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pilgrimage of poem & music
(an intimidating book to open)

Monday, September 22nd, 2008


Opening the book on our adventures in the Dolpa (rural Nepal) is as intimidating as the 17,000 foot passes we crossed to get there. Just look at a single page of my notes!

So instead of hesitating any longer, I’m just going to open and type.

Scared, exhausted, breathless, hungry, sore, cold and wet, on the first week of our pilgrimage in the Dolpa, I woke up early and as Sangeetha took to her morning ritual of flicking at the beads of water that accumulated into breaking dams on the low roof of our tiny tent, I scribbled into my journal the following:

THESE are the adventures of Kavita and Sangeetha in the Dolpa of rural Nepal.

Names, dates, times, heights, distances and places cannot be confirmed as such numerals and characters have little value when that to which they are respective does not exist. Let it suffice that such measures, here, change with the wind, waning moon and a timeless culture’s mood.

My name is Kavita. Kavita means, “poem” in Hindi. The name was given to me by a man born a shepherd of the Ladakhi North Indian plateau, at the summit of a pass in the Himalayas as a gift to crown the acceptance of the path of adventures that would ultimately lead to this one. On that same cliff of life crossroads, I, curiously, kicked not one, but two, copper horseshoes.

Upon finding my first phone, weeks later, I called my best friend and told her of my decision to follow my open-ended whim in South Asia. She replied, “then I’m coming too” and so I sent to her, by way of messenger, the second copper horseshoe.

Fall, winter and spring pass before we find ourselves reunited in the smooth clay underground room of an attending Tibetan family in a tiny and ancient village in rural Nepal. My friend is sitting cross-legged and wide-eyed at the underground world of which she has so suddenly entered. She keeps trying to bow lower than the dark, wrinkled man holding a prayer mala (rosary) and chanting mantras (Buddhist prayers) beneath his smile, for whom she has an unnamed source of reverent respect.

I enter the smoke-filled room and Sonam Tashi, our Tibetan ponyman, looks up with his perennial smile, just as he snaps a set of new batteries into an aged radio (and only medium of this otherwise communication-less world).

“SANGEET!” he shouts, as his arms, inflated by enthusiasm, rise into the air.

As I cross the room to my seat on the richly carpeted clay bench, I do a little line dance in my best impersonation of traditional Tibetan dance as I have seen it. Our small audience laughs in surprise, claps to the beat, and, finally, applauds my short act. Finding my seat next to my friend, she asks of me, “What did Sonam Tashi shout?”

“Sangeet. It’s Hindi and Nepali for, “music.” That’s it! That’s your name! Sangeetha!”

For it was only a day ago that my friend charmed an entire bus of local passengers waiting on a cliff ledge (for a secret amount of time) with the guitar she had struggled to bring half way around the globe to this moment. As she sang and strummed on the muddy step of the bus, a beautiful Punjabi boy in a pink turban snapped his fingers, gyrated his hips and thrust his arms about in animated poses of what he claimed to be his culture’s traditional dance.


The name is perfect, and thus are born the adventures of Kavita and Sangeetha.


Posted in daily life on the road, dolpa pilgrimage, magic & alchemy, story time | 3 Comments »

days debrief

Saturday, January 5th, 2008

Visions of India Dec 2007 – Pushkar, originally uploaded by seekingsol.

For most Westerners, it’s unfathomable for a major city to function without 24-hour electricity. Yet like the monsoon rains on their mission to Ganga-ji (respected river), the 1.3 million people who live here in Varanasi somehow always manage to redirect, divert, finagle and finesse around the obstacles of 10 powerless hours, to fluidly find a way to go about their day. And despite the fact that the electricity has gone off TWICE in the typing of this single sentence (once for 3 hours, once for 20 minutes), I’ve never heard a native complain. Hold on. I have to “save.”

Three hours ago, my resolve to sit down at this computer and write till something came out was as strong as the espresso I shot to chase it. But the power outages, along with missed trains and traffic jams, prepared yet another alternate reality and route to amble along. So now I’m back at the blinking cursor, but the caffeine I fired up with four hours ago has stopped doing jumping jacks and crashed on the couch. Being the hated type that jumps out of bed at sunrise, I now write from a slightly sleepy and somber mood; why not? Let’s try something new.

No one knows what I’m doing these days; neither my family nor friends. So if you fall into one of two former categories, don’t feel left out, because much like Varanasi, everyone is in the dark. So it is with the purpose of filling in this gap of trivial yet missing information that I chose the content of this update. Also, my fingers are still stiff with bed rest, having spent too much of the last month turning many pages (of books and in life) but not outputting much in the medium of type. *save*

So what am I doing? I’m squinting my eyes and wondering myself. And that is because I don’t do very well without two-page checklists to reference. Ah, yes. So, it’s something I don’t think I’ve ever confessed to, but certainly responsible for 74% of my life successes: I’m a relentlessly effective multi-tasker and organizer. (My sister, in an email today, made reference to this same quality that we’ve inherited by blood from my mother as, “itchy butt syndrome”; I laughed for 10 minutes.) This, as all our best qualities are, is a sword; the other edge being that in the process of my ruthless swinging around, I am often negligent of emotions, people, creativity, alternatives and details that I arrogantly slaughter in the name of producing the fastest and highest yield. (And I call myself a vegetarian.) As my co-leader recently wrote of me in my evaluation: “…she just needs to remember that there is more than one (i.e. her) way to get up the mountain.” So wise and true. And there are just as many ways to get around the mountain — meaning it’s taken me an impressively long paragraph to summarize the sentence: “My days are simple.”

My days ARE simple. Awkwardly and healthily, uncomfortably simple. Right now, I only have three daily obligations. And they are kind of interesting, so let’s go there…

Hindi Classes. This is, without challenge, my favorite hour of every day. And that is because my Hindi teacher, Virendra-ji, is perhaps, my favorite man in the world. And yes, I think this of a hundred human beings. But part of being a “non-dualist” (invented term) means that I can have as many “favorites” as I want (infinite); or at least that’s how I rationalize it in my world (also invented). *save* Virendra-ji is single-handedly responsible for every fluent (Western-born) Hindi speaker I’ve ever met. He is considered the most respected master and guru of language learning in the city – and I too will confidently vouch for him as the nothing less than the, Yoda of Hindi. The man reads minds. He handles Jedi learning and memorization techniques like a light saber. He employs your subconscious and manipulates it like play dough. And us poor, lowly, ignorant students – we are blind to the firm and expert rationale behind his magic-like tricks. You may not get it, but hardly I do – so how can I explain? I’ve never known a teacher to be able to entice the subconscious of a student into secret action. But he does it. He’ll strand an especially complicated sentence together (transliterated example: Nato mai shadi-shuda hung na mai, philhal, shadi karna chahati hung: Neither am I married nor do I, for the meantime, want to be.”) and instruct me, “Don’t think. You will understand this in three minutes. Just repeat. Now repeat again. Now close your eyes. Repeat. Okay, say it backwards. Now say it forward. Say it fast. Slap your hand on the table when you say the last word! Now tell me what it means in fluent English. Not broken English. Fluent English! Now say it fluently in Hindi, with confidence. Good. Next.” *save*

Bamboo Flute Class. The vision, obviously, is of a charmed pilgrim, skipping her way through the winding valleys of the Himalayas, singing back and forth to the little birds, all the while smiling under the whistle of her simple wooden flute. The reality, however, is eight neighborhood kids taking a collective break from their cricket game to inhale just enough air to scream at the practicing pilgrim, “STOOOOOOOP THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!” It could be worse I suppose. Instead of scales and ancient, sacred Ragas, I could be murdering Mary and her Little Lamb. Either way, it’s bad. It’s very, very bad. And, to the recurring nightmare of my neighbors, it’s likely to be that way for still some months. My flute teacher however, is quite wise. He only gives me enough examples to take home for practice and then fills the rest of the two hours with warm chai and lovely chit-chat on the history, culture, and logistics of learning Indian music.

Brainstorming with Ajeet-ji, the visionary behind GURIA. Ajeet-ji is the lovely man I quoted a few posts ago from his speech aimed at elevating awareness of the flesh trade in India. I’m collaborating with him on a number of projects, all of which he groups into the single, endearing, category of, “high tech.” The projects’ task lists include collecting content, articles, photos, film and contacts for the purpose of furthering global awareness and sponsorship of the NGO and its objectives. We’ll see where it goes; it’s only in seed stage at the moment. But if you happen to be rich and reading this, and hoping to find an amazing non-profit in which to invest some money (with fantastic karmic returns), do email me: solbeam@gmail.com. There will certainly be more thoughts turning to print in future posts on the subject of GURIA as my involvement moves from seed to sapling. So rich or poor, stay tuned.

*save*

Wow. Maybe my days aren’t so simple? But they are. They are. I wake up at 7am (no alarm) and meditate every a.m. I have plunger coffee, brown bread and honey with a newspaper and Hindi conversation every day at the same place for breakfast. I go to my classes and then I read the same book (Indian Religions – The Spiritual Traditions of South Asia – An Anthology edited by Peter Heehs) while I sip on lemon mineral water and wait (1 hr) for vegetable paneer momos, on the same rooftop, every day, for lunch. I meet up with Ajeet-ji, or, in some crazy variation, venture on an exciting errand in the afternoon. And then I share my evening with my Indian homestay family, stop in for email on the way home, say goodnight to my landlord, review my Hindi vocab, crawl into my 0 degree sleeping bag, read a short story from Jo
rge Luis Borges, and fall asleep as soon as, sometimes before, my head hits the pillow. Occasionally, I wake up in the middle of the night with the intrusive and compulsive thought to recharge this or that appliance so that I, too, will be prepared for the 10 powerless hours of tomorrow to come.

And THAT, I guess, is what I’m doing.

(Please excuse my midnightishness.)

*save*

Posted in daily life on the road, india | 3 Comments »

Footprints in Peru, Day 6: a welcome to the house of great mountains

Saturday, August 18th, 2007

a community service project sponsored by World Nomads

As we descend into the valley, I can’t help but feel like I’m strolling through a doctor Seuss picture book; it’s an awkward but fanciful arrangement of skinny trees with knobby tops, boulders sprinkled like bread crumbs from an earth-sized muffin, curlicue streams poured on the land like molasses, sheep and llamas dressed in perfectly color-coordinated camouflage, and little dashes of bright red, visible from infinite distances — climbing a hill, chasing a goat, tending to a field or trailing a cluster of other dashing red dots.

I don’t know what I expected of the Andes, but it is not until my descent into the valley that I realize my imagination would have been aptly challenged with the task of a preconceived vision as colorful, dimensional and whimsical as the one I’m witnessing. In between long sighs trailed off with adjectives whispered only to myself, Reality takes a full box of crayons and colors in the black and white image with which I came.

We arrive at the bottom of the valley where a particularly large cluster of small red dots has been pulling hair, investigating insects and poking at old body wounds in the boredom of our long-awaited arrival. Teachers quickly smarten the little bodies and limbs into erect and organized lines and set the step for a march towards our group. Each child is dressed, from hat to toe, in rainbows of home-woven clothing and accessories. Though each shawl took months of detailed attention by tremendously patient and skilled hands to create, the children are not dressed up for this occasion; this is their traditional dress, the same as what they wore yesterday and will wear, again, tomorrow.

I am immediately shocked by the familiarity of the rosy mountain-pass-chapped cheeks and earth-toned and tough skin; apparent adaptations for those accustomed to living in close(r) quarters with the sun. I recognize many of their faces as fraternal twins to those I’ve encountered in the Himalayas of India, Nepal and Tibet and realize that they must be siblings in the family of those who have made for themselves the same home, on different continents, of great mountains.

Each child in the procession carries a white flower. The flowers were brought from the lowlands and their drooping faces, which evidence their exhaust from the distance they traveled, are a comic contrast to those of the children whose heads are upturned with expressions widened in excitement and unabashed curiosity.

The teachers urge the children forward and, with this encouragement, one of the young girls approaches me. When I kneel down to her eye level, she hands me the flower with one hand, pours confetti on my head with the other, grins, gives me a quick hug and runs, giggling all the way, back to her group. Low to the ground, I approach her group and whisper the question as to if anyone speaks Spanish. They all just bat their huge black lashes and giggle. I’m sad that I’ve forgotten my Quechua phrasebook at home, but will learn later that while these girls don’t speak Spanish, their older sisters do; Spanish being reserved for late primary school.

As the children continue with the rituals of their reception, and our initiation, to their village, I decide it to be the sweetest gesture of the Quelqanqa community; sending in the most precious of their possessions in life, to make offerings of welcome and greet us as their guests.

———————————————
*sol bows her “namaste” and gratitude to World Nomads Travel Insurance, ThinkHost and Merc for their ever-supporting roles in the realization of her dream.

Posted in daily life on the road, peru | No Comments »

monsieur peanut

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

(story continued from prior post: curvy)

Now I pulled this same idiot move in Guatemala when I spent a day working at a coffee finca and was baffled by the red and green candy-colored skins masking my coffee-shop bean incognito.

Again, I have no excuse except for unadulterated ignorance. Perhaps I was misled by the airs of that top-hat-ed, cane-tapping, Mr. Peanut, who looked down at me through that funny one-eyed looking glass from the TV. Perhaps he was rather happy to bury that part of his history, now living the American dream of pulling himself from the working-class earth and earning himself the prestige of a truly refined peanut. I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting peanuts to tap dance out of the bushes, but I just didn’t expect them to be uprooted from the earth either.

But they there were. A more petite and varied version with each shell distinctively claiming its own separate space and style. Some holding the double curve of two nuts, but just as many proud to claim only one, And none afraid to protrude in any way out of whatever could be construed as, “ordinary.” Have even the nuts in my country subscribed to unquestioned conformity? Am I reading too much into my peanuts? Perhaps.

I squat, observe, and easily tug a few nuts from the root. I roll them in my hand and then look up, to my hosts, for permission to investigate with a third sense.

Now which is more ridiculous: that this white girl has traveled from her country of *purported* milk and honey and asked to work in the fields, that she didn’t know a peanut field when she was standing in the middle of one, or that she’s asking for permission to eat a nut she picked herself from the Earth? Do I have to continue to describe the faces contorted in questions of absurdity?

So put whatever expression you’d like on their faces as they witness and realize that it’s the first time this silly toubab ever seen or tasted a raw peanut. And if you also were fooled by the costume of our American ambassador Mr. Peanut, you too should know that a raw peanut has green undertones and is a little chalky on the tongue, but is just as tasty in its un-roasted form. I bite. I chew. I hum my delight. My hosts, in turn, briefly smile their happiness with my approval of their humble and naked nut, but this game is ridiculous and over and it’s time to get to work. I’m handed the shovel.

I don’t get to use the shovel long. It was a test. And I failed. I tried to mimic the sweeping motion that the younger boy was modeling, but there is clearly experience-earned skills that the expert has mastered in order to not slide deep enough under the earth to expend extra effort but sweep low enough to clear the roots and not damage the shells – like I am doing.

After 15 minutes, the older man sighs heavily and takes the shovel from me. He indicates that I am to take his job of rounding up the scratchy bushes into nice organized mounds while pulling out all the weeds and vines belonging to anything other than the peanuts. This, is quite a task at first; my eyes blind to the discrete details defining one from another. But slowly I begin to recognize the jagged shape of a leaf, the tiny thorns, the soft felt of a vine, or the darker shade of green; all cues that identify the invaders of the field from the harvest.

In this way I sift, and sort, and bundle; every hour passed proving further my durability and earning the soft and curious respect of my hosts till finally the older man comes over and claps me on the back and shouts in Wolof to the younger boy.

The boy smiles and translates to me, “He says you work HARD for a woman.”

———————————————
*sol bows her “namaste” and gratitude to World Nomads Travel Insurance, ThinkHost and Merc for their ever-supporting roles in the realization of her dream.

Posted in daily life on the road, on nature, senegal | No Comments »

stomach aches

Sunday, March 4th, 2007

holes

Our seventh passenger halfway arrives.

He isn’t actually going where we are going, but his destination is along the way and if we’ll chip in, he’ll pay a little extra and we’ll all (three hours since my arrival) finally be on our way. Agreed and extra small bills piled in the middle of the car, we all suck in our breath, pull up our knees and squeeze in.

We don’t go far at first. Just long enough for a flashing hole between my feet, where I can see the road pass underneath, to catch and hold my attention and make me ponder what is actually essential to making a car run. Whatever “it” is; it and only it, is here. The gray blur passing through the hole steadies itself on oily, black, concrete. Even I know better than to wonder why the driver is, only now, going to the gas station: he collects our pool of money and uses it to purchase the fuel needed for the trip.

A man with a briefcase is suddenly at the passenger window catching his breath from chasing after us. He’s speaking Wolof and so I can’t catch any decipherable gist of what he’s saying but can see that whatever it is, it’s making the newest arrival squirm in his seat next to me waving “move along gestures” and the rest of the men in the car look around at each other for someone to take the lead they want to follow but not initiate. Everyone stalls. Finally one speaks. The others all nod. The man next to me squirms and shakes his hand again. The man at the window pleads. The others nod again. The man next to me keeps shaking his hand and looking straight ahead. There is silence.

And this goes on for 30 minutes; plead, squirm, agree, shake, silence.

I get it. I don’t have to speak Wolof to comprehend that a full paying passenger has arrived who will return to the rest of the passengers in the car the cash we just chipped in.

At 9 am, four hours after my arrival at the taxi station, my new neighbor has tucked his briefcase between his knees and we all pull out of the gas station and hit the road.

“Hit the road,” while perhaps less an expression in this case, is an exceptionally accurate description of what I will do for the next 12 hours of this overland journey. Through that little hole in the bottom of the car, I watch hundreds of foot-deep crevasses, cracks and divots pass. The driver’s spine is erect in attention and his eyes are squinted and focused intently on the road. I can’t help but think of that game at Chucky Cheeses’ where you slam the padded hammer on the gofers as they emerge from holes and they pop up faster and faster, sometimes even two or three at a time. We swerve violently; left, right, sometimes backwards I feel. Often we bang, bump and sink and quickly I understand how anything unnecessary would quickly shake off the frame giving birth to many such holes as the one beneath my feet.

a heavy little bag

Although it is inevitable, for some reason I am surprised when an unseen signal calls for the car to halt and one of the men in the seat in front of me opens the door and runs into the bushes. He swaggers back slowly, with his eyes closed and clutching his stomach. He collapses back into the seat of the car for only a second before he leans out the door and vomits again.

The first time everyone in the car is sympathetic. The fourth time in half an hour, the driver is grinding his teeth and everyone is sighing with either annoyance or aggravation.

Sometimes when I’m in another country, thoughts don’t hit me as quickly as they should. Perhaps because I’m the one out of place and there’s already enough attention on me, I avoid calling for more. But it isn’t out of disrespect but out of neglect that I wait for the forth stop before I tap the leg of the man with the suitcase and say, “Attente! J’ai la médecine!” He yells up to the driver and repeats, “Wait! She has medicine!”

The sick man rolls his eyes toward me, but hasn’t any energy to respond. The driver turns off the engine, walks to the back of the car, opens the trunk and starts pulling out all the baggage until he finds mine. He shoves my backpack into my arms.

The whole car empties out and all eyes are on me as I desperately search for my little plastic bag of first aid supplies. After a futile five minutes of searching, I want to lynch myself for putting myself into the aggravated-sighing-spotlight when, yes! I find it! My foiled little package of tiny Dramamine pills that I regularly disperse to sick students when I’m working as a guide. I hand the silver package to the driver like a golden ticket. He could care less for anything except getting back on the road. He gives it a quick glance over, hands it back to me, and starts throwing everything back in the trunk.

The sick man is propping his cramped body on the back of the car. I punch out two pills for him and hand them over. He looks me in the eye for a long second. I have no idea what he’s thinking or deciding, but at the end of his thought, he tosses the little pills into his mouth, nods and gets back in the car.

I am left alone still holding the little bag. For the first time, I really look at it. In addition to motion sickness medications, it holds anti-malarias, different sets of antibiotics for giardia, amoebas, urinary tract, and broad gastrointestinal infections. It has antibiotic drops for eye infections and prescription creams for skin infections. It has disinfectants, tools for cleaning wounds and sterile bandages.

The little bag suddenly becomes very heavy as I realize that it holds the cure to the diseases that kill hundreds (or thousands?) of the inhabitants of this continent on a daily basis. The thought makes my stomach hurt.

breaking bread and borders

The driver yells at me to get over my realization and back in the car and I snap back into action at his quick command.

The sick man quickly passes out against the window and after a half hour of relatively uninterrupted driving (for unfortunately there are no pills for potholes), everyone stops holding their breath and there is a collective sigh of relief. (The sick man won’t wake up till we arrive seven hours later.) People finally cozy down in their seats. The man with the briefcase asks me questions and offers me cookies. I pass around a bag of my own crackers as others laugh at my weak attempts at Wolof. I come to realize that our shared problem and my contribution towards solving it, has effectively broken down a social barrier that I hadn’t recognized earlier as erected. But I am thankful for finding my own seat suddenly a lot more comfortable.

(still to be continued)

*****

Since you all know Mbouille now, if you’re interested in seeing a love note video that we sent from Boulder to Senegal last week, you can watch it here.

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*sol bows her “namaste” and gratitude to World Nomads Travel Insurance, ThinkHost and Merc for their ever-supporting roles in the realization of her dream.

Posted in daily life on the road, mis-adventures, on health, senegal | 3 Comments »

Je suis ici!

Friday, September 15th, 2006

And although my French is shy, awkward and stuttering, Paris is as smooth, soft and sexy as the voice of a French lover whispering in my ear. The problem, really, with my French, is that I know just enough to begin any conversation, but can’t comprehend enough to respond to the answers my questions may have summoned. I’m disappointed but relieved when my question in French is responded to with English. And I fluster up a curious mix of Spanish, English, French, obscene sign language and red-faced silence when the conversation changes into fast lanes of French to which I have been blind-sided.

But these words – fluster, curious, obscene, embarrassed, blind – they are good words, ill-fitting only to show me where I can grow. On the couch in the studio of a friend I have not yet met, my stomach grumbling on something I ate that might have been meat, or cheese, bone marrow or bean paste (only in France, for the richness of all foods, could you not know the difference), I count my Euros, which are all now in coin having distributed only large bills in fear of giving anyone exact change for mistake in comprehending the number owed. Oh how I remember this same storm of struggle with Spanish in Spain! But it’s a storm I seek, and dance in. And as if on cue, outside my window, lightening flashes and thunder snaps with a trailing roar. Rain pummels down onto the metal rooftops outside as French accents, food smells and street songs continue to waft their way up. Childish delight festering at every root end and finger tip, I gather up my day’s successes — navigating the airport, purchasing train tickets, steering my way through the maps and maze of metros, meeting two new friends, asking for help and directions, buying bananas and nectarines at a small fruit stand — like I did the small trophies I earned in dance competitions in 3rd grade. And with a smile that insists on staying the night, I curl up on the couch, and fall asleep with them.

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*sol bows her “namaste” and gratitude to World Nomads Travel Insurance, ThinkHost and Merc for their ever-supporting roles in the realization of her dream.

Posted in daily life on the road, europe | 4 Comments »

stalker or…

Thursday, July 7th, 2005

Making her first appearance in the Spain Album…

And then quickly popping up again in the Lagos, Portugal pictures…

Which smoothly moved into sharing a few hundred miles along The Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage….

And curiously enough, led to pictures of her with all of MY old friends working (also) as a photographer at Club Med in the Dominican Republic…

And suddenly sipping on sunsets with me again in Ecuador?

And just last week, brilliantly assisting me with my American re-assimilation in her homeland LA…

WHO IS THIS GIRL?

Oh yea.

My best friend.

******

(Who else would forgive me for publicly posting such pictures?)

******

Love you L.

See ya next continent.

******

(world photogallery)&nbsp(about sol)&nbsp(some stories)&nbsp(LeapNow.org)&nbsp(travel disclaimer)&nbsp(packing list)&nbsp (photogallery guestbook)&nbsp (blogger profile)&nbsp(World Nomads Travel Insurance)&nbsp(WhereThereBeDragons.com)

Posted in daily life on the road, gratitude | No Comments »

meet my family

Friday, December 24th, 2004

After enjoying our evening English sessions so much, I was invited to move into the house to share in a season with one of the most carinoso, loving and fun families I’ve ever encountered in my travels. Now, I’m quite conscious that here in the magical little Colombian community of Taganga, I’m making memories that my eyes will one day tear up over, but I’m too busy loving it all up to miss it quite yet.

Please, meet my family…

This is Mayra, my 12-year old adopted sister. She teaches me how to properly mash patacones (fried plaintain) and I help her translate Bob Marley songs. When we’re not swimming or singing, she’s usually making “yuck” faces at all my raw vegetables and doing everything within the power of her persuasions to get me to eat meat.

This is my host mother Diana. She’s taught me the secrets (canela and panela!) of making a proper Colombian tinto (coffee). Despite the fact that she’s lived in Taganga for three years, she’d never been to the only discoteque in town. So, on her insistence, Annie and I took her out last weekend, where she held her own on the dance floor (without a sip of alcohol) ‘till 3:30 in the morning!

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp

Meet Annie, our in house resident expert in song and salsa! We spend evenings turning the kitchen into a dance floor as she instructs me in the subtle shoulder, hip and rump rotations that distinguish cumbiafrom mapale and purro. She shakes it like only a Latina pura can.

And this is Freddy! From the minute I wake up (at the crack of dawn) to the first minute he spots me climbing over the hill towards the house, at the top of his lungs he screams his enthusiastic greeting; “CHRISTINA AGUILERA!” He wants nothing to do with conjugating verbs and is constantly throwing his fist onto the table to ask, “Yes. But HOW do I say in English, “If your new Colombian girlfriend spends the night while you’re staying in our hotel, then you have to pay the price of two people.” We take trips on the moto to go pick up Mayra at her grandmother’s house in true Colombian style: one moto, three people, two backpacks, two ice-cream cones, and a weeks work of groceries and a five gallon jug of water dangling off all limbs not driving.

I’m not the only long-term hotel guest who’s fallen in love with this house. This is Martin, who Diana refers to as “whoo hoo!” which is the whoop noise he makes when he gets excited, which he did a lot of when making Switzerland’s national dish, Roshti, for everyone last night.

And this is David from Israel, who’s been happily “stuck” in Tanganga while suffering from some “mystery disease” that the doctors here think might be dengue fever and which he INSISTS that he cured by consuming obscene amounts of garlic. But I have to admit, the 40 cloves of garlic that I chopped and added to his special Shakshuka recipe, did make for a salivating experience.

This is the fruit juice bar of Anna and Kelli, where you can find me every morning and at every sunset, sipping on concoctions of guanabana, papaya, mango, maracuya, and lulo. There isn’t an easier place in the world to do a juice fast and as a result, we wink at each other over my special discounted rates.

This is Swiss Diana, who has an English book exchange in town that I visit on almost a daily basis. I’ve already read four books off her shelf and am now busy translating and creating promotional flyers for her in exchange for organic papayas from her garden. Yum.

This is Black #2. I used to take him for walks on the beach, but when he gets tired he refuses to move and I’ve grown tired of carrying him home. And he only responds to commands in Spanish “puppy-talk” (which is what Diana uses) and I just can’t bring myself to make my voice so high or strange.

This is Dana, the REAL big baby of the house. She sneaks up on me in the grass or when I’m in the hammock, and with no warning, I suddenly have 100 pounds of Dana on top of me. My only protection is…

Mama Tacha, who’s always ready to take a quick snap at a sol-stalking Dana. Mama Tacha and I have a special affinity towards each other. I think it’s because she too was a wanderer who followed her nose up to this house where she was treated with such love that she refused to leave. Tacha follows me everywhere. Be it on the beach or at the bar, she stands patiently by my side, always within distance of a reassuring pat or longer loving pet.

Well, it’s Christmas Eve, and “CHRISTINA AQUILERA! VENGA POR UN TINTO!” is being shouted up to me from downstairs. Time for me to join and delight in the laughter and smells wafting up to my room. Sending wishes out to all, that in your holiday also, may the only thing hotter than the tinto be the warmth of the loved ones you share it with.

< More new pictures in the Colombia Album

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shhhhh…

Wednesday, November 17th, 2004

Come closer my friend, for I have something to share with you that we don’t necessarily want the rest of the world to know…

Colombia is I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E.

*hands down*

The best kept secret of South America.

Where to start?! The gasp-worthy countryside? The wicked rumbas (parties)? The “ambiente caliente”? The masses of photo-worthy faces? The daunting size of the avocados and mangos? The smells wafting from the bakeries? The alleys full of flowers tumbling over amazing architecture? The breed of backpacker? The sweaty salsa discoteques? And the people! The people! The people!

Let me give you two of a dozen examples…

– I walk into a hotel in Popayan and inquire as to if a room is available. The young woman smiles and informs me that the entire town is booked because of a conference. The first drops of the afternoon monsoon start to splatter in the garden in the center plaza of the hotel. “Ni una cama?” (Not one bed?) I plead. The smile never leaves the face of the girl as she replies, “No problem. You can sleep in the bed of mi papi. He’s out of town for the weekend. Okay? Follow me.”

– I wander out of the rain and into a building in Cali and ask the receptionist where I can find a map of the city. She shakes her head and tells me she hasn’t any idea. A young girl approaches me and says, “Come with me. I’ll drive you to the tourist office. And here’s my card. Call me tonight and I’ll show you around all of Cali, okay?!”

I have never, in all my travels, met such a warm and welcoming people as the Colombians.

The backpackers too are of a whole other breed; Uniquely united in a dare to challenge the rumor of danger, they’ve each surrendered their security at the border in exchange for a romp where only those that take their life less seriously can wander. In the last two nights, I was the only American at tables with representatives from Serbia, Slovenia, Denmark, Czech Republic, Israel, Colombia, Thailand, Holland, Norway, Australia, France, England, Belgium and Zimbabwe. And not a pair of zip-off pants in the whole bunch.

And Colombia is easy on the backpacker budget as well — although the value of dollar has dropped dramatically in the last week (ranging from 3000 to 2000 pesos in exchange for US1$). My taxi driver informs me that the drop is due to the US presidential elections. He then tells me that he should be able to vote for my president because, “…what happens in your country probably actually affects me more than it does you.” I nod my head in absolute agreement.

And the cities!!! There aren’t enough pretty adjectives in the dictionary so I’ll just let you see for yourself…

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp

>63 New Pictures in the Colombian Album.

(sol’s travel photos) (about sol) (some sol stories) (LeapNow.org) (travel disclaimer) (packing list) (photogallery guestbook) (blogger profile) (World Nomads Travel Insurance)

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peace of pun

Sunday, November 7th, 2004


>New Pictures in the Ecuador Album

A bus ride across Ecuador will leave anyone aspiring to be a National Geographic photographer, as you don’t need a talented eye to see or appreciate the vibrant visions that cast themselves through this country’s rollercoaster of mountains, volcanoes and valleys. I’m not a big fan of superlatives, but I hereby give Ecuador my highest mark and star as the country owning, “the best bus ride” of all my worldly travels.

And I would know, seeing as I just finished a 30-hour sit on a cross-country trip.

Of course, it doesn’t actually TAKE 30 hours to traverse the entire of Ecuador. Not unless you sleep through your stop and wake up in the Eastern Oriente, 16 hours out of your way, anyway.

So was it the way my hair had suddenly sprung into ringlets (climate change) that gave me my clue that I wasn’t on my way to the city anymore? Or the mud and gravel road and bushy hands of thick rain forest trying to reach through my window to shake me to attention? Or the way the patrol officer raised one confused and curious eyebrow when he shook me awake for a brief moment to answer his inquiry and I told him I was on my way “TO” Quito?

No. I’m pretty sure it was when the bus driver discovered me under a blanket in the back seat of the bus and said, “Ah Gringita! I didn’t know you were still here! I thought you wanted to go to Quito! You know we stopped there eight hours ago?”

Yes. That’s about when it dawned on me.

So I stumbled out of the bus and sat on the curb and watched my 4th consecutive sunrise in four days (I get an inch of credit in consideration of the fact that prior to my “nap” of consciousness to the obvious, I hadn’t slept for 40 hours) rise over the North Eastern Oriente of Ecuador. And suddenly, something else started to rise inside of me. It started as a low tickle in my stomach, and then gurgled into a rising giggle, jumped out of my mouth as leaping laugh and finally hurdled me into a mass of hiccupping hysterics.

And sure the situation was funny, but this was a bottle that I had been — in taking myself (and life) all too seriously — shaking for weeks. And in this breaking moment, the comedy of life finally uncorked, I had no choice but to absolutely explode in relief. Oh to laugh at myself! To smile upon my mistakes. To chuckle over my insecurities. To see the unsuspected curves in my path as nothing but terribly needed comic relief! And as I sighed and wiped the last tears of joy from my cheeks, peace overcame me.

I think sometimes we forget how important it is to forgive, have compassion, practice undefended love, and LAUGH at ourselves. Life will be a drama if we allow it, but incognito, underneath, lays always a divine comedy. And I’m so happy that I can be confident that if I ever get too caught up to get the pun and punch lines of living, then Life WILL go the extra 500 miles to redeliver them — until I do.

(If you missed hearing about the time I got on the wrong PLANE, feel free to laugh again with me in my story of “Adventure Incognito.”)

*****

Sitting one day on a cliff to the sea

Opened from the sky and fell from above a small key

Unlocking the divine in one single beam

A path to the source of all light, love and being

Opened old, closed and dusty love doors

Swung suddenly wide open, where now the wind blows

Let finally out to breathe in a breeze,

On which all things and persons can now come as they please

(sol’s travel photos)&nbsp(about sol)&nbsp(some sol stories)&nbsp(LeapNow.org)&nbsp(travel disclaimer)&nbsp(packing list)&nbsp (photogallery guestbook)&nbsp (blogger profile)

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