Pinochet children like: "Oh, she´s gotten so ugly," or "Wow, he´s lost a lot of hair." Even at the socialist bar on Friday night, there was less celebration than I thought. It was just a regular Friday night. Turth be told, I could only count about 10 Pinochet supporters in all.I have this sense, that a large majority of Chileans just want to move on. Chile´s come along way in the past 19 years. When you´re in Santiago you can feel the urge to progress to continue to update and build new high rise apartment complexes and invest in the arts and keep the streets clean and tolerate gay couples and divorce and a woman president.


As an hour wore on four more cars came out of the parking lot which caused the reporters to scramble around pointing their zoom lenses into the back seat and the Pinochetistas to cheer. I assumed that these were the remainig Pinochet children. The sun was getting low, and I was getting hungry. In the late afternoon sun the snow on the cordilleras turns a faint pink that seems close enough to touch.

Hot Pics!

Checkit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danieljayhirsch/

I finally joined the cool kids and got a flickr page. It's not everything, but this should give you a flavor of my adventures thus far.

First day of classes went well. I'm a little stressed because I'm surrounded by hyper productive Stanford kids who are busy planning trips around South America, and I have no idea how I want to spend my vacations. But then I have to remind myself that I've already traveled for three weeks... and have the pictures to show for it!

Hope this post finds you well,
Turista Suprema

Yo corazon Santiago (I heart Santiago)

Whether it be drunkenly dancing to Socialist boleros with a few thirty-something Chileans in a small smoke filled bar, riding the impecably clean subway, being stopped by knive juggling mimes, watching Russian documentaries in small art house movie theaters, eating massive churasco palta (literally Steak Avacado) Sandwichs, stumbling onto a patriotic poetry reading and presentation of traditional Chilean songs, walking through the Plaza de Armas rife with pigeons, pickpockets, street artists, palm trees, and guys selling helado, or just watching telenovelas with my host family and trying desperatly to understand what they´re arguing about, I am thoroughly enjoying Santiago.

This weekend has been good with all of the above included. Oh yeah, also a trip to the Museo de Arte Precolombino.

¡La Cueca!

This morning while walking to the Stanford Center along Avenida Providencia, I came across a big group of Santiaguinos clustered in front of the Ministry of Tourism. Being the tourist that I am, I naturally crossed the street to see what the hubbub was about. And lo and behold I came across a performance of Cueca, Chile's national dance!

It's very different from anything I saw in Peru, more country western in style and attitude. It involves a group of couples dancing around with white hankerchiefs. The men wear black sombreros, guacho ponchos, chaps, and spurs. The women wear frilly dresses with poofy shoulders. It's a lot of stamping and looking coy at one's partner. The majority of the time, the men and women take turns waving their hankerchiefs in their partner's face, then suddenly take it away, in a sort of classic, goofy flirtation: "¿Tu quieres my pañuelo?-- ¡No, no puedes tenerlo! ¡Ja!" (You want my hankerchief? No, you can't have lo! Ha!"). Good fun.

After los bailadores de cueca finished a group of Rapinui dancers came up. Rapinui is the indiginous group of Easter Island. Their dance is similiar to Hawaiian dances I've seen, with grass and feather skirts, women hip undulating and men chest thumping. Very good times.

I've had really good luck with stumbling upon performances of traditional dances.

Excuse the posting from yesterday. Perhaps a little too cynical. A free trip to the opera is a trip to the opera, let's not look a gift caballo in the boca. Also, Chile has a large German immigrant population, so a trip to a German language opera is actually kind of appropriate. Also, I just found out about a website with information about all sorts of cultural events in Santiago. I think I'll definitely be able to see some Chilean theater, and it looks like there's a lot there.

Some other things of note:

- This is the last day of Orientation week, and I'm going to shop one more class today, and then I should figure out my schedule.
- We just had a travel info session, looks like after November 1 you need to get a visa to go to Bolivia. Mierda. I'm kicking myself for not crossing Titicaca before heading to Santiago. But:Donde hay ganas, hay una manera.
- Host family relations continues to be good. We watch a lot of TV together. Everyone in the house loves scary movies. Bond over "The Simpsons" with my host brother. Last night, we watched the premier of a new show Chilean show called "Lola." It's about a man who magically wakes up in the body of a woman. A bit of a scandal for Chile that doesn't have such a good history with gays and transgenders, etc...
- Yesterday went to La Moneda and Plaza de Armas with a few kids from Stanford. Government Center=good times.
-Playing futbol this afternoon with a Stanford and Chilean crowd. Going to Chile v. Peru at the National Stadium in October.

All for now. Hope you all are well.

El Bubble

At the edge of a big continent bursting with complex histories and juntas, and dense jungles and wide deserts, at the edge of chock full of culture, public parks and schizophrenic political identies, in a modern office building on quiet street, on the second hides a secret, fortified bubble flying the banner of CARDENAL RED tried and true. Go Stanford! Go.

Excuse the momentary cynicism.

So far, I'm thoroughly enjoying my time here. I love my host family. I'm really liking Santiago and feel that there's load of potential waiting to be tapped. I've even met some cool Stanford kids..... However, I have the sneaking suspicion that the well insulated and highly secure Stanford Center (in which I'm currently typing) isn't the best place to immerse myself in Chilean culture. Especially when everyone is speaking English around me all the time.

After travelling alone for three weeks, I have gotten accostumed to going out and having adventures and mishaps, making conversation with strangers with my bad spanish and their relative patience. So it's a little weird to all of a sudden find myself in Flannery's Irish Pub with a group of twenty Americans all asking for "MASe CerveSa" and talking with a JAP from Brookline about her family's house in Costa Rica. I had to excuse myself early to go have an adventure with public transportation at night.

I'm being incredibly unfair and acting a little superior. I've only traveled for three weeks, that doesn't make me el gran explorador. It's just going to be a bit of a challenge balancing my desire to make new friends with my desire to have a more immersive experience. For any Bing Overseaers former or current who are reading this, I'd love some pointers about how to avoid being the anti-social a-hole but also how to escape EL BUBBLE!

I'll try to keep the updates coming, my schedule's a little different these days and I don't quiet have a computer at my house, but I'll report when I can. More fun anecdotes about the family Castro Monsalve, impressions of Santiago, and further travel plans.

Hope you all are well.
Danny

One more point of criticism: Mama and Papa Bing are paying for all us kids to go see The Magic Flute as our Chilean night of Culture. How terribly culturally appropriate. It's Mozart
for f@#ck's sake!

La Familia Castro Monsalve

I´m using my host brother´s computer right now and don´t want to hog it, so this will be brief...
But life in the Chilean household is great. It´s almost exactly how I imagined it.

The dominant force in the house is my hostmother Gloria. She´s everywhere in everyone´s business, doing a million things at once, and incredibly lively and warm. My hostfather, everyone calls him Nano, is a bit of a goofy old man (and what´s there not to love?), but also very friendly and kind. They have three children Alejandra (27), Claudio (25), and Rodrigo (20). Also, very nice, but I have a much harder time understanding them, Chilean youth speak pretty fast. Claudio had a bunch of friends over lastnight and they partied loudly until around 6 in the morning. I joined them for a bit, but was mostly in the dark when it came to the conversation. At one point in the night, I woke up to the sound of drunken Chileans singing Karaoke "I Will Survive" in heavily accented English. It was a great moment of cultural exchange.

They eat around four meals a day here, so my stomach is taking a bit of beating getting used to the new diet (and all steaks at 2 in the afternoon). But all in all things are very good, learning all sorts of new Chilean slang.

Hasta Luego,
Hope you all are well.
Daniel Hiiiiirsch (how Chilean´s call me)

Two Virgins on a Hill; My first day in Santiago

Standing next to a 50 ft tall, white statue of the Virgen Mary, listening to the sounds of Spanish choir music playing softly through the speakers of La Carumbe Sanctuary at the top of a huge hill in Parque Metropolitano, overlooking all of Santiago de Chile and the white capped cordilleras poking out behind the clouds, I had the distinct feeling that this was the start of a beautiful friendship.

No, I didn't find Jesus. (Happy day of atonement, by the way....ug, I'm such a bad Jew). I did however, find Santiago de Chile chock full of potential and good feelings thus far. I'm excited to get to know the city better and feel some sense of belonging here, of being more than just a tourist. I think it's a distinct possibility.

I'm staying in this sweet neighborhood called Bellavista, and an equally sweet hostel of the same name. Bellavista is the more bohemian part of town with lots of funky bars and art galleries, and gay comedy theaters, and over priced restaurants. Bellavista Hostal is equally funky with brightly colored walls and all sorts of paintings and pop memorabilia on the walls. It warmed my heart to see a poster for Amoeba Music on Haight Street prominently displayed above the front desk. I even ran into Binkie and Jo from my Machu Picchu trek, the young person/traveler community is surprisingly small.

After getting into Santiago in the middle of the night, stumbling into Bellavista, being slightly dismayed that they lost my reservation, I got a few hours of sleep atop a comically high bunk bed. But lack of sleep is no match for Turista Suprema!

This morning, I went to La Cascona, one of Pablo Neruda's three homes in Chile. It was soooo cool. Rachel Jenkins, you would have crapped your pants it was so great. Neruda designed the house for his secret mistress (and eventually, third wife) Matilde Rosario. Being obsessed with the ocean and sailing ships, ne designed the house using a ship motif. It had low ceilings and tilted floors to replicate the feeling of being inside a hull, and balconies overlooking Santiago like decks overlooking the sea, plus it once had a canal running along the outside. But the best part was all the kooky decor on the inside. Neruda was an avid collector of art and junk, so the house is jammed packed with bizarre knick knacks (my favorite being a pair of over sized shoes, and old television functioning as an utensil cabinet) and ethic art, plus paintings by some really famous Latin American artist that were friends with Neruda (one being Diego Rivera). While you're there you can really feel the vibrancy and creativity of Chile's great poet. It's pretty amazing.

Alright, people are waiting to use the computers. Tomorrow, I meet with my host family (I hope, I haven't spoken to them yet). I hope you all are well.

Santiago, woot.
Danny

Leaving Lima, Santiago Soon, y tambien el Circulo!

I check out of my hostal in Lima in twenty five minutes. Then off to get some 5 sole lunch ($1.6 USD). I'll spend my last afternoon in Miraflores, get a coffee, maybe buy some Peruvian shoes. Then it's off to the airport, then off to Santiago de Chile!

Although I've been a little restless in the last couple of days, I've been completely pleased with my time in Peru. There's so many other parts I haven't explored: the Amazon, the southern desert, the altiplano, and Lake Titicaca...

Oh yeah! Last night, I went to the circus. It was great. I made friends with an art student. Way to go Lima. Culture abounds.

I've got to go. Hope you all are well.
Danny

The Limitations of Lima and Lessons Learned

This is my last full day in Lima (I'm leaving for Santiago tomorrow night), and I'm realizing that I've come close to exhausting the tourist destinations of this city. (By the way, I went to three museums yesterday, in one binge fest by alter ego Turista Suprema). Unlike many people I've met, I have a soft spot for this foggy city. I sense that there's a vibrant cultural life underneath all the clouds and colonial decay; but as a traveler concerned with coming and going, museums and hostals, you somehow miss it.

In two lame attempts at experiencing some culture, I went to the movies on Monday and then again on Tuesday. First, I saw "Una Sombra al Frente," an actual Peruvian movie! About Peru's attempts to modernize with a new road and telegraph system at the beginning of the 20th century. It was kind of bad, a sort of movie telenovela about this one engineer's life. In a much weaker stab at culture, I went and saw "Licencia para Casarse" (aka "License to Wed" with Mandy Moore and Robin Williams). It wasn't even dubbed in Spanish. A travesty all around.

I might try a little bit harder tonight...maybe see some live music played by real Peruvians. But in the mean time, it's time for a little retrospection about what I've learned on my virgen run into the wide, wide world. For all you seasoned travelers, this will be old news. For me, it's been priceless learning these things through countless blunders and conversations with other travelers, or mere speculation. So here's my two centimos:
-In Latin America, spend less time in capital cities. They are bastions of old world decadence and Spanish archictecture...However, don't completely cast them aside, because tourists seem to do that too often, missing opportunities to go beyond the postcard imagery of exotic landscapes and "traditional" handicrafts. I think too often we forget places have a contemporary culture, rich with complexity and intrigue.
- Don't trust the travel books, especially Fodor's (Unless of course, you're a rich, crusty oil magnate from Texas). Talk to people, they know better.
- Travel by public bus whenever you can.
- Three weeks is never enough.
- Buy local newspapers, read theater and music reviews.
- Don't ever get into a car with a stranger in an unmarked car!
-However, it's okay to let your guard down. Not everyone you meet is out to steal your camera. (Some time, I'll tell you about my friend Carlos who I met yesterday. All he wanted was some one who he could practice speaking English with).
- If you have a choice of a week in Bolivia or a week in Costa Rica, take Bolivia. (I of course, haven't been to Bolivia, but I just know).
-Try to speak Spanish, even if it makes you sound dumb. On goods days, they might think you're from Argentina... America music is always a good subject to break the ice.
-Watch what you drink at high altitudes. Avoid drinks with fun sounding names like Machu Picchu.
- Don't schedule you're life away. Make sure there's enough space between plane flights for a little adventure and unknown.
-Most importantly, this is something I really love. I'm far from done with traveling the world, or for that matter Latin America. Literally: I have three months in Chile with room for visits to Argentina and Bolivia. But more generally, I'm going to make space in my life for more globe/South Ameria trotting. These past three weeks, and these coming three months are merely a small sampling ....Ahhhhh, to be twenty and naive and without a job. Hell, I can always go teach English somewhere.

As always, all the best, hope you all are well,
Turista Suprema

The Old Peak and the Lost City (Part 2)

I'm back in Lima waiting for breakfast in Inca Lodge, so this looks like a perfect time to utilize the free internet and dish about the Lost City of the Incas.

But first, a note about cultural exploitation and the luxuries of supposed adventure travel:

My entry from yesterday makes it sound like my trek was really hardcore and rugged. Though we did do a lot of walking at high elevation, this is far from the truth. I was one of three people carrying our own stuff, and even then there were porters carrying our tents and moving along the trail twice as fast (on half as much sleep) to set up camp and make us dinner (often involving several courses). It's unclear how much these people were paid, but given the cost of labor in Peru, probably not that much. All the guests pooled their money to give a generous tip, but even still a whiff of inequity tainted the mountain air.

Also joining us on the trail, were several local children well accustomed to tourists trekking through their backyards. Thus, they knew full well that looking cute could win you some candy and maybe a tip from a gullible gringo. Also, walking through these tiny, rural villages and ogling at the traditional life style the Peru's rural poor, one couldn't help but feel a weird sense of voyeurism and exploitation.

Phew. Had to get that out. An important part of the experience, that while uncomfortable also somewhat valuable ... So, how about some Machu Picchu:

The bus from Aguas Calientes rode up the winding mountain pass in the pre-dawn light en route to Machu Picchu. We were on one of many early morning buses crammed with tourists heading to one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. Upon getting off the bus, you could just see the edges of the city's famous stone terraces. Of course it's obscured by the ticket kiosk and the line entry pavilion. Welcome to the Lost City of the Incas: A Pre-Colombian Disneyland.

After presenting your ticket and passport you walk into the city through the terraced agricultural sector with the urban pyramids rising beyond. My group climbed up to one of the high terraces for a photo op. From there we watched the sun rise slowly over the Andes and illuminate the city. Watching rays of light shoot through crevices of mountains and shine onto Machu Picchu, made my cynical feelings of "being just another tourist" melt away. Suddenly, I could understand why the Incas worshipped the sun.

Our guide Jefeth then gave us a tour of the city, pointing out all the examples of earthquake resistant architecture, the heaviest stones (around 7 tons), every Incan holy place in the city. My favorite thing was the "hitching post of the sun," which is basically a huge stone sundial sitting atop Machu Picchu's central pyramid. The Incas used it to keep track of the seasons. When the shadow of the stone at sunrise matches a certain spot on the ground, it meant it was time for harvest or sacrificing a llama or what have you.

Throughout Jefeth's tour, I felt a tremendous sense of urgency. When we stopped at any given spot for photos or explanations, I just wanted to keep moving, keep seeing more things before the day ebbed away or another wave of tourist buses descended on the city. The city is so expansive and impressive, you constantly feel like you are missing secret Incan alley ways and treasures.

After the tour, several of us decided to hike up to the top of Huayna Picchu (Qechua for the young peak), the tall mountain that stands next to Machu Picchu(Qechua for the old peak). Back in the day, Huayna served as a look out tower for Machu Picchu and a place to send smoke/fire signals to Cusco. It is one steep peak. Though it's a short hike up to the top, climbing the stone steps Incan masons carved into the rocks grinds the knees, and you end up walking along some narrow paths next to very high cliffs. But the view is spectacular. You get a panoramic view of the surrounding Andes as well as a virtual bird eye view of Machu Picchu, and
a new found appreciation of the Incan belief in divine mountains.

After the calf crushing walk down the narrow stone steps. Two of my Canadian friends and I wanted to hike up to the Inca bridge on the other side of the city. But at that point in the day, the streets were packed with people, our legs were shot, and there wasn't enough time. It seems like there never is. When the Incas mysteriously left Machu Picchu only 70 years after they began construction in 1440, the city was far from complete. One wonders what they could have achieved if their hitching post could have actually stopped the arch of the sun.

The Old Peak and the Lost City

4 days. 3 nights. 12 gringos (3 Canadians, 4 Americans, 4 British, 1 Aussie). 1 guide named Jefeth who pointed to every plant and claimed that the Incas used it for medicinal purposes. A ton of grazing llamas, sheep, and alpaca. 5 glaciers or so. 41 km walked. 4,500 meters (around 12,000 feet) above sea level. 1 Pre-Incan burial site with exposed bones and skull. A handful of uncomfortable moments of cultural exploitation. Hot springs. 2 trains rides. 2 bus trips. About 300 photos. One night of partying (only 5 drinks?!) and the worst hangover of my life. And one hell of a lost city.

I'm in Cusco once again, writing from a crumby computer of a internet place, having survived Machu Picchu and the ensuing day after. I'm not quite sure how best to sum up my trek, other than to say that it was incredible and I probably won't do it justice given that I only have 40 minutes or so left on this computer.

I was in a guided trek that went along something called the Lares Trail. It's an alternate route for all the people who are too late to book a spot on the sacred Inca Trail. So instead of walking along the steep and narrow stone steps of the ancient Incas, we traveled by way of dirt roads and mountain passes used by generations of Andean shepards. Though it might not have been the classic route to Machu Picchu, it was pretty spectacular. The Andes are undoubtedly some of the best, most formidable mountains I have ever seen. Covered in high altitude yellow grass and llamas eating that grass, with the occasional massive glacier topping their steep peaks. We walked through rural villages populated by Qechua (traditional Andean language) speaking people, living in more or less the same way that they have been living for centuries; dressed in bright textiles, raising llamas and sheep for meat and wool, dwelling in small stone houses built by hand, and selling handicrafts to tourists en route to Machu Picchu.... Well, that part is a little different from tradition, but more on that later.

My worst fear was not embodied, in that my group consisted of more than middle aged out of shape Americans. (Although there was one: Bob, a Jew from Oregon, with a pension for chain smoking, disgusting legions on his feet, and a loud mouth, also my tent mate). Most of the group consisted of fairly athletic people in their twenties. I think the Canadians were my favorite. Chris, a mechanical engineer from Montreal, laughed at my jokes and was generally in a good mood. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed this girl named Binkie (her real name), an architecture student from Belfast. She was a bit kooky.


The first three days took us through several small villages nestled in the Andes and to remote stretches of barren mountain landscape (we were above tree line most of the time). The first day it rained all afternoon and into the night, as we came into our campsite after dark. It was freezing and miserable... I blaim this bad luck on the fact that in the morning we saw a bunch of pre-Incan tombs with exposed bones, and a skull sitting out on a ledge. Instead of showing reverence we whipped out the cameras... But when the sun rose and we stepped out of our frozen tents, we discovered we were in a valley of pristine snow capped peaks. The second day took us to our highest elevation. After a steep climb out of the valley, we crossed Ipsaychocha pass at 12, 000 feet above sea level. Gave an offering to the Inca Gods (Coca leaves blowing in the wind) and descended again, walked past Ipsaychocha lake and then to our second campsite. Third day spent hiking to the town of Ollantaytambo, where we took the train to Aguas Calientes, took a dip in the hotsprings, and went to bed thinking of the next day at Machu Picchu...

To be continued.

0ooooh looked at that interesting example of Mestizo culture....

I don´t have much time to write so I´ll be brief. Speaking of brief.... I have a briefing for my four day trek to Machu Picchu in 20 minutes! My biggest fear is that the room is going to be filled with middle aged over weight Americans looking for a good time. We´ll see. Either way, I'm excited.

It was a big, interesting day. Three cultural sites in Cusco in one crazy day: Museo de Inka, Cathedral de Cusco, and Qorikancha.

Museo de Inca= museum with artifacts of Inca and pre-Inca civilizations.

Cathedral de Cusco= huge Catholic cathedral in the center of town, filled with incredible altars, paintings, baroque archectecture, and a whole lot of Jesus and Virgen Mary.

Qorikancha= the craziest! From the outside it looks like a huge Catholic (in this case Dominic church), but inside it´s really a museum about Inca culture and weirdly also a Catholic church! Before the Spanish arrived, Qorikancha (temple of the Sun) was a sacred temple for the Incas. Francisco Pizzaro thought it might make a nice colonial manor and bequethed it to his little brother Juan. When Juan died he left it to the Dominicans who through a whole lot of Spanish Boroque archectecture right on top of the Incas´ construction. And then in the seventies after a big earthquake, a lot of the Spanish archectecture fell down to reveal 100% durable Incan engineering. The Peruvian government then made it into a funky museum chock full of exhibits explaining the Incas´ building, Catholic paintings, Incan artifacts, and a Spanish style courtyard and fountain in the middle of it all. Colonialism is crazy!

But the thing I learned at all three sites was how Andean artists resisted the Spanish hegemony in their art work. Several local painters were trained in European styles, but they infused all their work with local symbols and secret meanings (They were called the Cusco school). Some of my favorite examples:
- A painting of the Last Supper in which Jesus and friends are chowing on cuy (guinea pig)
- An image of Jesus in which his upper body is masculine and his lower body feminine, which reflects an Andean conception of their gods having both feminine and masculine parts.
- Several Virgen Marys with half moon crown, a reference to the Andean moon Goddess Mother.

I'm out of time. I hope you all are well. I can't believe I'm going to Machu Picchu tomorrow.

It might be the thin Andean air (11,500 ft above sea level), the thin cobblestoned streets, the massive "Andean Boroque" cathedral in the center of town, or the small women wearing fedoras and lugging parcels twice their size around town, but Cusco is incredible. I arrived this morning from Lima and have had a heck of a day since then.

As my cab from the airport pulled into the suburb of Wuanchac, 2 km south of Cusco, I had a feeling I was going to be the only gringo around in this small, somewhat dodgy but not too dodgy little city. It wreaked of adventure, especially when we couldn't find the hostel I hab booked. After walking around Wuanchac in the rain and under the gaze of many curious locals. I found a sign for my hostel posted to a big iron gate next to a back alley. After wringing every door bell and site and trying to call reception from a payphone, I realized Casa Familiar Ochoa wasn't going to be my accomodation du jour. So with my hug ass back pack I hopped into a local cafe (El Palacio de Sandwiches Calliente) and had a bite to eat (a no thrilla, though very thrilling, sandwich with some unidentifiable slabs of meat and spicy pickled carrots, washed down with a hot cup of Coca de Mate tea) and began to plot out plan B.

¡BEST MOMENT OF MY DAY!: As I was leaving the cafe, the kid who worked there asked if I was Spanish or Argentine! I was one happy camper from then on.

Plan B: Walk into Cusco center and try to find a hostel recommended to me by my Aussie acquiantences in Lima: Hostel Samay Wasi. So after a pleasant walk through Waunchac, I came to Inglesia de Santo Domingo, one of a few big cathedrals in town. It's pretty spectacular with all the trappings, ornate details, and vastness you would hope for in a Catholic edifice. As I was turning a corner masked men with bells on their feet and whips in their hands danced by me, followed by a group of women and men in brightly colored traditional garp, and a third group of people carrying a pretty big box (an alter perhaps) depicting a scene from Christ's life (atleast, I thinl0 it was Chirst). Naturally, I decided to follow along with my huge ass back pack and camara in hand.

What followed was a procession to a small square where many Cusqueños gathered to watch traditional dances with women and men holding scarfs and ruffling their skirts and stomping their feet. I asked a man standing next to me what was the occasion, and as far as I could gather from his Spanish it was some sort of festival put on my local rich man... but I could be way off base. People were passing out this green colored drinks for the adults and Inca Cola to the kids. Everyone was clapping along merrily. All of it sort of directed at the altar, but more so to please the crowd. After this dance ended, the masked men came out and put on the second act. Their dance consisted of singing and circling around each other, with two men at a time getting into the middle of the circle and whipping eachother's boots. Slowly the whipping would get more intense and dramatic as they circle around each, but before it gets too bad the rest of the men in the circle break it up with some jovial singing and guffawing. And then two more men hop in for some more good old fashion boot whipping. This sound totally bizarre (and it was a little bit bizarre), but everything was so convivial and jolly that I found myself clapping and laughing along with everybody else. "¡Ay dios mio! That's gotta hurt! Ha ha ha!" I felt like I was seeing something I wasn't necessarily supposed to see, as I was the only foreigner around. And thus, felt truly lucky and fortunate.

After leaving the festivities I headed back in the direction of central Cusco to find the hostel Samay Wasi. After some oogling at the magnificance of the central Plaza de Armas (I'll write more about that later), I asked a kindly lady police officer where I might find said hostel. She thought it was past the central church de San Francisco. When I couldn't find it after that, I asked a nice girl from a juice shop. She said that she thought she had heard of it, and that it was on the next street, but didn't know if it was to the left or the right. After looking up and down that street, I asked a couple strolling down the street with their kids, they nicely offered to take me down the street to find it, only to stop at the bottom of the hill realizing it was way the hell up on one of the hills behind the city. After I couldn't find it then....more Cusqueños, more contradictory directions. Even though I coudn't find it I had a good time exploring the narrow cobblestone streets, saw many women dragging llamas around, had another delicious and soothing cup of Mate de Coca, got scammed into paying to have my picture taken wearing an alpaca hat next to a little girl and a llama, and made it to the top of the hill behind Cusco and had an incredible view of the entire city red tiles roofs and cathedral domes and all. I also learned two very important things:

1) People in Cusco, and I'm going to go ahead and say all of Peru, are incredibly friendly and helpful.
2) Hostel Samay Wasi does not exist.

That's a lot of blogging and about it for now (don't worry parents I found another place to stay). I might not write more this week, because my lodging doesn't have internet and on Tuesday I'm heading off on a four day trek to Machu Picchu. I can't believe it myself.

Hope you all are well.
Turista Supremo

Sea Worshippers, Fog and All

Huaca Pucllana is a pre Incan archeological site that sits in the center of Lima's Miraflores district. The Lima people constructed the ancient pyramid as an urban center for their seaside community. It served as both a community meeting place and sacred site, in which the Lima would sacrifice young women as gifts to thier ocean gods. The site is incredibly durable, the walls made with a many layered brick construction to withstand earthquakes and storms. Also, it's like three blocks away from my hostel, and smack dab in the middle of a completely urban area. I don't think I've ever seen anything that old in the middle of a city. Fucking rad.

Lima (or atleast, the part I'm in Miraflores) is great. It has the sort of climate San Franciscians love, with a thick ocean fog that rolls over the city around mid morning and sits there all day. Miraflores is chock full of wide tree lined avenues, city parks, touristy waterfront walkways, cloudy beaches, hip young people, ceviche, and lots of people selling alpaca (not to mention pre-Incan ruins).

I got in last night and after some drama with cabs and international banking, I checked into Inca Lodge, made friends with some Aussies (of course), went to this happening litte strip called San Ramon, ate some Aji de Pollo, drank some free Pisco Sour, went to bed woke up this morning, stopped by the Lan Peru office to change my flight to Cusco, walked around Miraflores, checked out the parks, checked out the surf, went to el Parque del Amor (complete with a huge plaster statue of people making out, and Gaudi style benchs with cheesy quotes about love), had some lunch, went to Incan Ruins, now I'm here checking email and blogging in the hostel! All in a days work por Turista Suprema (my new super hero alter ego)! I think I might try to do some laundry before heading off to Cusco tomorrow.

Hope you all are well. Let me know about your own adventures large and small.

All the best,
Turista Suprema (Danny)

Pisco Sour Gratis!? Holy shit I'm in Peru.

Things are great! (except for this shitty hostel keypad,which will prevent me from writing much more). I'm here and good. Had my first Pisco Sour of many. Era muy deliciosa. More later when at bettter computer.
-Danny

I had envisioned coming to the summit of Volcano Arenal after a a gruesome hike over sharp boulders and oozing lava flows, the sulfur fumes wafting over me like Satan´s very own hot breath. Instead, I watched from a mile away through the window of a van crowded with Germans as little dots of red speckled the dark mountain about a mile away. I was on a guided tour, but because of the rain it was cut a little short. Even for being a disappointment, it was still cool to see the lava flows at night. And I had a good laugh with myself about the tourist trade.

It's 6.52 am right now, and my flight leaves for Peru around 3pm. So I figured since I'm awake, it might as well be blog time.

Costa Rica is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. I have spent a lot of time on buses this week traveling up and over the country's lush, tropical hills. I've seen roadside waterfalls emerging from the thick jungles and cascading down cliffs into the river valley below. Everywhere you look things are green and blossoming.

Despite being long, hot, and bumpy. I'm really glad I spent all that time in buses. Not only because I feel like I have seen a good deal of the country, but because they felt like a window into the real lives of Ticos. Often, I was the only tourists on these buses jam packed with families, and working men and women. I drove through rural towns not mentioned in my guidebook.

So many of the Ticos I've met have been incredibly warm and friendly. The family who ran the Sleepers' Sleep Cheaper Hostel made my time in Santa Elena worthwhile. Ronny and his pregnant wife Yoselin and their two small children Jasmine (5) and Daniel (2) always seemed happy when I joined them to watch TV at night or have a cup of coffee in the rainy afternoons. But as friendly as they seemed, I couldn't help but remember that episode of The Simpsons where the Simpson family, by some whacky turn of events, open their house up to backpackers. Of course, the smelly Germans track mud over the carpet and complain about the internet being too slow, ya.

Costa Rica is a wonderful place, but from what I've seen the tourism trade is quite dominant and I'm not sure every one wants all the tourists. Everywhere I went in the country I saw graffiti that said "NO TLC." The TLC is a free trade agreement with the United States, that has sparked a huge protest in Costa Rica. Many fear it will severely hurt the agricultural sector. In one piece of graffiti near my hostel I saw: "Gringos van a fuera!"(Gringos go away).

So all in all, I've really enjoyed my time in Costa Rica, but not without complications. But I think that's probably the point of travel abroad. So this afternoon, I'm off to Peru with a whole new set of adventures and complications.

Hope you all are well.
Pura Vida.
Danny

Putting the Verde in Monteverde.

So I'm sitting on top of the observation tower in Santa Elena Cloud Forrest Reserve in Monteverde, Costa Rica watching the clouds roll into said forrest. I can see Volcano Arenal looming in the distance. I haven't encountered another human being the entire morning as I hiked through the dense forrest with vines and epiphytes hanging over the path and cicadas and strange birds chirping through the thick undergrowth. Me and the tower are the only sign of human life as far as the eye could. And I thought: Well, fuck. How did this happen?

Let me tell you. Mmmhmmm, nothing like en medias re. (spelling?)

MONDAY, It wasn't easy.
To get to Monteverde from San Jose involves getting to a bus at 6:30 in the morning in a rather unsavory part of the city. I got there early to ensure that I could get a seat for the 5 hour bus ride through windy and poorly preserved mountain roads. But unfortunately, the early con artist bird catchs the gringo worm. Waiting for the bus, I got scamed. Got scamed bad. I won't go into it now, because it's a little too embarrasing to broadcast over the internet (that says a lot) and I'm trying to put it out of my head to preserve the illusion that I'm a semi-competent person... Long story short, I got on the bus I needed (at a different terminal then I expected) and ended up paying a lot more for it than I had planned. Loyal readers (namely, Eddie and Rachel) will have to tune in for more juicy details later on. Basically, I'm an ediot, but a little bit wiser after this experience.

After the long bus ride, I arrived in Santa Elena in Monteverde Province. It's bizarre that Santa Elena even exists given how remote its location. But in the heart of the mountains (situated between two National Parks) is this tiny village bustling with travel agencies, restaurants, hotels, and lots and lots of gringos. It kind of feels like a tacky ski village in Vermont, just replace skiing with nature and snobby people from Connecticut and niosy people from New York with snobby from Germany and noisy people from the United States. Being here has made me feel all sorts of complex feelings and thoughts about the ethics of ecotourism. I'm saving that for next entry, so get ready. Who likes white, liberal guilt!? I sure do.

I checked in to this absolute shithole called Sleepers Sleep Cheaper Hostel, that costs $6 for the night. The sheets (under the thin fleece Pooh Bear blankets) were a little less than clean in my tiny hole of a room. But it turned out to be a really great place for less tangible reasons, mostly having to do with the proprietor Ronny and his family... More on them next entry too.

On Ronny's urging, that night I went on a guided night tour of one of the private reserves near Santa Elena. It was terrific. Because it was raining, I was the only loser to show. So it turned out to be a private tour. Me and my guide Maurice, tromped through the forrest in the dark and the rain searching for nocturnal animals. Maurice was incredibly friendly and knowlegeable and with his keen eye we saw (among other things): a praying mantis, shoulder spotted rain frogs, two rainbow beak toucans, and a side striped pit viper (one of the most venomous in Costa Rica). My day had vastly improved since the mystery incident at the San Jose bus terminal.

TUESDAY
I woke up early to go to the Santa Elena reserve. After yet another bumpy ride. I got to the reserve around 9:00 and spent until 1:00 hiking through the forrest and hanging out on the observation tower. The forrest is so thick with so many plants growing on other plants and hanging down over the trail, I could imagine that if I stood still for long enough the forrest would colonize me and suck me into the undergrowth.

At one point in the walk I saw an agouti, basically a big jungle rodent. Pretty exciting.

I had basically walked all the trails by 1pm, and my ride back to the hostel wasn't coming until 4. So I spent 3 hours on the porch of the Reserve cafe reading about Pinochet and watching the rain fall in the jungle. I've become a big fan of watching the rain fall, I do it basically every day.

WEDNESDAY (today)
I'm writing this email from an internet place in the town of Fortuna. It's to the north of Snta Elena and the base of Arenal. This morning involved taking a van through the rolling cow dotted green hills of Monteverde region to Laguna Arenal. I boarded a boat to cross the the lake. As the boat approched the other shore, Volcano Arenal shot smoke into the air above us. I got in another van that took me to Fortuna where I'm staying in Cabinas Arsol, and I think I'm paying too much for the wrong room. Later today, I'm hiking up to Arenal. Should be exciting.

So for next time, I promise thoughts on:
- Ethics of ecotourism
- La Familia Sleepers Sleep Cheaper
- Updates on Arenal
- The Gingo Blues

All the best, hope you all are well, keep the comments coming, they're fun to read,
Danny

High points and Low Points

Today was the kind of day that reveals all that's great about travel and a lot that totally sucks. Here are some things that suck and were pretty cool>
1) I woke up early to remember that the night before I lost my journal, and probably left it at a shoddy internet cafe. This journal included lots of information that could lead to identity theft! I am a total idiot SUCK... But to my amazement it was there where I left it... FUN TIMES!
2) I went to this great small town outside of San Jose called Orosi. It nestled in this beautiful valley with Irazu Volcano towering above. I watched un partido de futbol in the town sqaure while sipping un Imperial (Costa Rica's national beer)... FUN TIMES! But oh man the public transportation...SUCK.

In truth, there were more "fun times" then "suck." But I'm learning how humbling travel can be. I'm learning to accept my role as big fat gringo nerd in beefy hiking boots, swishy nylon pants, and butchered Spanish. Orosi was truly beautiful, worth visiting even though there's very little there.

I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow! I'm leaving San Jose, but not sure where to. Either jungle or beach. Got an opinion? LEAVE A COMMENT=FUN TIMES.

I might not have easy internet access for a few days, so all the best.
Danny at Bekuo Hostel, San Jose

Con Lluvia y Historia

Back at Hostel Bekuo. All the surfers are watching TV and talking football. I'm feeling a bit spent, but pretty happy with mi adventura del dia.

So upon getting to the hostel I posted on este blog, checked email, poured over my guide of Costa Rica to try to figure out what to do with myself. Once figuring that out, I was about to step outside when the thunder roared and the tropical clouds let loose. So while waiting for the rain to let up I played pool with an Aussie named Mick... I beat him one game, he beat me the next.

Suddenly, the rain let up and it was sunny and remarkably hot [a weather phenomenon I should probably get used to]. I hopped on a bus and headed for downtown San Jose. It's a super congested, super crowded, probably pretty polluted, super fast moving city, but I found it strangely charming. All the people scurrying across the street in hopes of avoiding the maniac cab drivers [these people will run you over, no broma], the smell of greasy meat, and the distant sound of tropical birds chirping like nuts, made me feel slightly excited.

If you walk up the hill from Avenida Central you come across a string of beautiful civic parts overlooking the city with sweeping views of the green, storm cloud capped, mountains around. Their bursting with verdant tropical vegitation in the midst of Spanish colonial style footbridges, fountains, and bronze statues of the heroes of liberation. I came across a bust of Bernardo O'Higgins, chief liberator of Chile, and I got very excited.

After a terrible hambuguesa especial at a cheap eatery called a soda, they're all over downtown San Jose, headed up to the Museo National de Costa Rica. It's a history museum located in this old colonial building that looks like a stone fortress from the outside, and has this amazing courtyard on the inside. Inside it's split between pre colombian history and post colonial history, with a small but impressive collection of gold artifacts from indigenous. One cool thing: indigenous groups of Costa Rica crafted these huge stone spheres to broadcast their power to neighboring groups. I the middle of my visit to the museum, it began to down pour harder than it had all day. I sat in the arcade around the museum's incredibly lush courtyard and watched it come down, a peaceful moment in the middle of a hectic, and busy day of airplanes, buses, and urban congestion.

Phew, this traveler can spew a lot. I can't promise this level of detail from every entry, but it's been a long day and the internet provides a nice, comforting glow. I might party with Australians tonight, but I'm more likely to curl up with my book about Pinochet and go to bed early. Tomorrow, Irazu Volcano might enjoy my company.

from Bekuo Hostel, Los Yoses, San Jose, Costa Rica

Bienvenidos a Costa Rica...

So far so good. I´m here, typing from the computer cluster at Bekuo Hostel in Los Yoses (a neighborhood in the South East of San Jose). First impressions of Costa Rica: hot, mountains, crazy street traffic. Heading out to explore the city soon. More then.
All the best,
DJH

Una Mapa!

Here's a map of South America! Blogging es muy divertido!