Two weeks gone and lots to say!

So the past two weeks have been hectic, but good. I finally feel like I've at least made some kind of quantifiable improvement in my Spanish ability, even if I still have a LOT of practicing to do. For the most part, the time since my last entry has been spent running from errand to school to yoga to homework, with a few opportunities to hang out w/ my friends Laura & Alex. I've also taken two very specific trips out of town, one to Panajachel & one to Guatemala City, both of which were challenging and rewarding in their own special ways...
Let's see, what have been the highlights? Okay, well, in no particular order, here it goes:
- Finally getting my Christmas stuff finished and in the mail! Not easy, but fun in a demented, totally irrational sort of way. Irrational most especially because I kind of don't even believe in the whole "Christmas as an excuse for consumer insanity" phenomenon. But every year it's the same: I tell myself that I'm just going to make a few phone calls on Christmas Day and leave it at that, really simple... but of course, at the last minute, I am always hit by a massive wave of guilt and worry, because I know I've been too absent as a family member as it is, the least I can do is try to show my relatives that I really DO care (cause I DO, it's just hard when I'm away all the time to show it)... so then, a few weeks before Christmas and months after I originally decided not to do anything, I freak out and start trying to brainstorm what to get people, cause if there's one thing I'm really bad at it's giving people presents that they haven't actually asked for. So then I fret and worry and panic and run around like crazy trying to make or do something appropriate that people will actually enjoy, even though in reality nobody really expects anything from me anyway, since I'm usually so bad at this kind of thing... anyway, it's a mess. But then, finally, at the last minute I always manage to basically pull something together and so there we have it, next thing you know I'm taking a bus 5 hours each way to Guatmala City to Fed Ex a bunch of packages out since I didn't do it in time to just mail it normally like everyone else. But such is the impetuous excitement that is my life.
-The trip to Panajachel: while some would not have bothered with the 8-bus, 6 hour round trip journey that is Xela to Pana via chicken bus just to be in Pana for a couple of hours, I was actually quite looking forward to the experience. I had been in Pana in 2001 for a few days and I remembered that even though it is really touristy, they DO have an amazing artisan's market, along w/ vegetarian places to eat and even a tiny health food store. So I had a list of requests from friends in addition to the stuff I was going to get anyway, and I guess since I wasn't in a huge rush or anything it was a lot easier to take all the little inconveniences of the journey in stride. It took me ages to actually figure out what bus to take, because unlike what I was told, I could not find a direct bus anywhere. Instead I got on a bus for Guatemala City, and then, after several hours of not really knowing where we were or whether I was on the right bus, it was time for me to get off and transfer at someplace called "Los Encuentros", which I guess basically translates to "The Crossroads". Then I caught another bus to the town of Solola, which my friend Stella informed me is home to a huge Soy dairy that even has soy ice cream available, but unfortunately I was on a Mission and didn't have time to really stop. The bus from Solola to Pana was only another 30 minutes or so, and by the time we pulled in it was around 1 o'clock in the afternoon. The weather was great, not too hot but with the sun shining brightly, and I took a walk down the main strip to first get oriented, then walked back along the shore of Lake Atitlan, which is totally gorgeous. Then I located the health food store, which really only had a few vitamins, not really any food at all, bought the probiotics my friend had requested and then headed across the street to eat at the Bombay Cafe, a cute little vegetarian restaurant that is owned by some old traveller gringo dude. I had previously read a review of the place online that claimed they had tempeh burgers, so that was what originally had lured me in, but as it turns out there is basically NO tempeh anywhere in Guatemala right now, cause believe me ya'll, I've checked. I guess the supplier dried up or something, I don't really know...
Anyway, instead I ate a delicious tofu burger that was served with a whole little Thali-like plate of garnishings and condiments, so I was really happy to be eating something that was both healthy AND delicious, a combination that is somehow exceedingly rare here. After lunch, I cruised through the dizzying array of artisans' markets, on a mission for just a couple of things that I was able to find fairly easily, much to my relief. I negotiated a few decent (but still fair) deals and was on my way back to Xela by 5 o'clock that night. It was great. Upon my arrival back in Xela, I managed to squeeze into my first Collectivo here, a shared taxi service ("microbus" as they say here) that basically packs the absolute maximum amount of people who will fit in it, since the drivers are private and are paid by the person. The two boys hanging off the side of the bus hollering "Parque parque parque!!!" and hustling everyone in and out could not have been more than ten years old, but my maternal instinct has learned to chill out here because not only is it common here to see children working or riding in extremely dangerous situations (like climbing onto the roof of the chicken bus while it's racing along the highway to retrieve a basket of turkeys that someone needs on the next stop), it's expected. These kids are amazingly adept at not getting killed, as is, I suppose, pretty much everyone else who lives here in Guatemala.
Another note about the chicken busses (so called because of the frequent bringing of live animals of all kinds on the bus for the ride to the market): while many tourists complain about the completely irrational driving habits of the chicken bus drivers (they, too, are paid only by how many people they transport), I have to say that in some respects I really appreciate the fact that they are not really willing to wait around for no reason, losing precious time and money. For instance, on the road to Pana, we hit the never-ending traffic jam that is the main highway. As far ahead as the eye could see, traffic in our direction was at a complete standstill, with construction workers half-heartedly picking away the road on either side of us, whilst oncoming traffic was zooming freely by us. Our valient driver did what any logical person who is not afraid of death would do: he swerved violently into the lane for oncoming traffic and gunned it down the highway at top speed, laughing as the trucks and cars coming towards us were forced to squeeze between our bus and the lane of traffic we had just departed. Eventually, we came head to head with a semi truck and as it was impossible for us both to pass, our bus swerved smoothly back into to line of traffic on the correct side of the road, utilizing a space that had somehow magically opened up for us there. It was cool.
Another highlight of that bus trip came a short time later, when, being really and truly unable to move, the women on the bus (who had been holding their bladders for a good 3 hours at this point) rushed to the front and out to a little hill, where all of us, young and old, Maya and gringa (me), peed together and laughed at ourselves while we did so . It was kind of a nice moment, since the last time I just had to get off the bus to pee (on my first trip to Xela) I was the only female-bodied person to do so, and felt a little self-conscious about it. Anyway, it was a fun trip and I feel like I caught a bit of a glimpse of normal life for the indigeneous folks here that I don't usually have as much access to.
- Guatemala City! Okay, so yeah, even though the nightly news would have us all afraid to so much as set foot in this huge, filthy, sprawling city of multiple nightly murders and apparently constant crime and corruption, I have to admit that I actually really enjoyed my one sleepless, crazed night there. Basically, I convinced my Spanish teacher to move our class to the morning on Tuesday, so then I stayed up super late Monday night (after class) arranging and organizing packages, got up at 7am to be in class by 8, raced back home at 1pm to pack up all my stuff and took a cab to the bus station to catch the 2:30pm bus to Guatemala City. Theoretically, it takes about 4 hours to get there, but we hit a massive traffic jam on the way there, which effectively dashed any hopes I had of ever getting there in time to mail stuff that evening. We finally pulled into the city bus terminal at about 8:30pm, and by the time I had sorted out a place to stay (a cheap hotel not far from there) and gotten in the cab there, it was a little after nine pm. I was exhausted, but seeing as the hotel was really close to all the major tourist attractions (the National Palace, etc) I figured it was a perfectly good idea to go for a walk around and try to see if I could spot any photo developing places to try to hit first thing in the morning, since the photos I was printing for my parents were still missing a few crucial moments I had thought I had printed already. Anyway, so I jettisoned everything but a well-hidden 100-quetzal note (about $13 US), my hotel room key and my water bottle, which I figured could maybe double as a weapon if needs be, and headed out, exhausted but curious, into the mellow night air.
As it turns out, there was virtually no one out in the part of town I was staying in, a stark contrast to the Tenderloin-esque street scenes of arguements, open drug use and public urination I had left behind near the bus station, only 5 minutes away via cab. On the contrary, virtually the only people I saw were already asleep, curled up in the middles of sidewalks without so much as a blanket to take the edge off. So it was quiet, and I headed down the street in the direction (according to the map in the guidebook I had consulted before leaving the hotel) of the main tourist stuff. I immediately discovered that the guidebook, in addition to providing what must be the absolutely most useless map of the city that has ever existed, was actually wrong even about the location of my hotel in relation to everything else, but fortunately only by a few blocks. It was weird, though, that the map was wrong even though I actually had first discovered the hotel in the listings there. But whatever, nothing surprises me anymore. I've come to believe that if something so much as even mentions the word "Guatemala," it is basically inaccurate and convoluted, though usually with the best of intentions. I love it here, but omg is nothing easy.
Anyway, I was walking down the street, mentally composing my sarcastic letter of correction to the guidebook author, when I had to stop short and gape in total, blissful amazement at the massive spraypainted graffiti on the wall across the street: it read, in huge red capital letters, "LESBIANAS FEMINISTAS REBELDE!" and then, tacked onto the upper right hand corner, was a spraypainted stencil reading "estamos en todas partes!". I was just like, "no effing WAY. NO WAY is this really here- how amazing!!!" and immediately determined that I really need to spend some time in the Capital and maybe not write it off so quickly. I was on the lookout after that, and soon noticed several spraypainted anarchy symbols and then some more feminist graffiti, this time with the words, "Mujeres con dignidad rebelde!". Then there was the gorgeous wheatpaste art that was basically massive (like 4x6 feet) images of glam 1940's-style femme women (one was Liz Taylor) pasted up in increments of standard 8 1/2" x 11" pages; I saw at least three of those, also in the same neighborhood as my hotel. The next morning, after being basically completely unable to sleep at all despite my insane tiredness, I got back out of bed at 6:20 am and took another walk, this time encountering more street art, including some that simply said ORPA (Organizacion del Pueblo en Armas- one of the main resistance groups in the 80's and 90's), and more stencil art, this time of some really beautifully done faces, I assume of someone famous here but I don't know who. Oh yeah, and there was some nice stencil art under a bridge on the way into the city, too, along with some slogans about the rich and poor that I couldn't quite make out before we had pulled past it. So all that alone makes it worth it for me. Even though the trip was exhausting and expensive, I am totally excited that I got to see all that amazing art and feel like maybe this place isn't as alien to me as it sometimes seems. Plus, and above all, I got my packages mailed and was able to breathe easy once I got back on the bus to Xela. So: Mission Accomplished.
-Although I got to go to yoga every day last week, I haven't gone once this week, mostly due to being so busy or not here, but then today, when I finally had time to go, I woke up feeling super disgusting and ill after overdoing it a bit at the Indian restaurant last night. I have been hearing about this place since I got to Xela, but this was the first time I had gone since I've been really trying not to spend money by just eating at home, which I am, after all, still paying for. But it was my friend Colleen's last night in town, and she gathered up a big posse of us and away we went. Who would've thought that one of the best Indian places I've ever eaten at would be right here in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala?! Totally random, but true. Anyway, we got a little crazy with the ordering and I ended up eating WAY too much, which I spent the rest of the night and all of this morning paying for. It was horrible, but still, I think, worth it. The thing with Indian food is that you really don't realize until you watch someone make it just how much oil is really in there. It's frightening. I remember years ago this crazy Australian girl named Leila was staying at our house in San Francisco, and every night she would make us these awesome, restaurant-quality curries, and I was dying to learn exactly how she did it. But when I saw her dump literally half a bottle of the lowest, nastiest-quality oil ever into the pan, I totally freaked out and realized that the only reason it tastes so much better at restaurants is that they totally do not hold back on the oil, meaning that your food has about 20 times more fat in it than if you had tried to cook it yourself. And this lesson, learned so many years ago, was replaying itself in my mind today as I cursed my bowels and wished for the pain to stop. But whine whine, poor me, such dramas of excess I really don't expect much sympathy for. Anyway, in retrospect, the food was so good that I kind of still think it was worth it;)
Let's see, anything else big this week? Not really I don't think, at least not for me. Lots of news with other people though, including two surgeries, one of which was a totally unexpected quadruple bypass on Marco, my cousin Jen's husband and father of my beloved sobrin@s, on Thursday I think it was... totally scary! He hadn't even realized he had had a heart attack until he went to the doctor for a checkup and the doctor noticed that his heartbeat sounded wrong, so they did some tests and next thing you know he's in surgery. Luckily he's recovering well and he's got lots of amazing family there to support him, but geez. He's only like 36 or something- not old at all so it was a pretty big surprise. Anyway, yeah, so that was a bit intense, though obviously less so for me via email than it must have been for my cousin, who is so rad and strong I can't even tell you. Marco, if you read this, I hope you are doing way better and recover soon!
I also have a wonderful friend who had a surgery this week too, and I don't really think she wants it to be public knowledge but I was super happy that I got to talk to her a few days beforehand cause she, too, is a huge inspiration in her total realness and courage and willingness to just do whatever needs to be done (in all aspects of her life) and keep on moving.
Finally, tonight was my final night/ graduation ceremony at PLQE- it's hard to believe I've been here four weeks already!!! I'm headed to Chiapas on Tuesday to go to the Encuentro of the Mujeres Zapatistas & the Women of the World on the 28th of December, and I'm really excited to learn more about their movement and ongoing defense of their autonomy, and am especially curious to observe how they juggle their attempt to retain their traditional ways while simultaneously serving as international symbols of self-determination/ successful resistance around the world. As I understand it, they are constantly inundated with international visitors, and have developed a very sophisticated system for dealing with us all in a way that is both informative and accessible for all of us while still getting on with their daily lives. So I'm extremely interested in seeing that in action.
Anyway, I think I've rambled on just about long enough. If you're still reading, I'm amazed, but thank you! As always, keep me posted on your happenings and I'll try to write back asap. Huge hugs to all! xoxo, Pike.

Week 3 in Guatemala: Basically me whining

Hi everybody! Well, this week has totally flown by; I've been sooo busy and even a bit stressed out that I can't believe how fast the time is going. I feel frustrated too because even though the time is going so quickly, I don't feel like my spanish is coming along nearly fast enough, and still have trouble with anything more than the most basic conversations. This week I learned about the Irregular past tense (i.e., I was doing the laundry when you called) and the future tense, but I am obviously still having lots of trouble trying to incorporate them into normal conversation. And my progress on my little "holiday packages" I'm trying to get ready is at a crawl; it feels like nothing here works with even the remotest semblance of efficiency. For example: I finally have an idea/ plan of what I want to send someone; it should be fairly simple to then go out and locate that item or, at least the materials required to make that item. But no. The first step is a general interrogation of every shop owner about whether they carry/ can do what I want. Since the answer is invariably No, I then take out my pen and notebook and start making notes of the varying places that each person assures me will, in fact, have what I'm looking for. Step two means going to each of those places, followed by a repeat of step one in which everyone tells me No, they can't actually help me, but they know a place that can. I am then invariably referred first back to the initial place that sent me to them; when I explain that no, actually, that is who sent me here to them, they think a little more and eventually come up with a new list of ideas. Step 3 involves finally finding a place that DEFINITELY has/ can do what I want, but... not right now. Or, in fact, anytime in the next week or so. It is either really far away, doesn't have the proper equipment at this exact moment (but will have it soon, promise!), or both. So I've basically been running around in circles trying to find or make things, wasting more time than I even want to say, and generally accomplishing absolutely nothing. So if you get something from me this Christmas, even if it's something you've never wanted, you better damn well appreciate it! (p.s. due to the circumstances above, I predict that hardly anybody will be getting something from me this year, so please, don't take it personally. It really is just a massive pain and I don't even believe in all this materialism at Christmas anyway! sigh. But I still love you).

Anyway, moving on to other topics... In better news, I have managed to find yoga classes for the unbelievably cheap price of 25Q/ week, which works out to approximately US$3.50 for unlimited access to really good, really intense, challenging yoga. The teacher is the quintessential white guy yoga teacher prototype, with stringy brown hair and a scraggly beard, white shorts and a funny/ creepy t-back tank top, and a voice that is simultaneously menacing and reassuring, as if just under the calm, controlled exterior is a crazy man ready to snap. I wouldn't want to be his roommate, but in terms of yoga he's a good teacher cause he is really intense about making sure you are really, really trying your hardest. Of course, this means I spent the better part of this week unable to walk, sit or lie down normally, but I guess it comes with the territory of "getting in shape". I haven't actually "exercised"- at all- for over 6 months now, so it's pretty intense how much my body is hating what I'm doing to it now. I did my third class this morning and it does feel really good, even though my lack of ability to actually do a lot of the things I used to find easy is nothing short of embarrassing.

Anyway, that's basically the biggest news of late for me. Aside from totally craving things like chocolate, nutritional yeast, and quinoa (who knew that NOBODY here knows about quinoa- it's an epic adventure just trying to find brown rice), I have been pretty much just studying, embarking on the misadventures of the holidays detailed above, and doing yoga or feeling sore from it. Oh, and I bought some knitting needles and yarn and have begun to knit a little too, though the needles I bought are sooo skinny that it has taken me a week to complete the first 6 inches of a scarf. But it will be a very warm scarf when it is done, densely knitted as it is.
Yesterday and today I hung out a bit w/ a couple of friends from school, and that has been really nice- just having some people w/ similar backgrounds and experiences to just talk to and mess around on the computer with is really refreshing sometimes!

And right now I am at a local video cafe (where you can watch a movie anytime you want, or join the nightly viewings at 8pm) awaiting a batch of vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to come out of the oven. I couldn't believe it when I found out that this place, with its cookies, has been here all along and I never even knew- but yesterday I came here, determined to get one, only to be informed that they wouldn't have any more until tomorrow (which is now today). "First thing in the morning", the woman promised my friend Laura and I; so today, bright and early at 2pm, we showed up, ready for cookies- and the place was locked. Like whimpering puppies, we frantically looked around, trying to figure out what was going on, until finally I deciphered the the ancient, faded sign announcing that they actually open at 3 today. Okay, no problem; we can just go use the internet down the street... at 3:30pm, we showed up again, ready for cookies, but.... no dice. So the woman assured us that in one hour, at the most, she would have them, so rather than take my chances I just asked if I could hang out here and wait until they're done. There's free wi-fi and I needed to use it anyway, so I figured Why Not. At least this way they won't be tempted to put it off again, since I'm sure they don't actually want me hanging around here all day, peskering them for cookies. Yeah, so that's my exciting life in Xela right now... how far I've fallen, and how fast.

Again, I would like to take this opportunity to solicit mail, be it letters and postcards to photos or cd's or even some cookies or something (okay, maybe that's not realistic).... but yeah, it's nice to have some remembrances of all you folks I miss at home. And cookies. I tried to bake my own but my host mother wouldn't let me, explaining that the oven uses way too much gas, which is extremely expensive right now. Fair enough, but anyone who knows me will understand that me without an oven is kind of like a fish without water... well, or maybe an amphibious frog, since I'm not actually DYING, just not as great as when I have my special life's necessities (like baked goods). Everyone here seems incredulous that I'm still trying to eat vegan, like it's the craziest thing they've ever heard of. I admit that the food choices aren't exactly exciting, but in a way it's liberating not to be thinking about food all the time (not counting when I'm actually just lamenting the lack of certain things). I did also manage to find one type of chocolate bar (of questionable quality, but still) that doesn't have milk, and dipped in the local, organic peanut butter I tracked down last week it is actually really good. Still. Okay, I feel like I've done nothing but whine throughout this entire entry, so let me try to think of some good stuff:

*the weather has been really beautiful the last two days (I've been wearing a skirt and flipflops instead of the 6 layers of shirts, two pairs of pants and legwarmers I was rocking the rest of the week).

*I listened to Zorro by Isabel Allende, while knitting every night this week to chill out a bit. It's kind of corny but worth it, considering the circumstances. I am really glad I went to the library before I left and put as many audiobooks on my computer as I could find- it pays to be a nerd sometimes! This way I feel a little less guilty about knitting when I should be studying...
*I got to see the fairly interesting process of how they process and dye the thread used to make some of the many intensely- colored local fabrics and textiles in a nearby town called Salcaja, which is also the home of what is supposed to be the oldest Catholic church in Central America (a little creepy, but the church was beautiful).

* I've gotten to hear from a good number of you, dear readers, which has really been great. Please keep me updated on your lives and happenings! I really like to know.
Other than that, I am getting ready for another week of school, and trying to figure out how to attend the 3rd Encuentro of Zapatista Women and the Women of the World, which is happening from the 28th of December to the 1st of January in Chiapas. It's so close to here that I can't imagine a better way to spend my New Years eve, so hopefully I can sort out how to make that work. It's a little unclear from the website what information, exactly, they need, and if I actually have to apply at all or just show up. So that's another one of my missions for this week. Along with figuring out how and when I'm leaving Guatemala to actually head south... it would be really, really easy to just stay here and in Mexico for the next 5 months, but I'm determined to at least set foot in South America, one way or another!!!

Anyway, I hope this finds you all well, as always, and I hope you have a great week! Love to all! xoxo p.

First week of school & loving it.

um, okay, sorry this is all underlined. I don't know why it's like this and I can't make it go away! Anyway, here it is....

Hi everybody! Well, here I am, one week after my last blog entry, and I'm not only alive and well but actually really enjoying my time here, minus a few minor inconvieniences (like the fact that my computer seems to be suddenly unable to connect to any sort of wi-fi network, even though it tells me I'm connected...) Anyway, though, like I said, for the most part my time here has been great. I am really enjoying the challenge of being back in school, and even though I still can't hold anything close to a normal conversation in Spanish, I definitely feel like I'm starting to get more confident in trying to speak it, and am starting to remember some of the stuff I had forgotten. Because I'm totally trying to make the most of my time here by doing as many of the school's activities as possible, my schedule has actually been pretty hectic so I have barely had time to check email or do too much that isn't school- related. But I feel like the time's been well-spent: so far, in my first week, I participated in a conference on domestic violence in Guatemala, went on a walk up the mountain overlooking Xela and learned a little about native plants that people here have used as medicine and food for centuries, watched a movie about cocaine trafficking and how U.S. drug laws impact the lives of people in Mexico and the U.S., heard from a woman who lives in an autonomous community of ex-guerillas that is now a fair-trade, organic coffee farm, and yesterday we actually went to the farm and helped pick the coffee for several hours before learning about the processes the coffee goes through to become what we think of as "coffee". It was really great- HARD, hard work though, because basically you have a basket strapped to your front via a belt slung around your back, and by the time the basket is nearly full (which was a lot longer for us newbies than for the families who own the farm) it is so heavy it's difficult to move around! One of the girls in our group joked, "is this what it feels like to be 8 months pregnant?" and another woman said, "pretty much, except I don't feel like puking right now." So there you go- two new experiences for the price of one. The girl who came to our school was also our tour guide, and she talked a lot about the benefits and challenges of running an organic, fair-trade coffee farm as opposed to a conventional one, and basically reinforced my beliefs that organic/ fair trade is really, really important, because not only does it allow the workers to earn enough to live on and work in healthier conditions, but it also provides a greater deal of security because the price for fair trade coffee doesn't fluctuate the way it does with conventional coffee. So for instance, on a normal, massive coffee farm, there are rows and rows of monoculture coffee plants with no natural shade to shelter the workers from the blazing sun; the workers are also completely at the mercy of the market economy, because you can bet that if the company is getting a lot less money for their coffee than they had hoped (like if it's been a really abundant year for coffee harvest and the market is flooded), they don't eat the loss, the workers do- they simply either get paid less or get less work. And the really sad thing is that actually almost, if not all organic/ f.t. farms who go to the trouble and expense of getting certified still only are able to sell a percentage of their coffee at those higher rates, cause there simply isn't enough of a market in the U.S. and other places where people are willing to pay a little extra for the og/ f.t. coffee. So after the farms have sold off as much of their coffee at fair trade prices as possible, they usually have to sell the rest at the same regular market rates as the crappy conventional coffee that is way less expensive to produce. So it's a disincentive to other farms to want to try to start going in the direction of organic & fair trade, all because those of us in rich countries are too cheap to spring for an extra buck or two to make sure our lattes are not screwing over the earth and people who grow it.
At lunch, a few of us ended up talking with one of the teachers who came along on the trip to visit an old friend who lives on the farm, and we discovered that she herself was a pirate radio operator for 9 years of the war, and she told us about how she was 23 when she left university to join the resistance, thinking that the war would be over within 2 or 3 years. But in actuality it lasted nearly 20 during which she was a nurse in addition to running the radio stations, and by the time she went back to school she was 41 and feeling very strange to be the only person over 21 in her university classes. But she stuck it out and wound up getting degrees in psychology, nursing, and teaching, and now works both at our school and at a mental health clinic about an hour and a half outside of Xela. The thing is, she is so beautiful and has such an optimistic way of talking about these really intense things that when she told us she is 51, none of us could believe it. I feel so lucky right now to be surrounded by so many amazing people! The history of Guatemala is so complex and so sad, but it's amazing to me that so many folks are still around and really willing to talk about what it was like and still be actively engaged in trying to make things better here, despite all the trauma they have experienced. So yeah, our day at the coffee farm was definitely great and I'm glad we got to go. I may even go back up there sometime in a few weeks and stay a little longer, but I'd like to go when my Spanish is better.
On a totally different note, last night I went out with a little posse I've found of other rad queer ladies, and we went to check out the gay bar, which just by it's very existence here is something of a miracle. What I discovered is that a) Drag queens are the same everywhere; b) Mainstream gay male culture in Guatemala is just as much of a beauty contest as everywhere else (there was little a "Mister Gay Xela" contest happening), and c) lots of the gay boys here are actually more than happy to try to pick up on the dykes as any straight guy, which was a bit obnoxious. But overall, it was a really fun experience full of glitter and temporary moments of sudden "shushing" as the word "policía!" (police) rippled through the crowd, only to have the music start up again as soon as the danger, real or imagined, had passed.
Other than that, I have been staying with a host family since Monday, and that is going pretty well although the mom is totally not comprehending that I really do need protein in my diet, despite my requests for beans with my meals. She's a good cook though, and it's nice not to have to worry about cooking for myself, even though sometimes I would actually love nothing more. The first day after I arrived, she went out and basically bought every kind of fruit at the market, sort of thinking that was probably the only thing I could eat. So it's been nice to have lots of fresh tropical fruit around, though it leaves me hungry in the morning so I've taken to making some oatmeal as well and eating that. I just now went and bought some beans though, so for lunch I will definitely have some now. But yeah, the family is really nice; there are two boys living at home, one 17 and one 7. The 7-year-old is home a lot more, so we watch cartoons together and attempt conversation pretty often, which is fun. Then there's the 19-year-old daughter, who doesn't live at home anymore but hangs out there a lot; she's really friendly too. And finally there's Walter, their oldest boy, who is 28 and, as they say here (as in the U.S.), is "especial"- meaning he has Down's Syndrome. He lives with his grandmother, and the two of them come over every morning for breakfast and then to go to the market with the mom. The dad doesn't talk a lot but is pretty nice; he kind of just hangs in the background and lets the mom do her thing, because she is a force to be reckoned with. She's super outgoing and vivacious, and overall they seem like a pretty modern, definitely more middle-class family than lots of others here in Guatemala. I even caught the dad doing the dishes, which apparently is still something of a faux-pas here. The local women I've spoken with talk a lot about the construct of "machismo," and basically from what I've gathered it seems like there is definitely still a prevailing culture of extreme machismo and oppression of women, but slowly, especially among the younger generation (and, incidentally, the ex-combatants who fought side by side with many strong women) that is starting to go out of style. So while there are still very few resources available to help women change their stations here (especially the indigenous women), there is a lot of hope and a lot of energy behind trying to push things forward.
Anyway, so that's basically been my first week here. I'm going to stick around a while, and may try to make it to Chiapas for an international women's conference that starts on Dec 13th, since it's only about 8 hours or so away and it seems like a shame not to take advantage of the opportunity to go while I have it. I still plan to go to South America of course- I just don't know when exactly! But that's kind of the magic of travelling, isn't it- not having a plan so carved in stone that you miss the important stuff that crops up along the way. I hope this finds you all well and happy- please keep on writing, and I would LOVE to receive letters or any little packages you may feel like sending me (hint hint!) now that I have an address! Take care and huge hugs!
xoxo, pike.

Bienvenidos a Guatemala: a Land of Contradictions

So I guess in the 6 years since I was here last, I forgot just how chaotic and utterly different everything here can be. Upon my arrival at the airport, the first thing that greeted me were boarded up corridors everywhere, all plastered with the phrase "Guatemala: lo mas moderna aeropuerto en Centroamerica!" Which of course translates to "Guatemala: the most modern airport in Central America!"... All I can say is, if that's true then God help the traveller who starts off in Honduras, Nicaragua or anywhere else in Central America, because just about the only amenities I could find at this airport were the moving luggage belt and an outlet in the ladies' room (I had to move though cause I was blocking the entrance to the cleaning closet). Other than that, there was literally nothing: no signs above aforementioned luggage belts, no bus service to anywhere, no money exchange once I left the main part & the atm was broken, no maps, no help desk, and above all: No Phones. At all. Basically I had to end up paying a guy to let me use his cell phone (price $1 usd for 2 minutes) to call the girl who said she'd be picking me up, but was nowhere to be found upon my arrival. She said, "oh, I'm sorry- I emailed you but I guess you didn't get it (perhaps she doesn't realize that there is nothing even remotely resembling an internet connection at this airport)- I have to work until almost 11pm, so you can either hang out there and I'll come get you when I get off work or else maybe you can go to one of the hostels and I'll get you there?" I was panicking a bit because in addition to the fact that I didn't have a ride or any idea of where I was, I also did not have any money in Quetzales and only $10 in US money. In one bill. So finally I haggled with a driver, who agreed to take me to a hostel where they have internet service & money exchange facilities, but when we showed up they said they were all full, which was a total bummer for me. We went to another place up the street who was full up as well, and on the third try we were finally told that there was room but it would cost me $25- at which point I was like, No Way. That is ridiculous, but when I said no thank you the guy conveniently remembered that there were dorms for $15, so I decided to just go ahead and stay there since I really didn't know what else to do. The cab driver didn't have change for my $10 bill so the guy at the desk loaned me the money to pay him, and finally I bid my taxi driver farewell and tried to settle in for the night. I was exhausted, so after a couple hours of reading I decided to call it a night and went to sleep, unsure of what I should do in the morning.

The next day I woke up early, around 7 am, and forced myself back to sleep for another hour, knowing I would probably really need it. I got up a little after 8, took a cold shower (like Puerto Rico, that is all I've encountered here), and got dressed and groomed. By 9am I was ready to go, and figured I'd better call Michele (the girl whose house I was supposed to stay at the night before) and Armando, who had offered his place in Xela as somewhere to stay as well. Inexplicably, though, even though I was paying to use the phone, the guy at the desk told me I was only allowed to make ONE call (worse than jail! At least there you get two) so I had to pick which was more important. I decided that I should just get out of the City and up to Quetzaltenango, since I still hadn't heard anything from my Spanish school and I was trying to start on Monday morning. So I chose Armando, and luckily for me he said it was still cool for me to come up and told me how to take the bus there. At this point the front desk guy was arguing with another customer who was accusing him of overcharging him. The front desk guy was adamant, though- it was what he had said. The man tore up his bill and stormed out to confer with a friend, and the desk guy turned to me and made the "crazy" sign with his finger circling around his ear, saying "he es loco". The thing is, though, that taxi drivers and hostel owners are not using the current exchange rate, which is 7.6 Q to $1USD; they are instead rounding it down to 7Q/ $1, which is definitely more favorable for them. Either way, though, the hostel guy was not budging and the angry lodger eventually calmed down and paid the bill, somehow seeming newly convinced that it wasn't too much after all. When he told me my total, I thought it seemed a bit high, but didn't want to go through the whole thing over again so I just signed the thing and had him call me a cab. Later I did the math, though, and even using his "crappy for me" exchange rate, I still got way overcharged. Welcome to life as a tourist in Guatemala.

When the cab came, he, too, surprised me by quoting me more than I had been told it should be, but when I worked it out in my head I decided not to press the issue as it was only about $1.50 difference in price. We headed to the bus station, but he forgot that I had asked to go to an atm on the way, so when we were almost there and I sensed that he had spaced it I reminded him and we had to turn around and go all the way to another neighborhood to find one. We went into a little plaza with a couple of businesses in it, and upon entry we had to get a ticket from a guard lady with a big machine gun. I can't really figure out why, but we did. So anyway, he parked and I jumped out of the car, dashed over to the atm through a long line of people waiting for the bank to open up- and there, just like at the airport was the sign: "afuera de servicio". Out of Service. Sigh. No problem, I could see another, larger bank right across the road. So I got back in the cab and we were gonna go there when we spotted a different tiny bank in the same plaza, so I went in there. This one was actually open, and the atm was inside, so I swiped my card, entered my pin, put in the amount I wanted- 1500 Quetzales- listened to the whirring and clicking, and out came- 100Q. No problem, the machine was still whirring away, furiously making sounds like it wanted to give me more money, but... nothing. I glanced at the security guard, who was also holding a massive gun, and he looked blankly back at me. I waited a little longer, and when it was clear that nothing else was going to happen, I asked him about it and he gestured to me to get in line like everyone else. When it was finally my turn, I tried to explain to the ladies behind the glass what had happened, but they were not getting what I was trying to say. Luckily, the customer next to me spoke good English and was able to translate to them what had happened, and they all had no idea what to do. At first they tried to tell me the atm didn't accept my kind of card, but when I showed them that it had given me a litlle bit of money, they explained to me that the atm was probably just out of money. But that still didn't assuage my fear that the stupid atm had probably just charged my checking account over $200, for which I had nothing to show but cab fare. Maybe it's because I was hungry, or overwhelmed, or just pms-ing, but somewhere in there I started to cry, and the ladies felt a little bit bad for me. They handed me some napkins and made a few phone calls, but to no avail. The one girl came out and had me swipe my atm card again, and check the balance- and it read $0.00. It was at this point that I really sort of lost it, cause there is no way I had no money in there, and she was clearly at a loss for what else to do. By this time I had been in the bank for well over 25 minutes, and I still had no money and was totally freaked out. Eventually I decided to just go and try to sort it out with my bank because even though the cab guy acted like he was doing me a big favor, I noticed when I had run to grab my sweater that the meter was still running. So we went to another bank that the woman suggested, checked out of that God-forsaken plaza with a different gun-toting security guard, and headed for the big bank that I had wanted to go to in the first place. This, too, was in a guarded plaza but it was bigger and more like the entry to a national park or something, with a person in a little booth and a stick that raises up to let you in once you have your ticket.

At this bank, I finally was able to get my money, with the cab driver standing directly beside me so I felt awkward that the screen was flashing the entire balance of my bank account in huge numbers that filled up nearly half the screen, but I just got my cash and tried to get out of there as quickly as I could. I decided to just deal with the bank thing once I got to Xela and not worry about it anymore

A few minutes later and I was at the bus terminal, where I paid the driver 3 times what I originally had agreed to (the meter said it, after all, and he had been very nice about it so really there was no choice) and discovered that I had just missed the bus by 15 minutes. Damn. No problem, though, it's cool- The next one was in an hour and a half, so I plunked my bag down, plunked myself on top of it and proceeded to finish Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye while I waited in the exhaust-choked lot in front of the bus station.

Eventually, the bus came ambling up, and I managed to stow my bag and find my seat without incident. A kind-looking girl sat next to me, and she talked on the phone while I tried to read and intermittently dozed off for the next several hours of the bus ride. I had known that the ride was 4 hours long, and leaving at 12:30 I figured it would still leave me enough daylight to be able to wander around after putting my stuff down at Armando's. What I hadn' t counted on, though, was the bus getting a flat, which it did, and it taking the crew about an hour to fix it. Why I hadn't expected this to happen at this stage in the game, I don't actually know, because looking at the way things had gone so far it only made perfect sense. But I made the best of it and got out to relieve my bursting bladder with all the other dudes on the side of the road. I almost used my little "pee standing up" device but I chickened out at the last minute, not wanting to call even more attention to myself than I already was by being the only female looking person to get out to pee at all. So I just tried the best I could to arrange my sweatshirt strategically and peed for what felt like a million years.. At that moment I just felt sorry for all the other women on the bus who were too scared or polite to pee at all, because as we all know, not being able to go when you have to is one of the most uncomfortable feelings there is. Not to mention bad for your kidneys (gotta love those kidneys).

Anyway, eventually I made it to Quetzaltenango and managed to successfully use the payphone to call Armando, who came 15 minutes later to pick me up. While I waited, though, I noticed two little girls walking by with an older boy, who stopped just in front of me to show off his new cell phone to a friend. The bigger girl peeked out at me shyly from behind the boy, and her face threw me off- she had the face of a young woman, but the body of a child. She was beautiful, and was wearing a tiny black hoodie and quite hip shoes, sort of fancy converse-looking things; anyway, at first she just smiled and peered out from behind the boy, and when I smiled back she came right up to me and said "Tus ojos son muy bonitas!" It took me a second to register what she had said- "your eyes are very pretty" but when I did I immediately returned the complement, and we started chatting away. She was so sweet! She showed me her little sister, Roberta, who was three years old and throwing herself on the ground smiling and laughing and rolling around. My friend's name was Cindi, and she told me she was 14 though, like I said before, it would have been impossible to guess because she looked and seemed so much younger. She couldn't have been over 4 feet tall, but a lot of the women are tiny here. Anyway, she and her sister bade me a big goodbye when their brother was done talking to his friend, and it put me in a better mood instantly. Then, the indigenous woman standing next to me with a baby in her arms- she had been across the aisle from us on the bus- made a bit of friendly small talk with me about how cold it was, which is true- it is surprisingly cold up here in the mountains, and dry- not at all like Puerto Rico. When her ride came, she too, bid me Adios! like an old friend and by the time Armando rolled up I was feeling pretty optimistic. Armando was great, too- he drove us all around the town, pointing out the main attractions as we passed them and then going up to the top of a hill near his house to show me the city below, and where we had just been. It looks like a big place, and it is the second largest city in Guatemala, but when he showed me where we had stopped to buy water in relation to the Parque Central below us, I realized that although it looked very far it hadn't taken us more 10 minutes to drive it. By this time it was dark, so the whole city was lit up beneath us and the multicolored lights danced and glimmered to the faint sounds of music drifting up from below. We stayed for a few minutes, got back in the car and headed to Armando's house, where he showed me around and then we called it a night as I was exhausted and he had work to do on his computer.

I really lucked out here, though- I totally have a room all to myself, since one of the four housemates recently moved out unexpectedly- Armando didn't seem to concerned about it, so I think maybe it's the landlord's problem rather than his. But yeah- it's a beautiful room, with lovely hardwood floors, a big closet and a view overlooking the main square of the city, which is only a five minute walk from the house. Today I went to the school, which is also only several minutes away, and found out that they can take me this week, but after that it is officially all booked up but that doesn't mean for sure that someone won't cancel or a teacher won't want an extra shift. I have a choice of staying with a host family and eating with them or working out my own accomodation, but the price difference is only $35 a week so it seems like the host family might be the most economical option, since they feed you three times per day and the girl at the school assured me they can handle vegans. She said they have even had people there who are on a raw foods diet, which I personally cannot imagine expecting some unsuspecting host mother to prepare for me- I feel bad enough about putting people out with the whole vegan thing. But apparently they can do it all, she says, and that it really isn't a huge deal. So it looks like tomorrow I'll probably do that, since I just went and bought myself some basic groceries this afternoon & can use those for the next day or two till I get settled with a family. If I don't like it, I can always go back to staying and cooking on my own. I have basically spent most of the day wandering around exploring Xela, which is a really nice city with an inordinately large gringo population. It's weird that I feel a little embarassed when I see the other travellers walking around, looking just as out of place as I probably do here; it's like I don't really want to seem like one even though obviously I am. I guess one thing I like about Europe is that I'm pretty much usually assumed to be a local and everyone generally leaves me alone, except to ask for directions or something, when my cover gets blown. Here, though, there's no way to not stand out, and I feel weird knowing that to a lot of people, I am walking around looking like a big dollar sign. Which, again, is one very real byproduct of our modern world that has placed us into this global hierarchy- it's hard to have a genuine interaction sometimes. But for all my self-consciousness, I have also been really pleasantly surprised- amazed, even- at how many locals here have NOT been like that, and instead seem genuinely interested in some kind of real exchange. Mainly women, now that I think of it. I have received more genuine, beautiful smiles today from random women walking around than I have in the whole past year I've been in Australia and the US. So actually, that's really cool. Anyway, this has gone on forever. Those are a few of my first impressions of my time here in Guatemala- I will continue to stay on top of this now that this is kind of my only journal, at least for the moment- I filled up my last one in Puerto Rico and sent it back with Eli, and have yet to find a suitable replacement. I'm going to go check out the used bookstore now and maybe a cafe. More later, Pike

Leaving San Juan

Wow, so here it is, my final night in San Juan before I fly out to Guatemala. I've been staying for the past few days in the beautiful apartment of our friend Abigail, who has been something of a savior to us here in San Juan. Luke and Holly found her on Couchsurfing.com, and she has subsequently had every single one of us stay for at least a day or two ever since, with me being the last to leave out of our whole rag-tag little crew. Amazingly, she is not even here right now- she went to New York to see her family two days ago, so I even have the whole place to myself which I have to say I'm enjoying a lot!
Eli and I also spent a few days with another Couchsurfing contact- Sarah & Jose, a couple who live in Rio Piedras, which is about 45 minutes south of Old San Juan by bus. They, too were lovely, and Jose even let me have my computer sent to his house, which I went and picked up today. At first I wasn't going to bring it, but I have been going crazy having to write such short, succinct messages to everyone and not be able to use all the myriad wi-fi places they have here, not to mention that internet here costs a fortune: the average is about $6/ hr, so I figure it will be well worth it to be able to pre-compose messages and posts and spend minimal time actually having to pay for internet, if at all.
Since leaving Vieques, we had two days in which we rented cars, and just for the record, getting around San Juan with a car is NO easier or faster than the ancient buses if you don't really know the city. It is a myriad of one-way streets and extremely poor signages, so even if you can find a street sign you still can't legally get anywhere without going in the most roundabout way possible, or so it seems. No wonder everyone we've met just rides the bus! It really is saying a lot, cause while the bus is cheap, it isn't fast and the times & places it runs are pretty limited. They don't even HAVE a bus from where I'm staying now to the airport, which is extremely frustrating since a cab is $20 normally; because my flight leaves at 7:20am tomorrow, I will also have to pay a $5-$10 surcharge for "early service", making it basically cheaper if I had just rented a car yesterday morning and driven myself to the airport. But whatever, life isn't perfect, is it?! Overall I've had a pretty good time just hanging out with friends old and new, reading some good books, and exploring new places.
Oh yeah, back to what I was saying: So Car Rental #1 occurred so that Eli, Colette & myself could go and visit the El Yunque National Rainforest, where we camped overnight and hiked both at nighttime and again in the daylight . it was gorgeous, of course, with countless tropical plants, glimmering streams and waterfalls, and hundreds of fascinating insects, birds and reptiles to see and hear. The Coqui frogs, which are everywhere in Puerto Rico, were louder than ever here in their natural environment, and accompanied my reading by flashlight long into the night. Once, as I was stepping out to pee, I even managed to notice one just sitting there on a huge umbrella leaf I was about to push aside- I called quickly to Colette, hissing, "come here! right now right now come here!" and together we watched as the frog tried to stay perfectly still, minute after minute, apparently hoping we'd eventually lose interest and move along. But we didn't for a while- Colette ran and grabbed their ancient camera, and we managed to get a few decent shots of our little friend before finally we felt bad and decided to let it off the hook. I thanked him/her for hanging out with us and stepped away, and watched as it immediately propelled itself away from the leaf and back into the safe cover of the thickly tangled underbrush of the jungle. It was great.
Car Rental #2 was a result of Jose and Sarah's invitation to check out an indigenous festival that was happening way west of San Juan, in the beautiful mountain town of Jayuya (pronounced "yigh (like high)- you- ya". We set out a little late, around 1:45 in the afternoon, cause we had had a little difficulty securing an affordable rental car on such late notice, but eventually we were on our way and managed to figure out how to get to the right highways without too many mishaps. By the time we reached the smaller mountain roads though, I was becoming more and more nervous as the roads became progressively narrower and more and more winding. Eventually, our two hapless friends in the backseat trying to surpress the nausea that comes with unrelenting hairpin turns, I turned the driving over to Eli who was able to deal a little better with the insanity of the route. Still though, we were all relieved when it was finally time to park the car and get out, regardless of what it was we were actually there for.
The festival itself was alright; there was a cute, very modest set of displays set up in the local municipal building, and a young boy tried to explain to me in halting English that last year, as developers were digging to ready the site of a new fast food restaurant, they unearther a large collection of old broken pottery, bird, animal and fish bones, along with a few other artifacts that apparently were quite significant as they indicated that a heretofore unknown market or trading site probably existed there, which has had local archaeology buffs furiously developing all kinds of new theories about local indigenous life over the last few hundred years. The most interesting thing was a small human skeleton, the skull in particular being well-preserved, that was still in the ground as they'd found it but now had an entire building centered around it, laying there in the center encased in glass.
The rest of the festival that we saw was a lot of traditional music, tons of food kiosks (basically nothing vegetarian though, let alone vegan- luckily I had trail mix), and all kinds of handicrafts. It was nice, but after a few hours I think we had seen enough so we went in search of Jose and Sarah, but they had not arrived yet. Eventually at nearly nine o'clock we left, and the drive back to San Juan was a bit faster since we knew what to expect. Our plan was to get back to town just in time to get changed and go hit the clubs for an exciting night of dancing and making new friends- doesn't that sound great?
Well, it wasn't. We basically got lost/ on the wrong freeway/ stuck on a one-way street so many times that by the time we had dropped off Colette in one part of town and worked our way back to where we were going, we were so cranky and tired we just ended up trying to find something to eat at Denny's (a traumatic experience, to say the least) and then made our way back home- though this, too, took another half hour even though we were only 4 blocks away. Not to mention it had started to rain.
The next day was better- we all decided that what we needed was to chill out so after we finally managed to drop off the rental car (basically a repeat of the fiasco of the previous evening's navigation attempts), we just hung out and read and ate and wandered around the marketplace. At night we again attempted to go out, this time meeting with a slightly more reasonably modicum of success in the form of Junior's, the one gay bar we managed to find the last time. It was alright, except for the fact that like every other "queer" thing or place I've seen in Puerto Rico (and basically everywhere else, too, for that matter) it consisted entirely of young gay men and a few supermodel- looking trans girls. No female-born or radical queer types to be found beyond our little corner near the pool table, and any requests for where to find any such people were met with either blank stares or snotty attitudes. Nevertheless, Hazel and I made the best of it by suctioning ourselves to the jukebox and dancing as much as we could, even though we were the only ones.
But overall, I can't complain at all. San Juan (and Puerto Rico in general) has been really great to us. I have rarely visited a place where the people seem so genuinely warm and open to visitors, particularly ones like us. Of course not everyone is all excited when we walk down the street, but the actual interactions I had reflected a lack of the coldness that I often feel in the big cities I usually spend time in. Anyway, that, at long last, is it. I'm off for Guatemala, and hopefully everything will work out with my language school and volunteer projects! Stay tuned for more... xoxo, Pike

Vieques, Puerto Rico

Hello once again! So finally, after much ado and a long absence, I am writing once again to update you (and myself, since I sadly have the memory of a goldfish) on my latest adventures abroad. As you probably know, I have now officially embarked on my much-anticipated Latin American odyssey, in which I plan to finally become fluent in Spanish, volunteer a lot, read a lot, become friends with local activists (I know this sounds vague) and generally try to become a better person in order to justify my utter refusal to work and seeming obsession with never staying in one place for too long.
Okay. So, here I am- as I write this, I am on the island of Vieques, off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico. Some of us know Vieques only because for years it was used by the US Navy as an artillery testing site, a practice which has made 2/3 of the island completely uninhabitable due to all the toxic garbage left behind. Apparently, before the Navy came Vieques was home to approximately 30,000 people; within the first 10 years of the ongoing bombing & weapons testing in their backyards, all but 6,000 of these had abandoned ship for quieter, slightly less toxic locales. There was a long, well-coordinated and ultimately successful campaign to put an end to the testing here, but even though the military finally, grudgingly quit shooting up the landscape in 2003, they have flatly refused to come back to clean up any of the thousands of tons of shells, scrap metal or chemical residue they left behind. So, as the banner hung by the tent city next to the highway in San Juan proudly declared, ‘En Vieques, La Lucha Sigue!’ Which means, for those who don't speak Spanish, ‘In Vieques, The Struggle Continues!’ But that, actually, is totally NOT why I'm here. Which, reading this, kind of surprises me in fact... hmm, maybe I should check out what IS up. Okay, but I'm digressing.
So the reason I am here, now, is simply that a certain director of several films well-known to the queer underground posted a free housesit ad on the Queeruption list serve earlier this spring, and a couple of my friends managed to get spots taking care of the house in which I sit at this very moment (I'm typing on a friend's laptop, & will be transmitting stuff from the email cafe in town). My friends Ane, Luke & Antoine have been here for nearly a month already, and this week they got 4 new arrivals in the forms of myself & Eli, who arrived here 3 days ago now, Holly, Luke's good friend from Seattle, and Collette, an amazing and rad kid Ane & I hung out with in Portland.
From where I am sitting, I can see the blue-green ocean on 3 sides & lush green grass and trees everywhere else, interrupted only by the small, uncomplicated concrete shacks that most of the folks here live in. Our shack has one room downstairs that serves as both kitchen & living room, and one room directly above it where everyone sleeps. There is a fabulous balcony with 2 hammocks on the upper level, and a little balcony-sized porch on the lower level with a couple of wicker chairs to hang out in. It's pretty basic but still a lot fancier than some of our neighbors, for whom this is their full-time home and not just a nice little getaway from their multi-million dollar apartment in New York. Not that I'm complaining, but the privelege of being here under these circumstances is definitely not lost on me. That said, lots of the locals are surprisingly friendly and accomodating, going out of their way to give us lifts to or from town or help us find somewhere to eat or buy ice. There are a lot of folks here who spent some time in the mainland US and therefore speak really good English, which definitely makes things easier for me but isn't exactly challenging me to brush up my Spanish skills.
The weather has been gorgeous the last few days- a little TOO hot, if anything, but not as muggy at the moment as when we first arrived. I sort of panicked, actually, when I first set foot out the doors of the air-conditioned airport and the wall of steam that is San Juan's climate hit me like a blast in the face. I thought, ‘OMG, what have I done?! I can't handle this!!!’ Eli, on the other hand, was in heaven & came bounding over to where I was waiting (our flights came in an hour and a half apart), declaring, ‘THIS is why I'm here! I can't believe I was doubting it- I love this weather!!!’ But what can you expect from an Australian who's been stuck in chilly, grey San Francisco for the last year straight? Anyway, we were greeted by a mobile samba band, complete with costumed dancers & dancing creatures of some sort, courtesy of the Puerto Rican Tourism Board. Because we had no idea what we were going to do upon leaving the airport, we retreated back inside to the air conditioning & had a cup of tea while consulting our guidebook, ultimately deciding to spend a night in San Juan before figuring out whether to go straight to Vieques from there. We phoned the cheapest place in the book (it said $35 for a double room) and they did, in fact, have a vacancy, so we booked it, but not at that price. In reality it was $42, but we figured that was still probably the cheapest we were gonna find without some major hassle, so we got in a cab and promptly gave him the wrong directions entirely. After about 20 minutes of fruitless searching for our street, I took charge of the guidebook & maps and discovered that we were in the wrong part of town entirely, and eventually we made it there and got settled in. Luckily our cab driver was super nice, so we gave him a big tip since he wasn't getting paid by the meter but by ‘zone‘, meaning it was a flat fee so he really didn't have to be as accomodating as he was.
Upon checking in to our ‘hotel‘, we were greeted (more like flagged down, I guess, if we're being technical) by an ancient man in a dress shirt and polyester pants. Now here is one time when our Spanish came in handy, cause this man seemingly spoke not a word of English, so it was gratifying to be able to carry out an entire transaction without incident all en Españ ol.
Once we had settled into our room, Eli & I headed out to check out San Juan Viejo, or Old San Juan. It's a tiny area, and it didn't take us too long to figure out where things were. Frustratingly, though, it seemed nearly everything we were actually trying to locate was under construction or no longer existed, despite the fact that our guidebook is only a year old and some of the info we found online. Eventually we managed to jump aboard the free trolley that goes all over town, which was really cute and a nice way to see things. We passed by a charming little town square, and the trolley took several tight, winding turns through the cobblestone streets before bringing us out onto the road that runs alongside the water, which was absolutely beautiful. The turquoise water of the Caribbean stretched out as far as we could see, and it was all made even more scenic by the ruins of the ancient fort that extended up the hill above us, overlooking the sea, and the old above ground cemetery that stands, all in concrete, right against the waters' edge.
After a few moments of scenic views, the driver guided us back to the square and announced that this was the end of the line, so we got out and explored a little more, stopping at the grocery store before retreating back to the room for a much-needed nap. Later that evening we happened upon a Rasta/ ITOL restaurant, which meant vegan nachos & peanut tofu for dinner- something I was pretty grateful for, even if it was just mediocre. After dinner we were ready to hit the town, armed only with a dubious map and the names and addresses of a couple of gay bars in a different part of town. The first place we tried was closed, sadly, as it looked really cute and homey, and a few others we couldn't locate at all, but eventually we came upon a really big club that was pounding techno music & did the most thorough bag check I have ever seen. Upon learning that the cover was $6, though, we decided to check out the free bar up the street first and come back only if the other place sucked. Luckily for us, it didn't. Things were pretty dead when we first showed up, but after a game of pool and a couple conversations the place was fairly crowded, and sometime around midnight the music changed from hip hop to salsa, and a few people were hustling their way around the dancefloor with varying degrees of expertise. After watching this for a while Eli got one of the fags to show me how, and so I got one lesson from a lovely boy named Juan, and then another from his friend, who offered seemingly out of a sense of needing to save the art form from the butchery that Juan was allowing me to make of it. His lesson was much stricter, but I feel like I was actually kind of getting it by the end, so that was a really fun time. Finally we realized it was 2am and we had to get going, since we had arranged to meet our friends on the other side of the island sometime around noon the next day.
Needless to say, we didn't get there at noon, but we did get there eventually, and after a bunch of annoying details I won't bore you with we finally made it over here, by ferry, to Vieques. Ane & Antoine had had to go back to the main island to visit the hospital, since the day before we arrived Ane had broken her arm. It's a pretty nasty break, as the x-ray shows, and will probably require surgery so they were feeling pretty stressed out about it, especially since Ane actually doesn't have insurance. But in the meantime they've got it in a splint, and we're trying to keep her medicated for the pain to the extent we can.
The saddest part is that she can't change her ticket and she can't go in the water, take a shower, or anything else that would basically make one want to be in the tropics, so I have to say she's pretty miserable, though a much better trooper than I would probably be in her shoes. We're trying our best to help her out, though, and I'm determined to find a way for her to do some kind of snorkelling or at least go out on the Biolumenescent Bay with us in the next couple of days.
As far as swimming goes for us, yesterday was actually the first day we actually made it to the beach. I had written this glorious description of the perfect white sand, the warm turquoise water, and the fabulous woman named Sonia who has taken us under her wing like little easter chickies, but it all got erased when the battery on this died and I don't have it in me to retype it all again. Suffice to say, it's beautiful- it really does look just like all the pictures in the ads for the Carribbean, and Colette & I could not stop freaking out about the fact that it was even real. Many hi-fives and much picturesque frolicking in the water was had by all, making us look to anyone else like we were probably being paid to have such a good time by some weird PR company trying to sell vacation packages to Vieques. It was great. Then we learned that there is even a « Gay Parade » this afternoon, so of course we are going to go and see what THAT is all about. Overall I have been really pleasantly surprised by how little hassle I've recieved and our little group has gotten, especially since one of us is a totally freaky looking drag queen and the rest are just freaky looking, at least by Puerto Rico standards. Most folks have been really nice and some even go out of their way to tell us they like our style!
Anyway, there is much more I could write and already this is somewhat out of date, but this blog has gone on way too long so I’m gonna sign off until the next time- I think I’m gonna have my computer shipped to me so I can write more often! Love and hugs to all! Xoxo, Pike.

Queeruption 10!

Wow, so once again it has been ages since I wrote. But here's the update, for anyone who cares:

First of all, I flew back to SF from Sydney on July 31st, where I was warmly greeted by my dear friend Eli, who also put me up for the night. I ate a delicious burrito and fell asleep, waking up to see Fjord quickly and go to a friend's party up the street.

The next day it was time to go to Vancouver, BC, where I was headed for Queeruption. My flight went fine, I got across the border w/ no worries, and I thought, "my goodness. What a pleasant surprise that everything is going so swimmingly well!" And so of course it was about this time that I discovered that my luggage, alas, had been left behind in San Francisco, effectively derailing my well-laid plan for the remainder of the day. Blah.

Luckily, I had written down the contact number for Vancouver accomodation seekers, despite not thinking I would need it, and the lovely folks (Billy and Leann) totally hooked me up to stay at Leann's house for the night, which was actually a lot of fun anyways so I guess it's okay. After a long and frustrating phone conversation with some guy at the airline, I finally managed to have my stuff delivered at about 1am, and was happily able to set out bright and early (ummm, about 11:45- I was jetlagged!) the next morning for the land.

I hadn't counted on it being such an epic journey to get to the q10 land, but it was about 4 hours from the time I left Leann's house until I finally reached the end of the ferry ride (which was beautiful) and spotted my lovely fellow queeruptors waiting to shuttle us to the place it was being held.

When I finally walked up the entrance to the land, the first thing I saw- well, heard, actually- was Durward, shrieking my name like a little girl. We ran like in the movies, embracing in a fabulous swinging hug that made it basically the best welcome EVER. I spent the rest of the afternoon tracking down all my other long-lost friends who I hadn't seen in ages, and just adjusting to the whole idea of being back at queeruption after a long break.

Anyway, the week was really great- the whole event was super well organized, the land was really beautiful, and I got to meet a lot of really awesome new folx that I have since had fun hanging out with back in their home turfs of Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland, respectively. More on my ensuing adventures in the next installment....

Brisbane & Beyond!

So I know this is a little bit after the fact, but I wanted to write a little review of Brisbane all its own just because I had such a great time there!

I arrived on a Saturday afternoon after my long, 28 hour hitch from Cairns, and was warmly welcomed by my friend Boo (who I had met in Sydney and hung out w/ a few times) & his housemates at the fabulous Brereton Street house. We had dinner and caught up until it was time to go to an engagement party for a friend of theirs who I had never met, which was being held at the house of my friends Anna and Holly. The party was totally fun, and I was surprised to run into several more people I have met through the years- two of whom remembered me from a squat we stayed at in Barcelona 3 years ago! I hit it off with a few people and had a generally good time just chatting away, catching up and getting to know new people until I was too tired to talk anymore. I walked back to the house and crashed out on the futon in the living room, too exhausted to even get up and move when other beds were evacuated and offered to me early the next morning. It felt really good to get a solid night's sleep after several restless nights in hostels and the back of a truck!

The next few days I went exploring the city with Boo and/ or his housemate Tonia, which included eating fake chicken at the veggie Chinese restaurant, going up to the top of Mt. Koot-tha to overlook the city, playing lots of dice games and cooking and eating lots of yummy food, at both the Brereton St. kitchen or the local vegan restaurant down the road (The Forest- has really good cherry vanilla cake & tempeh sandwiches)!

On Tuesday I moved into Anna's room at the Jane St house, where the party was happening the night of my arrival. Anna had to go to Townsville for a feminist conference for work, so she kindly offered me the use of her room while she was gone. It was nice to have a little refuge of my own, and I managed to read 3 books (Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende, Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of NIMH- an old favorite from my childhood, and a really beautiful graphic novel called The Arrival by Shawn Tan, who apparently has written/ illustrated several other really awesome books). I miss reading so much sometimes- I know I am on vacation when I have the time to read!!! Incidentally, I also went on the read Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, which was excellent. But back to the story.

On Wednesday night I went to the house of Carmel and Kylie, the girls I knew from Barcelona, for a late dinner, which was really fun. They are both really friendly and funny so I felt pretty comfortable right away, which I oftentimes have a really hard time doing with people I don't know super well.

Yeah, so Brisbane- what else happened? Oh, well, on Friday the 21st the Brereton St kids put on a little Cabaret night and it was sooo cute and fun! They even let me MC (well, actually no one else wanted to or was able to do it, so I stepped in), which was totally fun cause we all know I like to be loud and in front of an audience. I got to wear the infamous "butch dress", so named because of its ability to make even the butchest of people look lovely and femme, just by slipping it on! Boo and Marnina did a really awesome sailor-themed acrobatic striptease thing, and Holly and Shannon and a couple of their friends did a really cute dance performance with a cowboy flavor to it. Later on there was arm-wrestling, dice, and even some spin-the-bottle going on, so I think everyone had a pretty good time! When I get my camera back and eventually get on a computer, I will put up a few photos of the night and Brissie in general.

Anyway, so that went on late into the night. We were all gonna go to the Markets the next morning, but at 10 am I was the only 0ne even remotely awake, due only in part to the fact that I had been told in no uncertain terms that the vegan sausage roll stand would be out of them by 11 at the latest. Alas, after finally rousing Tonia and hassling her into getting dressed and running down there, the warning turned out to be accurate and so we had to share their final "Dagwood Dog" (kind of like a corndog but the batter was just wheat flour not corn) and a samosa, which must have totally met my grease intake quotient for the month; kind of a nasty way to start the morning, but what can you do?

The market itself was really nice, though, and really crowded. There was a good amount of organic produce as well as all the usual hippie vendors selling mystical rocks, raw food treats, Tibetan dresses and homemade candles. There was plenty of non-hippie stuff too, but nothing too noteworthy. I was eyeing up some sexy cutting boards but I restrained myself, all too aware of my propensity for picking up crap I can't take back with me...

My last day in town was Sunday, and in the morning I finished working on the little project that Tonia and I had started...I decided to bury some treasure, to be located and dug up by the next person I know who goes to Brisbane (so if you're going to Brisbane, let me know and I'll give you the map!!!). It took me hours and hours, but I was pretty pleased with the result, and Tonia and I found a really great spot to bury it in. So that was the first place we went, en route to meeting Holly and a few other folks at the Korean bathhouse for an afternoon of hot tub relaxation! It was really nice there, though once we arrived and watched how the Korean ladies were really going all out with their loofahs, creams, oils etc, we regretted not having brought masks and exfoliating products of our own! I guess it's like, if you're gonna pay $15 to use the place you may as well make the most of it. But now we know... every day's a school day, I always say...

After the baths I went with Tonia, Holly and Holly's girlfriend Shannon to eat at a Tibetan restaurant. I was really excited because the food all looked and smelled really good, but when mine came out I was shocked and sad to see that it was made up of 50% TVP chunks, which were really not very good at all. I guess I should have said something, since nowhere on the menu did it mention this, and I didn't really enjoy my meal, but by that time I felt like I'd already had a bit of drama just trying to explain the vegan thing to the waitress that I didn't want to deal with it again. We made up for it by going back to The Forest and sharing a slice of really delicious chai cake, and then eventually back to Brereton St where the house was also saying goodbye to Boo, who was due to fly out the next to Melbourne en route to America for queeruption. All in all, it was a wonderful time and I'm really glad I got to go!

So with that I will leave you, until I can post my further adventures...

xoxo, P.

Got to Brissie all safe and sound!

Hey ya'll, just wanted to write a quick post to say I got to Brisbane all safe and sound after a long, exhaustive but shockingly easy 29-hour hitch from Cairns. I left yesterday morning and got my first ride before I could even set my stuff down; that guy dropped me at a servo where I immediately was picked up by this hare krishna guy who, we figured out after a few minutes, I had talked to in his veggie restaurant a few days prior. He was going to visit his sick grandad to try to save his soul, and dropped me at another servo in Innisfail. Within five minutes of landing there I got a ride with an old, crusty truckie who was going all the way to Sydney and gladly gave me a lift the rest of the way. He even bought me my meals, amongst reassurances that all he wanted was someone to talk to. I subtly let him know that that was good because I hate having to hurt people who try anything, but it was all good cause he really was totally harmless. He regaled me with stories of his dead wife, his dogs, his son and daughter-in-law, and all the different ways you can disguise the flavor of one kind of animal by using extract of another to make it taste better (i.e., oyster sauce on venison, rabbit cooked in chicken stock). He really didn't get the vegan thing but you can't win 'em all I guess. I rolled up to my friends' house around 3 this afternoon and I expect I'll be staying here for about a week or so before heading down to Sydney, so there you have it- here I am! I'm getting really excited about Queeruption in Vancouver too so I'll be having fun till I see ya'll again, wherever you are! Big hugs as always, Pike.

The Amazing, Beautiful Great Barrier Reef

Wow. I am sitting in another internet cafe right now, this time in the center of Cairns, a tacky but well-intentioned hive of tourists and backpacker-oriented attractions. After almost three weeks on the road with my dirty little crew of anarchist travellers, I finally broke off yesterday to start my descent back down the coast. I was going to leave them two nights earlier, but they talked me into coming with them into the Atherton tablelands for a couple of days, reassuring me that it was a really easy hitch back to Cairns, and I'm glad I did. After crossing the ferry back from the Daintree, we stopped briefly in Cairns to re-up our supplies and then headed west. Our first stop off was Barron Gorge National Park, where we crashed in the parking lot for a very cold night. In the morning it quickly warmed back up, though, and soon it was blazingly hot- until I went for a walk in the woods. The thick rainforests were cool and calm and unbelievebly lush, just like all the other "bush" I've seen so far. I wanted to stay a lot longer, but felt guilty for ditching the group and possibly holding everyone up for too long, so I hiked around for a couple of hours before I reluctantly re-joined the posse. We eventually got all our stuff together and headed on, this time turning off only 7 km up the road at Davies Creek National Park. It was totally different, but just as stunning. There were just enormous boulders everywhere and when we drove higher up the mountain we were suddenly overlooking really beauiful waterfalls that collected in smaller pools that were perfect for splashing in before cascading the rest of the way down the mountain. I really wanted to take pictures of this place but hadn't thought to grab my camera on the way out of the car, not realizing how amazing it all would be. We had agreed to go back up and take some pictures before leaving again the next day, but when it was time to do so Kaz had a minor freakout and basically harassed me and Jo out of it, saying that there was no way they were ever going to get anywhere if we went up to take pictures for 30 minutes. So that was annoying, but so it goes.
From there, it was time for me to split off, and they dropped me at the nearest servo (that's a gas station for all us yankees), where the woman behind the counter kindly charged my phone and the first guy I asked kindly gave me a ride all the way back to Cairns (it actually wasn't that far, but still- it was nice!). He was an older dude with three grown kids and he was headed to Cairns to pack up his youngest son's apartment, cause apparently his son had had to move south really quickly to take a new job so there ya have it. I helped him move this funny little boat thing from one garage to another and he dropped me right in the center of town, easy as that. I'm hoping my luck is as good the rest of the way down- Cairns to Sydney is a long way!
But anyway, as far as WHY, after two whole days, I'm still in this hellishly hetero and touristy town- three words: Great Barrier Reef. It's the same reason everyone is here, really- and after going snorkelling in it today, I can fully understand why.
I managed to find a pretty affordable deal- $75 for a full day on a boat in the outer reef, including all snorkelling equipment, instruction, lunch, and a glass-bottomed boat ride to boot... it was totally worth it! I have always had a pretty healthy fear/ respect for the ocean and have NEVER been able to swim with my head under the water, so I was a little worried that I wouldn't really be able to do it. But it was actually really easy and now I am really motivated to get a lot more comfortable and skillful in the ocean- what is right under the surface is so incredible! Above the water the weather was actually pretty bad- totally grey, rough surface, and even a bit of rain- but as soon as I jumped in and stuck my face in the water I realized that to the fish, it was the same as any other day, and they totally were not afraid of me at all! I simply could not believe the amazing, flourescent colors that were flying all around me; there was soft, undulating coral in bright greens, neon purples and pinks, yellow- and all the fish were just as gorgeous. I saw enormous oysters big enough to swallow me, breathing (or eating?) through little round openings in their furry purple craws. And best of all, I spotted a green turtle who totally let me get close enough to pet its back when coming up for air, before going back down to keep foraging for food. It seemed like every time I turned around I was suddenly in the midst of a massive school of tiny, glowing minnows or directly above a gigantic, color-changing fish whose skin can best be described as reminiscent of those hypercolor jackets that were really popular in 5th grade (circa 1991- does anyone even know what I'm talking about?)....
Anyway, the ride back was considerably less fabulous, with the boat pitching and rocking all over the place- more than a few people were losing their lunches into the tiny paper sick bags the crew was frantically passing out. But I was totally cheered up by an adorable little Austrian boy whose unbridled enthusiasm for EVERYTHING was infectious, and I got really into cheering when a massive wave would send a huge peal of water slamming into the window across from us. All in all, a great experience- if anyone has any doubt about how important and incredible this is as an ecosystem, come and see it for yourself and I would dare you to say that saving it isn't crucial.
Anyway, that's been my past few days- I hope yours have been even half as gorgeous and inspiring as mine have been! I've been creating a new "to-do list" that I WILL start following up on- 1. Write a screenplay about Anne Bonny and Mary Read (look 'em up if ya don't know); 2. learn to use the Reason program to make my own music. 3. Learn to finally play the bass & guitar 4. Get fluent in Spanish 5. Learn to breakdance.
Yeah yeah, a lot of these have been on my list for ages, but you know what? I'm tired of waiting around and putting things off! What the hell else am I going to do for the next year?! I've got the time and I'm going to make the most of it, come hell or high water. Ya'll better hold me to it.

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Wow, well unfortunately I have to keep this really short cause I'm at a rip-off internet place right now in the middle of Daintree, Australia (pretty remote in Northern east coast). First I want to say that after being awake all night helping to try to comfort my friend's baby because she had run off to the pub and "lost track of the time", I can appreciate even more than ever just how much I put my own poor mother through and how amazing it is that she is still talking to me! In fact, basically everything about parenthood seems to be something of a miracle, but I guess that's the way the world works. Anyway, Happy Birthday Mom and I'm really sorry I wasn't able to get through on the phone. I tried!
Anyway, the past week or so has been spent drifting from beach to beach and cooking over fires and trying to stay out of petty arguements that certain others in our party seem to engage in almost constantly. But it's been really good overall, and definitely a needed bit of time where I don't really have much obligation whatsoever.
Anyway, I will totally post more details and stories and pictures sometime soon, but for now I just wanted to say hey and let everyone know I'm doing well and trying to figure out my plans for when I get back to the states; i.e., how I'm getting to queeruption etc. I think I'm just gonna fly...
Okay, big hugs to all! xoxo, pike.

A Really quick update on where I've been

Hi folks! So I'm really sorry once again that I've dropped off the radar for awhile, but these last couple of weeks have been really eventful for me, to put it mildly. The biggest, and saddest news is that Jay and I have officially broken up, even though neither one of us really wanted to and we both love each other a lot. Without going into too much detail, there was just too much aruguing and general unhappiness and we basically need to do a lot more growing as individuals I think before we can really be happy together. But all that said, leaving him was the hardest thing I've had to do in a long time, and I've been trying very hard to keep it together and not let a broken heart take over my life.
Luckily I have made some amazing friends in Sydney who totally hung out with me and supported me while I figured out what I was going to do, and I am really grateful for all the love the Sydney folks have shown to both myself and Jay throughout all of this. I decided that the easiest thing to do was to hit the road, which I was vaguely planning to do anyway, but this kind of really kickstarted the whole thing. So I managed to get in touch with a friend of a friend who just so happened to be driving up past Brisbane with her two year old son, Jack, and we have been on the road ever since! The destination was Shoalwater Bay, where there was a big peace rally this weekend and protests against the US Military's use of the fragile ecosystem there as bomb practice, which has been going on for many years.
It was kind of outrageously hippie-fied, but there were a couple of cool actions, and the cause has some pretty good support behind it so I'm really glad I went in the end. Yesterday we headed up north in a caravan w/ some other punks and another baby, and are going to head for Cairns and then maybe even the desert, since Monica (my car's driver) plans to move to Alice Springs for a while to do some cool stuff there.
Everything has gone pretty well so far, except I guess for the weather, which has been raining nearly non-stop. There was one day this week that the sun came out, and that was the day of the peace march, so I totally had to jump in the ocean, even though I only lasted a few minutes in the cold. Still, it was so beautiful I couildn't resist. There is a massive hole in the roof of the van where the sunroof used to be, so that too has posed a minor problem w/ the rain, but we've been doing our best to keep it patched and re-taped so I guess it just adds to the adventure!
So that's kind of my last few weeks in a very quick, not very detailed nutshell! I'm not eating as well as I would like (lots of fried potatoes) but I'm doing all right; suffice to say that Australia totally doesn't get veganism. Even the eco-punks are eating crappy meat from the pub.
Anyway, thanks for reading and I swear I will try to get to a better internet connection soon! Big hugs to you all! xoxo, Pike.

Now for the news of where I've been...

Yikes, I've been sort of dreading having to write this one just because it's like, where do I begin?
As most of ya'll know, I went back to the U.S. for a brief visit to watch my brother's wedding, which was moved forward because he has been recalled to Iraq. I was feeling pretty emotional before I left, but actually, getting to see my friends and family again in such a concentrated way was really, really great. Obviously, it would've been great if it hadn't been under such crappy circumstances, but in this world this is the kind of thing that millions of families have had to deal with, so I'm not exactly alone.
Anyway, though I am really not one for "marriage" and "weddings," I will say that my brother's wedding to his really, really awesome girlfriend was well worth the trip out. I am just so amazed at how happy and grown-up he seemed at that moment; it's hard to believe I've known him his entire life and now he's not just this bratty, messed up kid, but a real life adult who has actually turned into a really sweet guy. I worry a lot for him being in war, cause I know that he will never fully recover from the first time he went over there. But he's resigned himself to the fact that he is, quite literally, government property, and feels like fighting it would only make it worse. The one good thing is that he is committed to getting help when he gets back, and I feel like he's gained a pretty good understanding of trauma and how to handle it since being in therapy. He's been stationed to a helicopter unit, so we're hoping that means he'll be guarding equipment and not doing ground troop stuff, which makes his safety a lot more likely. Anyway, that's been on my mind a lot.
Another good thing about getting to see my family was having the chance to hang out w/ my parents, with whom I get along remarkably well these days. They are both on the lookout for new jobs, since my dad's company just laid off their entire sales force and my mom just got fired from a brand new job that she hated anyway. So while that was a big stress factor for both of them, it also meant that they had a little more time than usual to spend with us, and my dad and I in particular go to see some beautiful mountain scenery and hang out a lot. My parents only live a few hours away from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, so when Chris and Madzia (my brother and new sister-in-law) got back from their honeymoon we drove up there with my Dad for a day and had an amazing time ogling the sights. The Grand Canyon is a cliche for a reason, and that is because it is totally, totally mindboggling. It is bigger than our eyes can take in, and in a world of tiny things created for us to control, something that vast and wild is completely foreign. It's a bit like the ocean, I guess, but more predictable. On the road there we had noticed a massive swathe of forest that had been damaged to varying degrees in a fire the year before. Some of the areas had simply been singed, and most of the old trees were still standing tall and proud, with lots of little green shoots coming up all around. But other parts of the forest had been burned beyond repair, and if there were any trees left standing, it was only as a few charred & leaning silhouettes. It looked tragic in the daylight, just miles and miles of death against the dry red mountains far off in the distance. But as we drove home and the sun was setting, those same trees looked so gorgeous in front of the orange and pink sky we had to stop and take some pictures.
I stayed in the U.S. for a total of 10 days, and came back to Sydney on May 26th. Because Jay and I had planned to go to New Zealand from the 18th to the 27th, we had had to rearrange our trip dates, which I will say the airline totally gouged us for. So basically what ended up happening is that we left on the 27th, the day after I got back from the U.S., and found ourselves in Christchurch, New Zealand that afternoon. I didn't realize prior to this trip how far New Zealand actually is from Australia, I guess because relative to everywhere else on earth the two are pretty close. But it's a 3 hour plane ride and 2 time zones away, so even though we left Sydney at 8am we didn't get into Christchurch until after 1pm.
When we arrived in "town," the first thing we noticed was how completely silent it seemed. Christchurch is a very tiny town on the south island of New Zealand (or Aortorea, as the native Maori call it). There is nothing at all happening there, yet, like every other tiny, seemingly dull town in NZ, it had about 20 different backpackers' hostels and a very well-equipped tourist bureau. I should mention now that we were barely "travelling" in New Zealand, we were straight-up "touristing", if that is even a verb. But we only had one week there and 2 islands to see, so we kind of had to stick to the tourist route as much as possible just to get to the highlights.
We made the mistake of buying too many hours on our bus passes, because we were basing it on the old schedule that we had picked up from the office there. I was not pleased to learn that the bus passes no longer counted toward the first place we wanted to go, which was a geothermal hot springs about an hour and a half away from Christchurch. So we eventually made the decision to skip it, and after killing Monday morning browsing around downtown Christchurch, caught an afternoon bus up to the town of Kaikoura, which apparently is known for it whale watching and crayfish catching. We got there about 4:30 in the afternoon, booked ourselves into the nearest hostel, and promptly discovered that there were no more whale watches or dolphin swims that day, and that basically there was nothing else to do, either. Hmph. So we went to the grocery store, made some sandwiches, and then took a nice walk down the one paved road for about a mile. At the end there was a pub where we stopped and had a drink while we watched the sun go down. The news was on and the only other customers were a couple of drunken, middle-aged guys in the corner who seemed to be pretty friendly with the waitress. The hot topics on the news in New Zealand were pretty interesting: one was the public outrage that the local state-funded coal company had paid spies to infiltrate an anti-coal protest group (it was shocking to me that this was actually news; in the U.S. the government itself is the ones paying the spies!); the prime minister was all in a huff and the coal company was being investigated for its lack of ethics! New Zealand: 1, U.S.: 0. The other big item of news was the public outrage against that a local woman who relied on oxygen for life support was killled when the power company came and cut her electricity because the family was behind on their bill. Again, the prime minister expressed outrage and condolences and the ceo's of all the local power companies actually paid for and attended the woman's funeral, I guess to show that they really were sorry-? It was very surreal to see the picture in the paper of all these corporate dudes with traditional maori sarongs around their suits, trying to make a good show of it at this poor woman's funeral.
Anyway, my general impression is that New Zealand as a whole sees things a little more wholistically, and, I think, reasonably; there is still some sense, somewhere, that people and the earth and ethics should maybe come before money and corporate profits... definitely not something I get to see on the news very often.
Anyway, so yeah, not much else to say about Kaikoura, except that it was quiet and cold, but beautiful. The next morning we got out bright and early and took a bus north to Bleinheim, where we rented bicycles and went on a self-guided wine tour of New Zealand's most important wine growing region. It was pretty fun, actually, and the weather was very pleasantly warm and sunny, not at all what we had expected. We got to see about 4 different wineries and talk to the owners of a few. The scenery was really gorgeous and we tried not to get too tipsy to safely maneuver ourselves back to base. After that, we went for some Indian food (the second time since arriving in New Zealand, and both times really delicious) and waited for our 9pm bus to come and take us away.
About an hour later we had arrived in Picton, which is the northernmost town on the south island, and the main departure point for the ferry to wellington. We managed to score a hostel with a hot tub, so we relaxed in the water and called in a night. The next morning we had planned to ride around the region on bikes and see the famous Marlborough Sounds, but we got severely sidetracked by the very distressing disappearance of my wallet. I really don't know how it could've gone missing, but it did, somewhere between getting on the van to the hostel and leaving our room there the next morning. So that was obviously a major drama, as I had several bank cards, a good bit of cash, various ID's, and my usb jumpdrive in there. The jumpdrive has actually been the worst thing to lose, because it had all my recipes, all my invoices, several letters and zines I had written, my lists of where everything is back home, and lots more that I'm sure I haven't thought of yet. Very frustrating!!! But eventually I stopped freaking out and we tried to enjoy as much of the day as we could by taking a long ride along the coastline and taking lots of video and pictures. I can't even express how pretty it all is there; it's just so lush and green and there are massive hills overlooking really beautiful seaside cliffs overlooking picturesque marinas etc etc. It's no wonder it is such a tourist destination- if anything, I would think people go there just to relax. On our way back to the hostel, we came upon a really cool old junk shop where I couldn't resist the irrational urge to buy really cute vintage plaid dish set, which was seriously a bargain at only $12. Jay made sure to make fun of me for it on every further leg of our journey, but I still say it was a good idea- good junk is hard to find! And besides, it says Made in New Zealand on the bottom so it's really like my little (bulky and fragile) souvenir.
We caught the ferry (which was massive, and fancy) at 6pm, and for the next 3 hours enjoyed an eclectic mix of music videos from the 70's, 80's, and 90's, the highlight of which (for me) was the ever-classic Silent Lucidity by Queensryche. It was so effing awesome- epic, even. You can imagine my shock when I learned that Jay had somehow never even HEARD of this masterpiece, despite claims of having been into both fantasy and metal at the time of its release. Anyway, it was a long three hours but we made it through with the help of Wham, Duran Duran, Wilson-Phillips (really), and of course, Rod Stewart.
When we got in a cab and headed towards our hostel after arriving in Wellington, the first thing I thought of was, "wow, this place really feels like San Francisco!" Maybe it was the fog, maybe it was the hills; but whatever it was, I was instantly endeared to this small, beautiful harborside town. We spent our first night in a massive, busy and run-down backpackers, and decided the next day to find a nicer place to stay and see the sights of downtown Wellington. It soon became apparent that we had already located and slept in the cheapest place in town, but eventually we settled on the generic but clean and centrally-located Wellington YHA, which later we discovered was teeming with young children who were apparently on a school trip. But it was fine, we weren't there to hang in the hostel, so we got out and saw the really great Te Papa museum, which had lots of exhibits including Maori traditional art, early days of both Maori and European settlement, contemporary NZ art, and more. Jay doesn't even like museums and he liked it, so I give it two thumbs up. Plus it's free so you can't beat that.
Then we made our way to the "tattoo museum", which, when we showed up appeared to be closed but in actuality has mostly just relocated to a location that was not open. Inside we found a very mediocre selection of assorted "fantasy" figurines (ie, scantily clad women with daggers and such) with tattoos drawn onto them, some not-apparently tattoo-related pieces of body armor and medieval weaponry, and several badly done collage pieces from various, widely available tattoo magazines, each in a black-rimmed plastic frame with a theme such as "ladies" or "guns" or "religious symbols". We were getting ready to leave when the proprietor stopped us and encouraged us to "check out his portfolio", which was nearly as impressive as the works of art surrounding us. Then he asked us whether we had tattoos and asked if he could photograph them, which we let him do despite our slight suspicions/ concerns that he might somehow try to slip the photos into his own portfolio. Either way, it was an entertaining way to kill an afternoon.
The next day we ran into time/ bus conflict #2, when we discovered that the bus we wanted to take up to Rotorua (site of thermal pools and some apparently really awesome caves, plus a Maori meeting house we wanted to visit) was completely booked and that the only way to get to Auckland on time to catch our flight out of there on Sunday (this was Friday I think) was to take the bus all day Saturday for 10 hours and skip everything in between. Obviously, we were not happy, but what could we do? We made the best of it and splurged on a Lord Of The Rings dork tour and totally enjoyed nerding out in the real-life locations where much of the movies were filmed. Our tour guide was seriously unbelievable in terms of the breadth and depth of knowledge he seemed to possess about all things LOTR-related, and it really did make for a fascinating time. Which it should be cause it isn't cheap. But whatever. Other than that, we went out and found a couple of pretty cool underground bars/ clubs in Wellington, and managed to only eat out once in 2 1/2 days, the rest just grocery store stuff. So that was good. Saturday we just tried to sleep as much as possible to make the bus ride go faster, which was good cause there were no toilets or anything on there and it was pretty boring. There were lots of sheep on the roadsides, though, so that was cute.
Auckland was kind of a big, generic city that we had trouble enjoying much, but on a whim, just as we had given up on the idea, we decided to go ahead and do a bungy jump from the Auckland bridge, which was another splurge but also well worth it! Jay was absolutely terrified and I had a few doubts myself, but when we finally went (I cannot say "jumped", since really we kind of dragged each other off the platform) it was the single most scary and fun thing I've ever done. The thing is, once you're over the edge it's not really scary, just fun. We bounced a couple of times and looked over to see the most beautiful rainbow on the other side of the bridge, which I felt was a good sign. It was how we celebrated our 3-year anniversary of having met, so I felt like "terrifying but worth it" was a pretty good metaphor.
After that we had to get on a plane back to Christchurch, where we huddled pathetically in the airport and tried to catch some sleep before our 6am flight out back to Sydney. Jay was suffering flashbacks of the jump and I was totally freezing, so we were both looking pretty out of it in our sweatpants and combat boots! A fashion faux-pas I have vowed never to repeat voluntarily, btw. Anyway, we arrived safe and sound back in Sydney on June 4th, and that was our New Zealand adventure!
I'm going to finally put an end to this interminable posting now, but tune in soon to hear all about my exciting adventures in fabulous Melbourne, Australia!
Ciao for now and thanks for reading! Love, pike.