As I write this, I am 12 stories off the ground, poolside on a rooftop deck with sweeping views of Panama City, beer at my side, earbuds firmly planted, Radiohead given reign over the din of horns and sirens below. Its about 85 degrees outside, the skies are blue, the palm trees are swaying, and I'm about 3 days away from sugar-sand bliss in Bocas Del Toro, so if you're wondering how I'm doing since my last report, I'd say I'm doin alright.
I feel much more in place, happy to be here and NOT looking forward to my now-fixed return home of Monday, March 5th (kicking and screaming seems like the right way to go out).
Anyway, I'm in Panama City now, which is great, and I've been touring all over the place with my uncle (actually, my mom's cousin), Ovidio. I had been staying with him until today, when I decided that it would be criminal not to find a rooftop pool deck, given the heat, the humidity, and the fantastic views. So he's out running some errands (will join me later) and I'm here, baking in the sun, melting in the humidity and basically, for the moment, an apparition of perfection.
Ovidio, it turns out, is the the perfect guy to have waiting for you when you show up in a strange, giant, throbbing Central American city looking for distant family connections and a sense of place and context between the skyscrapers and the jungle. Not only is he completely hospitable, he's also a walking encyclopedia, something of a hobbyist historian on all things Panama, a full-service tour guide, and the keeper of the family genealogy. The records he has of the blood line are incredible. He has a written record of every person (literally every child, grandchild, great-grandchild, aunt, uncle, cousin - EVERYone) all the way back to my great-great-great grand father, Jose Manuel Gallardo, who was born in 1865 in Colombia, and eventually parented 14 children in Panama! It turns out I even have a big jolly Caribbean aunt! I met her the day I got here. I'll be going home with a few pictures of my grandmother (one is a wedding photo with the grandfather I never met, but whom everyone says I look like and the other is a picture of her when she was a little girl with her sisters and her mother, who appears to me a lot like the indigenous indian women I have seen here). All told, as of my generation, there are no less than 699 (known) decedents, which made it hard for me to walk down the street today without feeling like I was somehow related to everyone I passed on the sidewalk.
This week was Carnaval, which was exciting: lots of crazy costumes, water fights and crowd-drenchings, parades and fireworks. I've also been to the canal, of course, which truly is an incredible feat of human engineering and persistence (the French spent 20 years and many lives and eventually gave up - it took the Americans another 10 to finish it after that). We also took in some traditional folkloric dancing over dinner last night.
And I've seen 4 different Panama Cities here: there's the ruins of the original 16th-century settlement, destroyed by pirates, there's colonial Panama, built by the Spanish 100 years later, and then there's modern Panama, which is really two places unto itself: the remnants of Noriega's reign, a people rising from the ashes of dictatorship and striving to create a middle class amid an ever-present military police force, and the New Panama, a dense and sprawling forrest of waterfront luxury condo and hotel developments. I was told before I showed up that Panama City is the "Manhattan" of Central America, and it certainly appears that way from a distance. Even Donald Trump has a tower here. But the more I learn about the development going on, the more appropriate a comparison seems to Dubai or Abu Dabi. Literally there must be 40 brand new towers, and at least another 10 under construction. So, who's moving in? No one. According to my uncle, who is also former government economic advisor and current economics professor at the University of Panama, the soaring vacancy rates don't bother the primary investors : "business men" from Colombia who are just looking to park their excess millions. And as if the comparisons to the Middle East weren't obvious enough, Trump's tower is even shaped like the infamous original sailboat building (so unoriginal), and the shoreline is being expanded; they are building a peninsula-island to create more waterfront property, just like Jumira. The government is also undertaking a full restoration of all the historic quarters, and the installation of a subway system, seemingly across the entire city at once (traffic is horrible), all of which has been undertaken in the last ten years, since Noriega was put behind bars, coinciding nicely with the canals finally being turned over to the Panamanians in 1999. I guess maybe I notice it more because of my construction background, but Holy Cow there is a lot of work going on here. It's good to see cranes again!
I'm here in the city another few days before I head for the beaches. Lea stayed in Ecuador an extra week to soak that in while I'm here, but we'll head out of town when she gets here on Monday.
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Friday, February 24, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Ecuador: WTF am I doing here?
For better or worse, this report is going to be different than the rest. I'm not going to ramble on about how amazing Ecuador is, put up pictures of wildly-colored tropical birds, or bemoan and simultaneously praise the worn and yet content faces of a hard-working people.
Instead, I'm going to complain about how I've grown tired of the great privilege of my extended travel.
I am suffering greatly from a bout of being unimpressed and generally uninterested in what I'm doing this week. I don't think it's Ecuador, I'm just tired and growing weary of bouncing from place to place, looking for meaning in something new and different from home. The last week has worn on like this, "...another town, another city, another monument, another plane, another bus..." I'm having trouble continuing to find excitement in all this ongoing movement. I have been sleeping in a strange bed every night for almost 4 months, and I'm not looking forward to the strange bed I'll be sleeping in tonight.
And let's please not write this off as a simple case of "home-sickness". That's too easy and obvious. This is something else. I don't long for home, per say - you could barely argue that I have one (the city of LA, yes, family and friends, of course, but there is no address, no specific four walls that call to me) - so there is no home to miss in that regard. This is a case of being exhausted of traveling and lacking purpose in that travel, a case of honestly wondering what I'm doing in Ecuador. I wish I could tell you. And I'm reluctant to describe anything I've seen in the past week for fear it will be tainted by this cloud of indifference hanging over my head. I'm inclined to tell you that Quito is a real s**t-hole, but it's probably not, I just can't see that right now. On second thought, actually, it totally is. Sorry, Quito. You're a s**t-hole.
When I left for NZ, I was full of purpose and direction, happy to pack up my belongings, invigorated with a sense of adventure and exploration. And really, NZ was the fulfillment of a 5-year dream, something I had studied many late nights, had talked about exhaustively with patient friends, researched and planned, waited for the moment, and ultimately ached for so fully that the fulfillment of that dream became inevitable. But Ecuador? I can't figure out why I'm here.
Okay, here's one thing: I stood on the equator yesterday. That was kind of cool. I watched water swirl down a drain in opposite directions not 5 feet from each other, on either side of a red line painted on the ground. I balanced an egg on the head of a nail driven into the center of that red line. Consolation prizes, though.
So I guess the real treasure of the past days has been the people I've connected with. There's Jody, the India-born CPA and Michael the American-born draft-dodger and mirror de-fogger salesman, both from Canada and both very sweet and intensely spiritual people. There's Heather, the California girl studying abroad here, and her genteel father who's visiting for 3 weeks, and her very interesting boyfriend, Jack. Jack is a character. We went out for a handful of beers last night and he told me his story, or some of it, and this guy is a testament to the human spirit. He's 24. His father is Nigerian and his mother South African. He left Africa a few years ago in search of a better life, put plainly enough. He went first through Russia, then Cuba (these were easy countries for him to obtain a visa). In Cuba, he was sleeping on the beach and was attacked and robbed in the middle of the night, every penny and every possession taken from him. He begged for food in the streets. He eventually got the Nigerian government to send him some money, and he used that to come to Ecuador. I asked him if he didn't consider just going home at that point, and this was what impressed me about him: of course he did, but to go home from there would have been to admit failure, and he wanted to persist forward. Forward to where or towards what exactly, he didn't then and doesn't now know, but he tells me that he loves Heather, believes in God and Fate, doesn't like Quito anymore, and dreams to go to Australia one day, among other places. He's a professional soccer player here now - walked onto a field and begged to train with the team until the coach agreed and ultimately discovered that he's actually really good. This guy impressed me. I gave him my contact information and told him if I could ever help him in any way, to simply email me. And Michael, the mirror defogger guy, has really challenged me this week, intellectually and spiritually both. We've had a number of lengthy, in-depth conversations about "the nature of things,"so to speak. The conversations have gone to some great places, never too "out there", always grounded in conventional philosophies, but have really made me consider my own beliefs and forced me to remember some of the important events in my life that have shaped those beliefs.
And there is a bright light just ahead for my continued travels. Tomorrow morning I jump a plane to Panama. I am actually really looking forward to this. My grandmother was born in Panama, emigrated to the states when she was 22, and that part of my family heritage has always held a special place in my sense of identity, and yet in my life, I've never been there, despite having made 4 trips to Costa Rica, the country directly next door. The family she keeps in touch with has been to L.A. on several occasions, met the Joneses, their gringo relatives, and some of the CA family has been there to visit them, but not me. So now it's my turn and I'm really looking forward to connecting with them, and this part of me. I'll probably be a week in Panama City, and then head for the white-sand, crystal-water beaches further North and try to get some surfing in before I come home.
Instead, I'm going to complain about how I've grown tired of the great privilege of my extended travel.
I am suffering greatly from a bout of being unimpressed and generally uninterested in what I'm doing this week. I don't think it's Ecuador, I'm just tired and growing weary of bouncing from place to place, looking for meaning in something new and different from home. The last week has worn on like this, "...another town, another city, another monument, another plane, another bus..." I'm having trouble continuing to find excitement in all this ongoing movement. I have been sleeping in a strange bed every night for almost 4 months, and I'm not looking forward to the strange bed I'll be sleeping in tonight.
And let's please not write this off as a simple case of "home-sickness". That's too easy and obvious. This is something else. I don't long for home, per say - you could barely argue that I have one (the city of LA, yes, family and friends, of course, but there is no address, no specific four walls that call to me) - so there is no home to miss in that regard. This is a case of being exhausted of traveling and lacking purpose in that travel, a case of honestly wondering what I'm doing in Ecuador. I wish I could tell you. And I'm reluctant to describe anything I've seen in the past week for fear it will be tainted by this cloud of indifference hanging over my head. I'm inclined to tell you that Quito is a real s**t-hole, but it's probably not, I just can't see that right now. On second thought, actually, it totally is. Sorry, Quito. You're a s**t-hole.
When I left for NZ, I was full of purpose and direction, happy to pack up my belongings, invigorated with a sense of adventure and exploration. And really, NZ was the fulfillment of a 5-year dream, something I had studied many late nights, had talked about exhaustively with patient friends, researched and planned, waited for the moment, and ultimately ached for so fully that the fulfillment of that dream became inevitable. But Ecuador? I can't figure out why I'm here.
Okay, here's one thing: I stood on the equator yesterday. That was kind of cool. I watched water swirl down a drain in opposite directions not 5 feet from each other, on either side of a red line painted on the ground. I balanced an egg on the head of a nail driven into the center of that red line. Consolation prizes, though.
So I guess the real treasure of the past days has been the people I've connected with. There's Jody, the India-born CPA and Michael the American-born draft-dodger and mirror de-fogger salesman, both from Canada and both very sweet and intensely spiritual people. There's Heather, the California girl studying abroad here, and her genteel father who's visiting for 3 weeks, and her very interesting boyfriend, Jack. Jack is a character. We went out for a handful of beers last night and he told me his story, or some of it, and this guy is a testament to the human spirit. He's 24. His father is Nigerian and his mother South African. He left Africa a few years ago in search of a better life, put plainly enough. He went first through Russia, then Cuba (these were easy countries for him to obtain a visa). In Cuba, he was sleeping on the beach and was attacked and robbed in the middle of the night, every penny and every possession taken from him. He begged for food in the streets. He eventually got the Nigerian government to send him some money, and he used that to come to Ecuador. I asked him if he didn't consider just going home at that point, and this was what impressed me about him: of course he did, but to go home from there would have been to admit failure, and he wanted to persist forward. Forward to where or towards what exactly, he didn't then and doesn't now know, but he tells me that he loves Heather, believes in God and Fate, doesn't like Quito anymore, and dreams to go to Australia one day, among other places. He's a professional soccer player here now - walked onto a field and begged to train with the team until the coach agreed and ultimately discovered that he's actually really good. This guy impressed me. I gave him my contact information and told him if I could ever help him in any way, to simply email me. And Michael, the mirror defogger guy, has really challenged me this week, intellectually and spiritually both. We've had a number of lengthy, in-depth conversations about "the nature of things,"so to speak. The conversations have gone to some great places, never too "out there", always grounded in conventional philosophies, but have really made me consider my own beliefs and forced me to remember some of the important events in my life that have shaped those beliefs.
And there is a bright light just ahead for my continued travels. Tomorrow morning I jump a plane to Panama. I am actually really looking forward to this. My grandmother was born in Panama, emigrated to the states when she was 22, and that part of my family heritage has always held a special place in my sense of identity, and yet in my life, I've never been there, despite having made 4 trips to Costa Rica, the country directly next door. The family she keeps in touch with has been to L.A. on several occasions, met the Joneses, their gringo relatives, and some of the CA family has been there to visit them, but not me. So now it's my turn and I'm really looking forward to connecting with them, and this part of me. I'll probably be a week in Panama City, and then head for the white-sand, crystal-water beaches further North and try to get some surfing in before I come home.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Peru, Cuzco, Machu Picchu
Well, it's been just about two weeks since I arrived in Peru. I spent almost no time in Lima, just the afternoon and evening that I arrived, really. So I don't have much to report other than it was about what I expected from a coastal South American capital city: crowded, built-up, smoggy and not particularly clean, and yet cosmopolitan and being thrust into the modern era and Western tradition. I caught an early flight the next morning to Cuzco, which is a whole different story.
Situated in a mountain valley roughly 10,000 feet above sea level (its cold and you're stopping to catch your breath if you're walking up stairs), Cuzco is the former Inca capital in Peru and an entirely unique city among those I have visited. It's long history as a site of struggle between the indigenous Inca population and the Spanish conquistadors lends a mixed cultural flavor to the otherwise modern tourist hub, as Cuzco is the launch point for the infamous lost city of the Inca, Machu Picchu, the top tourist draw in the country. In the last 10 years alone, annual visitor counts to Machu Picchu have increased from the tens of thousands to well over a million. Cuzco has figured this out, and as a result, you cannot walk down the street without being bombarded with offers to buy artwork, jewelry, hats, scarves, sweaters, blankets, rugs, wall hangings, finger puppets, flutes, whistles, and any variety of the endless artisanal products Cuzco seems to be capable of pumping out, not to mention the tours (hiking, biking, rafting, Machu Picchu and 20 other surrounding ruins), massages, dinners, drinks ("happy hour, señor!"), shoe shines, candy, and plain old-fashioned handouts. The place is a zoo: making it a few blocks can be exhausting. Despite that (and admittedly sometimes because of it) walking the streets of Cuzco is charming, especially in its mix of colonial, Incan, and modern ramshackle architecture (building practices seem to have been sturdier 3500 years ago). You can walk down a narrow street you would think was pedestrian only until a taxi is nipping at your heels, nudgingly beeping his horn, yet never slowing down and find that the buildings inhabited by the modern galleries, gift shops and restaurants are actually original hand-cut-and- stacked stone blocks put up by the Incas eons ago. And then you'll turn a corner and bump into a several-hundred year old European-style cathedral before passing the banks, 5-star hotels and the Starbucks (yep) on your way home, which in my case was one of the ramshackle jobs.
So it was 2 nights in Cuzco, planning the Machu Picchu excursion before setting off in a minivan packed full of locals and being driven for 2 hours like it was being chased through curving mountain roads and past muddy roadside villages to a train that carries you to Aguas Callientes, a remote, river-side mountain town without roads that now makes it's living as the overnight stay for visits to Machu Picchu. It's a pre-5a wake up call to make the entrance by opening time, 6a and get a rare glance of the ruined city, empty, without tourists, as it may have appeared upon it's discovery in 1911. I took about 200 pictures that day, but none with my iPod, which is what I'm using to update the blog on this trip, so I'll put up pictures another day.
Also climbed the peak in the background, a near-vertical struggle to another set of stone buildings atop the summit and a rare view of the lost city. There's not much to tell about Machu Picchu because there's not much that is known. Clearly, it was a city: there are easily identifiable homes, neighborhoods and storehouses, but an explanation for the temples, an understanding of some of the "how" and all of the "why" is a futile enterprise. There is no written record, and so you are left only to marvel at the miracle of its existence: it is entirely remote (thinking pre-tourist times), buried in the rainforest, stashed in a valley, and hidden atop a mountain. Almost twice the age of Jesus, and it's still there, stone upon stone, for the ages.
I hiked for two days beyond Machu Picchu, following a raging brown river, crossing it once in a 2'x4', cable-suspended basket, sometimes walking along train tracks (nervously sprinting through tunnels), sometimes on narrow, diverging trails through the jungle, or high above the river on stone cliffs with sheer drops above and below, just to see what was out there I guess and not join the thousands returning by train to Cuzco. On that hike, I came across a man with a broken foot (the result of a dropped rock) and left him all the applicable first aid and advice we had, as well as a welcoming family home with turkeys, a parrot, dogs, and a hanging jaguar skin accompanied by a story that ends with a two-month hunt and a borrowed, early 20th-century rifle. Also, a woman with a pet Capuchin monkey. I got to hold the monkey. It was awesome. I thought there was a good chance I would be bitten and die of monkey rabies in the jungle, but it was worth it. This monkey was 9 months old (purchased in Cuzco) and it still had a nursing instinct. We caught him right before his nap time, and as all small and cute things do, he found me endearing and comforting and took to nestling and cuddling into my arms and trying to suckle my bicep, but not before showing me his gleaming, tiny fangs, at which point, like I said, I thought I was going to die of monkey rabies in the jungle. But he was already clinging tightly with hands, feet and tail, and I didn't want to alarm him, so there was no shaking him loose - I just had to let him suck on my arm for a while. I want a monkey now, it's my new goal in life. The lady said he's like a cat - wanders the property, comes back for food and love, except it's a fucking monkey! Awesome. I need one.
At the end of two days, I caught a car 1/2 way back to Cuzco and stayed in small town there for a week, soaking in the empty hillsides and making day-long excursions to the local sacred Inca sites before returning to the madness that is Cuzco.
This trip, so far, has been nothing like traveling New Zealand. It has become impossible to consider them together, as one trip. My first few days on the ground, I kept thinking to myself, "You're not in Kansas anymore." For instance, take the food markets: warehouse-sized, open air bazaars that know no health code - the meat section to be avoided by those with uneasy stomachs - dogs running around looking for scraps and humping under each other in the aisles. Braved it one day for lunch - barely made it to the next morning.
The other outstanding characteristic of Cuzco that cannot go unnoticed or untold is the colorful tradition of the Quechua women and children. These are the ancestral descendants of the Inca, their blood mixed with Spanish; they are the closest thing to a living native culture in Peru. The women are typically short and squat with layered skirts and sweaters, long braids, felt hats and carrying all manner of things in a full-spectrum color blanket slung across their back: usually a child, often food or wares for sale, sometimes sheep, puppies, even turkeys.
I am currently in flight from the mountains and the rain, headed North into the heat and banana fields of Ecuador (so named for its location along the Northern and Southern hemispheres and then on to meet some of my extended family in Panama. I will likely retire my shoes in Ecuador, send home a box of no-longer-needed warm clothes from Panama, and spend the rest of my time in sandals, on beaches. The way it should be. That's the plan for now anyways. More to come, stay tuned...
Situated in a mountain valley roughly 10,000 feet above sea level (its cold and you're stopping to catch your breath if you're walking up stairs), Cuzco is the former Inca capital in Peru and an entirely unique city among those I have visited. It's long history as a site of struggle between the indigenous Inca population and the Spanish conquistadors lends a mixed cultural flavor to the otherwise modern tourist hub, as Cuzco is the launch point for the infamous lost city of the Inca, Machu Picchu, the top tourist draw in the country. In the last 10 years alone, annual visitor counts to Machu Picchu have increased from the tens of thousands to well over a million. Cuzco has figured this out, and as a result, you cannot walk down the street without being bombarded with offers to buy artwork, jewelry, hats, scarves, sweaters, blankets, rugs, wall hangings, finger puppets, flutes, whistles, and any variety of the endless artisanal products Cuzco seems to be capable of pumping out, not to mention the tours (hiking, biking, rafting, Machu Picchu and 20 other surrounding ruins), massages, dinners, drinks ("happy hour, señor!"), shoe shines, candy, and plain old-fashioned handouts. The place is a zoo: making it a few blocks can be exhausting. Despite that (and admittedly sometimes because of it) walking the streets of Cuzco is charming, especially in its mix of colonial, Incan, and modern ramshackle architecture (building practices seem to have been sturdier 3500 years ago). You can walk down a narrow street you would think was pedestrian only until a taxi is nipping at your heels, nudgingly beeping his horn, yet never slowing down and find that the buildings inhabited by the modern galleries, gift shops and restaurants are actually original hand-cut-and- stacked stone blocks put up by the Incas eons ago. And then you'll turn a corner and bump into a several-hundred year old European-style cathedral before passing the banks, 5-star hotels and the Starbucks (yep) on your way home, which in my case was one of the ramshackle jobs.
So it was 2 nights in Cuzco, planning the Machu Picchu excursion before setting off in a minivan packed full of locals and being driven for 2 hours like it was being chased through curving mountain roads and past muddy roadside villages to a train that carries you to Aguas Callientes, a remote, river-side mountain town without roads that now makes it's living as the overnight stay for visits to Machu Picchu. It's a pre-5a wake up call to make the entrance by opening time, 6a and get a rare glance of the ruined city, empty, without tourists, as it may have appeared upon it's discovery in 1911. I took about 200 pictures that day, but none with my iPod, which is what I'm using to update the blog on this trip, so I'll put up pictures another day.
Also climbed the peak in the background, a near-vertical struggle to another set of stone buildings atop the summit and a rare view of the lost city. There's not much to tell about Machu Picchu because there's not much that is known. Clearly, it was a city: there are easily identifiable homes, neighborhoods and storehouses, but an explanation for the temples, an understanding of some of the "how" and all of the "why" is a futile enterprise. There is no written record, and so you are left only to marvel at the miracle of its existence: it is entirely remote (thinking pre-tourist times), buried in the rainforest, stashed in a valley, and hidden atop a mountain. Almost twice the age of Jesus, and it's still there, stone upon stone, for the ages.
I hiked for two days beyond Machu Picchu, following a raging brown river, crossing it once in a 2'x4', cable-suspended basket, sometimes walking along train tracks (nervously sprinting through tunnels), sometimes on narrow, diverging trails through the jungle, or high above the river on stone cliffs with sheer drops above and below, just to see what was out there I guess and not join the thousands returning by train to Cuzco. On that hike, I came across a man with a broken foot (the result of a dropped rock) and left him all the applicable first aid and advice we had, as well as a welcoming family home with turkeys, a parrot, dogs, and a hanging jaguar skin accompanied by a story that ends with a two-month hunt and a borrowed, early 20th-century rifle. Also, a woman with a pet Capuchin monkey. I got to hold the monkey. It was awesome. I thought there was a good chance I would be bitten and die of monkey rabies in the jungle, but it was worth it. This monkey was 9 months old (purchased in Cuzco) and it still had a nursing instinct. We caught him right before his nap time, and as all small and cute things do, he found me endearing and comforting and took to nestling and cuddling into my arms and trying to suckle my bicep, but not before showing me his gleaming, tiny fangs, at which point, like I said, I thought I was going to die of monkey rabies in the jungle. But he was already clinging tightly with hands, feet and tail, and I didn't want to alarm him, so there was no shaking him loose - I just had to let him suck on my arm for a while. I want a monkey now, it's my new goal in life. The lady said he's like a cat - wanders the property, comes back for food and love, except it's a fucking monkey! Awesome. I need one.
At the end of two days, I caught a car 1/2 way back to Cuzco and stayed in small town there for a week, soaking in the empty hillsides and making day-long excursions to the local sacred Inca sites before returning to the madness that is Cuzco.
This trip, so far, has been nothing like traveling New Zealand. It has become impossible to consider them together, as one trip. My first few days on the ground, I kept thinking to myself, "You're not in Kansas anymore." For instance, take the food markets: warehouse-sized, open air bazaars that know no health code - the meat section to be avoided by those with uneasy stomachs - dogs running around looking for scraps and humping under each other in the aisles. Braved it one day for lunch - barely made it to the next morning.
The other outstanding characteristic of Cuzco that cannot go unnoticed or untold is the colorful tradition of the Quechua women and children. These are the ancestral descendants of the Inca, their blood mixed with Spanish; they are the closest thing to a living native culture in Peru. The women are typically short and squat with layered skirts and sweaters, long braids, felt hats and carrying all manner of things in a full-spectrum color blanket slung across their back: usually a child, often food or wares for sale, sometimes sheep, puppies, even turkeys.
I am currently in flight from the mountains and the rain, headed North into the heat and banana fields of Ecuador (so named for its location along the Northern and Southern hemispheres and then on to meet some of my extended family in Panama. I will likely retire my shoes in Ecuador, send home a box of no-longer-needed warm clothes from Panama, and spend the rest of my time in sandals, on beaches. The way it should be. That's the plan for now anyways. More to come, stay tuned...
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