Under Unfamiliar Stars

Big Brother is Watching

2008-03-22T10:31:00.001-07:00

There's a small bit of irony in having video surveillance in the George Orwell plaza. Hurrah to the city planners of Barcelona.

Pizza, Pizza

2008-03-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

Some might wonder if thirty hours is enough time to wolf down eight pizzas... let's just say that it was with the two of us. Deserving in reputation, Naples has the best pizzas we've ever had. So good in fact that Matt pretended to be a local and told some American tourists, that "Da' Michele's does good pizza" with the bored affect of one who goes there all the time and has no doubt that it'll be good pizza. And it is.

The only down side to Naples is that all the weight loss of South America is coming back with a vengeance. We figure it's a small price to pay.

The End of an Era

2008-02-28T09:06:00.001-08:00

Well, there's so much to say... First off, we have left South America and are now in Europe... Italy to be precise. It's beautiful, the food is good, the toilets flush, but...

As we were leaving Buenos Aires, I couldn't stop thinking about how much I have come to love the idiosycrsies of Latin America... the bad music guaranteed to be played on buses, the packs of wild dogs in the streets, the diligent dirt watering of the shop keepers, the ability of roosters to live just about anywhere... it's all just so good there. I think it's fair to say that we both loved Latin America. From Mexico to the tip of Argentina, it's an amazing place and we were lucky to see it.

And, another era has ended... Matt turned 30 on Tuesday, and now he's all grown up. Or something.

The Walk a Thon

2008-02-01T14:30:00.001-08:00

You could make the argument that a 7 and a half day hike, carrying all your food, a tent and sleeping bags for a hundred kilometers, that stretches in altitude from sea level to almost four thousand feet, through a park whose name translates to ¨Towers of the Paine¨ seems a little masochistic.

Actually, I am fairly certain Mary made that exact argument before she became good friends with an ultramarathoner (our friend Becky who runs the "Jungle Marathon" 200 K through the Brazillian Amazonian rain forrest carrying all her food, tent and clothes for a week. And she`s placed first amongst women two years in a row now). Hearing Becky`s stories makes our complaints look sad.

While we skipped out on the last 15 kilometers to avoid rain, wind, and tourists, the hike was beautiful. Really, really beautiful. And we were fortunate to have two amazing friends to share the journey with.

I don´t want to recount or think about the total number of blisters, bruises or sore muscles on the four of us combined, and I definitely don´t want to think about our hike through forty mile per hour rain on our last day in the park.

And even though finding stairs in the middle of a one and a half mile, three thousand foot descent was brutal, it was all made a lot better by staring at a rainbow covering an ice field bigger than Manhattan (See photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2235081966/in/set-72157603830655102/).

Lamb the Argentine Way

2008-02-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

A big touristy thing to do in Argentina is to visit an estancia-- a working sheep and cattle farm where cow hands show you how to rope cattle and you eat lots of good meat. The unfortunate thing about this activity is that most estancia stays start at about $60 a person and that´s a bit spendy to stare at cows. We`ve renamed all estancia tourism places Estancia Club Med.

So a few weeks ago we felt very lucky to have stumbled upon a working estancia in the middle of Parque Nacional Lanin in Argentina, where we camped in our tent amongst a field of sheep on a gorgeous lake in the middle of the Patagonian Lake district.

While there, our amazing luck continued and we met the worlds kindest, greatest family who, upon seeing our ineptitude at making campfires, invited us to join their family camp of 20 people for two days.

They taught us local dances to the tune of the ranch owner`s accordion, a guitar and a kid playing a drum (dance photo, aqui: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2196273232/in/set-72157603725623931/), we drank wine out of cow bladders (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2196296556/in/set-72157603725623931/
), and Matt watched the lamb we roasted be killed (roasted lamb is in the above photo). Matt also had the opportunity to watch the castration of a bull (if you have any interest, testicles sans cow can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2195504815/in/set-72157603725623931/ ). Basically, it was an incredible time of bad spanish, great grilled meat and a feeling of love and inclusiveness.

And, of course, the lamb was some of the best we`ve ever tasted.

Cruisin`

2008-02-01T13:35:00.000-08:00

So, everyone loves a cruise. Well, maybe not everyone.

Honestly the thought of one has always frightened me. But somehow we ended up on a four-day, three-night boat ride (meals included) through the islands of Chilean Patagonia. Technically it was a cargo ferry, but any boat that has a bingo night is close enough to a cruise in my book.

Let me say that the icebergs, penguins, islands, seals, glaciers, sunsets, and straits were all spectacular. And we made great friends with our cabin mates. And we were blessed with beautiful weather. I mean you hear about people looking out cabin windows through sleet and snow at the islands, but we were up on deck worrying about getting sunburned. Yes, the food was pretty mediocre (a hint to cooks throughout Chile, herbs and spices are an acceptable way to inject flavor into food, it doesn´t all have to be done with mayo), and the lack of drinking water was obnoxious. But our first cruise was spectacular.

And I am fairly certain I won´t do another one for a long time.

¡Happy New Year!

2008-02-01T10:03:00.000-08:00

We rang in the New Year with much ablomb and general weirdness. Here`s the story:

We pulled into the bus station in Valparaiso, Chile at midnight the night before New Years. Having skipped dinner in order to make it through Chilean customs in under 3 hours I was a bit grumpy. As we start to head toward some Lonely Planet reccomended hotel, this weird guy in a velvet jacket comes up to us and keeps saying "you reservations?" and finally I´m all "hablamos español" in this snotty, stop-talking-to-me-in-bad-english voice. Which is funny, porque no hablo español. Mucho. Entonces....

We start to figure out at this point that we may be in a place where a lot of people go for New Years. Turns out, yes. Yes, we were. As a matter of fact, had we bothered to read the "special times of years" section of any of our guide books we would have learned that Valparaiso boasts the biggest party in South America for New Years and the town has, on average, a million tourists descend for their fireworks extravaganza. Yeah. So we decide that it´s time to start talking to weird velvet jacket guy.

He has some fliers that say "Hostel!" on them so we figure he´s safe to follow. Keep this in mind. If you want to be a mass murderer, all you need to do is print some fliers that say "Hostel!" and tourists will follow you anywhere. So, we start walking with him and the neighborhood gets progressively sketchier. And, mind you, I´m still starved and cranky (Matt is much more mature and doesn´t get cranky without proper snack times). As we start to walk up a really dark hill we pass a lady sleeping on a mattress in a corner of the street... and then we pass some graffittied houses that say "if you have bread, help your neighbors"
You can see the photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2173051732/in/set-72157603648426454/. Apparently the author followed that same logic, and decided that if you have spray paint, you should share it with your neighbors house.

By the time the hill ascent begins, I´m giving Matt looks that are intended to say "I am going to kill either myself, you or weird velvet jacket guy." Do these looks stop us from following a stranger into a seemingly bad neighborhood at 1AM? No. Of course not. You can see what the neighbors house looks like here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2173053074/in/set-72157603648426454/

And then we get to the house. Which he shares with his mother and the whole place is pretty sketch, and has structural problems like the ceiling caving in but I don´t really want to leave since I don`t want to go back into the neighborhood from which we had just emerged. So we stay. And the velvet jacket guy, Carlos, brings me delicious white nectarines and water since I´m hungry and all... and the view is incredible... and the beds are comfy. See view here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2173039436/in/set-72157603648426454/

The next morning, the mom (whose name I was never able to understand) demands that Matt and I have tea and cake with her and she explains to us the Valparaiso mess of New Years (because we still didn´t know at this point, we just knew there seemed to be no hotel rooms). And she says they will cook dinner for us and have a party with us, their relative and 4 other "hotel" guests and we should stay through the New Years. So we do. And it´s totally strange.

We have a processed lunch meat turkey and some lamb and sausage and mayonnaise (Chileans really, really, really LOVE mayonnaise) for dinner. No one spoke English. At all. And I have a long conversation in Spanish with a nice lady about metaphysics. The fireworks were nice, the city was a massive party for three days prior to the actual New Years extravaganza and the dancing in the streets and drinking entirely too much was a lovely, although liver debilitating, time. Anyway. Here is a photo of Mom, Velvet jacket man and their relative:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2172263685/in/set-72157603648426454/

I think this sums it all up. Mostly. Weirdly, I feel that we got very lucky with this experience... We found a place to stay in a city where park space to sleep was limited. We met some incredibly kind, although incredibly strange, people. We most definitely had a "cultural experience." And these are not the sort of things one does everyday.

To 2008, may it continue to bring surprises.

Prize Offer!

2008-01-06T13:00:00.001-08:00

To the first person who correctly identifies the object in this photo.

Using proper wine making jargon, of course.

Chilean Customs Form

2008-01-06T12:55:00.001-08:00

The Chilean Customs and Immigrations form specifically states that you have to declare semen. That´s all I have to say.

Camping

2008-01-06T12:50:00.001-08:00

Now that we´ve entered Argentina and Chile, countries where it´s normal and heard of to camp, we decided to purchase a tent and start experiencing nature first-hand.

Unfortunately, our tent was the worst tent ever made, and it broke. In this photo Matt is pointing out the broken tent whilst slapping a fly that has landed on his cheek. Ahhh, the joys of experiencing nature first-hand.

It´s Springtime in Chile

2008-01-06T12:45:00.001-08:00

And it´s really pretty with wildflowers everywhere. And I love this photo.

Iguassu Falls

2007-12-25T21:07:00.001-08:00

There are few things that could make a 27 hour bus ride that ended up in a humid land of 100 plus degree heat worth it, but these falls were. I just can not come up with words to explain how incredible they were. And I am certain that the picture does them no justice. If you get the chance definitely check them out.

Which of these things are all of the same?

2007-12-25T20:58:00.001-08:00

Guess the theme amongst the cities on this sign....

Pulling Teeth

2007-12-24T08:06:00.000-08:00

Fountain in Tiradentes.

In the mountains a few hundred miles north of Rio de Janeiro a gold rush almost as big as the California one took place in the 17th and 18th century. Portugal taxed this gold to finance their empire, and through trade, the Industrial Revolution in England.

However, near the end of the 1700s, as the gold started to run out the Portugese, discontent with a lower take, raised the tax rate. This was around the same time as the American and French revolutions, and low and behold, the people of Brazil followed international sentiment and rebelled.

Unfortunatly, unlike the US and France, the revolution failed. One of the leaders of the revolution, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, took full responsibility for the revolution, and was hung in Rio de Janeiro, in the plaza today named Praça Tiradentes.

His body was quartered and with his blood, a document was written declaring his memory infamous. His head was publicly displayed in Vila Rica, the town at the heart of the gold rush. Pieces of his body were put on display in the cities between Vila Rica and Rio, in an attempt to intimidate other would-be rebellions.

Today, the square of his death is named Tiradentes in his honor. It seems that in Joaquim´s life prior to being revolutionary thinker and General, he had been a dentist. Tiradentes is Portuguese for teeth-puller. Thus, all of Brazil refers to him as Tiradentes, and his home town in the gold rush mountains has now been renamed Tiradentes after him.

Down at the Copa... Copacabana

2007-12-05T13:58:00.000-08:00

Definitely not the same as the nightclub in NY, our first Copacabana of this trip was spectacularly beautiful, if quite chilly. Lake Titicaca (no longer just a bad childs joke, or the answer to a trivia question) is one of the prettiest lakes we`ve ever seen. And if it`s beauty alone didn´t leave us breathless, 15 miles of hiking at 13,000 feet certainly did.

(All Titicaca photos can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/sets/72157602584747352/)

Salt Flats are Flat

2007-12-05T13:56:00.000-08:00

How we have not put up a post yet on the Salar de Uyuni is beyond me. I mean it was a month ago, and it was phenomenal.

The first day we headed out from Tupiza, Bolivia into a landscape that reminded us of the California desert. However it quickly turned into the desert as envisioned by Salvador Dali.

Red and purple rolling hills quickly turned into giant smoking volcanoes, vivid red, green, blue, and white lakes filled with flamingoes, steaming and bubbling mud pits, ostriches, llamas, vicunas, and of course the highlight of the actual salt flats. Imagine almost blinding whiteness in all directions, with an occasional îsland in the middle of the great salt sea. The most amazing thing is that the salt flats were probably the first thing Mary has found too salty to eat.

All photos can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/sets/72157602829782359/

Leaving (Bolivia) on a Jet Plane

2007-12-05T13:39:00.000-08:00

The national beer of Bolivia is Paceña, with the best slogan ever... "Paceña. It`s beer."

If you spend too much time in Bolivia, you can grow to be quite frustrated with it. It does have spectacular sights, Titicaca, the Salar, and ...ummm... well Titicaca and the Salar, but outside of them nothing really works like it should. For example, leaving Bolivia.

You know a country has problems when it takes a 15 hour bus ride to travel from it`s judicial capital to Santa Cruz, it`s wealthiest and second biggest city (as the crow flies about 200 miles), because no one has ever bothered to pave a road between them. Actually, in places the road is really just a dry riverbed. Or, in the rainy season, the river is where you would want the road to be.

Luckily we were in the dry season. Unluckily we grabbed some salteñas for the road. Really unluckily they had gone bad, and Mary spent 15 long sick hours with a plastic bag and no bathroom nor bathroom stops.

After the 15 hour ride, we arrived in Santa Cruz at 6:30am, an hour and a half before the train ticket window was supposed to open for sales, where we found a line of around 300 people waiting to get tickets. We decided to check into a hotel and come back for tickets, but by the time we had checked in and got back to the train station, the ticket seller had called it a day as it was noon and all.

The next day all train tickets were sold out, however we were able to purchase tickets for the following day. When we arrived at the train station the next day, eager to leave Bolivia, there were signs up saying the train was cancelled due to striking villagers, and security told us the train probably wouldn`t be going for the foreseeable future.

So we decide to fly. Unfortunately the first travel agent we went to wouldn`t take credit cards, and once we were back from the ATM, the tickets we were trying to book had been sold out. (Why not accept credit cards at a travel agency? Why not book the tickets while we went to the ATM? This is not the way of Bolivia.) Travel agent numero dos found us an 11 hour, 5 leg flight out of Bolivia departing at 4 AM. And that, my friends, is the story of how we left Bolivia. (BTW-- it looks like they`re headed toward civil war nowadays and the trains STILL haven´t left. Lucky for us we`re in Argentina now).

San Francisco Take Note

2007-11-24T04:09:00.001-08:00

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!

2007-11-20T06:38:00.000-08:00

I love when friends visit. Come!

Digging for Diamonds

2007-11-04T13:58:00.001-08:00

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...

2007-11-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

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.

Cabybara Cuteness

2007-10-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

Behold the beauty of the capybara, supposedly the worlds largest rodent weighing up to 150 pounds, rivaling New York`s subway rats for size. However if rats were this cute we'd probably keep them as pets. Our guides one useful piece of information on this trip was that the capybara is almost as tasty as the guinea pig, it's distant cousin. Imagine these guys roasting on a spit.

Contest!

2007-10-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

A prize of a smashingly fantastic Peruvian gift will be awarded to the first person to correctly identify what is occuring in this photo. Good luck.

It`s a Mullet

2007-10-02T10:52:00.001-07:00

You know your Spanish is poor when you can´t explain that you don´t want a 6-inch difference in your front and back hair lengths. Ack.

Cuy!

2007-10-02T10:37:00.001-07:00

We tried cuy... and it´s really not that bad. I think I preferred it over the chicha we had to accompany the cuy.

For the uninitiated, chicha is a fermented drink made of corn and drank throughout the Andes. To begin the fermentation process, the corn is first chewed and moistened in the chicha maker's mouth. Wikipedia explains the process, "Naturally occurring diastase enzymes in the maker's saliva catalyses the breakdown of starch in the maize into maltose. (This process of chewing grains or other starches was used in the production of alcoholic beverages in pre-modern cultures around the world including for example sake in Japan.)" Good to know, eh?

Matt Says...

2007-10-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

I´ve given Mary a hard time in the past on this blog, which led to her Aunt Alice and grandma getting her a shirt that says ¨Very High Maintenance," (great gift, btw) but I believe I owe her an apology.

In the past week and a half, I have seen her spend three days shoveling rubble in a dusty earthquake destroyed city, spend two nights on overnight buses with cockroaches (one of which got so lost that it had to make two 19-point turns with its back end hanging over a 30 foot cliff), and do a three day hiking trip through the second deepest canyon in the world which included over a vertical mile of ascents (with a particularly brutal 3600 foot climb at the end of it).

So I apologize. I was wrong. It was completely unfair to suggest that Mary is anything but the lowest of maintenance. Mea culpa.

Of course if she´d gotten the mule she´d wanted to carry her out of the canyon, I´d probably be forced to write about the facial she´s getting as I write this post.

For Dan Quayle

2007-09-10T16:17:00.001-07:00

There are over 3,000 different types of potato(e) cultivated in Peru. Imagine what Trader Joe's could do with that as a frozen medley.

The Incredible (long) Journey

2007-09-10T15:58:00.001-07:00

We´ve had some arduous journey´s on our trip (six buses to a backwoods Honduran brewery featuring fruit beer, the food poisoning Lagos de Montebello expedition and the 12-hour overnight bus to Palenque in Mexico come to mind), but I think we´ve set a new personal record for complexity.

FromVilcabamba, Ecuador to Chachapoyas, Peru we managed to take 1 bus, two combivans, three colectivo taxis, two colectivo pick-ups, three tuk-tuks, 1 taxi,and 1 long walk across a bridge at the border.

We managed to breakfast on fried pig knuckles with yucca, and have a dinner that we thought was pork ribs but turned out to be chicken, covered countless miles on the wrong side of pot-holed, speed-bumped dirt roads, and saw spectacular scenery from soaring mountains to desert valleys to jungly hills to beautiful sunsets peaking through storm clouds over the Andes. Was it worth it? Definitely. Would we do it again? Not in a million years.

It´s What´s for Dinner

2007-09-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

North American pet store meets South American meat market?

Guinea Pigs were one of the first domesticated animals in the Americas... Not so that every second-grade class could have a mascot, but for its tasty meat with a side dish of potatoes.

We have yet to try this delicacy, but stay tuned for those photos which promise to be a lot less furry and cute.

For Justin

2007-09-07T18:11:00.001-07:00

Our fantastic friend Justin prepared us for this trip by writing travel guides based on his trips to South America and Mexico (you can see his photos here: http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/~justin/SA/). While this information has come in handy a time or two, if we overlook one of Justin´s recommendations, he gets testy and starts citing himself, saying things like "I wrote about this in your guide. See Rubinstein, Ecuador, pp. 2." Truth.

Luckily for us, Justin clued us in to an oversight we had made in almost skipping Shantas Pizzeria in Vilcabamba, Ecuador. We headed over and tried the recommended "Licor de Serpiente" and our liver´s haven´t been the same since. It´s a very concentrated licor that has a fermented coral snake in the bottle. Hurrah to the guides that keep on giving.

Where the Ladies at?

2007-09-07T17:58:00.000-07:00

So of course it would be in the seventies that we had the bright idea of putting a real woman on our currency. I mean we´d done ¨Liberty¨ and ¨Peace¨and other abstract concepts, but women´s lib called for real women, which led to the Susan B Anthony Dollar. Train wreck. It looked like a quarter and felt like a quarter, but no one likes a dollar that they spend like a quarter.

Around rolls the 21st century, and the GAO is making noise that replacing all $1 bills with coins would save the US Govt. around $500 million a year(almost enough money to finance two days of the Iraq war). So, in a cost saving measure that also gave meaningless symbolic gestures to historically oppressed groups (women and indigenous folk), the Sacagawea dollar was introduced.

A lot of fanfare, but what was the last time you saw a Sacagawea? See it wasn´t just that Susie B sucked as a currency, we, as Americans, hate change. Change is the crap that litters the floors of our cars, change is the stuff we pay for laundry and parking meters with. Change is not real money. Well, except when we clean out our cars every six months and take all that change to the bank, where it miraculously turns into real money. A dollar is still real money. At least to poor folk like us it is, those of you in SF may not agree. And real money is not to be thrown on the floor of the car.

So, where have all these coins that were going to save us millions of dollars in printing costs gone?

Ecuador.

Actually, the Sacagawea coin seems to be the primary source of liquidity in the Ecuadorean market place. Anything bigger is impossible to get change for, and anything smaller is still the crap that litters your car.

So here´s to Sacagawea for keeping the Ecuadorean economy afloat nearly 500 years after white men first set foot on Ecuadorian soil and changed the indigenous power structure forever.

Deep in the Jungles of Ecuador

2007-09-07T17:50:00.000-07:00

There are butterflies with translucent wings. Amazing, huh?

Signs, Signs, Everywhere the Signs

2007-08-31T16:42:00.000-07:00

So this was just too off to resist posting. Translation: We´re not Chinese, But we´re having a sale.

Explanation Please?

2007-08-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

We just didn´t (and still don´t) know what to make of this sign.

For what it´s worth, we resisted the urge to streak on the wall.

Mazel Tov!

2007-08-29T16:22:00.001-07:00

We returned to the United States for my best friend`s wedding spectacular... The service was beautiful, the bride was lovely and the groom kept his curmudgeonly self in check (look at the smile on him in the above photo). All in all it was a fabulous time and a learning experience.

Things learned:

1. Doing things in the U.S. can be more hectic than death-defying bus rides and daily dog-chase-piglet skirmishes.

2. Sentimental yet funny rhyming poems don`t work well for wedding speeches.

A Recap

2007-08-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

Having left Central America and Mexico deserves a photo roundup. If you´re bored at work, feel free to check out our "best of" photos of the first leg of the trip here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/sets/72157601312111416/detail/

It´s fun... you can compare how much weight we´ve lost and how much tanner we became over the last few months (there´s no need to point out that only Matt lost weight).

¡Onward to South America!

Con Photo

2007-08-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

Today we straddled the equator. Literally stood with our feet in different halves of the world, with Corliolis forces affecting the two halves of our body in opposite directions. I do not have anything funny or smart to say. I just thought you all should know this and we should get back to posting more often.

(And we´ll post a photo here soon. Promise, promise.)

The Rainy Season

2007-07-25T14:15:00.001-07:00

So there are some drawbacks to hiking in the rainy season... namely getting mud all over you anytime you try to hike anywhere. Here we are at the end of a supposedly "easy stroll to the beach."

It might have been easier had we not gotten lost in the jungle for two hours, which included our discovery of the abandoned crew housing for Survivor, Panama.

You know you´re in a Gringo bar when...

2007-07-25T14:11:00.001-07:00

... Alka Seltzer is on the menu.

Costa Rica is Real Pretty

2007-07-25T14:02:00.001-07:00

We ran a marathon race through Costa Rica (well, not literally a marathon race, those are only for crazy people) and made it in and out of the country in four days. This was because Costa Rica is expensive and because it seems to have more tourists than Ticas in most places.

However, during our one day spent in Cahuita National Park, we realized why so many tourists come to spend so much money-- because it really is gorgeous and incredible. In our only Costa Rican hike we saw three different monkey species, two two-toed sloths, a 4 foot snake and a live bed of sand dollars.

Real Friends Visit

2007-07-25T13:51:00.001-07:00

Carrie came to Nicaragua to share in our joys of hostels without hot water, toilet paper you can´t flush, ceaseless meals of rice and beans, chicken buses, watching children sniff glue, pushing taxis through mud and constant power and water outages.

She claims to still love us, so you know she´s a trooper and an extraordinarily good friend.

California History

2007-07-25T13:31:00.001-07:00

Much of our lack of blogging occurred during the week Matt and I spent on the very remote Rio San Juan (pictured above), which forms the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The area had incredible wildlife, including the only freshwater man-eating sharks in the world (no joke, although the sharks start out as salt water sharks and swim up river from the Caribbean).

The area also has a very rich history in pirate lore and it was long looked at (before Panama) as the best way to open up a passage between the Pacific and the Atlantic. During the gold rush, going from New York south to the Caribbean side of the Rio San Juan, west on the river and then up the Pacific Coast to San Francisco was the shortest distance between the two cities and there is much California memorabilia in the area.

El Castillo, the fort above, served as a safe harbor for entrepreneurs headed for the gold rush in California and there´s an artist rendering of San Francisco in its museum that has Alcatraz shaped just like a Central American volcano.

Cerro Negro at 20 MPH

2007-07-25T13:13:00.001-07:00

Matt`s Version:

Central America has a lot of volcanoes. Some are dormant, and some are very active, but until we reached Nicaragua, none of them had been walked on by the Mary.

I´d tried to get her to come with me, but she had gracefully declined (read: wimped out) several times until I successfully pressured her to climb Cerro Negro outside of Leon in Nicaragua.

We went on a 4am hike with an organization that gives all its earnings to help street children in Leon, and climbed up to the top and into the crater of a volcano where sulfurous steam and heat leaked from the ground.

The countryside was lush and beautiful. The views from the volcano were spectacular. The weather was perfect.

But the thing that made the day was seeing Mary´s face when she saw the 500 foot, 45 degree descent on loose lava gravel, which we were expected to run down.

The real story (AKA: Mary´s Version):

See this photo? It was taken from the top of Cerro Negro, the volcano that we ran down. Hopefully you can appreciate how insanely scary it is to throw your fragile body down a hill full of loose gravel at a million miles per hour. For the record, Matt still has a scar from this activity.

Technical Difficulties

2007-07-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

From some emails and comments I´ve received, it appears that ya´ll are not aware of the trials and tribulations of updating a blog from the illustrious third world. Let me explain (and create excuses as to the major delay in updating this of late).

First, there´s the simple problem of operating a camera when you can´t buy batteries that work. While it´s no problem to buy "dura-free" and "ener-cell" batteries, these only last long enough to turn the camera on to watch it die. Having finally found batteries, I still needed many other items to update this blog. Specifically:

A) Power

B) A computer made after 1989

C) A computer with USB outlets

D) Internet powered by something other than third-world dial-up providers.

Happily, I have found batteries and A-D at a lovely hostel in Bocas del Toro. While I can´t do much about the computer situation, we have stockpiled batteries. Happy blog reading!

Caye Bridge Retrofitting

2007-06-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Seismic Safety Commission can take heart-- we found a bridge still in use and in worse shape than the Bay Bridge.

It was always a fun game to guess when the men working on one side of the bridge would dismantle planks and leave you stranded in the middle of the bay. The other fun game was walking the plank after a rum and coke with dinner... thankfully we never fell off.

Diving with Dengue

2007-06-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

Scuba diving isn´t that hard. It´s mostly about getting comfortable breathing underwater, and knowing not to panic and knowing what to do if something goes wrong (what you do is not panic). But when your instructor informs you he has Dengue Fever, looks exhausted through rivers of sweat on land, green on the dive boat, and vomits into his regulator 30 feet below the surface, it makes getting comfortable a little harder. At least we learned that if you need to puke, you don´t panic.

She said Yes (against her better judgement)

2007-06-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

I got up early to pick up baleadas (Baleadas are flour tortillas grilled with beans. After months of corn-based foods, flour tortillas are exotic and gourmet. And, they´re Mary´s favorite thing about Honduras), and then dragged her out of bed for breakfast baleadas on the dock in the above photo. I figured the grogginess of waking up early, combined with the happiness of baleadas and the beauty of the early morning Caribbean would lower her defenses and I was right.

Early on the first day of summer Mary accepted my proposal to get married. Now you may be wondering when a wedding will be coming. My brother set the original over-under at 2009, but seeing as we probably won´t be back in the states til 2008, and we won´t have jobs, an apartment, or money, and it took us two months to find a ring and then three weeks to actually propose, I think the smart money would be on the over. Way over. Expect a save the date card somewhere in the vicinity of 2015.

El Primero Dia de Escuela

2007-06-17T16:59:00.001-07:00

So I always thought that if I had high school to do over again I wouldn't be nearly so nervous or insecure... Turns out that it's not true-- I still had all those first day jitters on my first day of Spanish school (look at the tense body language in this photo Matt snuck of me marching into class).

I´m So Not High Maintenance

2007-06-17T16:30:00.001-07:00

At the beginning of this trip Matt called me high maintenance for some reason I can´t remember (probably because I wanted a shower or some other high maintenance type activity). Then he took me on this "romantic" hike through mud covered paths and flooded river crossings... For the record, I didn´t complain the entire time, except when I had to wade through this river.

Rainforests Rock

2007-06-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

So, this posting deserves two pictures (although there are really so many good ones to choose from). Both of these photos came from Northern Guatemala... the crab is some sort of tree crab, and he and his little buddies eat leaves and hang out alongside rivers (not quite like the Dungeness).

The monkey is a spider monkey, and these monkeys move FAST, so my capturing it on film may qualify me to work at National Geographic one day (finally, I know what I want to do with my life).

The Things We Miss

2007-06-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

Occasionally while walking down a street one of us will say "I could really go for some sushi right now... or a Tartine croissant... or an evening at the Art Bar... or a pedicure (Matt rarely reflects on the pedicures)... or an installment of the Sopranos..." or any number of things we miss from home.

However, even more than we miss schedules that adhere to time, we miss our family and friends the most. Seeing Hilda and Liam in Antigua today was incredibly nice and reminded me of those I love. Here we are hiding out in an ice cream parlor while it poured rain outside (we don´t miss ice cream as it`s EVERYWHERE in Latin America).

A Ring to it

2007-06-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

I was pretty willing to give Mary a hard time in my last post, so this time I will give her the credit she deserves. She found a ring!!!

Of course within five minutes of buying the ring she decided she hated it and it was terrible and she could never wear it. But then she came around, and decided it was an acceptable ring for the time in Latin America, and she would find another one when we got back to the states. (Doh).

For the last twenty-four hours, every time we have walked by a jewelry store she has pointed out that there was another jewelry store we did not need to go in. This does not mean we are engaged... I still have to find a proper place to propose. My original plans were a taco stand in Mexico, but my original plans didn´t provide for the contingency that it would take two months to find a ring, and a pupusa stand in Guatemala doesn't have quite the same sound.

Customs and Immigration, Belize Style

2007-05-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is the actual customs and immigration office in Belize when you leave for Guatemala. The guy in the photo is also the immigration official. He did put down his Sunday comics long enough to stamp our passports and wave us through.

The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round

2007-05-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

All buses in Belize are old American school buses and while you´re on them you have plenty of time to think "hmmm... this could actually be my old school bus, if only school buses could last that long..."

5 Golden Rings

2007-05-28T14:31:00.000-07:00

Modeling a necklace of thousands of tiny silver beads bought in Taxco, Mexico.

¡Special Matt Agard Guest Author Rant [with some editorial comments]!

Five Golden Rings, four copper bracelets, three pairs of earrings, two silver necklaces, and a Tarramura belt on an REI backpack.

Of course golden rings are frequently wedding rings, and before wedding rings come engagement rings, and that´s where our trouble starts. As many of you know, Mary and I became pseudo-engaged (engaged to be engaged) shortly before this trip with some pressure from one of my friends. (A seismologist in Seattle has a lot of explaining to do.)

Anyway, we couldn´t get engaged because we didn´t have a ring yet, and Mary didn´t trust me to buy a ring. (From the rest of this blog I´ve gathered she doesn´t think highly of my taste). [Ed Note: Not true, he asked me to shop with him. Possibly because he doesn´t think highly of his taste.] So we agreed to shop together for an engagement ring.

Biggest mistake of my life? That might be an exaggeration, but I would estimate that we have been to almost one hundred jewelry stores on our trip, Mary has bought at least a dozen pieces of jewelry, and there is no engagement ring in sight. Now she does have very exacting standards on rings, but this goes beyond that. There have been several times where she has seen something that seems perfect, only to want to sleep on it and then not make it back in time for the store to be open [Ed Note: I am not responsible for the haphazard shop keeping hours and/or the frequent holiday´s scheduled in Mexico].

I am fairly certain this is not accidental, Mary doesn´t want to find a ring. She has realized that once we find one, I won´t be as willing to do an hour or two of jewelry shopping every day, so she is trying her best to delay the inevitable. However what she doesn´t know is that if she doesn´t hurry up I am going to propose to her with a ring I find in a Cracker Jack box. [Ed note: There are no Cracker Jacks in Latin America.]

Beautiful Belize

2007-05-28T14:06:00.000-07:00

I highly recommend that you buy a ticket to Belize City and then take a commuter flight to Dangriga Town and then take a little boat out to Tobacco Caye, a five-acre island in the middle of the Caribbean. It´s an amazing experience, and honestly can be done on the cheap. Commuter flights are $30 and lodging in a cabin on the water including 3 meals is $30 a day.

Then, once you arrive on the island you only do a few things... You snorkle, you talk to the thirty other people on the small island, you eat meals prepared for you and served cafeteria style at 7am, 12 and 6pm, you sleep, you can read if you´re feeling ambitious and you stare at beautiful blue water. It´s not all paradise, however, as there is a serious risk of a coconut falling on your head. Start expedia searching for tickets now. You´ll be happy you did.

Fun fact: The Belize Great Barrier Reef is second only to THE Great Barrier Reef in Australia in terms of fish and corral species. Here´s a photo of the Caye in case you need more inspiration.

Just What the Doctor Ordered

2007-05-28T13:18:00.000-07:00

So, it had to happen sometime.

The scene: Romantic lakes that can only be reached via a circuitous route including travelling via bus, van and a 1962 VW beattle up a dirt road. Remote, romantic lakes. So remote, in fact, that they lacked food. They also lacked water. What they did have, in large quantities, were hairy spiders slightly smaller than the palm of my hand.

And, of course, that´s when I got sick. Really, really sick without running water. Oy. By the next morning some of my illness had subsided so we hitched a ride to another town in a pickup truck where we got a room that featured a bed that was 2X4 slats spaced 5 inches apart with an inch of foam for a mattress. And, of course, that´s when Matt got sick too.

The next day, feeling better and optimistic, we took an eight hour van ride to Palenque where Matt came down with a fever of 103 degrees... That´s when we went to the doctor, who put us on a course of antibiotics and gave us some lovely coco flavored pedialite. I wonder if coconut flavored pedialite is specific to Latin America and the US features cherry and orange flavors?

On the bright side, in cabin number two, the woman who owned the cabins made me and her whole family soup since I was sick. It was very touching.

Mexican Justice

2007-05-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

¡Special Matt Agard guest author appearance!

Thinking we were over a bout of food poisoning, Mary and I embarked on an eight hour van journey through the part of Chiapas that borders Guatemala to get from Lagos de Montebello to Palenque.

The first five hours were relatively uneventful, multiple van changes, beautiful forests, mountains, and rivers intermixed with burned out fields, random men in camouflage with machine guns searching our bags and asking us where we were from, the usual. However, after about five hours, the Pepto I had taken started interacting with the still present food poisoning, and I started feeling nauseous and my temperature started rising. At this point, a different branch of the military (I knew this even in my feverish mind because they were wearing black instead of camouflage) pulled over the van.

After a brief conversation with the driver, the captain of the group asks the kids in front of us where they were from. When he hears Honduras he orders them out of the van. He allows our answer of being from the US to stand, but tosses out three more passengers when they can´t substantiate the fact that they are from DF (Mexico City). About a minute later he tells our driver to leave without the five passengers, but our driver says they haven't paid yet, and forces all of them to pay for the lift he gave them to their execution, exportation or whatever it is that the Mexican military does with people that it considers undesirable in Chiapas.

(Ed Note: This photo doesn´t have much to do with anything, I just thought it was cute.)

Lost in Translation

2007-05-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

My last job kept me up nights thinking about typo´s (which is why I have excused this blog from such scruitiny). On a campaign I was working on, we had a Spanish language handout on its way to print when we discovered a typo that changed the meaning of a sentence from "Measure G will REPAIR our roads" to "Measure G will RAPE our roads." Thankfully it was caught in time and I laugh about it today.

Not so with this sign, which should have read Dangerous, Do Not Swim. It´s positioned next to a 50 foot waterfall that doesn´t look very inviting for a swim and no one seems to have an interest in repairing the sign.

Fashion First

2007-05-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

Those of us who know Matt have always appreciated his fashion sense... and that´s something I´ve particularly come to love on this trip as he packed three tee-shirts, two of which have the word Elvis printed on them.

This is probably why everyone knows we´re Americans.

Chapulines

2007-05-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

So grasshoppers are a standard food item in Oaxaca... Matt claims to like them, I am not such a fan. Anyone else try them? Opinions?

A Breath of Fresh Air

2007-05-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

After two weeks in Mexico City and its environs, we were ready to breathe oxygen in our air and see blue sky again. They really aren´t kidding about the smog in Mexico City... it´s intense. We´ve been holed up for the past 4 days in Mazunte on the Oaxaca coast where the weather is hot and so is the ocean. We´ve watched turtles in the act of "copulando," birds flying within arms reach, fish flying through the air and picturesque sunsets.

Modern Romance

2007-05-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

Oaxaca state has so many breathtakingly beautiful sights... we took a camioneta (truck) up and around and down a mountain to arrive here at Agua al Hierve, where there are naturally created infinity pools that are filled with spring water.

This couple, perched on the edge of one of the pools, was beautiful. While the father held their baby on his back, the mother angled her cell phone and text messaged.

Districto Federal

2007-05-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

I´m having a hard time wrapping my mind around what to say about the incredible spectacle that is Mexico City.

From Lucha Libre to the Ballet Folklorico, from braving the subway to taking canal boats through Xochimilco, from climbing 294 steps to the top of the pyramid of the sun (second largest pyramid in the world) at Teotihuacan, to trying pulque (a very old fashioned drink made of fermented Agave plant and a symbol of peasant Mexico), from eating a fancy dinner overlooking a fresco in a swimming pool that had been installed by Diego Rivera to eating amazing street tacos of Al Pastor with pineapple, to randomly running into friends from San Francisco on a street corner in downtown Mexico City to being lost in a city of 18 million, to the zoo and the national anthropology museum, to learning about the Aztecs and the many different ways you can and should offer the gods human sacrifices... Mexico City defies neat little packaged blog entries. Lets just say that we both really liked Mexico City. A lot.

Trying New Food

2007-05-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

We like to think of ourselves as adventurous eaters... so when Matt suggested ordering something that sounded a lot like "little hands of pigs" we thought, ´How bad can it be?´ It turns out that little hands of pigs were the cold, gelled, fatty parts of pigs feet. And some tomatos and orange slices for decoration. Yum.

Take Him Out to the Ball Game

2007-05-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

We see hundred year old frescos, pyramids built before Christ, murals by Diego Rivera depicting the struggle of workers in Mexico, guilded churches, Buroque architecture, stained glass, painted tile, Volcanos and lakes and oceans and parks, but nothing has made Matt´s face light up more than this headline. Go Sox.

Despues de Semana Santa

2007-04-21T17:41:00.000-07:00

The first two weeks of our trip were during Semana Santa, the Easter Holy Week. Mexico is insane with tourists everywhere and crazy prices for everything. We took a train that was so packed that some passengers had to stand or sit on a floor for five hours and we paid $60 a night to sleep outdoors and share a communal bathroom... thankfully, everything has calmed down now that Semana Santa has ended. Prices are normal ($10 for a shared bathroom) and we have always been assured a seat on a bus.

Visiting a Cathedral that has a huge Semana Santa procession, we meandered back behind the chruch where they were finishing cleaning up from the celebrations. The pile of crosses reminded me of a CostCo for religious artifacts.

Los Aguacates

2007-04-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

We visited some ruins that were surrounded by avocado orchards where we learned that the word avocado comes from the Spanish word aguacate, which derives in turn from the Aztec word ahuacatl, which means testicle. As avocados generally grow in pairs like those in the above photo you can see where they were coming from in the name.

The Original Knitting Machine

2007-04-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I helped my Grandmother clean and cull through some of her craft supplies. She offered me the money from anything I was able to sell, so with a little Craigslist action, I scored $200 off of her knitting machine. Not surprisingly, it looked and worked similar to this one that Patzcuaro artisians have been using for hundreds of years.

This Little Piggie Went to Market

2007-04-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

I really love wandering through the markets in Mexico... the produce I´ve seen puts San Francisco´s artisianal, organic, free-range, pesticide free, sustainable produce to shame. Amazing fruit and vegetables and chile´s galore. The meat is always interesting... I had no idea that tripe is actually scraped clean before it´s cooked. Not that that makes it any more appetizing.

And, yes, the butcher rolled his eyes at me when I asked if I could take this picture. Not that I blame him.

Goodness in Guadalajara

2007-04-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

I love this town. It's beautiful and cultural and filled with plazas and students and artists and street performers and warmth and light and sunshine. Really, it's a fantastic town and I want to move here and restore the old homes in the downtown area and resell them at a profit.

We spent yesterday in Tequilla, learning about Tequilla. Had an amazing dinner of duck breast in a rose petal sauce and sea bass sauted in cactus and squash blossoms. Today we were at the biggest market in Guadalajara... to call it crazy would be a huge understatement. Tonight we're off to listen to live jazz under the stars in a plaza with the acoustics made better by the towering cathedral walls surrounding the cafe. This town rocks.

Do you think the sculptor who made this statue anticipated that this man's head would be used as a baño for pigeons and made his face outraged accordingly?

Rush Hour in Creel

2007-04-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

About the time the sun sets, the Taramuhura Indian women and children pack up the baskets they weave and sell to tourists and head home for the day. We happened to be on the same trail as many families this night...

Dias de Las San Blas

2007-04-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

I love, love, love sleeping in huts made of palm trees on the beach. I do not love, love, love sand flies and mosquitos. Although, they´re worth the trade off to fall asleep to waves crashing at your feet every night.

Also, Mark and I perfected our boogie boarding technique in San Blas and we now rival boogie boarding champions world wide. Matt perfected his beer drinking and watching us boogie board technique.

These Boots Were Made for Walkin...

2007-04-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

I submit this photo as evidence that we walked across Mexico... or that we at least plan to walk across both borders.

Is the Joshua Tree a Cactus or a Tree?

2007-04-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

Trick question! The Joshua Tree is actually a member of the lily family, like orchids (see http://www.nps.gov/jotr/naturescience/jtrees.htm for more information).

Here I am posed as a Joshua Tree... very camoflagued, huh?

When Billboards Inspire

2007-03-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

This was the our view of traffic and billboards when we left San Francisco last week... Dunno if it means I spent too much time with cliche's/political advertising, but I took this sign as a good sign for our travels.

Cause in the evening it's girls

2007-03-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

You can almost hear the Beastie Boys singing in Matt's happy little head.

Yan Can Cook

2007-03-05T13:57:00.000-08:00

I made this. It's pepper shrimp Vietnamese vermicelli bowls and it's fantastic. Here's the recipe:

http://www.sunset.com/sunset/food/article/0,20633,1586836,00.html

P.S.

I added red leaf lettuce as a condiment. Really, you can add whatever you want.

Better than Children

2007-02-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

Beautiful Day for a Picnic

2007-02-28T13:05:00.000-08:00

You know people have become used to this awful weather when they're willing to picnic in the rain.

Into the Woods

2006-11-26T14:23:00.000-08:00

Having never backpacked before, I agreed to Matt's idea to hike, sleep and backpack in the woods. It was magestic and inspiring and the air was crisp and the hot springs were phenomenol. That being said, I spent my entire last night (of 2) having vivid and beautiful dreams about being able to take a shower.

Jelly's

2006-11-26T14:12:00.000-08:00

Day one of the Mary and Matt Thanksgiving Road Trip Classic began at the Monterey Bay Aquarium where one has the opportunity to reflect on the beauty of life under the sea, the impishness of Sea Otters and some of the finer points of human behavior that large tourist attractions always bring out.

Jellyfish are pretty.

And in the beginning, there was booze

2006-11-16T13:56:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the very first blog entry of a blog created to post travel photos, to (hopefully) entertain and to stir up deep seated feelings of envy and resentment among those dear friends stuck at work and bored. Clearly, this blog is meant to enlighten.

I'd like to commence this grand experiment in self-discipline with one of my favorite travel photos of all time. Clearly, when choosing a store name, these store owners sought to enlighten as well.

Beinvenidos.