Well, after Slovakia and a quick overnight train (we slept!) to Prague, we caught our connection to Susice... Susice would become home for the next three weeks...
Susice is a remarkable small town at the edge of the Sumava National Forest. It's one of those quaint sleepy towns with the center being a charming main plaza with a clock tower in the center and a perfect shade tree in front... of course, there is the famous fountain, which became the meeting point for many a night of pivo and laughter. Along the East of Susice runs a river with turns and drops through a slightly forested lane... on a hot day, we saw plenty of folks sun bathing and kayaking along the river ... the occasional raft with a posse. There was also a nice park along part of the river for visiting, picnicking, people watching, etc ... not to mention the outdoor (redundant) beer garden, Santos... where we spent a few good nights chatting about lost fathers, morality, academia and whether or not it was really ok for women to hold their babies in their arms while piss streamed out of their hoo-hoos against a tree...
The "reason" for Susice was Project "New Eyes" which was designed and initiated by Dr. Steve Sternfeld, of the U of Utah and Michael Polacek, a Czech by birth and American by communism. The project had many aims, but was primarily created as an intercultural communications class with a teacher education component... that's where I came in... Two colleagues (Zuzana and Mara) and I were the supervisors of the undergraduate preservice language teachers. We worked with the students and the Czech teachers to share approaches to teaching English as a foreign/second language.
Anyway - enough of that! All students were hosted by Czech families. I was placed in a Czech orphanage for teenagers - the older crew who had already lived at the children's home for young people, but now as of 17 yrs of age had moved down to Susice to attend Gymnasium (high school) or Vocational School. To be honest, most of them were at the vocational school. The system is interesting and nice in comparison to what I hear about some of our options in the US (foster homes - in it for the money, sometimes abusive ... BUT - I know there are great foster families out there too..) Anyway - this situation is a home in which the children live as if in dorms. They are fed together 3 square meals. Their supervisors are live in staff that rotate on 12 hr. shifts and are known to the children and the supervisors as their 'aunts' and 'uncles'. Most of the children ended up there in their early teens, turned away by parents who just didn't want to deal anymore. Their stories were heart breaking... and some have been in the system since birth or early years.
In the children's home, I shared a room with a wonderful young woman named Lucka who had lived there her whole life... and now she's 20. She'll probably finish vocational school (as a cosmetologist or stylist) and then be on her own, to find a flat and get established as an adult! I really bonded with her, although nonverbally as she can't speak more than three or so words of English (she chose to study German instead - as did many, since Germany is a neighbor ... but she still wished she'd learned English and will work to improve it before I come back next year!)
There is so much to say about my time in Susice... unfortunately, I got way behind in my blogs and now I'm paying the price....
The first week or even two weeks were very busy and even a bit stressful. The food here is way cruxy for a vegetarian... carbs and meat, carbs and meat... I finally found a few safe havens where I could get good salads... Tragically, I was expecting room and board for 3 weeks, a chance to save money and not have to spend, spend, spend on food... but, the situation at the children's home didn't work out like I planned, so I did spend too much eating out... oh well! Save a cow, get punished! :)
One of the first suggestions I made was to have a regular 8pm meeting point at the fountain where people could come out and perhaps meet up with others in the program, Czechs or Americans... it was a huge success and maybe a life saver for some... I personally was there almost every night. My kids went to bed so early and it was so refreshing for me to get out. Fortunately, many Czechs got on board, so the opportunities for intercultural communication were ever present. We usually rallied around the fountain for 20 minutes or so and then headed into a pub or restaurant close by ... we definitely frequented some of the same places over and over and over ... it was great to feel like part of the town, recognize the folks in the shops and bars, and be recognized... Susice is tiny and Susice became home!
I'll add more as it comes to mind, but for now - I have to get ready for the biggest adventure of my life... a sick bike tour across Europe! Check it out @ www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/galseurotour07
Yeehaw!
Rai
Friday, June 08, 2007
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Czech Republic - Slovakia 2007 (1)
From Prague, Mara and I headed via the night train to Slovakia. Zuzana S. was waiting at the other end for us. We arrived to Banska Bystrica well rested after a cozy night in a sleeping cabin with bunk beds. We made our ways over to the apartment of Zu's friend, Eva, where we dropped our heaviest bags and only took what we really needed to survive for three days in the loving home of Zu's parents. We took the bus to her parents home, with one transfer and too much humidity... we arrived 40minutes later.
The village, Myto Pod Dumbieron, is tiny! It's one street that has a small river flowing along side it with about 30 or fewer buildings making up the whole town. Zuzana's parents live a short walk from the bus stop in a cute little white cottage, that has a great little mini-barn outside, where they keep 3 young sheep... the rest of the flock is out grazing in the fields with a larger flock, but these three graze around the house until they are bigger. Two of them are particularly small because they are twins, so they come in at about half the size of the third from the same time of birth...
Our time in Myto, was all about relaxing and attempting to recover from jetlag, which we succeeded at eventually, although it was a kicker. I slept most days for at least an hour and felt wiped out every day. The slavic diet didn't help... I was coming from my vegetarian fare in Utah which consists heavily of ... you guessed it! Vegetables ... to this medley of carbs and carbs and carbs ... oh and chocolate and cheese... So, let's not even go there on the plumbing ... I'll just say I didn't feel like myself for about a week.
All joking aside, Zu's mom took such great care of us. She fed us plentifully, always with a vegetarian option for me. She made sure we had plenty to eat at each meal, to the point of making our bellies bulge and then she offered more. She was so sweet... the kind of mom you want to squeeze and kiss and never say good-by to.
Aside from eating and sleeping, we went on a few hikes in the green hills around Myto and took one drive to a nearby town to meet Zuzana's brother, niece and nephew ... and their very cute 11week old puppy. The area was gorgeous and the air so clean! The homes were simple European cottage style with worn facades and lovely gardens. Everyone seems to love lavendar and rock gardens ... truly talented horticulturalists abound!
After a relaxing few days, a few nice walks, a sorrowful farewell with our adopted parents, we headed back to the train to endure another night's rest in a sleeping cabin - bound for Prague, from where we caught a local train southwest to Susice ... the town which started it all! We'd be living and working in Susice for the next three weeks.... so much more to come on that! I love Susice!
Chau
The village, Myto Pod Dumbieron, is tiny! It's one street that has a small river flowing along side it with about 30 or fewer buildings making up the whole town. Zuzana's parents live a short walk from the bus stop in a cute little white cottage, that has a great little mini-barn outside, where they keep 3 young sheep... the rest of the flock is out grazing in the fields with a larger flock, but these three graze around the house until they are bigger. Two of them are particularly small because they are twins, so they come in at about half the size of the third from the same time of birth...
Our time in Myto, was all about relaxing and attempting to recover from jetlag, which we succeeded at eventually, although it was a kicker. I slept most days for at least an hour and felt wiped out every day. The slavic diet didn't help... I was coming from my vegetarian fare in Utah which consists heavily of ... you guessed it! Vegetables ... to this medley of carbs and carbs and carbs ... oh and chocolate and cheese... So, let's not even go there on the plumbing ... I'll just say I didn't feel like myself for about a week.
All joking aside, Zu's mom took such great care of us. She fed us plentifully, always with a vegetarian option for me. She made sure we had plenty to eat at each meal, to the point of making our bellies bulge and then she offered more. She was so sweet... the kind of mom you want to squeeze and kiss and never say good-by to.
Aside from eating and sleeping, we went on a few hikes in the green hills around Myto and took one drive to a nearby town to meet Zuzana's brother, niece and nephew ... and their very cute 11week old puppy. The area was gorgeous and the air so clean! The homes were simple European cottage style with worn facades and lovely gardens. Everyone seems to love lavendar and rock gardens ... truly talented horticulturalists abound!
After a relaxing few days, a few nice walks, a sorrowful farewell with our adopted parents, we headed back to the train to endure another night's rest in a sleeping cabin - bound for Prague, from where we caught a local train southwest to Susice ... the town which started it all! We'd be living and working in Susice for the next three weeks.... so much more to come on that! I love Susice!
Chau
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Utah-Czech Republic 2007 (1)
I don't even know where or how to start. I've been so blocked since I've been here - writer's block that is... and now, 2.5 weeks in, I'm trying to get something out - still feeling uninspired, but feeling pressure from home to get something out... so, let's just see where it goes...
Prague - My flight took me from SLC to Atlanta with a final destination of Prague, Czech Republic. I had the good fortune of being able to meet Mara, a colleague for the program, in Atlanta - so we travelled together and were able to flounder through the airport together, floundering not seeming like the right word really - in fact, floundering something I rather miss -
I fear I'm a seasoned traveller and consequently, miss out on some of those firsts that used to blow my mind and cause the words to flow ... I'm still far from the unaffected tourist who struggles to find beauty in the simple daily life of another culture, but it's not the same as it was 7, 5, or even 3 years ago. I read through some of my old posts and frowned, laughed and marvelled over some of my thoughts. I was so young, so uninformed in some cases and yet so enlightened and optimistic - excited about every detail. Now, I think the details still excite me but my way of enjoying or celebrating over the little thrills has morphed and now a lot of the experience stays within.
But, having said all that - let me try to be that young traveller again and share what I've seen, smelled, tasted and heard so far.
The 'floundering' that may have happened so far would include, first, the fact that we didn't have a single idea about the Korona-Dollar conversion... something that I may have tried to know before leaving the States on previous trips - now with the advent and prevalance of ATM machines in every country, that simply pop out the local currency - the need to find the bank or use traveller's checks is dead to me. But, still, knowing the basic conversion is useful for knowing if you'll take out enough to even pay for a taxi to the city center. We figured it out - 26 Kc to 1$ - a SHITTY conversion compared to just a few years ago when you got 45Kc to the dollar... Sad for us, good for them - as someone recently told me, it's Bush's mission to weaken the dollar during his 'reign' for whatever reason - well, my economist friend made it clear over Czech beer, but my explanation will have to be absent... all I know is that it sucks to travel on our dollar anymore... it was bound to happen.
So, we took a taxi and had the fortune of knowing someone on the other end. Zuzana's (Zuzana S.) cousin lives in Prague. He was very kind and let us come straight to him, drop off our bags and then gave us the basic hitlist for a day in Prague, showed us the way of the local transportation and helped us buy our overnight ticket to Slovakia for that evening - something that would have been very difficult without him. As 'global' as Prague has become (Praha in Czech) I was surprised to see no English in the main train station - no indicatio of which window serves nation/international or how much anything costs... no translation for the words - train, track, car, seat, time, day.... that was cruxy, but we had Petr.
Once Petr set us free, we headed out into Prague. I called my friend Zuzana K., a friend I made on a climbing stint in Spain - from El Chorro and the Finca la Campana. She met us on the steps of the history museum, which sits at the top of Prague's equivalent to the Champs Elyses. Zuzka's way of letting me know she was there was very cute... she hid behind a little wall and sent her super cute doggie up to me... I was so excited that a dog was running with wagging tail, just to say hi to me ... when giggles came at me from nowhere... finally, she jumped up! Playing games, as always!
Zuzka drug Mara and me around all of Prague in three hours or so. I, personally, didn't sleep at all on the flight from Atlanta and was a zombie most of the time - fortunately, Zuzka and her bouncing puppy had enough energy for the three of us. We saw the famous sights... the Orloj - an enormous cookoo clock in the main square, we crossed the gorgeous Charles Bridge into old town, sauntered through the shade of huge trees, inhaling the lilac breeze to the other side of a park by the river where we marched up steep, narrow, cobblestone streets past the oldest pub in Prague and up to the castle and cathedral... the view from there - spectacular and the best in all the city. The Charles Bridge was remarkable - filled with tourists, busquers, artists selling prints, jewelry, music, hair clips... you name it, homeless with their starving dogs in child's pose next to empty hats or small dixie cups ... It was stimulating - overwhelming for some - superb for me! So much to take in, to smile about, frown about - so many colors, so many languages, so many shapes and sizes...
.... need a drink...
More to come!
Prague - My flight took me from SLC to Atlanta with a final destination of Prague, Czech Republic. I had the good fortune of being able to meet Mara, a colleague for the program, in Atlanta - so we travelled together and were able to flounder through the airport together, floundering not seeming like the right word really - in fact, floundering something I rather miss -
I fear I'm a seasoned traveller and consequently, miss out on some of those firsts that used to blow my mind and cause the words to flow ... I'm still far from the unaffected tourist who struggles to find beauty in the simple daily life of another culture, but it's not the same as it was 7, 5, or even 3 years ago. I read through some of my old posts and frowned, laughed and marvelled over some of my thoughts. I was so young, so uninformed in some cases and yet so enlightened and optimistic - excited about every detail. Now, I think the details still excite me but my way of enjoying or celebrating over the little thrills has morphed and now a lot of the experience stays within.
But, having said all that - let me try to be that young traveller again and share what I've seen, smelled, tasted and heard so far.
The 'floundering' that may have happened so far would include, first, the fact that we didn't have a single idea about the Korona-Dollar conversion... something that I may have tried to know before leaving the States on previous trips - now with the advent and prevalance of ATM machines in every country, that simply pop out the local currency - the need to find the bank or use traveller's checks is dead to me. But, still, knowing the basic conversion is useful for knowing if you'll take out enough to even pay for a taxi to the city center. We figured it out - 26 Kc to 1$ - a SHITTY conversion compared to just a few years ago when you got 45Kc to the dollar... Sad for us, good for them - as someone recently told me, it's Bush's mission to weaken the dollar during his 'reign' for whatever reason - well, my economist friend made it clear over Czech beer, but my explanation will have to be absent... all I know is that it sucks to travel on our dollar anymore... it was bound to happen.
So, we took a taxi and had the fortune of knowing someone on the other end. Zuzana's (Zuzana S.) cousin lives in Prague. He was very kind and let us come straight to him, drop off our bags and then gave us the basic hitlist for a day in Prague, showed us the way of the local transportation and helped us buy our overnight ticket to Slovakia for that evening - something that would have been very difficult without him. As 'global' as Prague has become (Praha in Czech) I was surprised to see no English in the main train station - no indicatio of which window serves nation/international or how much anything costs... no translation for the words - train, track, car, seat, time, day.... that was cruxy, but we had Petr.
Once Petr set us free, we headed out into Prague. I called my friend Zuzana K., a friend I made on a climbing stint in Spain - from El Chorro and the Finca la Campana. She met us on the steps of the history museum, which sits at the top of Prague's equivalent to the Champs Elyses. Zuzka's way of letting me know she was there was very cute... she hid behind a little wall and sent her super cute doggie up to me... I was so excited that a dog was running with wagging tail, just to say hi to me ... when giggles came at me from nowhere... finally, she jumped up! Playing games, as always!
Zuzka drug Mara and me around all of Prague in three hours or so. I, personally, didn't sleep at all on the flight from Atlanta and was a zombie most of the time - fortunately, Zuzka and her bouncing puppy had enough energy for the three of us. We saw the famous sights... the Orloj - an enormous cookoo clock in the main square, we crossed the gorgeous Charles Bridge into old town, sauntered through the shade of huge trees, inhaling the lilac breeze to the other side of a park by the river where we marched up steep, narrow, cobblestone streets past the oldest pub in Prague and up to the castle and cathedral... the view from there - spectacular and the best in all the city. The Charles Bridge was remarkable - filled with tourists, busquers, artists selling prints, jewelry, music, hair clips... you name it, homeless with their starving dogs in child's pose next to empty hats or small dixie cups ... It was stimulating - overwhelming for some - superb for me! So much to take in, to smile about, frown about - so many colors, so many languages, so many shapes and sizes...
.... need a drink...
More to come!
Friday, May 18, 2007
El Salvador-Nicaragua 2006 (4)
Hello! Sorry for the quick departure from the last message...although judging by the lack of responses, I doubt anyone noticed... I'll save the sad explanation for the end. So, here I sit on our last night in Nicaragua. Tomorrow morning at a rediculous early hour (3am) we get on a bus headed to San Salvador... We'll spend one day there and the next day be on a plane to the states!! So, how did the trip continue from the paradise beach...Well, after fighting for the turtles and good waves for about a week, we opted to head inland and tackle that volcano we passed up previously. We hoped that while we were away the winds would shift and we'd come back to perfect waves... In the meantime, to La Isla Ometepe we go!The journey began nice enough with a shared taxi to San Jorge, a quick photo session with two monkeys chained to a tree, the feeding of a starving mama dog and the embarking of a very old ferry. The ferry ride across lake Nicaragua was an hour long with a slight drizzle... both volcanoes were in sight the whole way, although both summits were in a cloud. The island is the largest island in a fresh water lake in the whole world... so I heard a gringo report. When we arrived to the island, we made way to our little cozy room then quickly sought out some grub and even got to see a movie... The movie theatre was the main foyer of the building a gringo turned into a tourist haven... showing movies, offering homemade brownies and a great little selection of vegetarian dishes... We saw North Country with Charlize Theron... worth a viewing.After surviving torrential downpours in the port town of Moyogalpa for a night and a morning, we opted for the cheap way across the island - the chicken bus - to the little town of Balgue... we'd be looking at a two hour ride... Well, within the first 35 mintues, our bus had a bit of a problem, resembling smoke rising between my feet, somewhere deep within the wheel well we were propped on. The bus pulled over and everyone jumped out hastily, yelling about the smoke... We all proceeded to find shade while the three dudes running the bus service (the driver, the money collecter/caller from the front and the caller from the back) went ahead and took off both tires, both wheels all together, the breaks, the axle, the muffler... ok, not the last two, but I couldn't tell really as they seemed to have a lot of shit piling up around them. Everyone just stood by patiently, chatting about nothing... watching without offering a word of suggestion, not a moan out of anyone... If we had been home, Jered noted that everyone would have been bitching up a storm or demanding the next bus to be called... While everyone waited patiently, Jered and I crossed the street and played in a kiddie playground with four school boys, still humping their school bags, they had taken a detour through the playground for a quick laugh before going home... They got a kick out of Jered and loved calling us by our names, 'Gringo' and 'Gringa' ...When the bus was underway again, we were relieved... for about another 35 minutes until the driver informed us that this bus wouldn't be making the journey to our destination and we would have to get off and wait for the next one at a little intersection... We disembarked with 6 others, all of whom were scooped up with the toss of a thumb by passersby in pick ups... We decided to start walking (though we still faced about an hour on a shitty road... and that's in a bus... on foot, who knows!) Within about 20 minutes, our luck turned and we got a ride to the next town where the bus would arrive shortly... It did, and then... it broke down! Luckily, when this bus decided it's wheel needed repair, we were only 200m from the turn that would lead us to our hostel... another 1k up the road, which by the way - when did a kilometer get so long?The Finca Magdalena (finca meaning farm) was ok... a big barn with hammocks and odd cot like beds for rent. The Finca originally was a 29 family farming cooperative... and still is! They have all types of crops ranging from coffee and rice to corn and bananas on over 500 acres. It was here that we scored our guide for the volcano (hiking without a guide is illegal since 3 tourists got lost and died two years ago costing the locals a lot of time, press and stress). The volcano was a blast... as in a rocket blast., hiking at mock speeds behind a very fit guide who barely stopped to show us some key elements on the volcano... but, to his credit, he did catch a singing locust in his hand and put it in my face... we also spotted leaf cutting ants and watched them glide to and fro like sail boats, howler mokeys and cara blanca monkeys, petroglyphs and lots of cool trees and moss... We sumitted the volcano three hours later and climbed down into the crater, via a slippery clay slope with rocks and tree roots. The crater itself was home to noneother than Smiegel or Gollum... or could very well be... It was misty and marshy with frogs and mud but we couldn't see more than 50 feet ahead at any time for the clouds... eerie and cold... We pounded a sandwich and made the two hour trek back down... ouch, my knees!Mostly unimpressed with the Finca (maybe because the showers were ice cold, the girls unfriendly, the 'swimming' hole a mud pit, the moths bigger than pigeons and ants wanted to eat us whole), we packed up and hiked down to town as soon as we were back from our volcano hike... dumb? Well, we thought we'd make the bus... we just missed it. Balgue, the town we were waiting in, consists of a very rudimentary dirt road with stick, tin and palm leaf homes... Everyone was going somewhere on foot, but they would pass back by within minutes seemingly unchanged by their journey, so maybe given the time of day - 3pm - it was just their version of cruising the strip. Loads of navy blue and white clad school kids were marching about, having just gotten out of school, playing chase, tag, hide and seek... It was pretty entertaining to watch them try to outrun each other without tripping over chickens or getting the wind knocked out of them by the 300 pound grazing pig - which wouldn't happen by charging, but rather by not moving. Did I mention, at this point Jered and I have been sitting on a stoop for 3 hours... We've been told four different times for the bus's arrival... yet to come through... If a photographer had set up a camera at the chapel opposite us, to take a shot every 10 minutes... well, it would have sold out at the MET- plopping down with optimism for the soon arriving bus, breaking out the Nutella to have a wee treat, finding it has been infested with ants from the Finca, sitting on the steps, being attacked by a spider, moving to the pack, being hurdled by 12 year olds in pursuit of each other, cracking a book to kill time, jered up and away for a snack, Rai up and away to check the time with a nearby local, jered back with cheetos, Rai across the street to look at a pig, sitting side by side on a wall, jered gets good idea to put head in Rai's lap, Rai gets good idea to remove heavy head a few minutes later, petting a cute stray (would take him home if I could),cute stray chasing squealing pig down street, horse danders by aimlessly, three unneutered males posture, sniff and move on, scrambling with packs to get out of sudden torrential down pour, watching passing gringos, talking to passing gringos, realizing- we too should huff it... Loading packs, losing smiles, walking... on tired volcano beaten legs... empty frame...Within 10 minutes or a half mile or so, wouldn't you know, the bus drove on up, mocking us with its sputtering engine.Next stop, Santo Domingo... We stayed at Villa Paraiso... the ritzy spot on the island and the only beach on the whole lake you can 'swim' in (quotes to be explained shortly). This hotel was rocking! It had a killer view, was luxurious really and the room, decked with private bathroom, fan, nice bed and clean sheets was only $20 a night... an indulgence for us on this trip, but after our previous two days, welcomed! The first thing Jered had in mind was a nice swim... Yea, anyone seen 'The Truman Show'? Remember when he gets out of the boat and starts walking? Jered walked for about 200 meters before the water even hit his knees... the sky was big and blue behind him with a few puffy whites... he was in the dome! Finally, he gave up and just squatted into the water like you would into a bath tub... We caught some world cup, ate ice cream and seafood and really just relaxed. I walked the beach and saw some great thought inspiring sights...I think if you are left alone with your thoughts long enough, you will think yourself into oblivion... I figured so much out on my walk along the beach... for example, Egrets. The long legged white birds you see in marshes and salt lakes usually... they're quite impressive, when you see too many of them, as I did - one of two things happens: either you see them as common birds, like sea gulls or crows cause they're just everywhere... or, you realize, they are a hybrid between a flamingo and a swan and their elegance and weird reverse backbending knees are entirely remarkable. I also spotted some odd contraptions in the lake... flat stones thrown up on beaver dam-like stick piles... You might know right off what they are, or it might take you seeing a family jumping around together in the water while mama washes clothes on the stone before it hits you. I also saw the most heart wrenching demonstration of animal emotion... There I was, walking innocently, stepping over hundreds of dead fish (Egret or fisherman remains?) when I see two men steal a calf from its mother... The Cow was pissed and devastated. The first thing that shot through my head was VEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAL!!! That is until I questioned the liklihood of veal being a demand in this country.... who knows... The men beat mama cow away with a stick while they loaded the calf into the back of a toyota... when they finally had the calf in the truck and didn't care about the mama cow anymore, she marched right up to the truck and nudged the baby with her nose, mooing from deep within the whole time, just mooing, mooing, running around the truck... then they drove off, along the beach... mama cow, not usually known for her endurance or desire to exercise, took off at a sprint behind the truck, mooing the whole way... not ceasing to moo the whole mile or more that I could watch... Later I passed some other gringos who found it hilarious that a farmer driving a truck on a beach with a calf in the back would ask them, the gringos, if they had seen his missing cow... Apparently, the mother of the calf was missing... but if I could bet money on the committment of that mama cow, I would say the baby was hers... maybe she had just committed to watch it while her sister was out having a nice time with the other ladies... either way, I felt relieved to know they would all be going back to the herd... my veal fears were unjustified!The next day in Santo Domingo, we decided to walk a short 1K down to the swimming hole... hopefully better than that of the Finca... 1K became 10K... or around 2K I guess, but man, it was hot! We finally arrived, a bus, three people, a cow carrying child and a horse later... and it was awesome! We payed a dollar to this little family living by the gate and walked through a crop of banana trees, then arrived at a little manmade lagoon with crystal clear water, a sandy/rocky bottom and a rope swing! After cooling off sufficiently, we made our way back through banana land, when the funniest man-reaction took place... Man-reaction... that's what I am coining the reaction of a man to the behavior, odd or normal, of a woman... Man in this case being Jered, woman being me. I just couldn't hold it anymore... had to pee soooo bad! We were all alone in the middle of the banana crop, I had on a skirt and my bikini... I just handed over my water bottle, stepped slightly off the road, pulled the suit slightly to the side (ya know, like you did when you were an 8 year old wearing a one piece in the pool bathroom) and let her rip... Jered flung around, and while marching down the road yells back, "What's the matter with you! Don't you usually squat?!" It was the all time funniest man-reaction I've ever seen! Was that such a weird thing to do? Maybe, but they pee standing up, so what's the big f-ing deal! haha!!Our bus, ferry, taxi journey back to the beach of San Juan del Sur was uneventful... and that's a good thing! We caught the sad USA/Czech game and then headed back to the land free of phones and computers... for now. Back at the beach we chilled with our Swedish buddies, paddled out for a few more days and then wound down... time to come home! From San Juan del Sur we bussed back to Granada, ate good food, spent way too much in a market where I bought a hammock, a handmade guitar and beautiful prints and Jered bought ceramics and prints... Like rock stars, we'll be rolling out of here in the middle of the night! Until we're stateside... Take care everyone... Now, here's my sad stories.Sadly, Jered's grandmother passed away last Monday morning, having chosen peace over a battle with cancer. The memorial will be held in Rhode Island the weekend after we get home, so Jered is getting off one plane and onto another. I'm sure she is exaclty where she thought she would be going and that's comforting... More in the sad news department is that the two women I mentioned, Sue Nott and Karen McNeill, are seemingly not returning. They are 20 days past due and it is feared that they were blown off Mt. Foraker... but, when and if we will ever know is completely uncertain. If I could write their ending, I would have them hunkered down in a snow cave, slowly resigning to the fact that this is it, having one last chat about their reality and all their many successes in and out of the mountiains until sleep takes them - neither to wake up alone or again... That would be nice. Sorry to see Sue go... She's a spitfire with a lot of smiles to go around. I never knew Karen, but she too seems like an amazing women... grrr... Hate when this happens in our community!
El Salvador-Nicaragua 2003 (3)
Hello all!
Well - much time has passed... We've been to paradise, to hell and now we're going back to paradise BUT minutes before writing this message I read a message about two fellow (how to say when they're female) climbers who are missing on a mountain in Alaska... so, it's hard to say waiting three hours in the sun for an absent bus classifies as hell, really... but, I'll write as I had to on my travels through Italy, France and Spain after 9.11 ... aware of the harsh realities out there but also happily aware that life must go on... a lesson that is pounded into me every day as I pass many needy animals and people... with not much to do but toss a cordoba (local currency) or a piece of bread...
So - first, "paradise" ... or not. Well, yes mostly. The beach as I mentioned before is mostly isolated and we stayed in the surf camp run by this sweet, generous couple. The food is cooked daily over a fire and consists of varieties of the following key items (minus pollo for me, plus pollo for Jered): rice, tortilla, beans, scrambled eggs, avocado, tomato, salty cheese and onion - nothing more, nothing less... and very tasty, seasoned only with a bit of salt and occasionally salsa, if the possee has left some to be had... Not the glory meals of Zonte in El Salvador which consisted of the most intensely flavorful tuna salads, fish sandwiches, fruit shakes big enough to satisfy a small army and cafe con leche that packs a punch... unlike the local instant coffee with powdered creamer and white sugar that gets us by at Matilda's ... oh, but wonderful all the same! I never miss a meal and I savor every one as if it were from dramatically different ends of an 8-point star shaped spectrum! Our co-habitants are sand crabs that come in this perfect combination of purple and orange shells... Jered tossed one off him the other night while sleeping, cursing their existence... but personally, I think it was just another one of his nightmares... as they happen every night, usually with him sitting up and talking to some mystery conversation partner... either with hostility or with apology... what gets into that boy's head during the night is beyond me, but no matter how much I talk to him when he's in that state, he never remembers in the morning... so I don't think the crab existed... but throughout the day around our feet, they certainly do!
The waves... ah yes, the waves. How they beat me down in Nicaragua... common theme... ready for a change of genre all together I think! The first day we surfed here was great... nice easy to catch waves... but then the wind shifted and came in from the south rather than across from the lake - causing blownout, closed out shit-for-waves... It sent me down a viscious spiral of pseudo depression and loss of confidence... Jered was still out there making it happen, but I couldn't even get past the inside half the time, spending 20 minutes duck diving and dunking like I was a dolphin forced to perform at Sea World or a pig's donut on the night shift... no fun and no choice in the matter... then I'd come out like a wet rat terrier with my tail between my legs and I'd slink over to some mix breed canine and try to just blend in with the sand... After I gave up surfing and resigned myself to preparing for the class I have to teach when I get home, making all efforts to be as brown as possible when that day comes, life got better... That is, until sunset... at which time... I fight for another cause....
The Turtles! Oh the poor turtles... this is one of those life goes on moments... You just have to live and let live sometimes, even when it sucks donkey... you know what! So, the Leatherback turtles had their laying season... now it's that of the Green Turtle... The first night at Matilda's I had the pleasure along with many gringos of watching the beautiful dance of a turtle burying her little offspring, to be hatched and happy in the ocean 60 days later, from which point, of 100 eggs maybe 1% will become a 40 year old, breeding-ready adult... yes, 40 years of age before breeding can happen... but even with those dire stats, the people poach and poach... both for turtle meat and turtle eggs, which shamefully are pushed on the men here as erectile disfunction anecdote... there is a campaign to educate and it is illegal to poach, but that doesn't stop them from marching up and down our little beach every night with flashlights in search of recent turtle tracks, which resemble the track of a caterpillar tractor, leading them to the nest... The night we saw the turtle bury her batch, we covered up her tracks and two gringos pitched a tent on it... the poachers didn't get that one, but the next night, they dug at least four enormous craters along the beach, where they undoubtedly scored... but, in their defense, they make a hell of a lot of money and where there is demand, there will be poaching... it's not quite at the level of conservation and protection that Costa Rica boasts, but maybe someday... maybe maybe...
So, after a week with Matilda and Antonio, sharing books, hammocks and travel stories with Canadians, Swedes, English and even Irish! we hit the road and began our journey to the Island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua - Isla Ometepe... where we climbed a volcano and swam in the lake... more to come...
We have to figure out some details about life in the present moment.... We'll be on line tonight and tomorrow, so drop a line with a word about home, wherever that may be!
Well - much time has passed... We've been to paradise, to hell and now we're going back to paradise BUT minutes before writing this message I read a message about two fellow (how to say when they're female) climbers who are missing on a mountain in Alaska... so, it's hard to say waiting three hours in the sun for an absent bus classifies as hell, really... but, I'll write as I had to on my travels through Italy, France and Spain after 9.11 ... aware of the harsh realities out there but also happily aware that life must go on... a lesson that is pounded into me every day as I pass many needy animals and people... with not much to do but toss a cordoba (local currency) or a piece of bread...
So - first, "paradise" ... or not. Well, yes mostly. The beach as I mentioned before is mostly isolated and we stayed in the surf camp run by this sweet, generous couple. The food is cooked daily over a fire and consists of varieties of the following key items (minus pollo for me, plus pollo for Jered): rice, tortilla, beans, scrambled eggs, avocado, tomato, salty cheese and onion - nothing more, nothing less... and very tasty, seasoned only with a bit of salt and occasionally salsa, if the possee has left some to be had... Not the glory meals of Zonte in El Salvador which consisted of the most intensely flavorful tuna salads, fish sandwiches, fruit shakes big enough to satisfy a small army and cafe con leche that packs a punch... unlike the local instant coffee with powdered creamer and white sugar that gets us by at Matilda's ... oh, but wonderful all the same! I never miss a meal and I savor every one as if it were from dramatically different ends of an 8-point star shaped spectrum! Our co-habitants are sand crabs that come in this perfect combination of purple and orange shells... Jered tossed one off him the other night while sleeping, cursing their existence... but personally, I think it was just another one of his nightmares... as they happen every night, usually with him sitting up and talking to some mystery conversation partner... either with hostility or with apology... what gets into that boy's head during the night is beyond me, but no matter how much I talk to him when he's in that state, he never remembers in the morning... so I don't think the crab existed... but throughout the day around our feet, they certainly do!
The waves... ah yes, the waves. How they beat me down in Nicaragua... common theme... ready for a change of genre all together I think! The first day we surfed here was great... nice easy to catch waves... but then the wind shifted and came in from the south rather than across from the lake - causing blownout, closed out shit-for-waves... It sent me down a viscious spiral of pseudo depression and loss of confidence... Jered was still out there making it happen, but I couldn't even get past the inside half the time, spending 20 minutes duck diving and dunking like I was a dolphin forced to perform at Sea World or a pig's donut on the night shift... no fun and no choice in the matter... then I'd come out like a wet rat terrier with my tail between my legs and I'd slink over to some mix breed canine and try to just blend in with the sand... After I gave up surfing and resigned myself to preparing for the class I have to teach when I get home, making all efforts to be as brown as possible when that day comes, life got better... That is, until sunset... at which time... I fight for another cause....
The Turtles! Oh the poor turtles... this is one of those life goes on moments... You just have to live and let live sometimes, even when it sucks donkey... you know what! So, the Leatherback turtles had their laying season... now it's that of the Green Turtle... The first night at Matilda's I had the pleasure along with many gringos of watching the beautiful dance of a turtle burying her little offspring, to be hatched and happy in the ocean 60 days later, from which point, of 100 eggs maybe 1% will become a 40 year old, breeding-ready adult... yes, 40 years of age before breeding can happen... but even with those dire stats, the people poach and poach... both for turtle meat and turtle eggs, which shamefully are pushed on the men here as erectile disfunction anecdote... there is a campaign to educate and it is illegal to poach, but that doesn't stop them from marching up and down our little beach every night with flashlights in search of recent turtle tracks, which resemble the track of a caterpillar tractor, leading them to the nest... The night we saw the turtle bury her batch, we covered up her tracks and two gringos pitched a tent on it... the poachers didn't get that one, but the next night, they dug at least four enormous craters along the beach, where they undoubtedly scored... but, in their defense, they make a hell of a lot of money and where there is demand, there will be poaching... it's not quite at the level of conservation and protection that Costa Rica boasts, but maybe someday... maybe maybe...
So, after a week with Matilda and Antonio, sharing books, hammocks and travel stories with Canadians, Swedes, English and even Irish! we hit the road and began our journey to the Island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua - Isla Ometepe... where we climbed a volcano and swam in the lake... more to come...
We have to figure out some details about life in the present moment.... We'll be on line tonight and tomorrow, so drop a line with a word about home, wherever that may be!
El Salvador-Nicaragua 2006 (2)
Hello all! Just a quickie to say we´re off to paradise and we´ll be out of touch for the next 10 days at least. We skipped the volcano tour near Granada for a quicker arrival at the beaches... Before leaving Granada, however, we did have a great swim in a volcanic lake - Laguna de Apoyo - just outside Granada... allegedly the cleanest b ody of water in Nicaragua. We ventured up to a spot called the Monkey Hut, obvisously targeting our kind. We jumped off the mini pier, did back dives off the floating dock and kayaked across the whole lake - a shoulder wrenching epic into the wind that took at least an hour out and a nice wind-at-the-back 30 minutes back. After having another nice meal in Granada that night and a quick shop from a lovely Guatemala couple in the central plaza, we got our last night´s sleep in Granada... off to San Juan Del Sur in the morning!
We humped our packs and boards to the buses, running through crowded market streets, sweating our selves into little puddles in an effort to make the 9.50AM bus... and I think it was then that we were hussled... the little man at the bus area was shouting our destination so we ran over, handed over our swag, which was quickly loaded onto the bus and then got on... the first two people.... hmmmm... It wasn´t until about 20 minutes later that it dawned on us that the bus we were running for was already off and we were going to have to wait for the next.... 11am bus... so...Our journey consisted of two hours on a parked bus, chatting up the little child vendors - sweating our asses off - followed by an hour on a moving bus to Rivas where we negotiated a cab to San Juan del Sur. Here, we got a nice room at a hostel that has private rooms and dorm set ups... we ate on the harbor - ceviche and pasta con mariscos (seafood) and then watched the sun set from adirondack chairs overlooking the harbor and a rainbow of fishing boats. I can´t say I slept well as I had to endure the girl in the neigboring room having two, yes ladies, two very long and loud orgasms (sorry parents) followed by the unacceptable smoking of a cigarette by her stud that wafted horrible smoke into my room, and that followed by the incessant chirping of a mystery animal in the room with us...well... not the best night of rest so far!
This morning we got on a surfer shuttle to the nearby beach break, with a pack of Aussies, two Brits and a mystery national ... you know, the one who speaks English as well as me but to whom I never had the chance to ask 'And where are you from?' Anyway, 20 minutes and 14km of terrible road later, we arrived at Playa Maderas....That my friends, is where we found paradise... a nice stretch of white sand with barely any other people and amazing high tide breaks with fun swimming and sunning in between. Matilda, of Tiendas de Matilda, the camping area, has a room ready for us tomorrow, so we´re up and out in the AM to surf, lie in hammocks, eat food cooked over an open fire and chill for the next chunk of time... PS - they have a mini pincher doggie there... not quite the breed of choice, but enough to keep me happy while away from my boys!
Cheers folks! I´ll join you back in reality sooner than I´d like! Chau!
We humped our packs and boards to the buses, running through crowded market streets, sweating our selves into little puddles in an effort to make the 9.50AM bus... and I think it was then that we were hussled... the little man at the bus area was shouting our destination so we ran over, handed over our swag, which was quickly loaded onto the bus and then got on... the first two people.... hmmmm... It wasn´t until about 20 minutes later that it dawned on us that the bus we were running for was already off and we were going to have to wait for the next.... 11am bus... so...Our journey consisted of two hours on a parked bus, chatting up the little child vendors - sweating our asses off - followed by an hour on a moving bus to Rivas where we negotiated a cab to San Juan del Sur. Here, we got a nice room at a hostel that has private rooms and dorm set ups... we ate on the harbor - ceviche and pasta con mariscos (seafood) and then watched the sun set from adirondack chairs overlooking the harbor and a rainbow of fishing boats. I can´t say I slept well as I had to endure the girl in the neigboring room having two, yes ladies, two very long and loud orgasms (sorry parents) followed by the unacceptable smoking of a cigarette by her stud that wafted horrible smoke into my room, and that followed by the incessant chirping of a mystery animal in the room with us...well... not the best night of rest so far!
This morning we got on a surfer shuttle to the nearby beach break, with a pack of Aussies, two Brits and a mystery national ... you know, the one who speaks English as well as me but to whom I never had the chance to ask 'And where are you from?' Anyway, 20 minutes and 14km of terrible road later, we arrived at Playa Maderas....That my friends, is where we found paradise... a nice stretch of white sand with barely any other people and amazing high tide breaks with fun swimming and sunning in between. Matilda, of Tiendas de Matilda, the camping area, has a room ready for us tomorrow, so we´re up and out in the AM to surf, lie in hammocks, eat food cooked over an open fire and chill for the next chunk of time... PS - they have a mini pincher doggie there... not quite the breed of choice, but enough to keep me happy while away from my boys!
Cheers folks! I´ll join you back in reality sooner than I´d like! Chau!
El Salvador-Nicaragua 2006 (1)
Hola!! We made it to Nicaragua. Our last days in El Salvador were great, like the ones before it. We got in the water every day... at least, I did. Jered was suffering a bit from an ear infection or swimmer's ear, but it's cleared up now. We had a big rum and juice party the night before we left. Got a little crazy with several digital cameras and a video recorder and will have lots of memories to fill in the gaps. It's always so hard to move on when travelling. You meet amazing people, like our crews from Whistler and Santa Cruz and then you just have to muster the ganas to up and go and realize that at the next stop, you'll meet as many wonderful people and the circle will continue to grow!
So, at 3.30 in the morning, we awoke with Alex, the big sexy Salvadorian dueno of our hostel and drove into San Salvador to hop on the famous Tica Bus line straight to Managua. Tica Bus is awesome and runs through all of Central America and some of South America. It's a big fancy line with air conditioning and movies... and a mere $25 to travel the distance of three countries... So, I got a Honduras stamp in my passport but only saw the country from the bus window and of the country I only saw a little corner of it. The border crossing was fun. The bus stops a block prior to the border and makes everyone walk through. So we do the run around from one window to the next, getting stamps paying fees and then get back on the bus and pass on through to the other side!
On the bus, I was reminded why sometimes people in other countries think we're a little bizarro... one of the movies they showed was called Undisputed 2.... Well, never heard of Undisputed 1 either... a stupid very violent movie about a boxer who gets framed by the Russian mafia so that he ends up in prison in Russia just to fight a champion boxer in prison so the mafia guy can make money off him.... violent and full of fabulous new English vocab for the lovely people of latin america... did I mention violent? Of course in the end, the American boxer defeats the Russian champ, rescues the old vet in the wheelchair who lives in the prison basement and becomes his Mr. Miyagi, who was imprisoned because he took the heat for his brother since his brother's wife was pregnant... and boxer boy takes mr. miyagi, the mentor guy out of prison with his blood money and reunites him with his long lost neice... an emotional encounter at the train station that really did bring a tear to my eyes... but you know me! Really, Americans are so predictable.
When we got to Managua we were assaulted by taxistas pulling me this way and that shouting out potential destinations to take the gringos with the big packs and the long surfboards.... [Did I mention we bought boards in El Salvador on day two to avoid rental fees. Jered scored a brand new 7'2 made by a local and dinged it on day three when it fell onto the sidewalk... I bought a used fat, as in chubby, not phat, 6'8 Rusty ... floats like a dingy but won't move into the wave for shit!....] We were also offered kilos of coca for sale [cocaine obviously...] and that was just shouted out casually as if they were selling coca cola...
So anyway, finally found a taxi driver with an honest face who manages to get the two boards into his tiny Toyota Carolla somehow, beyond my comprehension and faith, and we were off! He was awesome... tested out some minimal English on us, told us about the tourist sights we were passing, such as Massaya the town, Massaya the lake and Massaya the volcano.
We arrived in Granada shortly thereafter and got denied at a few hostels [price and space reasons] and as we were finding out that one place we were investigating cost a rediculous [by local standards and States standards] $40 a night, a gringo [american fellah] walked by and clued us in to his diggs up the street... the lovely La Libertad. We have a room to ourselves at $15 total a night in a very colorful hostel with an open roof main area, a fountain, enough tropical plants for San Diego Zoo and a gatito [kitty]. When I say colorful, I mean, puts my house to shame... and then I remember where I got my inspiration! Purple, blue, bright green, yellow, orange, dark green, peach, pink, ... all blended without thought for 'what goes together' from trim to roof to stripes on the walls to contrasting walls... and I love it!!!!
Last night we had a yummy dinner in a cute quiet restaraunt with open air seating and another in house jungle... I even think there were parrots in the tree above me. Then we went to the plaza in the center of town and watched a series of children's dance performances in honor of la madre, their mother's day celebration. Some little chicos came up and recited cute poems to their moms and others came up and got shy and just repeated the same thing over and over... ''I want to tell my mom that la ama, la quiero besar, la ama, la quiero...'' Basically, love ya ma!
Today we're venturing up to a little remote lake, Lago Apoyo, to swim and kayak. Then tomorrow we're hiking up a volcano on la isla ometepe in the huge lake of Nicaragua. After those adventures, we'll continue to the sea and surf our butts off again... that is, I will paddle my arms off and hope that a wave will let me come along for the ride here and there.... Rumor has it the break is more friendly than where we were....
Anyway, this hostel provides free breakfast, all you can drink cafe and free internet with the cost of the room... and it's not even in the gringo guidebook! So, I'll be checking mail til we leave [and drinking cafe til I have liver damage]... so drop a line... Of course, many of you won't get this until Monday and I'll be outty cuatro, but I bet I'll find another spot to log on real soon!
Chau and chill! Life is short!!!
So, at 3.30 in the morning, we awoke with Alex, the big sexy Salvadorian dueno of our hostel and drove into San Salvador to hop on the famous Tica Bus line straight to Managua. Tica Bus is awesome and runs through all of Central America and some of South America. It's a big fancy line with air conditioning and movies... and a mere $25 to travel the distance of three countries... So, I got a Honduras stamp in my passport but only saw the country from the bus window and of the country I only saw a little corner of it. The border crossing was fun. The bus stops a block prior to the border and makes everyone walk through. So we do the run around from one window to the next, getting stamps paying fees and then get back on the bus and pass on through to the other side!
On the bus, I was reminded why sometimes people in other countries think we're a little bizarro... one of the movies they showed was called Undisputed 2.... Well, never heard of Undisputed 1 either... a stupid very violent movie about a boxer who gets framed by the Russian mafia so that he ends up in prison in Russia just to fight a champion boxer in prison so the mafia guy can make money off him.... violent and full of fabulous new English vocab for the lovely people of latin america... did I mention violent? Of course in the end, the American boxer defeats the Russian champ, rescues the old vet in the wheelchair who lives in the prison basement and becomes his Mr. Miyagi, who was imprisoned because he took the heat for his brother since his brother's wife was pregnant... and boxer boy takes mr. miyagi, the mentor guy out of prison with his blood money and reunites him with his long lost neice... an emotional encounter at the train station that really did bring a tear to my eyes... but you know me! Really, Americans are so predictable.
When we got to Managua we were assaulted by taxistas pulling me this way and that shouting out potential destinations to take the gringos with the big packs and the long surfboards.... [Did I mention we bought boards in El Salvador on day two to avoid rental fees. Jered scored a brand new 7'2 made by a local and dinged it on day three when it fell onto the sidewalk... I bought a used fat, as in chubby, not phat, 6'8 Rusty ... floats like a dingy but won't move into the wave for shit!....] We were also offered kilos of coca for sale [cocaine obviously...] and that was just shouted out casually as if they were selling coca cola...
So anyway, finally found a taxi driver with an honest face who manages to get the two boards into his tiny Toyota Carolla somehow, beyond my comprehension and faith, and we were off! He was awesome... tested out some minimal English on us, told us about the tourist sights we were passing, such as Massaya the town, Massaya the lake and Massaya the volcano.
We arrived in Granada shortly thereafter and got denied at a few hostels [price and space reasons] and as we were finding out that one place we were investigating cost a rediculous [by local standards and States standards] $40 a night, a gringo [american fellah] walked by and clued us in to his diggs up the street... the lovely La Libertad. We have a room to ourselves at $15 total a night in a very colorful hostel with an open roof main area, a fountain, enough tropical plants for San Diego Zoo and a gatito [kitty]. When I say colorful, I mean, puts my house to shame... and then I remember where I got my inspiration! Purple, blue, bright green, yellow, orange, dark green, peach, pink, ... all blended without thought for 'what goes together' from trim to roof to stripes on the walls to contrasting walls... and I love it!!!!
Last night we had a yummy dinner in a cute quiet restaraunt with open air seating and another in house jungle... I even think there were parrots in the tree above me. Then we went to the plaza in the center of town and watched a series of children's dance performances in honor of la madre, their mother's day celebration. Some little chicos came up and recited cute poems to their moms and others came up and got shy and just repeated the same thing over and over... ''I want to tell my mom that la ama, la quiero besar, la ama, la quiero...'' Basically, love ya ma!
Today we're venturing up to a little remote lake, Lago Apoyo, to swim and kayak. Then tomorrow we're hiking up a volcano on la isla ometepe in the huge lake of Nicaragua. After those adventures, we'll continue to the sea and surf our butts off again... that is, I will paddle my arms off and hope that a wave will let me come along for the ride here and there.... Rumor has it the break is more friendly than where we were....
Anyway, this hostel provides free breakfast, all you can drink cafe and free internet with the cost of the room... and it's not even in the gringo guidebook! So, I'll be checking mail til we leave [and drinking cafe til I have liver damage]... so drop a line... Of course, many of you won't get this until Monday and I'll be outty cuatro, but I bet I'll find another spot to log on real soon!
Chau and chill! Life is short!!!
Utah-El Salvador 2006 (1)
Hola!! Greetings from El Salvador, land of the tan wannabe surfer gringos... that would be us! No, we´re surfers.. cause we can paddle! But man, the waves have been sticking it to us lately! They started out at about 12-15 foot high with a monster curl that would just gobble us up... Now they´re down to a comfy 3-5 foot size, but we´re so humbled by previous experiences that we still sulk in and out of the water with much respect for mother ocean.
Yesterday, I paddled out with two Canadian girls and one by one we each took on big set... thinking, naively that we could just dip through the top of the moster waves and each finding out that, well, no... not really. The waves picked Gwen up from the base and slammed her down, the last three in the set dragging her over the rocky point - she escaped with merely a scratch on her foot. Jen thought she could pop through the top of a wave in another set and instead was flipped upside down and munched by the beast and carried to the beach by the next three waves... her souvenir a scratched hip... then another set rolled in... I thought I was in there... I was going to toss the board and dive under the belly of the big daddy, but decided, nah, I got this.... no such luck! He took me too, up and over onto my back and into a big old rinse cycle for a few seconds that felt like a few minutes.. up for a breath, enough time to get on the board and try to ride on my belly with the next wave only to end up over the rocks.... another rinse cycle, back on the board paddling for fear of destroying the board and my legs in the rocks... and then finally, cleared and literally spat out of the ocean by a final wave, tossed on my butt, board by my side and back to the possee of gringos that had money on how worked I would get... Not a scratch! We three pups just sat with our hair strewn and our bikini tops around our necks under the rash guards... nodding and gasping, realizing... hmmmmm maybe better luck tomorrow!
And ' today was better.... Jered and I paddled out at another mellower break and had a blast bouncing around on soft friendly waves, being selective and not having to fight 15 other surfers for a spot in the line up.... life is good in the water. The locals are little rippers... some very deserving of sponsorship! Ripping it up modestly with no idea of how bad ass they are! It´s great!
The hostel is sweet... we basically wake up daily, have two cups of coffee, granola, fruit and yogurt then surf... the we come out, lie in hammocks and read, drink a milkshake made with papaya and bananas grown over our heads and get ready to go out again... after which we come in and have fish burgers or tuna salad and start downing pilsners as we watch the last of the surfers ride the sun to sleep. Our hostel is twenty steps from the water and is well guarded by three fabulous dogs... Chito, Coco and Coral... who walk with us, our entourage... everywhere we go... the beach, the store, back home, to surf... They´re like our dogs and it´s great cause I miss mine tons! Plus, they´re the cool dogs on the block - the best hair and skin, the most well-fed... There are plenty of others in the little town we´re staying in - hairless and skinny as hell! Heartbreakers, really...
So, when I say town, what I really mean is the cul de sac that we stay on at the end of a cobblestone-dirt road. The homes are all made of big sticks holding up tin roofs with palmetto branches over the patios and sand for the floor - inside and out. Our hostel has cinder block walls and concrete floors, but basically, it´s basic... We do have a pool and showers and running water and all that ' but not everyone in the area does.... The average wages down here are not pretty. The cooks and cleaners where we stay - our buddies, Carlos, Ana, Blanca, Bea, Mirna and Pajaro- make $6 a day and apparently that´s a lot. The construction workers that are building an addition at the hostel shovel sand and schlepp bricks all day with bare feet or sandals, and they make $4 a day!!! At least our crew gets tips and they are treated very very well by our hosts, Alex and Emilia.
We went on one excursion from surfing to see some ruins closer to the capital. One set of ruins was a mayan pyramid similar to that of Tekal (in Guatemala... I think....). An impressive structure built around 1500AD. The other ruins were so old... and were only found in 1976 when they were digging with bulldozers to create a development for housing... the ruins dated back to 500BC and had the most wicked construction for their time, but were buried when the volcano erupted and were buried under 15-20 layers of ash... like 20-30 feet deep! They also found little bowls, pots, masks and animal skeltons... but no people.. they had the chance to run from the lava ... how far, who knows and crazily, there is probably sooooo much more under the developed parts of the city that will never be discovered because it´s already been built on. After the field trip, we went swimming in a huge crystal clear lake surrounded by smaller mountains and then had dinner in a beautiful hotel with the most lucious plants and artsy decorations. Aside from that day, we´ve just been beaching it - happily!
Next stop - Nicaragua. We´ll probably leave here at the end of this week and make our way south. We are heading to a town so far south that we have no choice but to pop into Costa Rica too! So, that´s exciting. Until the next stop - enjoy your summers, send updates and plan your next vacation out of the US of A!!!!
Yesterday, I paddled out with two Canadian girls and one by one we each took on big set... thinking, naively that we could just dip through the top of the moster waves and each finding out that, well, no... not really. The waves picked Gwen up from the base and slammed her down, the last three in the set dragging her over the rocky point - she escaped with merely a scratch on her foot. Jen thought she could pop through the top of a wave in another set and instead was flipped upside down and munched by the beast and carried to the beach by the next three waves... her souvenir a scratched hip... then another set rolled in... I thought I was in there... I was going to toss the board and dive under the belly of the big daddy, but decided, nah, I got this.... no such luck! He took me too, up and over onto my back and into a big old rinse cycle for a few seconds that felt like a few minutes.. up for a breath, enough time to get on the board and try to ride on my belly with the next wave only to end up over the rocks.... another rinse cycle, back on the board paddling for fear of destroying the board and my legs in the rocks... and then finally, cleared and literally spat out of the ocean by a final wave, tossed on my butt, board by my side and back to the possee of gringos that had money on how worked I would get... Not a scratch! We three pups just sat with our hair strewn and our bikini tops around our necks under the rash guards... nodding and gasping, realizing... hmmmmm maybe better luck tomorrow!
And ' today was better.... Jered and I paddled out at another mellower break and had a blast bouncing around on soft friendly waves, being selective and not having to fight 15 other surfers for a spot in the line up.... life is good in the water. The locals are little rippers... some very deserving of sponsorship! Ripping it up modestly with no idea of how bad ass they are! It´s great!
The hostel is sweet... we basically wake up daily, have two cups of coffee, granola, fruit and yogurt then surf... the we come out, lie in hammocks and read, drink a milkshake made with papaya and bananas grown over our heads and get ready to go out again... after which we come in and have fish burgers or tuna salad and start downing pilsners as we watch the last of the surfers ride the sun to sleep. Our hostel is twenty steps from the water and is well guarded by three fabulous dogs... Chito, Coco and Coral... who walk with us, our entourage... everywhere we go... the beach, the store, back home, to surf... They´re like our dogs and it´s great cause I miss mine tons! Plus, they´re the cool dogs on the block - the best hair and skin, the most well-fed... There are plenty of others in the little town we´re staying in - hairless and skinny as hell! Heartbreakers, really...
So, when I say town, what I really mean is the cul de sac that we stay on at the end of a cobblestone-dirt road. The homes are all made of big sticks holding up tin roofs with palmetto branches over the patios and sand for the floor - inside and out. Our hostel has cinder block walls and concrete floors, but basically, it´s basic... We do have a pool and showers and running water and all that ' but not everyone in the area does.... The average wages down here are not pretty. The cooks and cleaners where we stay - our buddies, Carlos, Ana, Blanca, Bea, Mirna and Pajaro- make $6 a day and apparently that´s a lot. The construction workers that are building an addition at the hostel shovel sand and schlepp bricks all day with bare feet or sandals, and they make $4 a day!!! At least our crew gets tips and they are treated very very well by our hosts, Alex and Emilia.
We went on one excursion from surfing to see some ruins closer to the capital. One set of ruins was a mayan pyramid similar to that of Tekal (in Guatemala... I think....). An impressive structure built around 1500AD. The other ruins were so old... and were only found in 1976 when they were digging with bulldozers to create a development for housing... the ruins dated back to 500BC and had the most wicked construction for their time, but were buried when the volcano erupted and were buried under 15-20 layers of ash... like 20-30 feet deep! They also found little bowls, pots, masks and animal skeltons... but no people.. they had the chance to run from the lava ... how far, who knows and crazily, there is probably sooooo much more under the developed parts of the city that will never be discovered because it´s already been built on. After the field trip, we went swimming in a huge crystal clear lake surrounded by smaller mountains and then had dinner in a beautiful hotel with the most lucious plants and artsy decorations. Aside from that day, we´ve just been beaching it - happily!
Next stop - Nicaragua. We´ll probably leave here at the end of this week and make our way south. We are heading to a town so far south that we have no choice but to pop into Costa Rica too! So, that´s exciting. Until the next stop - enjoy your summers, send updates and plan your next vacation out of the US of A!!!!
Utah-Dominican Republic 2005 (3)
I'm in a Speilberg Flick... No... it´s actuall more like a made for TV USA Network movie that you only see at 2 in the morning that you really wish you weren´t watching but you can´t pull away and there´s nothing else to see anyway (which isn´t the case anymore but was when I was 10)...
Ok - it´s not that bad, but for those that really know me, you´ll understand.
As you may have heard, Tropical Storm Denny is passing over the Dom. Republic right now. And in it´s path it is causing a bit of a stir that has become my worst nightmare... Yes, my girlfriends - they are coming out of the woodworks, big as rats- or at least that´s how I see them... So let me set the stage...
There I was, 1:30 am on a Tuesday night, not able to sleep, watching the credits roll to Meet Joe Black. I had just spent hours trying to figure out why Brad Pitt thought that playing the part of DEATH meant acting like a human possessed by an alien... and why Claire Forlani thinks it's sexy to make yourself look sleepy all the time with those half shut eyes and pouty lips... and then of course, I smiled to myself as the song Somewhere over the Rainbow/What a wonderful World mix played - reminding me of Sarah's wedding and good times just had... When - all of a goddam sudden there the fucker goes - crawling out from UNDER THE MOTHERFUCKING CHAIR I HAD JUST BEEN SITTING ON FOR HOURS. Oh, girls, the goosebumps come just to think of it.
So I jumped up and hugged myself tightly as he stood still, thinking he was invisible... I strategized. Lucky for me I packed 6 pairs of flip flops and they were scattered all around me. My initial goal - keep him THE FUCK out of my bedroom! So there he goes, heading right for it - pink flip flop goes up at an angle and flops in front of him redirecting him to the kitchen area... There he stands, thinking, shaking his antennas as me AS IF THAT WOULD WORK... So I grab the brown flip flop and use the wall in front of him as a backboard, it was like the last attempt at a tiebreaker with 2 seconds to go, slow motion and it lands - right in front of him, NOT ON HIM. And he runs under the fridge.... I just bought time. I make an advance, jumping from chair to chair until I reach the kitchen table, where sits my book READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN - Come on ladies - be with me on this one! I hear him moving - maybe he's leaving out the window... then a crash (in his world anyway - but a flitter in mine) and he comes running out... and then stops, stairs, wiggles... TAKE THIS BITCH... the book grazes him, he's injured, one leg doesn't work and he drags himself INTO THE BEDROOM!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! But he stops to take refuge under the door, which is open, so I have him on both sides... If I get past him and into the room...
God, girls, you know what this was doing to me, right. All alone, fighting my number one fear in the world - The COCKROACH.
So I muster all I have, grab my heaviest black flip flops and make a run for it, right past him and he scuttles farther under the door, but stays. I arm myself - one in each hand and get ready... on three.... 1 -2-3... and I move the door, he runs toward the kitchen, I scream, raise the flip and drop the flop right on his ugly-ass back... Then I jump back onto the bed and squeal as he flips onto his back... lies still for a moment then moves his front legs... It's not over... I have to drop it once more... The book, Norah Jones this time, cause I have less respect for this book - a trashy romance novel can take on a bug... Wham - Bye Bye Mr.... kind of! He's still there - right now - 12 hours or more later and I can't move him... I can't lift the book but it's right in front of my fridge and his antenna sticks out just enough for me to imagine it's still moving.
I went to bed a freak last night... feeling roaches all over me, seeing them - big and in my face, like Kafka's Metamorphasis character... only these weren't harmless business men turned roaches, but rather the avengers of my victim. God ladies - this is why I will never ever again be able to live in the tropics... and it makes me question my ability to even travel thru Latin America for extended periods. It was so great until yesterday! Then all of a sudden, a mouse crossed my path yesterday afternoon, then the battle of the bug last night and then this morning I went upstairs in the hotel to ask another American (6'7" sexy black basketball player built like Carl Malone) if he would come move the carcass... and on my way, I was turned back by a moth the size of my right arm on a stair... Oh - Yes, this is my worst nightmare come true....
Otherwise.. life is good! More to come - gotta head out with the school folks on a field trip to the mountains where I'll probably be eaten by an anaconda.
Ok - it´s not that bad, but for those that really know me, you´ll understand.
As you may have heard, Tropical Storm Denny is passing over the Dom. Republic right now. And in it´s path it is causing a bit of a stir that has become my worst nightmare... Yes, my girlfriends - they are coming out of the woodworks, big as rats- or at least that´s how I see them... So let me set the stage...
There I was, 1:30 am on a Tuesday night, not able to sleep, watching the credits roll to Meet Joe Black. I had just spent hours trying to figure out why Brad Pitt thought that playing the part of DEATH meant acting like a human possessed by an alien... and why Claire Forlani thinks it's sexy to make yourself look sleepy all the time with those half shut eyes and pouty lips... and then of course, I smiled to myself as the song Somewhere over the Rainbow/What a wonderful World mix played - reminding me of Sarah's wedding and good times just had... When - all of a goddam sudden there the fucker goes - crawling out from UNDER THE MOTHERFUCKING CHAIR I HAD JUST BEEN SITTING ON FOR HOURS. Oh, girls, the goosebumps come just to think of it.
So I jumped up and hugged myself tightly as he stood still, thinking he was invisible... I strategized. Lucky for me I packed 6 pairs of flip flops and they were scattered all around me. My initial goal - keep him THE FUCK out of my bedroom! So there he goes, heading right for it - pink flip flop goes up at an angle and flops in front of him redirecting him to the kitchen area... There he stands, thinking, shaking his antennas as me AS IF THAT WOULD WORK... So I grab the brown flip flop and use the wall in front of him as a backboard, it was like the last attempt at a tiebreaker with 2 seconds to go, slow motion and it lands - right in front of him, NOT ON HIM. And he runs under the fridge.... I just bought time. I make an advance, jumping from chair to chair until I reach the kitchen table, where sits my book READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN - Come on ladies - be with me on this one! I hear him moving - maybe he's leaving out the window... then a crash (in his world anyway - but a flitter in mine) and he comes running out... and then stops, stairs, wiggles... TAKE THIS BITCH... the book grazes him, he's injured, one leg doesn't work and he drags himself INTO THE BEDROOM!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! But he stops to take refuge under the door, which is open, so I have him on both sides... If I get past him and into the room...
God, girls, you know what this was doing to me, right. All alone, fighting my number one fear in the world - The COCKROACH.
So I muster all I have, grab my heaviest black flip flops and make a run for it, right past him and he scuttles farther under the door, but stays. I arm myself - one in each hand and get ready... on three.... 1 -2-3... and I move the door, he runs toward the kitchen, I scream, raise the flip and drop the flop right on his ugly-ass back... Then I jump back onto the bed and squeal as he flips onto his back... lies still for a moment then moves his front legs... It's not over... I have to drop it once more... The book, Norah Jones this time, cause I have less respect for this book - a trashy romance novel can take on a bug... Wham - Bye Bye Mr.... kind of! He's still there - right now - 12 hours or more later and I can't move him... I can't lift the book but it's right in front of my fridge and his antenna sticks out just enough for me to imagine it's still moving.
I went to bed a freak last night... feeling roaches all over me, seeing them - big and in my face, like Kafka's Metamorphasis character... only these weren't harmless business men turned roaches, but rather the avengers of my victim. God ladies - this is why I will never ever again be able to live in the tropics... and it makes me question my ability to even travel thru Latin America for extended periods. It was so great until yesterday! Then all of a sudden, a mouse crossed my path yesterday afternoon, then the battle of the bug last night and then this morning I went upstairs in the hotel to ask another American (6'7" sexy black basketball player built like Carl Malone) if he would come move the carcass... and on my way, I was turned back by a moth the size of my right arm on a stair... Oh - Yes, this is my worst nightmare come true....
Otherwise.. life is good! More to come - gotta head out with the school folks on a field trip to the mountains where I'll probably be eaten by an anaconda.
Utah-Dominican Republic 2005 (2)
Hey Everyone - If you're at work and this is too much to handle - I understand!
So, I picked up mom and dad at the airport three days ago. I knew they would come out wide-eyed and freaked from the craziness of the Customs area in this airport. They came out smiling and laughing a bit about the chaos. We hopped in the rental car and headed straight out to the resort... thru several impoverished towns with no shortage of shanty to see on the way. It was an eye opener for them, having never been to Latin America before. I was shamefully desensitized by all my travel and got the chance to see it all over again thru their eyes. It was, I realized, the first time I have been to Latin America with no compananions to travel with (Will, et all to Bolivia, U of U to Mexico, Mandy and Tommy to Peru, and a planned school exchange to Guatemala...) so it was even a stretch for me to feel at ease getting off the plane and dealing ... blah blah -
The resort is sick. It's all inclusive, meaning - sea kayaking, snorkeling, drinking anything under the tikki hut and all the food all day is FREE FREE... crazy! An Irish man wouldn't last a day here - He'd be passed out with alcohol and sun poisoning on the first day... but, we seasoned Irish Americans are pacing ourselves and fairing will with the number of Coco Loco's we take down daily. The food is abundant and available 24/7 which is disgusting in comparison with the poverty on the other side of the highway - Luckily, the heat and activities of the day keep me at small meals...
They even had a performance for us the other day... A play of sorts where Andrew Lloyd Webber meets Def Leopard - Yes, they began the play with music from A Warewolf In London, - the beginning of the scary tale - then moved on to the voodoo of the diablo to a Metallica song, then a love dance with the bad guy and the hot chica to Phantom of the Opera and of course then all the bad guys danced to Pour some Sugar on Me by Def Leopard and then there was a little Poison and a few other show tunes and at the end, well - the crowd was at least moved... from butt cheek to butt cheek during the show cause of the concrete seats! But the dancing and acting was entertaining to say the least....
Tomorrow my mom and I are snorkeling on Catalina Island... it's off to the buffet now - I'll write when I get to my job in Santiago and have something real to say - not just spray about life on a Caribbean beach, taking refuge under tikki tents when the Merengue class has ended and I'm officially spent from kayaking and the like... I have to say, though, after the year I just had... I needed this badly! Ciao amicos...
So, I picked up mom and dad at the airport three days ago. I knew they would come out wide-eyed and freaked from the craziness of the Customs area in this airport. They came out smiling and laughing a bit about the chaos. We hopped in the rental car and headed straight out to the resort... thru several impoverished towns with no shortage of shanty to see on the way. It was an eye opener for them, having never been to Latin America before. I was shamefully desensitized by all my travel and got the chance to see it all over again thru their eyes. It was, I realized, the first time I have been to Latin America with no compananions to travel with (Will, et all to Bolivia, U of U to Mexico, Mandy and Tommy to Peru, and a planned school exchange to Guatemala...) so it was even a stretch for me to feel at ease getting off the plane and dealing ... blah blah -
The resort is sick. It's all inclusive, meaning - sea kayaking, snorkeling, drinking anything under the tikki hut and all the food all day is FREE FREE... crazy! An Irish man wouldn't last a day here - He'd be passed out with alcohol and sun poisoning on the first day... but, we seasoned Irish Americans are pacing ourselves and fairing will with the number of Coco Loco's we take down daily. The food is abundant and available 24/7 which is disgusting in comparison with the poverty on the other side of the highway - Luckily, the heat and activities of the day keep me at small meals...
They even had a performance for us the other day... A play of sorts where Andrew Lloyd Webber meets Def Leopard - Yes, they began the play with music from A Warewolf In London, - the beginning of the scary tale - then moved on to the voodoo of the diablo to a Metallica song, then a love dance with the bad guy and the hot chica to Phantom of the Opera and of course then all the bad guys danced to Pour some Sugar on Me by Def Leopard and then there was a little Poison and a few other show tunes and at the end, well - the crowd was at least moved... from butt cheek to butt cheek during the show cause of the concrete seats! But the dancing and acting was entertaining to say the least....
Tomorrow my mom and I are snorkeling on Catalina Island... it's off to the buffet now - I'll write when I get to my job in Santiago and have something real to say - not just spray about life on a Caribbean beach, taking refuge under tikki tents when the Merengue class has ended and I'm officially spent from kayaking and the like... I have to say, though, after the year I just had... I needed this badly! Ciao amicos...
Utah-Dominican Republic 2005 (1)
Hi All - just a quicky to say I made it! It´s humid as hell, but the water in is clear and varying shades of blue..
Here´s the quick skinny on the trip so far. First of all, getting 150 or so Dominicans to get on a plane and sit down in a timely fashion is as feasible as getting Seamus to drive to the Coffee Garden and grab me a Soy Mocha. But, with a little coaxing in the form of yelling from the attendants, we were finally underway ' 150 Dominicans most of them under the age of 12 and me! At the airport, you have to pay a tax to enter ' of course, I had no cash and needed to be escorted outside to the ATM and escorted back in by an immigration officer... the only person without cash, it seemed... odd. Then I rented a car and headed to the nearby seaside town of Boca Chica ' as recommended by some dude in the customs area... it was closer than Santo Domingo and smaller ' more manageable.
My hotel is small and quaint and sits right on the beach with a distance of 20 meters to the water and another 200 meters or so between me and the breaking waves ' ie. you can walk forever and never go under! Today, I took my car and drove into Santo Domingo... you never really know a city until you drive into it in a torrential downpour with no map and no knowledge whatsoever about a contry´s traffic rules - and by rules, I mean the local code... I just kept my special big Kavu sunshades on and layed low ' I fit right in ' cutting off the local minibus taxi and dodging little skinny dogs as need be.
I can´t believe that I, me, Rai Farrelly, am finally a bit desensitized to the sight of these pobre creatures ... I finally reached a point of exposure to them where I have to just raise my eyebrows, pout my mouth and figure . what can I really do anyway.... sad, but true. I guess that´s how the locals can live life without noticing... they see it from day one and have their own hunger to worry about.... most people here are starving and the women turn tricks to buy food. ... AIDS is rampant, I´ve learned. Most people have it... The children have distended bellies and most people ask for food... that´s balanced slightly by the folks who dress like city folk and have real jobs and drive nice cars... but they are the minority. Otherwise, the beach, like I said, is amazing... and I´m heading back there now.
The only reason I came to Santo Domingo was to meet Heidi Bruner, the sister of Gwen Bruner and the last of 5 Bruners for me to know. When big sister, Natalie told me that I could meet the last of 5 sisters if I were going to the DR, I nearly flipped because ... I had already bough the ticket, and here I am... so, I met her... she took me to a great vegetarian restaruant and we talked DR culture, life, sisters and stuff and then she brought me to the internet cafe (lifesaver) hugged and said farewell... She´s a sweetie and I have hugs to send on to her sister and niece in NYC when I visit at the tail end of this trip and then more for Gwen and the gals in SLC... If any of you see Gwen (in case this doesn´t make it), tell her I had lunch with Heidi! Well ' I hope I can find my way back ... it´s still pouring rain here in the capital and yet I´m sweating! Ok ' take care ' love and peace
Here´s the quick skinny on the trip so far. First of all, getting 150 or so Dominicans to get on a plane and sit down in a timely fashion is as feasible as getting Seamus to drive to the Coffee Garden and grab me a Soy Mocha. But, with a little coaxing in the form of yelling from the attendants, we were finally underway ' 150 Dominicans most of them under the age of 12 and me! At the airport, you have to pay a tax to enter ' of course, I had no cash and needed to be escorted outside to the ATM and escorted back in by an immigration officer... the only person without cash, it seemed... odd. Then I rented a car and headed to the nearby seaside town of Boca Chica ' as recommended by some dude in the customs area... it was closer than Santo Domingo and smaller ' more manageable.
My hotel is small and quaint and sits right on the beach with a distance of 20 meters to the water and another 200 meters or so between me and the breaking waves ' ie. you can walk forever and never go under! Today, I took my car and drove into Santo Domingo... you never really know a city until you drive into it in a torrential downpour with no map and no knowledge whatsoever about a contry´s traffic rules - and by rules, I mean the local code... I just kept my special big Kavu sunshades on and layed low ' I fit right in ' cutting off the local minibus taxi and dodging little skinny dogs as need be.
I can´t believe that I, me, Rai Farrelly, am finally a bit desensitized to the sight of these pobre creatures ... I finally reached a point of exposure to them where I have to just raise my eyebrows, pout my mouth and figure . what can I really do anyway.... sad, but true. I guess that´s how the locals can live life without noticing... they see it from day one and have their own hunger to worry about.... most people here are starving and the women turn tricks to buy food. ... AIDS is rampant, I´ve learned. Most people have it... The children have distended bellies and most people ask for food... that´s balanced slightly by the folks who dress like city folk and have real jobs and drive nice cars... but they are the minority. Otherwise, the beach, like I said, is amazing... and I´m heading back there now.
The only reason I came to Santo Domingo was to meet Heidi Bruner, the sister of Gwen Bruner and the last of 5 Bruners for me to know. When big sister, Natalie told me that I could meet the last of 5 sisters if I were going to the DR, I nearly flipped because ... I had already bough the ticket, and here I am... so, I met her... she took me to a great vegetarian restaruant and we talked DR culture, life, sisters and stuff and then she brought me to the internet cafe (lifesaver) hugged and said farewell... She´s a sweetie and I have hugs to send on to her sister and niece in NYC when I visit at the tail end of this trip and then more for Gwen and the gals in SLC... If any of you see Gwen (in case this doesn´t make it), tell her I had lunch with Heidi! Well ' I hope I can find my way back ... it´s still pouring rain here in the capital and yet I´m sweating! Ok ' take care ' love and peace
Sweden-France-S. Carolina 2003 (1)
Hey gang... I give! I planted a little seed in my heart, called it "home" and then instead of growing into a little daisy to keep me company, it went mad! Full beanstalk leaving room for nothing else... add to that 6 months in a tent, 3 nights sleeping in an airport, 2 weeks sleeping with a snoring aunt and several lovely photos of my very-missed puppy... and Viola! I had to get home... So... I AM!
I made a speedy decision on the descent from the climbing up at Ceuse in France one day... Not psyched... a bit run out, vertical climbing - not so my style and not suited to my state of lost fitness since Ireland and Sweden... So, I left Justin there to climb with our buddy Ellen Powick... who was alone for another week and who climbs at a level more suited to Justin... and he will be following soon.... He's planning to surprise his mom by coming home two weeks early.. this Tuesday or so... (SO DON'T TELL HER IF YOU SEE HER). He also really wanted to do the route Berlin and was gonna do it quickly.... Ellen did it her 2nd go!!!!!! Yeehaw!!
Anyway... Ceuse was awesome... beautiful rock and a great 1hr approach to get the legs and butt in shape. We camped with Melissa (Canada), Chris (Sharma), Nena (Canada) and Simon (England), the girls having fun wallowing in the misery of fear and fitness while the boys all sat around swilling bears and talking about how sweet this route or the other was... The ambience in Ceuse is incredible. There's a farm with Horses (which I fed daily), cats, sparrows, goldfish and a dog. The owners are super hospitable and sweet... only speaking French, which helped me improve my French a bit. The town of Gap (12k away) is super quaint with internet, fountains, shops, good beer and perfect plazas for drinking the good stuff under a hot sun... If I were to do my whole trip over, I would start in Ceuse... coming from serious fitness in Utah... then go to some other French crags I missed on this trip. I would leave out Siurana.. an opinion I share with Dave Graham, Nena and Simon, Justin, Ellen and a few others on the way. That's not to say I didn't meet many people who loved it, but it wasn't for me. I would spend way more time in Rodellar, a bit more in Riglos and of course, back to El Chorro!
As for getting home, I was lucky as hell on my buddy pass travel! I got here on the first flight out of Paris and the first flight out of Atlanta! No Standby! (Thanks Deanne!)
Seamus.... Well... we're back in the swing of things. He's very calm and settled with me here... not acting too paranoid that I may leave tomorrow. He came to the airport with my dad and was confused about me at first then quickly gave me the welcoming I expected with head high jumps to plant those missed kisses on my cheeks... We got up early, 5am (jetlag) and went for a walk this morning and then sat outside with the ducks and swans until the folks woke up. I called my dad from the airport... he thought I was still in Europe.. He said he was just watching the golf and so I said.... oh, then you probably wouldn't want to come get me at the Airport, would ya? He was surprised for sure and super happy! Anyway... thanks for letting me share my stories again... See everyone when I see ya!!! Salt Lake is about three weeks away for me... so around mid-late June! Hasta Luego! -rairai
I made a speedy decision on the descent from the climbing up at Ceuse in France one day... Not psyched... a bit run out, vertical climbing - not so my style and not suited to my state of lost fitness since Ireland and Sweden... So, I left Justin there to climb with our buddy Ellen Powick... who was alone for another week and who climbs at a level more suited to Justin... and he will be following soon.... He's planning to surprise his mom by coming home two weeks early.. this Tuesday or so... (SO DON'T TELL HER IF YOU SEE HER). He also really wanted to do the route Berlin and was gonna do it quickly.... Ellen did it her 2nd go!!!!!! Yeehaw!!
Anyway... Ceuse was awesome... beautiful rock and a great 1hr approach to get the legs and butt in shape. We camped with Melissa (Canada), Chris (Sharma), Nena (Canada) and Simon (England), the girls having fun wallowing in the misery of fear and fitness while the boys all sat around swilling bears and talking about how sweet this route or the other was... The ambience in Ceuse is incredible. There's a farm with Horses (which I fed daily), cats, sparrows, goldfish and a dog. The owners are super hospitable and sweet... only speaking French, which helped me improve my French a bit. The town of Gap (12k away) is super quaint with internet, fountains, shops, good beer and perfect plazas for drinking the good stuff under a hot sun... If I were to do my whole trip over, I would start in Ceuse... coming from serious fitness in Utah... then go to some other French crags I missed on this trip. I would leave out Siurana.. an opinion I share with Dave Graham, Nena and Simon, Justin, Ellen and a few others on the way. That's not to say I didn't meet many people who loved it, but it wasn't for me. I would spend way more time in Rodellar, a bit more in Riglos and of course, back to El Chorro!
As for getting home, I was lucky as hell on my buddy pass travel! I got here on the first flight out of Paris and the first flight out of Atlanta! No Standby! (Thanks Deanne!)
Seamus.... Well... we're back in the swing of things. He's very calm and settled with me here... not acting too paranoid that I may leave tomorrow. He came to the airport with my dad and was confused about me at first then quickly gave me the welcoming I expected with head high jumps to plant those missed kisses on my cheeks... We got up early, 5am (jetlag) and went for a walk this morning and then sat outside with the ducks and swans until the folks woke up. I called my dad from the airport... he thought I was still in Europe.. He said he was just watching the golf and so I said.... oh, then you probably wouldn't want to come get me at the Airport, would ya? He was surprised for sure and super happy! Anyway... thanks for letting me share my stories again... See everyone when I see ya!!! Salt Lake is about three weeks away for me... so around mid-late June! Hasta Luego! -rairai
Ireland-Sweden 2003 (1)
Hej! I arrived to Gothenberg, Sweden five days ago or so.... Lemme back track a bit...
Ireland was a blast! At first, I thought I would spend my time running around this great new little track next to my aunt's house... a nature reserve through a bog... ya know, stay in shape in lieu of the fact that I wouldn't be climbing that much... haha oh how things didn't happen that way... It was nonstop traffic through the door, meeting cousins I never knew before... the newest of which is 18months old and cute as a button... and reacquainting with those that were only babies last time I came to the emerald isle... It's amazing to have so many cousins that you lose track of - who you know and who you wouldn't recognize if they were customers in a bar you worked in... But, I bonded again with those that are close to my age.. mostly over many pints of Guinness, Harp Lager, German beer (brought back by my Uncle Gerhardt who drives trucks back and forth from Germany... which he insisted should be drunk with Schnapps) and shandies and wine and gin and tonic.. and well, the Irish are almost as bad as the Russians for not taking 'No thanks' as a real answer... so, no fitness acquired or even maintained on that 2 week trip... but oh, what a time it was!
I spent four days in the south, Wicklow town, and the rest in Belfast... times were as always there... threats in certain parts of the city to those that are flying the wrong flag from their apartment window, marches down certain neighborhood streets to acknowledge the anniversary of the Hunger Strikers that died for the 'cause' on the Catholic side years ago... Bobby Sands and the like.... And marches in the protestant areas to protest the habitation of Catholics in one of 'their' apartment complexes.... as real as ever and as out of the news as Iraq will dictate... Speaking of which, I wonder what the news at home is like... I wonder if you see the images that I see in the newspapers in Europe... Shocking and unacceptable... I saw the movie Cold Mountain and it made me reflect on the war in Iraq and ... I can't say much more than how much I abhor it and how much I fear that Bush will win again and how much I think they will attack the US around election time to send a message like they did in Madrid... which, much to their liking, had the result they hoped for as far as the political situation in Spain is concerned... positive reinforcement in the worst way... with the potential for gnarly action in the US soon to come.... I hope I'm wrong...
Back to fun in Ireland.. I went climbing one day on some sea cliffs on the north eastern coast of Ireland... check out the link about our weekend and see some pictures of my crew and the rock... http://www.fairheadclimbers.com/pages/latest_news/meet/meet.htm I actually got to plug gear again for the first time in many many months... add to the time off the fact that the rock was moist and mossy and voila! Scare factor goes up... but, was super super good time and finished it off at... you guessed it .. the pub! My climbing contacts weren't family, but an American guy, a French gal and an Irish lad that I met in El Chorro! Yeehaw!
Taht's what brought me to Sweden too! In between Ireland and my trip back to France I decided to visit new friends in Sweden.. so here I am! It'a amazing.. The people are beautiful inside and out! The climbing has been fun... I've only been crack climbing at Utby (trad, short routes, great granite ... not as easy-cheesy as this site shows, but a good time.. http://www.mountain-environment.com/gothenburg.html one day and bouldering on one of the islands, Honö, the other day... but what I've done has been rad. The bouldering in particular was amazing.. waves crashing, blue sky and sunshine with a bit too much wind, but rare rock and seashells all around! It was super! One of the friends I made in Spain is in a reggae band and he mentioned they would have a show when I was here... and they did... but I had no idea they were a 12 piece band, including sax, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, bass, guitar, percussion, two vocalists, keyboard ... and other odd instruments in between.. ie - sheet of metal that makes a wild sound... I am staying with Henrik, the bassist and two of his roomies are also in the band, which is making for a super cool experience! Others that joined are Cissi, Johan, Magnus, Panda, Martin and all their significant others... I've met the local climbing crew and hope to have a Swedish invasion in Salt Lake City at some point in the future!
Justin is having a much better time now in Fontanbleau right now with some of the hometown possee... Eric Harrison and girlfriend, Jaima as well as Dr. Topo from Canada.. so they are cranking in the forest and Justin gets to be with folks from home, which trust me, at this point is a super super luxury! We miss you guys back in Utah (and Carolina).... Looks like mid June at this point... could be sooner... houses on the market in SLC right now are very nice and I want to get one and get in before school slaps it to me.... fingers crossed on that one.... Well, off to ride a big roller coaster.. supposed to be the steepest wooden roller coaster in Sweden.... in Europe? in the world???? I dunno... Tomorrow, more crack climbing and Monday... farewell to Sweden!
Take care! Live it up and share the memories!!
Ireland was a blast! At first, I thought I would spend my time running around this great new little track next to my aunt's house... a nature reserve through a bog... ya know, stay in shape in lieu of the fact that I wouldn't be climbing that much... haha oh how things didn't happen that way... It was nonstop traffic through the door, meeting cousins I never knew before... the newest of which is 18months old and cute as a button... and reacquainting with those that were only babies last time I came to the emerald isle... It's amazing to have so many cousins that you lose track of - who you know and who you wouldn't recognize if they were customers in a bar you worked in... But, I bonded again with those that are close to my age.. mostly over many pints of Guinness, Harp Lager, German beer (brought back by my Uncle Gerhardt who drives trucks back and forth from Germany... which he insisted should be drunk with Schnapps) and shandies and wine and gin and tonic.. and well, the Irish are almost as bad as the Russians for not taking 'No thanks' as a real answer... so, no fitness acquired or even maintained on that 2 week trip... but oh, what a time it was!
I spent four days in the south, Wicklow town, and the rest in Belfast... times were as always there... threats in certain parts of the city to those that are flying the wrong flag from their apartment window, marches down certain neighborhood streets to acknowledge the anniversary of the Hunger Strikers that died for the 'cause' on the Catholic side years ago... Bobby Sands and the like.... And marches in the protestant areas to protest the habitation of Catholics in one of 'their' apartment complexes.... as real as ever and as out of the news as Iraq will dictate... Speaking of which, I wonder what the news at home is like... I wonder if you see the images that I see in the newspapers in Europe... Shocking and unacceptable... I saw the movie Cold Mountain and it made me reflect on the war in Iraq and ... I can't say much more than how much I abhor it and how much I fear that Bush will win again and how much I think they will attack the US around election time to send a message like they did in Madrid... which, much to their liking, had the result they hoped for as far as the political situation in Spain is concerned... positive reinforcement in the worst way... with the potential for gnarly action in the US soon to come.... I hope I'm wrong...
Back to fun in Ireland.. I went climbing one day on some sea cliffs on the north eastern coast of Ireland... check out the link about our weekend and see some pictures of my crew and the rock... http://www.fairheadclimbers.com/pages/latest_news/meet/meet.htm I actually got to plug gear again for the first time in many many months... add to the time off the fact that the rock was moist and mossy and voila! Scare factor goes up... but, was super super good time and finished it off at... you guessed it .. the pub! My climbing contacts weren't family, but an American guy, a French gal and an Irish lad that I met in El Chorro! Yeehaw!
Taht's what brought me to Sweden too! In between Ireland and my trip back to France I decided to visit new friends in Sweden.. so here I am! It'a amazing.. The people are beautiful inside and out! The climbing has been fun... I've only been crack climbing at Utby (trad, short routes, great granite ... not as easy-cheesy as this site shows, but a good time.. http://www.mountain-environment.com/gothenburg.html one day and bouldering on one of the islands, Honö, the other day... but what I've done has been rad. The bouldering in particular was amazing.. waves crashing, blue sky and sunshine with a bit too much wind, but rare rock and seashells all around! It was super! One of the friends I made in Spain is in a reggae band and he mentioned they would have a show when I was here... and they did... but I had no idea they were a 12 piece band, including sax, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, bass, guitar, percussion, two vocalists, keyboard ... and other odd instruments in between.. ie - sheet of metal that makes a wild sound... I am staying with Henrik, the bassist and two of his roomies are also in the band, which is making for a super cool experience! Others that joined are Cissi, Johan, Magnus, Panda, Martin and all their significant others... I've met the local climbing crew and hope to have a Swedish invasion in Salt Lake City at some point in the future!
Justin is having a much better time now in Fontanbleau right now with some of the hometown possee... Eric Harrison and girlfriend, Jaima as well as Dr. Topo from Canada.. so they are cranking in the forest and Justin gets to be with folks from home, which trust me, at this point is a super super luxury! We miss you guys back in Utah (and Carolina).... Looks like mid June at this point... could be sooner... houses on the market in SLC right now are very nice and I want to get one and get in before school slaps it to me.... fingers crossed on that one.... Well, off to ride a big roller coaster.. supposed to be the steepest wooden roller coaster in Sweden.... in Europe? in the world???? I dunno... Tomorrow, more crack climbing and Monday... farewell to Sweden!
Take care! Live it up and share the memories!!
Spain-Ireland 2003 (1)
Hey everyone!! It's been a while, much to the relief of some of you as my messages are epic, no? I'm writing now from downtown Belfast...
So, I think I left off just after I had picked up Justin in Barcelona and we were being snowed on in Siurana... well, Siurana proved to be the worst weather of my trip so far... When we raised our go go gadget necks above the clouds to peak out, we saw that we were the only ones in the clouds... coast - clear, west - clear, El Chorro - clear (but super super hot according to friends down there...) but us, no, socked in... BUT, it was ok cause we still had the rental car.. we moved into the refuge in Siurana to stay out of the rain and snow and that was odd, cause they kick you out from noon to 7pm so we sat in the car reading or we went into to nearby Reus to use the internet... Siurana itself has nothing to offer by way of shops, entertainment or anything really... just climbing... And as for the climbing, that which I did experience made me miserable.. coming from El Chorro, Gandia and Sella... overhanging tufas.. ooo lala to vertical painful tendon ripping pockets.. well, I sucked there... but to cheer up future visiting climbers, if you like Smith Rock, you'll like Siurana... I never did climb well at Smith so I was miserable.. sucking eggs on everything... did a couple here and there ... Justin had a good time and liked the style, but then he gets all giddy with fear on the steeps so it was just perfect for him... we're opposite in that way... Anyway, the cannuks, Andie and Derek left us sooner than we thought (boohoo.. we like them lots) and then we were on our own to climb and camp in the freezing cold... we did, however, get a huge lovely camp site and put up our slack line... but.. enough about Siurana.. I'm getting bummed just thinking about it cause in my opinion... aside from the lovely people we met, it was the low point in my trip entirely...
High point.. Rodellar! We loved Rodellar! How beautiful.. another Spanish town sitting on a cliffside... isolated from anything.. no road going beyond the town... loaded with Limestone cliffs, most overhanging to steep vertical, dripping with tufas, spectacular orange, blue, grey, black and white streaked limestone... and odd Red River Gorge Red climbing in some spots... a river running through the entire gorge, the option of sun and shade all day, adventurous cobble hopping river crossings and wild goats and their kids running around on rainy days.... and swimming holes as bluegreen as the mediterranean with diving rocks placed as if it were all designed by divers... and caving, slot canyons, trails, and did I mention, amazing limestone! Unfortunately, we were only there for a short while... We rented a car with our buddy Nick from New York... we left Siurana with him, went to Riglos and tried to climb the classic Fiesta de Biceps... an 8 pitch conglomerate spire route (7a) but we had no topo and at the top of pitch 5 realized we weren't exactly on a classic and we were all dying of dehydration and climbing in the sun... so we bailed and drank beers and ate olives in the parking lot... we laughed when we realized how close we were... and how the whole time, none of us were sure we were on route.. I, in particular, knew we weren't.. but, that's just a girl thing and we have to give the boys a break.. heehee So the next day we drove to Rodellar, walked around in the rain and then rented a super cool bungalow for next to nothing (with kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom, hot water, sink, stove with gas and a bar on site) The owners... awesome! We loved it there and next to El Chorro, it was the most hospitable climbing area I had been to on my trip...
After a few days there, Justin and I were heading to the Basque country and Nick back to work in Barcelona... we dropped him off in Pamplona... we saw little of that city, but unless you're running with the bulls, it's not a destination point in my opinion.. We drove thru the basque country and it was amazing.. it looked like Switzerland... so green with Swiss brown cows and Bavarian architecture... Next stop - Bilbao and the Gugenheim Museum... it was great but the art genres on hand were a bit bizarre.. it had a moving images theme and there were a lot of very weird videos on hand.. the second floor which hosts the visiting display of a given artist was in the process of being changed, so we saw nothing.. which was a shame cause the upcoming show was to be awesome pop art by a guy named... James Rosenkratz or something...
Anyway.. there were some amazing photos and interesting paintings and then there was a lot of shit... but the Gugenheim itself, the layout, etc... was worth the visit... THEN we went to San Sebastian.. that was amazing... we sat on the sandy beach and watched the surfers... then later when I was talking to my mom on the phone I spotted our Swedish friend, Anders, walking down the street (we met in Siurana) and I sent Justin running... we stayed with him that night and went out to a bar where I also got to hang out with a buddy from San Sebastian who I met in Peru on another climbing trip.. that was great!
From San Sebastian we drove along the French side of the Pironeos and made a stop in Lourdes.. it's the sight of a miracle and the water is supposed to be holy so boatloads of people come every day in all states of health and on behalf of loved ones to pray and hope for a miracle of their own... there were loads of nurses on hand, wheeling people around, taking them up to the Grotto to light candles and then dropping them into holy pools to be bathed and sing Ave Maria.. it's a Catholic thing.. the faith of the people was amazing... Justin and I just watched and drank a litre of holy water...
Then, I dropped Justin off in France and returned the rental car to Barcelona and flew to Belfast... I am staying here with my aun Martha... I went south to Wicklow for a one year anniversary mass for my Aunt Kathleen who died last year of bowel cancer. Afterwards, my cousin Carol had us all over for a big shindig at her place... nothing like getting plastered with family and watching your aunts and uncles get more drunk than you... I have quite the big family... Mom was one of 13 and this was her side... loads of cousins, second cousins, etc... The whole time I've been home I've been meeting folks I'm related too but never knew before... I'm planning to climb this weekend in the north or Ireland on the coast.. but it's been raining for two days.... soooooo
Justin is in Grenoble with his friend Sebastian who spent two months in SLC with Justin last fall... He says he's having a bad climbing week, feeling weak and wanting to get back home to train! haha.. me too.. Ireland is doing nothing for my climbing! But, my alcohol tolerance has gone way up! yeehaw. Anyway.. not too interesting... just facts... and I'm too tired from the nights of partying in the south to write more.... travel info to follow...
Car rental - http://www.all-inclusive-car-hire.com/ cheap, unlimited mileage.. uk, spain, portugal only (try to get a diesel.. cheaper fuel, better mileage)
Rodellar - stay at El Puente.. not Mascun... it's a customer service issue, but adds a walk to your stay... for which a rental car is almost necessary unless you can hitch in...
Siurana - no free camping allowed unless you're stealth or have a van... stay at Camping Siurana €6 per night/per person
San Sebastian is a must see! Pamplona - could give a miss...
all for now... take care! love sleepy Rai who wants to come home to SLC and recover from the exhausing travels... the PhD program will be a holiday haha
So, I think I left off just after I had picked up Justin in Barcelona and we were being snowed on in Siurana... well, Siurana proved to be the worst weather of my trip so far... When we raised our go go gadget necks above the clouds to peak out, we saw that we were the only ones in the clouds... coast - clear, west - clear, El Chorro - clear (but super super hot according to friends down there...) but us, no, socked in... BUT, it was ok cause we still had the rental car.. we moved into the refuge in Siurana to stay out of the rain and snow and that was odd, cause they kick you out from noon to 7pm so we sat in the car reading or we went into to nearby Reus to use the internet... Siurana itself has nothing to offer by way of shops, entertainment or anything really... just climbing... And as for the climbing, that which I did experience made me miserable.. coming from El Chorro, Gandia and Sella... overhanging tufas.. ooo lala to vertical painful tendon ripping pockets.. well, I sucked there... but to cheer up future visiting climbers, if you like Smith Rock, you'll like Siurana... I never did climb well at Smith so I was miserable.. sucking eggs on everything... did a couple here and there ... Justin had a good time and liked the style, but then he gets all giddy with fear on the steeps so it was just perfect for him... we're opposite in that way... Anyway, the cannuks, Andie and Derek left us sooner than we thought (boohoo.. we like them lots) and then we were on our own to climb and camp in the freezing cold... we did, however, get a huge lovely camp site and put up our slack line... but.. enough about Siurana.. I'm getting bummed just thinking about it cause in my opinion... aside from the lovely people we met, it was the low point in my trip entirely...
High point.. Rodellar! We loved Rodellar! How beautiful.. another Spanish town sitting on a cliffside... isolated from anything.. no road going beyond the town... loaded with Limestone cliffs, most overhanging to steep vertical, dripping with tufas, spectacular orange, blue, grey, black and white streaked limestone... and odd Red River Gorge Red climbing in some spots... a river running through the entire gorge, the option of sun and shade all day, adventurous cobble hopping river crossings and wild goats and their kids running around on rainy days.... and swimming holes as bluegreen as the mediterranean with diving rocks placed as if it were all designed by divers... and caving, slot canyons, trails, and did I mention, amazing limestone! Unfortunately, we were only there for a short while... We rented a car with our buddy Nick from New York... we left Siurana with him, went to Riglos and tried to climb the classic Fiesta de Biceps... an 8 pitch conglomerate spire route (7a) but we had no topo and at the top of pitch 5 realized we weren't exactly on a classic and we were all dying of dehydration and climbing in the sun... so we bailed and drank beers and ate olives in the parking lot... we laughed when we realized how close we were... and how the whole time, none of us were sure we were on route.. I, in particular, knew we weren't.. but, that's just a girl thing and we have to give the boys a break.. heehee So the next day we drove to Rodellar, walked around in the rain and then rented a super cool bungalow for next to nothing (with kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom, hot water, sink, stove with gas and a bar on site) The owners... awesome! We loved it there and next to El Chorro, it was the most hospitable climbing area I had been to on my trip...
After a few days there, Justin and I were heading to the Basque country and Nick back to work in Barcelona... we dropped him off in Pamplona... we saw little of that city, but unless you're running with the bulls, it's not a destination point in my opinion.. We drove thru the basque country and it was amazing.. it looked like Switzerland... so green with Swiss brown cows and Bavarian architecture... Next stop - Bilbao and the Gugenheim Museum... it was great but the art genres on hand were a bit bizarre.. it had a moving images theme and there were a lot of very weird videos on hand.. the second floor which hosts the visiting display of a given artist was in the process of being changed, so we saw nothing.. which was a shame cause the upcoming show was to be awesome pop art by a guy named... James Rosenkratz or something...
Anyway.. there were some amazing photos and interesting paintings and then there was a lot of shit... but the Gugenheim itself, the layout, etc... was worth the visit... THEN we went to San Sebastian.. that was amazing... we sat on the sandy beach and watched the surfers... then later when I was talking to my mom on the phone I spotted our Swedish friend, Anders, walking down the street (we met in Siurana) and I sent Justin running... we stayed with him that night and went out to a bar where I also got to hang out with a buddy from San Sebastian who I met in Peru on another climbing trip.. that was great!
From San Sebastian we drove along the French side of the Pironeos and made a stop in Lourdes.. it's the sight of a miracle and the water is supposed to be holy so boatloads of people come every day in all states of health and on behalf of loved ones to pray and hope for a miracle of their own... there were loads of nurses on hand, wheeling people around, taking them up to the Grotto to light candles and then dropping them into holy pools to be bathed and sing Ave Maria.. it's a Catholic thing.. the faith of the people was amazing... Justin and I just watched and drank a litre of holy water...
Then, I dropped Justin off in France and returned the rental car to Barcelona and flew to Belfast... I am staying here with my aun Martha... I went south to Wicklow for a one year anniversary mass for my Aunt Kathleen who died last year of bowel cancer. Afterwards, my cousin Carol had us all over for a big shindig at her place... nothing like getting plastered with family and watching your aunts and uncles get more drunk than you... I have quite the big family... Mom was one of 13 and this was her side... loads of cousins, second cousins, etc... The whole time I've been home I've been meeting folks I'm related too but never knew before... I'm planning to climb this weekend in the north or Ireland on the coast.. but it's been raining for two days.... soooooo
Justin is in Grenoble with his friend Sebastian who spent two months in SLC with Justin last fall... He says he's having a bad climbing week, feeling weak and wanting to get back home to train! haha.. me too.. Ireland is doing nothing for my climbing! But, my alcohol tolerance has gone way up! yeehaw. Anyway.. not too interesting... just facts... and I'm too tired from the nights of partying in the south to write more.... travel info to follow...
Car rental - http://www.all-inclusive-car-hire.com/ cheap, unlimited mileage.. uk, spain, portugal only (try to get a diesel.. cheaper fuel, better mileage)
Rodellar - stay at El Puente.. not Mascun... it's a customer service issue, but adds a walk to your stay... for which a rental car is almost necessary unless you can hitch in...
Siurana - no free camping allowed unless you're stealth or have a van... stay at Camping Siurana €6 per night/per person
San Sebastian is a must see! Pamplona - could give a miss...
all for now... take care! love sleepy Rai who wants to come home to SLC and recover from the exhausing travels... the PhD program will be a holiday haha
Utah-Spain 2007 (9)
Hey everyone! Rai here... writing from rainey Reus, Spain... ooohhh.. but you know life is good when all you have to complain about is waking up and peaking out your tent to look upon the cliff bands of Siurana and have the misfortune of having to climb back in your down bag and snuggle with your boyfriend as you discuss whether to make coffee in the snow or drive down to the closest big town to kill a day in the coffe shop while you start reading 1984, by George Orwell cause you're feeling cerebral on this seemingly endless roadtrip... But, still, sunshine would be divine!!
The road has taken me by the hand finally! I bid farewell after a long 4 month stint at the Finca La Campana... I think I had a big impact on the owners cause they lost the color in their faces when I said I was leaving... ok, not quite.. but, I kind of took that place by the short hairs and put things in order before I took off. I did my whole move in- take charge- make cute signs on the computer and laminate them for the kitchen-thing... and when Andie, our Canadian travel buddy nominated me employee of the year as a joke, Christine, the owner, said I win employee of all the years! It sucks to be an organizational freak sometimes, cause it makes relaxing hard ... I would be sitting at dinner with my friends and then it would occur to me that the back toilet was out of toilet paper and I meant to change it this morning and that I forgot to print my new sign about the abolishment from the kitchen of all those who don't do their dishes and the dishes are piling up as I swallow the third bite of my peanut sauce stir fry... and I MUST do it now!!! And then Justin dumps me cause he can't handle having such an anal retentive mental case as a girlfriend and then he remembers that he's obsessive compulsive and it all works out! That's just how it is for me... I tried phone therapy but I think I need the real deal.... Just accept me for who I am! Crazy girl!
So, I said goodbye to lovely El Chorro... Said goodbye to Fox Dog, Sherpa, the young boys that I used to babysit (who were way more into the snails at the bus stop than their favorite babysitter leaving... really they just didn't understand the severity and permanence of the Adios... it probably hit them the next day... I won't count on it!), I said goodbye to the locals that I had gotten to know and that was that.. on the road!
The road consisted at first of me, Andie and Derek from Squamish and Toblerone (Torbjorn - simplified as a chocolate bar... nicknames to become Thunderbear and Chocolate) from Norway.. in a luxury rental car... well, a Puegot SUV.. which was supposed to be a small little bug car, but when we showed up without our papers and they realized we'd come to the wrong pick up site, that was all they had... and they thought they were putting us out... haha! Joke of the year! We scored so big with that change... from a cramped car to a huge box with lots of storage.. ideal! And especially now, as we sit in the rain, roofracks on a bug would have been the death of us and our luggage! and it wasn't even a real bug, as in VW, which would have made up for a little discomfort in sheer style points... no, just generic euro model... but, anyway...
Our first stop from El Chorro... which didn't lack several wrong turns and two alpha girls sitting in the front navigating at each other...was Sella, a climbing area outside of Alicante.. the climbing was great... slabby and easy in most sectors, but we spent a day at the coveted Wild Side and that was super! Luckily for us, the locals put up top ropes! The grades in El Chorro are a little softer than those at Sella... note to climbers, go to El Chorro last on your tour of Spain! And I thought I was strong!
Oh well... From Sella, where we wild camped at the base of the crag, we went to Gandia to wild camp in a toilet... well, first in a river bed, on stones and then in a cave on rock... with crappy little pads and toilet paper lingering within a few meters at any time... Andie figures I could make millions translating the book 'How to Shit in the Woods' into Spanish... but I figure... who would buy it!? So, the climbing at Gandia was super cool.. one short crag, with a few sectors.. lots of pocket pulling and tufa climbing on steep rock with plenty of easy and hard lines... and, best of all, gets full sun all day! It sits on a busy enough road, so traffic is a detail of the day, but the climbing and sun made up for it in my mind... and you're looking at the Meditarreananareannean... Sea all day! oooohhh... Derek took a quick dip in that water... trying to refresh since we'd gone a while without showers... he backed off once before diving in cause of a dead fish floating by... then sucked it up and said, 'that's it, I'm going in'... and he ran... and he stopped.. and he shook his head and then he kept going and he went in... He came out with tails of maxi pads floating by and an abundance of trash on the bottom... mmm nice, think I'll hold out a few more days for my shower... (Which came 8 days after my last one)
So, from Gandia we went inland to Montenejos.. slept road side in a forest... it was a cute little mountain town with warm springs put in by Franco back in the day... or some other dude.. I think it was franco... wait.. maybe not... well, a king of some sort... bad, bad historian I am. Anyway.. there's climbing there too but we were all resting and I was cursed that morning with a gnarly cold.. so I didn't even get to swim, but those folks did... that was their pseudo shower.. another missed opportunity for me. We walked around a bit, looked at all the facades on the buildings of businesses run by Spaniards who unfortunately know about that silly Siesta thing that takes place between 3 & 5 pmish every day... So, we didn't really see much... then we checked out the climbing.. quite nice limestone caves and an impressive canyon with water flowing through, rumored to have huge frogs and great swimming in the summer... we had cloud cover that day and weren't really all that warm... we left.
Next stop... we didn't really know.. we thought originally Siurana... but then realized that since we had to pick up boy wonder (Justin) in Barcelona the next day, it made little sense to drive into Siurana and back out in the morming... destination - Barcelona suburbia for wild camping... We found a little road between Tarragona and Barcelona and camped in the woods again, next to some premature olive groves... in the morning, after our usual cowboy coffee session, we hit the road and went in to the big city...
Barcelona is a rockin' city.. one of my favorites!!! It was going off this Thursday that we went in because Celtic was playing Barcelona in a match to determine who would move into the quarter finals of the futbol tourney.... The streets were filled with drunks from Scotland, Ireland, England... wearing their Celtic jerseys, flying the Irish flag... singing team songs.. it was great! A Dubliner walked up to me later in the day and slurred out 'you know about Celtic?'... I said, yeah, it's a proud Irish team based in Scotland.... he was impressed... 'Yeah, exactly'... and walked away singing with his mates... I still don't know who won! Guess I should check.. but man, I bet it was chaos around that stadium!
So, we scoped the buskers (talent in the streets.... live statues, jugglers, Micheal Jackson impersonator, etc) and then met Justin at the meeting point, harbor end of La Rambla.. and we loaded our rain soaked bodies into the rental car and headed for Siurana....
Siurana, the little village itself is impressive! It's stuck in time! It is tiny and no cars are allowed in.... The streets are very chunky cobble stones, the buildings have their original facades with some internal remodeling... the old midevil jail is now someone's back garden... there are still rusty metal shackles hanging inside... I think and those other metal rings here and there to tie up horses, etc.... the village had 7 inhabitants as of the mid 80´s when climbers started to develop more heavily in the area with bolts (previously had been visited by folks training for the Alps, trad climbing only) and with the sport climbers came a salvation for this dying small town! So, now the village has 20 dwellers and vistors from all over, and yet, it is still dead-like with no trash, no bush potties everywhere and just a good feel about it... there are two refugios, one with camping and then some wild camping for the frugal.. like us!
We found an awesome little perch ... three feet in front of our tent's door is a big drop off and down the trail to our right is the gorge filled with all the climbing... we were feeling so set up and so lucky and then... it happened! SNOW!!! I almost made a whole year with no snow... but, it fell today! On our heads! So, we hit the road to Reus to get a warm cup of Java... and we're still here... wallowing in the recent news that it's supposed to rain for the next four days down here, which means snow up on our tents... so, maybe we'll dig them out of their white blankets and head elsewhere for a couple of days..... this is where Justin and I are planning to stay until the end of April when I go to Ireland... so if the weather continues to be this inclimate and uncomfortable.. then ouch, I'm hating it! I sent my down jacket home in a moment of spacial relations desperation! oops!
So, that's this life in a nutshell... I hope all is well in everyone else's life... As I always say.. I love hearing from you.. even just one-liners are great... Looks like I'll be home early July, passing thru CO in mid July and hopefully buying my own little cozy house, finally, in August before I start becoming a real professional development kind of person.. hehe ... SLC- not forever, but not bad for now!
The road has taken me by the hand finally! I bid farewell after a long 4 month stint at the Finca La Campana... I think I had a big impact on the owners cause they lost the color in their faces when I said I was leaving... ok, not quite.. but, I kind of took that place by the short hairs and put things in order before I took off. I did my whole move in- take charge- make cute signs on the computer and laminate them for the kitchen-thing... and when Andie, our Canadian travel buddy nominated me employee of the year as a joke, Christine, the owner, said I win employee of all the years! It sucks to be an organizational freak sometimes, cause it makes relaxing hard ... I would be sitting at dinner with my friends and then it would occur to me that the back toilet was out of toilet paper and I meant to change it this morning and that I forgot to print my new sign about the abolishment from the kitchen of all those who don't do their dishes and the dishes are piling up as I swallow the third bite of my peanut sauce stir fry... and I MUST do it now!!! And then Justin dumps me cause he can't handle having such an anal retentive mental case as a girlfriend and then he remembers that he's obsessive compulsive and it all works out! That's just how it is for me... I tried phone therapy but I think I need the real deal.... Just accept me for who I am! Crazy girl!
So, I said goodbye to lovely El Chorro... Said goodbye to Fox Dog, Sherpa, the young boys that I used to babysit (who were way more into the snails at the bus stop than their favorite babysitter leaving... really they just didn't understand the severity and permanence of the Adios... it probably hit them the next day... I won't count on it!), I said goodbye to the locals that I had gotten to know and that was that.. on the road!
The road consisted at first of me, Andie and Derek from Squamish and Toblerone (Torbjorn - simplified as a chocolate bar... nicknames to become Thunderbear and Chocolate) from Norway.. in a luxury rental car... well, a Puegot SUV.. which was supposed to be a small little bug car, but when we showed up without our papers and they realized we'd come to the wrong pick up site, that was all they had... and they thought they were putting us out... haha! Joke of the year! We scored so big with that change... from a cramped car to a huge box with lots of storage.. ideal! And especially now, as we sit in the rain, roofracks on a bug would have been the death of us and our luggage! and it wasn't even a real bug, as in VW, which would have made up for a little discomfort in sheer style points... no, just generic euro model... but, anyway...
Our first stop from El Chorro... which didn't lack several wrong turns and two alpha girls sitting in the front navigating at each other...was Sella, a climbing area outside of Alicante.. the climbing was great... slabby and easy in most sectors, but we spent a day at the coveted Wild Side and that was super! Luckily for us, the locals put up top ropes! The grades in El Chorro are a little softer than those at Sella... note to climbers, go to El Chorro last on your tour of Spain! And I thought I was strong!
Oh well... From Sella, where we wild camped at the base of the crag, we went to Gandia to wild camp in a toilet... well, first in a river bed, on stones and then in a cave on rock... with crappy little pads and toilet paper lingering within a few meters at any time... Andie figures I could make millions translating the book 'How to Shit in the Woods' into Spanish... but I figure... who would buy it!? So, the climbing at Gandia was super cool.. one short crag, with a few sectors.. lots of pocket pulling and tufa climbing on steep rock with plenty of easy and hard lines... and, best of all, gets full sun all day! It sits on a busy enough road, so traffic is a detail of the day, but the climbing and sun made up for it in my mind... and you're looking at the Meditarreananareannean... Sea all day! oooohhh... Derek took a quick dip in that water... trying to refresh since we'd gone a while without showers... he backed off once before diving in cause of a dead fish floating by... then sucked it up and said, 'that's it, I'm going in'... and he ran... and he stopped.. and he shook his head and then he kept going and he went in... He came out with tails of maxi pads floating by and an abundance of trash on the bottom... mmm nice, think I'll hold out a few more days for my shower... (Which came 8 days after my last one)
So, from Gandia we went inland to Montenejos.. slept road side in a forest... it was a cute little mountain town with warm springs put in by Franco back in the day... or some other dude.. I think it was franco... wait.. maybe not... well, a king of some sort... bad, bad historian I am. Anyway.. there's climbing there too but we were all resting and I was cursed that morning with a gnarly cold.. so I didn't even get to swim, but those folks did... that was their pseudo shower.. another missed opportunity for me. We walked around a bit, looked at all the facades on the buildings of businesses run by Spaniards who unfortunately know about that silly Siesta thing that takes place between 3 & 5 pmish every day... So, we didn't really see much... then we checked out the climbing.. quite nice limestone caves and an impressive canyon with water flowing through, rumored to have huge frogs and great swimming in the summer... we had cloud cover that day and weren't really all that warm... we left.
Next stop... we didn't really know.. we thought originally Siurana... but then realized that since we had to pick up boy wonder (Justin) in Barcelona the next day, it made little sense to drive into Siurana and back out in the morming... destination - Barcelona suburbia for wild camping... We found a little road between Tarragona and Barcelona and camped in the woods again, next to some premature olive groves... in the morning, after our usual cowboy coffee session, we hit the road and went in to the big city...
Barcelona is a rockin' city.. one of my favorites!!! It was going off this Thursday that we went in because Celtic was playing Barcelona in a match to determine who would move into the quarter finals of the futbol tourney.... The streets were filled with drunks from Scotland, Ireland, England... wearing their Celtic jerseys, flying the Irish flag... singing team songs.. it was great! A Dubliner walked up to me later in the day and slurred out 'you know about Celtic?'... I said, yeah, it's a proud Irish team based in Scotland.... he was impressed... 'Yeah, exactly'... and walked away singing with his mates... I still don't know who won! Guess I should check.. but man, I bet it was chaos around that stadium!
So, we scoped the buskers (talent in the streets.... live statues, jugglers, Micheal Jackson impersonator, etc) and then met Justin at the meeting point, harbor end of La Rambla.. and we loaded our rain soaked bodies into the rental car and headed for Siurana....
Siurana, the little village itself is impressive! It's stuck in time! It is tiny and no cars are allowed in.... The streets are very chunky cobble stones, the buildings have their original facades with some internal remodeling... the old midevil jail is now someone's back garden... there are still rusty metal shackles hanging inside... I think and those other metal rings here and there to tie up horses, etc.... the village had 7 inhabitants as of the mid 80´s when climbers started to develop more heavily in the area with bolts (previously had been visited by folks training for the Alps, trad climbing only) and with the sport climbers came a salvation for this dying small town! So, now the village has 20 dwellers and vistors from all over, and yet, it is still dead-like with no trash, no bush potties everywhere and just a good feel about it... there are two refugios, one with camping and then some wild camping for the frugal.. like us!
We found an awesome little perch ... three feet in front of our tent's door is a big drop off and down the trail to our right is the gorge filled with all the climbing... we were feeling so set up and so lucky and then... it happened! SNOW!!! I almost made a whole year with no snow... but, it fell today! On our heads! So, we hit the road to Reus to get a warm cup of Java... and we're still here... wallowing in the recent news that it's supposed to rain for the next four days down here, which means snow up on our tents... so, maybe we'll dig them out of their white blankets and head elsewhere for a couple of days..... this is where Justin and I are planning to stay until the end of April when I go to Ireland... so if the weather continues to be this inclimate and uncomfortable.. then ouch, I'm hating it! I sent my down jacket home in a moment of spacial relations desperation! oops!
So, that's this life in a nutshell... I hope all is well in everyone else's life... As I always say.. I love hearing from you.. even just one-liners are great... Looks like I'll be home early July, passing thru CO in mid July and hopefully buying my own little cozy house, finally, in August before I start becoming a real professional development kind of person.. hehe ... SLC- not forever, but not bad for now!
Utah-Spain 2003 (8)
March 27th, 2003
Thanks to those who were concerned about me and my friends...
Down here in El Chorro we were completely oblivious to the suffering of those in Madrid until we came home for dinner. Spain is in a three day mourning, cancelling campaigning for their upcoming elections. It's the largest act of terror in their history and the largest act in Europe since ´88 (Pan Am flight bombing). Unfortunate and I don't know which is more frightening... that it was Al Qaeda-related or that it was ETA... probably the former in the big picture and the latter as far as Spain´s future is concerned...
In any case, all is well in El Chorro - the sun is shining today, despite forecasts of rain...and Justin is ok in Barcelona with his parents. .. that's all I guess I can really say... It's odd... I was in Italy on September 11th 2001... and now I'm in Spain for this attack... maybe not odd... but well... I dunno... anyway... take care of yourselves!
Thanks to those who were concerned about me and my friends...
Down here in El Chorro we were completely oblivious to the suffering of those in Madrid until we came home for dinner. Spain is in a three day mourning, cancelling campaigning for their upcoming elections. It's the largest act of terror in their history and the largest act in Europe since ´88 (Pan Am flight bombing). Unfortunate and I don't know which is more frightening... that it was Al Qaeda-related or that it was ETA... probably the former in the big picture and the latter as far as Spain´s future is concerned...
In any case, all is well in El Chorro - the sun is shining today, despite forecasts of rain...and Justin is ok in Barcelona with his parents. .. that's all I guess I can really say... It's odd... I was in Italy on September 11th 2001... and now I'm in Spain for this attack... maybe not odd... but well... I dunno... anyway... take care of yourselves!
Utah-Spain 2003 (7)
Hey gang.... I think my reputation as good travel e-mailer (or annoying self absorbed journaler) is dwindling.. and this one won't help matters... I just thought I would touch base... update things a bit...
I am still in ... you guessed it, sunny Andalucia! Working at the Finca la Campana still, in El Chorro, near Málaga... But, that is soon to end... Justin has already left with his parents to see Sevilla, Granada and Barcelona... they're here on a whirlwind trip of Spain... on the 13th he goes north to boulder in Fontenbleau with Cy and Kestrel... yep, they came thru too after they landed in Spain.. spent three days with us, climbing, cooking yummy food, drinking cheap yummy wine and just enjoying sun and limestone! it was super super great to see Kesaroo! I may reunite with her in Siurana at some point, but in the meantime, her and Cy are off to Chamonix then Germany!
As for my big travels... I leave the Finca around the 24th of March and meet Justin... We'll do a month in Siurana at the end of which I am going to Ireland!! for 10 days to see family, attend a mass for my aunt who died last year and climb with some Irish lads I met here at the Finca!!! And then, as flights from London are so cheap, I am going to Sweden for one week... straight to Gothenberg and into the guest bedroom of some friends I met here at the Finca... one of which plays in a reggae band and has a show the week I come up! Hopefully I'll get to see Oslo and Stockholm as well, but a week in Gothenberg, climbing with new friends is fine with me! The ticket was only €35 roundtrip from London... and I was in the airport anyway on my way back to Barcelona... after Sweden, I'll meet Justin in barcelona and then we go to Ceuse, France to climb for a month before moving east to Germany, Czech and maybe Austria....
Then!!!!! I got accepted to the PhD program at the U of Utah, so I'll be back in August to SLC, UT and I am buying a house with Zuzana and Aleksander, both of whom have been accepted to graduate programs at the U starting in the fall... we're all psyched to settle for a few years and not worry about landlords!
Aside from all that... the climbing was on the up and up as Justin was leaving... good motivator, ya know! But, I still have a small crew of long termers, including Daniel the American and Andie and Derek the Squamish-Whistler BC Canadians and Tobjorn (aka Toblerone) the Norwegian!!! So..... the routes are still being crushed and the time is still passing with laughter, good food and wine! I love life! I hope you all feel the same right now!!! AND... speaking of life and loving it... I'll be back for Climb for Life in the fall (Sept. 14-16th!!) So, I hope to see all that apply at that event in SLC this year!!! Wahoo!
Love and best to every one of you!!! Don't forget to look up once in a while and notice that the clouds are all moving in different directions... well, it happens in El Chorro anyway!
Hasta luego!! Oh - did I mention that my picture got published in Klettern, a German climbing magazine in an article about El Chorro!! haha!! What are the chances!!??
I am still in ... you guessed it, sunny Andalucia! Working at the Finca la Campana still, in El Chorro, near Málaga... But, that is soon to end... Justin has already left with his parents to see Sevilla, Granada and Barcelona... they're here on a whirlwind trip of Spain... on the 13th he goes north to boulder in Fontenbleau with Cy and Kestrel... yep, they came thru too after they landed in Spain.. spent three days with us, climbing, cooking yummy food, drinking cheap yummy wine and just enjoying sun and limestone! it was super super great to see Kesaroo! I may reunite with her in Siurana at some point, but in the meantime, her and Cy are off to Chamonix then Germany!
As for my big travels... I leave the Finca around the 24th of March and meet Justin... We'll do a month in Siurana at the end of which I am going to Ireland!! for 10 days to see family, attend a mass for my aunt who died last year and climb with some Irish lads I met here at the Finca!!! And then, as flights from London are so cheap, I am going to Sweden for one week... straight to Gothenberg and into the guest bedroom of some friends I met here at the Finca... one of which plays in a reggae band and has a show the week I come up! Hopefully I'll get to see Oslo and Stockholm as well, but a week in Gothenberg, climbing with new friends is fine with me! The ticket was only €35 roundtrip from London... and I was in the airport anyway on my way back to Barcelona... after Sweden, I'll meet Justin in barcelona and then we go to Ceuse, France to climb for a month before moving east to Germany, Czech and maybe Austria....
Then!!!!! I got accepted to the PhD program at the U of Utah, so I'll be back in August to SLC, UT and I am buying a house with Zuzana and Aleksander, both of whom have been accepted to graduate programs at the U starting in the fall... we're all psyched to settle for a few years and not worry about landlords!
Aside from all that... the climbing was on the up and up as Justin was leaving... good motivator, ya know! But, I still have a small crew of long termers, including Daniel the American and Andie and Derek the Squamish-Whistler BC Canadians and Tobjorn (aka Toblerone) the Norwegian!!! So..... the routes are still being crushed and the time is still passing with laughter, good food and wine! I love life! I hope you all feel the same right now!!! AND... speaking of life and loving it... I'll be back for Climb for Life in the fall (Sept. 14-16th!!) So, I hope to see all that apply at that event in SLC this year!!! Wahoo!
Love and best to every one of you!!! Don't forget to look up once in a while and notice that the clouds are all moving in different directions... well, it happens in El Chorro anyway!
Hasta luego!! Oh - did I mention that my picture got published in Klettern, a German climbing magazine in an article about El Chorro!! haha!! What are the chances!!??
Utah-Spain 2003 (6)
Hey gang... Just wanted to be in touch ... no mega updates... I am still in El Chorro.. still living in a tent with my boyfriend under that same olive tree.
The weather is on and off, but we are managing to climb tons. We rented a car last week with three others for a change of scenery.. namely a great lakeside crag over the hill and out of the gorge.. about 20 minutes by car from our pillows! It was awesome and I did my hardest route of the trip (not saying much cause psyche comes and goes.. I should be way stronger.. but alas, life as a roadtripper.. I think you may get weaker actually!) Anyway, it was a perfect line for the grade up blue streaked tufa limestone with big moves and long pushes well above the bolt.. good for my head and my 'dig-deep' grrr! So - yay for that! Next step is another in the same area.. oh, thankfully our Britt buddy Adrian rented a car this week to tick his next project in the same area! Justin is going to do a perfect 8a and when I make it to that level (soon) I'll be on it with him! It's gorgeous too.. tufas, smooth pockets, plenty of bolts ..hehe... and just plain cool moves!
Enough climbing talk though... life is great! I am part of El Chorro... and part of the Finca and it'll be hard to move on, but we will be very soon! Justin will head north with his parents mid March and after I finish up at the Finca, I'll head north to meet him in Siurana. Kestrel Hanson will be here to visit me with her man Cy on the 2nd of March! Anyone else!!!???
As for the vistas... still the same in Spain.. Sheep with bells making music for us while we climb, orange trees dropping gifts at our feet left and right and olive trees too productive to be kept up with.. though the men with nets and tree shaking machines do try their damnedest... I've found several cottages/fincas that I could buy and call home.. you know, small cottages in the middle of an almond grove.. needing remodel and attention but very ready for young woman with intention to own animals for companionship.. even burros, chickens and a cow! Ya know almond trees bloom with pink flowers in the spring.. they're reminiscent of the flower that the last samuri considered perfect... hehe
Justin and I have been watching several movies lately.. rest day activity in Malaga and our main source of Spanish input.. sadly... We've seen, not leaving out the major classics...heehheee.. When Mona Lisa Smiles, El Ultimo Samuri, Paycheck (Worse!), Cold Creek Manor (not recommended) ... The Insider (good), Reality Bites... flashback to high school... My Shirona! doo doo doo doo do do do do .. you know... Anyway... the best was definitely the last samuri in Spanish... Japanese accent included for authenticity!
Our only hardships in Spain are our inability to find Rooster Sauce (aka - sriraka sauce, made in Korea and a staple in our recipes) and peanut butter... which we just found the other day for a whopping 3.50$ for Capitan Mani! and our desire for sun when it's shady and shade when it's sunny... oh, the hard life of a vagabond climbing bum! Again, I ask, anyone wish to join us?
The best are the random music selections we pool from those that pass through.. had a blast with Billie Holladay the other day ... reminded me of The Color Purple which I watched so many times when I was a kid.. cause I owned it for some reason... "You sho is ugly!" Also great are the rest days by the pool where someone undoubtedly goes in without wishing to... the water is still too cold...
As far as "what the hell does Rai think she's doing with her life"... well, who cares.. but if you really do... I'm still considering coming back to the U of U if they'll take me BUT I've also inquired about starting at the U of Barcelona with the same program.. and the application process is simple enough and the director of the program is encouraging... so, it's just a matter of finances.. no teaching assistanceship there and no waived tuition.. etc.. but it's only 53 euros per credit and I could take a half load to start and see what happens.. but who knows.. anyone know about the validity of a PhD from Spain -vs- one from an American University... I'll have to keep researching on rest days....
Well, I do love to hear from folks so stay in touch and let me know what you're up to! With spring break coming for some.... there must be plans in the works... hasta luego amigos!
The weather is on and off, but we are managing to climb tons. We rented a car last week with three others for a change of scenery.. namely a great lakeside crag over the hill and out of the gorge.. about 20 minutes by car from our pillows! It was awesome and I did my hardest route of the trip (not saying much cause psyche comes and goes.. I should be way stronger.. but alas, life as a roadtripper.. I think you may get weaker actually!) Anyway, it was a perfect line for the grade up blue streaked tufa limestone with big moves and long pushes well above the bolt.. good for my head and my 'dig-deep' grrr! So - yay for that! Next step is another in the same area.. oh, thankfully our Britt buddy Adrian rented a car this week to tick his next project in the same area! Justin is going to do a perfect 8a and when I make it to that level (soon) I'll be on it with him! It's gorgeous too.. tufas, smooth pockets, plenty of bolts ..hehe... and just plain cool moves!
Enough climbing talk though... life is great! I am part of El Chorro... and part of the Finca and it'll be hard to move on, but we will be very soon! Justin will head north with his parents mid March and after I finish up at the Finca, I'll head north to meet him in Siurana. Kestrel Hanson will be here to visit me with her man Cy on the 2nd of March! Anyone else!!!???
As for the vistas... still the same in Spain.. Sheep with bells making music for us while we climb, orange trees dropping gifts at our feet left and right and olive trees too productive to be kept up with.. though the men with nets and tree shaking machines do try their damnedest... I've found several cottages/fincas that I could buy and call home.. you know, small cottages in the middle of an almond grove.. needing remodel and attention but very ready for young woman with intention to own animals for companionship.. even burros, chickens and a cow! Ya know almond trees bloom with pink flowers in the spring.. they're reminiscent of the flower that the last samuri considered perfect... hehe
Justin and I have been watching several movies lately.. rest day activity in Malaga and our main source of Spanish input.. sadly... We've seen, not leaving out the major classics...heehheee.. When Mona Lisa Smiles, El Ultimo Samuri, Paycheck (Worse!), Cold Creek Manor (not recommended) ... The Insider (good), Reality Bites... flashback to high school... My Shirona! doo doo doo doo do do do do .. you know... Anyway... the best was definitely the last samuri in Spanish... Japanese accent included for authenticity!
Our only hardships in Spain are our inability to find Rooster Sauce (aka - sriraka sauce, made in Korea and a staple in our recipes) and peanut butter... which we just found the other day for a whopping 3.50$ for Capitan Mani! and our desire for sun when it's shady and shade when it's sunny... oh, the hard life of a vagabond climbing bum! Again, I ask, anyone wish to join us?
The best are the random music selections we pool from those that pass through.. had a blast with Billie Holladay the other day ... reminded me of The Color Purple which I watched so many times when I was a kid.. cause I owned it for some reason... "You sho is ugly!" Also great are the rest days by the pool where someone undoubtedly goes in without wishing to... the water is still too cold...
As far as "what the hell does Rai think she's doing with her life"... well, who cares.. but if you really do... I'm still considering coming back to the U of U if they'll take me BUT I've also inquired about starting at the U of Barcelona with the same program.. and the application process is simple enough and the director of the program is encouraging... so, it's just a matter of finances.. no teaching assistanceship there and no waived tuition.. etc.. but it's only 53 euros per credit and I could take a half load to start and see what happens.. but who knows.. anyone know about the validity of a PhD from Spain -vs- one from an American University... I'll have to keep researching on rest days....
Well, I do love to hear from folks so stay in touch and let me know what you're up to! With spring break coming for some.... there must be plans in the works... hasta luego amigos!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Utah-Spain (5)
Hya- how's the rest of the world doing? Spain is raining on me right now... even though I'm in the hills. It's bordering on disaster for these folks... the rain is too much this year for the roads and soil... it's been damaged too much to handle it... but I'm glad to know that the skies haven't shriveled up like dried plums... is that the phrase? I've lost it...
Anyway - as things were so dry in Utah and other spots around the world this summer, it's nice that Utah is getting dumped on and so is the south of Spain.. as for my climbing, well, the rest of my life in Spain is so easy right now that I almost feel like I'm cheating, but since we're not playing a game, maybe it just means I'm doing something right... It's true, I'm not furthering my professional development right now... but I'm living stress free and experiencing the life of many cultures... It's remarkable how many people from all over the world are passing through my life right now... well mostly from the UK and Scandinavia... which is cool cause I haven't know many Swedes, Norwegians, Finns or Danes in the past...
So, I am working now for the Finca, as I've told some of you.. I clean a couple of hours in the morning before going out craggin, and then starting this Sunday I have a week long babysitting job for the owners as they need some free time to hang with friends that they have coming into town... So, when all is said and done, I'll have no bill for sleeping and eating here and I might make a little bit too...
I've moved in nicely and taken over, as is so typical of me, I'm afraid... I've made signs for the kitchen, lamp covers for the shabby lights in the common area and I've already started working on Jean, the owner to let me paint one of the bedrooms cause it looks really really bad and if I were a guest at the finca, I'd be disappointed... I'm still the only USA resident... the 'annoying' guests.. ie. the ones that make the noise, the mess and have all the gear - necessary or not are from another English speaking country, whose name I will withold to protect the innocent...cause we all know stereotypes are unkind... but still, I, the quiet mellow American... (yes, I've been mostly quiet and mellow) get to hear the blows to the American way all the time... we're so in the spotlight that I guess it just happens... no one would really know how to take a jab at Sweden, except maybe a Finn, but anyway...
Christmas is coming up and I'll hopefully be climbing and not paying too much attention to the fact that I'm so far away from the closest friends and family... I won't be going to Ireland as I had potentially planned... I'm gonna save that trip for later maybe... flights from Malaga to London are around 30 dollars, so a quick pop over and back isn't unreasonable... then a ferry to Dublin... oh, it's all so cheap... My friend Uta from Germany, never made it over a few weeks ago, but if flight prices from Germany come down, she may be with me in Spain for New Years... the local climbers that stay in the refugio in town told me that there'll be monster parties over the holidays... it's good to chat with them because their English is super limited and I get to practicar un poquito... Oh and when I have the kids for a week... well, they only speak Spanish!
I was having a thought on the train this afternoon as I was on my way to Malaga to shop for a new book to read and just escape the boredom of sitting around the fire for yet another rainy day... my thought... I suppose inspired by a few images that caught my attention lately... the story of the trial for that guy that murdered those lovely girls in England, a picture of a starving baby in Angola, the recent loss of my friend Hilary's mother, and the destruction to a small village in Indonesia that most of the world will never hear about...
There are a lot of things in the world that can make a person cry. Somehow, we build walls, whether physical or mental to protect us from those most painful... At times those walls are broken by the inescapable realities of death, disaster and other tragic events. When you let yourself open up to the world, however, it doesn't take tragedy to bring tears. Ask any woman about her emotional sensibilities, her perception which weakens and strengthens from day to day throughout her life. Ask her about the days when she cries for a rusted train or a crushed centipede. Ask her why. She may not be able to explain but it's truly a wonder of the world... this heightened sensitivity.
So much passes through us- in through our eyes and sucked by the vortex that is the dark recess of our mind... stored but not read. But once in a while, when we're truly open, the images, words, sounds - they linger in our mind and even get lost, allowing us to explore them deeply and realize the potential of the world to harm, to cure, to be so very weak, to grow and thrive and to laugh out loud with flowers and feathered songs. It's in moments like these that you see the beauty in a land that rains olives, oranges and almonds, a land whose earth is washed away in brown rivers because the trees that provide the livelihood to a community have only come to be because someone somewhere in some time past, decided to ravage the land and force her to open up to stragers, let them grow roots in her soil and destroy any possibility of permanence or stability. Permanence never has existed in this world, I guess... And I suppose fighting for it is futile, however I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe.... and then I think, maybe just being aware is good enough at times... that will always be better than ignorance... and when we have the power to impact and we do, we've done well by someone, somewhere.
I watched a little girl on the train today. I watched disappointment wash over her face in an instant. She was sitting in her window seat on the train, drawing on the newspaper her mother had finished reading. Once in a while she would look up from her art and check the scenery as it slipped by. At the sight of a plane flying low, parallel to the train, she smiled and said 'Mama, mira!' (Mom, look!) Her mom was too busy talking with her friend to even look at her daughter or out the window. The little girl, with her arm propped up on the armrest, put her freckled face in her hand and slumped back into her seat... her smile completely covered by a small frown as she watched the plane fly out of sight. Don't forget to watch the planes come in for landings... apparently, they're still a sight to be held valuable!
Open eyes, open heart, open mind - wonderful world!
Anyway - as things were so dry in Utah and other spots around the world this summer, it's nice that Utah is getting dumped on and so is the south of Spain.. as for my climbing, well, the rest of my life in Spain is so easy right now that I almost feel like I'm cheating, but since we're not playing a game, maybe it just means I'm doing something right... It's true, I'm not furthering my professional development right now... but I'm living stress free and experiencing the life of many cultures... It's remarkable how many people from all over the world are passing through my life right now... well mostly from the UK and Scandinavia... which is cool cause I haven't know many Swedes, Norwegians, Finns or Danes in the past...
So, I am working now for the Finca, as I've told some of you.. I clean a couple of hours in the morning before going out craggin, and then starting this Sunday I have a week long babysitting job for the owners as they need some free time to hang with friends that they have coming into town... So, when all is said and done, I'll have no bill for sleeping and eating here and I might make a little bit too...
I've moved in nicely and taken over, as is so typical of me, I'm afraid... I've made signs for the kitchen, lamp covers for the shabby lights in the common area and I've already started working on Jean, the owner to let me paint one of the bedrooms cause it looks really really bad and if I were a guest at the finca, I'd be disappointed... I'm still the only USA resident... the 'annoying' guests.. ie. the ones that make the noise, the mess and have all the gear - necessary or not are from another English speaking country, whose name I will withold to protect the innocent...cause we all know stereotypes are unkind... but still, I, the quiet mellow American... (yes, I've been mostly quiet and mellow) get to hear the blows to the American way all the time... we're so in the spotlight that I guess it just happens... no one would really know how to take a jab at Sweden, except maybe a Finn, but anyway...
Christmas is coming up and I'll hopefully be climbing and not paying too much attention to the fact that I'm so far away from the closest friends and family... I won't be going to Ireland as I had potentially planned... I'm gonna save that trip for later maybe... flights from Malaga to London are around 30 dollars, so a quick pop over and back isn't unreasonable... then a ferry to Dublin... oh, it's all so cheap... My friend Uta from Germany, never made it over a few weeks ago, but if flight prices from Germany come down, she may be with me in Spain for New Years... the local climbers that stay in the refugio in town told me that there'll be monster parties over the holidays... it's good to chat with them because their English is super limited and I get to practicar un poquito... Oh and when I have the kids for a week... well, they only speak Spanish!
I was having a thought on the train this afternoon as I was on my way to Malaga to shop for a new book to read and just escape the boredom of sitting around the fire for yet another rainy day... my thought... I suppose inspired by a few images that caught my attention lately... the story of the trial for that guy that murdered those lovely girls in England, a picture of a starving baby in Angola, the recent loss of my friend Hilary's mother, and the destruction to a small village in Indonesia that most of the world will never hear about...
There are a lot of things in the world that can make a person cry. Somehow, we build walls, whether physical or mental to protect us from those most painful... At times those walls are broken by the inescapable realities of death, disaster and other tragic events. When you let yourself open up to the world, however, it doesn't take tragedy to bring tears. Ask any woman about her emotional sensibilities, her perception which weakens and strengthens from day to day throughout her life. Ask her about the days when she cries for a rusted train or a crushed centipede. Ask her why. She may not be able to explain but it's truly a wonder of the world... this heightened sensitivity.
So much passes through us- in through our eyes and sucked by the vortex that is the dark recess of our mind... stored but not read. But once in a while, when we're truly open, the images, words, sounds - they linger in our mind and even get lost, allowing us to explore them deeply and realize the potential of the world to harm, to cure, to be so very weak, to grow and thrive and to laugh out loud with flowers and feathered songs. It's in moments like these that you see the beauty in a land that rains olives, oranges and almonds, a land whose earth is washed away in brown rivers because the trees that provide the livelihood to a community have only come to be because someone somewhere in some time past, decided to ravage the land and force her to open up to stragers, let them grow roots in her soil and destroy any possibility of permanence or stability. Permanence never has existed in this world, I guess... And I suppose fighting for it is futile, however I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe.... and then I think, maybe just being aware is good enough at times... that will always be better than ignorance... and when we have the power to impact and we do, we've done well by someone, somewhere.
I watched a little girl on the train today. I watched disappointment wash over her face in an instant. She was sitting in her window seat on the train, drawing on the newspaper her mother had finished reading. Once in a while she would look up from her art and check the scenery as it slipped by. At the sight of a plane flying low, parallel to the train, she smiled and said 'Mama, mira!' (Mom, look!) Her mom was too busy talking with her friend to even look at her daughter or out the window. The little girl, with her arm propped up on the armrest, put her freckled face in her hand and slumped back into her seat... her smile completely covered by a small frown as she watched the plane fly out of sight. Don't forget to watch the planes come in for landings... apparently, they're still a sight to be held valuable!
Open eyes, open heart, open mind - wonderful world!
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