Pura Vida

Whereas the earlier parts of my trip have focused more on cities and ruins, my time in Central America, particularly Costa Rica, has been mostly about nature. Costa Rica has an amazing level of biodiversity, and since there's not much else to do besides check it out, I have been "forced" to slather on the ol' mosquito repellent and, like, go outside or whatever.

And it has not been a let-down at all. Costa Rica is a highly developed country, in comparison to other places in Central America, and tourism--particuarly nature tourism, and the often-misused term describing its cousin, "ecotourism"--is priority number one for these people. Obviously they can't guarantee that you will go into a forest and see a ton of animals, or that if you go to hike up a volcano it won't be pouring rain on top of you, but the sights here are so amazing they barely need to worry about that.

My Belgian friend Joris, who was my roommate my first year at Stanford, is here with me and persuaded me that it was a good idea to rent a car (he is a management consultant and he's paid to make things more efficient, which I guess goes for this part of the trip as well). Despite my initial misgivings (would Che Guevara ever use Avis?), I went along with it, and I'm glad I did. We have been able to cover a lot more ground, and go at our own pace. And Costa Rica is a safe and easy place to drive, so it's no big deal.

For me, a major highlight of the trip was the area around Monteverde, in the northwestern part of the country. Monteverde was initially a settlement of Mennonites from North America who went to Costa Rica because they were against the war in Korea and didn't want to fight. Costa Rica, by the way, is a very consciously anti-war country. It doesn't have an army, and people can't carry guns. The President (Oscar Arias) is a Nobel Peace Prize winner for brokering peace within El Salvador (I think). Very cool. Monteverde has the double distinction of being at the forefront both of Costa Rican pacifism and environmental protection.

The town of Monteverde is right next to a big nature reserve and "cloud forest." We first did what's called a "canopy tour," where you harness up and then fly over the forest on a zipline. It was awesome, a total adrenaline rush. At several points we were 90 m above the forest, and the lines were up to 700 m long. The best part was the end of it, where you do what they called a "Tarzan Swing," grabbing onto a rope (with a harness on and stuff) and then jumping off a 20-foot cliff. I was sure I was going to die. The picture here is of Joris; the picture of me doing it is on his camera.

We took a night hike there as well, but there weren't that many animals because it was "too windy." The poor guide was a little frustrated, and spent too long showing us moths, sleeping birds and tarantulas cowering in their holes. It was kind of disappointing, but we totally made up for it the next day. We went to the reserve for a 2-hour guided hike, which turned out to be one of the highlights of my entire trip so far. Our guide, a guy named Carlos, was very knowledgeable about the area, and his enthusiasm about nature was infectious, particularly on that day. This was apparently a red-letter day for the Monteverde Reserve, because we saw so many animals that Carlos was practically jumping up and down with his bird-watching telescope device. We saw three (!) quetzals (pictured here, taken with my camera), which are endangered species--amazing green and red birds native to Central America. We also saw bellbirds, which are also endangered. We saw a family of howler monkeys running through the trees RIGHT above us. We saw tarantulas, millipedes, larvae of different things, walking sticks, an agouti (a type of rodent), several turkeys (not like the kind we eat at Thanksgiving, but they were still big) and a ton of different kinds of butterflies. Apparently it's super hard to see quetzals, so we were really lucky.

Our guide in Monteverde, as well as the other guides and hotel administrators that we have had contact with along the way, have been highly professional and incredibly knowledgeable people. Aside from knowing English impressively well and being able to articulately explain the intricacies of the ecosystems of Costa Rica, they have been unfailingly friendly and nice. Most have gone out of their way to make our trip a pleasant experience. They make travelling in this country almost disconcertingly easy (I need to remember that I can't get used to that!). Costa Rica is a great place to go for people who don't necessarily know Spanish but want to go to an interesting, far off destination. It's safe, accessible and easy to travel here (I think I have seen more gringos than Costa Ricans, actually...that might have annoyed me if I hadn't just come from Colombia). It's refreshing for me to see my compatriots enjoying Latin America en masse. Costa Ricans like to say "pura vida" ("pure life") all the time--they use that to say "cool," or "ok," or "no problem." It really works.

From Monteverde we drove to La Fortuna, which is a town at the foot of Arenal, one of the world's five most active volcanoes. It spews lava all the time, and it's really spectacular at night. Apparently Arenal supplies 45% of Costa Rica's energy. We also spent some time at some hot springs nearby. I had been to hot springs in Chile, but this is Costa Rica, where tourist attractions are more like destinations. So these hot springs had a restaurant, swim-up bars, massage areas, 9 pools with different temperatures, and saunas.

Oh, and on the way from Monteverde to Arenal we went to Viento Fresco, with four waterfalls. And we swam under one of them. It was great.

Now we are back in San José, because we are flying to Guatemala tomorrow morning. San José is impressive for how unimpessive it is. There are very few buildings higher than 3 or 4 stories, at least in the center--I'm assuming due to earthquakes. But it's a very agreeable town (it totally feels like a town, like Temuco or something), and doesn't have the unpleasantness of the "zona rosa" with gringo bars jumbled up next to slums. There are plenty of nice, unpretentious places where ticos (that's what Costa Ricans call themselves, probably because it's annoying to say "yo soy costarricense") and gringos mingle and where it's sometimes even hard to distinguish between the two. Which is a nice change. I hear Guatemala's a little different though.

A Man, a Plan, a Canal...

Couldn't get that palindrome out of my head today. It's kind of catchy though, in my case...

After almost two weeks in Colombia, it's almost as if I am experiencing reverse culture shock in Panama. In its non-third world sections, it's practically like the 51st state. They sell Spicy Nacho Doritos at the grocery stores (haven't found Ranch yet, but I'm not giving up hope), our hostel serves pancake breakfasts, and taxis quote you their prices in English. Oh, and in dollars, since Panama uses the US Dollar as its currency. The hostel is clearly not used to dealing with Americans that are a little less clueless about how to move around in Latin American cities, and I was surprised with their genuine concern when I asked the lady at the reception desk about taking a taxi to the canal zone and not asking it to wait for us there (and sort of taking a chance as to whether we could get back via taxi...even though you can take busses as well): she said that the hostel couldn't take "responsibility" for us if we did such a thing. It almost made me laugh: since when has a hostel in Latin America even used the word "responsibility" in my presence, particularly in regard to my own well-being? Luckily I can handle the "foreign" and "unknown" aspects of Panama without needing my hand to be held throughout.

As for the canal itself, it was truly impressive. We went to the Miraflores Locks, which is the section of the canal closest to the capital. We went through the museum there, which went over the origins of the canal, the thousands of people who died during its construction (mostly of tropical diseases, which were later eliminated), the massive and innovative machines that dug out the canal, the nationalist uprising in the 60s during which Panamanians began to claim the canal for themselves (it was controlled by the US after it was built), its handover in 1999 to the Panamanian government, and furture plans to expand it. There were exhibits of the gnarly insects from the surrounding jungles as well, and the techniques used to guide vessels through the narrow canal (trains on tracks on each side of the "Panamax" ship tug it along, leaving just inches between the ship and the sides of the canal). And, the trade routes the canal serves: South America's west coast (Chile is the canal's 4th-largest user...holler) to Europe, the US's west coast to its east coast, the American east coast to Asia, and even South America's west coast to its east coast, among others. With globalization, traffic through the canal can only grow. And now that it's owned by Panama, the revenues from the vessels can go in benefit of the Panamanian people (in theory).

Panama has also offered us a ton of interesting people-watching opportunities, because its population (at least in the capital) is so diverse. From the herd of Americans who seem to live here (because most of them were talking on their cell phones), to the Chinese people who own the laundromat where I washed my clothes, to rico y famoso blond Panamanians, to people of African and mestizo descent, it seems to be quite a melting pot. And that's very interesting.

We went to a music festival this evening in the city's Casco Viejo, the colonial section. It was a lot like Cartagena's old city, but ten times more dilapidated. Restoration efforts seem to be gathering steam, though. Hopefully the inevitable gentrification can take place in such a way as to not push the poor residents of the casco out.

Panama City is a modern metropolis with a skyline that's way out of proportion to its size: with just 700,000 residents, it has a ton of highrises with representations of banks from all over North America, Europe and Latin America. Panama proudly announces itself as a "tax haven," which I think might be a bit of a euphemism (at least sometimes) for money laundering and tax shelters. The term is best in Spanish: a "tax paradise." Works for me.

Locombia se despide

Para que no se preocupen, después de leer el último posteo, que me haya integrado a las FARC, les aviso que me he ido de Colombia a Panamá, y me encuentro sano y salvo de cuerpo y mente. Pasé mucho más tiempo en Colombia de lo previsto, porque lo encontré absolutamente encantador. A diferencia de otros países en Latinoamérica, no están chatos con la cantidad de gringos desfilando por todos sus sitios turísticos. O sea que si eres un extranjero, todavía te tratan súper bien, te preguntan muchas cosas, y te hacen sentirte un poco menos extranjero. Aparte que los colombianos son tan amables y cálidos por naturaleza.

Algo de sentimientos encontrados: después de todo, me he ido definitivamente de Sudamérica.

En Colombia, me fui después de Popayán y San Agustín a Armenia, en el mero corazón del eje cafetero colombiano, donde me quedé en una finca cafetera y visité el Parque Nacional del Café. De ahí a Bogotá, donde me encontré con mi amigo Liam, que tal vez algunos conocerán porque me vino a visitar en Chile. Fuimos al museo de oro de Bogotá--ciudad que se parece bastante a Santiago, por clima, elevación, cultura y gente, con la excepción de que el TransMilenio funciona y el Transantiago está ahí no más--y al museo de Botero. Pero pasamos repoco ahí antes de seguir a Cartagena, donde sí pasamos bastante tiempo.

Evidencia del funcionamiento del TransMilenio:


Cartagena es un paraíso. En su casco antiguo, es una ciudad colonial, muy bien restaurada--un poco como La Habana. Y un poco más allá por la costa encuentras un banco de condominios rascacielos para colombianos millonarios y/o narcos. Y de ahí llegas a las casas del Presidente Uribe, de García Márquez y de Shakira. Cuando nos cansamos de recorrer las calles coloniales y los museos, nos mandamos a cambiar a Playa Blanca, una hora afuera de la ciudad en lancha, donde las aguas eran turquesas, cálidas y cristalinas y aún no hay mucho desarrollo turístico (aunque parece que esto está a punto de cambiar, pues nos dijeron que ya se va a construir un gran resort). Ahí dormimos en hamacas y cubiertos por redes para protegernos de los mosquitos (aunque igual me picaron ene), y durante los días comíamos pescado y nadábamos, e hicimos esnorkel. Me sentía como Jacques Cousteau--nunca había hecho ese tipo de buceo y quedé maravillado con este ecosistema bajo el agua que nunca se ve así como así.

Y pasamos un día en el Parque Nacional Tayrona, más hacia Santa Marta, donde todo es mucho más agreste y hay muy pocas playas donde se puede nadar, por las corrientes peligrosas. Pero igual era muy lindo. Me hubiera encantado colgar una hamaca ahí mismo y dormir al son de las olas, pero no había tiempo.

Así que ayer, después de tres chequeos de nuestro equipaje de mano, una inspección completa del equipaje despachado (tuvimos que sacar todo lo que había adentro para que se aseguraran de que no llevábamos drogas), dos chequeos de detectores de metales, y el pago de algunos impuestos (y la devolución de otros--no me pregunten por qué), volamos desde Cartagena a Ciudad de Panama, en un avión de turbohélice.

Guest Post II de la web MSGG

[This is from one of my old coworkers back at the Presi's Palace in Stgo...]

Informe N° 002, del Ministerio de Seguridad del Estado de la Página Web, Departamento del Código HTML, Unidad Copy Paste.

Antecedentes: Estado de avance y falta de satélite para la búsqueda del ciudadano norteameraucano*: Carl [redacted]

Nombre de Pila en Chile: "Cafiche(r)", "Gringo".

Siendo junio 15 del año en curso, con un frío de los mil demonios posterior a un frente de mal tiempo, se informa lo siguiente:

1º Que luego de pasar meses con déficit de lluvias, lo que en realidad preocupaba a las autoridades en relación a una nueva crisis energética, se comunica que el país cuenta con un superávit del 2% de lluvias......... 15 damnificados, dos pasos bajo nivel anegados, y 6 tapas de alcantarilla extraviadas, las que se presumen se encuentran en el fondo marino frente a las costas de Valparaíso.

2º Que aunque no existan nuevas lluvias en lo que resta del año, y se tema por una crisis energética, la Institución se encuentra en absoluta tranquilidad debido a que los últimos estudios indican:

Que las reservas de vino tinto, ron, pisco y cerveza alcanzan sin inconvenientes hasta el Bicentenario de la República. Posterior a este magno evento se declarará al país bajo "alerta máxima" y "estado de sitio".

3º Que debido a un error involuntario (extravío de la Resolución Nº 35376711, que reglamenta la compra de huincha aisladora), se informa que no se sellaron lo cables del satélite chileno Fasat Alfa encargado de buscar al ciudadano norteameraucano Carl Fischer y de coordinar el sistema GPS del Plan de Transporte "Transantiago". Este hecho provocó la caída del satélite sobre un bus troncal, lo que ha generado retrasos de hasta dos horas..... en los 5 últimos meses.

Finalmente, la institución informa que se encuentra en buen estado sorteando con hidalguía las diferentes tareas, a pesar de las inclemencias del tiempo, y la nula contratación (hasta la fecha) de un traductor norteameraucano(*) a la altura de Fischer.

Esperamos que el Sr. Fischer se encuentre en buen estado, tanto físico, como sicológico y a la vez etílico.

Se adjunta la última foto satelital enviada desde el fax de Fasat Alfa.



(*) Norteameraucano: Gringo nacido en USA, que se vino a Chile y habla Mapuche.

PD: Con fecha 19 de junio, se procederá a la construcción de un nuevo satélite con el fin de seguir la búsqueda del mencionado ciudadano.

Se aceptan sus donaciones en el teléfono 56 2 600 200 SATELITE o en la página web: www.unsateliteparachile.cl

Tropical Paradise

If you've been following this blog regularly, you know by now that I am loving Colombia. I wasn't planning on staying this long, and I should be close to Panama City by now on a sailboat, but instead I've decided to just fly to Panama tomorrow (making this my last full day in Colombia, which is mega sad) to take full advantage of this place. My friend Liam is here, which I might have mentioned before, and we decided that exploring more of "Locombia" would be a lot cooler than just sitting on a boat looking out at the water.

We spent a lot of time in Cartagena de Indias, which is right on the Caribbean. It's been spared most of the problems that have plagued this country over the years, since it's kind of on the margins of the country and away from the biggest cocaine plants (from what I understand). Cartagena is very "Pirates of the Caribbean." It's the city that pretty much every pirate movie takes place in. You take a lot of interesting colonial architecture, balconies with a ton of vines, a little cracked paint, and women of African descent walking around with big trays of mangos and passion fruits balanced on their heads, and you're ready for Red Beard to jump out from behind the next building any second. Meanwhile, there are a ton of 6-foot-tall Colombian supermodels everywhere, on vacation I guess, and lots of opportunities to drink ice cold beers while sitting in hammocks. In short: paradise. Plus it's totally safe--much safer than other parts of the country. If you ever have the opportunity to come to Cartagena, you should.

We also took a side trip to Totumo Volcano, which is more like a 10-foot-tall pile of warm mud that bubbles up from the ground. Supposedly it has healing properties. Liam actually dunked his head under the surface of the mud to see just how curative it was. For a second there I wasn't sure if I'd ever see him again, but we survived. So did my watch, by the way. Takes a lickin'...

From Cartagena we took a boat about 1 hour east to Boru, which is the first of an archipelago called the Rosario Islands. We stayed at a place called Playa Blanca, which was just the textbook white sand beach with warm, crystalline turquoise waters. Nothing like eating a salad of fruits like maracuyá, mango, guanabana, pineapple while overlooking the ocean (my stomach didn't even flinch...I am invincible to South American bacteria). We also took a snorkeling tour through the coral reefs of the Rosario Islands, and I wish I could have taken pictures of what I saw under the water. I had never gone snorkeling before, so it was like a revelation to me. I felt like Jacques Cousteau...or at least like Steve Zissou. There were fish that literally glowed in purples, oranges and blues that were really striking.

Last night we went further up the Caribbean coast to the city of Santa Marta, and today we went to Tayrona National Park, a huge protected area with wild beaches and some untouched jungle a bit further inland. We hiked through the park, past leaf-carrying ants, Audrey II-like flowers and tarantulas (Liam said they were crabs, but they looked like tarantulas to me), to a gorgeous beach. If we'd had an extra day on our hands we could have hung up hammocks nearby and fallen asleep to the crashing waves, but unfortunately we had to return to Santa Marta (a trip that included an interesting, and as-yet unexplained, encounter with the cops, who stopped our bus and used a knife to cut a hole in the upholstery of the roof of the bus...luckily they didn't seem to find anything) so that we could get back to Cartagena tomorrow morning and fly to Panama tomorrow afternoon. Where we will meet up with my Stanford friend Joris, who will be flying in from Brussels tomorrow evening.

The Last Andean City-in-a-Bowl

I have to say that Bogotá was a lot like Santiago, and thus, a decidedly lackluster tourist destination. Sorry. I'm sure it would be a great place to live, as was Santiago. But in terms of sights and general spectacularness, not so much. Of course, it had some tough acts to follow (see below), so maybe I was a bit biased. But the best part of Colombia is the Colombians. And in cities, Colombians become guarded and a bit rude. And they jack up the prices on the places they go and eat.

It did have several cool attractions though, including the madness that was the restuarant Andrés Carne de Res, and the Gold Museum, with amazing artifacts on display. Pictures to come.

And even though I didn't go to Medellín, I did go to the Museum of Fernando Botero's paintings. I will post some up soon.

I am now in Cartagena, and I will write more soon, but right now the stifling heat is killing my ability to do anything other than sit in a hammock and drink beer.

So, chau. I have a Club Colombia calling my name.

Coffee and Sugar

Let me leave all self-righteousness aside for a sec and just talk about how much admiration I have for the Colombian people. Colombia is a beautiful, dynamic country, with amazingly nice people and lots of possibilities. Its only problem is that like 30-40% of its territory is a no-man's land where guerrilla fighters and paramilitary groups battle over cocaine profits. That's, like, the only problem. And this ugliness doesn't really make it to the other 70% of the country.

The other thing is that the leaders of the different factions of Colombia's civil war all totally know each other and deal with each other on an everyday basis. They make deals, they dialogue. It's not like they're surprising each other with dastardly surprise terrorist attacks at every turn. Not at all.

In general, this is a gorgeous country, and I urge everyone (don't laugh) to give it a chance. It's gorgeous. I've had an awesome time so far, and not one single problem. I've visited San Agustín, one of the most important archaeological sites in the Americas (pictured left), which was amazing. For example.

Now I am in the coffee zone, outside of Armenia, where I am staying at a traditional finca, or coffee plantation. It's so great. They wait on me hand and foot (they'd better, it's mega-expensive) and are so nice. The owner of the finca took me around teh town of Armenia today. I also visited the Coffee Amusement Park today, which included coffee roller coasters and a field of different kinds of coffee. I also learned about the process of picking, peeling, drying, toasting, packing and exporting coffee. Fun AND educational. Which describes the entire country of Colombia, in a nutshell.

Raw Materials, Part II

So, here's the thing: my eyes continue to be opened here by how we consume things in North America and Europe with absolutely NO REGARD for the source or origin of those items. I wrote about this before, and I will repeat it again: if we really thought about what it took for our gold, our food, our coffee and our gas to get to our fingers, mouths and cars (respectively), we might reconsider our choices.

I make this statement from the perspective of Colombia, specifically the Department of Quindío, in the heart of this country's coffee-growing region. You know: "Made from the best stuff on earth"? Yeah, that. Well, guess what else comes from Colombia? Cocaine. And I was infuriated by an article I read in this past Sunday's New York Times, which practically glorified the use of cocaine, talking about how it was totally the cool new drug. The article was in the Styles section, even.

Now, I will acknowledge the fact that some people are addicts and have practically no control over their drug use. Addiction is a disease, etc., and that's a different thing. But most of the people quoted in that article seem to be occasional users. And they don't even seem like terrible people. So, I think that they might reconsider using cocaine a bit if they knew about the chain of violence, corruption, pain and death that it takes for that cocaine to get from Colombian fields to their prissy hipster Williamsburg noses. With every line, they are treating Latin America like their own personal backyard cocaine crop.

Why do you think there is so much cocaine in Colombia? It's not because the Colombians are bad people or whatever; it's because there is a huge demand for it, in our country. A demand that is growing fast, if you believe the Times. And the path it takes to the US is ridden with absolute terror.

Latin America has been referred to a number of times as the "back yard" of the United States, often in a very paternalistic manner. But I was thinking the other day that the term "backy ard" has another meaning, too. You know how in everyone's back yard there is always one area that's a little unsightly, a part where the tools and the clutter all pile up? Things that you need, but you don't know where to put? Or maybe the ugly piping for your pool or your air conditioner that you can't hide anywhere else?

Well, Latin America is a little like that for the US, unfortunately. Latin America is the place where we pile up our necessities, our clutter, our piping, the parts we can't put in any other place. That sucks as it is. And really, we are perpetuating that when we use products that are produced in an unjust fashion. Like cocaine. Sweatshop clothes would be the logical extension of this argument, but I'm not going to get into that onr. Gold is another one: many gold mines are manned by workers who are fully exploited. And, of course, coffee.

Don't get me wrong: gold items, coffee products and clothes are obviously not all bad, and many are made, refined and manufactured in a just way. And as for cocaine, who am I to condemn the vices of others? But I will say that we should think carefully and get informed about the origins of the products we consume, because we might think twice about our choices that way.

It's very easy to gloss over this when you're at Target (or wherever) and something is gleaming before you, begging to be bought. But remember that what you're buying didn't come from the Target factory: its origins likely lay in the raw materials that are extracted from Latin America and other poorer regions in the southern hemisphere, at a very low cost by a multinational company, which then sells it to you at a huge mark-up. So tell that to the devil on your shoulder telling you to buy more crap that you don't really need.

Felicidades

Colombia es el país más lindo que he visitado hasta ahora, pero también es el más desafiante. Desde el momento en el que llegué me he enfrentado con situaciones que alternan entre encuentros bonitos con gente muy amable y situaciones un poco complicadas, por decir lo menos.

Al cruzar el río que separa Tulcán, Ecuador con Ipiales, Colombia, me paró un oficial de la policía. Tuvimos una conversación muy interesante, porque aunque en la superficie parecía que me preguntaba de mis planes en el país y que me recomendaba lugares que visitar, el tipo logró preguntarme entremedio qué llevaba en mi mochila, si llevaba mucho dinero, cuánto, y de dónde había venido. No estaba seguro si quería una coima o qué, pero le seguí el rumbo de la conversación, muy tranquilo (pues no tenía nada que esconder tampoco). Pero al final, me dio la bienvenida a su país, y una hoja con su número de teléfono por si me pasaba algo y un mapa donde había dibujado una ruta con los lugares turísticos infaltables del país. Respiré, y seguí mi camino.

Me han contado de un fenómeno acá llamado "la pesca milagrosa," donde los FARC o los paramilitares paran buses que viajan dentro del país, y todos lso pasajeros se tienen que identificar y darles la plata que tengan. Y pobre de ti si piensan que pueden sacar más plata si te "pescan" a ti, o sea, si te secuestran. Así que ojalá no me "pesquen milagrosamente." Igual parece que ya no pasa tanto como antes.

De Ipiales fui en bus a la ciudad de Popayán, y a partir de ahí empecé a sentir el calor de la gente. Me quedé esa noche en una "casa turística," un hostal pero en un barrio residencial donde viven los dueños del hostal también. Fue súper lindo cómo me trataron. A veces hasta me siento como una celebridad menor, porque la gente parece tan contenta de que haya llegado un gringo ahí de paseo. Supongo que no somos muchos los que llegamos. En el terminal de buses de la ciudad, pregunté a un policía dónde estaba la custodia de equipaje, y no sólo me llevó a la custodia, sino que me habló de su vida, me preguntó de la mía, me dio la mano tres veces durante la conversación, me dio el nombre de un policía en el centro de la ciudad que podría darme un tour especial (tour que no tomé al final, pues no encontré a dicho oficial), y concluyó diciéndome "felicidades," como si hubiera ganado un premio al llegar a la custodia de equipaje.

O sea: los Colombianos se pasaron de amables. Se desean felicidad entre sí a cada rato, me imagino, porque hay mucha tristeza en el país, o por lo menos lo ha habido.

El centro colonial de Popayán, a todo esto, está muy lindo. Mucha iglesia, mucho puente antiguo. Mucha gente me miraba mientras caminaba, así que les decía "buenas tardes," y siempre se ponían a hablar conmigo. Comí una "bandeja" de pollo asado que venía con papas bañadas en una crema de coco, y arroz y plátano frito y ensalada...estuvo riquísimo. La comida colombiana es increíble. Ah, y acompañada por una cerveza Poker. Mmmmmm.

De ahí tomé un bus a San Agustín, y juro que era amigo de todo el bus cuando llegamos al cruce de San José, donde el bus me dejó. De hecho sé que me tenían cariño porque insistían que el chofer del bus esperara a que llegara un bus a San Agustín mismo. Pero no llegaba y al final me dejó ahí igual. De repente, otra situación complicada. Eran como las 9 de la noche, y estaba en una zona donde recién había guerrilla, aunque "ya no" (la frase favorita de los colombianos, la escucho a cada rato). Ahí estaba, solo, al lado de la carretera. Tuve que hacer dedo. Y no llegaba NADIE, esperé como una hora. No había teléfono ni nada, ni nadie. Era un poco desesperante. Al final un tipo me llevó, y resultó ser guía turístico y me llevó a la puerta de mi hostal. Estaba agradecido del alma cuando vi luces por fin en la carretera. Ya había pasado ene películas, de que iba a tener que dormir ahí, que me iban a encontrar los FARC en la noche, que me iban a secuestrar y mis viejos iban a tener que hipotecar su casa para liberarme...

Resultó que el tipo que me llevó era amigo del dueño de mi hostal. Eso sí, tuvimos que llegar a la ciudad por una ruta un poco circuita porque había venido de donde las putas (o "chicas de tiempo," como lo decía él...estamos en tierra de García Márquez, después de todo) y no quería que su señora lo viera entrar al pueblo. "Pueblo chico, infierno grande," me dijo. Tienen ese dicho en Colombia también, parece. ¿Ya ven lo fácil que es entrar en confianza con los colombianos?

Hoy he recorrido el Parque Arqueológico San Agustín, uno de los sitios aqueológicos más importantes de América. El tour que me hizo mi nuevo amigo Humberto (no el que llevó anoche, sino otro tipo, un guía esperando fuera de la entrada al parque) incluyó reiki, ya que se supone que sale mucha energía de las ruinas y las tumbas de San Agustín. Aprendí que mi aura es de 4 m de radio. Y ¿la suya?

Ya pondré fotos, se lo prometo.

Muchos saludos a tod@s.

Quito is Bonito

Today is unfortunately my last full day in Ecuador, and I couldn't be more sad about it. Ecuador is the first country on my trip where I felt like there was so much more I could have done, and it will be great to come back here someday (hopefully soon) and explore the place a bit more in depth. I would also recommend it to my gringo friends, particularly the ones who don't speak Spanish, because it's a very accessible place, very safe, the people are incredibly cordial and it has a well-developed tourism infrastructure. Plus, in terms of sights, it's a very small country that packs awesome beaches, the Amazon jungle and the Andes mountains all in one place. Oh, and the Galapagos Islands as well (!).

From Guayaquil, I took a bus to the town of Cuenca, which is basically Ecuador's third city, in terms of both size and importance. Cuenca is kind of like an Ecuadorian Salamanca: it's a university town with very evident Spanish influence (as opposed to Guayaquil, which was a bit more cosmopolitan). It has about 75 different colonial churches, ranging importance from the cathedral (shown above) to small chapels in the surrounding countryside.

The highlight of my time in Cuenca was a trip to a Panama hat maker, where I bought a Panama hat. What's that, you say? Panama hats...in Ecuador? Well yes, mi amigo, Ecuador is the world's main producer of Panama hats. Carlos says that he's not even sure if they make them in Panama. The guy who I bought mine from (pictured in the first photo) was awesome. He was mute (probably a case of too many cigarettes) and so we communicated by gesturing. He was quite an artisan: the hats are all made by hand, out of this one specific variety of straw, and then steam-ironed so that they are about as thick as paper. The best-quality ones are so tightly woven that you can roll them up tight enough to fit through a man's ring, and then unroll them and they will go right back to their original shape. Mine's currently rolled up in a box, so we shall see how good quality it is when it needs to pop back.

I also took an excursion outside of Cuenca to the most important site of Inca ruins in Ecuador, known as Ingapirca. Cuenca was an important stop-over place for the Incas, as it is close to both the jungle and the sea, and well-located between Cuzco (which, as we ALL know, was the capital of the Inca empire) and Quito, which is about as north as the Incas got before the Spaniards arrived.


After a nightmarish (literally) overnight bus to Quito, I got right into things here, where I have been since yesterday morning. Yesterday I didn't do too much, since I was so tired: just 2 big excursions a bit outside the city. One, as you can see, was to the actual line of the Equator, which is just north of Quito. So I'm not QUITE in my home hemisphere yet (I was for one brief moment there), but I will be starting tomorrow. Which is a big milestone: Go north, young man.

Yesterday's other big excursion was to the Osvaldo Guayasamín Museum. Guayasamín was Ecuador's most important artist, and his paintings reflect the struggles and themes of the Latin American continent (mostly from a fairly leftist perspective, although some of the values reflected in his paintings were quite traditional, such as the idea of the family as the center of society). Some of the themes include: mestizaje, the class struggle, dictatorships, the dignity of the poor, and civil wars. He built what he called "The Chapel of Man," which houses most of his paintings today. The painting I posted here is actually a giant mural, and it depicts a condor, which represents the cultures of the Andes, dominating a bull, which represents Spain.

As this is my last day in Ecuador, and I realized that Quito had way more to offer than I initially realized, I had to fit a lot of things in. So I started my day early at the Presidential Palace (pictured here), known as Carondelet. You can't go inside but I realized that that was probably ok, as I have had about enough of presidential palaces to last a lifetime. I then explored other areas of Quito's colonial quarter, including the Jesuit church (plated with 7 tons of gold--I would have posted a pic but you aren't allowed to take pictures inside--you can probably google "iglesia de la compañía quito" and see better ones than I could ever take), the Dominican church, and the Panecillo, which is a hill where a winged Virgin Mary presides over the city.

I also managed to hit the Mariscal, a neighborhood known as "gringolandia" because of how Americanized it is, and go up to the top of a mountain next to the city via cable car, where you go from 2800 m to 4100 m above sea level in about 15 minutes. I even had time left over to buy some books and see the movie "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and...Spring," which was awesome by the way. It came out in the US like 3 years ago (came out in Chile like a year ago, I don't know why they're so behind here) so you can rent it.

And that's all for now. Tomorrow I am off to Colombia. The first stop for the night will be the colonial town of Popayán. Will I make it? Stay tuned!

A Cordial Welcome to Ecuador

Last Friday, as planned, I took a bus across the border into Ecuador and arrived in the city of Guayaquil in the evening. Ecuador is a curious place: it's incredibly poor in the countryside--like, Bolivia poor--but its cities are completely prosperous, orderly places.

My friend Carlos picked me up at the bus station, and from that moment I passed an entire weekend where I didn't have to be constantly on guard about my stuff, and where I didn't have to worry about where I was going and how to get there. Because Carlos took care of everything. We had a great time. I had time to just relax and watch TV (including TV Chile, channel 51 in Ecuador!), and he took me out and I met a lot of his friends. I learned some interesting tropical Guayaquileño slang (like, for example, they use the word "man" to refer to women, men or things, as in "Vamos a llamar a esas mans para que salgan con nosotros"), and saw a lot of Guayaquil. We walked around the city's recently-rebuilt Malecón and walked up the hill of the charming colonial neighborhood of Las Peñas. I let myself be pampered by the family's maid Luz, who makes amazing fresh blackberry juice. We partied until practically the break of dawn at a disco with the beautiful people of Guayaquil on Saturday night.

On Sunday we drove out to his parents' beach apartment in the town of Salinas, but not before a driving trip along the Pacific coast of the province of Guayas. We stopped and had lunch in the town of Montañita, where hippie Argentines sit on the sidewalk drinking their mate and braiding things into each others' dreadlocks. I had Ecuadorian ceviche, which is more soupy than the Peruvian variety (and, sorry, but not as good). We spent the night at the apartment and I slept like a baby for 10 hours, with the sound of waves breaking in the back of my subconscious.

Now I am in Cuenca, Ecuador, which is actually kind of cold in comparison to hot, tropical Guayaquil, as it is up in the Andes a little bit. All is well.

Thank you to Carlos and his family for allowing me to make myself at home for a couple of days.

Guest Post del Web MSGG

Esto viene de mis ex compañeros laborales, de la página web del gobierno en Stgo, específicamente mi socio, el destacado diseñador gráfico Ale Ramírez.

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Informe N° 001, del Ministerio de Seguridad del Estado de la Página Web
Antecedentes: Busca del ciudadano norteameraucano : Carl [redacted]
Nombre de Pila en Chile: "Cafiche(r)", "Gringo"

Según los últimos antedecentes recopilados por esta Secretaría de Estado se informa que el individuo se encuentra en un lugar indeterminado en Perú. Imágenes de satélite nos informaron que los primeros días del mes de mayo se observó un brillo en la ciudad Putre, posteriormente se confirmó que se trataba de la "pelada de Carl]". Al realizar una operación rastrillo por los países de Bolivia, Perú y últimamente en la ciudad de Arequipa, se han confirmado las sospechas de que el individuo en cuestión realizó más de alguna estadía en dichos lugares. Esto se confirmaría al escuchar a los residentes del lugar con frases nunca antes pronunciadas por ellos, en las que destacan:

1.- El pulento condoro
2.- He PERREADO
3.- Pato Yáñez pa´ tí.

La institución a su vez informa que se encuentra en buen estado a pesar de los golpes de la naturaleza, tales como: influenza de Rita, esguince de Vero, y la nula contratación (hasta el momento) de un traductor a la altura de Fischer. El resto del equipo sigue mantiéndose en pie, sorteando con hidalguía las diferentes tareas.

Esperamos que el Sr. Fischer se encuentre en buen estado, tanto físico, como sicológico y a la vez etílico.

Se adjunta foto satelital.