Back on the Road

At this point in our story, we had discovered the problem with our credit card, and were waiting for a new card to arrive in Bogota from Canada. We didn't want to move on without it, but we were getting kind of antsy waiting for it. Finally it showed up in the mail while we were in the middle of a lunch party with Juan's family and friends. We saw many interesting things and met MANY people in Colombia, but just the same, I was happy about the prospect of being on the road again. We stayed another two days, and then caught a bus out of Bogota, towards Cali. From there we flew back to San Jose, Costa Rica and spent another night in the hostel with the pool (high luxury!).

Getting in touch with the people who had looked after our car was easy...but finding their small town was more difficult. We rode a bus on an ever-more isolated route, and finally got off at the end of the line...a small bus station that was closed for the day - Sunday. I was a little unsure that we were in the right place, but my fears proved false and we soon had our trusty little car back again. The car had been washed for us, and everything; it seemed to be in great shape. It was such a relief to load our back-packs into the trunk, and relax on the road with our air conditioning and our stereo. We happily headed North again, ignoring the fact that three of the four tires had bubbles in the sidewalls....

Home Already

We've made it home to Toronto safely, and I'm happy to be back; it gives me a chance to tell all the stories that are still missing from this narrative. I'll try to keep posting the stories, especially for those of you who live far away and won't get a chance to see either of us very soon. We got home exactly a week ago, and enjoyed the time in our familiar apartment, then Bryan left for tree-planting last night. So, after five months of constant companionship, we will have a summer apart - our relationship would make quite the study in extremes!

For now, I must go and unpack, but I'll post a story or two soon.

Colombia

We crossed the border into Colombia in Cucuta, a small and unremarkable border city. Actually, it was the easiest and fastest border crossing we'd had on the trip, which was suprising considering that both drugs and guerrilas tend to slip back and forth accross the Venezuelan-Colombian frontier. From there we went straight to the bus terminal, which, I would say, was the most confusing and unpleasant bus station I have ever encountered.

As in most of Latin America, the bus station housed about two dozen different bus companies. Rather than having counters, each bus company has roaming salesmen who all attempt to convince, cajole, or outright trick you into taking their bus using high pressure sales tactics (example "the bus is leaving right now, and there won't be another for 4 hours!"). Additionally, there are numerous free agents who offer to find you the next, or the cheapest, or the fastest bus in exchange for tips. The trouble is, all of these peopole approach you at exactly the same time, which is about half a second after you get out of your taxi. And none of them take 'no' for an answer -- they'll follow you wherever you go, shouting at you over each others voices, until you finally get on a bus.

Despite the chaos, we eventually managed to find a bus, and soon left town without looking back. We were headed to Bogota, the capital of Colombia, which, though only about 400 km away, was a twenty hour bus ride due to the mountainous terrain.

We arived in Bogota about 4 am the next morning. In contrast to Cucuta, Bogota has the nicest -- and the largest -- bus terminal I have ever seen. The terminal has five wings, each of which is about double the size of Toronto's bus terminal. There are armed guards everywhere, and not a sinlge roaming salesman or freeagent in sight.

From there we were picked up by Andres, my friend Juan's father, who drove us to their apartment, about an hour outside Bogota. On the way we chatted about Colombian politics. Elections were coming up in a few months, but Andres wasn't interested; to him, there were only two kinds of politicians -- corrupt and dangerous. "The corrupt ones, ast least you know all they are after is money, but the other ones... like Uribe (the colombian president); very dangerous. He loves war." he went on "he's a short little man -- the little men are always the most dangerous: Napoleon, Hitler, Musssolini; all little men".

Although I wasn't too sure about the height-to-dangerousness ratio theory, I had to admit that Andres had a point: it was hard to imagine elections solving any of Columbia's problems, which include one of the world's longest running civil wars, pervasive corruption in the military and government, powerful drug cartels, and quasi-fascist government supported paramilitary groups who spend as much time busting unions and assassinating labour leaders as they do fighting the country's numerous rebel factions. I asked Andres if he saw any chance of the war ending: "In my lifetime? No. But maybe my children will live long enough to get a chance to enjoy this beautiful country".

It was hard to fault Andres for his cynicism. He must have been only a few years old when the violence began. Still, there was something sad about it: he could not remember a time before the war, and he could not imagine a time after its ending.

We stayed at Andres and his wife Claudia's apartment for a few days before leaving to visit the house they are building a few hours outside of Bogota. This was their third attempt to build a house in Colombia. Their first house, on the eastern plains known as 'los llanos' had to be abandoned decades ago, after competing drug cartels moved into the area and began fighting for control over the prime coca producing region, leaving the entire area unsafe. They moved to a new farmhouse in the mountains, where they started the country's first private natural reserve, 'Suma Paz' (peace summit); a thousand-hectare cooperative of small farms dedicated to preserving the ecological integrity of the land. Suma Paz started a new trend in Columbia, leading to the creation of hundreds of private natural reserves across the country, and filling a gap left by a government with no resources, and little appetite, for environmental preservation.

Yet their days at Suma Paz were also short-lived. It wasn't long before guerrilla groups set up camp in the area, drawing the army and paramilitary groups into the region. All three sides took a "you're either with us or against us" attitude, leaving little space for neutrality. To make matters worse, in Colombia it is assumed that if you are 'green' (i.e., environmentalist) on the outside, you are red on the inside, and Juan's family and freiends were thus suspected of sympathy with the marxist rebels. The situation came to a head when government supported paramilitary fighters murdered their neighbour, best friend, and partner in Suma Paz -- along with his entire family. It was at this point that Juan's family abandoned Suma Paz, and sent him and his siblings to live in Canada. A few years later, the military bombed their abandoned house.

Their new house is in a considerably safer region -- at least for the time being. But Andres and Claudia say they won't leave this house, come what may: "We've made the walls two feet thick," Andres told me, chuckling, "let them come."

We stayed at the new house-in-construction -- also part of a private natural reserve -- for a few days before heading back to Bogota, where we stayed in the apartment of Juan's old friend Nicholas, now a famous Colombian soap opera star. The capital city seems far removed from the violence which engulfs most of the countryside. It is a pleasant city, served by one of the finest public transportation systems in the world. On Sundays, many of the city's main streets are reserved for pedestrians and cyclists. We had a chance to walk along one on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, traversing the whole city without ever needing to use the sidewalk. The streets were packed with families and friends, lending the city a festive, though tranquil air.

We explored the city for a few days before heading to Cali, where we caught a flight to Costa Rica. A special thanks to Claudia and Andres for sharing their homes, and their dreams, with us.

Still Here; Just Lazy

Hi everyone, I guess you're all wondering where we are by now...truth is, we just got lazy about the blog. Bryan's been working on an entry about Colombia, but it never seems to get finished, and we're not often near a computer anymore. But we are still having lots of adventures, and continuing quickly North. It seems like our timeline of reaching Toronto by early May is still feasible, and I can hardly wait to see everyone.
Hasta pronto, Amy

Catching Up, Again

After the Forum, and the Hilton, we stayed in a cheap hotel in Caracas for another couple of nights, to explore the city. We took a cable car to the top of the mountain which separates Caracas from the ocean, which was great because you can look to one side and see the waves coming in, and look to the other and see the city spread out below you...and it was great because up there its easier to breathe. We both found that our lungs were hurting after so many days in the city; apparently the pollution gets trapped between the mountains, making the air worse than in many other places.

We decided to get out of town, and headed towards the Caribbean coast. We took a ferry to a little island called Isla Margarita, and stayed in a hotel on the beach for a few days. Little did we know that while we were there our VISA card was somehow copied at one of the bank machines, and someone racked up $2000 on our card. But, we wouldn`t find this out for a few weeks, so we were happy while we were there.

When we got back to the mainland we went to Merida, which is supposed to be the adventure tourism capital of Venezuela. I guess it must be true, because while we were there we found ourselves involved in such activities as paragliding (an awesome half-hour ride through the wind, although landing was nauseating), a four-day safari tour to the flatlands (sights: thousands of birds, crocodiles, river dolphins, and an anaconda!), camping and hiking in the Andes (beautifully deserted), and taking the longest cable car in the world (four different stations, and the air`s thin and hard to breathe at the top).

After we`d had enough adventure, we hopped on a bus heading into Colombia, destination: Juan`s family just outside Bogota. By this time we`d found out about the VISA fraud, and arranged for the new credit card to be sent to an address in Bogota, hoping it would get there a few days after we did, just in time for us to move on again...

World Social Forum, part 3

After the first few days, we learned to adapt to the chaos of the WSF, and we ended up seeing lots of interesting events. Some of the better ones included:

1) A meeting for Canadians to strategize in the wake of the disappointing federal election we just had (though the outcome was not as bad as it could have been!). Not too much practical planning came out of this meeting, but it did give people a chance to vent about the poor campaign that was run by the NDP, and also to air theories for how the Conservatives will conduct their time as minority leaders. One theory was that they will do nothing to rock the boat for the next little while, until they can call another election and gain a majority as a result of having failed to offend anybody with outrageous legislation...but maybe this theory should go out the window, as Bryan just read recently that they went ahead and cancelled the promised daycare funding...surely a good way to offend and alientate anyone who believes that a woman`s place is not solely in the home. Maybe the Conservatives will sabotage themselves sooner than we think.

2) An "International Court of Women" which allowed speakers to tell their stories without interruption, and without the removal of emotion and context which is common in most courts worldwide. I really loved this event. Though it was very heart-breaking, it was also refreshing to see peoples stories being told in their own words, in the way they experienced the events.

3) And of course, the speech given by Hugo Chavez - he`s like a rock star! He spoke for a couple of hours, and though it was mostly rhetoric, it was quite inspiring. I have yet to see a Canadian politician get as excited about ANY topic, or be as straight-forward about their beliefs, as Chavez is about socialism. And he always refers to George Bush as "Mr. Danger", which is hilarious. Admittedly, I was tired of his rock-star status by the end of the forum (what will the movement do when he is gone?), but during that speech, he was fun to watch.


By end of the forum, we had seen many good events, and as a result I`m anxious to get home and resume my work, both paid and volunteer, in Toronto. But knowing that a long trip still lay ahead of us, we spent the day after the forum looking for a hotel in which to relax and plan our next move. Unfortunately, it must have been that everyone in the Youth Camp was doing the same thing, because all the budget hotels we contacted were completely full. We ended up staying at the Hilton, of all places! Of course it was way beyond our price range, but we figured that`s what credit cards are for, and besides, we didn`t have anywhere else to stay. So we reluctantly checked in, and then took advantage of their cable TV and nice warm pool as much as possible before check-out the next morning.

World Social Forum Part II

We finally got our hands on a schedule of events the next morning, but we soon found out that the real schedule was always changing and the printed one was only a rough guide. When we finally arrived at the venue for the first event we wanted to see, we were suprised to find not, as we expected, an in-depth discussion of the effects of NAFTA, but a live hip-hop performance and breakdancing demonstration. We later discovered that in the 8 hours since our program had been printed, someone had decided that the building would host the childrens WSF, and all the events scheduled in it for the week had been moved -- but no one knew where to.

We spent the rest of that day looking for event after event, all of which turned out to be cancelled or to lack translation. One of the great things about he WSF is that it promotes a diversity of ideas and perspectives by allowing any participating organization to register as many events as they would like. This prevents any one sect or group from controlling the agenda. The downside of this open door policy is that anyone and everyone can and do register events, and no one checks up to see how serious these organizations are, or whether they have even shown up at the forum.

As a consequence there are about a hundred different events scheduled for each sessions (4 sessions per day), of which I would estimate about 60 events actually take place, of which about 10 are translated into english. The trouble is, how to figure out which 10?


I found the lack of translation very alienating. Its hard to participate in any kind of discussion unless you speak the language fluently; my basic spanish did nothing for me in trying to understand an analysis of participatory economics, for example.

I appreciated the efforts of the translators we did meet, but found their system very haphazard. As luck would have it, 2/3 of the volunteer translators had not made it to the conference, never having received their plane tickets.

So, we couldn`t trust the program`s listing of what would be translated, especially since the attending translators had adapted their approach to include "guerilla translating", as one volunteer put it -- basically showing up at events they were interested in and translating those on the fly. I didn`t really grasp how this system was good for anyone, because the participants didn`t know where the translators would be, and the translators didn`t know if there would be equipment for them at the events they chose.

In the end, we resolved ourselves to attending only those events in the larger venues (more likely to occur, and to be translated), and also those events put on by english speakers (we figured those would be in English but translated into Spanish). This is what I found particularly alienating; that we were limited to participating in events primarily concerning / put on by english North Americans. It forced us to put language over interest; to place importance on a linguistic link with the presentors, rather than on an ideological link. All in all, I believe the problems with translation contributed to a divide between North & South, which was contrary to the point of the forum.

And I can only imagine how much this problem would have been magnified if I spoke something less common than English.

Our second day at the conference ended with the following outcomes: the NAFTA/ hip-hóp mix-up that Bryan mentioned; an event about the new Canadian/Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) that was partially translated; an event about independent/alternative media at which the speaker (Gore Vidal) failed to show up; and two more headaches.

World Social Forum, part 1

The World Social Forum is an annual event, organized around the theme "A Better World is Possible". It began as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum, an annual event held in Davos, Switzerland at which presidents and prime ministers from the wealthiest countries meet with a few thousand of the richest investors and industrialists on the planet to discuss the future of the world. The World Social Forum is intended to be the opposite type of event, attended by NGO`s, grassroots community organizations, members of social movements, and individuals from around the world - all discussing alternatives to the current neo-liberal form of globalization, which many would argue is eroding public services, destroying the global environment, and confining democracy in the name of corporate interests and private capital accumulation. The first World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil and attracted about 10 000 participants from around the world. This year, the sixth WSF was held on three continents - Africa (Kenya), Asia (Pakistan) and South America (Venezuela) - and 100 000 participants were expected in Caracas, Venezuela alone. Luckily the event coincided more or less with our itinerary, and we were able to attend.

We flew into Caracas on January 23rd, excited, but not knowing what to expect. A few weeks earlier, the main highway connecting the airport to the city had been shut down for repairs, so we weren`t even sure how to get to the city - or where to go once we got there. Thankfully, there were tables with volunteers to greet arriving participants, and they directed us to a special free bus heading downtown...little did we know this would be the easiest part of the conference to navigate. Traffic on the winding secondary road connecting the airport to the city was so bad that it took nearly four hours to get there. And then once we arrived, the bus drove away without a word of advice from the driver on where to go, how to register for the conference, or what to do next.

This problem was compounded by the fact that all the hotels in the city had been booked solid for weeks. Nearly a hundred thousand participants were expected, and all of them had to stay somewhere. We were planning to stay in the Youth Camp, a city park hastily converted into a camping zone for thousands of people from around the world. But how to find it?

We hunted around for volunteers, easily identifiable by red WSF shirts and hats, but none of them seemed to have a clue as to where the camp was (foreshadowing). After an hour and a half of searching, we were nearly at our collective wits end before we found the camp, right around the corner from where the bus dropped us off!

By the time we had set up our tent, it was past 9 pm, and we were starving. Unfortunately, almost all the restaurants were closed. We finally found one that was open, and ordered the only "vegetarian" item on the menu...which turned out to be pasta with clams, calamari, shrimp, scallops and tomato sauce - I don`t know when seafood became a part of the vegetables food group! We staggered back to our tent feeling thoroughly confused and defeated.

The next morning we set out to register for the conference. After asking around for a while, we found a registration site. We waited in a line which never moved for an hour, before finding out from a volunteer that we had to pay the registration fee at the national bank before going through the line. Eventually we found the bank, easily identifiable by the huge line-up of confused, disgruntled people outside it. We waited in that line for another hour before finding out from another volunteer ( I came to hate those volunteers - never the information you need, only a different story you don`t want to hear) that those staying in the Youth Camp had to register at a different site halfway across the city. We were exasperated, but happy to learn that there was a free bus waiting just across the street to take us there. Though I only got that information from a third volunteer after being roped into making an English version of the sign he was posting about the situation. After a half-hour ride we arrived at a giant stadium, only to find out that we still had to pay the fee at a special bank located about a ten-minute walk across the stadium parking lot. I don`t know why the bus couldn`t have dropped us off at the end of the lot that was beside the bank. After we paid, we had to walk back again and show them our stamped receipt in order to get our name tags for the Forum. The most confounding part about all the trouble over fees was that the grand total, for a week full of events, staying in the Youth Camp the whole time, and a week`s worth of shampoo and toothpaste that came with our registration, worked out to about $8 CDN! We would have happily paid 3-times that to avoid four hours of line-ups and confusion. And for such a small amount of money, why couldn`t we just have paid in cash at the registration site, instead of making special deposits at specific bank locations?

All in all, registration took us over four hours, and gave us a bad headache - two bad headaches, actually; one each. Still, one couldn`t complain about the value. For 8 dollars apiece, we had access to thousands of events, lodging for a week, a toiletry kit, and a pass for free public transportation anywhere in the city. Luckily we didn`t miss anything while registering, as the only event scheduled for the first day was a massive anti-war demonstration in the late afternoon. The rally was huge, and there were contingents from dozens of countries and thousands of organizations. Despite the chaos, we managed to run into a few people from Toronto that we knew, and joined up with them.

I`ve been to dozens of protests/marches and this one was largely the same - if bigger than most - with one major difference. At every protest I`ve been to in Canada or the US, there has been a massive police presence (sometimes almost as many police as protestors), characterized by varying degrees of hostility, and on occasion, the use of pepper spray, tear gas, and rubber bullets against peaceful protestors (don`t forget menacing horses). On this occasion, there was virtually no police presence, and the few officers I did see were casually waving and smiling to the crowd as it passed by. In short, I`d never felt safer and less threatened at a protest before.

The event ended at a large rally with musicians and speakers from around the world. Unfortunately, the speakers weren`t translated (more foreshadowing), so we could only understand the few English-speaking participants, but the event was inspiring nonetheless. It is, to me, always inspiring to see tens of thousands of people mobilized, not for personal gain or advancement, but because they believe in a common cause - in this case, peace - but more inspiring still when the crowd is made up of people from virtually every ethnicity and nationality on the planet.

After the rally, we found another free bus ride back to the Youth Camp and stumbled back to our tent, exhausted, still a little exasperated from registration, but inspired nonetheless.

To be continued...

The Darien Gap Dilemma

Okay, so, we found out that there`s no longer a ferry passing the Darien Gap! There used to be one, but the company that ran it went bankrupt due to lack of business. We read a whole bunch of accounts describing times that people have shipped their vehicles on cargo ships...but that didn`t seem like a possibility for us. It would be too expensive and take too long to organize - we wouldn`t make it to the Forum in Venezuela on time. We talked about selling the car and flying over...but that seemed difficult too, and besides, we like the car and want to drive home in it! So, the only thing we could think of was to store the car somewhere in Costa Rica while we travelled South America, and then pick it up again on the way back north.

We really had no idea how to go about this, but we thought Monteverde might be a good place to try, because they have quite a large English-speaking population, and its pretty remote, so we weren`t too afraid of theft being a problem. Our only idea was to call Jenn, an American woman living in Monteverde...we had met her the day before when she offered us a ride down the hill from the canopy tour (we`d stayed too long in the forest, missed the last bus down, and the sun was starting to go down). We were pretty nervous about calling; I`d only gotten her number from the hotel owner who happens to be friend of hers. But, Jenn and her partner must be the nicest people I`ve ever met, because as soon as they heard the story they offered to store the car for us, at only the cost of driving it down the mountain to a family member`s house...and Jenn even did the driving!

So, with the problem solved, we spent a few more days in Monteverde, then a few in San Jose (nothing special going on there, except that our hostel had a pool!), and then flew here to Caracas. We`re in the middle of the Social Forum now, and you`ll hear all out thoughts about that soon...

Catching Up

Okay, I`m tired of being so behind on our entries, and I want everyone to know what we`re doing NOW, so I`ve decided (unilaterally!) that I`m gonna just give the highlights, and we`ll have to fill in the stories later, or maybe even save them until we get back.

So, after Teotihuacan, we spent Christmas in Xalapa in a gorgeous, but empty house belonging to friends of Juan`s (they were away for the holidays). The three of us toasted the holiday with tequila and discussions of cultural relativism.

Then we moved on towards the Caribbean coast, in the direction of Vera Cruz. We didn`t want to stay near any resorts, so we ended up camping on a very hidden beach (Playa Escondida), right on the ocean. It was so amazing, totally isolated, beautiful landscape, swimming in the ocean. It`s been one of my favourite experiences, by far.

After that we went to Palenque for New Year`s. Juan had information about a friend of a friend living there...but it was just his first name and that he worked in an Italian restaurant. So, that info was pretty much useless, and the three of us instead decided to stay at a backpacker`s resort within walking distance from the Palenque ruins. The resort was crazy, full of new-age hippy kids, but still a resort all the same...just with a theme. It got a little overwhelming to be surrounded by so much stereotyped idealism; I wonder how many of those guests transfer the mantras they were spouting over to their usual lives. Still, the New Year`s party was one of the best I`ve been to in a while. We went to a field party that was theoretically a fundraiser for an eco-tourism project (see my thoughts about that in previous entries), but really it was just a rave in the middle of a farmer`s field. We got to see the sun rise on the morning of New Year`s Day, and then we crawled into the tent exhausted.

When we left Palenque we hurried for the border (Juan`s motorcycle permit had expired a few days previously), spent the night in an over-priced, boiling-hot room, then crossed the next day, thankfully with no trouble at all. We were headed for a hot springs hostel in Guatemala, but we hit quite a snag in Huehuetenango...though Juan got through on his bike, Bryan and I were stopped for hours by a peasant protest that was taking place. We tried everything to get around it, even going to a neighbouring town, only to arrive there just as they were blocking that highway as well - very effective! Finally, after about six hours of waiting, the crowd dispersed a bit, enough for some cars to squeeze through, and we were on our way again...but hopelessly behind. We actually did make it all the way to the hostel, only to find their gate locked and no way in. So, we spent the night elsewhere and caught up with Juan at the hostel in the morning (he was calmly drinking coffee beside the hot spring!).

While in Guatemala we were guests at a private natural reserve, and toured another, both through connections of Juan`s family...but those are stories that deserve the telling, so I won`t get into them now.

We said goodbye to Juan at the reserve in Atitlan (we needed to start moving much faster than he did), and went super-fast through Honduras and Nicaragua into Costa Rica...trying to get to Venezula for the World Social Forum. We passed through three confusing borders in three days, which was just about as much as I could handle. In Costa Rica we stayed in Monteverde, which is famous for it`s Cloud Forest Reserves (one of which was founded by a group of American Quakers after WWII). We got to go on a Canopy Tour - on zip lines through and above the forest! - and to do some great walks in the forest. But we hit one huge problem...

Teotihuacan

We left Mexico City with some relief, but more than a little reluctance. While we were way behind schedule, we felt there was so much more to do and see in el D.F. After only a few wrong turns, we stumbled onto the road out of the city.

Although we had a long drive ahead of us before our next stop in Xalapa (or Jalapa, depending on who you ask), we had resolved to stop and see the pyramids of Teotihuacan on our way (more or less on our way). It was nice for a change to have a native Spanish-speaker with us...though we lost our way just as often, Juan could ask and understand directions in half the time it would have taken us.

The pyramids at Teotihuacan are an experience that is hard to describe, but easy to remember - both overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time. The majestic structures vie for your attentionwith the hundreds of vendors selling gaudy memoribilia for prices so low, one cannot imagine they turn a profit. The pyramids themselves are incredible - so large that they appear even larger than the mountains which surround them.

Several thoughts raced through my mind on the long climb up the pyramids. How could a society capable of such an elaborate engineering project collapse and disintegrate only a few centuries later? The pyramids were built by a pre-Aztec society, which disappeared hundreds of years before the Spaniards invaded, slaughtering and enslaving the Aztecs and all the other indigenous societies of the area. Why would anyone abandon such a site?

One theory is that the Teotihuacans were destroyed by their own success. As their population grew, they overworked the soils surrounding the city, eroding the base of their own prosperity, eventually rendering the area uninhabitable.

The pyramids themselves are double-edged icons - where Juan saw the majesty and power of a pre-Columbian society, I saw only their exploitation and cruelty. The Teotihuacans had a rigid heirarchical society, ruled over by a parasitic priestly class and a king who claimed to be the very son of God himself. These freeloaders ruled over a vast underclass kept in a perpetual state of fear and poverty, enforced by a warrior caste (kind of reminds me of Plato's Republic). But how does one keep an entire society convinced that one is the living representative of God on earth? Well, clearly it helped to build awe-inspiring structures (using slave-labour, of course) and then sacrifice any trouble-makers on the tops of them. Call me a cynic, but I couldn't help seeing the pyramids as a living reminder of everything that's wrong with human civilization.

Whirlwind Mexico City

We were lucky getting into Mexico City, because we were able to contact Juan, a friend of Bryan's from university who was visiting his cousin (just one of his stops on a motorcycle trip from Thunder Bay, home to Colombia). Andrea and Rafael (Juan's cousin and her partner) were very friendly and hospitible - they let us stay with them even though they already had Juan as a houseguest, and twin babies on the way! Also, we were able to park safely in their neighbourhood, and avoid much driving in Mexico City, which suited me just fine!

Through Juan, we were able to see two sides of Mexico City. Andrea and Rafael live quite a high lifestyle, in a beautifully furnished condo kept by the bank Rafa works for, furniture included. The building is tall and super-skinny, with just one condo on each floor. The view of the city is unbelievable, although it would be even better if smog didn't obscure the mountains completely.

On the other hand, we were also able to meet Frida & Vaquero - and their imaginitive son Renato - friends of Juan's who make and sell jewellery in the Coyoacan market. The market they work in is a part of the informal economy in Mexico (basically anyone selling anything outside of a commercial business - and there are many, many people living this way), and as such the vendors are constantly struggling to have it remain unregulated and, by extension, to keep their already low incomes untaxed. Even though I'm generally a fan of a proportional taxation system, it was easy to see how becoming a part of the formally-taxed economy would make it hard for many people in Mexico to survive, when they're already living so frugally (fragilely?) as it is.

That day, we got a chance to visit Frida Kahlo's family home (now a museum), as it is in the same neighbourhood as the market. It was very beautiful and interesting, especially the kitchen which had lots of hand-painted tiles on the walls. The courtyard was amazing too, with lush plants, and large shells & pottery built right into the stucco of the house walls.

That night, we went to Frida & Vaquero's small apartment, drank some mescaline (alcohol made from the cactus plant) and went to a street party. During the week before Christmas, there are often neighbourhood parties to celebrate, and this one closed down the street so everyone could dance. When Renato got tired we went back and he was put to bed - then we all went out again for tacos. I was a little surprised that Renato was left alone (he's only 4 or 5), but things are very different there from Canada.

When we got back to the apartment Renato was, of course, sound asleep and totally safe. We slept that night on F & V's floor, then in the morning headed back to Andrea's condo.

Our second day in Mexico City, Bryan and I went to the Museum of Anthropology. We spent all afternoon there, even staying so late that we were unable to see Diego Rivera's murals in another building, as we had originally planned. Still, we only made it about one third of the way through the museum.

That night we went out for a wonderful dinner (followed by some not-so-wonderful coffee) with Juan, Andrea and Rafa. We found out that the largest coffee company in Mexico is Nescafe, so many places only serve instant coffee...no wonder we'd had so much trouble finding a good cup.

In the morning we said good-bye and took off with Juan in the back of our car...heading for Xalapa, to spend Christmas in his friends' house, and pick up his motorcycle from their garage at the same time.

It was nice to be travelling together...it gave us a third person to talk to!

Ecotourism; or, how to ruin a perfectly good park

On our way out of Guadalajara we decided to stop and camp for the night at a National Park a few hours east of the city. The park was represented by an enormous green blob on our map, so we thought there would be many kilometres of hiking trails to keep us occupied for the afternoon.

On arriving, we were suprised to find hundreds of cars in the parking lot, still, we thought there should be plenty of room for everybody. On entering the park we were taken aback - it was only about 5 hectares! There was a tiny lake - they called it a lake, but I`d call it a pond - with a narrow stretch of grass on either side of it, onto which were packed scores of picknicking families, dozens of ramshackle restaurants, and numerous souvenir shops. Bands of local children roamed the shore, forelornly attempting to sell generic, factory-made baubles which they presented as the products of `local artisans´. Troops of mariachis wandered by, playing songs for a few pesos. As for a quiet place to enjoy a bit of nature, it was nowhere to be found.

Inquiring as to the whereabouts of the advertised camping spaces, we were informed that they were on a small playing field inbetween the souvenir shops and the mariachis. We decided to move on and spend the night in a hotel.

The following day - still hankering for a bit of the ol` nature after our unsatisfying experience the day before - we decided to stop at the famed Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary. These amazing creatures make an annual pilgrimage all the way from Canada to one specific region in Mexico, and back. Biologists spent decades searching for their winter sanctuary - in all the wrong countries - before finally "discovering" it a few decades ago. I say discovering sceptically because I`m fairly sure the discovery involved being told about the site by the local people, who`d probably known about it for centuries.

The monarch population had been dwindling for years, due to habitat destruction and certain genetically-modified crops which, modified to produce pesticides internally, unsuprisingly poison the butterflies who pollinate them. The monarchs have been making a surprise comeback, however, and we were both eager to see their winter sanctuary.

There were two locations listed in our guide book for viewing the butterflies, so we decided to pick the one described as "less-touristed", especially considering our experience the day before. But what we found was not exactly a tranquil mountain reserve...instead it turned out to be an eco-tourism disaster, in my opinion. Eco-tourism is one of the new buzz words in Latin America (and elsewhere, too, I`m sure), and theoretically it describes a situation which allows local people to make a living off of alternative tourism, instead of living by depleting the natural resources in the area. But in this case, the promise of its rewards seemed to be just a cruel hoax, with the local people continuing to live in tremendously poor conditions, and reduced to essentially begging tourists for their money, in return for the services they provide. These included young children (6 or 7) crowding around, pleading for the chance to "guard" our car for a few pesos; and dozens of men with horses offering a ride up the mountain...selling the chance to ride comfortably, while they literally ran ahead of or behind the horse the whole way. But it`s not the idea of selling services to tourists that bothered me (although these services seemed quite demeaning), it`s the urgency and insistency heard in the voices of the people selling them that seemed so wrong. Too many people selling the same thing to too few buyers has resulted in humiliating conditions all around.

The worst part is that the insistency expressed by the people is one of the factors that impedes the sale of a service, because - at least in my case - it becomes too overwhelming to be approached either over and over again, or simultaneously by numerous people, all trying to sell the same thing. I found myself refusing to entertain the idea of spending tourist money, simply because it was too hard to know where to spend it. If one person had tried to sell me a horse ride, I might have taken it (if he had not been set to run behind), for the mountain was in fact very steep...I could have used a horse! But with twenty people coming at me at once, I could only turn them all down. Especially coming from a culture where it has been very important for women to be respected when they say ´no´, I felt very awkward having groups of men all press closely around me at once to try to convince me to do something I didn`t want. At times I felt like yelling at them that I had already said `"No, thank you, I`d rather walk", and why the fuck wasn`t that enough of an answer?

But I know that it wasn`t enough because that answer means less food, or less clothing, or less of something for them and their families, so they need to keep begging and pleading and pushing until someone says `yes´. And that`s the real tragedy of eco-tourism, that it reduces all sides to participating in this awkward and humiliating trap.


The tough part about seeing the butterflies is that they only fly when it is sunny. It was sunny when we set out, but after the two hour trek up the mountain, thick clouds had rolled in, obscuring any sign of the sun. So by the time we got to the butterflies, they were resting, literally hanging around in the trees. Thousands and thousands on every branch, weighing the branches down until they hung towards the ground instead of reaching for the sky. It was quite amazing, but it would have been nice to see them fly...

Guadalajara

The drive from Zacatecas to Guadalajara was the most beautiful we`d yet made. The road ascended and ascended until it crested the top of the mountain, then curled and wound it`s way around and down, with each new turn exposing haunting new vistas of sun-drenched mountains and shadowed valleys.

Unfortunately, one side-effect of the curvaceous roads was slow traffic. With only one lane in each direction, slow-moving trucks gather herds of other vehicles behind them. The local drivers fearlessly attempt high-speed passes around 90-degree blind curves, sometimes even forcing oncoming traffic onto the shoulder of the road. (This is something I don`t think I`ll ever learn how to do.) So, although it was only a 300km drive, by the time we got to Guadalajara, it was well past dark.

I have a friend, Todd (a fellow tree-planter), who lives in Guadalajara, and who kindly offered to let us stay in his apartment even though he was on vacation somewhere in Africa. Todd is nothing if not thorough, so we had excellent directions but still managed to get ourselves lost - and being lost while I´m driving in a strange city always turns me into a maniac, so that was not a terribly fun experience...especially for Bryan. Eventually we arrived, only to discover that the phone number of the person who was to let us in had misprinted and was unreadable. With no way to re-check the email containing the phone number, we grudgingly headed off to find a hotel.

After getting lost again - again, not fun for Bryan - we finally found a hotel, only to get lost AGAIN trying to find parking - you can imagine how much fun the whole trip was by this time! Needless to say, it was a stressful night.

In the morning we finally managed to contact the right person, and get into Todd´s apartment. It was nice to have a whole apartment to ourselves instead of a dirty hotel room, for a change. And having a kitchen for a few days was great (as most of you know I love to cook). We stayed three more days in Guadalajara relaxing and exploring the town. We visited the historic cathedral, lavishly ornamented with gold, of course. El palacio federal, an historic government building was notable for two huge, dramatic murals decorating it´s arched ceilings. One of them, called "The Negative Forces", depicted Nazi-fascists, soviet-communists, and the church, all violently cramming their respective ideologies down the throats of a suffering populous. The other mural, called "The Political Circle", depicted a mob of radical peasants and indigenous peoples forcing a scared-looking politician to enact reforms in the wake of the 2nd Mexican revolution. I had fun imagining the looks on the faces of the politicians who commissioned the work when they saw the finished product.

After a few days in Guadalajara we were ready to head for Mexico City, known locally as el D.F.

Sorry our blog is quite a bit out of date. We are actually in Guatemala right now, but we are trying to get caught up.

The drive from Monterrey to Zacatecas was beautiful and sad. The landscape alternated between sandy mountains, covered by grass and scrub, and lonely deserts, inhabited only by giant cactuses (cacti?). The desert towns were some of the dreariest I have seen. On first approaching them, they have the look of an ancient ruin, long abandoned, until one gets close enough to notice that there are people dwelling in the crumbling structures, and clotheslines strung between them.

Driving into Zacatecas was quite a stunning sight, however. The city is nestled inbetween two small mountains, with the downtown in the valley and the residential sections clinging to the sides of the hills, jutting out at seemingly impossible angles. A colonial-era town, the old section is a warren of narrow one-way stone streets, many of which suddenly turn into stairs when the incline gets too steep. We found our map to be entirely useless, and after an hour or so of driving in circles we parked the car and set off on foot to find the hostel. Unfortunately, by the time we found the hostel we couldn´t remember how to get back to the car. One of the hostel owners was kind enough to wander through the city with us until we found it, and guide us back to the hostel.

The hostel in Zacatecas is one of the nicest I have ever seen. It is an old four-story building, with a rooftop patio with an incredible view of the city. There is a pleasant reading room overlooking the lobby, with a serve-yourself beer fridge which works only on the honour system. The place was filled with travellers, most of them from the UK. It was strange after so much time without seeing any other english speakers to suddenly be surrounded by them.

We spent a couple of days in Zacatecas exploring the town and checking out the nightlife. We took a cable-car accross from one of the hills to the other, which afforded a spectacular view of the city. On top of one of the hills is an old fort from the 2nd Mexican revolution, which has been converted into a museum, as well as a giant rock outcropping you can climb in order to dangle over the city.

After a few days in beautiful Zacatecas, we reluctantly set out for Guadalajara...

Monterrey for two nights

Driving in Monterrey was our first experience with big-city driving in Mexico. It was pretty hard to navigate, and there was one point when we circled the same pattern of blocks four or five times before making the correct turn to get where we wanted. Our hotel room was small and dark - it had a big picture window, but it faced directly onto a brick wall with about a foot of space, and it had dark curtains that were backed with a heavy plastic sheet. But, it was a step up from the first hotel we went into, which was charging not by the day, but by twelve-hour blocks. We would have had to pay four times in order to stay for the planned two days!

At first Monterrey wasn´t treating us very well. I got a bit sick and we had to stay in the hotel room all night watching The Lord of the Rings on TV and eating chips and avocado for dinner. But the next day we were able to see the downtown pedestrian zone (a great place to get away from the unfamiliar driving style), the Museum of Mexican History (very little mention of the affects of colonialism, or the US-Mexican war), and the Museum of Modern Art (three travelling exhibitions - one beautiful, one scary abstract, one by Henry Moore; no permanent collection).

We ate dinner that night at a little cafe that served vegetarian lasagne, which was a treat in a place where vegetarianism is almost non-existant. After a second night in the dark room, we left for a long drive through the desert to Zacatecas.

A new beginning in Nuevo Laredo

We crossed the border into Mexico around the 10th of December (sorry our blog is so out of date!), into the supposedely booming border town of Nuevo Laredo. Its amazing how much things change once you cross an imaginary line. We were worried about passing through customs (in spanish), but didn´t need to be. You don´t even have to go through customs until you´re through the free trade zone, which extends about 100 km into Mexico along the U.S. border (once we got there they just waived us through without even stopping our car anyways). We needed to register our vehicle, but nobody asked us to do so. It seemed to run on the honour system, and we had to follow sporadic car registration signs for kilometers before stumbling onto a massive complex where you can register your car and pay the tourist entry fee.

Nuevo Laredo itself is an interesting city. It is supposed to be an example of the miracles of globalization and free trade, booming with foreign based industries since NAFTA and the creation of the free-trade zone. And indeed, a seemingly endless variety of trucks can be seen passing back and forth across the town, carrying the products of the maquiladores accross the border. But the money must be coming in-to and out-of town as quickly as the trucks, for they still cannot afford to fix their narrow sidewalks, which are pock-marked by gigantic pot-holes, or maintain their public buildings.

Walking the strip in front of the border is intense, and with every step another disreputable looking gentleman waits,with broken english, eager to sell you everything you might want (and a lot of things you probably don´t), from prescription glasses and dental operations, to viagra and other pharmaceuticals, or even marriage ceremonies and divorce proceedings.

We stayed one night in a small but reasonably comfortable hotel, before heading out the next day for Monterrey.

Lost in Lost Maples

After leaving Dallas, we headed to Lost Maples State Park, named after a small population of Big Tooth Maples stranded in Texas Hill country ever since the last ice age. Unfortunately, the road we were supposed to turn off onto didn´t exist (or at least we couldn´t find it), and we had to drive an hour past it and circle round behind it on a gourgeous backroad through the middle of nowhere. Eventually we stopped to ask for directions at one of the oddest gas stations I´ve ever seen, which was crawling with chickens, roosters, peackocks, cats, and good old fashioned texas charm. Eventually we found the park and managed to set up camp before dark. It was so beautiful there we decided to stay for an extra day in order to hike all the park trails.

For breakfast the next morning we drove into a pretty bizarre little town, where prisoners dressed in white and black striped jump suits (straight out of a bad prison movie) were washing the sherriff´s car, and every single male in the local diner was dressed in camouflage (even little boys of six or seven!) . Not too mention the fact that the diner´s walls were studded with the stuffed heads of every concievable mammal that is large enough to hunt with a shotgun (including a poor buffalo). But despite feeling a little bit out of place and at odds with the local values (a nearby store had a sign comparing advocates of gun registration to Nazis!), we had a great time exploring the park and watching the sun set over the texas hills. After two nights in the park we set off for the Laredo border crossing into Mexico...

Serendipity on the Ohio River

After leaving Chicago we headed due south through Illinois, hoping to make it to the fabled 'Land Between the Lakes' national park, nestled between Lake Kentucky and Lake Barkley on the Kentucky/Tennessee border. We decided to take a scenic shortcut, which, of course, turned out to be a long cut, through small-town Illinois. By the time we got to the Illinois-Kentucky border, the sun had set and dusk was settling down into night. We reached the top of a hill, just before the border, and realized that the road we were following dissapeared into the Ohio River!

We thought we were going to have to stop for the night and retrace our steps in the morning, until we saw a lone figure standing on the tiniest ferry I have ever seen. Worried that the ferry might have finished running for the night, or that the next run might not be for hours, I cautiously approached him. "Is there another ferry tonight?" I asked.

"Yep" he replied in a southern drawl.

"When is it leaving?" I asked.

"I reckon right about now," he answered. "We ain't got no schedule, we just leave whenever folks show up."

Scarcely able to believe our good fortune, we drove aboard and stood at the bow as the dimunitive ferry began its short, but essential, ride across the river. It was a clear night and the stars were reflected beautifully in the inky darkness of the Ohio river.

We made it to the Land Between the Lakes that night, but it was a little too late to camp, so we stayed in a motel and ate a dinner which almost certainly came out of a box at the local diner. The next day we drove through the park, after stopping at the Kentucky Dam, and stopped for a quick hike at what we thought was a hiking trail but turned out to be a tiny graveyard in the middle of the woods. Walking through the elaborate graves, most of which were circa 18th century, we noticed that there was another graveyard behind the graveyard, with a different name and a different fence. All these graves were marked with tiny stones that looked like bricks, with no inscriptions or anything. I imagined it was a slave graveyard from before the civil war.

From there we drove on to Little Rock Arkansas, where we were taken aback by how little it actually is! For a state capitol, and the biggest city in the state, it is incredibly small. It took forever just to find a restaurant that was open. It was the most depressing place we've been so far. From there we drove to Dallas and stopped for lunch. Until then, we hadn't had to drive through any snow or rain at all. But just when we rolled into Dallas, an ice storm broke out, blanketing the city's streets with snow and ice. Dallasites, unnaccustomed to such weather, didn't know how to drive through it and the city's freeways were backed up for hours! Eventually we made it to Amy's Great Aunt's house, in Fort Worth, where we recuperated for a day thanks to the gracious hospitality of Mary and Ken. Tomorrow we're leaving early for San Antonio, and hopefully hitting the Mexican border the day after that. Stay tuned for more adventures!

The Windy City

After a quick dinner with my friend Katia at Ann Arbor's infamous Fleetwood Diner (small, smokey, bad service - and not as cheap as we'd been told!), we left for Chicago to stay with our friend Owens. Owen has a beautiful apartment that he shares with his sister. They were nice enough to let us invade their space, even though Owen had just returned from a trip to India the day before, and his sister was in the middle of studying for her exams...and Owen even gave up his bed to us in favour of the couch!

The next morning Owen directed us to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. We spent a lot of time there in an exhibit featuring a German submarine that had been captured by the US Navy during the second World War. I had some very emotional responses to that exhibit. Whenever I hear about war, I find myself thinking about the situations of individuals, rather than any larger conflict. I just can't discount individual experience, especially in such horrific circumstances. I also find myself getting frustrated with stories of heroism, as it seems to me to be so much military propaganda. I dislike the insidious undertones that are applied to the apparently routine actions of those seen as enemies. I think it negates the lessons of past conflicts to continue describing them in terms of winner&loser, right&wrong, goodside&badside. I think it is necessary to discuss war as the horror that it truly must be for everyone who experiences it, and only from there can we begin to ensure that no one need experience the same again.

We also got to visit the prenatal exhibition, with preserved fetuses from varying stages of pregnancy. Most of them looked like little aliens, really. A sign had been posted reassuring visitors that all the specimens had died of natural reasons. No aborted fetuses need apply. Really, what would be so wrong about using any specimens to further education, no matter how they became available? Abortion can be - may often be - a responsible choice, and for me it seems petty to exclude public education from the realm of possibilities that can result from a woman's choice not to become a parent.

I guess that's all from me, for now. I hope no one minds my ranting. Comments are always welcome.
xo, Amy

The big apple and beyond

Well, we're finally on the road. After hurriedly packing up all our stuff, we left Toronto on Wednesday, November 30th. We decided to head to New York first, where one can procure a Brazilian Visa in 24 hours. However, by the time we got out of Toronto it was far too late to make it to New York so we decided to stop in Ithica, where my friend Liz and her husband Devon live. We crossed the US border at Niagara Falls. The guard at the border didn't seem to like the looks of us (I think he didn't like the looks of Bryan's planting shovel in the trunk) and stopped us for a search. After waiting for about a half hour, two different guards arrived to search our vehicle. After one look at us they laughed and said 'who made these folks pull over?'. They went out to our car, glanced in the window, said 'there ain't no drugs in here' and sent us on our way. I was quite relieved as I've been pulled over for hours crossing the US border, and was once even accused of being a car thief. It must have been my reassuring female presence that made them let us go.

We made it to Ithica, after getting turned around a few times. But we weren't there long as we had to leave at 6am in order to make it to New York City by noon, when the Brazilian Consulate closes. We made it to Manhattan well before noon but by the time we found a place to park and found the consulate, we were a few minutes too late - the New York traffic was daunting at first, but we quickly caught on to how things work...really everyone just goes where they want to, and you gotta hope you don't get hit in the process! We came back the next day and submitted all our paperwork only to find out that, since we are entering Brazil by land from Venezuela, we need to apply for our visa in Venezuela! It would have been nice to know before hand but the consulate never answers its phones and the website didn't mention it. So we rushed ourselves to New York for no reason at all!

But we enjoyed New York anyways; we spent two days and one night (in a seedy hotel in Queens where the pictures were cemented to the walls and the television had the name of the hotel branded on the side twenty-three times - to prevent sale after theft?), and got a chance to walk in Times Square at night (very overwhelmingly bright), stroll through Central Park and Grand Central Station, and spend a few hours in the NY Museum of Natural History exploring everything from the secrets of the cosmos to the wildlife of the african savannah.

From there we drove to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and stayed with my friend Linda for a night. In the morning, she read our fortunes and sent us on our way to Ann Arbour, where we stayed with my friend Rob and his wife Erica. So far we've driven about 2000km -- only 48 000 left to go!