DF, DFondo

Un gran "órale" a mis cuates en los países hispanoparlantes. Les cuento que estoy impresionado con México, pues todo este tiempo lo tenía al lado y nunca tomé el tiempo para conocerlo. Es una lástima porque es una cultura tan, tan rica, muy latina y a la vez muy cercana a la mía. Aquí estacionar es "parquear," y arrendar es "rentar." Hay más velocidad y más comida rápida, más tallarines ramen y más de lo cosmopolita. Más gente. México realmente está en el mundo, con una cultura globalizada, con hechos que van mucho más allá del discurso globalista (pero más que nada, comercialista) de Chile. Sí hay más pobreza que en Chile, pero menos de lo que hay en la mayoría de los países que he visitado. Y está la esperanza, se siente en el ambiente, de que todo se va mejorando.

Con la excepción de Oaxaca (hay que agregarlo), donde la atmósfera era más que nada una de conflicto social. Justo el día que nos fuimos de Oaxaca, estallaron desmanes relacionados con las demandas de los profesores de mejores sueldos. O por lo menos, así comenzó la cosa; ahora abarca las demandas históricas de los pobres en una región desigual, latifundista y aún gobernada por el PRI.

Bueno, como puse en mi último posteo en inglés, DF me instó a un estado de delirio. Ya había estado viajando tanto tiempo, pasando por tantas cosas (mi abuelita se murió, me dio una infección de estafilococco, de la que recuperé), tanta logística (que adónde va este bus, que cuándo partimos para Chichén Itzá, que si el taxista me está estafando, que hay que empacar la mochila por enésima vez, que este hotelucho no sirve, que ese camino en bus será de 22 horas aunque cubre una distancia de como 200 km...), tanta cerveza...

Así es que llegué a DF con las defensas un poco en baja, cuando realmente tienes que estar en forma para enfrentarlo. Es una ciudad maravillosa: el Museo de Antropología tiene unos artefactos impresionantes, el sol azteca para empezar. DF estaba celebrando el centenario del nacimiento de Frida Kahlo con una exhibición en el Palacio de Bellas Artes y otra en la Casa Azul, que es donde vivió ella (y donde vivió León Trotsky hasta que tuvo un affaire con Frida, se enojó su mujer y tuvieron que mandarse a cambiar a una casa cercana, que es donde un asesino catalán lo mató con una piolet a la cabeza, pero esto es otro tema...). Disfruté mucho del Templo Mayor, un gran templo azteca sólo parcialmente excavado al lado de la catedral, en el Zócalo de la ciudad.

DF, o por lo menos las partes turísticas, tiene una estética única. Tiene elementos de lo futurista kitsch (lo que pensaban que iba a ser el futuro en los años 60, onda Tomorrowlandia), lo azteca guerrillero de las ruinas, lo colonial de la llegada de los españoles y lo decimonónico afrancesado del Porfiriato. Es una mezcla inolvidable, y por más dispares que parezcan los elementos que la componen, es una mezcla que funciona. Esto es el encanto de México, para mí: el hallazgo de la coherencia en una variedad muy rara e improbable de elementos.

Y claro, no me puedo olvidar de los pirámides de Teotihuacán. A sólo una hora de DF, pero en otro mundo.

O sea: desorientación y delirio. DF me agotó. Y llegué a la conclusión de que no me quedaba otro remedio que irme para la casa, ahora ya. Y me fui.

Frida Fever

I think Mexico City induced a sort of delirium in me. It's a fairly disorienting city in the best of scenarios, but when you've been traveling for close to three months, you're a little nervous about grad school (coming up as soon as you cross that border), and you've been through the death of your grandma and a staph infection in the process, the existing chaos of DF takes on kaleidoscopic and phantasmagorical qualities. The clowns doing entertainment on the Metro for spare change become grostesque. The smog gets into your eyes, and your subconscious.

One Mexico City personage who experienced the delirium of this city and externalized it even as she suffered it was Frida Kahlo. Some of you may have seen the recent Salma Hayek movie? Well, this year is the centennial of her birth, and Mexico City is celebrating that by capitalizing on the mounting international attention that Frida received both late in life and since her death, even when she was lesser known in Mexico than her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera. The result was a special exhibition of her art at her house in the southern Mexico City district of Coyoacán, and a huge solo show at the capital's Palacio de Bellas Artes. So me, my Stanford friend Nick and his girlfriend Desha had a Frida day once they arrived. We went to the Fine Arts Palace, and then to Frida's house (the Casa Azul, where she grew up and which she later lent to Leon Trotsky when he was in exile in DF), and then to the house that Diego and Frida shared, nearby in San Ángel.

Frida suffered in life. She was run over by a streetcar, which left her incapacitated, on and off, throughout her life. It also probably led to her early death, in 1954. She was in a lot of pain, and many of her paintings reflect on the delirium that pain and suffering can cause. The tricks they can play on our minds. Frida painted many self-portraits that showed her suffering in very novel ways. Having spent a lot of time in the US, she also reflected on popular culture and fame. Many images come to my mind now, two in particular. One: a painting of two Fridas next to each other, bound together by veins, one of which is being cut with scissors by one Frida, causing it to bleed on her white dress. Two: a painting of Dorothy Hale, a movie star who jumped to her death off the Empire State Building. Frida gave the painting to the star's mother.

Diego Rivera's murals are another iconic example of Mexico City's rich visual arts scene. Using a number of themes, which were often Marxist, Rivera painted huge scenes taking in a variety of themes, including man's and science's triumphs over nature, war and peace, fascism, death, work and leisure. Fascinating and overwhelming. Diego and Frida's relationship was one for the books. Though tempestuous, he was the love of her life, and she his.

In Mexico City, I found that I couldn't just take things in without getting intensely involved in them. This is probably because the city's monuments and sights are so wonderfully imperfect, or layered, or conflicted, and therefore quite accessible. You don't see the slickness of the Louvre, or the manicured perfection of Versailles. But this doesn't make DF's sights any less important. Its cathedral is just as impressive as any European one, but it's sinking into the ground. It's actually a bit crooked (Mexico City used to be a lake, after all). Its National Anthropology Museum has amazing archaeological artifacts, dramatically displayed. But you can't look at these Aztec runes without thinking balefully about how Cortés came in and basically wiped this amazing civilization off the map of living cultures, denying its achievements and trying to replace it with one that was far inferior. These layers of presentation were spell-binding for me.

It was just too much. I came to the conclusion that I just needed to go home. I had travelled long enough. I'll come back to DF when I'm a little less worn-down, because it needs my undivided attention.

DFinitely not for the faint of heart

I have reached one of the most highly-anticipated parts of my trip (by me): Mexico City. I think this entry is going to have to be about expectations vs. reality. Let me start off by saying that I have even dreamed of going to Mexico City. Literally. Several times. And I was super stoked to get here.

So I'd love to say that it has totally lived up to them, but the jury's still out, even after a day and a half (an eternity in this fly-by-night, speeding through Latin America trip). Right now I'm just sort of on sensory overload. This city is noisy, and smelly, and literally I have a headache from straining to see everything there is to see. It's just so big! It's also been raining since Anne and I got here yesterday, so that has definitely colored my perception of things as well. In addition to weaving and ducking among all the crowds (crowds...everywhere...), I've also had to weave to avoid all the puddles and the busses that spray you on the sidewalk.

This is a very vibrant city, though, and in its glory periods it has built some impressive monuments to itself, and to the country as a whole. There is a huge Frida Kahlo exhibition on, as it's the 100 year anniversary of her birth this year, and the city is constantly putting on a number of different cultural activities. There's definitely a lot to love. It's even a bit like Santiago, in its own sprawled-out, smoggy little way.

It has a whole French vibe as well, particularly in the centro histórico. Wide boulevards, wrought iron. The Metro is also very much like the one in Paris; it even smells the same. It's a lot more crowded though. There's a section of every platform where only women and children can stand to wait for trains, the idea being that they can then have a whole car to themselves (though no one seems to respect this).

But there is a lot of poverty. There are massive slums on its outskirts, that stretch out literally to the horizon. The whole city is sinking, as well, and I'm pretty sure that one tower of the cathedral is higher than the other. And everyone's in everyone else's grill, all the time.

I'm trying to like it.

Tulum or not Tulum

A quick post today. First, greetings to my family in Berkeley, who were all together today for Grammy's funeral, which I unfortunately had to miss. You guys were all over my thoughts today. I was remembering that the last conversation I had with Grammy was about her honeymoon, which was in Mexico. I guess she and granddaddy ran into a boy along the way whom they knew from Texas and he showed them around for a while. So, cosmic coincidences in space and time today, as I write from Mexico.

The Yucatán Peninsula is way different from the typical border towns in Mexico I'd been to before-- this is the Caribbean! The sand is white, the tourists are from all over the world, and the ocean is turquoise and warm. You don't even need a snorkle to see the fish swimming around you in the clear water. We have stayed away from the touristy areas nearby (ahem, Cancun, ahem) and have stuck to smaller places, like Tulum, which is about a 2 hour bus ride south of Cancun.

A quick note about Mexico, by the way. While it has kind of a bad rap in the US, let me just say that in comparison with just about every other Latin American country I've been to, this is about the most orderly, efficient, and clean one of the lot. It's so interesting how relative everything is: some Americans may consider Mexico a bit tawdry from their perspective, but this is a very wealthy, prosperous place in comparison to its neighbors to the south.

Tulum's attractiveness lies in the fact that not only do you have a white sand beach and turquoise waters, you also have amazingly photogenic ruins perched just above it all. Here is a picture of my college friend and travelling buddy Anne in Tulum.

We also went to Chichén Itzá, recently voted one of the new 7 wonders of the world. It did not disappoint. It's really well-preserved, and all the stones are intricately carved with a ton of different friezes. So the structures are super dramatic from afar, but then you look closer and you can see all the details, and the amazing work that went in to building them.

Then we cooled off with a dip in the 60 m deep cenote, which is a natural well in a limestone cave (there are a bunch of them nearby). Many were used for Mayan rituals, and some of them have been dredged recently, and they've come up with a ton of skeletons (they threw people into them to ask the gods for rain) and gold and precious stones. And you can swim in them!

People! Mexico is like paradise, and it's a 4 hour plane ride away from most of you! You cannot pass this place up!

Guate and Guatemala (C.A.)

First, an apology for taking so long to write. I haven't been in the best mood of late, for several reasons, and I'd rather say nothing at all if I'm in too bad of a mood to say anything nice. If I'm down, I can't do that happy-go-lucky traveler schtick you have grown to know and love. But I'm on a bit of an upswing, so I will catch you up on my adventures.

Wow, I'm looking at my pictures here, and they look really good! Well, you're going to enjoy this, then.

After Antigua, of which I posted pictures in my previous entry, we continued on to the town of Panajachel, which is on the shores of Lake Atitlán, a volcanic crater in the Guatemalan highlands. It is surrounded by three volcanoes, and countless little towns. We took a boat tour of three of them: Santiago de Atitlán, San Antonio and San Pedro. Our visit to Santiago, the most traditional of the three, was centered around our pilgrimage to MAXIMON, which is this pseudo-Catholic icon that the town "worships." I'm actually not sure at this point where the worship ends and the tourist trapping begins when it comes to Maximón, but it was still cool. We had to pay 10 Quetzals to see Him, and we went into a room where this statue was standing on an altar. The statue had a cigar in its mouth and it was wearing three ties (real silk, our guide informed us, from Japan and Italy). We tried to be as serious about it as we could, so we paid our respects and got back on the boat, basically.

Another cool aspect of Santiago was its main church, because of its memorial to an American priest, Fr. Stanley Rohter, who was murdered there in 1981 because he took sides in the bloody conflict that gripped Guatemala for so long.

After Panajachel (aka "Gringotenango", by the way, because of all the foreigners living there) we were able to go to a big market day in the famous town of Chichicastenango. This was amazing. I will let the pictures speak for Chichi, because it actually looks better in the pictures than it does in real life. In real life it's huge and disorienting, but in the pictures it's colorful and exciting.

Then it was time to go to Guate (the capital) to say goodbye to Joris, my Belgian friend. I have to say that of all the Latin American capital cities I have visited, this was the one where I felt most unsafe. Once out of the uppity area of town (the "Zona Viva," "Live" or "Alive" zone), which was heavily guarded due to the International Olympic Committee meeting there, walking along the street was actually a bit nerve-wracking, even in the middle of the day. Could it be that I was influenced by all the newspapers, like this one, which were headlined every day with graphically-portrayed violent crimes and murders?

Joris left on Friday morning, and on Friday night I left for Flores, up in the Caribbean region of Guatemala. Flores, a little island town, is the closest town to the mythical Mayan ruins of Tikal, to which I took an excursion once I arrived in Flores on Saturday morning. Tikal is amazing. I overheard a group of American tourists talking about the movie "Apocalypto," which I hope did it justice. Because Tikal rivals Machu Picchu, I think. It's not all controlled yet like Machu Picchu is, so you can totally climb the ruins and have your lunch at the top if you want to (this will probably not last, though). You can definitely have mystical alone time with the pyramids, which I did. It was great.

Entre panas y compas

Saludos desde Guatemala, donde los colores abundan, y la lluvia también (por lo menos en esta época). Estoy ahora con mi compadre Joris el belga (un compañero de depto de Stanford) en el pueblo de Panajachel, a orillas del majestuoso Lago Atitlán. Hemos tenido un montón de aventuras.

Nuestra primera parada en Guatemala fue La Antigua, un pueblo colonial cuya arquitectura abarca lo maya y lo español al mismo tiempo. Fue la capital de Guatemala, antes de una serie de terremotos que terminó derrumbándola. Por suerte la han reconstruido. Antigua es un lugar muy cosmopolita, donde se puede salir de un restaurant tailandés y toparse con un niño descalzo vendiendo chicles. Hay mucho extranjero, además de los propios guatemaltecos que vienen a Antigua (que está a una hora de Ciudad de Guatemala) a escaparse por un fin de semana de carrete y descanso. Recorrí las librerías de viejo y compré una novela de Asturias (Guatemalteco/"chapín" y Premio Nobel 1967). Era muy agradable sentarme en la plaza central del pueblo, comiendo un helado y mirando la gente.

Hay que comenzar en Antigua con el Arco de Santa Catalina, debajo del cual tienes que pasar para llegar a la plaza (aunque no antes de pasar por una sucursal del infaltable restaurant cadena de Centroamérica, Pollo Campero). Delante tuyo, a varios kilómetros de distancia, puedes apreciar el Volcán Agua.

Hablando de volcanes, con Joris subimos a uno, el Volcán Pacaya. He aquí la prueba fotográfica de dicha hazaña. Me alegro de que lo haya hecho, pero pucha que me dio miedo en el momento. Al subir, sobre todo en las partes más altas, hubo varios lugares en donde se veía la lava debajo de nuestros pasos, o bien al ladito, y de hecho a veces el suelo mismo estaba caliente. Los suelos de mis zapatillas se empezaron a derretir, de hecho (se lo juro). A un chico en nuestro grupo se le cayó su botella de agua en uno de los hoyos de lava (calderas, en realidad) y enseguida el plástico se derritió y cuando salió el agua de la botella se convirtió en vapor altiro. Nuestro guía puso unos ramos dentro de un hoyo y se les prendió fuego al contacto. Muchas veces el suelo no estaba muy sólido y estaba seguro de que me iba a caer. Se me aguaban los ojos por el calor y el polvo volcánico. Pero viví para contarla. Para que vean lo atrevido que estoy últimamente. No sé qué tan seguro era este tour, pero por suerte el gobierno de Guatemala considera que el volcán no es demasiado peligroso para llevar masas de turistas casi hasta la cumbre, en dos turnos por día.

Gracias a la sugerencia de la estimada Marcela Díaz, ex jefa y actual socia del autor, al día siguiente arrendamos unas bicicletas y recorrimos los pueblos y las fincas de café alrededor de Antigua. Lo pasamos muy bien y pudimos apreciar lugares que de otra forma jamás hubiéramos conocido por lo remotos. Además era entretenido conversar con la gente cuando teníamos que parar a pedir direcciones, porque nos perdíamos a cada rato. Eso fue ayer, antes de abordar un bus a Panajachel.

Al llegar ahí, nos dejamos asombrar por el Lago Atitlán. Y hoy, tomamos una lancha que nos llevó a tres otros pueblos alrededor del lago: Santiago, San Pedro y San Antonio. Lo más divertido fue nuestra visita a Maximón, que es como el santo de Santiago de Atitlán. Tuvimos que pagar 10 quetzales de ofrenda (US$1,25) para entrar a su sanctuario, donde estaba parada una figura de madera, vestida con textiles de la región, además de pañuelos de seda y corbatas supuestamente traídos de Japón, Corea e Italia. Ah, y tenía un puro entre los labios de la cara (o sea, una máscara, porque según nuestro guía, Maximón tiene una cara detrás de la máscara, pero sólo los que están a punto de morir la ven). Me alegro de que su cara me haya sido invisible. Así que hicimos nuestras reverencias a don Maximón, y a la cofradía de hombres que lo cuidaban mientras se tomaban su aguardiente. Lástima que no nos hayan dejado sacar fotos. Pero por respeto a Maximón me abstuve.

Saludos especiales a Marcela y a Eli Aranda por los datos.

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.