Seaman

An Indian man sitting next to me on the flight from PDX to Amsterdam began telling me about his American cultural exploration consisting of Las Vegas and Portland. After listening to him for a while I told him it sounded like he had an illustrative trip, but it wasn't necessary to begin with. All he really needed to know about America was contained between the covers of the greatest commercial publication our nation has to offer, which just happened to be in the pouch on the back of the seat in front of him. (I then asked him to put his arms down. Not to sound racist, but Indian B.O. is some of the most pungent and distinct I've encountered, and I think it was making the baby behind me scream.) That's right folks, Sky Mall, ... read more

La Y de la Laguna is a community of about 30 families situated on a hill overlooking a rapidly vanishing megadiversity zone. Its heart gives rise to two sopping trailroads, in the form of a ´Y´, falling towards about 12 communities known as ¨Al Dentro.¨ It also overlooks a distinctly ´Y´ shaped laguna. Thus begins my confusion concerning what has been my home the last month, and where I will remain the next five. I arrived in La Y (pronounced ¨La Yeh¨) the 18th of April, or about 10 days before scheduled. The night of the 17th I got a phone call in Quito saying the rural doctor assigned to the clinic had a bellyache and decided to head home early, before the weekend rush. The next morning I rode my unprepared, reeling, but thrilled ... read more

Hail from the Hippie Haven of El Bolson! We left Bariloche Tuesday afternoon, finally en bici. The days pass slowly in the way you feel when watching a slide show of warmly lit photos or laying in a field looking at rorscharch cumulous clouds. Going south on Route 40 is like taking a trip through time. All the mileposts are numbered in descending fashion towards Ushuaia, El Fin del Mundo. Annie remembers dates like the initiation of the Ford assembly line and for some reason I think of flu epidemics and wars. We began our trip in the future, around the time when Mick Jagger will finally realize it’s over, and are now are in an industrious, naïve time before the world knew there could be war large enough to have its namesake. The Lake District ... read more

Ahh, La Paz. This is now my fourth time arriving in this fair city so I figured it deserved mention. There are give or take a million people who claim residency in La Paz and its uphill counterpart, El Alto. Not including El Alto, most of these people are stuffed into a valley with steep walls and a mix of colonial cobble and indigenous resourcefulness. I have spent altogether a couple weeks in this place but still haven´t quite wrapped my brain around it. However, as I am unable to refrain from doing so, below are some contrived observations and sweeping generalizations: In sharp contrast to the states, the further uphill you go the poorer the people get. Starting in El Alto, you have the have-nots: have-not a door, have-not four walls, have-not enough food, have-not ... read more

So, back from Indonesia. I had forgotten how slow the Internet was in Indo and decided to wait to post until returning to La Paz. The holidays were great with the family, and while it took a bit to adjust to that style of traveling it´s not a bad way to go... with necessary intermittent breaks. There is too much to write about last month so here´s the truncated version (for more pics and descriptions of these places check out the first few entries on the blog; they are from my trip last year). Unfortunately my camera decided to die half way through the trip so most of them are from my Dad´s camera. We started out with several days in my brother´s Jakarta marble palace as the rest of my family streamed in from wherever ... read more