San Francisco Take Note

Behold the Lacerda elevator in Salvador, Brazil. This elevator was originally constructed in 1873 to connect the high and low cities of Salvador. While the initial elevator was hydraulic (and man and rope and pulley) operated, today´s electric elevator transports about 50,000 passengers the 207 feet in around 30 seconds.

There are many a spot in San Francisco that could use such technological brilliance... I for one nominate the hill I used to live on (the Cumberland hill AKA Dolores Park parking lot), California between Montgomery and Powell and I´m sure a few others. I hope some politician is taking note.

Sean is the Best!

I love when friends visit. Come!

Digging for Diamonds

We took a mine tour in Potosi to see first-hand the appalling arsenic and asbestos laden conditions under which miners work in the hopes of earning as much as $250 a month. While $250 a month doesn´t sound like much, consider that it´s about four times that of what a store clerk in Bolivia makes. And a store clerks salary dwarfs that of Bolivia´s rural poor (the average altiplano family of four lives on $11.65 a month). And then when you stop to consider that the average miner has a life expectancy of 45 years and the life expectancy of those in the Altiplano is 46, well... some things here are just too depressing to think about.

Of course it wasn´t all depressing... the day featured several first time in life type of experiences (and, hopefully, last time in life experiences) including:

• Climbing into a still-working 450 year old mine that created one of the largest and richest cities of the 16th century
• Gasping for air in the highest city in the world
• Taking a tour with a guide who didn´t manage to wipe the traces of cocaine from his nose before starting his 100-word-per-minute spiel
• Holding a lit stick of dynamite packed with ammonium nitrate
  

It may be worth noting that Matt was voted most likely to be the unibomber in his high school year book.

Matt Works and Writes Blog Posts...

Due to the negligence of someone on this blog whose first name starts with an Ma, this posting should have gone up a month and a half ago. I think that certain someone owes you a big apology.

So, as many of you know, Peru was hit with a major earthquake right before we started the South American portion of our trip. We were considering volunteering, but after a cursory web search we came to the conclusion that the best thing we could do was go to the area and spend money as tourists.

As we took a cab through the decimated tent city of Pisco we realized how wrong we were about Pisco not needing help. After a trip to the islands off of Paracas (highly recommendable by the way) we wandered into Pisco, where we were quickly enlisted byHands On, an organization that had us working as quickly as they could get us work gloves, a shovel and a signed injury disclaimer.

Hands On has managed to find a cheap source of labor (unemployed backpackers traveling the world who will put in a full days work for three squares and a wooden bench to sleep on) and they`re using it pretty effectively on disaster relief situations. I don`t know much about their corporate structure, but I figured now would be a good time to plug their website, http://www.hodr.org/, and suggest that if you`re looking for a cause to donate to, they might not be half bad. Besides, they got us working this hard.