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Well folks, we apologize for our long radio silence. We've been moving fast and haven't had a whole lot of time to do much other than sit on buses for hour after hour...such is life!
Since we talked to you last, we've successfully made it from Santiago to Bogotá via plane--which we were inevitably comparing to the bus services we've had thus far (it took the cake, by far: BLANKETS?? WE CAN CHOOSE THE MOVIE?? BATHROOM WITH RUNNING WATER????). We spent 8 days in Bogotá, most of which was enjoyed (very, very much) in the company of Bob Barlow, visiting lots of fun coffee houses and museums.
Bogotá is such a city of extremes: the clouds roll over the cerros to the east, bringing in torrential rains every day, usually after whole days of sunshine and beautiful breezes. The police presence is intense in La Candelaria, the neighborhood in which most of the colonial buildings are located, but almost nonexistent in the rest of the city. Poverty runs rampant, and yet there is a tailor who creates bulletproof designer clothing for the upper-crust citizens of this huge city in the clouds. The tamales are extremely cheap, and the coffee is extremely good--the first time we've been able to say that in South America.
And then off to another extreme: Cali. That is to say, extremely boring and extremely unsafe. We stayed for three days at an extremely uninteresting hostel with extremely loud individuals who seemed extremely...materialistic? blasé? Not sure what to say...
Cali was followed by Popayan, a cute little colonial town nestled in the mountains. Gorgeous, relaxing, and ultimately a 3-day stay doing not much other than watching movies and eating great Mexican food (random, but important).
And now we're in Ecuador! Quito, to be exact, in a reconaissance mission preceding the arrival of my father and his wife on the 7th of May. In the next couple weeks we're going to visit the cloud forest, the Amazon, volcanoes, and sleep in hammocks. I could not be happier.
Nor could I be happier about This. I think I've found what I want to do, at least in this next chapter of my life. This year: apply. Next two years: learn, make contacts, and figure out what I want to do with my degree. Immediately after graduating: start a business, bringing green energy to the masses, write a book about it, and invent new technologies.
...perhaps lofty goals, perhaps not. Either way, new dreams to add to my collection, and ones that put a smile on my face.
We only have 7 weeks until we come back to the States, and while I am definitely enjoying the trip as much as (if not more than) when it began, I am excited to come home! Can't wait to see you all!
Love,
Sam
4.24.2009
4.17.2009
The Bob Report, Part II
(Bob here, back in the U.S.A., with one last entry. Again, muchas gracias to Sam and Ally for everything. I had a great time in Bogota, thanks mainly to their generosity, their grasp of Spanish, their love of Rummy 500, their appreciation for all that is strange and wonderful, and their understanding that everything in the universe is somehow connected to "Curb Your Enthusiasm.")
Funny things go through your head when your camera gets stolen. First, as in any loss, there's a bit of denial: Fourteen hours after it went missing, I looked for my camera in bags I'd already searched quite thoroughly earlier in the day. The next morning, I still harbored at least some sense that it might turn up. But this would have been impossible: My camera was stolen from the unzipped pocket of my jacket, somewhere between La Candelaria and El Centro, sometime just before or after noon on Tuesday.
I know what you're thinking, because I'm thinking the same thing: What idiot walks around Bogota with his jacket pocket unzipped? We ask a good question. Making matters worse is that as a faithful reader of this blog, I know better. At least Ally and Sam were three months into their journey when they lost their stuff; it took me only three days to get ripped off.
Of course, afterward, I was quite vigilant, in the same way that people observe the speed limit religiously for at least a few hours after being ticketed for speeding. I became an owl, swiveling my head nearly 360 degrees with every step, my eyes peeled for any hint of suspicious activity. To foil would-be robbers, I began to think like a robber. I noticed people whose fat wallets bulged in their back pockets. I thought, hey, I could be a thief if I wanted to. It might even be karmically justifiable. I mean, come on, Bogota got my camera – now it's my turn.
This lasted for a few minutes, followed by a philosophical shift: No, Bogota owed me nothing. It had already given me a lot. And now, it had taken my camera. Fine. We're even, Bogota.
* * *
On Tuesday night, six travelers sat sipping tea in the kitchen of the Anandamayi Hostel. Warmed by the fragrant wood-fired stove, we shared stories of our experiences on the road. Everybody else was younger than me, and everybody else was in the middle of a much longer journey than mine, ranging from five to 12 months in contrast to my six days. One thing we all had in common: We had all been robbed at some point during our travels, often in ways that seemed to defy the laws of physics. (I felt stupid for not having noticed a hand in my jacket pocket, until someone told of valuable items disappearing from the deepest recesses of a backpack while she was wearing it.)
These things happen. They're not fun. But – and this is the important thing – they're not deal-breakers. Not one of the tea drinkers at the hostel had any inclination to cut their journeys short. As a group, they had dealt with deadly spiders, vicious monkeys, poisonous snakes and crocodile-infested waters. They had battled every type of gastric distress known to man or woman. They had hosted human botfly larvae. They had shivered in cold hostels and sweated in hot tents. And still, they pressed on. Still they sat on sweltering buses for 30 hours. Still they scaled scaled one language barrier after another. Still they argued with crooked cabbies. Still they traveled to places their home countries warned them not to go.
With a limited number of international travel miles under my belt, I do not kid myself that I am one of them. But for the first time in my life, I would consider following in their footsteps.
* * *
So, what happens when your camera is stolen on the streets of Bogota? You become more careful. You mourn for the pictures you lost. Then you go get some coffee and you continue to marvel at the strange, beautiful, ugly, safe, dangerous, boring, exciting, unbelievably rich world we live in.
Love and yerba mate,
Bob
Funny things go through your head when your camera gets stolen. First, as in any loss, there's a bit of denial: Fourteen hours after it went missing, I looked for my camera in bags I'd already searched quite thoroughly earlier in the day. The next morning, I still harbored at least some sense that it might turn up. But this would have been impossible: My camera was stolen from the unzipped pocket of my jacket, somewhere between La Candelaria and El Centro, sometime just before or after noon on Tuesday.
I know what you're thinking, because I'm thinking the same thing: What idiot walks around Bogota with his jacket pocket unzipped? We ask a good question. Making matters worse is that as a faithful reader of this blog, I know better. At least Ally and Sam were three months into their journey when they lost their stuff; it took me only three days to get ripped off.
Of course, afterward, I was quite vigilant, in the same way that people observe the speed limit religiously for at least a few hours after being ticketed for speeding. I became an owl, swiveling my head nearly 360 degrees with every step, my eyes peeled for any hint of suspicious activity. To foil would-be robbers, I began to think like a robber. I noticed people whose fat wallets bulged in their back pockets. I thought, hey, I could be a thief if I wanted to. It might even be karmically justifiable. I mean, come on, Bogota got my camera – now it's my turn.
This lasted for a few minutes, followed by a philosophical shift: No, Bogota owed me nothing. It had already given me a lot. And now, it had taken my camera. Fine. We're even, Bogota.
* * *
On Tuesday night, six travelers sat sipping tea in the kitchen of the Anandamayi Hostel. Warmed by the fragrant wood-fired stove, we shared stories of our experiences on the road. Everybody else was younger than me, and everybody else was in the middle of a much longer journey than mine, ranging from five to 12 months in contrast to my six days. One thing we all had in common: We had all been robbed at some point during our travels, often in ways that seemed to defy the laws of physics. (I felt stupid for not having noticed a hand in my jacket pocket, until someone told of valuable items disappearing from the deepest recesses of a backpack while she was wearing it.)
These things happen. They're not fun. But – and this is the important thing – they're not deal-breakers. Not one of the tea drinkers at the hostel had any inclination to cut their journeys short. As a group, they had dealt with deadly spiders, vicious monkeys, poisonous snakes and crocodile-infested waters. They had battled every type of gastric distress known to man or woman. They had hosted human botfly larvae. They had shivered in cold hostels and sweated in hot tents. And still, they pressed on. Still they sat on sweltering buses for 30 hours. Still they scaled scaled one language barrier after another. Still they argued with crooked cabbies. Still they traveled to places their home countries warned them not to go.
With a limited number of international travel miles under my belt, I do not kid myself that I am one of them. But for the first time in my life, I would consider following in their footsteps.
* * *
So, what happens when your camera is stolen on the streets of Bogota? You become more careful. You mourn for the pictures you lost. Then you go get some coffee and you continue to marvel at the strange, beautiful, ugly, safe, dangerous, boring, exciting, unbelievably rich world we live in.
Love and yerba mate,
Bob
4.13.2009
The Bob Report from Bogota
(Bob here, reporting from Bogota. Muchas gracias to Ally and Sam for allowing me some space on the blog.)
Here in La Candelaria, it´s all steep hills and cobblestone streets and plaster-covered buildings from Bogota´s colonial past. Above us loom blue-green mountains, reaching almost vertically to the clouds.
The air is brisk this morning. (We´re close to the Equator, but also close to the sky.) We walk toward El Centro, Bogota´s bustling commercial section, stopping to share breakfast along the way -- a piping hot tamale of corn meal, chicken, bacon and chickpeas; sweet hot soup with cheese; a cup of hot chocolate; limonade.
On foot again, we pass through the Plaza Bolivar, crowded with booths selling religious items on this day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, families strolling, and laughing children chasing pigeons.
In El Centro, we find a little bit of everything: street vendors loudly hawking mollasses flavored marshmallows, cell phone minutes and sparkling trinkets; costumed street performers who stand like statues until someone drops a coin into their box, at which point they come to startling life; a barefoot man who walks on a mound of broken glass bottles (and then, as if this is not good enough, jumps up and down on the shards); and more police officers and soldiers than you can shake a Spanish phrasebook at.
* * *
What I know so far about Bogota is this:
I like its thin air. I like its friendly people. No hay muchas turistas -- I like that.
I like the street sounds. I like that I have not had a bite of food I did not love in the three days I´ve been here.
I like the way the mist swirls around the mountain tops. I like the brand names I´ve never seen before. I like the hostel I´m staying in with Ally and Sam, and the people who come and go here.
I like drinking tea and listening to the rain. I like our room in this 400-year-old building, which has not one but two courtyards filled with flowering plants. I like the way the cops and soldiers, all boys and girls in their early 20s, will smile at you.
There are a lot of things about Bogota I do not know. I know I have seen only the tip of the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. But so far, I like what I see.
* * *
And now, just a few words about Sam and Ally. They´re great, healthy, full of smiles and still infectiously happy about their ongoing journey. They´re ideal sightseeing companions and excellent co-chefs -- and they´re a big part of what I love so much about Bogota!
Best wishes to all the cool readers of this blog, and thanks, again, to Ally and Sam for sharing their bandwidth.
Love,
Bob
Here in La Candelaria, it´s all steep hills and cobblestone streets and plaster-covered buildings from Bogota´s colonial past. Above us loom blue-green mountains, reaching almost vertically to the clouds.
The air is brisk this morning. (We´re close to the Equator, but also close to the sky.) We walk toward El Centro, Bogota´s bustling commercial section, stopping to share breakfast along the way -- a piping hot tamale of corn meal, chicken, bacon and chickpeas; sweet hot soup with cheese; a cup of hot chocolate; limonade.
On foot again, we pass through the Plaza Bolivar, crowded with booths selling religious items on this day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, families strolling, and laughing children chasing pigeons.
In El Centro, we find a little bit of everything: street vendors loudly hawking mollasses flavored marshmallows, cell phone minutes and sparkling trinkets; costumed street performers who stand like statues until someone drops a coin into their box, at which point they come to startling life; a barefoot man who walks on a mound of broken glass bottles (and then, as if this is not good enough, jumps up and down on the shards); and more police officers and soldiers than you can shake a Spanish phrasebook at.
* * *
What I know so far about Bogota is this:
I like its thin air. I like its friendly people. No hay muchas turistas -- I like that.
I like the street sounds. I like that I have not had a bite of food I did not love in the three days I´ve been here.
I like the way the mist swirls around the mountain tops. I like the brand names I´ve never seen before. I like the hostel I´m staying in with Ally and Sam, and the people who come and go here.
I like drinking tea and listening to the rain. I like our room in this 400-year-old building, which has not one but two courtyards filled with flowering plants. I like the way the cops and soldiers, all boys and girls in their early 20s, will smile at you.
There are a lot of things about Bogota I do not know. I know I have seen only the tip of the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. But so far, I like what I see.
* * *
And now, just a few words about Sam and Ally. They´re great, healthy, full of smiles and still infectiously happy about their ongoing journey. They´re ideal sightseeing companions and excellent co-chefs -- and they´re a big part of what I love so much about Bogota!
Best wishes to all the cool readers of this blog, and thanks, again, to Ally and Sam for sharing their bandwidth.
Love,
Bob
4.06.2009
Losing Things (my mind?)
So here we are. In Buenos Aires. Again. Hmm... how did we get here? Trust me, I'll get to it.
But first, let's talk about travel. Inevitably, somewhere on the road, you will lose something. Maybe it will amount to nothing, like the 3 toothbrushes I've forgotten in various places in 3 different countries, or perhaps it's worth a little more, like the $30 quick-dry towel (i highly recommend these!) that we left on a bus in Puerto Iguazu. Watching Ally chase after the bus while I watched the stuff was heart-wrenching, and the steadily graying towel we borrowed from a hotel is not much of a replacement.
The point is, it WILL happen. The sheer amount of stuff you bring with you actually stirs the most basic stuff of the universe and creates a new Murphy's Law: As soon as you need something, you will find out you've left it in the last city you were in. So far, the total has been relatively low (knock on EVERY piece of wood I can find). We still have the essentials, although I'm down half a pair of pants (don't ask), we have both lost or broken sunglasses, we no longer have our bag o' soap and shampoo, and I'm pretty sure having ants eat half our tent counts as losing it.
It occurs to me though that this steady loss must be dealt with in a constructive manner, in large part because it occurs mentally as well. We've lost our innocence and our bright-eyed outlook on the world of travel; sometimes, the road can be too long. Sometimes, you just want to be in a comfortable place, in a familiar bed, with familiar food. And sometimes you don't realize how much that all means to you until you've been traveling for awhile. Perhaps this is a passing phase of the trip, but it leaves us both with less energy and almost constantly slightly enervated at the thought of visiting so many more cities. The novelty we felt at every moment of the trip has definitely left us to visit with other, fresher travelers, which simply means we yearn to stay for a long time in just one place, preferrably Buenos Aires.
But we've also lost things that have a direct positive effect on us: we've certainly lost unhealthy weight, and our new svelte selves have more energy and more control over our appetites. We've also parted with a large part of our culutural assumptions, making room for the infinite possibilities we have encountered in each new place we visit. Finally, we've lost many aversions: to bugs, long bus rides, blood sausage (sam only), speaking in languages we don't fully understand. In all, we can look back on our trip, even at this point, and say that our losses have been great gains in many ways.
And most recently, we've lost our passports, credit cards, cash, driver's licenses, and so forth. Yes, we've been robbed. Don't worry, no one was hurt, it was totally non-confrontational and we only found out about it after the fact. Thus, we trucked it back from Mendoza to Buenos Aires to get replacement passports at the embassy (took all of 1.5 hours, kudos, State Dept!) and have a bus back to Santiago tomorrow for our flight to Colombia. Ally promises me that she'll be going into more detail about the situation, but suffice it to say, we haven't lost our love for the Argentinian people.
And we feel like through this blog, we have not lost touch with any of you.
Love you all,
Sam
But first, let's talk about travel. Inevitably, somewhere on the road, you will lose something. Maybe it will amount to nothing, like the 3 toothbrushes I've forgotten in various places in 3 different countries, or perhaps it's worth a little more, like the $30 quick-dry towel (i highly recommend these!) that we left on a bus in Puerto Iguazu. Watching Ally chase after the bus while I watched the stuff was heart-wrenching, and the steadily graying towel we borrowed from a hotel is not much of a replacement.
The point is, it WILL happen. The sheer amount of stuff you bring with you actually stirs the most basic stuff of the universe and creates a new Murphy's Law: As soon as you need something, you will find out you've left it in the last city you were in. So far, the total has been relatively low (knock on EVERY piece of wood I can find). We still have the essentials, although I'm down half a pair of pants (don't ask), we have both lost or broken sunglasses, we no longer have our bag o' soap and shampoo, and I'm pretty sure having ants eat half our tent counts as losing it.
It occurs to me though that this steady loss must be dealt with in a constructive manner, in large part because it occurs mentally as well. We've lost our innocence and our bright-eyed outlook on the world of travel; sometimes, the road can be too long. Sometimes, you just want to be in a comfortable place, in a familiar bed, with familiar food. And sometimes you don't realize how much that all means to you until you've been traveling for awhile. Perhaps this is a passing phase of the trip, but it leaves us both with less energy and almost constantly slightly enervated at the thought of visiting so many more cities. The novelty we felt at every moment of the trip has definitely left us to visit with other, fresher travelers, which simply means we yearn to stay for a long time in just one place, preferrably Buenos Aires.
But we've also lost things that have a direct positive effect on us: we've certainly lost unhealthy weight, and our new svelte selves have more energy and more control over our appetites. We've also parted with a large part of our culutural assumptions, making room for the infinite possibilities we have encountered in each new place we visit. Finally, we've lost many aversions: to bugs, long bus rides, blood sausage (sam only), speaking in languages we don't fully understand. In all, we can look back on our trip, even at this point, and say that our losses have been great gains in many ways.
And most recently, we've lost our passports, credit cards, cash, driver's licenses, and so forth. Yes, we've been robbed. Don't worry, no one was hurt, it was totally non-confrontational and we only found out about it after the fact. Thus, we trucked it back from Mendoza to Buenos Aires to get replacement passports at the embassy (took all of 1.5 hours, kudos, State Dept!) and have a bus back to Santiago tomorrow for our flight to Colombia. Ally promises me that she'll be going into more detail about the situation, but suffice it to say, we haven't lost our love for the Argentinian people.
And we feel like through this blog, we have not lost touch with any of you.
Love you all,
Sam
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