The Storm, the Girl, and the Too-Cold Summer Night

I know this place.
I have been here before...

There, over that field,
a boy ran from a thunderstorm,
eyes blurred by fear
and wet and the dire wind;
cut corn stalks
bit at shins and ankles,
and a white scream tore open
the sky,
punctuating his respite from
immortality.

There, in that yard,
the boy talked to a girl through the dark,
while cicadas sang
for inattentive stars,
on a too-cold summer night,
on a dew-damp wooden bench,
secure that nothing so rude as the dawn
could ever disturb them.

It's all gone now.
The field and the yard remain,
but what do they matter?
Where is the storm, and the girl,
and the too-cold summer night?
I meant to come home,
but instead have become one,
hosting these specters and smiles
in the world that I keep.

Keep in Dawn All Things Between

A change unseen,
yet changed indeed;
the moment itself
went unperceived.
A shift, not fade,
from black to grey;
the sun, still sunk,
foreshadows the day.

First rays still soft
and indirect,
preserve night eyes
and skin neglect,
and keep in dawn
all things between
what we remember,
and what we dream

The Tipping Point

It is no small thing to move to a new city and to get your head around it.  I have tried a few times to write about Barcelona, but I couldn't quite find my voice.  I know have written plenty about the places I've visited since I've started this blog, but this isn't a place I am visiting; I have moved my life here.

La Sagrada Famlia!  I have seen this once now, accidentally,
on my way to and from a bar (Photo Credit).

The problem of having a job in a new city...is that you have a job in a new city.  You are always fucking working.  You are in a totally different mindset, and unlike traveling, you cannot always find the time to experience the fullness of the city right away.  It is frustrating that in many ways, people who have visited Barcelona for a week (hell, a long weekend) know the city better than I do, even though I have lived here for months.  This is why I still struggle to answer when people from home ask me some pretty basic things, like:

"What do you normally do there?" 

or 

"What is Barcelona like?"  

The answer to the first question is probably a disappointment, because the expectation is that living in a foreign place, I will also be doing very foreign things.  But really, what I do is go to work and come home, tired, wanting to relax, and thinking about dinner.  Sometimes I go to the gym.  Glamorous, I know.  The answer to the 2nd question is usually a generic "It's cool!" because, well, it does seem to be a cool city.  But I lack in specifics because when I do get free time, it is very much still an exploratory process.  Far more often than finding or doing something cool in the city, I am confused about where exactly I am and the curmudgeon that lives inside me speaks up to wonder why I am in this new and distant restaurant or bar when there are plenty of other good ones that I already know about and are closer to where I live.

This was my metro stop when I first arrived to the city.  It is a
testament to Barcelona that the mundane aspects of my day
can look like this.

But there is a tipping point.  The longer you stay in a place, the more that place bleeds into your routines, and the more it will begin to populate your thoughts with its features and landscape.  I no longer look forward to going for a run.  I look forward to going for a run with my girlfriend, Jess, along the boardwalk in Barceloneta at sunset.  I don't ask for a Durum Kebap and a beer at the Doner place by my apartment anymore, but rather the waiter will ask me, "So, a chicken Durum and an Estrella?" when I sit down.  And when I stick my nose into my book on the bus/metro ride home, it is a new series of stops, starts, dings, and announcements that provide the cadence for whatever adventures, tales, ideas, or histories I am reading.

There is a deeper understanding of a city, country, or culture that comes with more time spent there, and it will begin to change you.  Slowly at first, and then all at once.  "How has this happened?" you will ask, "Was it the place?"  Yes, it was the place.  You have come to know this place in ways that a tourist cannot, and this broadening of your world cannot be undone. It has changed the way you see things.  "Was it the people?" you will extend.  Yes, it has most certainly also been the people.  The people are the best part, and will stay with you forever.  It has already become, in fact, impossible to separate the people and the place.  They reside in the same parts of your mind.  "Was it me?" you will lastly inquire.  Yes, it was above all else you.  Because in order for this to have occurred, you must have let it.  This is the hard part, because some places can be pretty weird.  And scary.  This doesn't mean you have become weird and scary (though it's a distinct possibility), just that you have come to accept a place for what it is, without your own expectations distorting it.

And then a funny thing happens: you will hear the same questions about the city as before, and you will still have a hard time answering.  "What is it like there?" people will ask.  "Where do I begin?" you will say.

I can feel it happening.

Expat Unclehood

The year is 1994.  I am in sixth grade, and my girlfriend Hannah is telling me that she and her family will be moving to Sri Lanka.  I am crushed.  Where is Sri Lanka?  Is it, like, further than Florida?  With whom will I now speak nervously at lunch?  Whose hand will I contemplate holding after class?  Who will I now sway with at arms' length when the slow songs come on at the middle school dance?  Oh no, have we got to the end of the road?? I have so many questions.

"Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon,
is a small island nation in the North Indian Ocean
known for recording artist MIA, whisking away your
middle school sweetheart, and cinnamon." Map Source

Hannah and I stayed in touch for a few years, as old-school pen pals.  Email was still some weird thing that made a lot of noise on my dad's work computer and meant that no one could use the phone for the next half hour.  I would write to her about the people we knew and keep her updated about life in Walkersville.  She would write about homesickness and summer camps, and she sent me a picture of herself being lifted in the trunk of an elephant.  My home encyclopedia set had only an exasperatingly brief passage on Sri Lanka, and nothing about the elephants there, or the fact that they could be trusted to lift an adolescent human child.  I stared at the picture in awe, and kept it in my dresser drawer long after our once flowing correspondence had dripped down to a memory (we would meet again, randomly, but that is a story for another day).

Fort-building with Frankie! Photo stolen from Joy Klauder.

That photo seriously piqued my curiosity about the world, and now I am the one living abroad and trying to maintain relationships with family and friends from home.  Facebook and Skype are lifesavers, and I don't have to miss out entirely on major events the way that I would have had to a couple decades ago.  This is especially important for my nephews and niece, who are changing and growing as rapidly as only children and unchecked hamster populations can.  Frankie, the oldest and the only one of them born before I left, can now hit me up on Facetime.  I can talk to him while he and my brother-in-law build parachutes for eggs on a Saturday afternoon, and Grace, his sister, can grin at the screen and run away, mumbling something profound about the universe and Strawberry Shortcake.  Arthur is the newest addition, to my other sister, and is a man of many facial expressions not yet understood.

Hiking in Cunningham Falls State Park,
their first time in the mountains!
Photo stolen from Joy Klauder

All of this is wonderful and I love it, but nothing compares to going home and getting to spend time with everyone.  I make it back every summer and usually at least one other time each year, but this summer I had to leave mere days before my little sister's due date!  I was gone when she had Arthur, but by an incredible stroke of luck, I was able to fly home and meet him only a few weeks afterwards.

Hot lava??  Photo stolen from Frank Klauder.

Watching out for roots in the river.
Photo stolen from Joy Klauder.

For anyone new to the blog, I had an absolutely terrible time with the visa process for Spain.  I had to go through the application and paperwork in Quito, Ecuador, and the hydra that is dueling latin bureaucracies proved too much for my diplomatic skills and pain tolerance.  I ended up having to apply in the US, but because the visa takes up to a month to get approved, I had to leave for Barcelona before it was ready.  Then things started to take a turn for the better.  My visa was approved on September 3rd, my nephew was born on September 8th, and my school flew me to Washington, DC on September 20th.  In a whirlwind trip that gave me less than 72 hours in the US, I was able to finally get my Spanish visa and to see Arthur and family for the rest of what I could scrounge out of the weekend.  So thank you, Spanish Consulate in Quito: that your thoughtless maze of documents, signatures, and self-significance could lead to anything so wonderful and loving as this visit is one of the most delicious ironies I have yet to experience.

Ethel holding her new son.
Photo stolen from Joy Klauder

Hello Arthur! Photo stolen from...someone.

I'm pretty sure this was taken as he was farting on me.
Photo stolen from Ethel Sayles

Redskins vs. Eagles in-house rivalry.
Photo stolen from Ethel Sayles

The Spanish visa!!! Victory!! All of that
work for a damn sticker...

At present, I'm not entirely sure when I will be home next.  That may be for the better until I get more settled and comfortable in Barcelona, but it means going back to being a floating-laptop head for a little while, and tracking the honing of motor skills and the expanding of vocabularies from afar.  But not so far as it was in 1994.  So in the immortal words of smitten aunts and uncles everywhere, "Uhhhmmm, he's crying again.  Here [handing over the child].  I gotta go."

Cousins

Chile: It's not you, it's me.

I went to Chile for a few reasons.  First, it was a new country for me, and I was in the mood for some box-checking in my travels.  Shallow, perhaps, but sometimes getting a new stamp in your passport trumps all else.  Second, I thought that I'd need a break after what I was predicting to be an exhausting adventure in Bolivia.  I was correct about Bolivia being an adventure, but I was wrong about needing a break.  As I wandered through the humming and beautiful streets of Santiago's Bellavista neighborhood, as I utilized the orderly and well-functioning metro and bus system to reach the coast, as I played amateur photographer with the arresting hillscape and brightly colored buildings of Valparaiso, I was a

Welcome to Valparaiso, the most photogenic city
in the world!

little...bored.  It was shocking.  And it wasn't at all Chile's fault.  I thought I wanted to take it easy and meander through the city streets with a book and no formal plan, but I was wrong.  Turns out, that's not me.  For a weekend, maybe, but for a whole week?  Nope, throw that book into a backpack and strap on some boots.  Instead, I spent a large portion of time wishing I had stayed in Bolivia longer, or gone to Peru with my friends.  I had forgotten what had drawn me to Chile in the first place, and why it had stood out for so long in my mind as a travel destination.  And either through stubbornness, laziness, or misguided patience, I did not change my plans.  So this post is a formal apology to Chile, which doesn't deserve my negativity.  Here are the things I should have done:

1) Torres del Paine
Sure, it was winter time in the southern hemisphere, but that would have meant no crowds!  I should have charged up my iPod, hopped a 24-hour bus from the capital, and gotten sick of all of my music on my way to the tip of the continent.  During the long nights, I would have emerged periodically from the relative warmth of my tent to relieve myself, and I would have stayed outside just a little too long in the freezing cold, captivated by the nearby mountains backlit by the Aurora Australis, before desperately clawing my way back into my waiting sleeping bag in a shivering palsy.  I would have gradually warmed up, my breathing would have slowed, and I would have fallen profoundly back to sleep, nice and toasty, with only my cold, damp nose and the sound of the wind to remind me of where I was while I drifted away.

Torres del Paine in the winter.  Photo credit and article.

2) Skiing Outside of Santiago
I haven't been skiing in years, and why I didn't take advantage of the many slopes close to Santiago, I may never know.  Temporary insanity.  Also some very valid budgeting concerns as I was planning to move to Spain.  But mostly the temporary insanity, I think.

Portillo Ski Resort, 2 hours from Santiago by car.
Info and photo credit.

3) Climbing Volcan Villarica
Regular readers (both of you) probably know that I am a sucker for a good climb.  Make that climb an active, sulfur-scented volcano, and I am nearly helpless.  Aside: I may not have very good survival instincts...

All this at less than 10,000 ft/3,000 m!  Photo credit.

4) Colchagua Wine Tour
Chile's reputation for wine is well-deserved.  I indulged a bit in Santiago and Valparaiso, but as I was standing in the Duty Free shop on my way back to Quito, it occurred to me that I know nothing about wine.  My perception of wine quality and therefore my purchase was guided entirely by the price of the bottle.  A wine tour would have been a good idea in Chile in order to dispel some of this ignorance, but luckily I hear that this is also something I can remedy in Spain.

This vineyard may have been a little more barren, but I hear
the wine cellars are beautiful in July. Photo credit.

My biggest problem, I think, was that I gave neither Bolivia nor Chile enough time this past July.  Really, I should have done one or the other and given it two full weeks.  Or three.  I certainly didn't give Iceland enough time.  After running around Maryland, Delaware, and DC for a few weeks spending some much anticipated and cherished time with family and friends, it was time to make my move to Europe.  I flew from Dulles to Barcelona via Iceland Air, and one of their promotions is that you can extend your layover for no extra cost for as long as you want.  I had to report to work, so I couldn't go nuts, but I managed to sneak in three days around Reykjavik.  A day trip around the golden circle had me in awe of Iceland's waterfalls and geothermic gifts, and a morning in the Penis Museum had me oddly spellbound by the astounding phallic diversity of the animal kingdom.  If you ever want to know what a sperm whale is packing, or a goat, or the 2008 Icelandic National Handball Team for that matter, just pay a visit to the Icelandic Phallological Museum in the heart of Reykjavik.  You may be a lot of things, but you're unlikely to be disappointed.

I was not kidding about the handball team.

Sadly, this is not the Penis Museum, just a
regular church that happens to resemble a penis.

A sperm whale penis, shaped like a church.

Downtown Reykjavik

Gullfoss Waterfall on the Golden Circle tour.

Friends from the tour by a boiling natural spring.

This tourism initiative by Iceland and Iceland Air is really something to consider.  Reykjavik is a down-to-earth city that still has a lot going on, and the surrounding area, tortured as it is by volcanic activity, plate tectonics, and glacial movement, is breathtakingly gorgeous.  And while the Icelandic language is a little tricky to master (try saying "Eyjafjallajökull" five times fast), English is almost universally spoken.  I certainly plan to return.  But for now, it is time to acquaint myself with Barcelona, my new home.  More to come soon.

Beautiful Bolivia

Me and a friend caught in a candid moment.  I'm much
more handsome in black and white.  Photo credit.

Bolivia.  It has tickled the fancies of everyone from Victorian "gentleman explorers" mapping the Amazon, to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fleeing the long arm of the law, to Che Guevara stirring up a revolution and severely pissing off the CIA.  And this is to say nothing of the Bolivianos themselves, who even within their own borders can find themselves in cities, jungles, mountains, and deserts of salt (sorry about the ocean, guys, but you'll have to take that up with Peru and Chile).

Presently, however, the massive and landlocked Bolivia is firmly on the Gringo Trail and finds itself hosting a smattering of Americans, much of Europe, and, more specifically, what has to be a third of London.  Seriously, there couldn't have been many people left living there this past July.  But I digress.  I found myself a happy member of this crew, and Bolivia stole my heart.  Seriously, just wow.  It also stole my breath...even coming from Quito, La Paz and Lake Titicaca are HIGH.  I spent a week there, and never adjusted to the 13,000 ft or so elevation of the region.
 But as my altitude issues have already been sadly documented on this blog, I will get on with it.

Entering La Paz

At over 21,000 ft/6,400 m, Illimani stands watch over
Nuestra Senora de la Paz

La Paz is a tough city to fly into, for pilots as well as for passengers.  The pilots have to land in El Alto, the town that lies above the rim of the valley that contains, as best as it can, the sprawling La Paz.  The elevation is about 13,300 ft, and so has predictably unpredictable weather.  When I left, for example, it was snowing.  I was then delayed on the runway for over 2 hours because fog had reduced visibility to about 10 feet.  Add wind shears to all of this and the fact that there isn't much around it in terms of backup plans, and you have an unsavory situation for anyone but the most experienced pilots.  So there's that.  For travelers, La Paz will either be hard on your wallet, or hard on your sleep habits.  Flights at reasonable times charge you your first-born child.  Reasonably-priced flights take you through 3 other layover cities in the middle of the night.  As I have no children to sell, I took the second option and arrived strangely alert and just in time for sunrise.

Loki Hostel

I stayed at Loki Hostel, which is a total shit show, but in the best of ways.  To call it a hostel is misleading; it is a hostel, a bar, a restaurant, and a tourist information center all packed into a renovated, seven-story mansion in downtown La Paz.  The bar, which is all of floor 7, has a great panoramic view of the city and is open all day, to the hazard and enjoyment of all.  Things really gets going around 9 or 10 pm and last until the bartenders decide that they are done.  When exactly that is, I can't say with certainty.  I made a good run at it one night, but 4 am found me turning in with the whole place still packed and going strong.  The main advantage of a staying at a place like this for a solo traveler is that it affords a lot of opportunities to meet up with others heading your way.  Many maps have been drunkenly stooped over, and many a friendship forged as people realize that they are going the same direction, or they hear about something interesting that they would like to jump in on.  Even if you stick to your plan and do your own thing, it can at least be fun to share stories, or to belt out karaoke in front of some likeable strangers and nightlong friends.

The busy and colorful streets of La Paz.  Get out of the
hostel, people!

On the negative side, these places can be dangerously self-contained.  A lot of people end up barely leaving the hostel.  To be fair, La Paz is a huge and confusing city, and if you don't speak Spanish, you are more or less going to be lost outside of tour companies.  But come on, you didn't come all this way without a sense of adventure, did you?  Are you really just going to sleep until afternoon and then get drunk at the bar again?  So you can hit on that Aussie guy/girl?  Oh, okay, it looks like you are.  Cheers.

In addition to the time-suck and the temptation of what's comfortable, these kinds of places can be anything but restful.  If you count yourself among those who like to sleep at night, this may be hard on you.  And there are no nights off.  "Sunday" has no real meaning for anyone who's been traveling for more than a week or two.  The bottom floors are okay if you're looking to get away from the noise.  I paid a little more for a room to myself on the 2nd floor rather than sharing a dorm with 10 others and a techno beat.  What can I say, I'm getting old.  In Bolivia, though, this isn't even much of a financial hit, as everything is absurdly cheap.

Around La Paz

Photo Credit 

Historic La Paz is quite beautiful, with large plazas, colonial-era Spanish buildings, and the Basilica de San Francisco.  You can spend a day among the crowds just walking around, popping into restaurants, and building your collection of alpaca-wool sweaters.  I have heard many, many horror stories about people getting sick in Bolivia, but if you are strong-stomached and/or have some antibiotics handy, you should try some of the street food as well.  Something you will also most likely notice in La Paz is the large number of shoeshine men and boys that are all wearing baseball hats and balaclavas to cover their faces.  I didn't know what to make of it at first, so I looked it up and found this article on BBC News that explains that they need to hide their identities to avoid discrimination.  It is a highly stigmatized profession due to class issues that still haunt Bolivia, as well as due to the reputation that the "lustrabotas" have as thieves and alcoholics.

Spiderman seems to have lost some confidence...

Starting out, with the Basilica de San Francisco in the
background

The most fun thing that I did in La Paz, however, was called Urban Rush.  There is a tall hotel building in the downtown area called Hotel Presidente.  This hotel rents out their top floor to a rappelling/abseiling company.  What they offer is the chance to repel down the side of a building in the middle of the city while wearing a superhero costume.  It is exactly as awesome and ridiculous as it sounds.  I tried really hard to squeeze into the Batman onesie, but it was a little too reminiscent of Chris Farley in Tommy Boy.  After donning the outfit of your alter ego (all that were left for me were orange jumpsuits, unfortunately), you have a brief tutorial before stepping out of a window on the 15th floor and walking down the wall.  For your descent, I recommend an emotional mixture of giggly and terrified, which is what I went with.  When you are 20 meters from the bottom, the people working the brakes on your rope (you use your own belay device, but there are 2 other people spotting you) ask you to let go of the rope, count to 3, and jump out away from the wall for a free fall.

Moments before the free fall.

Death Road

Did I mention that Bolivia is beautiful?

A more well-known attraction of Bolivia is the opportunity to bike down the road formerly known as "the most dangerous road in the world."  It was called this because until 2006, this narrow, winding road with sheer cliffs going up one side and down the other was heavily used by car, truck, and bus traffic.  Tragedy here was far too routine.  Ever since a new road has been opened, though, the death toll has gone down dramatically.  The old one has been renamed "Death Road," mostly as a promotional gimmick for bike trips.  Now, I don't want to downplay this: one side of the road is simply a void, and there are big consequences for ego on this road, so proceed with caution and go at a speed that is comfortable for you.  And please, no selfies.  But the Cliffs of Insanity aside, it is not an incredibly challenging road, and it is 4-5 hours of almost entirely downhill mountain biking.  I absolutely loved it.  The two best companies to go with are Gravity and Altitude.  I went with the latter for about $75 US.  You can certainly find cheaper, but really, do you want to?  I know people who haggled other companies down to $30, but think about what you're doing.  A shitty bike that hasn't been maintained makes for a rough day in the best of circumstances, and you don't want any surprises on this trip.  If you know more about bikes than I do and can do a more thorough self-inspection, by all means, go for it.  But don't get cute here.

Getting to Isla del Sol

After three days in and around La Paz, it was time to head onward to Lake Titicaca and to one of my

Our sure-footed Captain

favorite misadventures to date.  From La Paz to Copacabana is a pretty easy 3-4 hour bus ride.  You can either get a ticket at the main bus terminal, or you can book through a private company that will pick you up at your hostel.  Copacabana is the biggest Bolivian town on Titicaca, and if you are looking to catch the ferry out to Isla del Sol, then you will want to make sure you arrive before 1 pm when the last boat embarks.  Isla del Sol is the mythical homeland of the Inca; it is where their origin stories indicate their civilization began and their first king was born.  It is also an island in the middle of the world's highest navigable lake with no roads or vehicles, only hiking paths.  Because there are no roads, you can catch a ferry to either the south end of the island (closest to Copacabana) or to the north end of the island, 8 km away.  I had booked a hostel for 2 nights on the south of the island.  I bought a ticket for the south ferry, showed it to the man on the dock, and he directed me to the boat on the left.  As you may be surmising from my tone, this was not the south ferry.  I had mistakenly boarded the

I think I can live with this error...

north ferry, which is a full hour longer, and I was ultimately dropped off at 4 pm with a very large backpack and 3 hours of walking to do if I wanted to make it to my hostel.  So, that didn't happen.  Luckily, I had started playing cards with a few other travelers and by the time I realized my error, we were four games deep into Spite and Malice and it didn't seem all that important.  When I got off the boat, I had new friends in Mike from England and Josefien from Holland.  Like me, Mike had boarded the wrong boat, and Josefien had a hostel in mind that she had read about, so off we went.  All three of us had been traveling solo, but when you meet kindred spirits, you know it pretty quickly.

Three of a kind en La Ruta del Sol.

Bolivian Wedding Crashers

As it turns out, the north end of the island is really where I wanted to be, anyway.  Most people opt for the

Dancing their way into the party.

shorter ferry ride, so the south tends to be more crowded.  The north has only 2 restaurants that seem to observe no regular hours, and a few tiendas where you can pick up snacks.  There is a trail called the Ruta del Sol that runs the length of the island, offering elevated views of Lake Titicaca, which may as well have been an ocean from where we stood.  There were no lights in town, so you needed headlamps and flashlights to walk around after dark.  From our hostel, you could see every star in the sky, and we drank quite a few bottles of wine as we developed cricks in our upturned necks, listened to a storm across the water, and laughed giddily when it started snowing lightly around midnight.  Josefien and I made it our mission, no matter how cold it was, to go swimming in the lake before we left.  Mike quickly volunteered as photographer.  We also may have crashed a Bolivian wedding.  It began with curiosity, and we ended up being invited into a seated circle of Bolivian women in traditional dress and gold teeth to eat chalky potatoes and savory, savory pork.  We left after a little while, but when we heard it still going on after sunset, we had to make our way back to investigate the state of things.  What we saw was very clearly the after party, and we found ourselves among the more dedicated Bolivian party goers, dancing in the pitch black night with no lights to blaring salsa music.

The Roads not Taken

Like all travel stories, our magical time on Isla del Sol had to come to an end.  We took the same ferry back to Copacabana where we would part ways.  Mike and Josefien were both heading to Cuzco, Peru to see Machu Picchu and to do some jungle trekking.  I had already been there, years before, but I was a half a second away from abandoning my trip to Chile to keep our gang together a little longer.  Ultimately, I said so long, with vague and hopeful plans of meeting Josefien in Amsterdam, and Mike in Munich for Oktoberfest.  Sitting in the van on my way back to La Paz and a flight to Santiago, I couldn't help but feel that I had made the wrong decision.

We did it! I might lose some toes, but we did it!

And who knows what was waiting for me at the south end of Isla del Sol.  What would my trip have looked like without my two friends?  I would have hiked around, read my book, and met other people, and never have been the wiser.  Robert Frost very famously wrote about this phenomenon, and how way leads on to way, but there is something else this makes me think of even more: a very weird, very cool podcast I like to listen to called Welcome to Night Vale.  You should check it out, because it is nearly impossible to explain.  In one episode, the radio host is talking about nostalgia, and he points out that we don't actually feel nostalgia for the way things were, but rather for the way things weren't.  I could spend an eternity exploring all of the choices I didn't make.  Who the hell knows, maybe that's exactly what we do.  But not in this lifetime.  Here, we all just have to wonder how things might have gone differently, and to be both tortured and encouraged by the fact that all of it was our choice.  And to remember, of course, that there are many more choices to be made.

Coming soon: 

From Chile to Iceland

or 

Why the Hell Didn't I Choose Somewhere Warmer?

The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally, the chance to feel strong.

I had every good intention of posting regularly in this blog over the summer; I really did.  But time slipped away, as it does, and now September finds me writing from a new home.  More on that later.  First, I would like to describe the very nonlinear (and honestly rather nonsensical) path I have traveled since my last post to get me here.  From Ecuador, to Bolivia, to Chile, to Maryland, to Iceland, and to Spain.  It was as epic and exhausting as it sounds, and the most exciting part was the first night I slept in my new bed in Barcelona.  There is a lot to catch up on, so let's get on with the first installment:

LAST HURRAH IN ECUADOR

Montañita

Cocktail Alley

One of the things I will miss most about living in Ecuador is its beaches.  They are accessible and clean.  The ocean is warm, as far as oceans go, and the weather is typically suitable year-round.  You can be completely isolated or in the midst of a raucous party, depending on your mood and your willingness to walk for about 10 or 15 minutes.  The equatorial sun is a monster, but there are bamboo huts and hammocks in abundance.  For me, the beach that most exemplifies all of these things is Montañita .  It is known as a party beach around Ecuador, and it certainly is.  Its main strip, after all, is called Cocktail Alley.  Dozens of wooden kiosks populate either side of the brick and sand street, each one with a thick lining of cheap liquor and fresh fruit covering their walls and counters.  To get started here, one must simply walk down the street, find the least offensive volume of reggae-ton for conversation, and have a seat at the plastic lawn furniture that can be found in front of each kiosk.  You will place your order, and after a frenzied clatter of blending and banging that seems to accomplish nothing for about 10 minutes, you will have a full-pint Mojito.  Or Caiparñia.  Or Maragarita.  For $2.50.  Is the liquor watered down on Cocktail Alley?  Probably.  Does it attract some oddball lifers and creepy drunks?  Yes.  But it also happens to be amazing.

The main stretch of beach by Cocktail Alley

All of that said, that's not why I kept returning to Montañita , and why for my last trip while living in the country I decided to go there for close to a week.  Just down the beach from the town proper, a 15 minute walk to the north, is an area called La Punta.  The Point.  This is where the cliffs momentarily win the battle against the shore, and the beach reaches a rocky end.  Up above these cliffs is the structure that gives Montañita  its name: Little Mountain.  It is a very distinguishable spire of rock that climbs towards the sky on the top of an otherwise flat cliff.  The surfers and hippies who used to be the only visitors to this beach started calling it this, and it stuck.  For surfers, Montañita is still one of the top destinations in South America.  For us non-surfers, it is still a beautiful, wide, sandy beach.  The waves can get massive further out, and the rip tide is dangerous if you aren't expecting it, or if aren't used to being in the ocean.  Closer in, though, is a wave-catchers dream.  Having grown up on the east coast of the US and being accustomed to summer trips to the mid-Atlantic beaches, the ocean for me is all about riding waves.  No board, no formalities...just finding the point at which the wave will break and assuming the Superman position as it would take me in towards the shore.  You get slammed, you get flipped, and you get a ton of water up your nose.  And you feel like you are a 12-year old kid again, grinning like an invincible moron every time you stand back up.  When you decide to leave the ocean, your age will return to you in the form of soreness and a weird popping sound that you don't remember having in your foot...but it will seem to matter much less than what just happened.

View of the "montañita" from the patio of Hostal SoleMare.
No crowds, and just a short walk from town.

There are a few really cool hostels at this end of the beach, especially Casa del Sol.  Depending on the season, rooms are $15-$20 per person, even for a single.  Breakfast is included.  They also offer yoga classes, Spanish lessons, and a beach bar at which I traditionally rack up a nice little tab.  On this most recent trip, my friends and I stayed across the street at the also-lovely SoleMare, due to a yoga retreat filling up Casa del Sol.  There are a few restaurants nearby (at which I encourage you to order anything that has "enconcado" written next to it), as well as a micro-brewery that is really, really good.  The trip passed as most trips to the beach do: friends, nights out, sunny days, and the kind of general enjoyment that honestly makes for pretty lousy stories.  I was there for a glorious 4 days, and I left on a Saturday so that I could get back to Quito and pack for my flight to La Paz on Sunday night.

Competition is getting ugly...

The title of this post is a quote from Primo Levi that I have always loved.  I think about it pretty much every time I'm in the ocean getting smacked around, throwing myself into, over, and under the relentless surf.  The quote continues, "I also know in life how important it is not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong."  Traveling and pushing my comfort zone are things that make me feel strong.  Let me rephrase.  Traveling and pushing my comfort zone make me feel like a bumbling idiot.  But after awhile, once I get through the awkward stage, I feel changed, like I'm a better version of myself.  Who knows if I really am, or what that means.  But to quote another really smart guy, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."  So perhaps I'm chipping away a little at the reasons why I feel the need to live abroad and attempt to turn every distant, proverbial stone.  Like the ocean, the world will often hint that it could swallow me whole if I were to turn my back on it for just a second.  But like battling those waves, living like this has allowed me to interact with something much bigger than myself on a scale I can handle.  And that makes me feel good, and it helps me to learn a lot about myself and about the world without being consumed by it.  As it turns out, then, this is quite simply my own slightly foolish, periodically beautiful, and outrageously expensive self-help book.  It's way longer than it needs to be, and none of this would have happened if Borders hadn't closed.

That will about wrap it up for Montañita and my ramblings thereof...to be continued with:

La Paz and the League of Sinister Shoe Shinists (Working Title)

Photo Credit