Travels with Esteban

Battalions Locking Swords

2012-01-31T05:32:00.000-08:00

Jan. 31st, 2012 Puerto Escondido, Oax., Mx.

At dawn, even before some unknown soldier at the military battalion above the highway played revelry on his trumpet, a shopping list was made for the weeks essentials. The first mission was to try to find a 'papeleria' that sold art supplies, and very primitive, cheap facsimiles were found within fifteen minutes of reaching town on the five peso 'collectivo'. 'Super Che'-Puerto's first true SUPER market was the second destination of the morning thereby giving the two cups of coffee, bran cereal and fruit salad of breakfast plenty of time to ferment and join forces. A battalion as it were, ready for morning excercises. The 'cajeros' or cash machines in 'Super Che' were installed after the official store opening, clearly an afterthought although a profitable one. Having the 'banos' or restrooms beyond and down the hallway from the 'cajeros' or money machines might seem like an insignificant detail- unless of course you are a middle-aged man who has foolishly consumed a breakfast of diuretics and purgatives.
After checking my 'mochila'-bag, I headed to the restroom only to discover that the money machines were being emptied of cash and filled with crisp, new bills. Soldiers brandishing guns and very serious, don't- f**k-with-me expressions, guarded the process and blocked access to the banos.
"Cuanto tiempo hasta la libertad del los banos? ( How long till the liberation of the restrooms?) I ask.
"Una Hora." ( One hour.) he stated emphatically, not appreciating my early morning military joke.
"Una Hora!!!" , I repeat, jumping up and down indicating my desperation. . . The soldier didn't smile, he just raised his gun slightly as if it were an eyebrow, indicating this is not up for discussion.
At this point I counted the soldiers, and more importantly their armaments. Three soldiers with what looked to be automatic rifles. Uzi's?
I again gave the soldier a pleading look and grabbed my 'pistol', hoping we could do our machismo male bonding over our dicks and their requirements. He just ignored me.
' Hmm... ' went the desperate thinking process, ' I could untie my board shorts in prep, run past the first guard, tackle the second and third, drop my drawers and slide into the mens room, lock the door and ...' Just then the guard caught my eye and gave me an exceptionally surly look.
' And then they shoot me through the door. This is mission impossible. Madness. I don't want make the Mexico City lead evening TV Crime and Violence Story'
" American tourist attempts robbery of 'cajero'". And then of course the bloody image, uncensored as Mexican viewers are arguably even more blood-thirsty than American viewers.
"Never mind."
The grocery shopping list immediately got reduced to just bottled water. No treats. No goodies. No essentials. The needs of my fermenting battalion loosing to their well-armed battalion.
Mexico finally won a war!
Abrazos
Esteban

Los 'Animalitos' in the Hood

2012-01-30T05:24:00.000-08:00

Jan 30th 2012 Pto. Esc. Oax, Mx.

The packs of wild and very aggressive dogs of past years known to occasionally attack beach walkers- although they generally favored motorcyclists feet, (a true delicacy for the dogs and known to them as 'cucarachas del motorcycles' )- have largely been exterminated. I check in on a wild black beach dog with her few-days-old litter, who sleeps in the sand, coffee cups and plastic , under the shade of a small glossy-leaved 'Beach Almond' in the arroyo between the vehicular and pedestrian bridges on Zicatella beach. She like her beach compatriots can behave aggressively with a passers by, growling, nashing her teeth and behaving like bitches will. ( Married wives of gay husbands act remarkably similar) . I fear she may not be long for this world too, culled for her threatening ways.

Yesterday just below me in the shallows of Carrizalillo bay a polka-dot Manta Ray with narrow three foot tail, extended and flapped its two foot wings in slow motion and with sublime balletic grace, oblivious to the gringo swimmer. Several years back and a thirty minute 'collectivo' ride up the coast, I swam with a seven to eight foot , Darth Vader-charcoal colored Manta Ray, so by comparison this little girl looked festive and cute with her 'Nemoesque' polka dots. The Jewel Moray Eel, Parrot fish, and Puffer Fish just a hundred yards and two rocks over also sport spots and polka-dots, as does a weathered 'Abuelita' in Mexican 'dotted swiss' uptown.

The local long tailed crow-gackles 'or 'Senates' as they are known here bathe in the shallow 'benches' of our small hotel swimming pool, three to six at at time with sentry bird nervously pacing the white concrete edge. Late afternoon when backlit by the westerly sun, their very physical wing and feather flipp-drying technique shoots water drops in a wide arc of one to two meters, and on further thought, perhaps bird mites. Which begs the question,, " How much clorinated water does it take to kill a bird mite?" Not to worry, I swim with poison eels and snakes and sharks and even sometimes Orcas every day.

Two four inch brown bats hang under the alcove of the cement stairs to my room. Why I looked there I can't say-no stone unturned- but I startled one , and she me, when she flew out practically in my face. They are good mosquito hunters, or at least I am assuming they aren't Vampire Bats like in Nicaragua.

I am naming the bat pair Cortes' and Malinche, after the Spanish conquerer of Mexico and his indigenous guide, lover, and mother of his child. Malinche has been traditionally vilified in Mexico for being a traitor to her race, and first parent of Mestizo, or half-breed as Cher would sing. Given the choice, to continue enslavement by a Mayan tribe, or become a guide, translator, and wife to Mexico's prestigious conquerer and ruler, what would you do? Certainly you've read of the horrors the enslaved might entail in that brutal Aztecian era. Severed enemy heads and hearts dropped like Beach Almond fruits. Given the choice, most of us would probably grab the gilded, silken cape, and enjoy the prestige of power and the benefits of travel as Malinche did.

They named their son Martin. Yes Martin. Pretty boring as names go. We can only imagine the discussion between Malinche and Cortes' on their future childs name. She probably wanted something like Xochijuapanato, a fitting name for the son of the former princess of Paynala, and he wanted Philipe. They compromised on Martin. Not very imaginative, but then Cortes' was known more for his ruthlessness than his creativity.

Therefore, in honor of Malinche, I'm naming the first stairwell alcove bat sired by the sweet couple: 'Xochijuapanato'. Heres to you Malinche!
Abrazos
Esteban

Cucarachas Del Mar

2012-01-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

Jan 28, 2012 Puerto Escondido, Oax. Mx

One of the pleasures of Puerto is eating regional Costeno delicacies offered by the locals . The younger three generations of our favorite restarant-Palapa family on Carizalillo ( Car-ee-za-lee-yo) Cove and Beach abandoned great-grandma today and went hunting for 'Cucarachas Del Mar'. La Donya the matriarch is in her cane-carrying seventies, and was cooking and serving customers alone-bien estressada!- while two generations of the young-uns were scampering around the point crabbing over course, slippery rocks whilst waves broke upon them.
No not bugs or beatles, Cucarachas are a snail-like creature with a thin clam-like shell The men scraped, pulled and opened the narrow shells of the creatures to remove what they referred to as 'la lenguas' or the tongues. Apparently the Cucarachas move like snails, with slow, fleshy volition. The pale-pinkish flesh is similar to tender octopus or squid, and when garnished with lime and eaten fresca-sushi style tastes like a distillate of the sea: salty, sweet and rich! They also prepared a Cucaracha tomato cocktail with jalapenos but unfortunately those flavors although delicious over-powered the subtile natural flavor.
Donya also prepared her version of 'Llevos Rancheros' with a black bean sauce, and two eggs layered between thickish home-made corn tortillas and garnished with a piquant green salsa. Wow! Packed with rich flavor. The black beans must be at least a day old, fairly cooked down with some tender beans remaining.
Buen Provecho! Happy Eating!
Abrazos.
Esteban

'Chok'-full of Bad Suggestions

2011-03-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

March 16, 2011

Many adults and particularly middle-aged adults are considering, especially in the light of the current economic downturn, re-defining or re-inventing themselves. Some already have with varying degrees of success. A formerly employed architect acquaintance is presently working for minimum wage at William Sonoma. Hardly an optimum re-invention! ( Although he could do worse)

Several years ago I decided to redefine myself culturally-sexually as a ' Metro-non-anotomical-eunich' or to put another way, 'stylishly a-sexual' . This is not an anatomical or physical liability, but rather a preference or choice. Choosing dark chocolate, an occasional beer, chips and the camaraderie of friendship over the complications of 'romance' and sex. So now we have perhaps a new designation in addition to the more or less standardized: 'straight' , ' gay' , ' bi-sexual' , and ' transgender' . The fifth although probably not final sexual orientation: 'Metro-non-anotomicalo-eunich' . (Sorry, but I have demoted cross-dressers to the simply 'self-dramatic' category. ) The flag is raised for re-definition if not re-employement. Like a bad pop-song without lyrics. Or a bad pop-song-with bad lyrics, (I am not quite sure of the distinction here.)

Friends have kindly made career and job suggestions, now that landscaping has dryed-up like a parched perennial creek in the August heat of the Mojave Desert. One suggested becoming a hospital entertainer for terminal or recuperating patients. But , I can't sing, and somehow I just don't think the critically ill want to see me tie balloons in the shapes of dachshunds, floral arrangements, and rocket ships, or listen the sound of my kazoo trilling,

" Do dah, do dah"

Yes, we can fully imagine it.

''Get the hell out of here!'' screamed the bed-ridden old man through the plastic cup of his respirator, knocking the pink balloon-poodle off his bed. Humility and peace of mind are not necessarily the terrain of the near dead, and as much as we all need a good laugh, not all want it! Although I can attest that nothing is more bitter-sweet than a shared laugh with a terminally ill loved one.
Career Opportunities friends have suggested:
1.Turkish bath owner and in-house courtesan. Frankly there are numerous complications with this suggestion. Basiclly it doesn't fit into 'Metro-non-anotomical-eunich' lifestyle. And where is the investment capital to come from, much less the architect schooled in Moorish bath details? In Nevada one can paint a 'double-wide' pink, slap a few fake columns on the front and open a house of pleasure. A 'double-wide' would never hold up to the steam nor support the heavy tiling.
2.  Waiting Tables? The memory isn't good enough to remember who wanted what and what the special sauce or soup of the day are. AND I'm a 'Klutz-estraordinaire!'
  " May I spill this soup on your lap please? Oh my, the 'bisque' on your expensive Italian slacks matches your tie. Who knew?"
3. Semi- permanent or permanent un-employement now how taken on the euphemism of ' a window of time'.
  'Yes, ' the very, VERY late-middle-aged acquaintance says casually, 'I have this window of time to volunteer.' With the implied sub-text, that one better quickly take advantage of this 'narrow' window. Yes, as narrow as the Mississippi River in flood season! But ' volunteerism' is a consideration, if not a career option.
4. Throwing ceramic pots on the wheel for a local ceramics production co?

I can't center the clay on the wheel so this is a no-go and have made this mistake before with considerable humiliation.
5. Life coaching? Yes, lets try to fix your life, when I can't fix mine.

6. It was raining and snowing heavily in Boise two months ago in December when I left for the tropics , then two months of drought ensued while I was away, and now more rain and snow upon my return from the tropics. One career option might be to license and rent a stylized, contemporary 'Choc' ( Mayan Rain God) image of myself to the Idaho State Agriculture Dept. This rain god will be carved in big, heavy, impressive, basalt ( With copies in fiber-glass and faux basalt finish rented at a reduced rate) and installed on portable rain-god-squeeky-wheels. 'Porta-Steve-Chok', as it were. It could be pushed up a ramp and transported in one of the State Inmate Trustee vans, and driven out to some cloudy promontory and rolled to the peak of a ridge. Push-'Squeek', pray- 'Squeek' make offerings- 'Squeek' . The sky will piss cats and dogs and ski-snow and next summers irrigation water. Or it won't. 'Chok' loves prayers and offerings but hates suggestions.The Gods are fickle, after all.

Abrazos
Esteban

Welcome to Gringo-landia

2011-02-22T16:33:00.000-08:00

L.A., Ca., U.S.A.

Feb 22, 2011

First day back in the U.S., bankrupt California and L.A. after two months in Mexico and South America and the city seems astonishingly well maintained and affluent - Havana just after the fall to Castro before fifty years of neglect and 'infrastructure entropy'. The potholes are still being filled. Even after two days of airports, jet travel, Mexico City smog, and extreme climate changes, I feel remarkably well rested, well-fed, well-excercized, well- meditated. ( Not medicated) Three weeks on the beautiful Oaxacan coast and the sweetness and kindness of the Oaxacan people filled me with a sense of well being. Perhaps I was even ready to encounter gringo culture and all its neurotic shrillness. I set out for the 'Bodhi Tree' , a spiritual and poetry themed bookstore in Hollywood to buy a friend a book of Rumi poetry- thinking that would be a safe venue to re-aquaint myself with American culture. Not too harsh or brash.

In front of the store was the quintessential young L.A. woman: blonde, pretty, perky, and carefully quaffed, sitting in the sun in Buddha pose. How perfect. How spiritual. This looked safe and innocent. I was casually broussing books on the shelves on the porch with a song in my head and lightly marking the beat on my leg, when she broke her buddha pose and shot out sharply with ,

"PLEASE don't tap like that!" I give her a ' huh?-double-take'. "I had an auto accident, and that upsets me."

'' Sorry. '', I reply, surprised and a little stunned.'' How long ago was the accident?"

" A year and a half ago."

" Sorry to hear that." And of course wondering if it were true, and even if it were, what difference it would make. I sensed a lie. The inner dialogue was arguing with the gut-level-bullshit-meter. 'Now Steven, be compassionate, she may have actually have had and accident' And yet her implicit demand for her private meditative moment in this very public place struck me as equal parts very ' gringa' -behavior, very self-entitled-behavior, and frankly a little nuts. At least in New York, the crazies look like crazies and indicate their marginal mental health! In Mexico City the night before last I gave a homeless woman a sack of fresh uneaten Mexican food from my dinner. Her face filthy. Her hair deshevelled. Her cloths rags. She carried lots of sacks. These were all indications of a street person with marginal mental health. I offered her a 'Sope' with 'flor de calabasa, hongas, queso y frijoles'. ( Tortilla with zucchini flowers, mushrooms, cheese and beans.) We had a brief conversation, and even SHE was less crazy than this blonde bitch! Initially wary and suspicious, perhaps thinking I was a missionary or something. ( They make me wary too.' Puras corbatas' . Mormon-missionaries in their ties. Jehovah' s with their doomsday predictions.) She politely thanked me though, and looked me in the eye! Her eyes retained a sweetness. But this shrill Blonde?

Oh dear, welcome to Gringo-landia!

After purchasing a book I headed down Melrose Avenue where I had noticed a coffee shop.

The patio of the 'Urth Caffe' . Was this a play on the word earth? Earthy? Natural? And the Cafe was spelled pretentiously with two 'F's. 'Caffe'. I wondered if the owner also had a hyphenated last name. Smith-Zablonski. or Cohen-Kurusawa. Years of landscaping clients had proved the 'hyphenates' are always high maintenance! The patio was filled with L.A.'s beautiful people and as I passed on my way into the restaurant, my right, very funtionally-designed travel shoe kept squeaking. Clearly these were not expensive Italian shoes or three hundred dollar tennis shoes. The people in line were stylishly dressed and friendly, and I started perusing the various menus and signage. One sign proudly announced the 'Urth' used 'shade grown' coffee and I chuckled to myself. It's ALL, 'shade and mountain grown' in my experience. 'Sustainable' and 'Heirloom' were also proudly annotated, and I wondered if this was Guatemalan coffee grown on fertile, former Mayan agricultural land that had been appropriated by the Spaniards and never returned. Would growing coffee on confiscated land make it sustainable? Probably not sustainable for the present-day Mayan indians trying to grow corn, squash and beans on undesirable and infertile 'urth' high up on the slopes of the volcanoes. My green tea was sourced from three continents and countries one of them China, the 'heavy-metals' capital of the world. 'Ugh,, Grreeat!' It probably was 'Chinese organic', I just wasn't sure how that translated into english, or to my liver. I walked outside to the patio, 'Squeek, Squeek, Sqweek' goes the right shoe. And sat down at a small metal bistro table. To my left an attractive gay couple, a black man and an over-pumped white man whose arms dwarfed the little bistro table, chatted fluently in French. And to my right a young attractive straight couple, very stylishly dressed also chatted in French. Very urban, very New York. Very chic. I involuntarily sneezed and farted, although ever so softly. A French fart, delicate. Almost elegant . Barely audible, especially with the non-organic traffic noise just on the other side of the potted plants.

French phrases like "Ah boh." "Ah Boh." , kept appearing in the conversational lexicon like popping corn shooting from a kettle.' "Oh good, well yes, very good." she was saying over her arugula and California ' Nouvelle' greens.

' I wonder', thinking back to my recent travels, 'how you say in French : I got bit by bed bugs while sleeping in a grotty hostal in Cartegena!' I noshed on the chocolate chip cookie, rich and delicious, and formed the phrase in Spanish. 'Pulgas de cama' would be 'Bed-bugs. ' Me Piko' would be 'they bit me'. 'Hoooriiiiible Hostal!' ' would be 'grotty hostal'!

They at least did not complain, these elegant French, about the squeaking shoe. Or the passing of minor flatulence. But on second thought, maybe they had. Probably even complaints in French sound pretty and elegant. Don't they?

Welcome to Gringo-landia.

Abrazos

Esteban

Platanos, Helados, Chamba y Sueldos

2011-02-18T07:37:00.000-08:00

February 20, 2011

Puerto Escondido, Oax. Mex.

I departed in the late afternoon from Manzanillo Beach (Man-zah-nee-yoe), up the stone steps and stopped under a dense tree on the side of the staircase, with small, five-petaled white flowers. I paused to listen to the high-pitched ´Pow-touu-eees´ of hummingbirds who at first were obscured by the vegetation. Gradually, twenty, then thirty birds, some larger ones with red throats, others small and fawn colored, and blue ones could be spotted perched or sampling the nectar. Then on up the hill, past an up-scale ´costeno-spanish´styled gringo development. Farther, an electric orange flowered African Tulip tree held garlands of rusty-orange bougenvilla. Past vacant lots, one with the carcass of an abandoned car on blocks. At another lot the owner lined her fence with pots of Kalanchoes, Cannas and tropical plants, and strange chickens pecked about with bald necks yet feathered-Hedda-Hopper-hat-heads. Small, red-wattled turkeys and bright Chinese roosters. An unconscience or dead mixed-breed dog lay in the concrete street in the shade of a car. Down the steps by the ravine, a chained dog barked half-heartedly. A tin, lamina, and slatted hovel housed a fat women chatting with her neighbor, and large two-story stuccoed modern and colonial style houses were just a few lots away. Mini-restaraunts, no more than a narrow break between buildings, a dirt floor, and a lone convex metal ´comal´with puffed-up and brown tortillas steaming and a chubby, aproned ´morena costena´( dark-skinned local) patting them gingerly with her fingers. Then up and down another hill, past vacant restaraunts. Buildings and walls started, and stopped, abandoned, bricked or concrete blocked. Stuccoed or not. Painted or not. Graffitied or not. Rusted re-bar-rods sprouted like optomistic antennae above old concrete columns and buildings, days, weeks, or years old. Orange flowered shrubs trimmed in the shapes of baskets or swans. Money-changing windows with shadowy figures. An ancient weathered ´abuelita siega´ ( blind woman) sat in plastic chair on the narrow sidewalk in the shade of the large glossy-leaved coastal ´Almond´tree. Handshakes and introductions were made, she with as many names as decades to her life. We held hands while drunken nephew chattered. And down the hill to the `adoquin´- the old tourist plaza` with few tourists about, the flare and blaze of the afternoon sun having chased them away to their respective rooms, pools or beaches.

I passed three ´public utility workers` on the street installing a light post. Their employment status and objectives were unclear, as they were without uniform, shirts, shoes, and perhaps salaries. Were these former PRI workers and laborers, day laborers, hirees of the new `coalition government`? Certainly not volunteers. Like all newly elected governments throughout the world, the new Oaxacan coalition government of 2010 has been appointing, hiring and firing, in a system that had been embalmed and sucked dry by seventy years of the single party PRI rule. This newly elected coalition government is a quite extraordinary achievement for Oaxaca and Mexico! It would be like the Democratic Party winning and controlling in the solidly conservative, reddest-state-in-the-union, essentially one-party-Republican Idaho! This is an odd and politically contradictary coalition of the seventy-year ruling PRI ( traditional socialist-military or `State`party) , the PRD ( Leftist) PAN ( right wing) PT ( Workers, union) and PRM ( Party of Mexican Revolution) and informed and impacted by other political groups such as the Section 22- Teachers Union. It has altered the political landscape beyond recogniton to many, yet suspiciously familiar to others. Some former PRI appointees and officials maintain the new government has been firing and hiring and expressing traditional ( PRI) nepotism and corruption . Perhaps a partial truth, although one must keep in mind the new state coalition government is talking, and convening forums and discussion groups with formerly ostrasized, criminalized and politically disenfranchized groups like teachers- a revoluntionary change for Oaxaca! Especially without FIRST tear-gassing a crowd or collective , another remarkable achievement in former one-party terrain.

Political corruption here in Mexico is generally- unlike in America- very upfront and ´transparent´, if I may use that hackneyed term. In Puerto can or has seen up on the hill in town, the immense hotel, or in the bay in the past the giant cruize ship purchased by the former governor with squandered public funds. This is concrete and three dimensional and obvious corruption, not some abstact figure, a disappeared real-estate value or investment portfolio . U.S. corruption such as the former Enron crisis , and the current Bernard Madoff inspired financial melt-down, are arguably more like an opaque economic logrthym and therfore more pernicious: too complex , and sophisticated to be understood intitially by the general public,and too seductive and profitable for the powerful few to be checked and controlled. To quote an Irish phrase: ´Banksters´( pranksters + bankers) have been busy at the publics expense. Eventually even in America the public becomes aware of the debth of corruption within the system but are confused on how to respond. We Americans see the ship, as Mexicans do, but only after, it seems , it is already sinking and we know not what to do!

I digress. So, here are these three uniformless, shirtless, shoeless young guys in simple shorts, and `sandalias`or `changlas` ( sandels or rubber-soled- leather thongs), sitting in the street by the lamp post . One had a hack saw in hand, and was sawing away on one of four bolts that either did hold, or was to hold the new light post. I stopped, and looked up and the new traditionally-designed light post and noticed that it canted noticeably to the west and Manzanillo Beach, almost as if it preferred the beach to the street. The square metal foot lay level on its small square concrete pad, indicating that shims of some sort were needed.

``Esta´Cheuko, verdad?!`` ( It`s crooked, is`t it'!?) I ask of the three workers.

`` No.`` replyed one of the young men, and he giggled.

I paused, looked up again, back at him, and back at the post, then leaned by body to Manzanillo Beach.

``Si.``, I reply. ´´Chueka.´´

He passed the saw to his friend. ``No.``, and another giggle.

I started walking down the street,my head tilted to Manzanillo Beach, my left hip to east.

´´ Si.´´ I reply

Then two of them chirped,``Nooooo.`` and more giggles.

I made a mental note to take this route again in a few days, to check and see if the post was installed, or `removed`, and ruminated on the good humor of the costeno ( coast-ten-yoe) workers and people- No matter how hot, or hard the work, a smile not far from their faces. Almost without exception, their sweet temperments and great senses of humor are evident. Perhaps this is the lesson that Americans must learn as individuals and as a collective from these humble workers. Be in the present moment, and find a way to infuse it with humor and maybe even joy. The future will manifest as it will.

At the bottom of the hill, I lifted my hand and gave a backwards wave and cast a ``Si!`` over my shoulder.

A fainter``No``, and laughter could be heard up the hill and below the post.

One can almost hear the plaintive call of former `tenured` state workers-like the lonesome, forlorn cry of street venders .

´´Chamba y suuueeeldooes!!?? ( Work and salaries???!!) Crys the former state workers.

´´Plattaannoooose. Plaaatanose´´ ( Banananas) calls the street vendor

´´Helaaaahhh-dosssse´´ ( Ice cream) calls the street vendor.

And from the near-bankrupt states in the far north, Californina and New Jersey, and perhaps even more, that same plaintive cry for employment. We have much in common.

Abrazos
Esteban

Ol´ ´Scratched-Back ´

2011-02-09T15:06:00.000-08:00

Febraury 10, 2011
Puerto Escondido, Oax., Mx.

Walked down to the Cafecito at 6:00 A.M., to grab a cup of coffee and wait for friends and travel companions to join us. We were to meet our boat pilot, a `Lanchero` named Jesus. ( Hezz-ooss) I passed a stubbled, rhumey-eyed looking older Mexican guy seated in the dark drinking his coffee, and he gave me a hard ´once-over´ . `Are you part of MY group?` his eyes seemed to say.

" Tu eres Jesus?" ( Are you Jesus?) I ask. He curled his lip up in distain, like a Mexican ´film nois´ actor and in Spanish said,
¨ I am much better than him!" ( I almost laughed. `Oh I see, his competitor and anticedant`)
" Tu eres Lucifer entonces?`` (You are Lucifer then?) He just shook his head, unamuzed.

The real boat captain appeared, and we three gringos jumped into the back of his pick-up and were off. Five Gringos, three Mexicans an Italian, the captain and his assistant all met at Marinero Harber, and headed out to sea by 6:15 A.M. One American had laquered his stomach with`Immodium` for two days to make the trip possible. As we headed out into the moderate chop, the young Mexican woman looked like she was going to loose her cookies, but she was soon distracted by inter-species contact. We saw leaping Manta Ray sharks and heard the deep, almost Elk-like tonal calls of a Hump-back whale, very rare on the Oaxacan coast. The crewman threw two baited hooks out to drag behind the boat, bouncing on the surface which the dolphins wisely ignored, although eventually a sailfish struck. Fifteen minutes later this audaciously regal and irridesent peacock of the oceon was pulled into the launcha and clubbed. `Catch and release` was not in ´marineros´ ( fishermans) cultural vocabulary, and more importantly, he had a family to feed. Within five minutes the irridescent colors washed to a dead grey and the long, spear-nosed fish lay still. El fin. La muerte. ( The end. Death.) The magic gone.

We tracked to the south, west and east in the perlescent-gray-light, first following then loosing a school of dolphins. They were indifferent and disengaged from the boat- odd behavior as they are usually very playful. They either divided as a pod, or dove into the deep, loosing us, far beyond the shallow continental shelf of the shore. We suspected breakfast of sardines was still being served.

Suddenly, one very large porpoise, ´Ol-Scratch-Back´, lept out of the water, twelve to fifteen feet into the air and suspended mid-arc for what seemed like five seconds. The silloette of its aquiline torso framed the now ascending nuclear orange on the eastern horizon. Opening ceremonies had officially begun! So coreographed did this seem, the back-lighting, the leap, the perfect Olympian form, that one half- expected a film crew of some cheesy T.V show to appear. Pamela Anderson asking the caterors where the bran muffins were on the `production boat`.( The imaginary) David Hasselhoff, in a form fitting and ´synched-up´ boby suit, flirting with the cute young production assistant. The gaffers bitching about the `stupid actors`and flaky, dangerous rented `Mexican` light cables. Nonetheless, the tourists and crew exploded with cheers and jubilation at the dolphin gymnastics. Interspecies contact and acknowledgement had been made.

I named the ten to twelve foot alpha porpoise `Ol Scatched-Back` by his or her distinctive back wounds. Were these fish-hook wounds? Trawler net wounds? Boat-hull wounds? I know not. This intentioned and very dramatic leap signalled to the pod that breakfast was over. The porpoise immediately altered their behavior and started playing with and engaging the boat. They skimmed on the boats wakes, and tracked us like we had been tracking them. Below us they swam, disappearing beneath the hull. On both sides of the boat. Matching our speed, or pulling forward in front of us. Dropping back, then to the side. Twining. Leaping. Sinking. Rizing. Twisting on their sides as they eyed us. Three young dolphins swam playfully just in front of the bow weaving in and out, then exploded through a white cap to arch and dive.

Jesus turned the motor off, and we could hear the human-like exhalations of the dolphins. A brief and economic surface, inhale, and submerge. I asked the captain if it was ok to swim with them.

``Mala Aqua, mala agua.`` ( Jelly fish) but then he added, `` It may be ok. Try it.`` both in English and Spanish.

So I pulled my shirt off, put my goggles on, and jumped in, colliding with hundreds of eggs, wads of soft tissue, invertebra `seeds` and Jelly fish. But no stings! I sensed the porpoise were surprized by my entry into their world, but not concerned. Their high-pitched `squeeks` and `gleeks` echoed around me. The smallest and youngest and least experienced - like the young in so many species- came the closest, to within fifteen feet of me. They eyed me while swimming. I sensed that they knew and understood my breathing limitations, and although respectful of my space, were not frightened by my presense. We swam together for perhaps five minutes, then `Ol´Scatched-Back` swam under me and dove directly down and disappeared into the deep obscure dark-green, signalling `caution` to the pod. I had a brief moment of anxiety, alone and more vulnerable to sharks and remembering that the floor of the sea could be a thousand feet below. They began to filter away, mostly to the north. A few offered a final ceremonial circle, then were gone.

`Ahhh` I looked wistfully and a little sadly as they disappeared behind the opaque aquious curtain. Show over. We hadn`t had enough time to bond in what were to me almost ambiotic waters, as I have been swimming in the oceon since the age of four.

`Scatched-Back, come back!`, I thought. But he or she was shy of the lights and attention, and the terms of the contracts had not been agreed upon or signed . Being a responsible pod leader took priority.

`Caution, caution my family. Play time is over`, the wise-one seemed to say.

I rose to the surface, garlanded by irridescent-blue `bubbles`of florescent algae. The fins and small white-caps of the pod receded off to the north and Roca Blanca. The video-cameraman on the boat, one of the sweet Mexican tourists, shook his head and smiled at the crazy gringo swimming so far out to sea.
``Hey Pamela, pass me the bran muffins, will ya? David, is there any fruit salad left?``

Abrazos
Esteban

Notes on Noseeums

2011-02-09T14:25:00.000-08:00

Febraury 9, 2011
Puerto Escondido , Oax., Mx

Certain restaurants, or to be more accurate, certain tables at certain restaurants in the tropics- just like in the summer months in the states- are very prone to the presense Noseeums and therefore noseeum bites. The best prophalactic is a thorough laquering of 30% Deet, and choosing a table located with a passing breeze or the good air movement of a fan. A friend kept swiping and rubbing her legs while we were eating, trying to discourage this pernicious, invisible biter who habitate the bottom of the wooden table.

" Can you get Dengue Fever from Noseeum bites?'' she asked in a very concerned tone.
" Just little fevers, hotflashes really. We call them " Dengitos". ( Little Dengue fevers)

Disregarding the glib response, the question was and is valid as Malaria and Dengue Fever are real threats in the tropics, although this is the dry season and the risk greatly reduced. So some research seemed justified.
Well relax. The answer is NO, one cannot contract either disease from Noseeums. The Sand Flea, Sand Fly, Biting Midge, Punky, or better known moniker: Noseeum, may cause red bumps or welts and on rare occasions Letshmaniansis disease, ( mini volcanoe skin welts ) but it won´t kill you, just irritate and annoy you to hell. Unless you are a sheep, in which case you might contract Blue Tongue Virus and `bleeting` will be difficult or impossible.

The moral: The tropics are NOT for nervous types.You may be a chicken-shit-hypocondriac, suffering from a host of imagined maladies and exagerated annoyances, your balls may be blue, your toe-nails black, you skin red and rashed, your eyes yellow from the bad oysters and a subsequent infection of hepititus. But your tongue is not and will not be blue! Quit with the OCD tongue examinations. Leave the tongue-sticking-out to the sheep and the iguanas. OK?

Abrazos,
Esteban

Flaminco A Go Go and Single Sam

2011-02-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

Feb 6, 2011

Puerto Escondido, Oax. Mexico

Night before last I took a fellow renter-gringo-friend from the ´orphanage´ ( abandoned as we are by the owners, management and maintenance crew of the hotel) amateur muscian and uniniciated Flaminco-fan to enjoy a traditional Flaminco performance of ´Toque´guitar and dance- pool and beachside at a private hotel in the Bococho area of Puerto. Art is not an objective experience, as Sam clearly illustrated, but subjective: an infusion and projection of our sensibilities, current emotional state, and lives into a performance, and interpretted accordingly.

The attractive, dramatic, flaminco-ruffled and ´searing-´female made quite an impression on Sam, a plumb, middle-aged, insurance salesman from northern Minnesota. He plays guitar and drums as a hobby, so he is not without musical exposure, just ´Flaminco´ exposure. And in his defense, it has been a La Nina winter of excess cold and snow in the north. Perhaps ´art apppreciation´ had been put on ice as well.

I briefly sketched in a quick art-bio of Flamenco: five-hundred year old art form from southern Spain that has Gypsy, Moorish, Byzantine, and Sephartic-Jewish roots. ( a raised eyebrow by him.) The local expat lady and radio-celeb ( she has had her own show here for years) introduced the Argentinian pair, and the ´husband´ , a thin, hawk-nosed, very ´sephartic´looking man, came out carrying his acoustic guitar, thanked her and the audience, sat down, and proceeded to attack the guitar, the fingers of his right hand feverishly plucking, stumming, tapping and pounding the strings, the fingers of his left hand racing up and down the frets. Sam´s jaw dropped, he shook his head and muttered,

´´Wow!!´ Yes, classical Spanish Sevillan guitar on a Hendrix-Steve Vai-Jimmy Page level of finese and acuity! Sam smiled broadly, appreciating the guitar work.

She entered from behind a white screen, stage right, slowly and dramaticly with arms raised and head turned, and ascended the three steps to the stage, stomping her black Flaminco pumps to what seemed (to me) a syncopated rythum ( later to find out a twelve-beat meter). This clearly was not a standard rock ´one -two, one two beat´ or a waltz ´one-two three, one-two three´. If not ´mystery´, she was certainly ´intensity´personified.

``Why does she look so angry?`` John asks under his breath to me, after the first number.

`Angry???`, I think to myself. Dark masquera and dress, downcast eyes, then explosive foot and heel stomping, arms fluidly raised hands and fingers arabesquing, a sudden pirrouette, then a haughty pose and focus. `Sam needs some `go-go` moves to make this familiar and culturally palettable.`

´´ Sam, I think it is supposed to read intense, not angry. Intense and mysterious. ´´

More Gypsy Sevillian rythmic stomping, clapping, pirouettes and posing. He strummed, picked, tapped and sang, a times sounding almost like an `Adhan`- a Moorish prayer call.
``Guapa Gitana... Ahhhyhajhhha`` ( Beautiful gypsy). Then a costume change: a tight, form-fitting white ensemble with contrasting black polka-dots, ruffles below the knees.

Sam bent towards me and whispered,

``Man, does she look high maintenance!``. Who knows, maybe she does have and operetic, ´contralto-bien-contrario-temperment´. Poor, recently divorced Single Sam, could´t get past his current mistrust of women to appreciate the Flamenco art form. He had imbued, what UNESCO has declared a ´Masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of humanity ´with the angst and bickering of a marriage gone sour. (He made the foolish error of taking his most recent wife on a trip to a foreign land AFTER they married- and not before. Even a three day trip would have taught him all her assets and limitations, and he could have avoided a bad marriage. And this, his second marriage. I think it is going to be a long learning curve for Single Sam!)
``Damn, would`t want to travel with HER!`` shaking his head in the direction of the flashing streamers of polka-dots.
´ Divorce Court´ goes to court, is courted by complex Andalusian´cante-jondo´art form, only to be tossed aside like an over-cooked drum-stick. Art form rejected.

´No prob´. There´s always a beach dog, a Spanish Mastif or Pointer around to snatch up the drum-stick, and the hotel buffet looked tasty.

Abrazos

Esteban

Wrestling With El Luchador

2011-02-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

F3b 4, 2011
Puerto Esconcido, Oaxaca, Mx.

I encountered the `Luchador` ( The wrestler,) both in the literal and the figurative sense, the other day. Angel Salinas - internationally famed Mexican masked ´Luchador de las Olas´- longboard champion from the 90`s and proprietor of Central Surf; and my friend, foe, advisary and teacher, ´la mar´ , the oceon. Angel ( Ahn-hell) has the spiritual quality of someone nurtured and schooled by the waves and the sea: humble, kind yet very passinate about all forms of surfing and paddle-boarding .

Marinero Bay and the fishermans ´marina´ if one may call this tiny collection of humble fishing boats a marina, is tiny as bays go. Tiny and protected in part by a short stone jetty, although weaving between the pelican and seagull studded and stretched canopies of the ´launchas´ on the paddle-surf-board was for me, only possible untill the terminus of the jetty. The chop, wind and waves broadsided the board and tossed me like a taco chip into the salty, sometimes oily water. It smelled of summer, and the outboard motors of my Idaho youth- ´outboard´ 60 H.P. Evenrudes and Yamahas to my left and right. Smooth pond paddling is considerably less challenging than ´el mar inquieto´. Angel dropped me off with the simple instruction
´´ Tres remas al lado´´. ( Three paddles per side.) was the only instruction. ( Get on, get wet, do it, was the feeling.) The warm-up aquaintance with the board felt insufficient, and indeed was for the brisk relentless winds wrestled and shadow boxed this sad iniciate. A group of Canadian and American women, tri-atheletes, serious mountain climbers, yoga-afficiandos and avid canoeists in general fared better than I, at least until we all entered the ´lavadora´( washing machine) while crossing the bay to take the boards back. Then `luchador` flips, sumersaults, side-arches and quick, unintentional yet theatrical`yelps´ became part of our repetua`.
´Next time I am wearing one of Angels wrestler masks `, thought to myself. In congognito, as it were. Angel in his Central Surf Shop, along with board shorts, surf and boogie board rentals and sales, has a small collection of his personal `Luchador` masks - part marvel-comics-super-heroe costume fare, part ancient greek tradition, pure Mexican wrestling kitsch.!

`Pero sin bortas, porfa!` ´ hold the sequined fringed neck tassels, please! ( Too many years exposure to BBAAADDD Idaho Drag Shows. A visceral reaction.)
The first bar of `I Will Survive`, plays in my head- the International Drag Queen Athem.
``En este rincon, tenemos el feroz gringito, ` Sr. PEEELLOONNCITO`. Y eca`, el `ganador`, ´La Lavadora`.
(In this corner we have the ferocious gringo, Mr. Skin-head. In that corner, the winner, ´la lavadora´ ).
From the shore, one large pelican and five seagulls could be seen taking flight from a blue ´lona´ of a fishermans boat.
A faint ´Ahhhh,eahh!´ , and a subsequent splash could be heard.
Abrazos,

Esteban

The New and Improved ´Bus and Boat Diet´

2011-02-01T08:45:00.000-08:00

Feb 2, 2011

Puerto Escondido, Oax., Mx.

Looking to loose weight are you? Choose from a wealth of diets from `A`, the Atkins, to `Z, the Zone. Peruse the differences between The Pritikin, The South Beach, The Vegetarian, The Vegan, Raw Food, Weight Watchers, and The Mediterranean, and The NO Food -`Puurrroooo`fasting, juice or liquids only diet, to name just a few. Travel by bus in South America during this years winter trip, and in Mexico and Central America on previous trips, has proven to be a wonderful way to loose weight. In fact, the soon to be published ´Bus and Boat Diet´ is ´garr-ahhn-teed´ to pull off the pounds. Greasy, heavy, meaty, rich food cannot be consumed without consequences before bus trips, particulary in the bouncy-shockless-back of the bus. The above mentioned food regimes also holds true for boat trips on choppy seas in a small ´touristica launchas´ ( small tourist fishing boats) or even larger boats. Don´t believe me? Eat bacon, eggs, chorizo with fried onions, pancakes with syrup and butter, then take to the seas.

´´Oh, we are going to see dolphins and whales!´´ you say excitely to your travel partner, new digital camera in hand. When in fact your chin and cheek are going to have intimate knowledge of the feel of the fiberglass and smell of the deep-green salty sea ´CLOSE-UP!´ Consume these rich foods, and ´ralph and retch´to your hearts and stomachs and throats discontent in the back of the bouncy bus or boat. Even short bus trips can cause trouble , as a friend of mine recently proved on a hour and one-half jaunt from Juatulco ( Whah-tool-koe) to Puerto, riding in a good `modern` bus. She twice vacated her intestinal tract, once ´making´the window, and once not.

I advised the ´chafeur´of a full bus leaving from Banos Ecuador to Quito, that I couldn´t take his bus.

´´Si, hay sillas atras´´, ( Yes there are seats in back) he says to me.

´´ Si, pero mi estomago es malo, y en las sillas atras con el saltando y saltando iba a tener un choro de vomito al tamano de- torro.´´ (Yes but my stomach is bad, and if I sit in the seats in back with all the bumping and bouncing, I will have a fountain of vomit the size of a bull. ) He wisely gave me the seat next to him, till one was available up front. We did fine and made it through that first critical hour of travel without complications.

Travel on an empty stomach is the best rule. Travel multiple buses on different routes, eat lightly. Oatmeal is good to fill you up, just don`t eat too much. Water, not coffee, or just one cup, as buses one might assume have bathrooms often don`t. Little or no milk or cream, and just enough sugar to reduce the acid level of the coffee. Avoid acidy-fruits like oranges. Eat only very ripe apples, and not too many if any nuts. Soups are good but NOT ´Menudo´or any greasy, heavy soup. Vegetarian or a chicken broth potato soup or rice is preferred, and at least forty minutes before departure. Walk lots. Swim lots. Sweat lots. If you are partnered, make love lots. Shower lots. And you will lose weight.

Abrazos

Esteban

Smelt in Puerto

2011-01-31T17:21:00.000-08:00

Jan 30th -31st 2011
Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico

The inside walls and general state of the humble rented `temperary-casita` belies a very pricy location: quiet, below the noise and perpetual downshifting of mufflerless trucks on the highway and above Zicatella Road and beach . ´Temperary´ in that my four-month-previously-reserved casita of three years is occupied by ´la pinche lluevona, pechona, gringona, morena, amazonia amable pero retresada con la renta.´( Translated: The large charming buxom amazonian mulata woman, who is behind in her rent.) The ´permenant casita´, if and when I do get it, will get a thorough cleaning by me.

The perfectly framed coconut palm and giant- timber-bamboo-view of the oceon requires that sunsets are savored, preferably from the hammock on the front porch. The entire wall surface inside and out have been textured in a slap-mold technique of stucco finishing, taking on an irregular quilted look. This might sound appealing except for the minor detail that the `hotel`, like the bricked walks between its units, has been sliding and slipping into bankruptcy, and over the hills for years. Maintenance even in times flush with tourism is either deferred, avoided or is as rudimentary and superficial as possible. AND if not at least culturally frowned upon, certainly not a mentality `developed`, shall we say, in the `Costeno` staff. Maintenance suggests a future, or a preoccupation with it, and therefore adversely affects living in the moment, a very Mexican sensibliity when at all possible. Which isn`t to say that Mexico does not have its fair share of `hand-wringers`- poverty and hunger are real issues. Drunken husbands who consume the last hundred pesos for a mescal binge do exist . I know from first hand experience. He was the caretaker for a while at my brothers old place here in Puerto.

The walls, in particular the tall interior walls, when they infrequently are wiped or cleaned, are cleaned only as far as a very short indigenous woman can reach, perhaps a third of a way up the wall. Extension poles, rods or ladders are too`high tech`, an unnecessary expense and must be hauled up and down the slope to the various `casitas` in the tropical sun or in the torrential rain. Consequently what could be sensual `quilting` , becomes in fact molded and airbrushed dust-dunes, with years accumulation from this sandy, perpetually under construction, coastline. Upon these dunes, looking not unlike river rocks covered in a fine white-ish sand, are little strands of dust. When one lies on the bed under the spinning fan reading, these strands move, twitter, and flick their tails like tiny and not so tiny coastal smelt or baby poly-wogs. And although the blades of the fan obviously turn in the same constant direction, oddly, the `dust-smelt`move in their own peculiar fashion and direction. There are the `squigglers`, the `spinners`, the tail `whippers`, the determined `migrators`, and the mini-schools of smelts paddling and undulating in unison.

Me? Yo? The large, motionless, flat, sand shark resting on the bottom in the torrid heat.
But for eleven to twelve dollars a day, who can complain?
`Si, como no!`
Abrazos
Esteban

River Walk in Guayaquil

2011-01-30T05:23:00.000-08:00

Jan 29, 20111

Guayaquil Ec.-Mexico City Mx.

Guayaquil pronounced - why-yah-keel , and yes I found myself asking, ´Why,
am I in why-yah-keel? Is the keel of this travel ship listing and sinking into the murky Guayas river?´ It is a necessary stop-over to the Galapagos Islands, although that certainly wasn´t in my ´hostal-travelers-budget´. Guyaquil is the largest city in Ecuador, on the humid tropical Pacific coast and it IS rainy season. OK, knock a few negative points off there. It feels sort of an euu-du -Bankok with the steamy, teaming masses, congestion, diesel fumes, slapped-together yet already decaying ´modern´concrete block buildings´reproducing like a tropical virus, short and taller hovels wrapped in razor-wire and trimmed in broken glass.( Festive? NO.) All with a less asian tinge. ( What I would´t give for some good Thai food!! Ecuador, like Nicaragua is ´NOT a foodies paradise´!!!) Just down the street from the Hostal, people gathered at a hamburger joint. I was seduced as haven´t seen one in a month. One pays to the right of the ´barred´ window, pushing the coins and bills through a ´security´ opening the size of a mail slot in the dirty concrete wall. That says it all.

The good points: The International airport is beautiful, modern, well designed and landscaped- as it should be. They grab you just as you are about to disembark, whether you have been there two hours or my twenty-four, and squeeze you like a small tube of travel-size- toothpaste, and unaccountably out shoots $30 US dollars from your near empty wallet, landing in the officials palm. ( Was ´greasing palms´ on my travel itinerary?) The locals however, were friendly and helpful, taking me to a desired bus-stop and giving me directions.

Guayquil and Ecuador spent more than any other South American country on the urban renewal project of the 2.5 Km river-side ´Malicon´ walk. It is a architectural and landscape design tour-de-force! The river, boats and shipping have been referenced in the both modern and whimsical staircase-viewpoint- structures, undulalted ´techos´(roofs) of metal, and flaired sail-shaped, shade-structures. Museums, an Imax theatre, playgrounds, inter-connecting yet changing public gardens, ponds, pools, statuary, tropical hardwood bridges with futuristic Star-Trekian-details, refurbished historic, classical fountains and modern Garrot Eckbo-Thomas Church, go South American Burl Max-tropical-twenty-first century. Drifts of vibrant tropical plants in contrasting colors and textures. Yes I liked it. Is it worth coming here as a destination?

Perhaps, with the hilltop colonial town. A day trip-.

Abrazos

Esteban

SNL in Cuenca

2011-01-27T17:34:00.000-08:00

Jan 17, 2011
Cuenca, Ecuador

A nice symmetry was achieved by spending the first and last nights in Cuenca at the same Mexican food restaraunt, `El Pedregal Azteca`, the best Guacamole I`ve yet found in South America. Thirteen, large, autotron Germans arrived and sat in the middle of the dark room at a long table. Silent, like they had just been repramended NOT to have a good time on their vacation. The Guide and host, a short solid Ecuadorian women with a curly mane of black hair, introduced the menu. As near as I could tell she spoke well accented impeccable German. (She was certainly very confident.) She stood planted like an opera singer (she knew her crowd) .
`` Aish glosh echt ek `` she seemed to say, in marching, clanking, clunking German sounds , explaining the menu. And then out of nowhere shot the crystal clear musical word:
`GUACAMOLE`.
Then more ``aich oon glock...``, the same harsh clunking sounds as she worked her way down the menu. Then suddenly, like a ecstatic parakeet escaped from its cage , out came the word,
``TEQUILA!`` . No movement from the Germans. I looked over at the waiter and involuntarily started to laugh, as he did also. He turned to the bar so the table would`t notice. But the Germans seemed as spellbound they were so silent. Thankfully I was in a very dark corner. I buried my face in a napkin and could`t look at him, or he at me, for fear we would both lose it, so odd and comical was this scene. The Ecuadorian explaining Mexican food in German to the Germans, like she were canting a German opera, ( requiem no doubt) and the piercing counterpoint of pure Spanish words.

Bless her heart. She deserves an award. Made my night, and I think the waiters.
Abrazos
Esteban

Bus Tours In The Ecuadorian Countryside

2011-01-27T12:59:00.000-08:00

Jan 27, 2011
Cuencan, Ecuador

Tourism has unfortunately been down in Ecuador, so finding a tour quarum of at least four people with the same destination or objective has been difficult. Consequently I have had to pass on the ` Inca Pile of rocks ´to the south or the regional National Park and settle for local bus trips to Gualaceo ( Wall-a say-oe) and Chordeleg ( Chor-da-lay). I understood these to be indigenous communities, and I suppose in the broadest sense they are, although certainly not in any architectural way. The scenery is hilly- bordered by mountains- lush, green and quite beautiful, particularly between Gualaceo and Chordeleg. The bus snaked its way up in elevation, passing rivers and ravines and farms and fincas sectioned off with a fine textured pyrimidal willow trees- quite like a Lombardy Poplar- and groves of Blue Gum Eucalyptus. Black and white Holstein cows graze in the fields and rustic adobe and mud structures with ` living` tile roofs were intersperced with large foreign owned modern suburban houses. The multi-gabled chalet houses of the Swiss immigrants were the easiest to spot. My favorite structure was a humble tiled and umber-colored, mudded-adobe house, with orange, trumpet-shaped flowers of a Brugmansia shrub growing against it, and a grove of trees behind it.

The river in Gualaceo is forded by a covered rustic wood bridge, and bordered with a lush greenbelt on the town side. Several indigenous women in bright dresses, pigtails and hats were stooping, doing laundry in the river. Basket to the side. Wet clothes on the rocks. Uptown, only the area around the nice little plaza had a historic feel and scale. Most of the buildings in town were three stories and ` modern`, but somehow instantly dated and without any sense of style or proportion. When I asked groups of old men, or younger guys about where to buy a panama hat, they all directed me to Chordeleg. So off to the bus stop.

Chordeleg is a hill town maybe twenty minutes up the road, and it also has a nicely landscaped plaza, with cheery beds of bright Peruvian Lilies, hibiscus shrubs and palms. The school kids, adults, sales ladies in the craft shops and restaraunt owners all looked of indigenous heritage. The small restaraunt I ate at had a plastic pan on the floor, filled with brightly colored baloons filled with water and sitting in water. The owner explained these were `bombas` or bombs, to be thrown at people as a pre-carnival activity. I explained to the friendly owner that we did the same thing as kids, but we usually threw them at cars, and only to be brats, not to celebrate Carnival. He thought that was funny. (`Bad Gringo. Bad`) I was told in Medallin by some Columbian guys, that in the south of Columbia flour or talcum powder are thrown by groups of kids or young adults- a festive mob-dusting with the additional intent to picking ones pocket while down on the ground and vulnerable. On the coast of Belize in Livingston this `mob-dusting` happens on `Dia De Las Cenizas`, (day of the ashes) or I believe Ash Wednesday. Young adults and kids ran, chased and shouted and the energy level reached mob levels at times.

I bartered for a Panama hat in several `Artesenia` craft shops on the main plaza , and bought one for twelve US dollars, the currency of Ecuador. Jewelry, gold and silver smithing were a pre-columbian craft in this same town. Fine filigree work is the local specialty, as are the `Ikat` intricate cotton shawls with macreme`fringe , although I wasn`t in the market for either.

My favorite local indigenous woman wore a dark grey Fedora hat, yellow blouse, dark blue shawl over one shoulder, red sweater , cerise pink embroidered dress, and on her back a baby-blue pack with Goofy smiling on the side. The tenticles of pop-culture extend far.
``Inca-sminka, I am for Goofy.``

Abrazos
Esteban

Cuenca neighborhoods

2011-01-27T06:36:00.001-08:00

Jan 27, 2011
Cuenca, Ecuador

Tall modern brick high-rizes snake along the northern and western hills here in Cuenca, the status `view lots` for the weathy and upper-middle class. Near the university most of the homes are one or two story spanish style, with stone, stucco and brick walls covered with Bougenvilla and orange flowered Lantana.

The historic Metal Working neighborhood and ' Calle de las Herrerias' ( Street of welders, metal workers) is also beyond the river and more to the south of the modern and university area. It is a fun area to wander and stick your nose into the open doors of the welding 'tallers'. The colonial buildings have that wonderful tall, high-cielinged-proportion, the walls are often exceedingly irregular, and the posts and beams termite-ridden. Most structures looked to be constructed of adobe and mud-wattle. I prefer these facades to the overly-detailed and ' froofy-frothy-facades' up town, probably the remnant of the nineteenth-century Victorian tastes.

The trendier, funkier section of town is found down by the ´barranco´ ( ravine ), the small cliff and river, with the University and modern area just across the rivers. Students climb the 'Ecuadorian' steps, to the ´Bong bars´ that pepper the two streets parallel to the 'barranco' but especially along Calle Larga . The river separates the old and new towns, and a pleasant green belt borders the river on both sides, shaded by Eucalyptus,Pepper and Acacia trees. Looking up from the river to the old town, and the three and four story buildings on the rise, a mix of stucco, stone, adobe and mud-wattle, and tiled roofs, it felt like a sense-memory snap-shot of Toledo Spain.

Ate at a wonderful Argentinian-Italian restaraunt called ´ La Esquina´ ( The corner) in the Barranca neighborhood. It is a tiny, elegant establishment that specializes in Argentinian Italian antres and meats cooked it short iron skillets. I had pasta with chicken, white wine and bacon. Think I paid $7.00 US including bread and wine!

I have been sampling ´Tipica´ Ecuadorian food at ´Moliendo Cafe´one street up.
1- A Corn-meal ' Arepa' covered with ´hogao´ ( Fryed onions and tomatoes) and beans. Unfortunately with a side of smelly white cheese.
2- ´Batidos´: Fruit smoothies
3- ´Carne al Jugo´ Small pieces of beef with parsley in a rich juicy sause, white rice, and sliced avocado, and lentil beans.
4- ´Jarra ( Pitcher, but I had a small glass) de Escamosa´ Sugar cane juice with amaretto. Sweet and rich!

' El Cafecito' , a well known local hostal , restaraunt and mini-bar is just up the street from Moliendo Cafe. They have great music, serve real coffee ( not powdered) cappuchinos and expresso´s. Cool old building with a glass covered courtyard! The crowd is a very young Euro-packer , and while I drank my cappuchino, every other cherubic-but-pierced-faced-patron was chain smoking like an AA recruit clutching his last and only acceptable remaining addiction! Which from the looks of these kids, is not the case. I suspect they have a few more recreational pleasures of an addictive nature. Teased one father and son hostal `management team` in Cartegena Co. that they looked just alike.

`` Pero Papi,`` ( leaning into his desk)`` te falta un anillo aqui, en la ceja``. ( But dad, you lack the eyebrow piercing) The kid gave me the thumbs up, not sure how his dad would respond. Took the dad a second, then he cracked up.

Abrazos
Esteban

Healing Herb Flagellation in Cuenca

2011-01-26T16:34:00.001-08:00

Jan. 26-27
Cuenca, Ecuador

Cuenca lacks the extreme sports of Banos but it does make up for it with beautiful or nice Colonial and modern neighborhoods. The city of five-hundred thousand people is nestled within green forested and grassy hills and low ranges of mountains. The `Touristica` bus tour, embarking from in front of the`old' church on the main plaza, is well recommended to get a sense of the variety of topography and neighborhoods Cuenca offers. The one stop of the guided tour was the view point from Turin Hill. Cuenca could be Tuscan, Roman or Californian with the red tiled roofs and domed churchs. Fifty-two Catholic churches and still counting. The main plaza, Park Calderon´ has five century- old Norfolk Island Pines at its center, tiled walks, ornate cast-iron-edged planting beds, fountains, and plants from around the world- exceedingly possible in this climate! The altitude is lower and warmer than Banos, and California Pepper trees and giant varegated Agave are quite common here. The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, right on the main plaza, was built in 1885 of brick with marble insets, and is the ´new´church on the plaza. It has some beautiful baby-blue tiled domes, although the two squat towers on either side of the entrance unfortunately were not engineered correctly and weren´t able to support the origonally designed spires. Morman Temples in southern Idaho can settle for fiber-glass towers, but then Mormonism is a new religion as religions go, not bound by two, or five-thousand year-old traditions. Across the plaza is the first and óld´ el Sagrario church built in 1557 by the Spaniards , the now deconsecrated and repurposed as a museum.

Inside and to the back of the basilica of Immaculate Conception, is a giant, gilded, wood-carved, Baroque-Rococo temple-alter, four spiraled columns supporting a gilded-arched-tracery of a half-dome, with angels on the impediments of the two sides and a crucifix a Jesus in the middle. The gold and shine is impressive, but as always I think of all the indigenous slaves who died very young, and worked under horrible conditions to mine that gold. Maybe fiberglass and gold spray makes sense? You gotta give those practical Mormons credit.

Cuenca, like Quito, much of Mexico and Central America, and probably much of South America, suffers from poor air quality in the city center, and the routes literally surround the historic area. The modern area has wider more open streets so is less affected. Old decrepid buses burn the blackest, crudest, most unprocessed fuels on narrow , closed-in colonial streets. That, plus the affects of `eternal spring` and therefore high pollen counts, sent me to the Pharmacist where I was confronted with a cultural dilemma. Many things, bulk food in the markets, clothes, artensenias, even taxi fares one barters for. Barter is king in Central and South America. Does one barter with the Pharmacist when he wants a US dollar for a tiny Claratin tablet? No discount for eight tabs? Especially after he smiled, should I barter? I said thank you, and paid the bill.

The short indigenous women, most not reaching five feet, are descendants of the Inca -who lived here for less than a century, or the Canari- who have lived in this area for thousands of years, can be seen about the city or in small towns in the highlands. The women wear the ´Dick Tracey- Fedora` banded felt hats; short or tall palm fiber Panama hats of yellow or white. Pleated bright skirts. Flat long dark-blue skirts like many of the Guatemalan Mayan skirts; Brightly colored skirts and blouses with embroidered edges. They sell all forms of greens or crafts, near or in the market, and on the streets. .All sundry of potatoes, including small pale yellow and pink spotted ´soup´potatoes called ´Melloco´ (Me-yoe-koe) . Cooking herbs, and flowers and vegetables. The school kids look very indigenous : short, dark and asian. They could be Oaxacan Mexican Indigenous.

I love to wander through the main market, it is such a bombastic visual and olfactory experience! The meat market presented chopped off legs of pigs , hoves intact, neatly stacked like strange Incan clubs. Severed organs or appendages of various beasts, fowl and fish piled absently or stacked carefully; or entire butchered creatures. Explosions of tropical and temperate flowers; torch flower, Haleconia, bird of paradise, hibiscus, mums, roses, pansies, grey aromatic santolina . Stalls with iron products, welded hoops, files, rings, knives, tools with ancient little vendedero-men in stylish hats moving at a snails pace. Clothing, shoes, leather good, saddles and Caballero products. Tropical and temperate fruits neatly pyramided, from cherries and plums to star fruit, papaya, limes and more indigenous fare.´ . Curative and healing herbs you flagellate the flesh with. One young man was shirtless, while a short, squarish, aproned, pig-tailed woman beat his back to red welts with a stack of greens. Another woman in a black skirt and red sweater flagellated, albeit in a more gentle fashion, a clothed baby while her mother held her.

At the hostal in Medallin Columbia, I met a Swiss-German junkie (former?) and drug addict, who had spent a week up in the hills with a local shaman that he had ´carefully shopped for´.
´´ You kant havv yust eeny schamahn. Zare arre goot schaamahns andt badt onez. ´´ he informed me, this sweet but battered young Swiss guy- still suffering from a week of diareha. In the hills, he fasted, and sweated in a crude indigenous´lodge´. He experienced a similar herb ´flagellation-treatment´ which welted and stung the flesh but presumably drew the evil spirtis from the body and soul; he drank halluncinagenic drinks that in him induced terror and wailing , images of the brutality of war, dismemberment and carnage- he who he claimed never cryed, had no fear and few emotions. He wailed for hours, calling for the shaman who eventually came when he felt the young man was ´ready´. He explained his psychic hole, spritual emptiness and existential frustration had been as wide and deep as a volcano. Drug treatment facilities, AA programs, councelers and phsycologists are well aquainted with this existential ´hole´ and lack of meaning and purpose. The proverbial absence of Victor Frankl`s `Why `` .
´´ Zhiss ees za problahmn vith addictschun. Zhiss houle! Zhiss ees vhy I drink andt doo zah druggs. ´´ He felt at least for the moment `neutral`, the hungry consumptive-hole gone.
´Good luck mi amigo!´ Guess we must all maintain our temples, be they spiritual or of twenty-four-carot gold or spray-painted fiber-glass.
´ Do you have anything in the way of a Martha Stewart healing herb and spiritual cleanse? Something tasteful, understated, W.A.S.P. `y and not too extreme? Hold the psycadelics please.´ Spicy soup it was. ( Although I wish I would have specifically stated NOT the colon cleanse!)

Abrazos
Esteban

Back-packs and Trout

2011-01-25T13:13:00.000-08:00

Jan 25, 2011
Banos-Quito-Cuenca, Ecuador

Trout with mushroom sauce, white- water rafting, canoeing, bungee jumping, para-sailing, and hiking : Idaho and the highlands of Ecuador have alot in common! The hike and the trout were wonderful the day before yesterday! And I keep running into Idahoneans on the gringo trail. I met young man and former South Carolinian who is living in Eastern Idaho simply because Idaho was the one state in the Union where bungee jumping off bridges is legal. Idaho has finally made its mark nationally, not in mental health issues and legislation, not with livible wage issues or legislation ( It is a ´ Right to poverty state´) or in legal rights for domestic partners, but with bridge recreation!

You can imagine the conversations he might have with his girl-friends Mormon Deacon father.
´What do you do son?´ the stiff looking father intoned.
´I jump off bridges.´
´You say you repair bridges?´
´No... I jump off them. With a Bungy cord and harness.´ Very long pause.
´You don´t say.´ Another pause.´You go to church son?´
´No sir.´
´You better start.´ The Book of Mormon is passed, well actually pushed across the coffe table with a Coke ( Mormon owned) and cookies.

The bus ride to Quito was unevental but the scenery extraordinary! We skirted along the cragged snow-covered peaks to our right, perhaps Volcano Rucu Pichincha at 4700 meters, and lush highlands of Pine, Cedar and Eucalyptis in the lower elevations. The challenge of the day was landing at the south bus station, and having to gain the most northern part of the city by the airport without spending much money.
´´Nooo. No, muy caro!´´ ( No. Very expensive!) said the lady in the ticket booth about taking a taxi. She was kind enough to give me written and somewhat legible bus transfer notes. I boarded the Trolley ( Trole) , an Ecuadorian version of Bogotas' Transmelenio- tandem buses. Quitos' are both diesel and electric and PACKED with all Quitenos. And me with an enormous back-pack, and smaller carry-pack barely able to stand as the bus lurched forward, and to the side. The only foreigner in miles. I was the olive in the Ecuadorian cocktail barrel. People were tremendously kind, smiling, and generous with directions, perhaps expecting me to keel over at any moment, or get pick-pocketed. Finally found a seat, and the sweet lady with the adorable little boy to my left, fortuitously had the same first stop as me.

At the second and third transfers I had to stand, one hand grasping the rail-handle, the other my small camera and coin purse in my left pocket. A short Quiteno guy was smuuuushed up against my front, his back to me, two people were on either side, and someone up against the back-pack. I noticed that his envelope consistently seemed to be scratching my groin, and then I figured out it was not his envelope, but his pinky-finger. That same pinky-finger one sees raised with capachino cups, `tragos`de whiskey, and pan dulces. Very discretely. But repetitively. Scratching his lust ( or his ' cajero' bank pin number- who knows) upon my groin. Urban grafiti.
´Oh geez, what does he hope to achieve by this?´ I thought to myself. We were almost to the last stop and near the airport, and an internal debate was going on as to how I should react. Shove him with my knee, my only free appendage? But he had no room to move to with the compressed riders. Finally decided,
´B.F.D. Make his day!´Between my camera, my coin purse, and my groin, I was way more concerned about the camera and coin purse. ( Virginity having been lost decades ago) You would have thought I was bungee jumping off an Idaho bridge though, the way I shot out of the bus when the doors opened! Coin purse and camera in hand, and no obvious signs of slashed or cut packs or pants or missing items. Total expenditures including the taxi from the last stop to the airport: $2.65 U.S.
´´You go to church son?´´, asked the stern Mormon Elder.
´´ No, Buddha has me covered, thanks anyway.´´
´´ May I share the book of Mormon with you Son?´´
´´No, thanks, but I will have a cookie and a coke though.´´

Abrazos
Esteban

Hot Springs in Banos

2011-01-22T18:48:00.000-08:00

Jan 23, 2011
Banos, Ecuador

´Banos´ can mean baths , public baths, a bathroom ( bano) or toilet or public toilet; or used as a verb it can mean to swim or to wash or bath. I rode in a non-express-Express bus ( they would stop for a chicken if it had a coin hung it´s neck!) without a ´bano´to Banos town, three and a half hours away and four thousand feet lower in elevation than Quito. ´Express´ just indicated the driver drove too fast for the conditions, and ignored double yellow lines and blind curves . At the one bathroom stop we made, fellow bus-riders sprinted across the gasoline station concourse to the bano, several flailing their arms exuberantly like they were auditioning for ´Glee´ or a Pepsi commercial. ( There is a song here and I expect submissions. I promise not to ´monetize´. `` Ba ba ba Bah-ha-annnose.``)

Ecuador sadly, like Mexico and much of Central America uses pumice block as a building material and not brick like in Columbia. In Medallin, Co. the slums were a warm orange-red brick tone and from a distance worked more or less as an organic, staggered and stepped mass upon the hillsides. The Ecuadorian towns we passed however were surly, grey, unfinished, and pushed within inches of the highway. Concrete squaler in beautiful green settings ringed with cloud covered mountains. This could have been the depressing ´suburbs´ of Puebla Mexico.

As we descended into the Banos valley, wildflowers grew along the roadside: Daisies, orange flowered Tithonias, Nasturtiums, Four-o´clocks, yellow Orchids, and Datura, as well as blue Agave and bronze-leaved Castor Bean. The misty peak of still active Tungurahua Volcanoe
(toon-goo-ra-wah) would appear and recede behind green hills or in the mist. It erupted as recently as 2006 and 2008, the town evacuated, and today we tourists and `Banenos`( locals) proceed with a Pompeiian denial that it will not explode ashes or deluge us with molten fire. ( No te hechas las cinisas a mi, por-fa!) Two to three years since an eruption in geologic time is a sneeze, fart or a whistle! The steep, vertigenous hillsides looked like the hedge-rowed English countryside, although here it was Mandarine, and Lime Trees, corn, vegetables, and almost vertical greenhouse structures on the slopes filled with cultivated ´cut´flowers for export.

The wind whipped the lush, tall grasses on the hillsides. Eucalyptus and Elderberry trees grew in the ravines , their white and cream inflorecences nodding in the wind. These same Elderberry trees incidentally and oddly- as the berries stain where they fall- are used as street trees in Quito. The birds eat the tiny berries, as a yellow Finch or Wren at the Botanical Garden was to attest. It would fly up like a cumbersome hummingbird, hang briefly beating its wings and peck apart a berry, fly over to its perch in the shrub, and chomp away . Then fly up to snatch another.

Within minutes, a cheap but clean Hostal Room was found, swimming suit and towel packed, and off to the Hot Springs´. I choose ´Terma A La Virgen´ , ( Warm or hot virgin?... I expect so. ) one of four public baths. The virgin is renoun for warding off traffic accidents, and priests persumably bless vehicles with holy water. Hot spring-baths elsewhere in Central America are called ´Aguas Termales´, but one can´t always get saved or blessed as with the Senora de Agua Santa. The swimming and soaking pools were packed, and even on a Saturday I was the only foreigner, the rest were locals, out of towners, and indigenous. Aparently the younger Hostal set were busy on their ATV´s , horses , doon-buggies, zip-lines, mountain bikes or river rafts. Pretty amusing to watch young kids driving in a fenderless, windowless dunebuggy in the rain, spinning water in their chagrinned faces, not clear if it was fun or not. Unfortunately my puddle-jumping ( Literally this morning) broad-strokes, introductory, two-country exploratory trip doesn`t allow for the big excursions this time around. Banos, is an Ecuadorian ´eternal-spring´ town, and therefore an eternal ` spring-break-town` - Fort Lauderdale, and Palm Springs combined with a dash of ´Thunder Mountain´ and ` It`s a Small, Small, World`. However the highland rainforest scenery is beautiful with hikes and bikerides to the Devils Cauldren Waterfall (Pailon del Diablo). Even the Jacarundi trees in the sweet and well maintained Palomino Flores park in the center of town, are covered with bromeliads, just a taste of of what the highland rainforest trails provide. Below Banos the road plunges to the jungle town of Puyo.

The short indigenous Quechua ( Keech`-wah) women waited for their families outside the baths. Some wore the´tipica´ black felt hat, and are descendants of the Inca, Quitus or Shyris people. It would be with them that one would find traces of the Inca. ( Not in the Quito main Plaza) In their language, the way they stand or greet one another or their reticense. Their fruit and food. Sample the sweet pink meat of Guaba (wuah-bah) the Jolly Green Giants two foot long, string beans, but discard the seed. If you dare, try the roasted Guinia Pig or `Cui`(kwee). The sharp rat-like-teeth were a little disturbing as they roasted, stretched out over the braziers in town. At night the town is a carnival. Booming, hawking , blaring, stalls, markets, neon and sign flashing, ´artesanias´ of leather, jewelery, trinkets, `tejidos`; restaruants, treats, Discos , Spa´s, massage services and excursion companies after guide company after rentable inflatable rafts, bikes, horses, dunebuggies and motorcycles. And roasting`Cui`.
``Ba -Ba-Ba´Bah- Ha-annos``
No me Echas
Cenisas ni fuegos
Baaaahhhh- ha-nosssss``
Abrazos
Esteban

Quito: In and Out

2011-01-21T13:26:00.000-08:00

Jan 21-22, 2011

Quito, Ecuador

The nicely landscaped, palm fringed square of the Plaza Grande- also known as Independance Plaza - here in Quito, and perhaps six block area including the San Francisco Convent and Museum are what the rest of the centro historico should be and isn`t: Interesting, clean, well articulated and maintained historic architecture that has a good sense of scale. The colonaded arcade of the former Palace of the archbishop, is now shops, restaraunts and internet cafes. The main cathedral has some nice tile covered cupolos, one that seems to be sliding off its dome. Both plazas had plenty of room for protesters, locals and tourists alike. The Inca general Ruminahui, rather than let their extensive Inca city fall to the Spaniards, leveled it , and in 1534 the present historic buildings and plaza were built upon the stone rubble.

The renaisance and Rococo detailed retaining wall of rustic basalt just below San Francisco- with its double arc of steps and stone obelisks, definitedly says `We are here, and here to dominate`. Ironicly adobe brick- not nearly as structuraly sound as Incan stone masony- can be seen in wall sections being repaired in the cathedral . The Inca would have constructed walls of a complexly-carved stone: earthquake-proof polygons, hexagons, and organic-polymorhic shapes. Five centuries before Frank Gehry. Mature palms shade the court yard and formal cloister gardens in San Francisco and orange and black flowering Thumbergia vines embrace their lower trunks. The chorus room on the second floor of the church has a beautiful Mudijar style, geometicly carved wooden coffered cieling. This is a testiment to the hundreds of years the Moors were in Spain, and evidence of their impact on Spanish culture twelve hundred years later, an oceon and a continent apart. The Moors in Granada, like the Inca royal family, were weakened by internal squabbling, murder and fratricide, and set the stage for conquest. Succession is a perennial problem for dictatorships, demi-gods, monarchies, or emperors - whether they be a Ming, a Ramses, a Caesar or a Fidel. The church, just inches from the choir, oddly has a baroque-rococco ceiling, with bizarre sumptously carved pendant-finials hanging from the cieling just inches away from ornately carved wooden trusses. The museum collection includes hand carved, seventeenth century, glass eyed, polychrome- painted, suffering figures of Jesus and St. Pedro ( St Peter). New world, indigenous-inspired renditions of Jesus or the saints look and almost smell tortured, so profusely are they bleeding from sword gashes, wounds, and crown-of-thorns-piercings . This clearly makes sense, as ´Where´s the Blood?´might be the indigenous thought, and especially when put in the context of their own sufferings, enslavements and tortures at the hands of the Spanish. A pretty boy Jesus looking balefully up to heaven would seem pretty impotent.

Also knife-pierced chests, ripped out hearts and severed limbs were the sacrificial norm. How else were they to take Christ and Christianity seriously?

The parks in Quito are nice, although the lakes are conrete rimmed and painted torquoise. The La Carolina Botanical Garden with a sweet collection of Protea, one of my favorite species as well a a tree daisy of fifteen foot height- a compositae on steroids and shot with radiation. Museo Guayasimin in the modern northern area of the city also is well worth the trip ( If oneis already in the city) with a pre-columbian collection of pottery, carvings and artifacts. One carved ´huesito´ ( little bone) 1500 years old was a closed fist with a thumbs-up gesture. What is old is new again. The deceased Osmundo Gurayasimin`s series on hands and human suffering is powerful, graphic,and almost comic-book-pop-art. ´Manos de Protest´( Hands of Protest) is especially riveting.

However all this being said, the central historico just doesn`t cut it. It`s dirty, grungy and sad. Spanish Colonial architecture is almost always beautiful, but not here. The areas south of the old town are mostly poorer or outright slums built of concrete block. Frankly, if travel were a game of Poker, and Quito were a hand that has been dealt, I am afraid it would have to be a `fold` for me: one day max. Move on to the the country, the mountains, the rainforests, the rivers, the mango swamps and oceons. That is where Ecuador is to be found.
Abrazos
Esteban

Arepas

2011-01-20T07:51:00.000-08:00

Jan 20, 2011
Medallin, Co.

Columbian`Arepas` like Mexican `Sopas`, are a corn `masa`or flour tortilla, and vary considerably from restarant to restarant and state to state. They can be thin tortillas, heated and eaten with a side of cheese, jam or butter and have a different texture than most mexican tortillas, moister perhaps. Presumably a different variety of corn is used for the `masa`here in Columbia. There are the golden brown sweet corn `arepa-hotcakes` with lots of butter, that I sampled fresh off the grill at the Botanical Garden here in Medallin. Yum! Other white arepas are one-half inch thick, with mozorella or quesilla cheese cooked into them on a grill. Quesilla is a softer curd-type white cheese, more grainy and moist. On the coast in Cartegena, potaoes, sausage, or ham and cheese can be added with the arepas resembling a Spanish `egg-based` tortilla. At any rate, an arepa is proto-Columbian! A national staple.
Abrazos
Esteban

The Quilt of Guatape´ (Wah-tah-pae´ )

2011-01-19T15:24:00.000-08:00

Jan 19,2011
Medallin Co.

One of the objectives of travel is to experience places, people and cultures that are distinctly different than you own. Guatape` is unquestionably without a shadow of a doubt, NOT a suburban mini-mall, a `box-store` a faceless copy of a `chain store`or a generic architectural cliche destined to be dated in five to ten years. The town, a two hour bus ride from Medallin, sits on the edge of a lake in highland Columbia- Just under 5000`. The hills just outside of town look remarkably reminiscent of highland Guatamala: a domesticated rain forest that has been partially cleared into a patch-work of rolling hills of pine, cedar, timber bamboo, ferns, orchids and bromeliads, then lush electric-green pastures with dairy cows, undulant hillsides of silver-grey cabbage, pole beans, or corn.

The town, although primarily a tourist town with the rentable boats on the lake, a `zip` line, and the rows of hanging potted geraniums and begonias hanging from row-house eaves, still manages to be a charming . The narrow, cobbled streets that are reserved for pedestrians, and an occasional screaming motorcycle, invite you to stroll and marvel at the color combinations: Orange, yellow, cream, purple, and green never looked so good together! The colonial row-houses are painted in a uniquely Columbian style of the Antioquia area, with the lower-meter of the house facades sectioned off into raised, bas relief panels of flowers, birds, people, musical instruments, deer, or abstract shapes, painted in brilliant colors. The wooden spindles and metal rails of the windows and grills are equally bright, and detailed, as are the Asian style tri-wheeled `Tuk-Tuks` taxis. Take a Swiss-Spanish Colonial clock and cabinet maker, throw in an indigenous artesan who can sculpt, create murals and design, feed them both peyote, give them fifty different gallons of technicolor paint, and you have a town that reads like a South American quilt, within the context of the green patterned landscape. The history, culture and the high-altitude, equatorial light supports these colors. This is Janruary in bright equatorial Columbia, not monochromatic grey, cold Europe or North America.

The classical church adjoining the plaza is white stucco with sections red-iron-oxide on the exterior, but all carved wood inside including the gold-leaf-detailed columns. That same carpenter-cabinet maker was a mitering fool on the cieling- raised diamond sections of parque.

The only downside of the day was the Mondongo ( moan-doeng-goe) soup, a Columbian `typica` soup I ordered at a small restaraunt on the town plaza. The Mondongo soup I`ve had previously was delicious, with a chicken broth base, vegetables and select meats. The meat in this case was de-selected and replaced with a smelly, disgusting, quilted-textured-tripe and other unidentifiable internal organs of some unknown beast. Chew into it and you think you´ve bit into quilt-batting ( the ´moan '- in the Mondango!) Not a bed I wanted to lie in! I would have happily `One-day-mailed` the meat to TV cable show `adventure eaters´. (Anthony Bordain, it´s yours!) My `platito` was lined with florescence of brownish-grey inards. I got to the bus early, and selected a seat in front so the broth and vegetables I did manage to get down wouldn`t make a return appearance ( Or as I was to find out later, the ´little-old-lady-seat´). And as we drove back to Medallin, meditated on the green quilted landscape and lusted after that timber bamboo that could grow at the top of hillocks at 5000-6000´.
Abrazos
Esteban

Columbian Decco

2011-01-19T06:11:00.000-08:00

Jan 20, 2011

Medellin ,Co.

People who appreciate ´period´decco-moderne architecture will appreciate the Museo Antioquia ( ahn-tee- oe-kia) on Botero Plaza. The red-orange brick and cement facade is `typica` Medallin, and a cast eagle perches like yesterdays vulture, upon the facade ledge. Frankly, the eagle as a metaphor and symbol for nobility is both trite, not very accurate, and over-used by it seems everyone: Imperial Romans; The Nazis; American Federalist and democratic institutions, bills and buildings; Faschist Italy; Indigenous Americans: where would a Souix Indian be without his eagle-feather-headress?. (Oyyy!). We should all give the eagle a rest- he´s no more noble than the vulture, and not nearly so interesting. You wanna talk catching thermals- talk to a vulture.! All the vulture needs is some `good patriotic` background music ( oxymoronic I realize. Give me an oboe, hold the tuba, and throw in some Native American Pow-Wow-drumming! ) and a good Madison Avenue PR agency. `Mad Men` meets `Spy` magazine. And in this post- Bernard Maddoff-financial-meltdown era , the vulture is a considerably more accurate symbol and metaphor for American culture. I digress.

A phlanx of triple-scale, bronze boltero sculptures, Romanesquely elevated on pedastals, line the plaza. Latin men seem to be forever scratching and adjusting their crotches, and true to form, the bronze penuses of the Botero ´hombres´ have been fondled to a shiny golden brilliance. Botero deserves credit as he can invariably makes me laugh at his penchant for whimsy and absurdity. Especially his bronze dogs.

The interior of the museum is beautifully detailed with geometric garden fountains, aluminum and bronze decco screens and grills. The building was the former Mayers office, and was converted to a museum 2000. The collection includes national and internationally renouned artists ( although I have yet to find the simplist quilt that isn´t more interesting than a Frank Stella Painting). One of my favorites was Columbian native, Louis Ferando Pelaez. He works conceptually and poeticly with found and constructed objects, resin and glass. Solid hardwood, hand-carved ( The adze-marks still evident) long, narrow canoes from tribes in Rio Atrato, Choco Columbia. One canoe was painted white, installed in the dimly lit room and within the ´bowl´of the canoe sat a small sinking 'house' with obscure text, in a pool of resin. Stunning, simple and sublime.

Time to pack and soar like a vulture.
Abrazos from this ´peloncito´
Esteban

Put Down That Rifle and Hand Me That Plant

2011-01-17T06:28:00.001-08:00

Jan 17, 2011
Medallin Columbia

The Columbian people have been rated the third happiest nationality in the world, although who does this rating or takes this survey I know not? Were they dancing, drinking, eating or stoned while filling out the survey? Was a line of Coumbian Cocaine partaken of? Could they actually hear above the din of the Congo drums and Carib-clarinet to ascertain the answers? Watching all the young and older couples walking hand in hand, embracing and kissing contentedly in parks, the botanical garden or in plazas, one begins to get a feel for this. Carpe dium. Columbians love music and dancing, and they are blessed with an extrordinarily mild climate where almost any plant can be grown. Yes, Climate zone envy!!! All my favorite plants can be grown here, although oddly, I´ve seen few South African plants with the exception of the common Aloe vera.

Columbians have been able to celebrate for almost twenty years now the gunning down of Pablo Escobar of the Medallin drug cartel on a rooftop here in Medallin, by a U.S. funded 1500-man special unit. Here in Medallin they can celebrate one of the safest cities in Latin America. As recently as 2007, paramilitary groups such as AUC- United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia handed over their guns in trade for lenient sentences. Certainly a cause for happiness.
In the post-9/11 era Columbians can celebrate US financial support to the tune of $500-600 million annually to fight guerrilla ´terrorists´. Somewhere within those figures exists non-profit funding for displaced American, unemployed landscape architect-designer-landscaper. How does this sound for an Ad?

- Occupational and Vocational Therapy Workshop Available for former ´Terrorists´´ .
Sign up NOW for a Six month to two year program of Horticultural Therapy for Former Terrorists.´ Tranquelizate suyas nervios.´ ( Calm your nerves)´ Construir una nueva vida.´
( Build a new life.)´ Constuir un cuerpo y espirito sano, a carera nueva.´ ( Build a strong body and healthy spirit and a new career.) Why not?! Put down that rifle and hand me that plant.

´PorFaaa!´

Incidentally, across the street standing on the ledge of a white facade, a smallish black vulture stands watching me type. Does he know something I don´t know? Does he think he´s a pigeon? Is he a skin-head without comrades to hang with? Is he suffering from an identity or existential crisis? Is he a bad omen for my new, U.S. government funded Non-profit? Do they not know I can quell those terrorist tendencies, re-educate their tired muscles and minds?

Columbians can celebrate that the current ´mini-cartels´ continue to supply about 90% of the USA´s coccaine consumption. Every time an American snorts a line of Coke, a Columbian is made happy and more prosperous. Business is brisk. Haciendas- homes to these mini-cartel employees and bosses need hand-painted sinks, pretty tiles, luxurious U.S.-made jacuzzies, and U.S.-Columbian ´Free Trade´agreements will insure a good price. Hmmm. Maybe some of these ´hacienda owners´ need a garden. A grande entrance. A waterfall drowning out the sound of target practice. We must ruminate on the idea of ´honor among theives´.

Abrazos,
Esteban

Slatted Umbrellas and Tectonic Tortugas

2011-01-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

Jan. 16-17, 2011
Medallin, Co.

Columbia`s modern city of Medallin sits on the green highland plateaus like Bogota, but lower and not quite so cold and rainy. Greater Medallin approaches five million people although greenery and trees weave their way throughout the the city as it laps up the side of slopes like red brick soup. Medelli-ian, like Bogota-inian arquitecture is primarily brick based, and many buildings have a very Romanesque influence. Stucco and pumice block aren`t nearly nearly so common as in Mexico and Central America.

The first cab landed in the grotty-creepy downtown central area. Switched cabs and headed to the Poblado area adjacent to the Zona Rosa and found, a nice mid-range hostal. ( just not in the mood for grunge) . Jacarundi trees shade the street and hostal, and a hundred feet away, a stream cascaded down an arroyo embraced by giant bamboo. Banana trees, purple wandering Jew, palms and philodnedron grow wild here. Students, the upper-middle class, entrepeneurs, and expats populate this very modern and western area. Zona Rosa here, like in Mexico City, is the entertainment area. Saturday night I felt like a rube from the sticks: block after block of stylish outdoor cafes, restaraunts, bars and clubs jammed full of people, music blaring. 2 for 1 one banners hung on almost every establishement. Couples and groups- drinks in hand- strolled the palm and tropical tree-shaded streets and park. Fashionably yet `tightly` dressed locals- men and women- poured into their pants, blouses and t-shirts and packed the neighborhood. Ambercromby (A.F.) and Hollister tight T`s, the international gay uniform, identified the only gay establishment, a bar open to the street. Unfortunately a `Hooters` bar marred the Columbian atmoshere, so Senor Frogs probably won`t be far behind.

The Botanical garden was a short bus ride and a direct fifteen minute metro ride. Last fall I had googled ´modern architecture´, Medallin architecture and specifically ´Orchidiarama´ the orchid structure at the botanical garden popped-up. This trip is a direct result of that google. Orchidiarama was designed by local talent Giancarlos Mazzanti and his team of engineers, who from my understanding won a design competition for the project. Six large metal posts support a swirled and upward- fluted, hardwood-slatted-, hexagonal matrix. Ten of these hexagonal ´umbrellas´ provide a grand scale, and shade the plaza and the orchid and fern collections below. The park was lush and peacefull, although the plant collection was not particularly well labelled.

Biblioteca Parque Espana (Spanish Park Library ) is another of Mazzanti´s Medallin projects. One takes the blue line Metro to Acevedo, then a fernicular-cable car up the hillside and a short walk down to the complex.The cable car serves a very poor hilly neighborhood with few streets, and represents the cities investment in infrastructure as well as education in the poorer neighborhoods. Three dark cubistic, almost crystalen forms perch upon a hillock and make an impressive statement. Initially from a distance one is not sure if these forms were of solid carved rock, but the irregular and canted rows of windows become apparent. The exterior sheathing of slate tile presented technical problems over time and have had to be re-sealed, replaced in sections and varnished to reduce moisture retention. Mazzanti`s Bibliotecca, like many of Frank Lloyd Wrights buildings, as well as Frank Gehry`s Biboa Guggenheim museum push the architectual boundaries, but have been subject to leaky roofs. Wrights response to an angry client was:
¨Move the drip pale!¨- i.e. don´t bother me.
`` Not leak?`` screamed the Queen of Hearts! `` Off with their heads!``

The recessed, ground floor entrances are on the up-hill side of the building, their elevations in bright-colored orange and chartreuse glass, a wonderfal contrast of color and materials( probably more so before the shellak seal-coat was applied). Aluminum rods irregularly spaced and irregularly canted, reference a grove of trees, and provide a screen from exterior and interior courts. The angular exterior shape and ´sheathing´ of the Biblioteca is both suspended and pushed-out: essentially an angular exo-skeleton, supported by large metal piping, a sort of formalistic tectonic shell, encapsulating yet separate from the traditional rectalinear interior floor plan. Ironicly the shellacked stone looks almost the same color and texture as a shellacked tortouise shell I saw in Cartegena. This interior void, between `tortuga skin` and the actual floor-plan presents accoustical problems, as sound amplifies from the hard-surfaced ground floor up to the forth floor, distracting those typing on the internet ( testimonial) or studying. Internet is free with identification and the the speed the fastest I´ve yet to find in town. Technical glitches aside, it was hard not to like this bold, provacative ´tectonic- tortuga` resting on a hill. Thumbs up ( a very Columbian gesture) to Massanti!
Abrazos
Esteban

Cartegenian Catholic K.G.B.

2011-01-14T08:40:00.000-08:00

Jan 14, 2011

Cartegena Co.

The Palace of the Inquisition and Historic museum of Cartegena forms one large, three story, late- Spanish colonial facade and side of the shady Plaza de Bolivar. The five-hundred-year-old carved limestone entrance seduced me into visiting the museum: traditional grecco-roman temple entrance; a baroque curvalinear ´broken impediment´above it; aged spanish coat of arms; exquisite balconies and massive carved hardwood doors. Eight-hundred ´heretics´were denuonced, tortured and condemned to death over two hundred years plus of Catholic supression. This was the Catholic K.B.G., and just as ruthless in its time. If one is truly curious, google Catholic pograms and policies against: Jews; women; protestants; Indigenous people anywhere; major and minor Christian sects; anyone accepting or embracing additional Christian Apostles or saints; anyone who refused to be abused by a cardial, bishop, or priest; or having a name that sounds remotely like Martin Luther. (Pop stars with names starting with ´Luther´ may have a special dispensation.) So incredibly superstitious were they in this colonial town, that up- turned pointed tiles were mortered at the edges of the tiled window-rooflets to spear flying witches or evil spirits.

Right from the get go, in the first room of the museum, one is confronted with the intruments of torture: stretching racks, spiked colars - the usual post-medieval tools and the envy of Euro-trash and American S&M sex clubs. The first room on ground floor has a list of questions asked in the seventeenth century of potential heretics and witches.

1. Since when have you been a witch? Answer: Since I turned thirty or worse yet forty, and was rejected by the youth culture.

2. Why did you become a witch? Answer: I survived my twenties- and was iniciated.

3. How did you become a witch and what happened at that occasion? Answer: I turned thirty and got rejected by a cute twenty-four-year-old.

4. How did you choose your partner? Answer after three beers, we hope some clever banter, and a rigorous process of elimination. Or Not so rigorous if those were microbrews.

On the side of the Palace of Inquisitions, is a small window with a cross above it,´ La Ventana de La Dunancia´or The widow where heretics were denounced. In contemperary terms, this would be where the bouncer stands, closing and opening his velvet rope.

CLEARLY, Times never change.

Abrazos
Esteban. El Brujo

Confessions of a Beach Vender

2011-01-12T13:27:00.000-08:00

Jan 12, 2011

Cartegena Colombia

Opted to rent a miniature, 2 person shade cabana for about $3.50 American on Playa Bocagrande yesterday after my `gusano`experience. No reason to be more dizzy than I already am! Dagoroberto the cabana renter held my bag while I swam; later tipped him . The beach venders and massage women descended on me like hordes of Mormon crickets on a fresh ear of corn: T-shirts, sandels, beach hats, sliced fruit, unsliced fruit, fryed platanos, `mystery meals` in pre-packed to-go`s, beach jewelry, ice cream, beer, water, and pop. Apparently `breast enhancemnets` are cheap here, as I have never seen so many faux-non-flattening-breasts in one place before. Or women who actually have bodies that warrent wearing a thong. WOW!

Anita the ´negrita-masajista` (prounounced ma-sah-heesta and not one of the above beautiful women) squatted and pounced on my feet like a sumo-wrestler. No matter how much I protested, she stubbornly proceeded to massage my feet and lower legs, squirting what looked to be soapy water on as a lubricant.

``No gracious Anita, tengo poco dinero. No Necesito. No puedo``( No thank you Anita, I have very little money. I don`t need it. I can`t``

``Si Esteban... muy tenso...`` ( Yes Steven... very tense..)

``Mucha caminando en Bogota. ( Lot`s of walking in Bogota.) Anita, tu tienes una character no dura pero fuerte.`` ( Anita, you have a character not hard but strong) `` She was mildly amuzed, but continued.

Regardless of their pushiness, all of the venders were nice. Two different `beach-jewelry-venders sat with me and introduced themselves. We bullshitted. Foreigners, and especially Americans rarely come here so I was a rarity- clearly the whitest thing on the beach. Carlos talked to me in English. He said he wanted me to have a good travel experience, spread the word, and return to Columbia. Tourism has only recently returned as an industry, as the twenty-five cruize ships a month attest. He said that his countrymen were indebted to America for the Anti-drug campaign. He mentioned the drug cartel submarines the American Military- D.E.A. have sunk off the coast, eastward, towards Venezuela. Violent crime is down 70% in Columbia. Statisticly, Bogata is safer in terms of violent crime than Wahinton D.C.. I recalled the friendly taxi driver in Bogota who drove me through a modern `New Town´-looking commercial area on the way to the Botanical Garden and the enormous Central Park - Parque Central. He pointed out the building that Pablo Escobar - the former drug-king pin- had bombed, held the people hostage, then robbed, primarily as a `F-you` to the government. Yes things have gotten much better.

Carlos asked if I was married ( Divorciado- a little lie. ) and had I `sampled` Columbian women. (not yet) I didn`t bother to confess that I was a self-imposed eunuch, not wanting to cross the poverty-as-an-aphrodisiac-prostitution-boundary. He said that he was happily married, happily monogomus- a credible confession I seriously doubt. He did however confess to having had sexual fantasies about the beautiful young women he sees daily on the beach. Unaccountably their faces and bodies are projected onto his wifes while he makes love to her. Who am I to judge? The women and men here are very beautiful, and even good Buddhists and excellent meditators will tell you the mind is like a mischivious monkey, especially when the monkey has a libido on its back.

Abrazos
Esteban

Cartegena, Gusano Peludo

2011-01-11T05:09:00.000-08:00

Jan 11-13, 2011
Cartegena, Columbia

Day before yesterday flew from the 8000`highlands of cool-cold-wet-Bogota, to sea level tropical-humid Spanish-Colonial Cartegena on the Carribean. Add lack of sleep and jet lag to drastic climate change, and the old man was moving pretty slowly! Hostel living is crude at best: two bathrooms for twenty guests; hot-stifling airless interior; and `this-ain`t-the-boyscouts`- shared-coed dorm. Hope I didn`t keep the three ladies up all night snoring, but the multiple fans whirred continuously - Cartagenian white sound.

The aged limestone fort walls that surround much of the old town were at one time garrisons, dungeons, and defensive bastions but they appear also to serve as levees. According to my early morning visual analysis, the outer walled distric of Gestemani- the funkier, cheaper hostal area- is `New Orleans´ low: One minor hurricane and the river would be kissing the main plaza. One can`t help but be impressed by the ambitions of Spaniards to build on this slip of sand, regardless of the harbor and the labor advantages of slaves. The wealthiest Spanish town in the new world was a favorite of pirates and was rebuilt in stone after it was burnt to the ground in the 1586 by the pesky Francis Drake. Those damn English!

``Maybe fortified walls would be a good idea`` ruminated one town father.
`` Turrets, turrets, we must have turrets`` admonished another.
`` Cupalos``, called out another.

Cartegena is a World Heritage Site, and warrants the the attention. The old town is unequivicably beautiful: mysterious winding alleys and streets; large and small plazas, five hundred year old limestone, Grecco-roman churches; Lush brilliant cerise bougenvillas cascadiing over peach colored walls; and massive vines with`morning-glory-like` violet flowers smothering balconies
and draping facades; the ambiance of horse-drawn carriages and very few cars. In short, it is cinematiccly composed with a `Merchant Ivory` aesthetic.

The plaza of the Coches, just in from the Clock Tower arched entrance, was formerly the site of the slave market, and one of at least three sites of the International Music Festival. Unsponsored local African dance troups, their ancesters bartered, beaten and sold in that very plaza, pèrformed there and at another plaza- passing the hat occasionally . One troup changed costumes numerous times from tribal-African to Flaminco-colonial and danced with astonishing alacricty and afro-aplomb, `popping` and contracting their backs and flicking their arms with unimanginable speed! . The Afro-courtship dances were suggestive and sexual, the Euro-courtship more lordly and flirtatious. Their performances were commensurate with the carib feel and culture, and considerably more interesting than the stuffy-traditionally-gringo, `classical music` state sponsored performances!

The local collectivo busses leave from the eastern edge of grotty Gestsmani, and head over to Bocagrande and Castillo, the high-rise Mini-Miami speculative area build on a snakes tongue of very expensive sand to the south or to la Boquilla to the north. One cannot help but be impressed not just with the beauty, but the practicality and `green design` of the Spanish Colonial architecture- especially in comparison to the enormuous contemperary buildings staring down at the beach. The walls of the Colonial buildings are thick and insulative. The buildings are either two to three stories, except for the taller churchs and public buildings. The Romans with their concrete technology built five story apartment buildings in port cities in the first century A.D., so clearly the technology was available here in the 1500`s to go higher had they wanted. This two-three story height allows the tropical breezes to penetrate the walled city, streets and the individual houses, whereas the contempery skyscrapers on Bocagrande block the breezes from the leeward developments. The large colonial balconies and tiled window roof-lets shade the tropical sun, yet allow the breezes to penetrate. The tall doors and windows allow light and air and lots of balcony courting, guitar playing from below , and`chismando`(gossipping) with ´amantes`,neighbors and street friends. The modern skyscrapers for the most part are hermeticly sealed, several with banks of air conditioners climbing to the thirtyieth floor and most with windows exposed to a full day of sun- LOTS of radiant heat so close to the equater! The Old Town streets are narrow, and in relation to the height of the buildings reduce or eliminate the amount of direct radiant heat hitting the pavement or cobbled streets below. This car-less architecture has much in common with the intimacy, complexity and beauty of Venice Italy, and not surprizingly both cities were ports and hubs of lucrative trading empires. All the Spanish new world gold siphoned through the port of Cartegena!

This Carribean-high-ceilinged, balconied architecure is considerably different than the Simon Bolivar ( liberater of South America) designed ranch-style home he built in Bogota in the 1820's. ´Quinta de Bolivar´ had a wide brick-paved porch on the front with thin wooden posts, and rather fussy, cream-puffy Napoleonic interiors. The separate `cocina`(kitchen) building was primitive and charming: low stone hearths with tiny openings for charcoal or firewood, and another wall `horno`that one could barely fit a small pizza. A kitchen garden of vegetable, lettuce and herbs grew on terraces behind the kitchen.

Stone jetties extend at intervals into the bay at Costillo, and oceon at Bocagrande, so swimming seems safe, although extraordinary beaches and waters these are not! I intentionally planted my bag and towel under the shade of a tree for the shared securtiy of a nice Catagenian family and two adjacent policeman standing with rifles patrolling the beach. They all warned of leaving my bag unattended. Like all Columbians I`ve met, they are kindly concerned for the welfare of tourists, their guests, and without exception friendly.

After several swims ( Finally a dip in the oceon!) a small group of local men were discussing a `hairy` catepiller . One of the Afro-carib fruit venders carefully pulled the leaf- branchlet off the tree above us . Nestled within the leaf was a beautiful but poisonous, hairy, stiped catepiller: `gusanos peludos` as they are known here. He found four in the tree above our towels. The half to three quarter-inch cinnimum-colored hairs prick and according to the men, infect the victim with a venom, causing a fever and swelling and pain in the `privates`, and must be treated with medicine. `Gusano peludo`is a good metaphor for Cartegena and Colombia in general: Beautiful, but proceed with caution.

La Boquilla, a twenty to thirty minute collectivo bus ride to the north represented ´first contact´- not with a ´Trekkie´ alien, but with a hammock, the shade of a palapa and a good book! My sinus are healed after the ´eternal spring, therefore eternal hayfever´ of Bogota. The vender- hawkers are 90% fewer en La Boquilla and way less aggressive than Bocagrande vultures. Unfortunately the amaebic spread of white concrete, blue-tinted glass skyscrapers even here is consuming the beach.

I shared a similar `gusano´story with the ´gusano´guys, one that had pricked me when I was out urinating- foolishly barefoot in my brother`s garden in Southern Mexico years ago. The long-haired `gusano` stuck to my foot, and Filiberto the caretaker had to pull it off. It was a piercing, burning pain, not unlike the bite of certain tropical ants except with multiple stings. I don`t recall the fever but certain eccentricities of character may be atributed to that fateful sting.

Abrazos
Esteban

To Candelaria

2011-01-08T17:46:00.000-08:00

Jan 7-9, 2011
Bogota Co.,
Barrio of La Candelaria

I am dedicating this installment to La Candelaria, the funky colonial neighborhood in the historic area of Bogota, where Simon Bolivar the great South American patriot had a house that remains today. Candelaria`s varied architecture includes three hundred year-old houses and narrow bricked lanes that snake up the grades, with views to the lushly forested green hills above, and the Monserrate church and spire build precipitously on the summit . At night multi-colored `navidad´ lights blink, twinkle and glow in the mist. Candelaria also sports grotty and elegantly refurbished Columbian decco buildings and fun street art, sponsored by the local mayer or ´alcalde´. Wonderfull Verd-de-gris colored, plaster and fiberglass cast figures of the common local people, the ´comuneros´, peak over roof-tops, and sit ´fishing´ from the roof ledges. Street murals and graffiti art decorate `callejons`, narrow alleys.

I am dedicating the walk one must take from La Candelaria down to the Transmilenio, hopefully not five streets too far north as I did today. Businesses stack their wares in the street: cable, wire, hardware, fabric, and as one gets closer to the flats, women stand about singularly but loosely in groups.

`` Hola Guapa,` ( hello Pretty) I say, nodding to a smiling ´morena´ ( dark skinned momma) . We`ll call her Candalaria, for the way her face lit up when our eyes met and she apparently thought she had a customer. We dedicate this to you Candelaria and your fellow street walkers who look like slightly slimmed-down versions of Botero`s chubbettes, although the skirts are shorter, the make-up harsher, the breasts bigger and higher, and ´las nalgas´( posterior cheeks) marginally or NOT covered by the fringe and lace. Retirement, like many formerly middle class people in the states, is an issue for these women as well, as some skanky old broads were working the street!! They challenge the concept of sexy. (Bless their little hearts.) My nascent New York City Walk-with-purpose- street-center, security-self-preservation mode kicked in. Lou Reed`s `Walk on The Wild Side` turned in my mind:
`` Hey Sugar, how `bout a walk on the wild side.``
`` Do do do doot-tha-dooo.``

Two transfers on the Transmelineo Line, an additional transfer to a local bus line and two hours travel time later, I finally gained my objective: Zipaquira´and the Salt Cathedral. The trip is well justified especially for the wonderful introduction to verdant, pastoral Columbia, with brick and tile-roofed homes, and black and white spotted Hereford cows all looking suspiciously like a northern European or English setting -except of course for the palms and Eucalyptus. Colonial Zipaquira is charming, with a large, bricked plaza surrounded by two story, stuccoed, tile roofed and balconied colonial structures. The rustic cathedral dates to at least the 1700`s, with the interior of exposed buff-colored sandstone and `roman`brick,( a thinner and longer brick than modern bricks) including the walls, groin-vaults, domes, columns and niches. The walk up to the salt mine reminds ones heart of the 9000 feet elevation.

Crowded weekends at the Salt Cathedral should be avoided,( although one can break away) as the guides take large groups over six-hundred feet down through sometimes narrow, winding tunnels, passing stations of the cross dedicated to Jesus`s last day on earth. We forget that for centuries and millineums, salt was of great value and political importance and sparked wars of ownership. It was sustenance and survival, from the ancient Danube River mines to Indigenous mines here. Large carvernous chambers and chapels, and salt-carved crosses, are eerily illuminated. The scale of the spaces was stunning. `Stations of the Cross` ( thirteen and not the customary twelve) can now be added to the travel themes of food, museums, theatre, architecture, archeology, gardens, public art, romance and biodiversity. At the lowest, deepest chamber, a gift shop invites you to buy mini-miner-dolls, mugs and choch-kahs. Commercialism even in the bowels of earth never dies. Unaccountably, at first light at the tunnel exit, a young woman passed by chomping on a bag of salty chips. The cycle is complete: from Druid salt mines to Dorito Chips!

I am dedicating all the candles the Indigenous slaves, poorly-paid-miners and victims of the brutal mining profession have lit within the mines for the last four to five hundred years. Candles upon candles. Literally tons of wax burned over for centuries to fund the gilding of churchs throughout old and new world Spain and the coffers of corporations. Really, although I may sound like it, I am not a communist. Profit, and prosperity are good. Let`s just give those men and women their just due.

I am dedicating and honoring all the multiple Candelarias: Saint Candalaria; Ms. Candelaria Morena; El Barrio de La Candelaria; Candelaria Sur; and Calle Candelaria- as I was to discover later, and the street policeman who directed me to the blue bus going to SOUTH Candelaria, at best a dodgy, rough area. Buses often take circuitous routes to destinations, but we were clearly NOT shouldering the hills. I clarified destinations with the old man next to me, and was off the bus and grabbing a taxi within moments. Taxistas here vary. Most are very protective, as this one was who had live in N.Y.C. for years but been ascertained by immigration and unceremoniously evicted from the U.S. Some taxistas will mug you, or pass you counterfit bill. Yesterdays taxista was a `guerrero`, an aggressive warriar-chaufeur of Samuri mode, who manicly wove through traffic at `uncomfortable`speeds. One was only `close` to adjacent motorcycles and vehicles when one actually touched or crashed into them! Steering was clearly and aerobic excercize.

And last but not least, I am dedicating the little candelaria above my table last night and the delicious Waldorf Salad I enjoyed at a local restaraunt. May the candles of health and prosperity burn for you all.
Abrazos ( Hugs)
Esteban

I am dedicating

The Chant

2011-01-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

Jan 7, 2011 Bogota Co.

Relocated to the Candlelaria district in Bogota at the ´Cranky Croc` Hostal, and headed out to the tipica `diner`just down the street from the Botero Museum. Sampled a different local delicacy, a sweet corn tomale with double-cream white (cows) cheese, or as it is know here: Ènvuelto de mazorca con uvas y pasas, lleva queso DOBLE CREMA! Rich and sweet. This was accompanied by a milk liquado ( fruit drink with water or milk) of the green fruit `Freijoa`- a small football-shaped, slightly acidic green fruit. Then on to the quite remarkable Gold Museum.

Jewelry designers the world over should head straight to this museum, if for no other reason than to see what was created 500-1800 years ago with exquisite craft and sensitivity. Some pieces had the elegant simplicity of ancient Egyptian design. Others had a more pre-hispanic Baroque feel, and reminded me of the ancient designs of Teotehuacanese Jewelers during a similar historical epoc, and others, particuarly the gold offerings of the shamans, had a sublimely spiritual quality. The gold Shamanistic pieces were nearly bas-relief, discs, diadims, abstract shapes, figures, animals pounded-foil-thin, many accompanied by delicate pendant disks further catching the light and reflecting brilliance ; This of considerable religious significance as it referenced the sacred sun. All this shining gold art propheticly foretold of the advent of sequins, Bob Mackie costumes, disco balls, light shows, and gay and celebrity demi-GODS who could be quickly deposed.

The images of bats- sentrys and guides to the underworld ( The spanish word `Mursielegas` sounds considerably more mysterious and mystical) and various tropical birds and crows suggested the flight of the shamans souls, chants and prayers. These chants journeyed through time and space, a continuity of the beginning, the now and the eternal, balancing the natural and supernatural worlds after a cycle of chaos. Songs, music, costumes, drumming and drugs enhanced the spiritual experience. What a shame all the psychedelic drugs consumed in the last forty years by the western world were not accompanied by commmensurate traditions and ritual- although hold the live sacrifice please. We might have experienced several fewer wars, and perhaps not a multi-national financial meltdown.

The pre-hispanic Colulmbian indigenous tribe called the Muisca ( Moo-eees-ka), like the Maya and many other Meso-America peoples, made offerings of these exquisite gold pieces, as well as sacrificed live birds, which had been anthropormorphicly trained to speak; and virgins, who were probably encouraged not to speak, thereby interrupting the import and ritual of the priests. All were ceremoniously chucked into lakes and cenotes ( Limestone sinkholes in the Yucatan.) Their shamans, like the Yaqui shamans in northern mexico, and many indigenous shamans, believed and perhaps did ( and do) have out-of-body flying experiences. The ´CHANT´ multi-media exhibit at the museum, especially if one enters the dark circular room alone, and as the doors close behind you, sets the mood for both the taped chants, and the collection surrounding you and below you in the center of the room. The multi-media sound of water, perhaps a lake or cenote, mixed with the rhythm of the chants. Flashes and shafts of ` sunlight` illuminated the hundreds of gold pieces . Really, it was quite fun!

I was amuzed by a text at one of the exhibits, written no doubt by a present or former Catholic, that described how the Chieftans or priests `` adopted postures and gestures that differed from their underlings. The meanings of these postures and gestures expressed their connection to superior beings and levels.`` They wore tremendous hats with feathers ( not unlike the queen mother) and every sort of twenty-four carot gold ormament: leggings, bracelets, amulets, chest and forhead shields, ear and nose rings and collars, and they wielded golden-headed staffs with Celtic-animalistic creatures fiercely growling. Heirarchy and power timelessly are validated by these costumes, rituals, processions and performances, be it a Roman emperor-demi-god like Caesar, or a pope in all his finery. Swing the incense, ship the missiles or pass the tithe. The beginning, the now and the eternal ritual .

Shit, was that a bat that just flew by? Better hold my tongue. There might be a pissed off shaman circling.
Later
Esteban

Burping in Bogota

2011-01-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

Jan. 6- 7, 2011,

Bogota, Co.

Re-entered from inter-space in a vintage jet en route from Atlanta to Bogota, having passed over Cuba and Guantanamo Base -Detention camp below and to our left and ruminated briefly on the prickly, unresolved issues of sovereignty, Geneva conventions, terrorism, and justice. Oyy! Gave a quick nod to the prisoner-detainees who had probably already been put to bed, they probably thinking of loved ones across the Atlantic, of the capriciousness of Allah and of perhaps revenge. I gave 'aduana' (Immigration) paper assistance to catatonic and confused Korean - twenty seven hours flying and still counting who sat to my left . A thin, effeminate, Bogotano in lavender shirt and matching socks shot me 'meaningful' looks from across the aisle. Post disembarkment, money exchange, taxis, and hostel search consumed the waning hours.

Yesterday I rode in the famed and still controversial Transmelenio espress bus line . It is essentially an above ground metro, and a ´green´ urban design and installation achievement of former Mayer Enrique Penalosa. One local merchant when asked his opinion on Transmelinio gave me a heavily gesticulated and negative ditribe on the former mayer, Transmelineo and alternate-day driving policies in this very polluted metropolis. Clearly not everyone appreciates the ´big picture´ in planning and governance, here or in the U.S.
Visited the small but sweet, four hundred year old Temple de San Francisco in the historic Candelaria district, one of twenty such semi-autonymous districts with their own mayers in Bogota. The church is constructed with rustic 'Roman' brick and stone exterior walls, and a more polished interior with wooden `alters` beneath each arch in a baraque style of carved entablature , columns, niches, and gilded saints. Tubular disco lights arched over the various niches, blue ` icicle` minilights dripped from the choral area above, and the the main alter boasted leafy forest scrims, Leed-Nazareth-shooting-star lights, and a fiber-optic manger. And why not? Two thousand years of Catholic theatre and still counting.
Wandered the colonial district, and lunched on a rich yet simple Santafereno style ( as in Santa Fe) tomale in a walk by tipica restaraunt. Banana leaves- not corn husks- enclosed the yellow rice (instead of corn flour as in Mexico) with small pieces of corn, garbanszo beans, peas, chicken and pork. Cheap and delicious!
Post-lunch, visited the Botero Museum, and enjoyed the famous phnematic and full-figured, sometimes sensual, whimsical and always kitschy figures and fruit made famous by the native Bogotano painter and sculpter and museums namesake. Sculptures and paintings of modern artists such as Calder, Picasso, Max Ernst and Henry Moore balanced out the collection. Botero`s obese and over-stuffed women and men, and sensual references to rich fruit made me want to burp. They all looked ready to explode. Was it the lunch- life imitating art- or just the art?
Esteban

Donuts and Filipinos

2011-01-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

Jan 4, 2011 L.A., Ca.

Twin headlights swiveled and illuminated the swarming arc of snow, hail, and sleet, like hordes of surreal Mormon locusts while red tail-lights faded into the dark. This year's drive on I-95 from Southern Idaho to Winnemucca , Bishop and L.A. was torturous in the low-rider, high-centering Prius. Somewhere out from Jordan Valley Oregon jack-knifed semis and trailers and spun-out cars littered the highway and shoulders and amber tow-truck-lights strobed erie shadows on the snowy hillsides. Even cold, rainy Southern California sounded good by comparison, and by ten the next morning the California border was gained, and by early evening L.A.

Just a stones throw from Disneyland my nephew and his 'almost-in-laws', the Filipino clan of his girlfriend, brought in the new year with a Sunday brunch and bash. I was Uncle Steve, which fit in nicely with the Filipino custom of addressing adults and seniors as Auntie or Uncle So and So. Yes, fresh-frozen then defrosted spud boy felt like he'd been flung over a palm tree and a cross-cultural-frontier and landed on the Mad-hatter-tea-cup ride, somewhere near 'Its A Small World'. The older women were speaking Tagalog, a Filipino dialect, or heavily accented English. The young guys in their late teens or early 20's were dressed either like good Catholic boys, or in a upscale gangsta-rap-Filipino-street-style, with large wooden beads and crosses- tropical hardwoods traded for 'ghetto gold'! Mixed-cultural references abounded with the food, dialects and dress: The majority of the crowd were married or divorced first and second generation Filipinos with their offspring, but this ethnic mix was spiced with Hispanic girlfriends or wives and several gringo husbands . The house, yard and street reeked of up-chuck-smelly, pre-dryed, salted-then-fryed, hard-as-a-rock, fish and squid. Thrice-dead-and flogged-flesh is DEFINITELY an acquired taste! The centuries-old solution to pre-refrigeration-preservation made me think wistfully of soft fresh sushi- its culinary opposite. I sampled the meat chips - after a group Catholic-prayer- with the fresh tomatoes and cilantro. (Marginally swallowable even with the salsa.)

The Crispy-cream donuts were purchased for the 'white guys', as one older lady told me.

" Oh, I hope I didn't offend you", she says.

" No, of course not.' Not wanting to offend her with my customary smart-ass humor, although I had wanted to retort- blue eyes aside- that I was actually 'black'.

My hand shot involuntarily, super-Sly-style, directly to the white-sprinkled chocolate frosted mini-'dona'. She clearly had my demographic! She also popped a pink frosted 'dona' delicately down her craw, apparently covering for an immigrant-sweet-tooth.

One of the big, portly younger Fillipino guys, his knitted cap askew, sat on the living room step, sang and played the ukulele. Ironic that these fashion-referenced-'street-tough-dudes' were clearly so shy of us white guys, skirting us like water flowing around a big rock. Tongan? Hawaiin? Filipino? Where was I? Their sweetness couldn't help but bleed through the posturing. But then again, a long-haired, stuttering ''Brother-Speed' diesel mechanic just served me in southern Idaho. He also with a box of donuts on the counter in front of him. (Is the donut the international symbol for the terminally shy?) The young girls in contrast were boldly open and friendly, soon to be matriarchal women running the households. The young men were consistently suspicious, with a thin crust, but soft as donuts in all respects.

I feel well primed for my teacup spin to Bogota Columbia tomorrow, and South American culture.

Packing awaits.

Yes indeed. 'It's a Small World After All'.

Esteban

Social Images of Puerto

2010-02-17T07:45:00.000-08:00

Thursday 18 Feb, 2010

Puerto Escondido, Oax., Mx.

Rain this last morning, swallows diving, circling and collecting insects awakened by the moisture and final dreams of truck-delivered compost to an Idaho property, layered with dried sod, plastic bottles and a dead cat. `Mexican compost`. The transition begins.

Expat get-togethers ran the gammit this last three weeks, but when the mota and margaritas are passed we knew the show would be and was brindeled as an inbred beach-dog. Subtext rich and layered like a bad marijuana brownie, oily with the boastful and pretentious. The Canadians were almost without exception sweet, and well-behaved guests. Not so for the Americans. The volume increased with the rounds of drinks and the sexes segregated- always a sign the party had peaked and was on the down-hill. Me of course sitting basicly sober, with a social drink taken to appease the gods, but between both sexed-groups, not particularly wanting to join the cackling drunken hens or the semi-comatose oso`s (bears) .

`` It was blooau- dee awhh-full,`` she intoned in her most pretenious and practiced English accent, this from a short, squat, squarish, thin-legged middle-aged Mexican woman. Her plunging neckline accentuated her breasts, that sat like two melted, flesh-colored `helados` ( ice-cream scoops) on the top of her stomach. Not attractive, but she boldly displayed them. Even the old men with too much under their belts looked on unimpressed.

``In France, we believe in the psycological process, not like in the states where they prescribe drugs`. This said of the French health care system on the financial rocks from the countries addtition to Valium, Adavan, Percadan and Oxycotin. They may need process, but they do need their drugs more!
`` I was educated in Europe, ( Subtext: Yes, I come from money you see.) where we understand process, ( we are highly advanced)``. I asked her what the French think of the Bi-polar condition.``

`` It doesn`t exist. It is what we caoull Melan-chauhh-lia.``( remembering to work the English accent again. It came and went, like the swallows this morning, and the beach-dog, to curl on the other side of the lane.) The blues. The blues. I occasionally get the blues, but I don`t need Lithium! I´ve known brilliant but manic artists, who later, always later, tumble and crash to deep lows. Deep continental rifts of depression. Sorry bitch, it is clinical, and the Lithium worked for them. It gave them some emotional equinamity. Actually I enjoyed her performance, for an evening. Pero, no mas ( no more than an evening).

Another evening one of the party hosts informed me that she was vegetarian - presumably as part of her Mayan purification process ( A friend later informed me just two weeks previous she was up town buying `carnitas`, pork). She takes 2012, and the Mayan calander very seriously. Prepping, I assume, for her entry into the ephemeral portal labeled `Spiritually Advanced.` The rest of us will be left somewhere below, stumbling between the signs marking `Mormon Heaven, missionaries step forward`, and others written in gothic script:`Catholics who`ve paid their indulgences and tithed take the right path..`` ( Right brained and left-pathed, fucked again!) I point out that she and her husband are eating pink shrimp-( hardly a green stick of celery) .

`` They have eyes , you know`` I tactlessly point out.

``No they don`t,`` they both declare emphaticly.

`Why,`I think to myself, ` because you just bit the head off?`( They were served with heads)

Carmen quipped later, `` They just have eye-lashes. No eyes!`` We laughed.
`Ahh,`, I think to myself, `I `SHOULD HAVE been drinking and smoking. I am way too sober. She is essentially a good woman with `good causes`, but annoying behaviors. If only she were more self effacing and irreverant and considerably less self-satisfied. She might just be another brassy woman in party mode. But she was dismissive, condenscending and disrespectful to her husband in front of a crowded table. Ugghh.

Interesting expats attended these parties as well. Documentary film makers from Canada, and other sweet, interesting and unpretentious people. Jewelry designers and makers. Graphic and three-dimensional artists. And nice ordinary Joes and Joannes.
Time to pack, and see if the dog has moved and the swallows fled to their perchs.
Abrazos
Esteban

Images of The Oaxacan Coast

2010-02-16T18:27:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 16, Feb. 2010
Puerto Escondido, Oax., Mx.
( Oaxaca prounounced: Wah-haa-kah)

The sunset of roses and pinks and oranges was just fading, framed by the two coconut palms, the beach and breakers in front of us diners suggested great peacefullness, when suddenly my chair and the table popped up off the sand. I bounced, and rat-a-tatted, knowing this sensation from years of quakes in L.A., but still startled nonetheless. The epicenter, maybe a hundred miles away, measured 5.7. The sand was a good place to be- no big building to fall on us- but people took to the streets like rats escaping a flood. Fun for me, but frightening for the inexperienced or week of heart.

The rubber kyack sliced through the washing-machine-waves, turgid, torquoise-green waters bounced off the cliffs, then intersected with more incoming waves, rocking and churning and paddling, to gain the rocky point. Gulls, Pelicans and a few 747 wing-span Terns circled and dipped to the `bait-ball`of sardines out to sea, their far away excited screechs and crys echoed and blended with the sound of waves crashing against the rocks.

Bubbles, no translucent eggs, no a river of one eyed creatures, like suspended plasma in a coastal current of saline planetary blood. Green blood, soupy and dense with `agua mala`, baby Jelly-fish, rolling and flowing like beaded sea-weed, ready to sting the unsuspecting swimmer. And Carmen, the captain in the front seat, has to pee! We laughed. No cans to pee in and she didn`t trust me to keep my eyes closed or herself not to roll backwards off the kyack.

Down the coast another day with Jimmy and Lou, fresh oysters a la Mexicana, with chopped tomatoes, jalapeno peppers and onions. Pounding surf off the rock outcroppings, the undertow intimidatingly strong. Too strong and unpredictable to swim. A large grey pelican circled, gained altitude, then dove nearly perpindicular to the horizon. He pierced the water with a splash, then re-surfaced to lift his long troughy-beak, swallow, and then shake his tail contentedly.

A large, eighteen inch utra-marine, torquoise-blue, yellow-cream and silver Parrot fish, laid shiny and still in the sand. A beautiful but stubborn-looking marine cadaver, with the flat boxy forhead and squarish yet thin torso.
``Has it been dead long?``. I ask. The friendly, very indigenous looking local lady stuck her finger in the beaky mouth.
`` No, ya esta` tibio.`` ( it is still warm)
`` Strange, squiggly, deep-blue veins of color radiated out from the already dim eye, like a science fiction electrode. Small children gathered and bent down to touch the fish and giggle.

Grey whales breaching out to sea. Blowholes like steam. A mother, a baby and perhaps the aunt. Someone said sperm whales. Big, really big. Boats surrounding the poor creatures. Puttering and churning Evenrudes. The mother pounding her large front flipper like a flattened hand in a water fight, sending a wave of water towards one of the harrassing boats. Finally, the three of them dove and headed out to the horizon as I shall be in two days.
Abrazos
ESteban

First Cat Caress

2010-02-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

Puerto Escondido, Oax., Mx.

Sat Feb 13, 2010

The very short- barely five-foot- Mexican father, sat on the ledge and listened to the music of the Gypsy band (Banda Gitana) and the accordian, chello and congo drums, while his two and half to three year-old daughter leaned on his knee. She wore a sweet little dress, pink flip-flops with sparkles, and her hair was carefully combed and baretted. A large peach-colored cat lifted his tail, loped over and rubbed against her then laid down in front of her wanting to be petted. She drew back in fear, as if the cat were a bobcat or cougar and clutched her fathers leg. He tenderly embraced her and whispered in her ear. He encouraged her to not be afraid and to pet the cat. She walked timidly two steps over and bent to touch the tail. The father explained,´ Caress the cat´s head ´.

´´Si, asi asi.´´ ( Yes, like that.) The father said approvingly, as the child barely touched the cats head. The pretty child felt emboldened, squatted down awkwardly and out-of-balance, extended her hand and touched the cats back, not quite understanding how to actually pet or caress the cat.

´´´Carisias. Carisias.´´, explained the father smiling. ( Caresses.) I hoped the cat wasn´t ill-tempered or particular about how and where he was petted. Our family once had a short-tempered-gringo-cat named Casper, who marginally tolerated our presence in HIS house. Casper would quickly slice you with his claw if your hand went below his lower neck while petting him, or if he wasn´t in the mood to be petted. He would piss on the chrome-mags of my brothers yellow 56´ Chevie, just as my brother was coming out of the house and down the front steps- not a moment before or after- giving himself a healthy ´fuck-you´ moment to gloat at his urine insult, and then he would make a hasty retreat. Always out of reach. A volley of crabapples might follow Casper, but few ever connected.

However, this cat just lifted his head, looked slightly over its shoulder at her, then closed his eyes and lowered its head to the floor contentedly, oblivious to the live music and people about. She extended her little arms to pick the cat up- quite a feat as the feline was almost as big as she. The father gently tapped the child on the shoulder, and quietly explained not to. I couldn´t hear what he had said, but she went with her father to the ledge, he put his arm around her, and she contendedly rocked to the music.

The father and I shared his childs first ´cat caress´, as the singer broke out into a yoddlie-falsetto-trill and the chello intoned.

Abrazos
Esteban

Triangulation

2010-02-11T17:13:00.000-08:00

Monday Feb 15, 2010

Pto. Esc., Oax., Mx.

One learns quickly in Mexico and Central America, and should learn in first world, whether it be for directions, a doctors dianosis, gossip, presumed local, or national ´news´, to triangulate in the manner of tracking a cell phone source. Get three coordinates. Three positions, then extrapalate the most accurate and factual version of information in question, or the one that is most consistant with ones intuition. And if all the above fails, the one most commensurate with ones prejudices. If that doesn´t feel right, make up your own story. Why not?! Everyone else does down here, either to save face- like the Drunk in Agua Dulse giving directions,-or because they are bored, or they just like fucking with gringos.

The recent example, was an alleged ´poison chemical spill` in the Manialtepec River. A Mexicana from a neighboring community and friend of mine related a story of how the locals swimming and washing clothes below where we were presently swimming, had gotten strange reactions to the water: reddish bumps, rashes. Chemical burns. And down stream in Las Lagunas De Los Negores, the fish and aquatic life had been killed, and the state was paying local fisherman a nominal amount in pesos not to fish in the spoiled, polluted waters. The polluting `fabrica`or plant had been closed. Was it paints? Dyes? Herbicides? Insecticides?

So I started asking around to other knowledgable Gringos and locals, and never got the same story twice. The leading local expert on avarian and aquatic species at Lagunas De Los Negroes, a biologist and professional guide there, claimed no industry or `fabricas`exist in the little town therefore no such ´commercial´spill would likely have happened. He claimed the Laguna is in good health with the exception of a shortage of rain during the recent ´rainy´ season, all was normal- biologically speaking.

I asked Filiberto my butcher,`carnicero` friend in Chila, and he said it was an `aguas negras`, sewage effluent from the town of Nopala, one to two hours drive upstream of where we had been swimming, that had gotten dumped into the river. The duration of time it was released- days, months, years- we do not know, although presumably the problem is corrected. ( not likely). So, above where we swam was sewage, flowing down towards us to the Lagoon beyond, and the cattle corral directly adjacent to us, was spoiled by semi-fresh cow shit!

Yet another aquatance claimed this was also bullshit.
´´Yes, I know, we saw the bulls.´´
´´No, the Nopala sewage dump is bullshit.´´
´´Really?´´
I wrote the local bi-lingual town ´rag´ but never recieved an answer back. So I can only assume, ( commensurate with my prejudices) that a local business advertized sacred waters sourced from the regional sacred site: the Virgin of Juquila, that had been mixed with the waters of the Manialtepec River. The Ad claimed that bathing in these waters provided: both a blessing, a serious benediction; forgiveness for carnal sins; a cure for minor and major ills; a chemical facial peal restoring youth, vigor and sometimes aphrodisiacal properties to those born under either a ´fire´ ´, ´water´, or ´air´sign of the zodiac. This was authorized by former President Bush, as a ´Sisters City Program´of a local Texas town.
To get there go up the dirt road, turn right where the drunk is passed out on the dirt shoulder, pass the cantina, the church, the graveyard, and the place with the loud music.
´´Siga, siga siga..´´ Continue, and go straight ( actually bare right); take a hard right where the goats are grazing in the corn-stubble, and left around the big tree where the women are washing their laundry in the river. Good luck and may God and George Bush Bless, and may your triangulated directions asked of three different sources NOT dump you in a minor drug-war skirmish.
Abrazos
Esteban

Iguanarium

2010-02-11T14:30:00.000-08:00

Friday Feb. 12, 2010
Puerto Escodido, Oax., Mx

Previous torrential rains have washed out, and a combination of animals have burrowed and tunneled under the walks, walls, and patios at the hotel, collapsing some and weakening others, and have remained in this condition pretty much unchanged for years- maintenance being a minor issue here. Two large and one small, black `wild` rabbits of some unknown domestic breed, live on the hillside just below our communal walks and patios, and feed on the irrigated lawn above us. They share warrens, holes and general ground-level habitat with spiky or `combed` Iguanas (Ctenosaura pectinata) , a plethora of ant species large and miniscule, ´Ertha Kitt´the tarantula and her relatives, and a pot pourii of bugs, scorpians and creatures.

The Iguanas around the building are usually in the two foot size range and are tame enough to accept hand offerings of bananas and zuchini, which appeal to their primarily vegetarian nature. The males sometimes literally ride the females backs at great speed down the brick path from the pool area above, an elevation raise of at least a hundred feet, to the lower area, almost like a tabagon ski run, and a variation of the expression `monkey on my back` and Iguana `extreme sports` in process: ride, sled, but don`t fall. I am not sure if this is pre, post, or actual coitus in process but mating is the idea- tis the season. The males sit on the low brick curbs on on the edge of our patio-walk and raize, then bob their heads with great attitude- a `combed`iguana strutting gesture similar to what we have all seen guys do in bars , bar mitxvahs and dances for milleniums- dominance and invitation thus expressed. Men were sitting on the window seal of Casa Baylon just last night, posing, strutting, inviting. (The `world music`-band unfortunately not assisting in the seductive ambiance.) In fact, in profile, the macho Iguanas have an almost punk-band, lead singer look, and in horny behavior are virtaully identical in a primal, Sex-Pistolian way ( lizard dudes and lead singers). Lets face it, testasteron in whatever species, lacks the complexity of expression that estrogen engenders. We men like to think we are running the show but women, females, embras, are making the choices and ultimately directing the flow and destination of DNA in each of their particular species.

One of the large Iguana dudes seems to be wearing what appears to be a tattered-edge vest, frayed from too many days in the sun without lotion, of a lighter greyer skin, perhaps in due `mult` process, giving him a decidely `rock-n-roll`, `Keith Richards` appearance. Both Keith and the vested Iguana have a decidely Bronti-sauris weathered look, although the iguanas` is not the result of a ` roadie, drug and party induced, too-many- miles-under his-vest-lifestyle. `Kieth`the Iguana, like us temperary gringo residents of the hill, listens many nights to the same `pong, pong pong`of the amplified heavy base-line, and electic-rock-strings waft from the poolside concerts just below and on the far side of the new cement `arroyo` . The local ctenosaura species are social species, unlike many other iguana and lizard species, and enjoy hanging out in the sun above the beach in groups catching the sun, breezes and an occasional fly.
Substitute cappuchino, beer and peanuts and the gringos are doing the same just below the hill along Zicatella beach, although flys don`t light their particular culinary fires. ( At least not to my knowledge.)

The Iguana`s biggest and most dangerus predator is not eagles or falcons, although they are known to snack on iguanas, but the locals, who appreciate in a culinary way the common taste and DNA lineage of Iguanas and chickens. Iguana tomales in red sauce were the specialty of our former caretakers mother-in-law. Sweet, succulent, dark and bony- my nephew didn`t know till two years later they weren`t chicken tomales he had consumed after a long hike! Expat gringo homeowners here bribe locals by offering to buy fresh, uncooked`capon`or for that matter scrawny butchered `pollo`, so the locals don`t kill and eat the Iguana, whose populations and health as species are in question.

Well, it is time for this weathered old Iguana to change clothes and hit the waters. I promise to not bob my head in an obvious way. No, subtle it is. Practiced. Pure.
``AAhhh-ooooohhhmm`` ( Now, where did I put that vest..?)
Abrazos
Esteban

Rip-tides, Under-tows and Tarantulas

2010-02-10T13:39:00.000-08:00

Thursday Feb. 11, 2010

Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mx.
Hola,

Yesterday we drove twenty miles down the coast with aquaintances and friends, to a hidden undiscovered rocky point, where only two Palapa restaraunts serve among other things, fresh local oysters that are safe to eat. Garlic shrimp for seven dollars and fresh squeezed juices.
The rip-tides, and undertows there and even on the very benign Marinero Beach in Puerto, limited swimming. I gave Marinero a shot but had to give up after a thorough pounding!

International musical talent is in town for the Puerto Music festival and if one is lucky and persistent one can find incredable live jam sessions of these and local talents at the ´Rockaway´ or ´Casa Babylon´ along Zicatella Beach Road. World renoun rock and blues guitarist Enrico Crivellaro from Italy and L.A., and one of his ´smokin´Italian lead guitarist buddies , played and sang several nights ago at the Rockaway. The Festival is a Five dollar entrance fee at Jardin Real Hotel grounds, and seating is under a row of tall, neatly trimmed coconut palms, ( so as not to brain or worse, kill an unsuspecting guest with a falling coconut!) The formal radial-splays of fronds frame the stars beyond and set the mood. No ´goose-bump´ performances but good solid music none-the-less.

Discovered this morning, six inches from my brick patio, where every night I walk barefoot to turn off the porch-light before retiring, a tarantula hanging-out in his/or her den. Five, two to three inch hairy, black legs were extended, catching the morning sun like a cat by a window. I´ve name her ´Ertha Kit´, for her dark gams and seductive manner. According to my research, she is probably a Red-rumped Tarantula, although she has yet to show me her ass, ( a common problem men my age...) so I am not sure. Several years ago ´Marilyn´ with her naturally-blonde ( unlike her bleached name-sake) hairy legs, spent the wee hours of the night in the corner-ceiling of my bedroom. I greeted Ertha from a respectful distance with a ´´Buenos Dias´´, but absolutely no reaction. Hung-over no doubt, after a late night feast of fermented Gekko. The bare-foot part of the nightly ritual officially ends today! Rip-tides, under-tows and tarantulas reside here, although lyrics and notes await the musicly inclined for penning. Get on it peoples!
Abrazos
Esteban

Lost in Agua Dulce

2010-02-08T08:32:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Feb. 9, 2010

Pto. Esc., Oax. Mexico

Hola,

On Sunday Filiberto and Marta invited me to a baptism and post-baptism-party in Agua Dulce community, onthe oceon-side of the highway west from Chila. I opted for just the party, feeling uncomfortable with all the implications of the Jehova Witness ceremony. The taxi cab driver talked me into a somewhat decent fare from Puerto, so we introduced ourselves, and off we went. He asked me about my opinions on extra-marital sex and promiscuity after first offering to find me `female companionship`-sex. ``Gracias no, but my (`fictional`) wife would not approve.

In the Spanish, the conversation ran something like this.
´´Do you think the Gringas are more liberated sexually than the local girls?´´He asks.
´´No not really. The gringas are away from home, so that makes them a little more free, but I hear the local girls are sexually active from the ages of twelve or thirteen.´´
´´Yes , that is true.´´ He replies. ´´Are American girls less religious?´´
´´I can`t see that that affects their sexual behavior too much. I know so-called Christian marriges that aggresively lack monogomy, and agnostic marriages that are monogomous. My mormon step-sisters fucked like bunnies. First sex, then send the boyfriend off to a church mission. Next boyfriend- ´Egual` ( the same) Sex, then a mission. Next boyfriend-`egual`. eventually they both married a young man recently returned from a mission. ´´
``Si??``
``Si.``
´´Do you think extra- marital sex is a sin?´´ he asks. I chuckle.
´´I am NOT the one to ask that question. Sin ? Morality? Most religions don`t even want me sweeping their church steps, much less entering their churchs. However to me, ( and I touch the coin-cloth with the frayed edges, that all cab drivers here have on the dash) a marriage or relationship is like this cloth. Each time a partner or spouse screws around, it is like pulling a thread out of this cloth: the jealousy. The lies. ( and I tug at the edges of the cloth.) Then the other partner starts to screw around. ( I pull on the cloth again) MORE jealosy and lies and then retribution. Even if they are open, still, these feelings.´´
``Desmasiado actividades.´´ (Too many activities) I explain. ´´ It takes alot of energy to be unfaithful. And pretty soon, with the hurt feelings, and jealousy and mistrust, there just isn`t much cloth left. Just making trouble in the name of sex or freedom.´´
´´Si, tienes razon, Esteban´´ ( Your are right)
´´But, ´´ I add, ´´trouble can be fun... ( Pause) Is the woman you mentioned sexy and pretty?´´ ( as if maybe I had re-thought his offer.)
He looks at me to ascertain if I am yanking his chain, then laughs. ´´Hayyy..... Esteban. Si, Bonita´´ ( Yes Pretty)
We drive up and down the dirt streets of Agua Dulce, looking for ´the old road´? Filibertos directions were vague, even after I asked him to be more specific. The mostly abandoned dirt lanes were rutted. A dog asleep here in the road. A cat there. A goat bleeting. Some trash, a bottle. Weeds in the vacant lots. No evidence of a party or celebration. A dust whirl tosses sand in my eyes. I finally ask him to drop me off towards the end of one lane, and he explains it is not a safe area. Some local criminales had set up a stone road-block to rob him once.
``Hay narco-traficantes aqui!´´´ Drug dealers! and I was dressed in a nicely pressed shirt and chino shorts. (Kleig light-gringo announcement: `Come mug me! I have money.)`A local ex-pat gringo later confirmed this barrio ( Neighborehood) description, as it is too small to have a police force, so the local drug-thugs along the coast have congregated here like they used to up by the Point.
So I have him drop me off at a palapa mini-restaraunt on the `main` dirt road but near the highway to wait for my friends to pass. Five men are sitting at the long table drinking beers. They look at me coldy, then look off to the side, or up to the T.V., avoiding eye contact. Like , ´What is this gringo asshole doing here??´. I sit down and order a ´Toronja´ grapefruit pop. ( Mary Poppins has arrived. What, NO BEER? No line of Coke? It`s Sunday! Ironicly, they probably think I AM the Jehova Witness!) Gradually I start talking to one of the younger guys sitting across from me. He had worked in Georgia for eight years, and his smile came easily. His strong country accent was hard for me to understand, as my grammaticly incorrect, gringo accent must have been for him. Then he says the man at the end of the table is an architect. So he and I start talking and compare notes on design development. Client communication. Sketching versus Auto-cad. We share stories about pain-in-the-ass-clients. And soon, we are laughing. A rich bitch, is a rich bitch, in America or Mexico it seems.
Then the young man offers to drive me around, to look for the festivities as he is from Agua Dulce.
´´We are looking for a guy named Filiberta and a Baptism party´´, he explains to the dwarf women on crutches in the humble bodega, built of tin and branches with chewing gum and chips out front. She knew nothing., but gave the moment a nice David Lynch flair!
We drive down various abandoned dirt lanes, asking guys in board shorts or pants. They all shake their heads. As we drive, he also reitterates that this is a druggie area, although in the very same breath explains,
``If you want to buy some land, I have lots for sale here.´( For you, a good price.)
´´Thanks, but right now I can´t afford to put a fence up. ´´
We ask the old straw-hatted ´boracho´(drunk), sitting on a stump by a make-shift cantina. ´´Si,´´he replies with great certainty, thereby negating the veracity of his directons. He points off towards a vacant field, the only person in Agua Dulce sure of his infromation. And off we go again towards the field.. No ádornos ( decorations). No fiesta. No party. No groups of people.
One young woman, out watering a banana plant says, ``There were lots of cars over there``, pointing out to a field, `` yesterday. I think you missed it by a day.`` Eventually he drops me off at the collectivo mini-bus stop on the side of the highway, refusing to take coin for his trouble. Abel was his name. Able. Yes he was! Sweet, nice Abel.
Abrazos,
Esteban

Chila Reunion

2010-02-06T19:03:00.001-08:00

SundayFeb. 7th 2010

Pto. Esc., Oax., Mx.

Hola,

The skinny black dog with a light case of Mange cowered under my hammock as the ´cuetes´ or rocket-firecrackers exploded just above us and next door, in honor of tomorrows baptism. I was trying not to watch too closely as Filiberto drew the sharp knfe with a yellow handle threw the carcass of the ´borega´or goat.

Twenty-four pesos from door to door, Puerto Escondido to Filiberto´s and Marthas home in Chila, the second transport a three-wheeled motorcycle-carriage probably manufactured in India. I explained to the driver, as if I were google-ing a product or person, the essential information. Key words. ´Filiberto´. Married to a ´morena´ ( Indigenous or vary dark skinned woman). Her mother makes ´Iguana tomales´. He has a ´Carniceria´ ( butcher shop.) ´Five key words should work for this small of a town.´, I think to myself.

´´Si, Si...Morena... Si Ven. Ven con migo.´´( Yes, come with me.) He remembered the woman, in theis case `morena`woman`- the most salient yet unsurprizing clue in this macho culture. The motorcycle strained up the last, rocky, rutted, portion of the steep hill, but he drove me right to their house and yard!
Filiberto and marginally his wife, were caretakers at my brothers palapa hacienda here in Puerto twelve years ago. She essentially stood and held her bady and did nothing else. Martha, like many women and I think more so then men, has an impeccable memory. More accurate than a Mayan calendar is her `birthing calender`. She remembers when Andres my nephew, and his buddy`Hooble`(Jubel) visited. Manual, who is twelve now, was three months old. She remembers when I last visited, as she was pregnant with her four year-old daughter.
We laughed, told stories, did imitations and then Filiberto put on his helmet and left on his small motorcycle. He returned ten minutes later with a goat, legs tied, on a two foot wide welded rack behind the front seat. He then proceeded to butcher the goat on the cement floor of their patio. I wasn´t sure if I wanted or COULD watch this. Even though I don`t eat a great deal of red meat, I decided, `I should watch this process` as some of my meals result from a probably less humane version of mega-factory, butcher-packing plant `processing` in the States.
She stepped lightly on the goats hooves, Filiberto held the head down, he silently said a `disculpeme-and -thank-you-prayer`, then pierced the neck with the knife clear through. (Essentially a `Kosher` style butchery: single animal with a prayer of acknowledgment ) A tin pan was set under the head to collect the brilliant red blood which gradually went gelatinous. The blood is not used as they are Jehova Witnesses ( Testigo de `He-hova` ) and they can neither consume blood ( blood sausages) nor receive blood such, as hospital transfusions. This makes for a purer but shorter life for a testigo with serious medical problems!
The goat didn`t seem to be in pain, and bled for probably fifteen minutes, untill it was still. He skinned, gutted, quartered, sectioned, and eventually hung the desirable cuts. The hide and innards and excess bones were placed in a large tub on a mini-trailer,to be pulled behind his motorcycle and hauled to the dump where they are fed to the `Zopilotes`, the black vultures that ignore people two feet away, but squabble between themselves over their meal. The cuts were wrapped in plastic, set in the large `refri`, then the floor and table were cleaned thoroughly.
We had a lunch of soup, a largely vegetable dish with a little meat, then relaxed in the hammocks. I played with the kids, and the little green parrot. Photo-documenting occurred for those interested, including family photos.
I awakened last night in my bed in Puerto, at three in the `madrugada´, my neck hurting in the exact spot where Filiberto pierced the goats neck. Empathetic pain.

Abrazos
ESteban

Hongos and Olympians

2010-02-05T18:12:00.000-08:00

Sat, Feb 6 2010
Puerto Esc., Oax. Mx

The taxi dropped us off at the Stadium ( three rows of cement benchs on part of the west side,) large track and soccer field and an exceedingly rare but warm February rain began to fall. Within ten minutes Lou, Jimmy ( Gringo expat friends here in Puerto) and I were soaked as were the primary, secondary and highschool kids participating in and the spectators watching the miniolymiadas-Junior Olympics. High jumps, broad-jumps, shot puts, races, and relays.

Eric, Jimmys younger adopted son, was participating in one of the events, having won gold in all his previous competitions. The two brothers are tempermental opposites: Eric is a great athelete but poor student, his brother Travis an excellent student but disinterested´atletico escolar`. Eric competes in heats, Traves is continually IN heat. Eric is the sensitive brother: he can emote, cry, and talk to his girl-firiend, and tends not to jump in the sack.
Travis, has a string or sometimes, when he can swing it, a contiguous`necklace` of girlfriends all of whom he beds. According to Jimmy, he has been emotionally shut-down and proudly tearless since the open casket funeral for his grandmother at the age of ten. That is emotionally shut-down untill Alicia his recent girl-friend, whose family made her dump him. A threatening knife was produced by the step-father and pointed `punal-Ranchera- music style`, at Travis`s gut, while they were in court and in front of the judge. Bold even by Costeno standards! A restraining order by the boy against the step-father followed, and the relationship crumbled. Yet another Mexican Novella passed like a rare February rain.
The loud-speaker announcer congratulated Alicia,
´´Aplousa, aplousa´´ he commanded, and only us three gringos applauded. Alicia is a common name here, and the Alicia the announcer mentioned was not the X-true-love-Alicia seperated by family, retraining orders and dueling judicial `Demandas`, and two-party-legal `tramites`. Travis involuntarily looked around, thinking HIS Alicia might appear, then quickly went sullen and the proudly and formerly tough, tearless boy teared up. Ever so sweet and heartbreaking, for a moment or two. Eric never did show up for his ´heat.´.
One of Eric`s studdly class-mates won his heat and stood on the white, two-step-plywood-box to recieve his gold, surrounded by giggling, twittering curvaceous yet teen groupies. These medals are only achieved in Eric´s absense, as he invariably wins.
All the children proudly sported their white, monogramed , five-circled-logoed ´MINOLYMPIADAS´ Junior Olymics t-shirts. My favorite participants were the adorable first and second graders, whose tiny little legs -even without the rain- couldnt have´torn the dust up. My favorite event; the one foot high, P.V.C. , wood sticks and nails ´hurtle´, with a mattress on the other side that the young girls jumped over.

Lou, Jimmy and I had brunch up-town , in a humble establishment of four tables, with wooden fencing and walls painted torquoise, orange, green and white, that I would and could have passed a thousand times without stopping, so numerous are the possible eating options in this town. Essentially every twelve feet someone is serving tortillas, empenadas, liquados, tortas, hamburguessa, thaludas- something. The ´sports bar´nest door, a room with plastic tables and chairs and a T.V. in a welded iron cage, shared ´banos´ with the restaraunt. The casa dias, empenadas or dobladas, (whatever they are called in whatever restaraunt or region they are served) were terrific.!! Flor de calabasa con queso ( zuchini flowers with cheese), Nopales ( Sliced cooked cactus pads) with cheese and salsa, and ´hongos´ or Mushrooms with onions and salsa. Ironicly we male olympians suffer from the same word-Hongo-but with a different definition.´Hongo´ as it is known, is synonymous with ´crotch rot´ or ´atheletes foot´ and is acquired generally by athletics but specifically by swimming continuously and daily in the hot humic tropics.

Seconds on the Hongos please... but hold the anti-bacterial cream! ´Mas tarde´. ( later)

Abrazos

Esteban,

Who´s Watching The Purse

2010-02-03T10:10:00.000-08:00

Friday, Feb 5, 2010 Puerto Escondido, Oax., Mx.

Hola,
A young blonde French woman named Nadia joined four college students and myself at the outdoor, poolside performance of a local Rock-R&B at the infamous ´Rockaway´ , chatting the very short and Zapotec looking future-teachers up and dancing. I bought a round of beers knowing the young Oaxaquenos were probably stretching their few pesos- third class buses and a grotty room- to hopefully endure the weekend. With a cheer and a hurrah, beers were saluded and cameras flashed.
The band stopped at 11:00 p.m. and he boys asked where thee next venue was.
´´Casa Babylon, Lo tiene una buena banda de ´Funk.´ ( They have a good Funk Band), I answer. ( Great live music paces away, what a treasure!)
´´Que es Funk?´´
´´Como de Jaime Brown ´( James Brown) ´Era y be´ ( R and B)
´´Bien. Bien!´´ Nadia equivicated about joining us, being a single Parisean woman traveling alone, and I unfortunately convinced her to come .
``No es peligrosa.'', I explained. " No esta lejos, cinco minutos caminando.``( It isn`t dangerous and was a short five minute walk.)
´OK´´ She aquiesced.
The smallish but very open club, had people sitting on the wide long window sills facing the oceon. The world-music-themed brick and stone, library-bar, was crammed and jiving with a varied mix of a all-age, local and international crowd. The female singer was wailing a great interpretation of a Janis Joplin tune.
``Ohh... wahh, oh wahhh... oh wahh..`` (Clearly about the wail and not the lyrics).
Nadia grabbed one on the guys and immediately exploded onto the dance floor. So much for timidity! She dissolved into the crowd, and twenty minutes later returned looking distressed.
´´ Esteban, has visto mi bolsa?´´ ( have you seen my purse') ´Ohhh fuck´, I think to myself, here we go. I asked her where she last saw it, and she pointed to under the table on the floor. `Ohh shit`, to myself once again. Where in the world may a person leave a purse unattended in a darkish bar crammed full of wound -up, half-drunk partiers, many of whom are both stoned and stone broke. This was not a Baptist church crowded with known friends and relatives singing ´Amazing Grace´!
´´Dejastela aqui?´´ ( You left it here,??) I asked in disbelief. She immediately starting crying.
´´Perdiste una passaporte?´´ ( Did you loose your passport)
´´No, pero cosas y dinero.´´( No, things and money) sobbing now. I rubbed her elbow, and shoulder but she was unconsolable. Told her to ask the bartender if they had found something. She returned, sobbing and shaking her head. I would never have anticipated this degree of niavete´ in a Parisian woman her age- How did she make it this far?
The next morning at coffee I related the story to several friends, one a very spiritual gringo friend who has a hard- living past. He shook his head in disbelief and said,
`` You told her it wasn`t dangerous, you didn`t tell her to unscrew her head. ``
A very well educated Mexican friend sequed from this conversation of individual, unscrewed heads and lost purses, to 'National' unscrewed heads and lost purses.
`` At least here in our country, we are very upfront about our political and economic corruption. It is there in front of us to see. We eventually extradite and arrest even former Presidents, their brothers or politicos 'Lo que sea'. ( Referring I think to Carlos Salinas de Gotari and his brother Raul.) We retrieve most or all of the 'unspent' stolen money. You Americans deny your corruption, yet are MUCH, more sophisticated about hiding national and international embezzelments and theft. You now have brought your economy and the world economy to its knees. But as as long as you Americans are making your 10 -15% interest, you don`t question and therefore don't see! And by not questioning, you have the worst corruption in the world! ``
Point well taken. Nobody can be trusted with the purse: The government. Wall Street. Agri- Busisness. The Insurance and Medical cartels. Utilities. The military-industrial complex, as President Eisenhower warned way back in the 1950,s. Checks and balances . The obvious moral: We ALL have to watch the purse, and keep our heads screwed on.
The song goes: ´Who let the fox out, ...who...who...who let the fox out..´ chorus of squacking chickens.
Several years ago before the crash, a Venezualian friend who has lived in the states for sixteen years, commented on America.
``You Americans are just as corrupt as the third world. The only difference is that your T.V.s are bigger, to watch the bad news and Soaps on.`` Bigger and badder- ´Babababababaaaad´ as the song goes. Now why was it we thought we needed high-resolution digital ´Lifestyles of the Embezzeling Rich and InFamous´??
Abrazos
Esteban

Missing Bikini at Carrizalillo

2010-02-02T16:37:00.000-08:00

Feb 2, 2010 Puerto Escondido, Mx

Hola,

The warm waters of Carrizalillo Bay have returned to their torquoise colors after several years of strange ´red tides´ and unnaturally cold waters killing off local aquatic plant life and then last year a deep-green-soup. Thankfully it is gone for now. Lack of big waves is bad for surfers but great for snorkeling as the water isn´t turgid from the wave action, and therefore much clearer. Tracked, swimming a meter above him, a young sea turtle, maybe a foot in length, with white barnacles covering parts of his shell, as if to suggest he were a seasoned if not ancient mariner. He quickly became annoyed by my presense and darted off at impressive teen-age speed.

The ever posturing, territorial and aggressive Angel Fish, ( fishes) the maritime equivilent of Daniel Ortega, forget that they too, like he, shall pass, as will the sovereignty of the rock they ´bulldog´ intruders away from. I marvel that sufficient forage remains for all the brilliantly stiped, spotted, and puffed fish to nibble, peck and consume. Thankfully this bay is protected and too small for the giant illegal-but-still-running, floating-fish-porpoise- and-whatever-else-is-in-the-way, trawler-factories. Rumer has it, Japanese owned but Mexican operated.

I have been making the rounds connecting with old and new friends. Breakfast, dinner or a drink. Shared conversations at the beach. Had dinner with my friend John of John and Carmen tonight. Tacos Arabe right on our arroyo served by happy smiling people!

At Carrizalillo beach today, an Italian man in yellow swim trunks herded three bathing beauties, laid them down in the sand, head to head, in a `star fish`, or perhaps with their total of six feet, a snow-flake pattern, and pulled out his impressive camera. He ` Scavulloed` : gestured, pointed snapped their photos which got smiles of appreciatton all up and down the beach with the decidely male-dominated audience. There didn`t appear to be an ounce of silicon falsenesss, no jacked-up headlamps, just natural hour glass figures.

The U.S. is in debt for trillions, we have entered yet another un-winnable and un-affordable war, the U.S. and world economies are in shambles, and was I pondering this? Fuck no! I am here NOT to ponder this. There I sat across the beach wondering why one of the three buxom models had a brilliant gold-lamet and sequin bikini top, and black bikini bottom. What happened to the matching gold bottom? How does one manage to loose something that bright? Did she leave it wrapped around a former lovers neck? Did she jam it into a hole in the corner of the wall and ceiling, where a tarantula had entered her room the other night, hoping the eight-legged arachnoid could neither chew threw the sequins nor push it out, leg by leg? Was it stolen while in the dryer of her apartment building by another woman or drag-queen ? Was it used as a maritime flag on some rich guys sailboat and lost to the breezes? Do any of the local bird species here, like the Magpie in Idaho, steal shiny objects to decorate their nests? The status Copa Cabana of nests! And could the Magpie or bird, even if it wanted to, fly - although a bikini is not a large amount of material - fly while holding the bikini bottoms? These are important issues to ponder! Si, como no.

You all think about that while I repair to one of the local beach palapa bars to hear some live music and perhaps pursue the mystery of the missing gold lamet and sequinned bikini bottom.
Abrazos
Esteban

Rent-A-Life, Rent-A-Death

2010-01-31T08:22:00.000-08:00

Jan 31, 2010 Puerto Escondio, Oaxaca Mexioco
Hola,
Collectivoed for twelve pesos in a very nice new van (Puerto Escondido and adjacent towns are very upscale these days) up the coast to the Los Negroes community, and to Patty´s (my Mayan priestess-massage therapist friend) country ´finca´. Four of us then taxied to the very small- probably less than fifteen-hundred people- pueblo called San Juan de Manialtepec, to spend the day swimming on the cool waters of the Manialtepec River. So small in fact is this town, that Patty joked`

``Your are born here,`` pointing to a house.

`` You go to school there,`` pointing across the street.

`` You die and are buried there.`` pointing to the graveyard to our left.

`` Tan, tan,`` Laughing ``Very easy. No driving.`` We all laughed.

Speaking of funerals, Puerto now has a `Rent-a-casket`service. One of Patty`s waiter friends had an untimely heart-attack and death. As Patty told the story, the unknown but angry first wife, who had years ago abandoned he husband and child for the arms of a `rich` American, showed up at the service. ( Mind you, she has been cast as the villain.) She re-appears with a big-bad-ass-angry-attitude, failing to introduce herself or explain former connections. Not a crowd warmer when one could be used. She is, Patty found out later, a hair-dresser`s `colorist` and assistant, so a level surliness is warrented and perhaps forgiveable. However she failed to offer to contribute financially to the service of her x- husband whose life she hadn´t shared in decades. Her appearance shocked the present wife and friends, many who knew nothing of her existance and who also HAD funded the festivities. Rich Mexican novellas exist not only on T.V! Every spring or river has a source, as it were, however seedy or soiled that source may be.

One can not only rent a casket now in Puerto, but also rent a horse, car or a motorcycle to get to the funeral service and rent the room for the service. The casket rental includes not just the service proper, but also the eight to ten hour drive to Oaxaca where he is to be cremated- without casket of course.

The service of Patty`s dead friend apparently didn`t need a hired weeper, as a distraught co-worker lifted the embroidered coverlet four times to view ``THE BODY`. An expression I always thought strange. No, you are not looking at the body, but at the face, searching as I do for a knowing wink from the presumed deceased, as if to say `No, this isn`t really happening or more importantly, WON´T happen, to you.` Yes, indeed, check out the face make-up and the overall visual affect of mortal-denial. Obviscate, obliterate by the art and science of the morticians essential taxidemy . Maybe I can pre-request my funeral taxidermy: Yes, I would like to be sitting up, propped however or by whatever means necessary, with one paw lifted like a taxidermied bobcat or bird-dog, although me with `Rollo-de-Mango` puff pastry in my mouth, rather than a pheasant or rabbit. Just in front of me, is a wide screen T.V. with a looped-video of the beach, the surf, and surfers and swimmers passing, and children playing. The sound of laughter and surf breaking. And a course a setting sun in the distance, to really grab the mourners emotionally as un-intentional participants. Theatrical- I admit- to the un-bloody post-taxidermied-end.

I digress. The co-worker, a pretty woman I am told, burst into tears and wailed all four times, each `sneak peak` at her only- two-days-ago-formerly-very-vital-friend, thereby saving the widow and friends the extra expense of a hired weeper . The Novella ( Soap Opera) continued. Patty explained that only the satin inner casket liner is purchased, and thrown into the cremation oven with the deceased, unless of course noone is watching, in which case it is very carefully removed from the finely carved box, and made into a `quinceanera`- dress, or general party dress for the daughters.

``Que liiiinnnda!``, ( How pretty) coos the neighbor lady,fingering the dress. ``Que linda.``

Or, perhaps it is sewn into pink satin `cortinas` ( curtains) for the the babies room.

``Que liiiinnda!`` coos the same neighbor lady, fingering the curtains.``Que linda.``

Or perhaps it is sewn into a tight bodied, puff-sleaved ensemble that their tranvestite-son, wears while lip-syncing ``I Will Survive``, back-lit by red and blue spots, under the heat and glow of the white spot-light: every cross-dressing transvestites dream.!
``QUE LINDA! QUE GUAPA!`` Screams the same neighbor lady, from the front row of the crowded bar, after quickly swilling down three Mescals in succession. Amplified but not improved by the alcohol - a distinction commonly lost by heavy drinkers.
I am interpolating about the satin coffin sheets, but not by very much. This is a `waste not , want not`, practical and poor culture by American and European standards, and death is taken WAY more lightly here. You cry or don`t cry at the service, but you definitely go party after the service, eat lots, drink and celebrate! I think in America and Europe, only the Irish come this close to funerary celebration.

Patty conducted a Mayan funeral-blessing- service at the beach, and later a wild boat-ride- party ensued, although the first wife, having not introduced or explained herself, was not on the guest list. She was on the wrong side of the pro-verbial velvet ropes. Twice in one day! Un-Known or at least un-discovered. Un-announced. Un-paid. Under-participated. And essentially un-wanted due to her bull-bitch attitude. The price of obscurity- you miss your X`s funeral.
Rent-A-Life services here in Puerto, to educate the reader, include: tables, chairs , music or a band for the post-service festivities. (The food and drink however, must be paid for!) Spanish intructors. Cooks or Chefs. Priests and Mayan Priestesses ( although I don´t think she charged) and funeral `wailers.´ Massage therapists. And the more ignomonious and seedy services : an escort, or a lay.
Rent-A-Toy services include: Boats, ski-dos, motorcycles, cars, horses, hang-gliders, and para-sails. Swimming, diving, ski-diving gear and lessons. And last but not least: An escort, or a lay. Premium services win in both the `life`and`toy` categories, like in some films nominated by the Academy of Motion Pictures: best Music and Drama, which indeed the funeral had.
Abrazos
Esteban

Costeno Magic

2010-01-31T07:32:00.000-08:00

Jan. 28-29 Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico

My first night here and Puerto managed to stun me again. At dusk, the moon hung in the moist air, an enormous illuminated parchment disk, in a deep, dense violet backdrop. An opera scrim? A digitally created sky? The crash of the waves thundered behind me, and indeed there was a connection: the moon to the breakers, the mist, the coast, the texture and tactile quality of the salty air, my breath, and skin to the distant yet palpable moon and the laquered, luminescent, sky. A Rothko color- although not flat on canvas- but on and in an intensely charged liquid, crystaline ( suspended salt in various stages of dryness, ready to rust with gusto. ) and gas field, a violet body magnified a thousand-fold. Puerto hypberbole? Not really. Just Puerto. Just the Oaxacan ( wah-ha-caan) coast at dusk.
( And no, I have not been drinking or taking drugs.)

Abrazos
Esteban

Lucy and Harpo at The Camino UN-Real

2010-01-29T06:24:00.000-08:00

Feb. 28-29, 2010 Managua Nicaragua to Mexico

Hey there,
Managua was gained by the same shuttle driver and car minus the bucking horse, and with a phone call by the friendly `conductor`, I recieved a 15-20% discount at the pretentions-of-elegance and three or four-star-upscalability-Hotel. The `Camino Real` is a three minutes drive from the airport if my alarm doesn`t work- only feebly, or the desk clerk forgets to give me the requested wake-up-call, which he didn`t. Thankfully my internal chronometer rang me ten minutes before the alarm. The economic down-turn has hit Managua hard, after-all who, even in flush times, wants to be here un-less they absolutely have to be? The place was vacant. Noone in the lobby or hallways. Two persons by the pool. Noone seen entering the adjoining `Egyptoid` Casino building with chip-board-looking entry obelisks, looking remarkably like a decomposing set from a long cancelled T.V. pilot at the Universal Studios backlot. A casino derivative of a Vegas derivative of a dead foreign culture.
The Dining room, like the hotel in general, seemed a mix of fifties-modern ( strange because an major eathquake leveled the city in the early seventies) to seventies or eighties post-modern, with a dash of Lucy and Rickie Spanish-tropical, and local vernacular thrown in for good measure: Faux red-tile rusting metal rooves over all the above. The empty tables in the empty restaraunt were set in white, well pressed table clothes, with red-pressed clothes on the bias. The white lapkins were folded and origomied over the plates with cutlery and glasses set formally.

The solitary dark-suited head waiter eyed my shorts, t-shirt and sandals and disdainfully seated me. When I asked him to repeat the juice selections, he sighed, straightened his posture and head like a good queen mother, and condescended to my request He then did a semi-piroette in his highly polished black shoes, and returned to folding white linen napkins. Acting busy though, he had that lesson down! He probably has scratched, clawed, cajoled, bribed, and fucked his way into this micro-fiefdom, like most self-important managers. Clearly by my poorly attired presense, I was the monkey both on his and the hotels backs by figuratively climbing over and pulling off star point after star point of his restaraunts and hotels desired four-star-rating. Crash go the stars on the tile floor like shattered crystal! Head waiters, like cops and taxi drivers, are the same the world over, they just vary by degree of surliness or prissiness.

Two well dressed Nico businessmen sat down at a table across the room, and other uniformed employees started appearing, who our head waiter immediately bossed about with great pleasure and self-importance.
` Did you fill the forms out?` he demanded of the white-capped-chef.
The chef, his back to the head-waiter, gave only a`fuck-you piss-ant` nod with his cap in reply.

The crisply uniformed waitress in her suit-dress, retrieved some rolls from the sterno-heated chafing dish that sat on botticheliesque crenualted waves of linen, four pats of chilled butter and repaired to the two mens table, formally serving with silvery prongs in French or Russian style. Just the required measure of pomp and ritual. I imagined a small, bicycle-foot-pump under the table filled with some form of `status gas`, connected to some un-known part of the mens` anatomy ( although probably their asses ), that she discretely pumped with her highly polished shoes under the curtain of the table. Two pumps for a pat of butter.
`Pushh-toosh. Pushh-toosh.`
Four pumps for a warmed roll. `Pushh-toosh, pushh-toosh, pushh-toosh, pushh-toosh.`
One pump for her humble averted eyes`Pushh-toosh`.
One man even lifted a cheek, like the fit of his `status gas`tube wasn`t quite comfortable on the elegantly upholstered chair, greenish-gold seventies brocade .

My waiter, took my hamburger order, again with disdain, and walked over to the touch-screen-computer-pantalla by the kitchen doors. He tapped in the order on the screen with his fore-finger, pinkie delicately up. Text, and blue and red colored boxes appeared and disappeared on the screen. THIS impressed me.

`Wow, how modern! How organized, ` I thought to myself.

He piroetted, pushed the kitchen door open, leaned over and stuck his just head in, and yelled

`HHAAAAMM-BOOORRREE-GUESSSAA!!` ( hamburger.)

My laughter echoed off the highly polished tile. I next expected Harpo Marks to come out of the kitchen, doing an spot-on imitative walk of the waiter. And Lucy, to poke her head out between the paneled doors, wide-eyed and checking for Rickie, then dramaticly lifting a linen-draped trey of cream-puff, chocolate filled pastries and enter the room. She is followed by a line of buxom Conga dancers, the `Camino-UN-Real Dancers` in their scanty but glittery Tropical Managua costumes, to the tune of `Topical heat wave, it`s a tropical heat wave.`
Our head waiter recieved no more than the requisite, pre-extracted 10% tip. Scatch and claw as he will.

Abrazos

Esteban

Last Dance

2010-01-26T17:28:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Jan 26, 2010
San Juan Del Sur, Nica
The radio played `Last Dance` for my last dance and shuttle drive to Maderas beach; a Spanish language version of the big Abba hit ( Yes generation X, that would be_____ ?) ; and a Spanish cover of `Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay` . I watched part of my last surf propogando video at the Casa de Oro while waiting for a shuttle. It could have been MUCH worse: A Time share promotions video in Puerta Vallarta; an intro-promo to a Twelve-step program; a Morman Church propogando video in Mission Square, Salt Lake City; Or a pyramid scheme-pitch for trendy anti-oxidant in Boise Idaho by a semi-retired, still puffed-up but going-to-seed-trainer at Golds Gym. I head north to Managua tomorrow, grateful that none of the above scratched even my most cynical and thin-layed epidermus: I will not be a Mormon or Jack Mormon who falls off the wagon and/or a rented surfboard ( that incidentally they tried to charge me for the dings that I didn`t make!) while staying in an absurb Time- share around bored cranky Americans from Kuna Idaho, while sipping a fuschsia-colored health-drink spiked with tequila, my` free radicals looking like spilt pepper on my cells, quivering and trembling and failing to become liverated, I mean liberated. Am I slurring? All this on one beer?!! Be grateful I seldom SERIOUSLY drink.
Next big stop----Mexico.
Abrazos
Esteban

Boy in the Rivas Bus Stop

2010-01-25T18:25:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Jan 26, 2009 San Juan Del Sur, Nica.

A lone, long black-tailed crow-relative perched in the open galvanized cupalo above the bus terminal, bobbed his head and looked down on the buses and crowds of people below. He occasionally trilled a
´Crawww-squeeeiiii´to a potential mate or competitor. Hydralic horns blared, like train horns wedged in the grill of a bus. Ice Cream bells tinkled. Ghetto blasters and speakers amplified and pounded the beat and rhythm of salsa, merengue, rock, regae and rap. Somewhere a T.V. squacked `anuncias´. Horses whinnied. Diesel engines chortled and blasted. Vendedores and bus attendants hawked, yelled and canted: the town, the city, the ware.
`SAN-WANNN, SAN-WANNN, SAN-WANNNN`
The din of the crowd echoed amongst the buses and metal roof.
Sitting quietly on a bench next to his handsome young father with a military shear, was a small boy of maybe two years, quietly fingering a small plastic container, about as big as my thumb-nail, oblivious to the maelstrom that swirled around him. Oblivious do the pounding heat. He pushed with his tiny finger at an even tinier cube of pineapple suspended in the green gelatin. Pushed, prodded, briefly lifted and nearly dropped on the trash-littered ground, tongued, then prodded again. A world and a universe at his fingertip: wiggly, squiggly, soft, and gelatinous.
´Crawww-squeeeeiii.´ trilled the bird.
I could see both the boys and the birds tongues. Suddenly tired of playing with this tactile toy, the boy- like a Robin tired of playing with a worm- lifted the tiny container and squeezed the gelatin onto his tongue and into his mouth. He looked up smiling to his father. Triumphant.
A moment and a universe complete.
Abrazos
Esteban

Guns, Sex, Drugs and Credit

2010-01-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

Sunday Jan 24, Merida, Ometepe, Nica

Throw a German, two Englishman, two French-Canadians, a Brazilian and an American together, mix in a `cucharita`of polotics, a cup of comparative culture, four cups of comparative- economics , leave out the ÌSM`s of Socialism and Capitalism in the discussions , reduce the above prepartion and one will get (and did), some interesting parallels. The Germans tend not to own houses but rent, and when they do own it is generally for several or many generations, and they don`t commonly have or use credit cards: they are not `credit addictive`compared to Americans. Their national and personal finances are quite good comparitively speaking.
I quizzed the Brits about my views on Reagans influence on U.K. economics, and they confirmed them vehemently. Sharon spoke of a formerly very socialist England, during the Mararet Thatcher era and subsequent eras, that took on the Regan model of ´tricle-down, high-rolling, credit-addictive-economies, and later over-invested in balloonig real esatate ventures- Dubai a recent example. Theirs is the worst economy in Europe. They also followed Bush trippingly into the Iraq war. She was not happy about either direction

The Canadian economic model is complicated, as my friends Mathew and Sabrina explained. Four national parties. Private insurance for companies and individuals, with only basic health operations covered by the government. No dental and other things. The gist of what they explained, their government has similar mortgage and credit laws as the U.S., but they actually inforce the rules on crecit card debt, fraud, and mortgages. They don`t and didn't allow the `cooked`property appraisals that became so common in the American mortgage market . They do however respect home ownership, like in America. It is inculturated there as well.

America like the Brits, has followed a course of thirty years of credit addiction and abuse. Longer if one looks it the history of GMAC, dating back the the teens and twenties pre-great depression, and Americans buying cars they couldn `t afford. We know the result. Diminshing returns it is for us Americans. Like the Alzheimers patient, we can`t or choose not to remember when it started. We grapple with our losses. We can´t accept or surrender to our current condition, so painfull is the loss of our affluence, although we conveniently blame the most recent President for all the previous years, regardless of his short year in office and the mistakes he has clearly made.

The young German traveler, as Germans are want to do, looked down on both the English and Americans for their silly need to own a house. `Stupid`was the word he used, as he bragged about bad German food, pigs knuckles and greasy salamis . So guns, sex, drugs and credit aren`t intrinsicly bad. In fact, damn they can be fun and useful. Bodda bing! Especially when you hit the target. It`s those addictions. Damn! Those diminishing returns. They do catch up to you.

Abrazos

Esteban

Island of Ometepe

2010-01-23T16:26:00.000-08:00

Monday. Jan 25; Monkey Island Hotel, Merida, Ometepe Island, Nicaragua

Hey there.
Getting here was a long day of travel: First the `chicken bus` ride from Historic Granada to Rivas, a taxi to the dock at San Jorge, a ferry across Lake Niaraugua, or Lago Cocibola, then another two hour ride in an ancient van , one and a half hours over very rough, rocky, dirt roads to the farther part of the Isle, on the shoulder and skirt of Vulcan Maderas . Vulcon Concepcion is 1,610 meters high, and is the more active of the two volcanoes, apparrent by the ash covered slopes and lack of forestion. In fact so active has the volcanoe been `echando cenisas`- throwing out ash plumes- that this coming Wednesday the islands` communties are to practice an evacuation drill. I am out of here before that!
Fresh off the ferry in Moyogalpa, walk one hundred paces and to the left you will see probably the only extent bust- concrete painted weird cartoony colors- of Ex-dictator, ex-president and ultimate dynasty-dinosaur: Sr. Samosa- remaining in Nicaragua. ( Nicaragua is on to the perennially power-hungry, still ready to throw an election, ever re-varnished re-cycled, ever-tarnished, ready-to-suppress-the-Press, Communist Sr. Ortega.) Initially Sr. Samosa`s bust is freekishly indistinguisable from the former American President, Lydon Johnson; ironic as certainly they were contemperaries and advisaries, although remarkably alike in their lust for power. ( Somosa was considered, and for the most part was, a benevelent dictator, as was financially propped up by the U.S. State Department) Deceased `heroes`, Presidents and Muscicians , like current celebs, ingloriously and inevitably end up as pidgeon-pooped, dog-urined, gossip-pressed, `reality`-video-tracked-parodies of themselves. All that groveling for fame and immortality, and if you are lucky enough to reincarnate into bronze ( not silly-puddy-cement) perhaps the dog and street-bum- urine will at least turn you a `ver-de-gree-green`.
`Wow Mr. President, what a great patina you have!`
`Grrrrr. I was very important and powerful!`
Four of us intrepid travelers shared a reincarnated, shock-less, rusted and holey-hippie-bus to Merida, one an ex-pat former Real Estate Agent from Silicon valley, who smoked and chattered virtually non-stop for two hours, flipping his ashes to blow where ever - Like on your Teve`d bare toes!. He rambled in English and painfully bad Spanish ( Yes I know... at least he was trying. Fourteen months living on Ometepa to massacre a language so completely! He has had time to practice.)
The two attractive and nice Brits were wide hipped, big-breasted,and bra-less , and I felt for all the bouncing their `pechos`must have been suffering. The volcano receded in the mist, or was obscured by long wind-breaks of sixty to eighty foot Glossy leaved Indian Mango trees. The flora of many continents thrive here: The now ubiquitous ancient Neem Tree from India, with healing and insecticidal properties; Eucalyptus trees form Australia; Oleander from Greece and the Mediteraneum; Brilliant red torch Ginger from South-east Asia, Poinsettia and Agave form Mexico; Aloe from South Africa. Coconut trees from the Carribean; Jacarundi trees from Brazil and South America; and Sargent-Pepper-colored Crotons from I think Tim Burtons mind- to name a few.
Volcanic ash, basalt rock, boulders, hillsides and beach pebbles remind one constantly that this is an inconsistent and sometimes very violent paradise. Banana trees seem to be the only cash crop plantable in the boulder fields. One can hear the `clink and clunck` of long, heavy, iron bars breaking the stones and backs and hard, dry soil all over the island: a banana hole here, a foundation, a pipe trench, or a stone wall there.
Ometepe housing is humble, for this is a poor island. Structures are built of simple frames with palm fronds sides and tin rooves, or older large-planked cabins or newer cabins of block or brick . Light agriculture and tourism seem to be the main economy here.

The tiny, sleepy community of Merida, under 1,394 meters high Maderas, is on warm waters of Lago Cocibola, where we swam the last two days, regardless of the fact that bull sharks are known to swim in this fresh-water lake- a shark species anomoly. One hears the usual refrain, in the Lagoons in Mexico and here: No one has been attacted in ten years- that rounded number that one knows immediately is quite arbitrary, and spun-for-the-tourist. As happens down here, I have been staying and travelling in irregular and unintentional tandem with a young, sweet, French-Canadian couple from the state of Quebec- Sabrina and Matthew. She is a singer, he a drummer , vegetarian and Yoga instructor, both are U-tube denizens. She is from northern Quebec, was raised by an `outfitter` on deer, elk, caribuo and `Mouse Tartar`.
`` I loooovee mouse tartar!!!`` ( When was the last time you heard that?) Sabrina was petrified to enter the `shark filled` lake because of a childhood experience. Coaxing, an `energy treatment`, and perhaps finally a shove, and she was ultimately playing circle-volleyball with the neighbor kids in the lake. I translated, over the past week for them for several minor travel-tragedies: medications for the travelers trots; and negociations over a rented motorcycle with a burned out clutch. She eventually, two days later in Mayogalpa , got 50% of her deposit back, fair to say the least.

One is as likely to see a pig, cow, horse, chicken or dog in the dirt lane, as a person here in pastoral yet tropical Merida. Goughgaun would be content here with the Polynesian-looking locals: quick to smile, wide-faced, exotic eyeded and deep-chesnut- skinned. Ometepians are known for their honesty and simplicity, un-like Nicas in general who have a reputation as thieves ( Although in their defense, all the largest financial and property embezzelments in San Juan Del Sur have been perpetrated by Gringos on Gringos!) Certainly the host family at Monkey Island Hotel is a testement to that Ometepian reputaion, and to how people behave who haven`t suffered a war. The civil war in this country largely or completely spared this island and its people. Mainland Nicaragua saw death, hunger and atrocities, and the affects will be felt for generations; not unlike what we in the States have experienced with Vietnam vets and their families: struggling with drug, alcohal abuse and sanity one and two generations later, and WILL experience with Iraq vets. The dragon has a long tail!
Yesterday we rented cheap Chinese bibycles, me low-riding with a seat that kept lowering on the pounding track. Our objective: biking and hiking to the waterfall. We overshot the entrance by several kilometers- thinking we were looking for a sign- not an elaborate welded and painted gate- and were not told there was an entrance fee-when none of us brought money on us , so the day became about biking in the incredably intense tropical sun, up and down the hilled and moto-cross-obstacled dirt track. Our own particular `Fat Farm` (Not that Sabrina, Matt or I need one. ) Felt great though! Later we swam and played with the local kids. The resident expat here made a primitive raft of plastic bottles ( the locals burn the bottles, a health and environmental hazard) that he inserted into nylon`costales`, the woven sacks that corn and rice commodities are stored in, then tied these sacks together. The nine small children and I played`Miami Vice-Speedboat`with sound affects and faux `Universal Studios`roller-coaster bumps, tips, shakes and turns. Giggles, shouts and screams powered the propellers!
Maderas, the green volcano, slept in the morning mist above us . The Banyan trees, (or some near relative) extended their knarled, braided trunks-cum-roots into the lake. The red chested Uraca birds `Uur-ackked.`. The large Central American `Blue Jays` `crawed`. The yellow-breasted Guisa flitted between the branches. The Mot-Mot bird ( or what we thought was) flicked his elegant tail. Beneath the shade of these trees, the dock, a series of rounded basalt and flagstone plinths or platforms, ( Don`t say `Plinths` to a Mayo-Aztectophile!) stepped in three terraces down to the glassy lake; the small dark pebbles polished by the now languid lap of water. Three small chesnut horses lowered their heads to take a drink; the water, lake and horizon disappearing somewhere to the silvery-south .
`My god, they are going to get sick drinking salt water!´, and then I remembered this horizonless oceon is a fresh water lake, in the golden, sleepy, morning light .
`Powwwe-eeee. Chet, chet. Poweww-eee.`

` Uurr,ahh-kaa Uurr-ahh-kaa.`

Abrazos
Esteban

La Laguna De Apoyo

2010-01-22T07:44:00.000-08:00

Jan 22, 2010 Laguna Del Apollo, Nica

I wanted to scream ' Tengo Hache-uno, Enn-e-uno!' ('' I have H1N1!'' ) but that would have only cleared an American bus, not a Nica 'chicken bus' . Not an eyebrow would be raised. We were crammed together like pimentos in a spam can, San Juan to Rivas and a little less so Rivas to Granada, chortling and bouncing our way up the grade. Christian-figure-stickers, Jesus and the more popular Mary, were pasted on the right, above the drivers windshield, and on the left Japanese cartoon figures- 'Dragonbaw' (?) wielded swords, big hair and pantalooms. Our guardians, patron saints and pop-heroes.
´Dios nos Bendiga´ ( God blesses us) , was written in big black letters between the two sets of guardians. Perhaps. `Quisas-, quisas, quisas`as the song goes. ( Maybe, maybe, maybe.) But then we have have the issue of you passing on blind curves! All the saints, gods blessings and good luck charms will not help your driving! ( `Dead Mans Curve`the true theme song.)
Me as passenger repeats,` Siii. Dios me bendigo!` `Ahora misma`. (right now!) However, we made it. Walked through the very narrow aisles of the Market in Granada, the dusty bus-stop-lot behind me, lumbering with bag and back-pack, nearly swiping the fly-ridden, smelly meat off the wooden tables to my right. Again, this is Mexico of twenty years ago. My head brushed some of the low hanging torn tarps just above me. The stalls of wares extended for blocks, but eventually broke threw the deep shade, smoke and stench to the street beyond, and gained the plaza where I hailed a taxi to La Laguna de Apollo. We wove our way on the adoquin ( Concrete-interlocking-block pavers) pavement, up the heavily forested slope of the extinct volcano, the driver chatting in overdrive in deeply accented Spanish. He wanted to move ( but not immigrate?) to Canada with his wife.
La Laguna de Apoyo, declared a Natural Preserve in 1991, is Nicaragua's Crater Lake, and the clearest, cleanest lake in Nicaragua. The black and umber beach pebbles along the shore bespeak of its volcanic origon 21,000 thousand years ago. The curve of the hills and edge of the crater frame the heavens at night, like a giant aperture or eye-lid, and you the swimmer in the comfortably warm lake are a fleck on the edge of the corona. Even with the crest of the moon, and the flush of Managua`s light pollution on the horizon, the constellations sparkle with great clarity. By morning, the lake is a still as glass, although the howler monkeys, chickens, dogs and wild birds are not. Still. They have been going since before sunrise!
The lake-side of the hostel grounds were framed with four, two-foot-thick columns of 'Royal' Palms and were terraced in 30' sections, with lava rock walls, stepping down to the beach, flagstone patios to the right under the shade of enormous trees. Spotted
Acuba hedges, exotic red torch ginger-flowers, Red-orange-flowering African Tulip Trees, brilliant arching cerise Bougenvilla, yellow flowering ornamental shrubs, and lawns enlivened the terraces. A giant 'Ceiba' ( Mahagony), a trunk four feet across, shaded the entry court. Kyaks, and cattamirans offered guests lake views of the shore. Unfortunately even with a private room, the hostel was noisy at night.
A walk down the dirt lane revealed what looked to be older abandoned or nearly abandoned guest acomodations from earlier decades. Down the paved section, dry-stacked basalt walls, serpentined along the shoulder: Very Andrew Goldsworthy! Many properties had dry-stacked stone walls, either along the road or down the to the lake. That and the smell of the dried leaves, the evergreen canopy above, and occasional palm reminded me of walking in the hills above Santa Barbara, Ca.
I hung out with a beautiful young hispanic woman name Maya, from San Francisco,Ca. Guatemala, and Mexico, but the call of Nicaragua´s other volcanoes drew me back to historic Granada, en route south. Unfortunately, I can`t stay in a hostel, even a private room, without thinking of BED BUGS! Emotionally scarred, but not `welted or pocked` it would seem. YET.
Abrazos
Esteban.

Peasants Paradise

2010-01-19T17:53:00.000-08:00

Wed, 20 Jan. 2010 S.J.D.S Nica

My funky, bathroomless, air conditioned only with a fan on, sheets changed once a week, floor swept twice, thirteen-dollar-a-night-guest-house-room, afforded me the $14.00 ´ponga´( fiber-glass fishing boat with canopy) boat trip along the coast today. This is a third less than the cheapest sailboat competers who typically provide snacks, wine, and a meal. We were provided a small plastic bottle of water and one Tonya beer ( canned piss) . No prob, poor mans paridise requires sacrifices. Si, como no. We brought our own snacks and the surf, swim, and sights along the extraordinarily beautiful coastline stopping at Yankee, Hermosa and Tamarindo beaches all tho the south. Great group of people, mostly in the early twenties to thirties, beginning surfers all of them. Then me, the old fart who swam the quarter-half mile to the beach and back three times from noonish till dark. Most were a group of friends from Martha´s Vineyard.
Jesse one of the Vineyard group was shocked I was from Idaho.
´´ Why?´´
´ You look so comfortable in the oceon, you are like a porpoise. ´
Keep hearing that. Not that a seem like a porpoise, but that,´´Your look so comfortable here.´´ Yeah, guess so.
A very sweet, gap-toothed, pale-skinned young Irishman chattered about his property in Bolivia, and his Columbian girlfriend, who much to his annoyance and chagrin, got a breast job while he was away.
´´Surprize!! Purrroooo Silicono!´´
The Swedish couple were shy but determined surfers, as was the Young German.
The coastline has been lifted, folded, and layered with basalt flows over millieniums, terraced with sandstone and limestone, then layered again with more angled basaltic flows veined with granite, only to be pushed and folded by more tectonic plate movement, then to collapse and grift, isles flecking off, ravines forming. The general angle of repose of the sandwiched layers is about thirty degrees, umber-black and tilting into the Pacific. Tall pale green organ cactus grow out of the leafless, tubular-branched Frangipani trees, and up ravines brilliant red-orange African Tulip trees have escaped from cultivation and flower with abandon.
We abandoned our ponga driver and entered the 84-86 degree salty waters, boards scattering like long white pods upon the water, they in search of the perfect wave and I to explore the coastline, and photo-graph the wild angled gardens. The greenery and scenery hung off the cliffs and terraces, and like all the coastline, gave the impression it was slipping into the sea, (in some cases it is!) although the coast and continental shelf is actually being up- lifted. Later I photographed the surfers at water-line, with the underwater camera.
We pulled ankor just after sunset, headed north and as we turned the point, darkness had set in. The lights of town and particularly the mini-lights of the new suspension bridge twinkled and reflected in the water. The town, this funky-ratty-tat, rusty-roofed port town, for a brief ephemeral moment actually looked beautiful. Ephemeral as a sea-shore-footprint.
Abrazos
Esteban

Macheteros

2010-01-19T06:52:00.000-08:00

Jan 19, 2010 S.J.D.S. Nica.
Hola
This has been project week for the lot that I am ´encargado´ (Responsible for) with a multi-goal in mind: invest a little in neighbor relations and spread a little money around; assert property rights; remove trees before they are REALLY EXPENSIVE and chain-saw-removable size- next year; reduce weed and tick problems; and make the gringo neighbors happy by doing so. Properties down here should never look abandoned as the poorer locals get ideas. Tested the waters with hiring four of the older neighbor-squatter-kids, fledgling `macheteros` ( machete-wielding, human chain-saws and lawn mowers), to cut the trees, shrubs and weeds on the lot. You were asking if this is really `third world` down here? Well when did you last have oxen crap on your front lawn or have the yard `hand-groomed` with machetes?
I arrived by beach shuttle around 10:30 and they had been cutting since 7:00 am. Six kids-not four as agreed upon- showed up, the two youngest were probably five years old and with their own machetes. Machetes are like vestigial tails for the campesino men- and boys- down here, and suddenly appear if money is to be had clearing and cutting. Progress was evident but slow, and five-year-olds wielding and chopping with machetes made me nervous. I consulted Vince my gringo neighbor and he set me up with a professional adult `machetero´, who I met this morning at 7 A.M. for negociations. Vince explained a contract was of little legal veracity although it tended to make them nervous and therefore motivate them to complete the task and not screw you. Nothing like a local mentor to keep you in line!
Jose, a middle aged man, arrived on foot, walking down the tree-lined dirt lane, shirtless and machete in hand. His men were to show up a little later. I explained in Spanish, that I wanted him to sign the contract, and one could immediately see the apprehension on his face. To break the ice, I explained,
`` And with this contract you will be marrying my sister. She has no teeth (Pointing to my teeth) She walks with a limp ( I mimed a cripple limping). She has an `ample`figure ( I gestured obese) and some people say she is quite ugly. ( I nodded my head gravely, like ´ if you had any idea how ugly this bitch is...´)
Beat. Beat. He searched my eyes to confirm that this was indeed irony, then cracked up. The ice was broken. He signed the contract and work was begun.
´´Gracias senior, you will love my sister!!´´
He smiled, and waved.
Updates later.
Abrazos
Esteban

Underbellies

2010-01-17T17:15:00.001-08:00

Monday Jan 18, 2010 S.J.D.S., Nica.
Yesterday morning I sat with a journalist, my favorite profession to quiz as they are exceedingly curious, they pay attention, they read, and without exception seem to have indelible memories. I was quizzing the ´un-named´ journalist about his opinions on President Ortego, and I could have sworn he was talking about George W. ( Self-important, smug, stupid, vindictive, but surrounds himself by smarter people who pull his strings.) Ortega´s party and cronies, unlike George W., did manage to get the Constitutuion changed so presidents can now have two terms and unfortunately the Sandanistas retain considerable power in the political process. In his opinion he is a very clear threat to the fragile democracy here. Time will tell. Democracies take an involved electorate, a problem for the U.S. as well, and traditions in Central and South America don´t indicate a positive outcome. I teased him about being C.I.A. , and think I may have hit a live wire. Nicas all scoff at the idea of at Ortega being re-elected- I hope they are right!
The journalist filled me in on the town and countries underbelly: Historic assasinations; Who is laundering money; the local mafia; Who owns the local Casino ( Costa Rican ´chain´) ;Local crime; And more importantly which American expat embezzeled all his closest Nica. and expat friends, and had to leave the country in a hurry, with noone knows how much money. This same local ´Madoff´ gringo ( Sorry Bernard, you now have become an adjective!) gutted a thriving hotel-condo enterprize- the most expensive real estate venture in Nicaragua- and made off with the security and health of the corporation and the money of many of its investers.
Seems like a big underbelly for such a small town and country!
abrazos
Esteban

Gato Negro

2010-01-16T18:03:00.001-08:00

Sunday Jan. 18, 2010 S.J.D.S. Nica
Hola,
The expat community here gathers in the morning ( Our Flying M) at ´Gato Negro´, ´Black Cat´ for morning coffee and perhaps a light breakfast. The help and the local more permenant expats see so many people go through town, that initially they are a little stand-offish, lest you ask them how to get to the top five regional destinations. Rather than look at you directly they dip their heads and lower their eyes. The first day after the second or third person deflected like this, I was convinced I had missed an area while shaving my head, leaving a Louisanna or California or City of Vegas map in stubble. Or worse yet, I needed to blow my nose. I discretely checked both issues and all was good. Then I limped off banging my tin drum and tooting my kazoo. They do eventually warm up.
Abrazos
Esteban

International Beach Town

2010-01-14T17:10:00.000-08:00

Sat. Jan 16, 2010 S.J.D.S. Nica.

So far I have hung out with or chatted with: A sweet Costa Rican couple; He made the comment in Spanish,`I have never seen so many babies and kids in such a small town, and never a father around.` (I wonder how the un-wed teen pregnancy rate compares to So. Idaho? We may have them beat!) A South African electrician-surfer;Some Aussies, four Isarali´s, three guys and a girl; An Englishman; An Irishman; a Swiss guy; Americans of course; and numerous Nicos and Nicas. Interesting note: Israel was only briefly for eight to ten months, according to the young and strikingly beautiful woman, affected by the world-wide recession. Their banks are half state owned. She and I were briefly discussing language, and I asked her what ancient languages preceded Hebrew? Was it also Sanskrit based? Her handsome male companion- they were all stunning, - answered for her.
`Hebrew is THE original language.` he stated emphaticly. I am not a good eye-brow raiser, but he read my expression. ` It is the first language.´ He repeated, no further discussion needed. Yes every country has its historical myths, and current propoganda. (` America is freedom and liberty` . Yes it has and can be, but the presence petro-chemicals certainly can alter that objective. Then there is the issue of the history of slavery- at odds to our constitutuion- and treatment of native Americans. Enough said.) We were riding on the beach cattle-truck shuttle, so it was not the time for long discussions. ---Let`s see, you are the `chosen people` and you have the original language... Hmmm. This explains a certain mind set and behaviours. I wanted to ask `How do you explain the Australian aborigines, who have been in Australia and no doubt speaking their linguistic antecedents twenty-to thirty thousand years before the first proto-semetic settlement? I also wanted to ask is that a religious, or political interpretation of origin of language, but obviously even the word ´interpretation´wouldn`t have flown.
Back in town I googled origins of both Hebrew and Australian aboriginal languages to satisfy my curiosity. Aye-yiii-yii!! I challenge you to even pronounce some of the trans-New guinea, Proto-Australian languages. The unpronouncable list was long, well anotated and didn`t mention Hebrew or Semetic. Yes there was as I suspected the two approaches the origin of Hebrew: a scholarly examination of history and origins, and the´ Biblical´ interpretation - a pretty short one comparitively speaking, as the biblical `world` has endured such a short period of time. For the obsessive compulsive, or those with too much time on their hands, consult David Steinbergs `History of Ancient and Modern Hebrew`
for the scholarly approach.
OR NOT.
In the local coffee shop a comical and satirical book titled something like` Guide to Sex and Marriage`had a section on meeting your prospective partner and delineated some good opening lines. ( Actually really bad ones.) I suspect come-ons and opening one-liners predate the avocation of prostitution by at least three minutes. When the opening line fails, one quickly resorts to barter or coinage, that is if you have been wandering the desert for months and the closest you´ve gotten to sex is eating a dryed date, or chucking camel dung up the dune and trying to get it to roll down. ( I have not done this, but there are those that have.)
Add to that list of one liners, a line a struggling linguist might use with a seductive woman such as:
´How do you feel about phonetics, phonology, and coronal consonants?´
Her coronas blinked. Beat. Beat. No reply.
He puzzles whether he should try again. ´Are you aware of the linguistic correlations between ancient Egytian, Phoenician and Berber?´
Beat. Blink. Eyes roll. This time she walks away.
Maybe better stick with, ´Have I met you before? You will probably still be chucking camel dung and gnawing on a date, but at least you gave it a shot!
Abrazos
Esteban

White-caps, Waves and Rivas

2010-01-12T18:07:00.000-08:00

Jan. 14, Thursday, S.J.D.S. Nica.

The seasonal winds, Papagayo, here were clocked in at one-hundred and five M.P.H. the other day, although last night topped that: branches broke and trees snapped everywhere. Night before last what sounded like a cannon ball crashed onto the corrugated roof above my bedroom at 2:00 A.M. with a gigantic ´BOOM!´ . I shot up and out of bed breaking the little bed-lamp in the process , so a shopping trip to Rivas was in order. The film director Tim Burton needs to send his sound engineer down here to record the macabre scraping and scratching, grinding and flapping of the corrogated roofing sheets and the tree above my room. ´Nightmare´sequels demand these affects! The winds are essentially a month early and by all accounts record breaking .

Coming back from Maderas yesterday I walked across the new pedestrian suspension bridge linking the Pacific Marlin development, ´´ La Talanguera´´, and the bay of Nacascolo into the lower town center. The teak planks swayed and rippled on ´El Puente Colgante´, like a long carpet runner being flipped, and the galvanized cables swung like a large porch swing. The winds were probably gusting at ninety M.P.H.- perhaps not as exciting as bungy jumping, but a good rush! Two hundred foot plus wind generaters are sprouting their trunks and blades on the south-eastern shore of Lake Nicaragua to take advantage of this resource.
Yesterday I had a noon ´investment´ meeting with Robin, about the Remanso property, so I wasn´t able to take the 12:00 P.M. shuttle to the beach. Investment:
`Oh, I think the lawyer forgot to put your name on the title. ..`she says to me quizzicly,`Umm, I am not sure.`

I walked part of the way to Maderas, stopping to sketch here and there, then hitched the rest of the way there and back. Great conversations with Amadeo, the pick-up driver: a very articulate rejection of President Ortega. Road back from Maderas behind a sweet young guy in trendy shades to fit his hawk nose. He rebbed and drove his motorcycle fast but safely. We dodged branches, rocks, and chuck-holes, hit a few coconut-palm fronds, nearly a dog, and a few jarring speed-bumps, but laughing and enjoying the ride.

Public transport to Rivas meant an ancient old mufflerless American school bus with Rivas scratch-painted on on its forehead, that had died decades ago and been reincarnated in Nicaragua with a ´painterly´quality to it: faded, layered, rusted, and mulit-colored. The bus, A.K. A:´the chicken bus´,gradually filled up, primarily with grand-mothers and mothers with their children, but also with a few older men and tourists, all of them opening up their plastic containers of ´Pico de Gallo´ ( Black beans and rice.) En route, huge white-caps collapsed on the cappichino-colored waters of Lake Nicaragua. The skirts of the two volcanoes-Concepcion and Maderas- seemingly floated on the lake, although both are contained in Ometepe Isle. Pasture grass laid flaid on the rolling hills, and trees - like sea-side shrubs- have been sheered into areo-dynamic mounds by years of winds. Their green forms floated over hillsides and valleys moving like the brisque clouds above them.

The bus pulled up to the ´parada´, at the edge of the populous market teaming with Nicas- it felt like Little Calcutta. Venders, shop-owners, taxistas, all eyed me appraisingly, the only gringo in site. Stalls, shops and aisles were an organic ramble of tarps, corrogated tin, cardboard, plywood, cement blocks, with every imaginable product draped, hung , stacked, sacked, or laid out . Discarded plastic sacks, paper and cartons fluttered and twittered in the wind. Pobre Pacha Madre peluda con plastico! ( Poor mother earth furry with plastic!) This was the Mexico of twenty years ago. The charming horse, mule and oxen drawn carts were not as evident as three years ago, but along with the tri-cycle pedi-cabs, they slowly wove threw the crowds.
Directions to a housewares and lamp store were direct, but the hunt for the baseball I hoped to gift the boys in the barrio proved challanging. Ironicly, two years having passed, with their surfing, strutting and hairstyles, I should be gifting them surf supplies!

``No, there aren´t any sports shops in Rivas.´One shop owner announced emphaticly. - Yeah, right... in a country that loves baseball as much as Nicaragua!
`` Yes, up that street to the right.``, another man pointed. ( He did have the correct STREET anyway.)
``No, back down that way to the right.``( Same street, opposite side.)
However, after several diversions and missteps, a Spalding ball was found, knock-off or not. While shopping I followed a young woman who sashayed in her unbelievably tight skirt down the street, miraculously strutting in her tall, clear plastic stelletos without regard to the Olympic-standard obstacle course set before her: broken blocks, holes, cracks, cables, coverless utility boxes. Perhaps this should be an Olympic sport, for only she or a professional drag queen could navigate such a course!

Incidentally on the bus ride back from Rivas had my first tranvestite siting! She sat at the back of the bus, in full-performance, night-club make-up, flipping and adjusting her curled hair with extradinairy attitude. Her fierce look suggested she had in her purse a compact, mirror, and razor blade for anyone thinking of giving her a hard time! ´DON´T FUCK WITH ME´was communicated affectively.

West of the rivas market, two-hundred year-old Mango trees line some of the streets forming glossy green corridors. Took a pedi-cab back to the bus stop, rewarding the peddler-driver who gave me accurate directions. Eventaully I found the bus for San Juan Del Sur. Hawkers intoned and canted and hawked their wares up and down the bus aisle.
´´ Gasss-ee-oo-sas- Agua purrr-iii-feee-caddass.´´
´´ Gaaa-yyylle-ttas.´´
´Calll-sssaaa-tiiinnn-aaass´´
´´Kkkaaaa-coooowww´´ ( Cocoa. A chocolate milk and cocoa drink sold in small plastic bags and a straw, that are immediately chucked out the window when finished!)
One Nica beverage vender worked the bus aisle wore a brown disco-T-shirt with rhinestones declaring ´SEXY LADY´ across her very ample bosum, while around her huge hips was draped a tradtitional, white, faux-silk, baroquely-pleated and folded apron,- two different centuries of fashion hybridized. Why not?!
`KKKaa-Cooooowwwww. Kkkaa-cowwww.´Yes, his old crow is ready for a piece of cocoa-chocolate cake. The sun, winds, waves, swimming, sketching and walking wore me out. Ready for a sweet pick-me-up.
Abrazos
Esteban

Culinary Immersion

2010-01-11T17:54:00.000-08:00

Jan 12, 2010, S.J.D.S. Nica.

Culinary as well as cultural immersion happened almost immediately upon arrival into San Juan. Juanita, my favorite BBQ lady is still here sending searing aromas into the street, right around from the towns mini-market . Her BBQ chicken, maduros ( fried large plantains or hard bananas) `pico de gallo` beans and rice and cabbage salad are the best! Strictly evenings.
Many gringos won`t eat there or at the market for fear of any number of intestonal maladies, samonella ect. I view it as ´stomach sprints´ ,´intestonal push-ups´ and a constitutional must. Throw a few curves at the system. See if the ol´alimentary track can handle local fare. One expects to be a little sore with a new excercise regime. Right?
Some intersting local health drinks:
-´Espinaca´ or spinich although one doesn´t use the leaf but the fruit? Apparently it looks like a grape, the juice is naturally the color of grape soda-pop, and it is seasoned with lemon juice. Quite good.
-´Chia´varies from sweet to tart as to which table one sits at at the market and which kitchen prepares the small seeded juice. It is fiber like flax seed although totally digestable unlike whole flax seed.
-´Cebada´At Angelitas at the market it es an Oatmeal flour with strawberry flavor. Good for settling the stomach.
-´Calala´Passion fruit and water. Sweet yet astringent, slightly acidic, with a vague pineapple taste.
-´Tamarindo´The recipe varies but at Angelitas the seeds are soaked then pulsed in and osterizer.
Soups will have Yucca stems, and tropical vegetables which are unidentifiable to me, and seem to be of beef stock.
Overall the food like the people reflect a carribean influence with the black beans, rice and `Maduros`or fried plantains .
Abrazos
Esteban

Cow trucks and Cow Pies

2010-01-11T15:37:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Jan. 12, 2010 S.J.D.S. Nica.

The Casa del Oro shuttle, a converted cattle truck, had us tourists crammed on the wooden benches, mooing and knocking knees- a goteed, auborn-dreaded dude to my left, a plumpish hairball with dualing hawaiian shirts and shorts to my right. The driver dropped me off at the corner nearest our property, a mile short of Maderas beach, so I could do a quick evaluation of the property. The good News: no one has squatted, built a house, hotel or hostel; planted corn or Marijuana, or started a neo-revolutionary retro-sixties-communist training encampment, although fences are more-or-less down on three sides of the property so military excercizes could easily begin. The tracks were not of soldiers but cows, the hump-backed, long-horned brahma species, who have been grazing and fertilizing the soil and creating good soil tilth. The bad news: broken, fallen fences- or worse yet no fences - make for bad neighbors. This IS Nicaragua afterall! Our gringo neighbor advertizes on a rusty sign´frisbee golf´, so we have plenty of cow-pies to do a Nica-version.
An in-law had given me two baseball mitts to gift to the local ´squatter´kids who live in shanties on the dirt lane on the east side of the property- our buddies and work force in years past. Only Orlando, who I had dubbed `Abe Lincoln´, as he was learning to speak english and read, was home at his families shanty.
`How are you?´He asks in English. Wow, very good. We chatted briefly, and he gave me what little news he had: The brick-less well that almost happened. The recent dry, rainy-season. The slow tourist season last year. Then I did a short visual inventory. No palms visible and lots of scrub brush , then took off walking the mile to the beach. Within two hours of my swimming at Maderas, Orlando had collected all the boys in our little barrio and they came looking for me, like a hispanic version of David Copperfield ragamuffins. They greeted me with handshakes, smiles and more smiles. Phillipe, the more assertive but younger and shorter of the two older boys, wore a nice shirt- collar stylishly up- styled and gelled his hair, and bore himself with the confidence of a much older person.They of course wanted work. Phillipe, was especially familiar and friendly so I had to explain I had no money and therefore there would be no projects.
This years finances wouldn´t permit renting a car, or buying or delivering supplies. We shook hands and all was good.
Speaking of retro-sixties-revolutionaries, I had quizzed the shuttle driver on the trip down from Managua and the airport the other day on his opinions of President Ortega. Taxi cab driver interviews- like barbers and hairstylist interviews- are always a good litmus test as to what the people of a country are thinking, if not looking like. ( I must now grow pointy side-burns!) His opinion: Ortega is a lyer and a clown. ´PALLASO´ ´Mierda de vaca.´ ( Cow shit. ) So here´s to chucking that political cow-pie Venezuela and Chavezes way next election!
Abrazos
Esteban

Jesus and the Flying Nun

2010-01-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

Jan 10, 2010 S.J.D.S., Nica

Local Christians and town fathers have planted a very over-scale, Rio-wanna-be, Jesus statue high on the hill overlooking the small bay and town, although clearly crime has increased both since installation and the economic down-turn. ( I am told criminals in this largely Catholic nation are devout only when sentencing or death are immenant.) Jesus appears from not a very great distance- both from the front and back- like Kwan Lin - the Chinese god of mercy and compassion- with his double ´skirt´ or pedestal. Even more so up-lit at night.( According the the recent PBS series, Jesus in his gnostic-pre-Paul incarnation had a more female-compassionate- energy, much like Kwan Lin )

Jesus faces south, neither in the direction of Jeruselem nor Rome and perhaps coincidentally in the direction of the mines of Potosi, Bolivia that funded the construction and gilding of cathedrals in Spain and the new world for centuries. South not East? Which begs the question, is orientation not important to Christian iconography? Grant it, we don´t want his butt facing the town however Mary Magdelane may or may not have felt about his posterior. ( No disrespect intended) Mosques must face Mecca. Does Christ only have to face his local sponsor? We know the church has a long history of selling indulgences. Decorate and paint frescoes in an early Italian renaisence town and you could be excused from the practice of usry- a major sin. ( Major sin then, clearly not now in these inflated credit-card-rate-times.)

January and February in San Juan are the wind-turbine-promoters poster-child-months: Gale force winds are normal, and strong winds constant. The old stone Jesus has been replaced by a considerably larger fiber-glass , Flying-Nun-light and friendly Jesus. In Mexico especially, the image of Mary or Guadalupe can appear in cracks in walls, or paint stains- fairly arbitrary places you might admit. Crowds form, waiting to be blessed or cured. What would happen if Jesus were to take flight, Flying Nun style, and land on some poor bloke, or dog, or worse yet the local beach-front Eskimo ice cream shop. Do lines form, for a cone and a blessing? But I guess, cones, crackers, what´s the difference? It´s the transfiguration and thought that count. Right?
´´May I have coffee ice cream in a body-of-Christ cone please. And some sprinkles. Hold the indulgences please.´´

Abrazos
Esteban

Hostels, Hotbeds of ...

2010-01-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

Jan 9, 2010 S.J.D.S, Nica.
Discovered a new hostel in town and- always looking for a better deal,- swung in to check out the prices and facilities. Three adonis surfer dudes ( Plural: adoni? adonises? adoro-donises? enselada adonis-adorables? ) stood preening themselves like teen girls primping for their quisenera ( fifteen year-old coming out party) . They should have been sexy but were just comical. Local hostels here like in most beach towns are notorious hot-beds for ´well-lubricated´ partying: youths with free time, over-active-libidos and a steady supply of recreational drugs. (Clearly not my scene but I can wish for a few sentimental moments.)
The lobby had a GAP-Surf Shop feel , a colorful board-short graphic on one wall, and the others painted in blocks of greens, chartreuses, blues, pale yellows and blacks. Surfer-Mondrian. The young gringo proprietor quoted a price higher than ´Rebeccas Guest House´ where I am staying. Presentation got an A+ untill another young gringo employee came down the stairs and announced to the eight people in the lobby including myself,
´´ Bed-bugs in the top bunk of room two!´´
So much for A+ presentaion and conversatinal stoppers! Crabs, bed-bugs, S.T.D.´s, sea shells, dryed star fish- every vacation deserves a souveneer. I will settle for a sketch or two.
Abrazos
Esteban

Hi-Ho Gitty-Up

2010-01-09T07:48:00.000-08:00

San Juan Del Sur, Nica. 1-7-10
Hola Amigos
We honored both the angry, hungry gods-- or so we had hoped- and bad TV westerns on the drive from Managua to San Juan Del Sur today, by a near collision with a caballero on his pint-size horse . He charged from the dark-leafy shoulder of the road, and reared up in High-Ho-Silver fashion onto the highway in our direct path.( My god, horses really do this in real life, not just in the movies?!) Our tiny compact, whizzing along about sixty at the time, with three tourists, an obese Nica driver, and two surf-boards strapped to the roof- screeched, fish-tailed and shuddered to a burnt-rubber halt barely missing the horse and its rider. We had been initiated in the first hour within the country and not even to Masaya yet! Clearly tourist trips can begin like badly scripted action movies! The offering to the gods had been made. Hopefully more grave or fatal accidents and crimes will be avoided. Instantaneous cure for jet-lag that it was after the 'Red-eye' from L.A..
The highways have been greatly improved but the awareness of drivers, bicyclists, kids, dogs, cats and horses has not. Cops are still grifting foreigners with surf boards on their car rooves for cash.. Our driver was a local with all the right papers so no cash was exchanged. A good omen. Gracias.
Hi-Ho-Silver!
Esteban

Playa de Agujon

2009-02-21T17:00:00.000-08:00

Feb 21, 22, 2009, Pto. Esc., Mexico

AGUJA= Needle
AGUJON= Incredibly big needle; A Needle fish

Young skinny boys of twelve or thirteen, and men up to the age of thirty, `morenos`( dark skinned) all of them, stood in the surf, rolls of nylon fishing line in one hand, casting out the tri-hooks- some with small fish bate- near the bank of pelicans floating not twenty yards out. The most recent catch of just minutes before, lay in the sand - a long, iridescent silver, turquoise and blue needle fish. I felt one, caressed his skin not aware that when we see them from above while snorkeling, that they had such color. Stimulated and clearly frightened by my touch, his long, razor-toothed jaw opened and shut, a gill expanded, and he gave one last jerk and flipped over to his back- motionless. The scrawny boy quickly buried the catch in the moist sand, to preserve it from the heat.

The cross-currents, under-tow and large breaking surf at what we will call Playa Agujon ( Needle Fish Beach) knocked John`s inflatable kayak over between large swales as he embarked. ( Something I have never seen happen before with him.) He quickly righted the kayak, amazingly without taking on too much unwanted ballast, and boosted himself in. Carmen and I looked at each other, laughed nervously, then decided it was wiser to just push the inflatable forward through the breaking surf and swim out. Success! Once beyond the breakers, the fifteen minute paddle to the white isle and rock outcroppings was easy.

The surge ,cross-currents, and waves rebounding off the island and guano covered outcroppings created a fractal-complex-equation of washing-machine-chop, swirl, rise and fall. We `parked` between the bromeliad-covered isle with the kayaks, and one of the islets, and dove in with masks and snorkels. The guano smelled vaguely of a zoo, indistinguishable excrement, and as huge waves crashed against the rounded rocks just three yards away - salt.

The water felt a few degrees cooler that at the beach, as we slipped in just above a school of mini-silver fish that angled and reflected from the light above, the smallest nearest the surface and the larger fish below. Occasionally larger predator fish would chase and smaller the minnows and press and push the rolling amorphous mass of ' fish-manity, like a flock of nervous starlings with an eagle on the attack. Their bodies shifted in unison catching the tropical light from above, glinting as bright as the spot-lit sequins and 'brilliantina' ( glitter) of the drag-queens Carmen and I saw later at the Queen-Court-Crowning for Mardis Gras Week. Near the bottom, maybe twenty feet down, four sand-colored 'Agujon' or needle fish hung- all facing south- their tails like gently flickering spears.

We ate the delicious and firm, white-meated ' Medregal' ( Amber Jack), freshly speared that morning, filleted and cooked in garlic. Napped in the hammock, under the shade of the palapa, to the rhytmic break of the surf. Later that night Carmen and I walked Zicatella Beach, stopping a various Palapa structures to dance and enjoy live rock, salsa, afro-cuban, with seasonings of French-Morracan and Yiddish wind instruments, before attending the deafening disco at a grotty club in Bococho. Local big-nosed Italian drug-mafioso in 'dreds' and trendy hats to our left, and a warehouse full of espectant Mexican faces around us.
May we all glint and shimmer in the light and pray we not be our own 'last supper' for a lurking predator. And may the 'brilliantina' not stick to our sweaty arms embarrasingly till morning coffee. ( We know where that waiter went last night! Competator or attendee???)
Abrazos
Esteban

The Folly of Making Esteban Spiritual

2009-02-19T13:29:00.000-08:00

Jan 18, 2009 Pto. Esc. Oax. Mx.

A author and host of Carmen ´s birthday party several weeks ago, gave me a copy of the spiritual book that he wrote, which I have been reading. The passage I was reading last night before retiring, suggested affirmations to direct ones dreams and ones life to be more spiritual, by affirming the connections between, mind, heart and soul. The sacred triangle. The holy trinity of being. Direct the ego to the left brain, the soul to the right. `Sure Why not.` Presumably this excercize would elevate my soul to new heights, and help me remember and understand my dreams. Sounds good to me. So I did a short meditation before hitting the sack.
The last dream of the morning was quite vivid. I was assisting in a `CSI`-like, cheesy-cop-type investigation -strange as I never watch nor like this genre of T.V.- on how Marilyn Monroe died. Was her death actually suicide, murder, or of natural causes? Why she of all actresses came up in my dream, I have no Idea. She would`t be included in the list of my top twenty most respected or favorite actresses. Perhaps with the exception that we both could or can be exceedingly annoying, we have nothing in common. I never slept my way to the top of any career heap, much less laterally. ( My detractors would say I tryed but it is just not true.) Not only do I not have bleached hair, I have NO HAIR! I don`t have a whispery voice, I can`t walk in heels nor do I wear dresses or want to. ( If any of the readers can think of any commonalities, kindly keep them to yourselves!)

In this dream, I was diving in the oceon without equipment or snorkle- as I do daily- finding apparent `evidence` on the case: Small conche shells, barnacle-covered partially decomposed objects, suspicious trinkets, and placing them in a yellow plastic bucket- with sea horses on the side. ( Unlike ´C.S.I or´`Law and Order`, I don`t have a S.A.G. prop-master or union workers to aid in story reality and authenticity-Plastic buckets must do.) When I returned to the laboratory, the investigative team was pleased with my finds, although the `evidence` unfortunately was discovered after the fact. The lab tech said he had already found the cause of her death.

``Marilyn,`` he stated in this monotonal, policemans voice, ``was the first woman in history to wear pant-hose, before the detrimental affects of the synthetic hosiery materials were discovered. She died of a rare vaginal infection caused by lack of air to her private parts. She was neither murdered nor did she commit suicide. ``

``Vaginal asphixiation,`` stated another investigator.
I looked around the lab- ` Are these guys serious?` they were. This is simply dream reportage, you have to understand, and not meant as any disrespect to Marilyn, bless her little heart. And anyone who has watched the series `Six Feet Under`, knows there are considerably more gruesome ways to part this earth.

This afternoon at lunch, I told the `Marilyn`dream to one of my older gay friends and he spit up his soup---- appalled. `Come on guys, one vaginal reference can`t be that bad. Right? Mmmm... Maybe.` The meditation worked in the sense that I remembered the vivid dream, but for the rest, clearly I have spiritual dyslexia, and the ego entered the right brain ( not the left) and the soul entered the left ( not the right). Or , I need to think about and affirm sexual thoughts, which I incidentally was NOT doing before bed, then I would perhaps dream about spiritual matters! Or work on my Kundalini and forget the head approach.
` Hmmm. Orange Buddhist robes... already have the shaved head...hmmm. Props, and costumes might help. Works for the Catholic Clergy. Right? Si, como no.´
Or worse yet, accept the fact I am hopelessly superficial and just get on with life. At any rate the universe is making folly of my spiritual effort. Now, where did I put that plastic bucket with seahorses ? Off to the beach I go!

Abrazos

Esteban

`Termiteros` and Inkpots of Liquid Silver

2009-02-17T14:09:00.000-08:00

Feb 17, 2009. Puerto Escondido,Oax.,Mx.

At sunrize a haze wrapped around both points of the bay and out to sea, and the very predictable February inshore breezes never appeared, and even the large red and white radio tower, less the two miles away, appeared dim in the filtered light. Two hours later, Carmen, John and I drove twelve to fifteen minutes out of town in the direction of Nopala, to the Universidad de Mar Jardin Botanico ( University of the Oceon Botanical Garden).
-----Stevie`s Extra-curricular report on class field-trip:
The garden is just four years old, and open to guests for just two years, and essentially represents the Costeña or low-coastal native plants. Our female horticulturlist-guide presented a fascinating discourse on slash and burn farming, and the resultant primary re-growth recovery species, like spiny trunked Ceiba trees (sae-bah) -comparable to aspen, alder and willow in the temperate forests in the U.S. Trees like `Caoba`or Mahogony, long ago logged from this area, would represent the third and final stage of recuperation and localized ecosystem recovery. Here, like in China , anything on`slither`, foot or wing is eaten by the locals, and it has taken four years for native species to start to return and the word to spread among them that they need not hide from fatal throws of stones and knives and bullets. Small water catch-basins in various areas of the hillsides, provide habitat improvements for a range of species:Birds such as parrots and song-birds; mammels such as foxes, possum, raccons, ocelots and wild dwarf striped´tigers`; Reptiles such as Iguanas and lizards; and snakes such as cobras.

Parrots have been colonizing `termiteros`, the two-foot, mounded, termite mud-iglos, found in trees, or `hormigeros`( ant iglos), reducing the over-grazing of termite populations and tree devastation, and bringing the ecosystem back into balance. This same eco-system balance principle operates in Idaho and the Northwest with wolves predating on elk that overgraze streambeds causing erosion and fisheries habitat degradation, or sharks just off the coast, that predate on over-grazing fish species like Parrot and Angel Fish. These predatory species are the `check and balance´ species of nature, even if- like sharks and wolves-they suffer from bad P.R. `Les hacen balanceo`.

The Plants and trees have many local uses: Medicinal plants for gastritus; treatments for Dengue fever; plants that reduce skin-scarring and curing wounds and cuts; Edible flowers fruits and plant parts; Nitrogen-fixing legumes; Temperary and permanant construction materials; Miticides like the leaves of the Carnero bush ( Cocoloba barbadensis ) which are used in chicken nests against mites that would perhaps have application for the controll of mites in beehives!!! Above all, the names of the plants are beautiful:Cuachepalio; Cuachalala; Cacalosuchill; and Guapinol ( goo-wah-peen-ole). ----Sorry about the book report- maybe you had to be there- but it really was interesting!
----Now, pull out your pencils and papers and we are going to test you on your comprehension
1. What was the bush called that protects chickens from mites? DO NOT REFER BACK TO THE PREVIOUS TEXT!
2. What animal eats into termite-iglos, and makes a nest?
3. What fever can be treated by the using the bark of certain trees?

Swam with Pattie the rest of the afternoon off the point of Bacocho, only two other persons on the beach, and the water a perfect eighty-six degrees! Returned home to shower and laid in the hammock overlooking the bay. The sea by sunset had melted into a glassy pearlescent mercury, with the faintest glaze of pale pink, and was devoid of the smallest wave, just the breaking of large swells on the shore. Even without wind, the air was heavy with the scent of moist-salt. The horizonless, southern end of the bay blended into a glazie-wash of shimmering abalone and pale violet, untill dusk flushed the horizon and sky a darker tone of purple and paynes grey. `El mar dormido`, ( the sleeping sea) remained liquid silver, an infinite ink-pot of energy and force, and me in the hammock just above it, slowly swinging in peace.
Abrazos
Esteban

Treats for Vito N Us

2009-02-16T09:16:00.000-08:00

Feb 15-16 2009, Pto. Esc. , Oax. Mx.

Vito the macho Iguana neighbor and our resident oracle of Delphi, has lowered his spiked head and xenophopic standards and is relating to us foreigners, but only because we offer him food. A banana offered first on the brick wall, then at arms lenghth, and now out of hand has earned his loyalty. We`ve gained his domestic greedy side then pitched a ponzi banana scheme to him to test his reaction, oracle that he is.

`` Ok Vito, first we package bad bananas, freeze them, and sell them as banana futures and have the SEC qualify them as a class `A` investment .``
`` What da fuck, ya think I`m a rube. Juz give me the fuckin` nanners.``
CHOMP, CHOMP.
`` But Vito, you`ll be earning 10% on your investment... Minimum......!!!`` He simply butts hs head in response.
CHOMP, CHOMP
He eyes us , `Woohhatz de matta wit yooz guyz?`.
``Yeah, that`s what we`ve been asking ourselves. Vito, what do you think of Hugo Chavez electing himself for life?``
CHOMP, CHOMP
`` Wohhad ya say `bout rotten nanners?``
``No ... Hugo.``
``Yeah, diz guy and George W, daiz rotten nanners.``
``Oh, thanks Vito.`` ( Guess that is the best you can expect from a Iguana Oracle. What was Nancy Regans astrologers name?)

Speaking of `Nanners`, try frying large plantain bananas then dolloping cream cheese and Nutella on top. HMMMMM!! `daiz delicious.`

Lunch today at the famous Herman`s restaraunt here in Puerto, on the road out of town towards Nopala. Watched Herman` prepare the fish-dish of fryed tuna with a spicy chipotlesque sauce. First one must swim off the point by Bococho three times, and work up a good appetite. Then:
- Salt the grill and the cutting counter. Smash the garlic whole, skins and all. Throw on the grill.
- Pour cooking oil very generously ( don`t ask and don`t tell the quantity or kind of oil) over the garlic; begin frying.
- Salt the fish filet, throw on the grill. Cook maybe four minutes then flip.
- Slice an onion, salt and add to mix
- Add chili sauce, wine, and mayonaise. simmer.
- Season additionaly at your pleasure with a home-made, hot, tamarindo-chili paste.
-Serve with rice, tomatoes, sliced cabbage and lime. WOW!!!
- Compliment with beer or Tamarindo juice.
One of the best fish I have ever eaten! And fat-chef Herman`is a one-man-show!

Last night at El Jardin Restaurant: `O solo Mio` Pizza
Thin crust pizza with Rocatta cheese, pesto sauce over sliced tomatoes, anchovies and topped with fresh basil. Another WOW meal!
Buen Provecho and Bona Pettit!
Abrazos
Esteban

Mi Bautizo Fiesta

2009-02-12T16:17:00.000-08:00

Feb 13-14, 2009 Pto. Esc. Oax. Mx.

Pattie, Lou, Jimmie and I entered the Baptism celebration from the street in Los Flores, just the other side of the river from Chila, through large metal doors, into a `callejone` or alley sort of affair. Humble brick residences of the extended family were built on both sides, and were very communal in nature, essentially an indigenous village concept of palapa huts transposed over more contemperary building materials of brick, laminate and metal trim. We all had to`dress up`: Pattie in a dress and nice shoes, and the three men in long pants, shoes and socks - the first time since arriving in the tropics for all of us- and therefore excruciantingly uncomfortable and hot in the tropical heat!

A large arch of pink, yellow and white balloons separated the `callejone`from a large ,dirt-floored compound surrounded by twelve foot brick walls. Six to eight cords of firewood wood( leña) were stacked and piled high in the north end of the compount. Long lines of banquet tables were dressed in table-clothes, low floral arrangments of carnations, mums, asters and greens and pierced with balloons on a stick. The balloon had a picture of a little girl in a cute dress, with the words: Mi Bautizo (My Baptism) , which had actually occurred very early that same morning in the church for the six-month-old-girl. Lou said in Italy the new-born-child is baptized immediately, Italians being as cynical as they are about life and death. Mexicans traditionally throw an enormous Baptism party, so they very pragmaticlly wait six months to ensure the childs survival and the partys considerable investment.

Large `lonas`, blue and yellow plastic tarps, were tied and draped over the central compound
holding in the smoke of five large fires and enormous simmering galvinized tubs of boiling beef, pork and soup. Firewood is the traditional and only fuel used for cooking in this primarily indigenous population, from tortilla clay`comal`, to boiling pigs heads in tubs. So meat-based is the culture and cuisine, and the consumption of it so tied to status and wealth, that I suspect the proported recent tremors and earthquakes in Indonesia were in fact all the vegetarian religions and peoples of the earth trembling at the carnage involved in such a party!!! Nonetheless, I graciously ate wonderfully seasoned Bar-B-Q Beef: Boiled beef with chili and herb seasoning. Succulent but fatty for my tastes.

Above the two exterior baños ( toilets) with curtain doors, five nearly one-meter speakers blared at ear-splitting-volume, Oaxaquena-Ranchera Music.
´Ratta-boom´, ratta-boom´echoed off the brick walls. Ninety-year-old and very gracious GrandPa and GrandMa, who together have sired fifteen offspring, hosted the party. Both seemed like sweet people from my ´extrajeros´ distance, and frankly I didn´t want to know the details.

While we sat and sweated under the white plastic garlands- áreglos´, Pattie filled me in on the polotics and expression of power and status, as the grandfather, however humbly and unpretentiously he lives, is the wealthiest man in the community: six hundred head of cattle; eight-hundred hectare planted in maiz; another three hundred hectare planted... ect. As he wished, guests were neither served nor encouraged to drink alcohal. ´ NO BORRAHOS AQUI! ( No drunks here!) Guests were gifted bowls of fruit or token baskets of sweets, candies and marshmellows and food flowed freely on the well presented tables. Status, status, status. !

By three in the afternoon, the large court-yard and all the lines of banquet tables, with folding chairs behind them, were filled with well dressed adults and children. Everyone showing a good face in their sunday best. Little girls, groomed to the ´T´: hair combed and tied with golden-butterfly barettes or frilly trinkets; precious embroidered skirts and socks pressed and perfect. I silently grieved not being able to discreetly sketch these faces, young, old and ancient, their beauty and with some of the old- their sorrow. One of the mothers sitting near us looked like a William S. Soule, ninteenth century photograph of ´Monona`, a Cheyanne woman. Red-skinned, Amer-asian with Mona Lisa immutable expression. Many of the children reminded me of the 1905 portrait by Edward Curtis of a Native American girl. This sweet young face was everywhere at the party. Vulnerable, shy, respectful, even suspicious.: `Who is this `pelon`( shaved head or bald man) with the blue eyes? One baby boy sat tranfixxed, staring at me and my alien eyes, his haired combed into a black, punkish, rooster-tail.

`Ratta-boom, ratta-boom, ratta-boom´ through the swelter of the heat, the sweat pouring from us--head to toe--- the constant deafening Oaxaqueña six-note-music reverberated. Mayonaise-macaroni-salad-Disco-Pow-Wow-musical-schlock! This was a tweeked, inculturated version of Montour Idaho, Shoshoni-Bannock-Lapwai Native American Pow-Wow-music without the subtlety of indigenous deer-skin drums and rhythm. Same genetic lineage. Same faces.
´Ratta-boom, ratta-boom´. ´Mi bautizo.´I was baptized into the Costeña Ranchera culture: smoked and sweated and feasted and stared and welcomed and silently condemned. Not your average gringo -golf course or college party but I have been treated way worse!
`Ratta-boom, ratta-boom`. Could´t wait for a swim!

Abrazos
Esteban

Pelican Death Dirges

2009-02-12T08:57:00.000-08:00

Feb. 12, 2009 Pto., Esc., Mx.

Walked to the Zicatella point on the south end of the bay yesterday, to sketch and watch the beginning surfers on the point practice in the low-medium surf, between the submerged and semi-submerged rocks . On the crest of the first sand dune, just thirty feet from the surf, a large brown pelican sat, eyes closed. Motionless. This is not a good sign as it is indicative of a very ill, or dying bird. Sometimes diving birds will stun themselves. Last year, for example, John had a black cormeran who - way out at sea- landed on the front of his inflatable kyack, and rode on the stern all the way back to the lighthouse, El Faro, where he jumped down, sat in the water for a second or two, then flew off. Breaks over! Back to fishing.

These past two weeks, I hadn`t been able to get close enough to a pelican to sketch one, so slowly advanced, untill I was within a yard of the taxidermied looking creature. Still as stone, she was. When I unzipped the `mochila`to pull out pen and the black `cuaderno`, she just barely opened the eye profiled to me, gave me an eye-ball-once-over, then closed her eye-lid. With no other discernable motion. I sat down and began sketching.

A stray or bored, rusty-colored beach dog came over and sniffed me.
`` What are you doing?``, I ask. He licked me on the cheek, in answer, then laid down in the sand to my left. Scratched his chin for a second, and went back to sketching. So there we were the three of us, the dog, me and the pelican-a quiet little meditative three-some, as the swimmers and surfers and walkers passed us, back and forth from the point. The wind whipped white-caps from the top of the swales. The surf broke into foam along the shore. The gulls screeched. And I drew.

While I was sketching, a surfer with a long red board passed two closely to `abuelita` (grandma) pelican, and she moved two paces, flapped her wings once, then squwatted again in the sand. The dog, with me by his side, noticed but didn`t seem motivated to bark or even sit up. He just hung out.
Terri and Jimmy, my sweet Hari Krishna gringo friends from Minneapolis, just this week had found a dying pelican on the beach and had sung a Hari Krishna chant to the dying bird. But, I don`t know any chants or for that matter songs. I don`t sing. I don`t know songs. In fact the only song that came to mind was:
``Rum and Co---Ca...Co---La. `` Hmmm. Somehow, that didn`t seem appropriate.

I stood up to take a swim, and by the time I was in the water, the dog- apparrently emboldened by my departure- began crouching and barking at the pelican. Grand-Ma pelican ignored him for a short while, then eventually raized her wings and flew two yards away.
``Leave me in peace``, her body language seemed to say. ``My fight is with death, not you.``
`` Rouff, Rouff``, continued the dog. Jumping forward, then backing off. Circling to the right and left, as if vicious prey were being stalked and serious hunting going on.
`Oh dear,`, I thought to myself while swimming,`` maybe I should have sung `Rum and Coca... Cola.` Maybe ANY song is better than none.`` Finally, a youth in board shorts called the dog off.
When I packed my `mochila`to leave, `Abuelita` Pelican remained squwatted. Eyes closed. Still, still, still, and sarcophacal. The dog was off with his friend or master. The surf broke and the gulls screeched.
``Hey Jude, don`t be afraid..``, I thought, while I passed. ``Life is just a moment
`mi abuelita amiga.`
Abrazos

Esteban

Horse Porn

2009-02-11T08:20:00.000-08:00

Feb 11, 2009 Pto. Esc., Oax., Mx.

Hola,

Last Sunday was Carmen´s `Finally-you-turned-forty` poolside birthday party, at a private home of an expat couple- he a retired jouralist and author of three books, she a lawyer with an active practice in the U.S. The menu: Chicken tomales wrapped in banana leaves, fresh green salad, margaritas and ´mota´-brownies ( Marijuana) for those wishing to imbibe. The home is above the highway, overlooking the bay from southern to northern points, where we ate, lounged, and swam till sunset.

The host, told the story of the mating of a mare on their adjoining property, a grassy-brushy hillside and small arroyo. Both the stallians and fillies in the pasture, corraled- in concert- ( this was not a gang rape) the mare in heat. They circled, pushed and nudged, directing her from behind, the sides and in front. A young sexy stud of a stallion, stood in front of her, emanating sex apppeal, youth, and testasteron-charged sex appeal. He was the young Collin Farrel, rock-porn-movie star of the group. The sexy, stud-a-muffin, visual and olfactory treat of the small herd. Horse porn! A pretty face and sinewy-firm body to excite! Get the gal aroused and moist for the old man, and without all that obnoxious background porn-music!

The mare cocked her ears and whinnied, clearly interested. However, unbeknownst to her, the dominant alpha stallion, an aging Brad Pitt of the group ( sorry Brad) with a few more wrinkles,white whiskers, and sags to his countenance than the young stud- but virile none the less- had begun working his way behind her, while the other horses corralled her.
She stared fixedly at `Colin the stud`, her eyes wide with part of the whites showing, while she perhaps wondered if she is going to get away with this liason without the alpha-stallion kicking butt. She understood, like all horses, the heirarchy and pecking order of the herd, and the consequences of bucking, so to speak, that heirarchy and order. When the older stallion was in positon directly behind her, the two horses nearest to her rump stepped aside and he very quickly mounted and penetrated her before she had a chance to say:
`` What the fuu...??`` or `` Come a little closer, Colin Stud, I wanna take a closer sniff.``
Bada- Bing, Bada-Boom. It is done. Quick as that. The older alpha stallion did the deed.
Approximately three-hundred and forty-one days later, a baby colt fell from his mothers loins. Apparently, it takes a village or at least a very small herd, to mount and breed a stubborn mare.

Abrazos

Esteban

Beach Treats

2009-02-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

Feb 10, 2009 Pto., Esc. Oax, Mx.

Here are some of the beach treats available between swimming, snorkling or kyacking.

-Dulce de Tamarindo: Small bag of a brownish reddish paste made form tararind, hot chilies, water ( I believe) and sugar. Flavors are layered, sweet hot and spicey.
-Cacahuates con chile y lemon:( Cacahuates enchiladas- in chilies) Roasted peanuts with red chilies, salt, garlic and lemon juice. Spicy hot, salty, garlicy and peanuty. Yumm.
- Assorted nuts enchiladas, with chili powder, or plain.
-Peanut and sesame bars, made with either honey or molassus.Quite good
-Platanos Fritas: Fried maduro bananas with a dobble of sweet condensed milk.
-Chunky Guacamole with tostadas of fried tortilla.
-Casa Dias: Hot cheese tortillas with various ingredients from green chillies; zuchini flowers; mushrooms
-Pescadias Small fish tacos, with avocado, maybe lettuce or cabbage and always salsa.
-Helados: Delicious home made ice cream on a cone. Coconut is the most common flavor and it is really good!
-Paletas: Frozen fruit juices, from mango, guyaba, tamarind , Zopotle.
-Platos de Fruta: fresh sliced fruit, usually mango, watermelon and pineapple, with lime juice and the optional red hot chili powder.
However one must continue swimming lots or the ´llantas y panzas´( Hips and potbellies) appear.
Abrazos
Esteban

Puerto Suelo- The sand bar

2009-02-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

Jan 8-10, 2009 Puerto Esc. Oax., Mx.

Suddenly travelers checks have become dicey in Mexico, with only one Casa de Cambio accepting them here in Puerto Escondido. And if it is before nine, or ten in the morning, or on an off day, or the employee is sick, hung over, or his wife is pregnant and expecting, you can`t cash them at all. And even more annoying, suddenly the pin numbers on one of my credit cards doesn`t work, and the credit card company in the states has no idea why. So cashing money early on a Saturday morning, when the group is trying to get off with the kayacks and drive north to just beyond Manialtepec Lagoon, can be a challenge.
However, success at last, a quick trip to the market for ice, fruit and fresh shrimp, and we are off in the not-so-early morning light. John as always, found the correct turn-off ( an inigma to me) to the dirt lane, and I step out to open the `gate`: Beautiful, weathered, hand-carved hardwood posts, four large hand- chiseled notches for the equally heavy hardwood posts. I slide them through the holes.

We pull forward in the old Suburban, with the bright orange inflatable kyacks tied to the roof, , past palms, green grass, up over a hillock where we talked to the weathered, straw-hatted and mustached Arrieo, ( Arrier, to call out to, in this case cows) . The friendly, and sun -burnished, Arreieo-Vaquero, chatted while his curious `Cebu`, Brahma bulls and cows, lifted their ears and fixed us with their baleful eyes. As if to say, `What`s going on here? `Who are you? What is that?`

We park next to the swamp, the baby palms all chewed down to the stalk, the water smelling of brine and the lower pasture of cow-pies. Two long-flat-fiberglass launches are tethered to branches in the still, brown water. We quickly load the kyacks and are off, paddling slowly through a dark, sun-dappled tunnel cut through the Manglar roots and branches. Machetied and Chain-sawed. The water still, still, still. An quiet.

`` Hola Dona Tarantula``, we say respectfully and laughing. A little nervously. `Hello Mrs. tarantula.´

`` Hola Dona Culebra``, `Hello Mr Snake`
`` Perdonanos Don Cocodrillo``, `Excuse us Mr Crocodile` . We laugh again. Not Lions, tigers and Bears in the land of OZ, but Tarantulas snakes and Crocs, in the surreal swamp, the backwaters of the Manialtipec river that feeds Manialtipec Lagoon.!!

The tunnel suddenly widens and we gain a wide pond, covered in pollen from some unknown tree or trees. We search for the next passage through, the next tunnel, and two men in a thin launch pass, and disappear into the shade and darkness on the far side.
``Over there!``

Before we know it, we have reached the wide Manialtipec river that braids through the mangroves, and head in the direction John thinks is the oceon. Who would know,for it it oxbows this river. But he is right as always. His instinct impeccable! (gracias dios.) Rains were heavy this year, and the rivers and lagoons high up to the shiny green skirts of the mangos leaves.

Large brown Pelicans adorn many of the trees above us, their favorite perchs apparent by the white-washed covering of guano on the leaves below.
`Let`s take early morning sun here. Nest there later.`
The four of us paddle on, cranky blue Herons, and cranes crawing at our intrusion, as they lazily fly to the opposite of the river. Dark Cormerans festoon a small, silver, snag, like large distended pods or cocoons, that would occasionally move, and the profile of a head would appear. White elegant egrits would glide into the grassy banks and land, immediately coming to attention in hunters `listening pose´.
`Is that a frog?`their tilting heads seem to say.

Then we headed into the narrower headwaters of the river, between the sandbar that separates the oceon from the waterways, and the low grassy banks with low fields of horses and cows grazing beyond. We see a campesino head, no two mens heads, one with a straw hat, gliding and levitating horizontally behind a lush grassy bar, like a phantom in a Shakespere play, untill they exit stage right, into our view- standing in a moving boat.

Two hours later we land on the large sand dune-Puerto Suelo- with a very rustic long, low shade palapa, made of dryed coconut palm leaves laid on a loose framework of branchs. The oceon waves pound,the strong wind sending a fine mist over the dune, and the surf breaks just on the other side of the dune. To the north, the bay curves round to cliff-breaks and Roca Blanca Isle in the distance. Fish are plentiful and gaggles of pelicans dive in the oceon, their zig-zag profiles shooting into the water like missiles. Moving south to north all day, following the school of fish- probably sardines.

The family lives much of the time on this sandy bar, serving food to tourists, fishing and smoking fish for sale later. We hang in hammocks. Sketch. Have a beer or pop.

The father thin and muscular, like all pescaderos, washed his catch for the day- oceon fish- what looked like twenty-four to thirty inch tuna, although he called them something else. ´Corel´I believe. Then he fileted them in half and gutted them, throwing the bloody inards to the gulls and one lone pelican, all of them inching forward, salivating over the filets laid on submerged palm fronds soaking in the fresh river water, the dark red meat and swirls of deep red blood staining and slowly curling in the water, like liquid cigarette smoke. The fat and nearly toothless mother prepared the fire and grill, a primitive, home-made frame of rusted chicken-wire and thin-oxidized-rods. The resulting and presumed `smoked fish`, was blackened and overcooked presaging our dinner prepared by the daughter: hard, rubbery, over-salted and over-cooked shrimp. The worst any of us had ever eaten! Capesino cuisine at its worst. The good side of capesino-country cuisine were the incredible sopes and tortillas. Hand ground corn, earthy smelling , with a wonderful fresh aroma of corn, and grainy like some of the ´chaff´had been included, and cooked on a wood-fired ´camal´. The black beans were cooked in ´asientos´, the bottom drippings in pork cooking, like gravy base. A reduced, tasty lard! With an herb topping.
The chubby son had many pets: Skinny, Negro the dog, a black and white beach-breed ; two tiny smokey-grey rabbits with red ribbons around their necks, in a bird cage; a small green parrot, who would sit on my finger while I swung in the hammock; in-bred Muskogie and white domestic ducks, one of whom loved as we did, the white meat of the family`s coconuts; And lastly the self-adopted cockroach who lived in the bottom of the plastic cup at our table, with paper napkins above him, light-weight camping gear at its best!

Carmen swam a VERY little- although neither the owner nor Carmen could convince me the water was safe. I basicly dipped.

´´ Nada pasa. Nada.´´ ( They won´t bother you here.) he says, as his son jumps in the water. ´´No nada pasa aqui.´´ the father says again in true Mexican fashion. The crocs are within three hundred yards of us. At the most four hundred. And the image of legless fisherman is still fresh in my mind! Yes, he was killed somewhere here at Manialtipec. Perhaps just over there.

I flashed on the gargantuem Iguana I named Vito, who lives under the concrete, by the pool, at the hotel. He is incredibly macho, raizing his chin repetitively, butting his head aggressively, and with such Italian-mafioso-attitude, you would expect him to talk like he is from ´Joy-zee´

´´My brod-dah´s a Croc, ya know?!´´, stutting his warts and leathery head n´back spikes. ´Yeah, sure Vito.´
``And my bisabuelsos ( grandparents) was T. Rexes, ya know?!´´( Poor Vito. He´s probably more closely related to a chicken. ) Vito has a macho ego. In fact, his agents just pitched a five script pilot to HBO about a talking Iguana. The HBO honchos were tepid.
´´A talking Iguana? Nahhhh, it´s too Mexican. Too ethnic.´´
´´ They´ve done talking horses on TV before.´´
´´Nahhhh.´´
´´Not very sexy.´´
´´We could get Penelope Cruz or Selma Hayak.´`
´´ To star with a talking Iguana?´´
´´Forget it!´´
´´Forget it! ´´ Just didn´t fly with the head honchos

The point is, Vito postures . He butts his head. He Puffs. HE WARNS. This is what we want! Animals that have evolved annd developed enough through the eons to warn you first! Cats arch their backs, hiss and raize their hackles --- three distinct warning comunications! Dogs growl and much the same. Birds and fish puff-up their chests, feathers and air-sacks. But the more primitive, paleolithic, killing machines like sharks and crocs DON´T. They swim stealthily below and behind you, then snap and chomp off an arm, or two legs, or your entire conscienceness. ´SWWAAAHHSSZAPP!!´ a kick of his big honkin´ tail and it´s over!!!

´`They won`t bother you here.``the father says in true Mexican fashion.

``The kids swim here.``

Yeah yeah, for a while. Untill the crocs are curious or good and hungry! But life goes on as always. Nature doesn`t belabor one species much less one persons tragedy. Herons, pelicans, egrits, cormerans, cranes all fish in their fashion no doubt as happy to be here as we are, as many of their kind perished in the severe cold of December in the northwest, Canada and Alaska.

We relaxed late, and Carmen´s shoulder was sore, so we loaded the kyacks perpendicular across the top of the fisherman`s boat, and the pescedero slowly plowed through the still waters untill we reached the first mangrove ´tunnel´. I paddled one kyack, John the other behind me.

Still, still, dark, briny, murky waters. Dark, and now with little visibility. No sun dapples. Dusk blanketed by deep brambles of leaves, tendrils and trunks. And then the low growls started from above. Or behind. Like quiet howler monkeys.

``Grrrrrrahhahhahhhhh.`` Insistent and low. Like a sleepy panther. Waiting. Crouching.

``Grrrrrrrrraahahahhahhh`` again, as I paddle, gratefully towards the earthy smell of cow-pies and land. I ask the pescadero when he pulls up to the bank, what the growl is.

``Pajaros. Patos`` ( Birds. Ducks)``Cormerans.``John replies

´RIIIIGHHT! And those are Cormerans??? Birds? Glorified ducks? RRRIIIIGGGHHHT.

``Grrrrrrrahhhahahhhhh!`` we hear again. Carmen and I laugh . `Quisas. Quisas. Quisas`

... Maybe. Maybe. Maybe...

Abrazos

Esteban

Marlene and the Gay Spore

2009-02-07T19:12:00.000-08:00

Sat. 7th February, Puerto Esc., Oax. Mx.

How does a child of two, or three suddenly obsess and become fascinated with his mom`s shoes? How does a child of two or three or four spontaneously develop, without any influence or provocation, an interest in his sisters, mothers, aunts or neighbors frilly, shiny, sparkly clothes? Or obsessions for stylish socks? Or peculier hats? Or fashion shows with his sister`s Barbie dolls? Spontaneously? Or a Thai boy a hundred miles from the nearsest town, desire to wear make-up, and tight clothes? Or more to the point, how does a indigenous Zapotec male , a father, of Mexican- Spanish decent, living up a dirt lane in a tiny village miles from any urban area, develop an interest for Marlene Dietrich movies or Marilyn Monroe singing `Happy Birthday´????? Or worse yet, act it out- weren`t those Liza`s hand movements in `New York New York`? Or was that Judy`s or Bettes?- singing both Marlenes and Marilyns lines with his girlfriend- who is dressed incongously and indistinguishably from a transvestite- life imitating bad art- while the three of us share a beer. Too many beers before my arrival might be an excuse. His lady friends birthday might be another excuse. MIGHT BE...

Incidentally, I had never met this guy before.
`Discreto. Bien Discreto.´He stated. ( Very discreet.) ( This is another story). And a nice guy he is. Gracias no, I am not hungry for `Rollos de Fruita`, puff pastry with custard and fruit. Give me a shank of lamb and pan rustico ( rustic Italian bread).

The answer can only be a `Gay Spore`or or more accurately a´Gay Nelly-Nancy Spore´ . Or perhaps `Nancy- Cenisas`( ashes), blown from a volcano hundreds, even thousands of miles away, of the finest atmospheric dust, only to precipitate and land like Tinkerbells stars on a sleeping child. A baby. And the inner Klieg lite is lit. The recessive DNA is set off. Illuminated. The ash, the spore is planted. And Dianna Ross, Marlene Dietrich. Marilyn or Barbara await to incubate like all those bad creepy horror films of slimy, hanging pods of aliens or demi-huminoids. In the middle of mero-fucking NOWHERE!!!! ( and at my table, worse yet. Sobriety has its disadvantages. You care to some extent.)

BEWARE of when they say ,`Let`s be discreet.` This is pure PROJECTION!!! They already know the words to the songs and have the moves coreographed!!! This isn´t `CHARLA`, ( talk and conversation) like he promised, this is travesti! And not necessarily good travesti. An amateaurs impressions of a professionals craft. We hope craft. ( In Boise Idaho, FORGET IT! They don`t even know the words to the song, or WHICH song they are singing. )

Is there a `CHACALONE` in the house???
- CHACALONE: Literally translates `jackel`, but has the cultural significance here in Mexico of a rough, ordinary man. A taxi driver. A laborer. A carpenter. A regular guy. Someone who would´t be caught dead wearing rhinestones.
``CHAAA-CAAAA-LOONEEE``, I call. Like calling a pet dog, ``Negrito, or Ralph. Vente``

Abrazos

Esteban

Festivals and San Augustinillo

2009-02-06T20:34:00.000-08:00

Feb 7, 09 Puerto Esc., Oax.

Several nights ago a large group of expats, snow birds and I ate a wonderfull dinner at the Hacienda Restaraunt on Ave. Oaxaca ---moist and spicy chicken and shrimp fajitas over chiles asadas; tacos; and dark mole sauce over chicken - TO DIE FOR! The Puerto ( International) Blues Festival, or as I call it: Local House-band with a few has-been-celeb-book-ends, began its first night on the huge plaza of the Hacienda. Music was fair but devoid of life. I left my friends and headed back to Zicatella Beach, and stopped at a small club called Babylon, where a wonderful, energetic, and inspired Mexi-Cuban-Brazillian group was touting instruments I could`t identify: a Brazillian Bilbao?, a goard with a large verticle stick or tube which he percussed. Large shell-embraced goards,( African), electric ukalaelee; Various sizes of Bongos and standard drum sets, and two types of electric guitar, and mini organ, with every imaginable gong, bong, triangle and other percussive instrument. The crowd was half as young and twice as ripped as the Blues crowd, and the band fifty times as talented. After a day of walking and swimming, closed the place.

At dawn today Carmen, her friend Illiana, John and I drove an hour south to San Agustinillo ( A-gus-teen-eee-yo), Mazunte and Ventanilla. We ported our kyacks down from the parking, then helped push several of the long fiberglass boats of the local fisherman, over rolling-sticks, across the sand into the bay. We hopped in, and paddled out in the long inflatable kyacks through the rocks, outcroppings, inlets and isles into the larger bay, passing the Turtle sanctuary at Mazunte, and the steep, brush-covered slopes and outcroppings of `Hippie Hills` . Thatched palapa huts, cabins and homes there and Ventanilla, give the whole rustic coast a `Swiss Family Robinson`feel. Small hotels rest on steep ravines up winding stone steps.
We paddled through the `lavadora`, the `washing machine`, an area between larger outcroppings where the water churns in all directions, and swales up, and down by a three to four meter differential. The open sea was mildly choppy, and the rizing and falling swales obscured the view of the coast, with water valleys a good fifteen feet below the peak of the swale. Illianas´ nervous warbles quickly communicated her discomfort, as it was only her second time in a kayack. `Naou-zzeah`quickly set in so our kayacking was relatively short, but the day spectacular.

Fish life was considerably more diverse here than in Puerto. More needle fish for one, and lots of stiped parrot or angel fish, and spotted and psycodelicly colored blues, and snake-like fish. On the beach, I participated in a minor geo-political-cold-war between three white gulls, and two grey-headed-vultures, or `Zopilote`, the most handsome of the vultures I`ve seen in North America. The black feathers, ( falda) and grey head (chapau) were very understated and elegant .The Vultures are the dominant alpha bird, and will chase the gulls away, then return to picking at the carcus. However they are intimidated by humans getting too close, and will either back off, letting the gulls come forward to scavenge, or fly off. The gulls would let me get within a yard of them, while they picked at the one foot long ´ polly-wog´ fish, with its body-tail. If I backed off, between fifteen to twenty feet away, the `Zopilote` would return chasing the gulls away, bicker with each other, then resume picking and eviserating the dead fish. We played chess like this for a short while, me moving forward and back, the result always the same, untill a blonde four-year-old chased the vultures away entirely.

We walked San Agustinillo beach which has been rated one of the ten best beaches in the world ( By what travel group I do not know) . Carmen, Illiana and I sketched the guano covered islands out in the bay, the hills, rocks, outcroppings and people. A poodle and a doberman both adopted me, and the doberman paced the beach, according to Illiana, looking very concerned while I swam the bay. He greeted me happily when I returned, ready for an ear scratch.
At Eves Restaraunt in the fragrant breezes, we ate omelettes, and Red Snapper cooked Verecruzano style: with hot chilies, olives, peas, carrots, potatoes, garlic and tomatoe sauce.YUMM! String-swaggs of small white seashells hung from the ceiling, as did strange dolls in mini-hammocks, and home-made-munecas with wide skirts, and day-glo-pink-yarn-hair. The breezes. The salty air. The smell of fresh caught fish and moss and outboard motors. Que Riquissima! We drove home, the smells of small evening fires- primarily herbacious leaves and brush- along the highway, listening to a scratchy tape of Mexican Corridos, balefull and hilarious; sometimes Carmen and Illiana singing along, passing fields of papayas, small lots of corn, brushy hillocks and small pueblitos, the sky an opaque pastel.
Abrazos
Esteban

Codissimo!

2009-02-04T13:51:00.000-08:00

Feb. 4-6, 2009 Puerto Escondido, Mx. chapau

Walked out to the brick patio this morning , sat down in the hammock, and looked out though the coconut palms framing the view of the deep blue-green oceon- just below and due west. The sky slowly flushed from a pearlescent paynes-grey to pale pink on the horizon as the sun rose behind us. The white heavily-stuccoed one-unit building sits right above where the hill drops sharply down, this years heavy rains having washed heavy gullies just below. My friends Carmen and John have rented the detatched hotel-kitchenette room adjacent to mine, fifteen dollars a night with monthly-rental and a very favorable exchange rate! We have unobstructed views of the oceon, all the way south to the point and all the way north to the light-house ( el Faro). We are below the rim of the hill and therefore can't hear the traffic from the Pan American highway, so primarily we hear the wind brushing the palm fronds, the breaking of the waves, occasional music from the Zicatella clubs below, and the whistles and chatter-screeching of the beach Gackles that perch on the corner tree. Maid service is sketchy- every other day or so, and the windows haven't been cleaned in recent memory, but the floors, toilets, sheets and towels are, the frig cold and the reading light funtional. Up the brick steps and path, a huge lawn, palms and flowering trees, patio-picnic-palapa, and pool define the compound.

VOCAULARY
`CODO` means cheap with ones money; tight; stingy .

-CODISSIMO= Incredably, rediculously, mother-fucking cheap!!

-CHINGONA ( Chingar is to fuck) One big fucking huge, or fucked-up female

-PACHECO = Pothead or stoner

-ATASCAR= To stuff somethng

-ATASCADO= A stoner stuffed full of drugs

-BARANDA=Night of drinking and carousing

-POCO MADRE= Slang for `Fucking A Man!`

-NALGAS= Ass or cheeks of and ass.

-FODONGA=GORDA FLOJA, or Big lazy woamn

-NALGONE= Big ass on a guy

-NARIS = Nose

-NARIZONE = Guy with a big nose

-PANZA = Stomach

-PANZONE = Guy with a big stomach

-TACONA = Woman in big heals, or tacones

-CABEZON = Guy with a big cabesa or head.

-RUCO = Old fart

-OJOTONE (Ojo means eye) Is the local name for a big-bug-eyed-fish. Reddish colored.

I followed a PANZONA, una gorda ( fat), and tacona ( woman in big heals)-( thank god for thick cork-heals!) , POCO MADRE CHINGONA ,FODONGA, enorme , grandissima, woman in a psycodelic-leapard-skin-print-one-piece-suit ( thank the lord for that, no thongs on this one!) down the stone steps to Carrizalillo beach.

`Huuuufff-Puffff!´ she`d go.The chicle ( gum ) venders, and fresh-fruit venders stopped to watch her pass, eyes wide.

`Huuuuf-Pufff!`. She made it down to step twenty five. Passing tourists stopped and gave her a double-take

`Hufffñ-Pufff!` She made down all eighty-two stone steps, bless her over-worked heart!Looked like the pressure-pounds per square milimeter- on those thick swollen toes- - was going to blow her hot pink toe-nails clear to the water .

Primarily female, late middle-aged or elderly French-Canadians sat about me under the shade of Marias´ palapa today at Carrizalillo ( Car-ee-zah-lee-yo) Beach today, and they are the subtext to this years economic conditions. One can usually pick out the French by their figures- short and stout- and by the womens chapau, worn in sun or shade : Red, mini-flowered, ginham sun hats; blue, short-billed cotton hats; and lots of straw hats. The women breasts were all large and hung VERY low-hung, like gravity had a particular issue with these northern new-world French. The men, what few there were, laid on towels in the sand, or sat at tables, all speaking French. An older man at the adjacent wooden table, sat with a fan of cards in his hands and he sported a large bruized-looking, deeply divitted, rhizonenous nose that made his bottle-thick-reading-glasses seem inconsequential. UN NARIZONE! ( as the joke goes, `Eres de Narizona?` ` Are you from Narizona?) It ledged out from his face like a granitic overhang. The Charles De Gaul Ledge. Most of the other gringos sitting nearby were primarily Canadian, although Italians, Germans, Aussie, and Americans can be found.

They elderly French Canadians dipped or squatted briefly in the water, apropros to their age, while I swam several times to the point at Carrizalillo mini-bay , the water temperatures having gratefully warmed to the mid eighties after last years extremely abnormal cold currents and subsequent tropical fish exodus, algae kills, cold-water-Orcha whale visitations, and the resultant opaque-deep-green waters. Large, squarish, deep-greyAngel fish fiercely guarded their particular rock or coral, chasing interlopers away- as territroial as a drunk gay guy watching his ex-partner in tow with an attractive younger man. Colors flush and fins a flying! Schools of silver Anchovies, yellow striped Angel or Parrot Fish, long pointed stick fish,and small shy ultra-marine blue and electric torquoise fish darted around rocks.
Only one boat bobbed in the tourquoise waves today- Gitana II, (Gypsy woman) . The fish are finally back, as the pelicans were dive-bobbing, with even tuna and large sailfish are slowly making re-appearances, to the excitement of the local pescadores and sports fisherman.

On the walk over, stopped and saw my friend Gina who runs the tourist information casita, and caught up on her take on tourism and economies. Sorry for generalities but Canadians as a traveling nation are known throughout Mexico and Central America as tightest, cheapest, poorest-tipping tourists on record, like a nation of pensioners always suffering a strict budget. CODISSIMOS!!! My friend Ana in Costa Rica complained of them. Hoteliers and waiters here complain of them. However they are here, and for the most part the Americans aren´t. The Canadians are almost single-handedly supporting the tourist economy in Mexico, all those years of being frugal having paid off. So ironicly, what was considered cheap in good times, in these hard times is considered sensibly frugal. Mexico thanks you Canada, IN FAUX LEAPARD-SKIN OR NOT.
Abrazos
Esteban

The Troupadors ( revised)

2009-02-01T12:41:00.000-08:00

Feb 1-2, 2009 Puerto Esconcondido, Oax. Mx.

The combii-bus was bounicng, ticking, rumbling and ratteling along, the blue curtains flapping, and out the window, the sepia-peach light of `tardecer`cast long shadows on the primeaval looking palms to our right. An occasional Brahma bull or small herd of goats bent to the drying grass, the heavy rains having ended in October. Pattie my massage therapist and Mayan Priestess friend ( how often can one drop that into the conversation?) was to my left. In the seat across the aisle sat a handsome young man with dark lambs-wool-curls, the optomistic beginnings of a beard, large twinkling-amber eyes, and directly in the seat behind him , two young and very enamored blonde gringas hummed, giggled, and attemped notes on his ukalaliesque diminuative instrument. His equally scruffy hispanic buddy sat behind us wearing a forties style straw hat. He clacked and popped percussive noises with his mouth, to the delight of the young women , who tryed unsuccessfully to imitate, their liason having not lasted long enough to learn the vocal techniques.

The driver insisted that the curly haired dude not take up seating space with his pack, but when he placed it in the aisle, the lurching of the vehicle would knock it over on my foot. And so we made an amuzed aquaintance. He would apologze, his eyes twinkling as if to say:Big Deal man!

``Don`t worry about it.``I would reply in Spanish. He stood up, placed it on the seat, grabbed the bleached lower jaws and teeth of what must have been a young, deceased horse, and began to hum and rhythmically drawing a stick across the teeth, clacking it like a washer-board-instrument.
´Here´s a man who knows how to pick his props! Pre and post columbian, `day of the dead`and leftist campesino all in one. A cute young Che!´. ` I thought to myself. His buddy grabbed the ukalalie from the blondes, and proceeded to strum the red plastic cords with his fingertips. The two troupadors stood in the aisle and broke into song, a Veracruzano ballad according to Pattie, something about unrequited love. The combi riders were torn between acknowledging the lively and actually quite good performance and therefore be required to tip, or affect disinterest and disdain, and not feel guilty for not tipping. The boys for their part were highly committed to giving a good performance, like the black-beach-Gackle bird winking his tail yesterday, the sunlight reflecting deep ultramarine blue off his tail-feathers and squack-serenading his lady-bird. Here were cute girls to impress and judging from the young ladies faces, sex to be had.
I teased Pattie that maybe I should tell the boys ` I only tip strippers.` to see what they would say. She laughed, but we both knew this was a ´family-combi´ with sunday afternoon programming. Innoucous troupadors were on the schedule. Church or TV football/soccer later.
They took a short break between songs and just to liven things up and because I am a genetic-pot-stirrer, I addressed the curly haired young man in Spanish.
`` Isn`t it disrespectful of a dead animal,´´, I ask, in my best mock seriousness, ´´to play with his teeth. Shouldn`t he be resting in peace, poor animal.?``
`` NO`, he answered smiling without missing a beat. ``Su espirtitu es mas animado y allerge con eso.`` ( His spirit is more happy and lively with this) , as he rhythmicly clacked and dragged on the teeth. I laughed.
Like good troupadors they did a set of three songs, graciously thanked the riders on the combi-bus, and then extended palm and cup to the crowd. I neither attend nor tithe in church so of course felt it my obligation to tip- a justified recompence for making us smile, raising all our spirits, not just the spirits of a dead horse.

Pattie and I said goodbye to our friends and exitted at Lagunas de las Negras, also known as Manialtipec, to watch the sun set behind the sillouette of the pendant, tubular-spears of mango roots, the lapping briny lagoon olive and ochre. Incidentally last year Carmen and I swam in the river part of Manialtipec, and in the past, given assurances of ´NO CROCS´by a friend, I swam the dark waters of the estuary-lake. This past summer a gater snapped off a fishermans legs while he was singing and dragging his nets of fish and shrimp, like two tasty anchovies. Very Steven Songheim ala `Sweenie Todd. Musical and gruesome!
´´Que quieres Boca Grande?´´, pregunatale el masero´ ( ´What do ya want big mouth?´)
asks the waiter.
´´ Un platito de Piernitas con limon.´´(´A little plate of legs, with a slice of lime´ ) replies the Croc. )
One would hope a sad `corrido` or dirge will be composed in his honor. Maybe to the melody of `` Los Colores``,written first from the point of view of the gater.
GATER ``Que piernitas, piernitas
Tan ricas si ricas,
bien sabrosos
los piernitas
de pescador
con aqua
salada
tan ricas ``

The little legs, little legs
so rich , so rich
mmm delicious
the little legs
of the fisherman
with salty
water
so delish
FISHERMAN
``Pinche Cocodrillo
el lago
fue mio
Que barabro
pinche cocodrillo
no advisame
soy un bocadillo

``Damn crocodile
the lake
was mine
how rude
damn crocodile
not to advise
I am the snack
Que vamos hacer, la vida is corta. (What are we to do, life is short) ( I am not going to make any ´shorter´ jokes.) ´Mas animado y allegre Si! todos!` Yes, we are more lively, happy and contented as the sun dipped beyond the mangroves on the horizon, the rippling esturary an inky brown flecked with orange. The bus drove on to Rio Grande, ten minutes up the coast, the troupadors no doubt breaking into song and rasping-clack, in celebration of the moment. The dry mandibule of the horse, his bleached-white expression immutable- disdainful or pleased who can say.
Abrazos
Esteban

Carbon Foot-Prints and Cellulite

2009-01-28T17:07:00.000-08:00

Jan 28-29 2009 Oaxaca City to Puerto Escondido, Oax., Mx..

NOTE TO THE READER:
- The sketches are mine and not self portraits.
- I apologize to those who are green, want to be green, are trying to be green, and those that don`t give a fuck, as I have been amplifying and dragging my carbon footprint from Idaho to the southern Mexican border, brown-black paw-prints from northwest to southeast. It is not my wish to do so.
Shared a `jarita´of cervesa (beer) with a Mexican dentist and an English couple from Brighton England today. He told me in spanish,
`` In America you have an economic cold. Here in Mexico we have economic pnemonia.``
It is a conundrum: how to fatten the coffers of local tourism economies, keep the prosperity flowing, without environmental consequences. ( and given my finances I say this with both irony and optomism)
However, think of me when I die . Look up and note the brown-grey-ethers. That would be the fossil fuels I helped consume and the ozone I have helped deplete- both the dinosaurs and I now extinct but still burning your eyes. Annoying even after death!

My friends John and Carmen arrived from Mexico City today and we drove to the town of Saint Augustin de Etla, and stopped at Hacienda Saint Martha of Barcena , for what has to be the largest buffet in Mexico. Multiply by ten the size of any of the popular Chinese buffets in the states and you have this restaraunt: The dining room seats one thousand people not counting the convention center, the landscaped wedding area, the playground and old prop DC10 (?) stuffed full of kids . Banquet tables of meats in mole. Banquet tables of salads. Banquet tables of deserts. What I took for the chinese sweet dipping sauce was actually a small dipping dish of salt-rimmed mescal.
`Hooorrr-aaaaaa-lleeee!`
After lunch, we drove over to San Augustine de Etla, a few miles away, to drop their kayak at an expat friends rented, landscaped, hacienda- $500 a month! The town sits in the lap of the mountain, and palms, pomogranate, and bougenvilla soften the winding streets . Pine trees grow higher up the slope to the ridge-line, and have provided the wood to build the luxurious catherdrals, churchs and buildings in Oaxaca for the last five hundred years. Large springs that literally sprout out the side of the mountain give the town free water and income . Creeks and ditches cascade and gurgle through the little sweet little pueblo. Francisco Toledo helped develop a Historic factory building of brick construction for a matte-bark-paper taller and arts center.

I couldn`t help look around the waiting room as the flight from Mexico City to Puerto Escondido was queing up. Who do I recognize? How many surfers could afford to come this year?- not many. How many Americans could afford to come this year?- not many. (Not that I could either) Who is that man over there, he looks familiar? And then I remembered. He is the plumpish, late-middle-aged-Irishman who wears a beach thong. I put the face to the memory of the naked cellutitic ass. NOT A PRETTY PICTURE! Thongs should have disclaimers and rules! Noone over a certain age or weight should or can wear them.
In Puebla Omar, Miguel and I walked three doors down to his sisters to have breakfast. We sat down and noticed her kids were watching something on cable television. When we looked over an add came on for cellulite reduction. A woman wearing a nearly invisable thong- so far had it crawled up between the cheeks her ass- and she was drawing a blue light over her rippled, dimpled, enormous, cellutitic ass. The entire room screamed in unison and horror!
Science clearly neads to develop a way that cellulite can be used to reduce carbon foot-print, like a large ozonic sponge. Swish, swish, swipe, swipe-- good as new! NO paw prints in the sky. Then two birds could be killed with one stone. Less cellulite. Less damaged ozone.
Meanwhile, check your derrierre before waddling in a thong to the beach. Please!
Abrazos
Esteban

Oaxaca and Huayapam

2009-01-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

Jan 27-28, 2009 Oaxaca Oaxaca

Sunday my friend Jorge who I´ve known for many years, took me up for a hike on the slopes of the northern hills of Oaxaca Valley, and around a charming, clean village just out of town, known as San Andres de Huayapam-( can you find more indigenous name than that?). Foreigners, primarily Americans and Canadian, have invested here, loving the culture and benign climate of the valley . A majority of the older and newer structures are built with hand-made, burnt sienna and ochre-colored adobe brick, a tradition that has been kept alive in this community. Thomas, a friend of Jorges, an American builder, real estate agent, and former drug lord in his day, who has lived in Oaxaca for thirty years, claims the adobe blocks are considerably stonger, more thermal efficient and cheaper than concrete block if made on site. Soil dug from foundation excavations is mixed with horse manure and then sun baked. Fresh straw is not used as it decomposes in time. The straw- run through the digestive sytems of mule or horses- doesn't rot and holds up to the centuries, as one can see from ancient walls in an around the city.

We lunched at Huayapam Inn and spa, with its traditional Temescali indigenous sweat lodge- in this case an adobe dome with heated rocks and steam. The Buildings are of brick and adobe and on a very warm day the breezes from the restaraunt were soft and cool, the air fresh, and the food fabulous as always down here. A small creek trickles its way down the slope and through town, meandering and crossing fields, businesses, homes and roads through a series of tiny cement ditches and weirs.

Favorite detail: A Plumeria Tree ( Fragiapanni) , with a few fragrant pink blooms and a trunk the size of an oak tree.

In Oaxaca City, the pale torquoise green and buff cantera stone ( local limestone) defines the look and quality Oaxaca. The architecture is traditional Mexican Colonial, but the beauty and integrity of the materials defines the place and makes it special in a way that is hard to define. The valley is high desert, with pine forest mountains on the north side, but the city virtually frostless. Bougenvilla and rare tropicals abound. The cities architectural bones, layered as it has been over five centuries in a stylisticly-consistant way, are pure and rich, with a subtlty equal to the flavor of atole . High, low and indigenous cultures intermingle and produce art, architecure, and a profusion of craft: weavings, clothing, ceramics, paintings, carved figures . It is amuzing to watch middle aged or older American women discover the typica clothing produced locally primarily by the indigenous women. Clothing of brilliant electric colors of cerise pink, purple, reds to earthier colors of ochre, siennas- all patterned , embroidered, or simple.

The one person and American woman who took the spanish speaking tour with me yesterday at the Ethnobotanical Garden, dressed like a color blind three year old who had inadvertantly consumed a hit of acid, then discovered a trunk of indigenous clothing. Torqouize embroidered top, with pink, red and blue ' falda', with a wrapped and contrasting ( to what I wasn't sure) scarf. Also large straw hat also wrapped in a typica weaving, with green, rubber ´gaters´ . Bless her little pallasa *(clown) heart. She has created her own style ready for the fall collections!: Geriatric-indigenous-peasant-punk. Paris awaits!
The guard at the door, accustomed as he is to seeing foreigners, kept double-taking on her. You could see him thinking, ´´Mira este pinche loca perra extranjera!´´ ( Look at this crazy foreign bitch!)
Oaxaca, like Panachel and Antigua Guatemala with the extant Mayan culture ; or India with its plethora of Holy Color days, brilliant saris and ethnic clothing, has that affect of northern ´first-worlders´ reared on long oppressive, grey, monotone winters, neutral clothing, and cookie-cutter cities of mini-malls and tract homes .
It can be a fierce epiphany! How did we manage to make our lives so banal?

WOW!! The Botanical Garden (Ethnobotanico) behind the beautiful Santa Domingo church and museum here is so extraordinary! Their agave collection is worth the trip. Some with leaves as girthy as a ballerninas gam, pale jade colored and striated. Francisco Toledo, the Mexican Master painter contributed to the inception, design and construction of the gardens referencing local Miztec history and architecture. Among the collection, an eight-hundred year old Biznaga or barrel Cactus! Slow and steady, like a Sequoia or a tortuga!
Abrazos
Slow and steady Esteban

Max the Rat Dog

2009-01-26T14:06:00.000-08:00

Jan 26, 2009 Oaxaca Oaxaca, Mx.

The indigenous, rare, hairless, Aztec dog, known throughout Mexico as `Choro-squinkle`, resides at Casa Arnel guest house here in Oaxaca. Rex as he is known within the compound, is considerably larger than the normal ´Choro-squinkle´ - usually they are the size of a Boston Terrier- and he looks like a cross between a genetically altered, doe-eyed hairess rat, and a small-eared German Short-hair. Lack of fleas is an added benefit of his bald state. (I can relate. the meds are a bitch! ) Mornings and late evenings can be quite cool, sometimes cold here, so Rex wears a red ` as-sweat-air`(sweater).

`Choro` here in Mexico can signify a trick, practical joke or something false, and poor Rex does have an evolutionarily-tweeked, inbred- air about him. Not that he has webbed feet or can lay an egg. His general bloated sausage shape, and brown- black spotted skin, give Rex a definite Chorizo look and shape, which perhaps put Aztecs in the mind of eating the breed. No feathers to pluck afterall. They were and are considered a delicacy, like Guinea Pigs in Chile. Yes I know! How terrible, a dog, mans best friend. Blah, blah blah... But many of us eat doe-eyed cows, in the altered shape of a burger or tenderloin. Relax! Rex has a considerably greater chance of eating a bun or tortilla, than being placed between them. I`ll give him a scratch for you all.
Abrazos
Esteban

Images of Puebla- Two for One Sale

2009-01-25T18:46:00.000-08:00

Jan 25, 2009, Puebla Mexico

Puebla. Beautiful historic Puebla, just two hours east over the mountian from Mexico City. Unfortunately like all Mexican cities one has to traverse what seems like miles of visual gargage: block after block of face-less, architectureless cement and brick-block hovels, shacks, homes and businesses - rebar and wire sprouting from their unfinished second floors and rooves-treeless miles of them; identical, one-story-row-houses; Black, industrial mushrooms- fiberglass cisterns- sprouting above them. Marching across a cubistic barren landscape; Shot-gun signage, scrawled and painted floor to ceiling of every store-front, kilometer after kilometer, like some horrible, geometricly-reproducing, secondary-school-font-virus gone awry; all to gain the beautiful historic center.
Popo, the snow-capped-cone to the west, puffing volcanic white ash and steam.
The Centro Historico: Domes, church cupolos, towers,cobbled streets, spires , bell-towers, baroque finials, mosaicos, colorful painted talavera tile against herring-boned red brick facades; cream-puff, wedding cake- mouldings, lentils, eaves and trim. Filigreed iron balconies and railings; Sixteenth through twentieth century architecture. Well maintained, tree lined and flowered plazas; fountains big and small; Puffing volcanoes. A five hundred year-old mumified saint -San Sebastian Aparico- in San Sebastian church: waxed facial features, fryer-robed-body, with dryed, rotted, jerky-like-toe-less feet. ( Question: when those toes fell off, were they placed in a Catholic relinquary somewhere, along with a piece of Jesus presumed foreskin, like in Italy? Does E-Bay have of sales catergory for bits and pieces of dead saints, martars and gods? Two-for-one sale? A finger, a toe and a crystal thrown in for good measure?)
Museums and exhibits: Amparo Museum, with five thousand years of pre-hispanic ceramic art! The Beas 1920's circus photos by Guillermo Robles Collejo- great visual aid while reading ' Water For Elephants' . The gardens and historic exhibits near the convention center.
Saturdays excursion out to the approx. 8OO A.D. Cacaxtla ( ca-cash-tla) pyramids, twenty minutes from town, down green, willow-lined lanes, bordered by verdant pastures , puffing Popo and the mountains off to the south and west. Beautiful frescoe murals, a stylistic mixture of Mayan and Teotijuaxacano styles. Gods of war: agriculture, rain, and venus illustrated as Jaguar skirted, scorpian-tailed men, feathered serpents, stylistic corn sprouting human heads; captive, near-naked, muscular soldiers, bleeding from sacrificial wounds while the head-dressed imperious Xicalanca soldier or priest stands above him; brandished spears. Tales of victory, sacrifice and suffering- the music and poetry nearly tangible . All painted in earthy yet brilliant cream, ochre, tourquoise black and white mineral and vegetable pigments.
Hanging out in the warmth of sunlit plazas, eating hot spiced peanuts and having a beer. Blue corn Casa Dias, with flower of Zuchini, string cheese, and spicy chipotle sauce. Bullshitting with very bright Herman, my guide, or with Mario and Omar, my friends of many years.
Ok E-bay... I would like a prostrate, near naked, bronzed, Olmec-Xicalanca-Mayan soldier with Quetzal-tourquoize-green-feathered head-dress, with a side of lute music. Served on a padded plinthe. What can you do? Two-For-One sale?
Yo sufro mucho! Verdad?!
Later
Abrazos
Esteban

Nazcar Chapel Fund

2009-01-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

Saturday, Jan 24, 2009; Puebla, Puebla

Imagine if you will, an American diversion or sport that has its own dedicated chapel , in this case Catholic, to engender protection and luck to the suplicant, parishioner or `star`. Yesterday, while touring the sites with my guide Herman- a friend of Omars- who I incidentally walked into the ground at the tender age twenty-four, we discovered just north and left of Iglesia San Francisco in downtown Puebla, a charming little chapel dedicated to the protection, and luck of ´Torreos´, or bullfighters. I find this sweet and very Mexican, in a kitschy-way, this mix of religion, culture and sport. In the back of the chapel- displacing the usual crucifix of Jesus, Mary looking beatific , a host of angels and cherubs in puffy cumulous clouds - is a colorful mural of a bullfight in process painted aggressively in bright tequila colors. In fact I think the image was `appropriated`from one of the cheaper brands of tequila. A black bullfighter hat hangs on the left wall, and on the niche on the right of the entrance are small framed clippings of toreos. Put this in the context of American culture, if one were to look for an equally dangerous sport before it had involved into a stylized art, Nazcar- Neanderthal diversion that it is- might come up. Gee, think of the double PR publicity George W. would have gotten had he paid homage to BOTH a religious site AND his constituencies favorite noisy diversion! American reality shows might come in as a second choice for such a chapel, given the ego carnage involved in singing and dancing for judges and audiences of millions of people. So perhaps we should get a Nazcar Chapel Fund going. Christians and Catholics may donate. (Non-denominational, How PC! ) Volunteers Wanted! Just don´t write ME thank you!!! ( I have my own starving artist-landscaper fund I am trying to launch!)
Abrazos
Esteban

Judge Roberts and Testicular Micro-Phones

2009-01-21T08:50:00.000-08:00

Jan 21,2009- Dorango Blvd., Mexico City

Projection of voice is an issue I´ve had with many people. A very diminuative woman in our Boise Spanish Group, lacking her booster step-stool, would whisper at my testicles in marginally audible- at least to my occupationally damaged ears- spanish.

`Disculpa Senora, No habla a mi testiculos. No son microphonos! No amplifica NADA!`

( Please Madame, don`t talk to my testicles. They are not microphones. They don`t amplify!)

¨Find your inner strength. Stand tall and erect. Connect with your Diaphram. Find your macha yet female llevos and project. Think Maria Callus.! Very good.!}

I have the same issue with Daniel. He smoked heavily for twenty years and speaks in a very low range-gravelly tone common with old drunks and bar men. If only he were a torch singer with a good micro-phone. But he isn`t. The elephants at the Mexico Zooilogico can pick up his low-range sound waves and just last night they were tweeking their large leathery ears and lifting their trunks in acknowledgement. However I am always left with saying,

`Que??` ( What?)

`Mande??`

´´Find your inner strength´´, I want to say.´´Stand tall and erect. Connect with your diaphram. Find your llevos and project. Think Pavarotti ! Very good.´´

I fear the very conservative Judge Roberts, while swearing In President Obama, had a similar issue, politicians and powerful Federal Judge egos being what that are. Pardon me, but it all boils down to balls and testasterone regardless of the mammalian species. We are animals afterall, we humans , with just a whole lot of verbage to disguize the fact. Whether it be who peed on the water hydrant, the lamp post , the tree trunk, the national monument or the barrister rail, it´s all the same . Bush´s conservative, some would say militaristic pack of four years ago; now Obamas more moderate we hope sensible pack today. I watched Spanish CNN at a street-side coffee stand on Durango Blvd. here in Mexico City, distracted by considerable ambiant noise: car horns, sirens, car, truck and motorcycle rubbling mufflers and screeching brakes. Obamas voice however was marginally audible,- turned down- so the spanish translaters booming voice could be amplified. ( Radio voice egos--- Now there are some llevos in need of expression!)

Yes Judge Roberts, you did verbally stumble. Even I , with all the disrtractions, picked up on it.

´´ Judge, just stand up on your step-stool,´´ I want to say. ´´Pull your robes and obscure the stool, ( without looking down please- hit those operetic marks!) Stand tall and erect. What´s that Judge? No, I wouldn´t stand like Mousalinni. We might want to play that down, that whole water-boarding thing. Think Donnie Osmond, only bigger. Good, good, that´s working for you. ´´

´´I wouldn´t do that with the arms Judge, with all due respect, you are not Jesus. Now breathe deeply; Find your inner strength. Connect with your diaphram. Find your llevos and project. Think Pavarotti ! Think Maria Callus. Oh, sorry Judge. Balls shrivel did they? I Know, just expand your diaphram and contract your llevos. Balls, sorry Judge. Connect with your balls. NOW you are looking good! Very Donny Osmond in Vegas under a kleig light! Very Pavarotti-Federal-Judge! Good man! You have found your testicular microphones!´´
´´RelaxJudge,´´ I want to say. ´´You will problably still be working on the ´Bench´, given your comparative High-Court-judicial-youth, long after Obama is gone.!

Just remember - Contracta los llevos!!!

Abrazos

Esteban

Abrazos

Esteban

Cell Phone Separation Anxiety

2009-01-18T16:35:00.000-08:00

Monday Jan 19, Mexico City

Yesterday disembarked from the flight at Benito Juarez Airport, collected my bag on the carousel without a hitch, and suddenly had a flash of anxiety realizing I had no local contact number for Carmen and more importantly NO CELL PHONE. Just her E-mail address. John her husband is as dependably solid as Half Dome in Yosemite, but Carmen ... Well, I love her to death. And I didn´t know who was picking me up.

I turned the corner of the etched glass screen beyond the luggage carousel, walked four paces and this woman in a jacket and jeans greeted me.

' Oh, Carmen, I didn´t recognize you out of Puerto Escondido shorts or swim suit!.´

´I didn´t recognize you Esteban, with your cap and sweatshirt.!´ We both laughed.

John, she and I ran a few errands in her mothers car then headed to Coyoacan, Frida Khalos former hood, where we walked the plaza in the sunshine and found a great restaraunt and had pozole soup( tomatoe and chicken stock with white hominy corn, chilies and greens and spice sides) and tacos con bistec y nopales ( diced beef-steak with cactus greens). Then they drove to a Condessa Bario where I am staying with Daniel, one of her friends from art school days.

Puerta Vallarta was a blur of burning candles in saint-in-the-niche-kitsch-botique hotel and courtyards, AND burning MY candle at both ends- swimming much of the day, eating out at great Italian and Mexican restaraunts with new aquaitances- Brits, Canadians and Americans, men and women- great fun people- and later, dancing till late . PV is a resort town catering to foreigners and therefore the food, architecture and service in general are a projection of those tastes. Enjoyed culinary treats designed for the gringo pallette like Seared scallops in white wine sauce or Mahi Mahi in chocolate sauce or fennel salad, but frankly I am happy that the three days of the ´Pubic Wars´in P.V. have ended: the blaring music of restaurants and clubs, the drunken patrons- straight, gay and the frilly edges of both- pouring out into the streets of ´Old Town´and the highly sexualized atmosphere in general. A delightful counterpoint to the up-tight states but a little goes a long ways!

This morning not one hundred feet from Daniels stone and brick apartment building: an aging 1920´s, Tim Burtonesque-Mexi-deco-baraque structure looking almost Cuban in its neglect, stopped at a street stand with well dressed patrons standing about, and a chubby aproned morena ( dark-skinned) served me a blue corn gordita with hongos, huitlacoche, queso y salsa roja. ( mushrooms, black corn-mold, white string-cheese with red sauce ). Finally, I am in Mexico-Mexico!! Hand-made blue corn tortilla and huitlacoche are pre-columbian cuisine and stupendous!

Danny is a kind and good looking guy working in television advertizing production. His apartment is tall-ceilinged, with theatrical gesso-molding trim on the corners of the cieling and light molds, and thick, aged, cracked walls and floors. This building has survived countless earthquakes, but only marginally surviving the current indifferent landlord. A narrow-treaded, faux-granite spiral staircase leads one up to the second floor, down cavernous decco-detailed hallway, past an sagging and partially paneless stained glass window. A typica-dressed Tejana woman- as much of her as one can make out- with her apron, skirt and almost feather-like cap, is bordered by brilliant- even with the dim inner-courtyard light- green banana leaves, organ, and oval-padded opuntia Cactus . The poor lady looks like she has been a victim of a gangland shoot-out! ( Don´t say ´Shooot-out´ to nervous relatives in the states!)

The decrepid grandeur of the building is an apt metaphor for both Mexico City and the nation, with the recent U.N. and U.S. State Departments designation as ´dangerous nation on the verge of collapse´-status. Carmen, John and I walked the beautiful Polanco neighborhood and passed a large expensive sports store which she pointed out. The owner was both a former art patron of hers, buying many of her sculptures, and the victim of urban crime. His seventeen year-old son was kidnapped, held for ransom and eventually killed. One creepy, very sad degree of seperation! Advice here echoes advice I received while working and building parks in the poorest neighborhoods in New York in the early 80´s- the South Bronx, Harlem, and Alphabet city:

- Always be street smart and street aware, and respect the neighborhoods and people in them . Dress down, never dress Rich or Yuppie. Never carry more money on you than you are willing to lose. Never show fear or vulnerability. And place your faith where you must: Jesus, Budda, the universe, or your cynical belief that what will be, will be.

This sunny afternoon Danny and I walked his ´Condessa´ barrio, one of the wealthiest in city, past street cafes, beautiful buildings primarily of early and mid-century Mexican design, through the Parque de Mexico with its large Deco amphitheatre, ponds and recently restored landscaped paseos. All in remarkably good shape! His building seems to be the exception here as rents are high and streets very clean, walkable and friendly. ´Condessa´Barrio boasts Dorango Ave., and is bordered by Reforma Ave., both with wide boulevards and median Parkways with trees and plantings leading to axially placed large fountains on center round-a-bouts. Gigantic two meter mounds of agaves explode from the round-a-bout at the end of Ave. Veracruz where Danny lives. This ain´t Boise!

Well, this benign travelor is on the verge of collapse, and the cyber attendant is kicking me out.

Hasta pronto.

Abrazos

Esteban

Upstairs-Downstairs

2009-01-15T17:32:00.000-08:00

Puerta Vallarta, Jalisco Mx. Jan 15,16 -09

Mexicana at LAX was faster and more efficient than it has ever been, with the very Mexican exception that the arrivals were on the departure floor and the departures on the arrival, and the baggage name tag I grabbed from the counter-container already had a name inscribed on it. Could have be considerably worse: could of have been a spotless toilet- like I found once while traveling- with a sanitary paper band, which when broken and the lid lifted, revealed a exceedingly-large, lumbersome bowel movement submerged like an out-of-power submarine ( silenced by the UAE- sorry.. topical joke) waiting for the reactors to kick in. Sanitary... doubtful; impressive, without a doubt!
Those of my readers who revel in being right- virtually ALL of you!!!- will be happy to know that my first fork-full of the planes Chicken breast in red salsa, landed in my lap. ( Shut up Jeffery!) There are constants in life: Mexicana's continued upstairs-downstairs service; high above, the zig-zag sillouette of Terns in the creamy-pink Vallarta dusk slowly circling in the convection currents, while far below tourists mingle, walk the beach, halkers extent their jewelry, paper tatoos and wares; speakers blair on penthouse terraces whild male strippers bump, grind and work the howling crowd for tips, flashing an occasional cock-ringed and turgid member to amp up the excitement and extract more tips. ( Weren't they doing this eight years ago when I was here? Still hard after all these years! Where is that temple to Viagra? Does one light candles or offer pills? Will sinus pills or aspirin offend the gods?) Willowy, insouciant boy-men, one with skimpy speedos that read ´I am a Virgin´in big red letters across his ass , and the other with a T-shirt saying 'I' d Fuck Me´ work the terrace bar like seasoned professionals. Beach theatre.
The BBC series 'Plantet Earth' failed miserably in not including the mating rituals of the international-urban homosexual in semi-tropical Mexico. Forget the dancing-strutting, ultra-marine-blue-tailed male birds in Borneo. They pale in comparison to some of the bleached- ratted- sprayed-coiffure; bejeweled; pumped; primped; steroided; braized-scorched and creamed; tatooed; The collective social gaggles, gay 'packs' of secondary-school-like cliques one can see here on the beach or in the cafes, tilting their coctails and forever perusing the possibilities. The faces change slightly but the scene never falters.
It is all so 'Planet Earth' and timeless! Like bull elks bugling, joisting and rutting ; Peacocks and Partridge and Chucker strutting; The 'upstairs' Golf bronzed, craggy-faced foreign broads dripping in gold necklaces pass the 'downstairs' dark craggy-faced indigenous-begger-senoras squatted on the side-walk, hands or cups extended. The faces and players and role change with the year, decade, age and social circumstance- this season Paloneus, Brutus, last year Cleopatra, Alexander and Pee-Wee-Herman. Macho and mincing. The conquerer and victim, the schoolboy and the 'lech'..
The dance continues. The tide rizes and falls. The gulls and rent boys scavenger. The waves break and the Tern glide and spin.
Nor do I change, as I scrub the red sauce off my favorite sweat-shirt. Shit!
Esteban

Esteban

Hannibal's Snow Studs- corrections

2009-01-14T17:27:00.000-08:00

CORRECTIONS: The booties are called 'Uggs', not hugs. Hugs to you all nonetheless.
QUESTION: Riz asked, 'Did Hannibal have purple hair when he crossed the Alps in 225 B.C during the Punic Wars?'
I read or saw it somewhere... Memory does not serve me here. Was it an image I have stored between fuzzy synapsis, of a Felini movie? Was it an Annis Anin novel and I was wishing I was the slave? This is a research assignment for a bored obsessive-compulsive out there. Volunteers are gladly taken.
Google 'Hannibal' and you will find historians can't agree on his invasion route into Italy, his race, much less his hair-do or color.
I personally think he fought brilliantly in the 'Pubic' Wars, had a purple Afro and a bronzed slave named Esteban. History is after-all thirty percent interpretive, sixty percent the PR of the winners and in my case one hundred per cent projection.
- 'Hut Hut! Yes I would be glad to come up and relax in your elephant carriage. Pull those sheer curtains would you, 'n pass me a glass of Roman wine.Mmmm Great couscous'
Esteban

Hannibal's Snow Studs

2009-01-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

1-14-09 Hunington Beach
Purple-haired Hannibal , mounted on his elephants crossing the Alps probably got the looks I got yesterday in Venice Beach driving my geriatric Prius with metal-studded-snow-tires. The clacking metal to cement sound, coming from such an un-Mercedes, un-Corvette un-Matsaradi car in a funky Southern California beach town clearly was shocking to many. Kitten car with panther claws! People stopped, stared, looked at the tires, scratched their heads. Some frowned, like 'Who is he trying to impress?'
I read somewhere Hannibals elephants wore humongous studded leather booties- Pachyderm 'Uggs'- to gain the ice and snow-covered routes and passes, not un-like the Idaho-Utah border in a bad winter. And I am sure he was as grateful as I to see his first palm tree.
I did find a Hannibal-fr0-visor-wig in Venice on the board-walk but unfortunately it was too small.
'Hut-hut!' onward Dumbo, Mexico awaits!
Esteban

Snap Snap n' Shop

2009-01-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

Studio City, Ca. 1-13-09
I successfully tarnished a straight buddies reputation by shopping with him at Studio City's Bed Bath and Beyond today. (Not that he cared. ) Our objective: Furnish his classy Airstream-port-a-poke-residence and soon to be Malibu-parked-domicile, with comfort items and necessities. His girlfriend is due down from San Francisco next Friday.
In Boise Idaho such a shopping venture between two buddies would have no sexual overtones. The plump, corn-fed-Mormon housewives working there aren't that sophisticated. Here in Studio City- just north of the Swish Alps- two men choosing sheets and duvets obviously simmered with sexual connotation for the young, hip and ethnic-diverse staff.
' Would you BOYZZZ ...' they intoned. The arched eye brows of one male Asian staffer said it all.
' No Really, this is for a fuck-fest with his girlfriend' I kept wanting to correct- but I knew it wouldn't fly. Although Brad couldn't look or act gay if he wanted or tryed, local history and demagraphics condemned us. So shop, select, and coordinate we did. Snap. snap. You go tatoo-man!