Raggedy Man

Juggling in Tucson!

2009-12-20T19:00:00.001-08:00

I've settled back in the Southwest for the winter. Back in Tucson. After I graduated from college, I thought I would never come back until my twilight years, but new friends, two juggle clubs a week, and an ample supply of warm sunshine got the best of me, and a "passing through town" ended up a "stay for a while." Time will tell how long that while is. Probably until it's too hot to juggle outside anymore. But if you're passing through and want to pass some clubs or learn to juggle or something, meetings are every Wednesday from 3pm-dark on the UofA mall, and Sunday from 3pm-dark at Himmel Park. It's a solid group, lots of regulars at all different skill levels. Good times.

Belly Acres part IV - Circus Workshops

2009-04-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

We were invited to stay on the condition that we would leave once the aerialist workshop arrived. They had rented the whole place and there would no longer be any space for us. We made arrangements to stay with someone nearby, but a few days before the workshop began, Graham invited us to stay up at his place. It worked out that there was an extra Jungalow available for Becky and me, and Melissa stayed in Graham's spare room. Our new Jungalow was even better than the last two. It had electricity and a kitchen and ceilings high enough to throw triples. Fancy.
So we stayed and we worked, largely methinks, because Melissa was working at rebuilding their website (which is totally beautiful! LOOK), but also because we are hardworking and charming individuals.
It was great for us because we wanted to be around for the workshops, aka The Hawaii Circus Retreat. It is becoming an annual event and the ladies who run it are amazingly warm and talented. They're from Toronto and are accomplished teachers and performers. We became friends with them and they invited us to do some work/trade with them so we could participate in some of their workshops despite our empty pockets. They scheduled a few circus workshops with the children in the community and asked us if we would teach the juggling component in exchange for picking whichever focus of theirs that we would like to learn. I chose the trapeze class and went up on the swinging trapeze for the first time in my life. It was fun, but boy does it hurt. All of that climbing, and hanging, and swinging in the air stuff hurts. I'll stick to juggling.
They also invited us to tag along on an excursion they were taking with their group to Waipio Valley. We weren't blessed with the greatest weather, but it was beautiful and we had the opportunity to work on our team building skills. To get to the long stretch of beach we aimed for, we had to ford a river. It was difficult for me and even more so for some of the other members of our party, so on the way back, we built a human bridge (more of a human hand-rail system really). It took us a little while, but it was fun and made everyone feel a lot more secure.
It was a great experience and I'm already trying to figure out how to make it back next year.

Belly Acres part III - Work Trade

2009-03-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

We worked three hours a day, Monday through Friday. Belly Acres is a 12-acre parcel of land that was missed by the lava flow in 1955, therefore, it has dirt and trees and plants while on either side of it is solid rock with only the beginnings of growth and neighbors have dirt trucked in if they want to grow anything. Most of the power is solar (all of it once new panels get installed at SPACE) and water is all collected in catchment tanks from the copious rainfall. Food is grown and chickens are raised making it the most self-sustaining community I've ever visited.
The work we were asked to do was varied and kept things fun and interesting. My jobs included stripping the bark of of felled trees; moving logs to dry areas; picking fruit and rescuing coconut trees from the clutches of strangling vines; moving good, rich dirt from under giant mango trees to the green house; catching just hatched chicks to cage them away from mongoose consumption; and building a new roof on the community kitchen. I was also asked to barbecue chicken for another party as my work trade. I developed a reputation as a grill master of sorts. Not a bad way to spend time in work trade... with a beer in my hand.
We also spent a good amount of time flying around the property with Graham in his golf cart, checking things out and listening to stories of times before and plans for the future. There is such a good energy to that place and the work barely ever felt like work. More like satisfaction.

Belly Acres part II

2009-03-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

Our first two days at Belly passed and our time was up, but we were invited to stay nearby at the home of our new friend Joel (pronounced Jo-el). After a week of camping then the two days in our rugged, screened-in jungalow, Joel's place was like a palace, decorated to the nines like a Bali influenced, South Pacific paradise. I, of course, forgot to take any pictures except for Melissa with her new lizard friend. She discovered him while working in the garden.
We wanted to thank our host back at Belly for sponsoring our two days, and it was decided that we would return to prepare a large farewell meal for some of the members that were leaving. I grilled the meat outside (to rave reviews, toot-toot!) and the ladies made magic in the kitchen. As we were eating, Graham, the full time resident and HJIC (Head Juggler In Charge) of Belly Acres, invited us to stay a little bit longer as some space was opening up from the departing members. We agreed to 15 hours each of work trade for a week when a crew of workshopping aerialists were coming in for a couple of weeks and taking over the joint. Great!
Melissa went back to the jungalow that the 3 of us shared on our first two nights, while Becky and I were upgraded to a slightly more romantic one, complete with finished wood and the ever-romantic mosquito netting over the bed.
On our second night back, there was a show at S.P.A.C.E., a clown show by our new friend Iman, called Basquette Quese. We had been hanging out and juggling in SPACE, but it was something else to see it transformed into a venue. We ended up seeing several shows there, partied there, juggled there, taught and received teaching there, and every Saturday, attended the Farmer's Market. SPACE is an amazing space.

Belly Acres...part I

2009-02-16T16:22:00.000-08:00

We were invited by a member to stay at Belly Acres for a couple of nights. February is members only month, so it was a rare and much appreciated invitation. Belly Acres is 10 acres of jungle on the west side of the island. A bunch of jugglers and other performers bought it about 25 years and carved out a little jugglers paradise. Others bought in since then, but it has been closed to new members for the last several years. There are a few other long term renters who live on the property while the members are away and there's only one member who lives here year round. Blah, blah, blah. We've been welcomed with open arms and here's some pictures.

Also... Hawaii Hairdo

2009-02-11T16:32:00.000-08:00

Serendipitous, Beautamous, Hawaii

2009-02-11T15:56:00.000-08:00

Pele received us to the island with a warm and embracing hug. We were met at the airport and whisked away to an already set-up campsite by the friend of a friend named Pamela Sue, surely an angel in disguise. A better hostess could not be imagined. She met our fiend River on this very same island a few years back via the juggling community here called Belly Acres which we have yet to visit but are anxiously anticipating.
We arrived after dark, threw our things down and went straight to the ocean for a full moonlight skinny dip. Beautiful!

We awoke the next morning to dolphins playing within reach and whales waving their tails at us from a stone's throw further. Beautiful!

On a short walk to see a blow hole in a rocky shore, we met two locals tending to some property who offered us coconuts, avocados and tales of growing up on the island. We've been gifted avocados twice since, big and delicious. Beautiful!

A man approached our picnic table (a common occurrence in our friendly campgrounds) recognizing P.S. from the other side of the island where they both live. Turned out he was another person we'd been in contact with through another friend. He had been casual with previous contacts, but has no invited us to stay at his place for a few days later in our visit here. Beautiful!

We were caught in a rare rain storm on the "dry" side of the island and took refuge in athe shelter of some nearby campers, one of whom is a singer, dancer, and ukelele player that used to work with "Iz". He told us great stories and serenaded us in English, Hawaiian and Japanese while we shared food and laughter. Beautiful!

After scrambling up some lava rocks above the beach this morning, Becky and I explored the depths of an old lava tube, a cave hollowed out by flowing lava years and years ago. It was so dark and quiet inside that light and sound seemed practically nullified like in a black hole. That is, what I imagine a black hold would be like having never actually entered one. It was both creepy and cool in equal measure. Beautiful!

Its nice to be out in the world again, its nice to slow down, remember my breathing and open myself to whatever opportunity presents itself. When I am open the whole world is open to me. Can't wait to see what finds me!

Liberty and Justice for All

2009-02-08T21:35:00.000-08:00

So this is what "back stage" looks like. Not pictured is a recent addition to the family, a gigantic foam-headed Lady Liberty that I never see unless its on the street. I think they keep it under lock and key.
Its kind of a funny little office and I could almost see myself working on the inside at a different time in my life, but I'm glad I don't. Unless there are people there getting their taxes done, its as quiet as a tomb. Very rarely do the employees actually speak to each other and if they do its about work. They're all very polite though in a way that feels like its only their job to behave that way. I'm a little guilty about the pleasure I took in telling all of them that I was leaving for a month to vacation in Hawaii. But only a little.

A trip to Sequim

2009-02-04T11:15:00.000-08:00

I took a trip out to the peninsula over the weekend to go to a bonfire party. THE peninsula of Washington is a beautiful, spectacular place, if you've never been. Home to a dense and ancient rain forest, it feels like truly magical land.
Our trip was adventuresome at the start when we discovered we wouldn't be able to take our car onto the ferry from Keystone. The big ferry is out of commission and they only have passenger service. We were planning on driving the 40+ miles to Sequim from the dock in Port Townsend, so we were scrambling to find a ride to avoid having to hitch or, worse, trucking it back home. We ended up connecting with a local farm worker who was selling some veggies at the local co-op and after a brief stop to pick up some whey for the pigs (pictured below) we were on our way -- in the back of a flat bed truck. I've been warmer, but we had a blind Husky to keep us company and the stars were out in full.
We arrived in good time and the hosts of the occasion - friends of Becky - were lovely and warm and made us feel right at home. We feasted, chatted, juggled some fire, and the ladies did a little acro. Good times were had by all.
The house pictured is the home of Jim and Tanya (notice the totally sweet living roof) . It was originally built by Tanya and her sister, but is a ever-changing work in progress. Its built on Tanya's parent's land whose beautiful home (not pictured) can be seen across a large and lovely pond on the property.
After a great big breakfast in the morning at a local favorite eatery with a waiter that was just on Jeopardy!, we went to the Goodwill, walked the streets of Port Townsend, then boarded the ferry back home. It was a sweet little adventure and just what I needed.

Odd Job Uncle Sam

2009-01-24T16:28:00.000-08:00

One of my recent "odd" jobs is pictured here. I dress as Uncle Sam, and juggle on a street corner next to a sign that says something along the lines of: go over there to get your taxes done. It's not so bad. I work whenever I feel like it, quit whenever I feel like it, and take breaks whenever I feel like it. After putting in 15 hours of it this week though, my hands are hurting, my neck is a little tense and I barely got paid more than my 2 hours as the Spearhead show, but I've been blessed with sunny weather and the passersby seem to enjoy it. Honks abound, usually followed by applause and thumbs-up, but my favorite is the honk from the car behind the guy who hasn't noticed the recently greened light because he's still watching Uncle Sam.

I'm in a part of town that most folks I know don't frequent, but I saw my friend Jesse the other day, riding his bike home from the Community College.
He tells the story differently.

Jesse (to friends): So I was on my bike the other day, waiting for the light to change, when I saw this homeless-looking guy, crouched down, off to the side of the road like he was smoking something, and wearing what looked to be an Uncle Sam costume so, obviously, I was like, this guy is totally crazy! I got a little closer and was like: he kind of looks like Zack. Oh my god, it is Zack!

Ah, context.

People must think all kinds of things when they see me. Sometimes the clever ones say things, like: Don't drop them! or Try chainsaws! One time some guy asked: Hablas Espanol? which, I'm still trying to figure out, but he seemed to mean it as an insult. If I wasn't always wearing my headphones, I might hear more things people say, but I'm mostly content to rock out in my own little world, getting paid to practice

But I don't just do it for me and I don't just do it for Liberty Tax Services. I do it for you and yours, America! God Bless Ya! The whole crappin' lot of ya!

A "Professional"

2009-01-23T09:39:00.000-08:00

Juggling isn't paying the bills by any stretch of the imagination, but I was lucky enough to supplement my lifestyle with my very first "professional" juggling job. I was hired as ambiance for a Michael Franti/Spearhead show up in Vancouver for NYE. Myself, my partner and a couple of our aerialist friends drove up from the 'ham and worked along side a great group of performance artists native to Vancouver and it was incredible. The pay was decent for only two hours of actual work, especially considering that that work consisted of juggling in a crowd of of happy people and clowning with them. There was a funny moment with the money when it finally dawned on us that we were really making a little bit less because they were paying us in Canadian dollars, but still... there was free beer and fancy snacks in the green room, fun and talented new people to meet, and a great show that (were I more financially secure) probably would have paid to see. All in all, a great time.
This photo was taken by an incredibly talented, Vancouver based artist named Basil whose work can be seen at undertheweather and at Inkspoon .
And the other artists we worked with in the show are involved with a group called The Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret. They have a show coming up in February I'm hoping I'll get to see and you should be too.

Consensus

2009-01-21T21:48:00.000-08:00

The Guild holds weekly meetings for all members and all of our decisions are made by consensus. We have no board of directors or other forms of hierarchy. Each meeting has a moderator who facilitates who gets to speak and when; manages the topics of discussion including duration and ensuring we remain on topic; and summarizes what has been said and where we are at if the topic is a long one.
This process is a long one and sometimes it seems tedious, but we're getting better at it. We're getting better at forming committees to handle the minutiae and the detailed projects. We're getting better at keeping on point and listening to each others needs so we can arrive at decisions that leave everyone feeling good. There are times when I've felt like having a specific leader in charge of the group would make things so much simpler; someone who could just make a decision and delegate so that it gets done. I have been involved in dozens of companies and organizations in my life and they have always been that way, I understand that way. But they almost always made me feel small and secretly subversive and almost never like I was truly part of something of which I could be proud. This new method is still a work in progress for our group, yet I have already seen it work in extraordinary ways. It allows for great compromise without feeling compromised. It allows the creation of new ideas and new ways of doing things that everyone can feel good about and that could have only come to light with a coalition of minds working together to achieve a common goal; ideas that could have never come from the perspective of any one individual but only of several perspectives working in congress, genuinely interested in meeting the needs of the entire group not solely the needs of a few. These are new times with new problems and my guess is they require new methods for solving. I'm excited and wonderfully optimistic about this one.
ps
the photo is not what meetings look like so much as what after meetings looks like

Please remove your shoes before stepping on the mats

2009-01-20T23:35:00.000-08:00

Here's the "Lab" on the inside. Not much to look at in this shot. Its a couple of days after our monthly Vaudeville show (Vaudevillingham) and things are still in a state of upheaval. Pictured to the right is my darling friend Melissa, a sparkler of a lady from Nashville Tennessee who has a more tenacious practice regiment than I do. Her dedication to learning what she wants is incredibly admirable and her ability to get there quickly is astounding. She likes to juggle while hula-hooping. I don't hula-hoop.

Bellingham Circus Guild

2009-01-19T22:16:00.000-08:00

I've been spending my time in Bellingham, writing, juggling, and working odd jobs here and there. I'm also working a lot with a group of folks that have banded together to rent a rehearsal space, put up shows and teach classes in the circus arts. We're trying to get ourselves all respectable like and non-profitized, but we're still a little ways off. We're incorporated. We have a bank account. We have a mountain of paperwork to climb and then we wait for our government's answer. Our group is called the Bellingham Circus Guild and our space, the Cirque Lab.

Go-carts and Emerald Isle

2008-07-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

A friend of my uncle owns a go-cart track on Emerald Isle, about ten miles from where I've been staying, and I started working there a couple days a week to get myself out of the house every now and again and put a little income into my pocket. The job consists of talking to happy people on vacation and making sure they don't hurt themselves or others in the pursuit of high-speed fun. Plus, I pick my own hours and get paid in cash making it the most stress-free job I've ever had. Even more so than juggling in the streets for money because when I did that it meant the difference between eating and not eating, this just means the difference between eating organic food or not.
The owner's a nice guy and good at dealing with people, assuming you're the kind of person that doesn't consider children and tourists to be people. I'm not that kind of person, so when I saw him leap a chain-link fence, dash onto the track despite the oncoming traffic, to get red in the face, screaming at a 10-year-old boy who was being "reckless", I was a little taken aback.
"You gotta look'em in the eye when you put'em in these cars," he said to me after this little episode, "to see what they're made of, to see if they got the self-confidence to handle one of these things."
It's like he thinks the damn things were made of glass. These are sturdy machines with very low center of gravity and a quarter-inch thick, 5-inch high steel frame that completely encircles each one. Even at top speed, and straight into a wall, it would be nearly unimaginable to cause any significant damage.
But, whatever. I don't work with him too much as I usually choose to be scheduled with my uncle who runs the place some nights to give the owner a break. I don't usually get out until 10:30PM so, instead of biking the 12 miles back home in the dark, I usually crash at my uncle's place which is only a few blocks away. He's got a double-wide a stone's throw from a beautiful beach on the open ocean that used to just serve as a beach-house but is now his permanent residence. I spent a lot of time there as a kid and its fun go back, even if it is a little distracting from my writing.
It's a pretty cushy life right now, I just kind of miss being around people my own age that share my interests and sensibilities, but it gets me writing more, which is what I'm here for anyway.
Here's some pictures. The first three are from the bridge that spans the intra-coastal waterway and connects the mainland to the southernmost Outer Bank island, then the double-wide, the path to the beach, the beach and the pier. I'll get some pictures of the go-cart track soon, but until then... Enjoy!

Carolina!

2008-06-15T19:32:00.000-07:00

I wanted to re-indoctrinate myself back in to the culture of these United States quickly and efficiently, abruptly and rudely, so after touching down in our nation's capital, I took a walking tour of the highlights, then hopped on a Greyhound. Have ya'll ever gone Greyhound? Woo boy! Welcome back Zack! Don't get me wrong, now, everbody was real nice, but a lack of competition in the travel-by-bus market has left the standards of comfort and efficiency in the the proverbial gutter. I might could go so far as to say that a bus in Bolivia is more luxurious. I won't say it, but I might.
But, I'm here now, in North Carolina, settling into my grandparent's old beach house, a place that holds a large chunk of my childhood memories. Many a'summer was spent here with them before they passed away a few years back, and now it sits empty for most of the year. I have no phone, no Internet, and no television. The closet grocery store (or any store for that matter) is a 10-mile round trip on a borrowed bicycle. I am a hermit for the summer, left to write and juggle and work on my tan lines.
Here are some photos of the homestead. Hurricanes took out all the tall, beautiful pines I remember from my youth and a good length of pier, but for the most, things on this lot of land (and inside the house itself) haven't changed much. I half-expected to see my grandma come out on the porch, with her hands in her pockets and a smile on her face, when my uncle dropped me off. Taller houses have sprung-up all around, though most seem unoccupied, waiting silently for buyers or renters, and others for their owners to get some vacation time, but this little house remains.
If any of ya'll want to stop in and say hey, just give me a holler. I'll be here.

Salvador --> Buenos Aires --> U.S.A.

2008-06-03T11:14:00.000-07:00

I woke up one morning and knew it was time to go, packed my things and was on a bus heading South by 9am. Withing the week, I arrived in Buenos Aires and have spent the last week and a half enjoying the city and getting adjusted to winter with the help of hierba mate. I saw some sort of poetry in ending this South American odyssey in the same place I started it. That is correct. I have a flight to Washington D.C. that leaves tomorrow evening. After that, its South again, to North Carolina. I'm going to hole up on the beach for a while and write the book that's been stewing in my head for the past six months and hopefully learn something from it. I don't think this means the end of Raggedy Man, so much as a change in the subtitle. Time will tell.

Pelourinho and Bispo (in color!)

2008-05-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here´s some photos of the town I´ve been living in, some of the parties in the house I´m staying in, and friends. Enjoy!

Rio de Janeiro

2008-03-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

I took a short vacation from Salvador de Bahia last week to visit Rio de Janeiro and to meet my Mother and my Aunt Anne for spoiling and indulging in the heart of Brazil's thriving tourist industry. I probably wouldn't have made it to Rio if the ladies hadn't come to check on me. While I'm glad I went - to cross it off my lifetime list of places to go - I don't feel like I ever have to go back. Don't get me wrong, it's very beautiful and with all the major conveniences one would expect to find in a classy, tourism hot-spot, but its charms are a facade that quickly dissolve and all that's left is its boring, boring innards.
I arrived on a Sunday, just before noon, after a 30-hour bus ride which was preceded by a night spent sleeping in the bus station. My bus left at 7 a.m. on Saturday, and the city buses didn't start running until 6:30 a.m. not giving me the time I needed, and since I had no money for a taxi, unless I didn't want to eat for the entire 30 hour ride, it was a night on the floor of one more bus station. It was good. I'd gotten too comfortable staying where I've been staying and it was nice to know I could still handle a night on the hard ground of a noisy station. Ongoing construction in Salvador's terminal presented me with a little more late-night jackhammering than I would have liked, but I still managed to catch a little shut-eye and awoke with time enough for a coffee before I had to get on the bus.
The ride itself was uneventful. I spent time watching silly movies dubbed into Portuguese, lazily dozing in 2 and 3 hour increments, and munching on a bag of snacks I brought along to sustain me. A lot of time was spent enjoying the beautifully green and tropical countryside, from a comfortably reclining, air-conditioned space, wrapped in a blanket that they hand you when you get on board. It's cold in the bus and, every time someone got off, I snatched up their unused blankets until I'd built myself a cozy little nest.
Once I arrived in Rio, I took a bus to Copacabana to seek out the hotel my mom had given me. They were already in their room when I arrived and we set out to hit the town. Within the first half of the week, we'd hit all the tourist highlights. The Corcovada, a new Great Wonder of the World and Paô de Açucar both had incredible views of the city, Pao de Açucar was the most beautiful with the sea and a straight shot down the coastline, but Corcovada (at the feet of Jesus Cristo) showed the layout of the city and gave a good impression of where neighborhoods were in relation to one another. We even took an ocean cruise to visit tropical island(s). It was nice to get out on the water, but it wasn't much for what we paid. Our expectations were probably higher than they should have been.
We had amazing luck with restaurants or every restaurant in Rio is fantastic. I think I ate at more places with cloth napkins in a week than I have in the whole rest of my trip combined. It was wonderful. And we took taxis. It was heavenly. The most tiring thing we did was walk short distances and sit on the beach. It made me slovenly and lackadaisical though, and by the end of the week I got sleepy after eating the complimentary continental breakfast at the hotel.
All said and done, it was a great time, mostly just to hang out with the girls. I think they had a good time, but they were ready to go home by the end of the week. They shopped themselves silly and couldn't afford to take any more back without exceeding their weight limit. I think my Mother actually bought souvenirs for people she's never met. We had a nice Italian dinner to celebrate Easter, had a last Caiparinha on the beach, then went back to the hotel and crashed. We all left the next day, me by bus, them by plane.
Pictures will be here if my Mom emails them to me in time. If not they will be posted soon. If my Mom emails them to me. Mom?

Pelourinho

2008-02-22T13:22:00.000-08:00

I´m staying at a cultural center in Pelourinho, the cultural center of Salvador de Bahía. Bahía is known as the cultural center of Afro-Brazilero culture and the streets of its capital are pumping with the rhythms of that culture. No matter where you are, at nearly any time, you can hear drum beats and singing coming from somewhere nearby. Pelourinho is the oldest part of Salvador and was an early post for the region´s previously thriving slave-trade. From any street corner you can see - in equal parts - beautiful colonial architecture in various forms of decay, tourists wandering from store to store buying art and crafts, and homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk.

The place I´m staying is called Centro Cultural do Bispo, and it is a work in progress. The main two floors are in various levels of completion. The main floor is here.

The big open space is where most of the activities take place. The activities are almost intirely dance related and mostly versions of African dance. I regularly come home to drums you can hear 2 blocks away and a room full of dancers, sweaty and laughing, running through drills and rehearsing routines.

I sleep in the hammock for 50 Reais per week. On a good day I can make this in 2-3 hours at a stoplight.

The rooms cost a bit more and as you can see, they really stack the bunks. Both floors of the house have ceilings high enough to throw triples and low quads.

The second floor is crudely constructed private residences for the more permanent guests, and a workshop for making instruments. Namely... you guessed it... drums.

Bispo has a party every Saturday and my first one was a special occassion. They were filming to make a DVD and had twice the number of bands as usual that played well past 3 a.m. I was asked to juggle fire for one of the groups and, while I was nervous about my first solo, fire show, I only dropped my torches into the band pit twice. They were professionals though, and didn´t miss a beat.

The music was incredible, dance rhythms all night long, lots of drums and horns and strings, flamenco, forró, and samba. And a flamenco dance. She was incredible. So much power, I wept. I swear to god. I actually wept. And if all that wasn´t enough, the night ended with a jam-session of Peruvian Huayno´s back in the sleeping quarters before lights out. Life is pretty good right now.

Here´s a view down the street, and a view of the courtyard where the party is. I may have some pictures of that soon. People have told me they have them (and videos too!) I just need to actually get them.

Broken Foot, Schizophrenia, and a Krishna/Jesus Retreats

2008-02-14T15:25:00.000-08:00

We were going from one beach to another by bus and, as is proving to be characteristic in Brazil, the bus personnel forgot to tell us when we reached our stop and we rode on down to the end of the line. Because both of us hate backtracking, and we never have any place to be at any given time, we decided to keep on going South and took a boat across a river to board another bus. When we arrived at the terminal, they informed us that there was a bus leaving right theat second, and as we hurried off to catch it, Nati took a bad step and went crashing to the ground. This was the third time I´d seen her fall this way, each time largely attributed to bad shoes and a backpack bigger than she is. The first two times she got up scratched and bruised, but basically okay. This time she got up broken.
We were lucky enough to make two, new friends on the bus though, that directly and indirectly saw to it that the next few days went a lot easier and a lot more free than they could have, though those days were not without certain challenges. First there was Paulo who, upon finding we had no place to go, invited us to stay at his home in Aracajú with his family. He´s 33-years old and married with a child, but he still lives at home with his mother. The wife and child live with her mother, though they´re still ¨together.¨ This is only the beginning to the disfunction. Paulo´s mother and father are separated, but the mother lives with her sister, a schizophrenic with a lot of talking to do. They basically spend most of the day in the house, Paulo painting ceramic statues that he buys to sell in craft markets, his mother cooking and cleaning (all day), and the aunt wandering from room to room, checking things out and speaking her mind. Usually its nonsense, but occassionally there´s a gem or two of wisdom. I learned that she´s in her 60´s, a virgin, and has interesting ideas about univeral love.
To add to the madness of this small home, Paulo´s sister and her four children were all visiting from Salvador. The mother occassionally talked about wanting us out for lack of space, but it was clear over time, that she enjoyed our company as we were the only ones that ever listened to her. She took it to extremes though (I think she´s going a little mad herself) and kept us up until all hours showing us her doll collection, photo albums, and broken antiques, one by one, for hours, like a child showing off her toys, constantly saying that she was tired and going to go to bed. But we ate well the whole time we were there, Paulo drove us all over town to take care of Nati´s broken foot needs, and as it was the heart of Carnaval, the mania was tolerable to save on the high price of a hotel. But we had to escape and, the first chance we got, followed the other connection we made on the bus.
Roberto, (or Colores if you want to call him by his Rainbow name) had been travelling with the Rainbow caravan for over a year, but he and his lady friend decided to stay behind at a small community outside of the town where Nati broke her foot. It is a part of, for lack of a better term, a cult that appears to be a conglomeration of faiths. We attended a few services at their store/meeting area in Aracajú, to get to know our hosts and were surprised to find pictures of Jesus and Krishna in equal measure. We also took part in a healing ceremony that was essentially Reiki. Everyone was very nice though and it didn´t feel creepy, so we went out to their ¨compound¨ to soak up some nature and relax.
It was on the side of a beatiful river and covered in mango trees. They have kayaks, a library, and areas to meditate, produce honey and various artesan crafts, eat three delicious vegetarian meals everyday. The day starts at 5:30 with Tai Chi, followed by a talk about universal love, and the day ends with more Reiki. It was all very nice and it soon became apparent that they mostly just use Jesus to reach the heavily conditioned local people. They rarely talk about him, though he comes up in almost every song they sing.
Nati decided that it was best for her to return to Buenos Aires and so we left our new found haven and returned to the city. She caught her plane and I will miss her terribly, but such is this life of travel. And now I´m on my own for the first time in the entire trip. It´s a little scary, I can´t lie, but it´s exciting too. I caught a bus to Salvador after I dropped her off at the airport, and here I sit. More to come.

More photos

2008-01-27T17:03:00.000-08:00

Nati has even more photos on her blog. Here´s the link: http://diasmulticolor.blogspot.com
Enjoy!

Photos of Olinda, PRE-Carnaval

2008-01-22T12:28:00.000-08:00

Here´s some pictures of Olinda, where we´ve been selling, Carnaval costumes, and hoardes of people. The tourists haven´t even showed up yet and the practise party leaves the streets so crowded you can´t walk down them. Take special notice of the shoddy, wire-repair job to my glasses in the last photo. I´ve been super-gluing them for over a month now (they break again only when a juggling apparatus knocks them from my face) and decided to try something new. I super-glued them again this morning.

Recife and Carnaval Madness

2008-01-18T08:57:00.000-08:00

I´m in Recife, or to be more accurate, the smaller community of Olinda on the fringe of the city. Its right on the coast and very, very beautiful. The main part is on a hill and reminds me very much of Montmartre in Paris, with lots of art, cobbled streets and cafés, only far more colorful, with far more palm trees, and a view of the sea. My camera is still on the fritz or there would be pictures.We came here because we heard that it was the place that had the Carnaval of the people, the biggest street show that you don´t have to pay for, but it quickly became obvious that that just means its going to be a big, dirty party.
Almost every house in the neighborhood is renting out rooms or the entire house for the event at incredibly high prices. Therefore we will be heading further South on Monday to look for a more tranquil place to celebrate. We were lucky enough to find a lady whose house is ready for rent now. She´s renting out individual rooms, but since the Carnaval is still 2 weeks out, we´re the only ones in it, and we cried her down to about $10 a day for the both of us. So we have a house to ourselves with a slightly obstructed sea view, for a steal.
I was exhausted when I arrived after hopping from town to town on buses, looking for the ¨right¨ place to stop, and sleeping on a windy beach when we couldn´t find it, so its nice to be still for a minute and work a little and rest a little. But I´m itching to get back to a beach town. City beaces just aren´t the same.
So far Jericoacoara is the standard to which all other beach towns are compared to. Nowhere since has been as isolated and tranquil while still having all of the comforts of any other town. Most of the ones we´ve been to since are too touristy or expensive or ugly or various combinations of the aforementioned. And they all have paved roads. I want sand roads in my beach town. There´s lots of coastline left though.

Beach Bum

2008-01-03T12:04:00.001-08:00

I´m on the coastline of Brazil. It is long. I will see much. I hope to use my camera again, but the life of a beach bum is a lazy one. We shall see. I went to Jericuacuara, am now in Fortaleza to restock on supplies to make things tourists like to buy, then we are going to Canoa Quebrada. Then to other beach towns. Bums.

The Road to Bethlehem

2008-01-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

We left the boat to Belém as a group of 10 after sleeping aboard while the boat was docked because of a late arrival to port. The crew got us up and on our way early so they could start swabbing the decks and whatever else it is that boat crews do. We soon dropped to 8 due strictly to the impatience of travellers unaccostumed to groups. Here´s us on the boat in artsy black and white and us leaving the boat in vivid color.

The 8 of us found a place to stay altogether in one room like a big family. Nati was the only lady and so I christened us Blanca Nieve y los 7 Dwarfs (I forget the Spanish and Portuguese words for dwarf). We were a Brasilero, 2 Argentinos, 1 Colombiano, 2 Italianos, 1 Frances and me, the American. We assigned dwarf names but I´ve forgotten them all. A Turk and a Finnish girl are the 2 that left us. The truly international crowd of young roust-a-bouts.

This is the room we shared that I eventually got us kicked out of thanks to an argument with the wicked witch that ran the joint. I tried to be nice, but the witch had it coming. This is a story I´ll save for when you buy me a beer.

This is Nati and our friend Rokko demonstrating the proper way to sit in a park in Belém. You are not to sit or stand on or near the grass. Nothing but your butt may come in contact with any flat surface besides the ground. Feet and especially backs are strictly prohibitted. No spitting, throwing objects at mangoes in the trees over head, and no laughing alound. Any misconduct will result in immediate whistle-blasts, stern looks, and strong hand gestures indicating fault due to the fact that foreigners don´t understand speech and locals know the rules.

And these are misc. pics of Belém.

Misc. Pics of Amazon Boatin´

2008-01-03T10:34:00.000-08:00

The first picture is the view from the abandoned restauarant that we freely set our hammocks in during our stay in Alter do Chao. Some people pay hundreds of dollars for a view like that. The rest of the pics are a random assortment of common sites from the boat. Sunrises, riverbank activity, and men with pink umbrellas.

Hitching to Beach Towns

2007-12-29T06:07:00.000-08:00

I´ve been negligent in my posting, but I´ve been spending a lot of time in Amazon ports, gas stations and, finally, beautiful white sandy beaches, none of which have decent internet access or, if they do, its way too expensive. I´ll get some pictures up in the next city I stop in.
We´re at a place called Jericuacuara right now, which some describe as the most beautiful beach in Brazil. Its certainly the windiest, drawing wind and kite surfers from all over the world. Makes juggling a little tough though. After a full week hitch-hiking from Belém here, we decided to stay and relax for a while. Dealing with truckers and sleeping on concrete can wear a person out. It was a good experience though. Everyone was very nice, and if they couldn´t give us a ride, they bought us some food. I don´t think we paid to eat once. But it took us 9 rides, 1 taxi and 5 buses to get here, and believe me when I say, that no beach has looked more beautiful, so they might be right.
We´ve been selling well and worshipping the sun and the surf and everything is lovely. And apparently this whole coast is littered with towns just like this one, so... I think I´m a beach bum for a little while.
Okay... more details later. Merry Christmas. I love you all.

Amazon

2007-12-07T05:06:00.000-08:00

Travelling by boat is a bit like travelling in a dream state; you´re half-awake and half-asleep for the entire time you´re aboard. The heat of the day and the lack of places to go make lazy naps in the hammock inevitable, and with the boat stopping periodically through the night and turning all the lights on, or someone bumping you with the rock of the boat or on their way to the bathroom, a full night´s sleep is unheard of. There´s usually a child crying and always the dull rumble of the boat´s engine as it slowly chugs downriver. Breakfast is served just after sunrise and consists of bread, margarine and sugar-loaded coffee that even the smallest children drink. Lunch and dinner consists of white rice, noodles, soupy beans and miscellaneous meat. Salvation arrives at every stop though (unless you prepared and brought fruit and snacks along) and children usually, but sometimes adults, come aboard to sell any number of things for eating and drinking.
While the bottom two decks are for hammocks, the top is always for a lounge. LOUD music is always played until 11pm and usually its the same two discs over and over and over again. In Brazil, most people without children start drinking beer shortly after breakfast and keep it up all day and I say the crew of one of our fancier boats tying and unruly drunk to his hammock. And damn that was funny. The drinkers play cards and dominoes, but most of the other people just pass the time idly chatting or sitting there. There are few people reading or doing miscellaneous hobbies. Most people just sit in a trance, drifting off from time to time, until the meal bell rings.
Its amazing how fast you can get used to all this though. It becomes kind of relaxing after a while. We get a lot of work done, a lot of reading and writing, and there´s even time and space for juggling if the boat is big enough not to rock too much or we´re stopped at a port to unload for a while. There´s always a beautiful sunset, always a beautiful sunrised, and at night, you can always see lightning somewhere in the distance. The most brilliant display was right behind us one night, I was on the back of the boat with a friend watching bolt after bolt strike the river a few hundred meters behind us, then listening to the thunder crack overhead and slowly grumble and rumble along the water for a seemingly impossible amount of time. Truly impressive.
But that´s river travel in a nutshell and here´s a brief synopsis of the stops:
Leticia, Colombia: Old friends encountered; lazy cool nights; an impromptu motorcycle and scooter parade to celebrate a soccer victory; Colombian coffee and cheesy corn bread; all the taxis are motorcycles; my Brazilian visa cost $150!!!! my right arm at this point; our room was cheap and basically just a wooden box.
Manaus, Brazil: Fancy boat (same crowded crowd and crappy food); new friend named Renán, a Brazilian who spent time in the States on a soccer scholarship, and spoke great American English usually about Waking Life; big sprawling city; Sunday market and good sales (and better trades for delicious bread and cookies); dirty beach with warm, dark water; a place where the black water of the Rio Negro meets the brown Amazon and the waters don´t mix for miles; escape from Babylonia.
Santarém, Brazil: Smaller, homier boat trip; slowly learning Portugues; smaller, homier city; long river walk; nice artesans; yet another party for yet another virgin.
Alter do Chão, Brazil: Beautiful, white sandy beaches; old hippies; Argentine jugglers; hammocks in abandoned huts and restarants on the beach - a free place to stay; rowing to ¨The Beach¨; a small jungle community and lots and lots of animals: Paradise?

We´ve Got Fun and Games

2007-11-16T14:55:00.000-08:00

We´re still in Iquitos, though it looks like we´re heading toward the border tomorrow. This is a wonderful town, the people are so incredibly warm and friendly. They aren´t always after you to give them something like most of the other places I´ve been in Peru. Maybe a little conversation every once in a while, but nothing more. They like to talk. A young kid approached me the other day as I was walking along a park on the river and we started talking in English a little bit, then he found out I knew Spanish and asked me if I wanted to sit down and talk for a little while. I thought he wanted to practice English, but no. He just wanted to get to know me. Never asked for a thing. So sweet. And almost everyone is that way.

But enough talk. Here´s some promised eye candy.
This is the land of hammocks. Crowded but comfortable. I love that the man next to me is texting as we drift down jungle waters.

This is what most all of the sunsets look like here. Breathtaking. The only ones I´ve ever seen to rival them are Arizonan, but those are because of the smog. Or so I´m told. There´s no smog here.

South America is full of men in ambiguous uniforms. This was a whole parade of them marching around the main plaza. These were the only ones not carrying fully automatic weapons.

We were invited to visit a small community, a short boat ride outside of the city, and this is the sidewalk that led us to it. Kind of surreal to see a sidewalk running through the middle of the jungle. We decided it was a natural phenomena, created by a sophisticated ant colony. Ants love sidewalks.

Thinking about ants.

We bumped into some old friends from the Sacred Valley in Iquitos, and their friends (and now ours as well) are the ones staying in this little paradise.

It´s been great visiting with them. They left the Valley a few weeks before us, and we still managed to catch them, which goes to show you how most people travel here. They are 5 girls and a little boy, and they´re affording their travels by playing music, juggling, and selling their crafts. They left here yesterday, but we´re all going in the same direction, so we´re certain to see them again soon.

This is the main structure on the land. The incredibly large table also serves as an incredibly large bed for a few of the residents and for visitors.

All of the guys were very welcoming. A few were musicians and a few, jugglers, and good ones. I hadn´t passed clubs since Lebn left, so I was glad to find them.

This is my best buddy, Lautaro. He´s the little boy travelling with the girls and we got to know each other pretty well in the valley. We´d just been swimming in the water here that´s source is 100 meters from this bridge. Incredibly refreshing.

It was a great little excursion though we only stayed a night. Brazil´s call is getting stronger though, and there´s more jungle a head. Tallyhoo!

A Lazy River and Lots of Hammocks

2007-11-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

We made it to Iquitos after over 40 hours on a bus and 2 days on a boat. The first bus we were on broke down, then we waited for another to pick us up, finally arrived at our destination, Yurimaguas, 10 hours late, grabbed a moto-taxi to race to the market, buy a hammock and make it to the port for the 2 p.m. departure time, only to find out that the boat had already left. But they told us we could stay onboard the one departing the next day for free that night, so we did. Technically then, we were on the boat for three days. But we had hammocks. Unfortunately, there wasn´t much of a breeze.
The climate change has been drastic, but it really hasn´t been that bad. We went from Lima, where we frequently had to wear sweatshirts during the day and it was almost always cloudy, to the jungle, where it´s sunny almost always and we sleep without covers at night. But it is exactly what I´ve wanted since I arrived in South America. I think I´ve been cold since I got here, all my time spent in the winter and the mountains. And now I can´t stop sweating, my clothes are stuck to my body, and I love it.
The boat was a pretty great experience. It was like a ferry, with a big open space for all of the passengers, but it was packed with hammocks. There were easily more than a hundred of them when the boat was its most full. A sea of hammocks. It felt like we´d all been through some natural disaster and where thrown together in a high school gym or something. But its just how you travel here, and though everyone is bumping each other, and hammocks are bumping, and its hot and there´s little to do, everyone gets along fine, waiting patiently and chatting idly, and looking forward to meal time. Three squares a day. But there´s almost always people from the villages along the way coming aboard to sell snacks and drinks when the boat stopped to make deliveries. The whole cargo hold of the boat was full of bananas, fish, soda, etc. though, thankfully, the smell never reached us on the second floor.
And now we´re in Iquitos and we´ll be here a couple of days to explore and try to sell a little bit. It´s 2 or 3 more days by boat to the border, where we´ll probably have to stay to wait for my visa to process, and then we finally get to enter Brazil.
I´ll post some more pictures if I can find a faster internet connection somewhere.
And once I take some more pictures.
Peace and love and other hippie junk.

Fevers and Dreams of the Jungle

2007-11-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

We left the project in Ica a week ago, because it was time to move on. It may have been past due, as my final two and a half days were spent with a fever that reached a hundred and four degrees at its worst. As though the illness wasn´t bad enough, the location only made things worse. Hot in the day, cold at night and loud, sandy, and angry, 24-hours a day. It was starting to feel like the whole place was trying to kill me. It was time to leave.
I would have like to see a finished house, I would have liked to build an earthbag house too, but at the rate things were moving, we would have been there a year before I saw the completion of

those two dreams. And besides... the Amazon, Brazil, and a Rainbow Gathering are calling, and the call is strong.
So I´ve spent the last week recuperating in Lima at the house of a friend. In addition to recovery - Naty got sick just as I was getting better - we´ve been trying to make as much money as possible before we make the trip. It hasn´t been great, but its been somewhat steady. Another friend put some of our stuff at her table in a craft fair and we took to the streets, filling our time more with activities found in the provided pictures.

If you follow the path a bit further, you find yourself overlooking the beach and a good part of the city. There are worse places to spend a sunny weekend afternoon.

Lima has been good to me. There´s an abundance of nice neighborhoods to stroll through, with lots of parks, the beach, and lots of good, cheap food around every corner. We did splurge on some Sushi the other night though. I didn´t eat meat for the entire duration of my stay in Ica, so this was my celebratory release of cravings for meat. It was delicious.

We´ve been spending a good amount of time just hanging out around the house. It´s been nice and quiet and comfortable. Lots of reading and juggling and writing and napping. And eating. Repeat. And some working sometimes. Grillo made paper airplanes when he wasn´t busy editing a magazine. Naty prepared Maté and worked more than me.

But we´re refreshed and recharged and we´re leaving tomorrow or Tuesday, a bus to a place, then to another, then another, and then to Iquitos, where we catch the boat down the Amazon. We have to stop at the border - so I can pay the gouging $100 visa fee to enter Brazil - then switch to another boat, but then we´re in Brazil and the heart of the Amazon. In a hammock. We still have to buy the hammocks.

Stepping the Mud

2007-10-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

The building continues. Its slow, but it continues. We have a handful of things working against us, but thankfully, I have discovered that I enjoy building with adobe. It kind of takes me back to playing with Legos when I was but a wee little lad. Its just so nice to be able to do work that you can stand back and look at when the day is done. Marked progress. Its even better knowing that this particular model has probably never been done before. The style and shape of the house is very old, but this is probably the first time that the whole structure has been covered in chicken-wire before plastering, thus rendering it more stable and earthquake resistant. It has occurred to me that I am probably the world´s foremost, leading expert on the application of chicken-wire to ancient, Indian, adobe structures. I don´t know that I´ve ever been the world´s foremost, leading expert on anything, but I never dreamed it would be for something like this.

This is mostly true because the leader of the project went to Chile for 2 weeks, leaving Nati and I, to build the house on our own. He went to lead a few weekend meditation workshops to earn some money for the project. A part of me thinks it might have been nice for him to have some money before he started the project, but... so it goes. He doesn´t have much more experience with this kind of construction than we do, but he has some, which is more than either of us. But I´ve always been the independent sort anyway, and it´s been nice going at my own pace, juggle breaks a´plenty.

The initial idea of this project was to try to get the locals involved in construction, thereby educating them on alternative ways of building, but so far we only provoked mild curiosity. People stop by to see what the gringos are doing, say they´ll return to help (often promising a hearty group of friends), but we generally never see them again. There´s a guy named Jhonny who stops by almost daily to videotape our progress. He wants us to come build something for him. He´s very interested in ecology and alternative building, but not enough to get his hands in the mud. He´s a nice guy though, and at least he shows genuine interest in learning.

Not even the family we´re building the house for seems all that interested. They help every once in a while, but usually just for an hour or so. They´re generally to busy screaming at each other.

I really probably shouldn´t talk shit about the people we´re trying to help but... so it goes. It kind of makes me sick sometimes, and it definitely affects my mood, but the only way they seem to know how to communicate is by screaming. The whole neighborhood is that way. All day long. It´s exhausting. Adults to kids. Kids to adults. Adults to adults. And everyone to dogs. And there´s lots of dogs. And you guessed it, the dogs are barking at each other all day long too. One of the more tragic examples of late, was a lesson in writing from the mother of the house to her four-year-old daughter. At the top of her lungs and angry : ¨Why are you writing outside the lines!¨ ¨Do it like the picture!¨ ¨You don´t learn! When you were little I had to hold you under the water to learn! And know I have to do this!¨

Crazy. I wish I was exaggerating. I´ve never seen or heard any physical violence - maybe a spanking here and there - but the verbal and emotional abuse is through the roof.

I was walking behind an older lady the other day for about 10 minutes, and the entire time, she was screaming at dogs, throwing rocks at them and swinging a big stick around. She´s like this most of the time.

I don´t know if it´s just post-earthquake stress, or the big electrical box that we live under, or if its just always been this way. Its really hard sometimes though. Its hard to stay positive in an environment like this one. A big part of me thinks we jumped in to this location to soon. We were lead to believe that things were further along than we thought before we came here, by the project leader, and the local government. But here we are and we are doing our best.

I´ve started meditating which helps a lot, and we´ve started showing movies at a vegetarian restaurant in Ica 2 times a week to help draw attention and potentially raise some money (2 Soles suggested donation). The films are documentaries (What the bleep, Inconvenient Truth, The Corporation, etc.) and somewhat connected to the general theme of our project. Partly though, its just a chance to escape our tent for a while and watch a movie.

We´re also going back to Lima this weekend to sell some more stuff, hopefully see Stardust, and drink coffee, la verdad. A mini vacation. And hopefully we´ll pick back up with the travelling again in the first part of November, Brazil-bound. There´s a Rainbow festival in Bahía that we´d love to get to in time. Vamos a ver.

And here´s a few pictures for the folks who don´t like reading.

This is how we mix the mud and squish the mud. It´s mostly just earth, with a little horse shit thrown in for flavor.

This is my expertise. The whole structure will be covered in this fashion, then plastered. It hurts the hands, but there´s nothing quite as soothing as submerging your hands in mud and horse poo, after a long day of bending wire.

And this is where the house is to date. If you´re the kind of person that likes to date houses.

Building, building, and child labor

2007-10-08T16:31:00.000-07:00

The house is coming along, slowly but surely. We waited for government rocks for a while, but they arrive, and as of now, have been used to build the foundation wall. The adobe walls are next, and our great egg will start to take shape. Here´s some photos of the work so far, and an explanation or two.

This is part of the project called digging. Digging make back strong. We dug the hole, then filled it with old, broken cement that we found in the surrounding area, and some of the mixture used to make adobe. The rocks, and wet cement were added when the hole was almost full, and continued into a short, rock wall.

This is us inserting a large metal pole in the center of the house. It will be used in conjunction with lengths of bamboo, to insure that the walls are all the same distance from the center point of the structure. Lebn and Jess were only with us for a couple of days, but Ian (project leader) didn´t want to let them leave.

And Lebn looks like he´s about to sneeze.

I can´t remember if he did.

This is me enjoying a beer and talking to the father of the house who gave it to me. It may appear that I´m idle, but I carried many rocks before this photo was taken. This beer was the first of many and a good conversation about life after the earthquake. It was nice to finally make a connection with the father. He works a lot, and it must be kind of weird for him to have a bunch of gringos living in a tent in his front yard.

This is the wall going up and our little army of child labor. The kids in the house have been really helpful in its construction. They´re between 9 and 15, but they work hard and ask many questions. Usually its just how to say things in English, but sometimes its about construction.

This is Ian and an up close look at the wall construction.

And here´s where we live and some fun ones.

A Cloudy Capital, A Juggling Festival, and a Starbucks

2007-10-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

We went to Lima for the weekend to attend my first South American juggling festival, and to try and make some money to support our new volunteering habit. We were successful on both fronts. We arrived on Friday and headed to the house of a friend of a friend, who agreed to put us up for the weekend. And not only was it a free place to stay, but it had a hot shower, a firm mattress, and it was located in the heart of Miraflores, a ritzy hot-spot for Lima. We waited for my friend, Grillo, to get off of work, and we had the good fortune to wait in the neighborhood Starbucks, and I had my first real cup of ¨American¨ style coffee in over eight months. It was so good. So good. It cost more than a cup of the same coffee in a Starbucks in the States, but it was worth it.
When Grillo (Spanish for cricket and only a nickname) got done with work, we headed off to the other side of town to go to the festival. When we got there we were almost instantly greeted by a guy who had passed through the house in the Sacred Valley, and it wasn´t long before I encountered half a dozen more. I was hoping to see some jugglers that I´d met earlier in my travels, but old friends from Harin proved good enough. I got some good juggling in, saw some better juggling, and a great fire show ended the night. Pictures appearing now:

They look just like every other photo of a fire show, right?

We got a slow start on Saturday. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in a well-lit kitchen, with a lovely conversation with our cleaning lady. We stayed in a nice place. After breakfast, Grillo came over and we all went to a fabulous little vegetarian restaurant to get some lunch. Ahh, life in the big city. Hang out and eat. Hang out and eat. After the restaurant, we went to an outdoor organic market that´s in a nearby park every Saturday, and stocked up on some food to take back to Ica with us. And after that it was back to the festival for more juggling.

I think we missed all of the workshops, as we arrived a bit late, but we saw the competitions and a puppet show. Both entertaining. All in all, it was a good festival, but it kind of just reminded me of the Sundays we spent in Parque Forestal in Santiago. Only, I believe there were actually more jugglers (and better ones) that hand out in that park every single Sunday. But it was still a great time.

Sunday we decided we should actually try to sell some things. We thought we were going to have some space on a table in a big craft fair on Saturday, but the fair was cancelled at the last minute and we were left to look for some space in the street. We´ve been making clothes and bags out of used clothes that we´ve bought along the way. Nati can be seen modelling some of the finer products below. She, of course, is responsible for both of these. My products are generally a little cruder, and more like t-shirts. Exactly like t-shirts. But I´m honing my skills and hope to make something ¨pretty¨ someday soon.

We went to an area called Barranco, where we heard we may be able to put down a blanket, and after a little exploration and enjoying the view of the Pacific, we found a great spot on the porch of an abandoned colonial building. We thought we might get hasseled by the local cops, but they seemed overjoyed to see us and stopped and chatted for quite a while on several occassions. We had lots of chatty visitors, sold a good amount of our store and may have even recruited a volunteer or two for the project. We´re definitely going to return to that spot, probably in a couple weeks. Ian is leading a few meditation retreats in Chile for the next two weekends, so we´ll be in charge and won´t be able to get away.

I liked Lima. I was already looking forward to returning over my morning cup of Starbucks. But its good to be back at the project too. We should started working with adobe tomorrow. Yay!

Ica

2007-09-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

We made it to Ica in an overnight bus on the curviest road in the world. Its so windy that they hand out barf-bags to everyone onboard. Thankfully, we didn´t need them. I think it helped that it was night and dark outside with no points for our eyes to focus on. I didn´t sleep a wink though, as everytime I started to get comfortable, I was rudely repositioned with the swerve of the bus. But, we made it in one piece and were met in Ica by our friend Ian, a brit who is leading the project we´re working on, and two locals who he´s met since he´s been here. We ate at a lovely vegetarian place, dropped of our stuff at the local´s house, and headed out to sightsee at some incredible sand dunes. I was tired after the trip, but it didn´t stop me from ascending the highest one for a spectacular view of the city. And many more dunes. Apparently they stretch two hours west until they hit the ocean.
In all this time, I was able to learn a lot more about the project, and in doing so, became a lot more excited about it. First, I learned that its not really affiliated with the Hare Krishnas. Don´t get me wrong, the Krishnas are lovely people, but I wasn´t sure if I could handle too much chanting and Krishna talk. As of now, its basically just Ian, Nati, and myself. Which also means that its less organized than I thought. And that´s definitely not to say that´s its disorganized. Ian knows his stuff and has great experience, but it definitely feels more like a collaboration. A family affair. We make decisions and work out the details together. I just showed up off the street, but already, I feel very involved.
Ica is not in as bad of shape as I thought, though they´ve had some time to clean up. There are areas where lots of rubble is piled in the streets, that would be considered normal in some Bolivian towns we went to. We stayed in the city for one night, then came out to where we´re going to be working, a small town called Guadalupe, about 20 minutes outside of Ica. Upon arrival we went straight to the Municipalidad to find out the exact location of construction and were immediately loaded into a truck only to discover, enroute, that an exact location had still not been determined. Ahhh, bureaucracy. We drove around for a half-hour just to find a place to put our tent. They told us that they were going to buy some land for the project and the process would take 5 days. But knowing that we are dealing, not only with a local government, but a Peruvian local government, and that 5 days could easily turn into 5 months, we set upon the task of finding someone who lost their home, and wouldn´t mind some gringoes building them a new one. It didn´t take us long.
The models that we´re working with are made of earth. One is a pointy dome called a truly, made of adobe bricks. The other is earth rammed into bags and stacked however you like. They are the cheapest and quickest homes you can build, and there are several ways to reinforce them to be anti-seismic. We´re currently trying to decide on the best, yet most inexpensive way. We were concerned that we were going to be met with apprehension as the general consensus seems to be that the homes and buildings made of adobe were the ones that fell down, but the people still want adobe, and are thrilled to find out that there are inexpensive ways to make them strong in the event of another earthquake.
So we found a family that lost their whole house, moved into a tent on their property, and started building today. Building being mostly digging the foundation. The family pitched in and we finished the whole hole today. I´m dirty, my hands hurt, and it feels fantastic. I´ll have some more details about the construction in future posts. I´m still learning a lot of the details myself as we go. But here´s a great website if you want to read up: http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/QandA/adobeQandA.htm#adobe
Love you all. I´ll post again soon and hopefully with some pictures. I have to blow the dust out of my camera first.

Catch up!

2007-09-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

My sister came to visit and spent the first two weeks battling food, water, and altitude, but now she´s right as rain and its been damn nice to have her here. Despite her many stomach ailments, we managed to take her to Bolivia, La Paz for the shopping, and La Isla del Sol for the beauty and tranquility. My birthday was on the 19th and the day before, the two of us hiked up to Huchuy Cusco to see the ruins, the view and camp for the night. Out timing was perfect on all fronts, though at first we thought the opposite. The normally clear skies of the valley seemed to turn gray the second we stepped of the bus at the trailhead, and less than an hour up, it started to rain. But when the hail came, we happened upon a gazebo to wait it out. After an hour and a half, it let up, and we continued on, making to the top just in time for a beautiful sunset. We managed to make a fire though all of the wood was quite wet, but like newborn child, it required constant attention.

The next morning we woke up to sunshine, basked in its glory, reading, meditating, and writing in our journals, then went exploring. I can´t imagine a better place or way to wake up on your birthday. When the sky started to turn gray again, we decided to break camp and start the journey down. We entered the bus the second that rain started splashing down on the windshield and relished our wonderful luck. We went back to the house to meet up with Lebn and Nati, then went to Calca to live it up Calca-style. We had a great time, but something gave me food-poisoning and the next day I spent in pain.

But I´m better now and on my way to Ica, slowly but surely. After much internal debate, I decided not to accompany Jess and Lebn back to the States in October, but remain in South America and continue my trip North. Only my rational mind wanted me to return. All of my instincts are telling me to stay. I´m trusting my instincts.

First, I´m going to Ica to help build a house for the earthquake victims, and then I´m heading North to a community in the jungle in the Northern part of Peru, and then a slow boat down the Amazon and into Brazil. I´m very excited.

It will be weird travelling without Lebn. He´s been an incredible companion, and though we´ve certainly had our ups and downs, I can´t think of many other people on this planet with which I could have made such a trip. But it´s time to go our separate ways. For a while at least.

And speaking of Lebn, there´s some more pictures posted on his picture page. Here´s the link again: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lebnjay

I should be writing more now that I´m back on the road again, so if this little blog hasn´t lost all of its readership in my absence, you can expect to find more here to read in the coming weeks. Months? Years? Vamos a ver.

Terremoto!

2007-08-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

The earthquake was large, but we were far away from it and felt none of its effects. Thank you for your concern C. Samuel. Its good to know that someone out there is still checking this infrequently posted page. Once I get on the road again though, the posts will come a´flyin´.

La Vida en el Valle Sagrado

2007-08-01T13:04:00.000-07:00

We live in a small town called Harin in the Sacred Valley. The name of our house is Cusi Wasi, which means Happy House in the native language of Quechua. We average about 20 to 30 people at a time and have spilled over into another house as well as Cusi Wasi. Cusi Wasi remains the cultural center though, while the other house is mostly just bunks. We offer workshops in music, circus and artesanías to the neighborhood kids every Saturday morning, though many of them stop by throughout the week to hang out and play. There are frequently workshops for all of us as well. We get many travellers passing through who are more than happy to share their talents and knowledge, as well as a handful of more permanent residents with lots to teach as well. In the past few weeks there have been workshops in acrobatics, silks, body percussion, theater, and clown. Always fun, always well attended.
Most of our time is spent around the house, working on various projects, reading, writing, playing music, and juggling. The man downstairs makes cheese and yogurt to sell, and we can buy milk straight from the cow, just up the path to the main road. The view from all sides of the house (the entire valley really) is an amazing backdrop for anything you want to do. There are some amazing peaks in the valley behind the house, and a lovely trail to the top that follows a small river up to a high waterfall. We went up there the past view nights to bask in the moonlight and enjoy the view. It´s just so beautiful here, and the locals all say that when Spring gets here, it will be even better. All of the empty fields will be tall with corn and the mountains and valley will sparkle, lush and green.
When we´re not at the house, we visit the other, larger local towns, to shop the various markets, check out the Internet, or eat some cheap and delicious food. We´ve also been able to go on a number of magnificent hikes that end in Incan ruins. There are ruins all over, though only a handful are overly touristed. One of our friends grew up in the valley and knows many of the trails and secret ways into ruins to avoid the frequently overpriced entry fee. We have yet to try the secret way into Machu Picchu, but its coming.
Life is easy, life is good. A circus tent has been purchased and should arrive later this month, and plans to take this budding circus on the road are in the works as well. A bus could be purchased as soon as January for a tour of South America.
This is a great place to be. There is a lot of power in this valley, a lot of very positive energy, and all of us are piggybacking onto it and enjoying the ride. Sharing, and learning, and growing together. And with probably close to 15 countries represented (sometimes more) we´re privileged with perspectives from all sides, though take great joy in how similar our values actually are and the way in which we choose to lead our lives. Well, I guess we´re all still trying to figure that one out, but it´s nice to do it together. Even if it is slow. We´ve got time.

Lists Are Boring

2007-07-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

I´ve decided that lists don´t do anything justice but errands and groceries, so here´s some photos of some stuff we´ve been up to instead:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lebnjay
and a friend of ours has published a bunch of photos of the community as well:
http://picasaweb.google.es/igal.tar/PeruLaKusiWasi
Enjoy!

Negligence.

2007-07-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

I can´t believe its been over a month since I´ve posted. Where does the time go?
Well, we´re still alive, still in the Sacred Valley of Peru, still staying with the circus community, and still loving it. There´s lots of great people, and always something to do. There are so many amazing hikes, small towns to explore, and the big city of Cusco to visit for all of our big city needs.
I feel like I should compose a list of highlights from the past month, but I´m not in the right mindset to recall them all, right this minute, as I am very hungry. I should probably check my journal too, to make sure I´m not forgetting anything. It´s been a good month.
We still don´t know when we´re coming home.
We still don´t know when we´re going to Machu Picchu.
We still don´t know if Lebn is ever going to shave again.
We still love you all.
I´ll write again soon. Sooner than a month. I promise.

Cusco and Beyond

2007-06-17T15:05:00.000-07:00

We stayed in Cusco for about 4 or 5 days. We met up with some old friends and met some great new jugglers. We didn´t do much though, just kind of laid low, reading, mending tattered clothing, and Lebn made me a smokin new club. We saw lots of Incan walls as they are everywhere, found the market with the cheap eats, and some good places to juggle. Cusco is a nice town, but its overrun with tourists, and what´s worse, its overrun with pushy people trying to get the tourist´s money. You can´t get 10 paces down any street without someone persistently trying to get you to buy something. It was tiresome, so we headed off to a retreat.
We´re in a little town, outside of a little town, outside of Cusco. Its a house in the country with lots of land, rivers and mountains nearby, and about 20 lovely people staying there. The rent comes to about 75 dollars a month and generally seems to be earned by selling cookies in the streets of various nearby towns. Yesterday, we had a workshop for the local kids on circus and artisan crafts which is to be a regular thing. And next week, a huge circus tent is being purchased to set up in the corn field out back after its cleared and leveled. It all sounds like a great project to work on for a while, and it may be difficult to leave. People are always working on their art - weaving, djembe and diggeridoo making, juggling, and whatever you want. Its a creatively stimulating environment with positive, good, fun energy, and I like it. Though that road to the North is always calling.

Photos abound!

2007-06-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

The picture page has been updated again.
Check it out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lebnjay
Besitas,
Zack and Lebn

Waiting For Condors

2007-06-08T14:20:00.000-07:00

After two nights in Arequipa, hanging out with some travelling artisans and jugglers, exploring the colonial streets and white, stone churches, we boarded a bus for a small town called Chivay. We decided to hole up there for the night and take an early bus to a place where condors were commonly seen leaving their habitat to hunt. The alarm went off at 4:15 a.m. so we could catch the 5 o´clock bus to make it to the Cruz de Condores before their 9 a.m. wake-up call. I didn´t know that Lebn was capable of getting out of bed before noon, but he functioned surprisingly well at that early hour. I don´t think it was the excitement of seeing condors so much as his excitement for seeing a great big canyon and a river, two of his favorite things. But we made it to the bus for standing room only and were at the condor viewing platform 2 hours later.
The canyon was beautiful in the morning light, but we had a very cold 2 more hours to wait before the condors started to make their appearance. And just before they did, the hoards of tourist buses began to make theirs. It´s always a bit startling to us when we´re suddenly surrounded by English. A large part of it is that we really take a lot of pride in learning Spanish and enjoy immersing ourselves in it and using it whenever we can. But we also like to be able to talk about people in English and not have them understand. Does that make us bad people? The great irony is that we find that the English speaking tourists are the ones we want to talk about the most. Sometimes they say the silliest things. And I´d forgotten how much harder it is to tune English out. With Spanish it´s easy, I have to focus to understand Spanish. But with English, especially not being around it very much anymore, its like I suddenly have super-hearing and even the slightest whisper is deafening.
After a few condors showed up and we´d felt we´d got our money´s worth, we had to split. I had to split. I wanted nature and peaceful quiet. Our next stop was a smaller town called Cabanaconde, a 2-hour walk down a dirt road. But it´s the same road the buses use, so we quickly looked for another option before we suffocated on exhaust and dirt. We hopped a stone fence to follow an aqueduct we saw below, but when that trail ended, we ended up in rural Peru. We were in the fields, following trails that mysteriously petered out, tromping through thistles and burrs, up and down, back and forth. It was all very lovely with views of snow-covered peaks and the richly colored canyon, but not exactly a short-cut or leisurely stroll. However, we eventually found an established trail and made it to Cabanaconde by lunchtime. We grabbed a quick bite, then headed toward the canyon.
Our directions were vague, but we´ve never let that stop us before. As we were approaching the canyons edge though, an old man started yelling at us from a hill on the other side of a ravine. We could barely understand him, but got the impression that we were going the wrong way, so through a serious of shouts and hand gestures, we managed to climb around the ravine and up to where he was. He told us there was nothing where we were going and he lead us to the main trail, scrambling over rock walls and muddy cliffs like no old man I know. When we got to the main trail, we thanked him and began our descent.
It was steep, covered in loose rocks and very slippery, but the views were amazing. The rock walls of the canyon were an impossible array of colors, and when the richly green and snaking river came into view, the intense pain that we were starting to feel in our calves, eased up a little. Only a little. Once, we got a little closer to the bottom, our destination became visible, a lush oasis hidden beneath the surrounding desert. There were palm trees and a countless variety of fruit trees that made us slightly disappointed that it was the wrong time of year for fruit. But with the cabanas made of bamboo, and the swimming pools fed by natural springs, it looked like paradise to us. Most people just hike down for a day with a little water and a change of clothes, stay in a cabana, then walk back out. But we had all our gear, lots of food, and the intention to camp. We stayed there for four days, reading, writing, juggling, and exploring the canyon and river on a number of day hikes. It was fantastic.
The place we stayed at had two different areas and it took us awhile to figure out the difference, but it seemed like the kids were down at the bottom, the grown-ups up top. We were classified as kids, which was fine with us, and set up our tent in a big grassy field frequently grazed by alpacas, burros, goats, and horses, and invaded by chickens in the evening. We got to know the guys who ran the place at which we were staying, all of whom had lived down there their entire lives. One of them was 78-years-old. He wasn´t always altogether there, but when he was he had great stories of what it was like when he was a kid. It generally boiled down to more fruit-trees, less tourists. But its crazy to think about how long people have inhabited the land down there. Generations and generations. In our explorations we found miles and miles of terraced hillsides for agriculture (mostly abandoned and taken over by cactus), irrigation trenches, and decrepit stone buildings. And we could see trails running all over both sides of the canyon, some of which would make a mountain goat think twice about following.
It was all very wonderful, but we finally mustered the strength to leave, and we needed a lot of it, because the climb was a tough one. We were graced with a cloudy day to keep some of the heat away, and a hidden cache of cookies for a little extra fuel on the trail. We made it back to Cabanaconde just in time for a beautiful sunset, then treated ourselves to a beer, and watched some terrible music videos with half the town on a street corner, to pass the time waiting for our bus back to Chivay. We got there at midnight, found a place to crash, woke up the next morning and boarded another bus back to Arequipa. We exchanged some books and bought some snacks in town, and are now waiting for our overnight bus to Cusco. Machu Pichu here we come.

Row Boats and Rocky Shores

2007-06-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

I left out a detail about our trip to Isla del Sol that´s been nagging me ever since I left the internet joint last night. Instead of taking a boat directly from Copacabana to the island, as most people do, we decided to hike17 kilometers to a small village that is directly across the straight from the island, where we heard we could also catch a boat. The hike was lovely, but we got a late start, and it was starting to get dark when we reached the town before our final destination. Luckily we were approached by a young man who said he had a boat and could take the four of us to the island for 80 Bolivianos. We talked him down to 40, then walked to his house to discover that the boat in question was a row boat. We payed a little over a dollar each for he and his father to row us for over an hour to the island.
It was a beautiful trip, beginning in a shallow bay full of reeds, witnessing the sun setting into the lake, and ending on a rocky shore, illuminated by moonlight. Halfway through the trip we had to stop to repair a leak in the boat with a rag and a scythe, bailing it out a few times in route for added excitement. It was lovely and probably one of my fondest memories of the trip so far. That´s all. I feel better now.

Diarrhea and Thank You Cory

2007-05-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

In a recent chat with my dear friend Cory, the only criticism he gave me for my blog was that I never put anything in it that is bad. I told him its because life is good in South America and nothing all that bad has happened. Well either he jinxed me, or I jinxed myself. So, here you go Cory. I hope this makes you happy.

A group of seven set off for three days of trekking in the Yungas, six hours southwest of La Paz, a spectacular descent from close to 15,000 ft into a lush jungle basin, but only four got to trek. Lebn, his cousin Sadie, two French girls, an Israeli, a Colombiana, and I woke up with the sun on Thursday to board an old Blue Bird bus for the six-hour drive to the small town of Chunavi, the starting point of the Yunga-Cruz trek. The road was dirt for most of the journey, cut into the sides of the steep and rocky mountains. At one point the driver had to open the door to watch the tires skirting along the edge of the road, to keep us from falling off the cliff, into the valley below. The occasional creeks that we crossed, running through the middle of the road, made it easy to imagine how easily these roads get washed out.
But the scenery was spectacular and when we arrived at our destination, we were truly in the clouds. And its really hard to see in the clouds. It was recommended by the locals that we wait until morning before setting out, and we´ve discovered in our travels, that it is generally fairly wise to heed the advice of the locals. The visibility was nil, we were barely able to see 10 feet in front of us at times, but when the fog parted, the views were spectacular. But the locals recommended that we wait until the next day before setting off as the trail could be dangerous under such conditions. Luckily there was a place that could accommodate all of us for a more than reasonable price. So we hung out, played cards, and went to sleep. Most of us slept. I couldn´t quite get there, and in the morning, felt like a warmed over pile of hell poop.
After much debate - internal and with the group - it was decided that I should return to La Paz in the care of the two French girls, while the rest continued on the trek. I felt bad that they should miss the trek too, but they insisted that I shouldn´t go alone, and as one of them is a registered nurse, I couldn´t really argue now, could I?
So four went trekking (pictures to come) and three went back to La Paz. And the bad luck kept on coming. We were told the bus would arrive at 2 p.m., but at 8 p.m., we were still waiting, huddled in a blanket to protect us from the frigid mountain air, when some locals took pity on us and invited us into a room by the road where we could still hear the bus coming and gave us coffee. Not the best thing for my ailing stomach, but I was too cold to care. And just as we finished our coffee, and a lovely conversation, the bus arrived. And it was totally full. Not a single seat. In my country, this would have meant that we couldn´t get on the bus. But not in Bolivia. We rode the entire 6 hours back to La Paz on sacks of potatoes that had been stacked up in the middle of the aisle. I´ve had more comfortable bus rides.
But the bad luck ends there. We made it to La Paz late, but I was already starting to feel better, and we spent the next few days hanging out with some friends in their place in El Alto of La Paz for free, waiting for the others to return. It was relaxing and I started to feel better pretty quickly.
After Lebn returned, the French nurse and I headed for Copacabana on Lake Titicaca, and Lebn stayed behind in La Paz to have a mock Nils Pol hat made. The more fabric he cuts out of it, the more he seems to like it. Its a little light, but you can spin it on your finger. He met us and others there the next day, and Lebn, the two French girls and I spent four days on Isla del Sol. It was so refreshing. We found a place to stay with a guy named Alphonso and his family, who kept insisting that it wasn´t a hotel, but our house, and we should pay whatever we felt like when we left. We cooked over wood fires, and enjoyed a breathtaking view high over a tranquil bay. We saw a beautiful sunrise from the island that the Incas said the Sun was born on and beautiful sunsets every night. Lebn and I hiked to the northernmost part of the island for a sunset one night, and walked home by the light of the full moon, passing Incan ruins on the way. It was all pretty amazing.
And now we´re in Peru. We took four or five different modes of transportation to get us to a town called Arequipa. We´re here because the world´s two deepest canyons are nearby and we plan to get in them for a few days of hiking. I´ll write about them soon, Mom. No frantic emails about where I am, okay? I´m sorry this post was so long in the making. I´ve been distracted, and Internet has been more than I cared to pay. It won´t happen again.

Circo de la Calle

2007-05-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

We´re still in La Paz. We found a pretty fun crew of artisans and jugglers to run around with and life is good. For example, we all went to a party on Saturday night and it didn´t end until yesterday afternoon. Lebn and I were coming out of our hotel room on Saturday night, and about 15-20 people were walking down our street, looking for us to take us to the rim of the valley that is La Paz for a fiesta. Pictures coming soon. We, being a great and mighty mob to be reckoned with, commandeered a bus that took us all the way to our destination. Ordinarily, we would have had to transfer to get there, but as we filled the entire bus, we talked the driver into taking us all the way.
Night number one of the party was fun. We stayed up late, drinking and drumming, and Lebn and I crashed on the hard wood floor. The next day the whole lot of us took to the streets to earn a little money. We were quite the spectacle, a band of hippies and artisans cruising the crowded markets. People stopped us to shake our hands and ask us where we were from before we even did a show. Our general answer became, ¨todo el mundo¨ as we had almost every South American country represented as well as Israel, France, Belgium and others that I´m forgetting. But once the shows began, we were like celebrities, mobs of people circling round us to find out what in the hell we were up to. The welcome that we received was so warm and enthusiastically friendly, that it alone would have made the whole day worth it. We must have done 7-8 shows by night fall, the last 3 or 4 were each supposed to be our last though we kept ending up doing one more, and made enough money for close to 20 people to eat all day and sponsor another party that night. I, personally, enjoyed receiving food from all of the vendors in the market more than the pocket change of the spectators. A bag full of delicious oranges, bananas, or peanuts were much more valuable commodities when working the streets all day, than a couple of Bolivianos and it felt more like it was genuinely coming from the heart. And now I can say that I´ve worked for peanuts and mean it.
The second night of party was much like the first, only Lebn and I managed to score pads to sleep on. We got a slow start the next day, and 4 of us decided to walk down the valley into the heart of La Paz for spectacular views and to experience a different part of the city. I wish we had pictures to post, but Lebn was without his camera.
However, another friend has posted some pictures of the weekends events at: http://picasaweb.google.com/igal.tar/BoliviaLaPaz
if you want to check them out.
And Lebn has posted a few new ones of older events. His picture page, once again, is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lebnjay
Enjoy!
We love you all and deeply apologize to our wonderful Mothers for neglecting to make contact on Mother´s Day. We were working in the streets for peanuts. Aren´t you proud?

Who Needs Crappy Stuffed Animals Anyway?

2007-05-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

Potosí was a lovely city, and as it is the highest city in the world, positively breathtaking. Literally. It´s mostly hills, so even a walk to the market to buy hot food on the street, is mildly exhausting. But its narrow, colonial streets were lovely, the surrounding desert spectacular, and the nights cold enough to properly appreciate the four heavy blankets that each of our beds had.
There were stoplights in Potosí, though none that were actually functional, but we did manage to cross paths with some Argentine jugglers doing their best with the anarchy that is traffic on the crowded city streets. We also went to see a movie for the first time since we´ve been travelling. It was well worth the wait, an old fashioned theater with a grainy picture, bad sound, and ticket price under a dollar, that made us feel like we´d travelled back in time. We went to see the movie 300, but when we entered the theater, the previous movie was still showing. It was soon over, and much to my delight, they cut it in the middle of the credits and immediately started showing the next feature. No previews. No commercials. The movie was average, so to feel like we were getting our money´s worth, we stuck around for the next one which, judging by the amount of people who did the same, is a totally acceptable thing. Unfortunately the second movie was Night at the Museum, a dreadful waste of energies that almost instigated us to ask for our six Bolivianos back.
After Potosí, we went to a small city called Oruro. We had no specific reason for going there other than it was on the way to other places we wanted to go, but it made for an interesting stop. The most interesting aspect of this city, is the abundance of street vendors, filling street after street with anything you could possibly imagine. There aren´t really store in the Bolivian cities we´ve visited so far. Banks, pharmacies, a few restaurants, and places to use the internet are the only places that are in proper buildings. Everything else is sold in stalls either on the street on in the large, warehouse-like markets. You can buy anything that you´d find in a supermarket, hardware store, clothing store, or pet store in the States, but you may have to visit a dozen stalls before you find exactly the right thing. Thankfully though, all like items are clumped together. There´s the shoe store street, the fruits and vegetables street, and the light bulb street. A street lined with fried food, or a street lined with hot soup and rice. We ate a complete and filling meal with rice, vegetables and meat for 3 Bolivianos. That´s less than 50 cents. And it was delicious. We almost bought Spider-Man 3 on DVD for 5 Bolivianos. I think it was available on streets in Bolivia the day it opened in the theaters.
All in all, it´s kind of like walking around at a State Fair, only there aren´t any games. There´s still lots of people shouting at you to spend your money on fried things and other stuff you don´t need or want, but if you really want a crappy stuffed animal, you can´t win one throwing a softball in a basket, but if you go to crappy stuffed animal street, I´m sure you´ll find one at a more than reasonable price.
And now we´re in La Paz, which is far more beautiful than I could have imagined and bursting with the kind of vitality that could convince me to explore the streets forever. The markets are the same as in Oruro only there are more of them, and as this city of 1.5 million was built withing a steep valley, every street offers a dramatic view of buildings hanging off the mountain side, or snow-capped peaks in the distance. We found a cheap room, an army of little old ladies selling sumptuous meals for pennies, and a conclave of travelling jugglers (we have yet to meet a juggler from Bolivia). We´ve started an impromptu juggling club that meets for a view hours everyday much to the delight of the many locals who frequent the plaza we play in. It´s a good thing its cold here or I´d never leave.
I have to go, but one more thing before I do. When I said ¨little old ladies¨before, that wasn´t to imply that they are in any way feeble or frail. I´ve seen more than I can count, climbing steep streets and hills all over this country with anything and everything strapped to their backs. Usually its whatever they take to town to sell, but I saw one woman walking home with a dresser strapped to her back! They are totally burly, unnaturally friendly, and feeding me very, very well. This is a wonderful country.

Bolivia!

2007-05-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

Lebn was not consumed by a Puma and, after missing our first bus, we caught the next one to the border where we stayed the night and crossed the next morning into an entirely different world. If not the poorest, Bolivia is certainly at the top of that list, in this great big continent. Things were cheap in Chile and Argentina, but prices have been sliced in half (sometimes more) since we crossed the border to the point where we´re able to live quite comfortably on 2 or 3 dollars a day.
We didn´t stay long in the border town, buying train tickets to a town called Tupiza that afternoon. We met some Canadian kids who met Sam somewhere in Eastern Argentina, a strange and interesting coincidence, who have been travelling about as long as we have, and whose Spanish made us feel much better about our own. We sat in the cheap seats on the 5 hour train ride, though our new Canadian friends splurged on the fancy car, and got our first taste of Quechua, a native language spoken by a large percentage of the people here. A little old man came over to us and tried starting up a conversation and we couldn´t understand him at all. And just when we were feeling good about our Spanish. Luckily, another passenger clued us into the fact that it wasn´t, in fact, Spanish at all.
Once we got off the train, we were assaulted by dozens of children all wanting to take us to various hostels and residencias in town, but we decided to go it ourselves. But it wasn´t long before some pretty blondes ended up leading us to the same hostel that the kids were recommending. It´s not the first time I´ve been lead astray by a pretty face, and I´m sure it won´t be the last. There was a group of 4 (1 guy, 3 girls) who were looking for 2 more to accompany them the next day on a 4-day tour of the salt flats and various other destinations in Southwestern Bolivia. The cost was $115, entirely out of our normal price range, but pretty faces made us consider it for a minute. And as though that weren´t enough, one of them went to Western Washington University, and the others were all from Vancouver. But we resisted the sirens call and hooked them up with the other Canadians we´d met. They were perfect for each other really, and on an entirely different tour of South America than we are. The hostel we stayed at was a perfect example.
It was the first place we´ve stayed were everyone spoke English and everyone was just looking to party. It was a bit off putting and we really didn´t feel comfortable. A perfect example was the 2 Australians that we were sharing our room with coming in at 4a.m., drunk, and loud as hell, without the slightest care that there were other people there. And at 25 Bolivianos each (about 3 dollars) a night, it was out of our price range anyway. First thing the next morning, we started heading to another place that we´d heard was only 15 Bolivianos, when a fellow juggler named Manu noticed our juggling clubs and took us to where he was staying. We have our own room for 7 Bolivianos each. And with 3 or 4 course meals nearby costing about the same, this is far and away the cheapest we´ve been able to live so far.
And so we´re still in Tupiza, once again staying longer than we thought. We found some incredible canyons just outside of town for great hiking and have spent some time with Manu, an Argentine, his German girlfriend, and a French friend of theirs named Julian. We did a little show in the plaza and were introduced to San Pedro for an unspeakably incredible evening. People here don´t get to see jugglers as much as the other places we´ve been. Jugglers don´t come through here as often because they can´t make as much. But they respond to it much more enthusiastically, which makes juggling in the park that much more fun.
But, as wonderful as this stop has been, we bought bus tickets to Potosí for this evening. We´ve washed our clothes and ourselves and shed some unnecessary weight and the open road lays ahead. More to come.

Tilcara

2007-04-25T06:12:00.000-07:00

This small pueblo has proven too intoxicating to escape. We almost didn´t stop here at all. We almost headed straight to the Bolivian border from Jujuy. But we did stop here, and the days started drifting by. It´s easy when there´s so many simple pleasures and explorations to fill them up from sunrise to sunset. And in this colorful valley, the rise and fall of the sun seem to last for hours each day, the tall mountains hiding that big ball of fire though still allowing enough light to dance a thousand different colors on the rocks and in the sky. The middle of the day is hot, though not unbearably so, and best spent lounging in the shade with conversation, maté, writing, and juggling. Our Spanish is damn-near conversational at this point and our maté etiquette is almost at Porteño standards. Leo (our Basque juggling friend) is a great juggler and has taught us lots of great new tricks. He learned the round-a-bout in less than an hour and likes Lebn´s slack-line so much, he´s going to Jujuy to buy one.
We´ve spent a great portion of our time here with him as he is currently living here to be close to his mother, and a porteña (a native of Buenos Aires) theater/opera student named Carla. The four of us have explored areas all around town and there are a great many to explore. Walking through the quiet town is satisfying enough, though the natural beauty that engulfs it is all within walking distance. A narrow, steep canyon called El Garganta del Diabolo, a colorful cemetery with and incredible view of the valley, and a small, lazy lagoon with ducks I´ve never seen before and the occasional local riding by on horseback. Last night we ascended a nearby mountain to watch the sunset and get our most spectacular view of the town and the valley so far. There´s an old fort, a virtually unconquerable habitation of the indigenous peoples that have populated this area for thousands of years, just outside of town called Pucara, that seems to be the main tourist draw, though I wonder if most tourists know its best viewed from above. With the dimming light, and a slight mist, the whole valley almost seemed like a mirage, but from our vantage, we could here dogs conversing in all parts of the quiet little town, adding the slightest hint of realism to our dreamy position.
All of these wonderful things aside though, I think that today is the day we leave this town. Lebn went on a little spirit quest last night, into the wild with nothing more than a sleeping bag and a pocket knife, and, assuming he hasn´t been eaten by Pumas, when he returns, we pack up and head to the bus station to gain passage to Bolivia. We´re told that Bolivia has a very similar vibe to Tilcara, but its cheaper, which makes us wonder if, once we´re there, we´ll ever be able to leave. Things are slowing down the closer we get to the center of this great continent, and I´m feeling pretty comfortable with that. It´s easy to see how people end up travelling down here for years. But fear not loved ones, we´re slow, but we´re steady, and we long to see you all again. But it might make things a little easier if you´d just get your sweet asses down here to join us. We love you all.

MORE PHOTOS!!!

2007-04-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

There are a few more photos posted at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lebnjay
Enjoy!

PEANUT BUTTER -exclamation point-

2007-04-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

The package has arrived, and not only did it include the debit card, but letters from loved ones, Kevlar for torch making, and... PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY. This sentence would ordinarily be followed by a long string of exclamation points, however the keyboard I´m working with seems to have a dead key or seven, so you´ll just have to take my word that we are very, very, very, very, excited to have these wonderful, splendiforous things in our possession and incredibly grateful for the lovely ladies that made it all possible: sister, Dream, and Becketsy. We love you all. We´ve lived on peanut butter over the past few days and we feel really, really good about it. And I cannot neglect to mention the sweet, delicious, accompanying goodness that is homemade jam. Thank you Dream.
And with the arrival of the package came a swift departure from Mendoza though, I must admit, it came with a bit of remorse. It´s amazing how quickly you can become a regular in a place. We made a handful of good friends that it was difficult to say goodbye to, and really just began to scratch the surface of the circus scene.
We ended up spending most of our last days in town with a Chilean juggler named Willy and his lovely lady - a Mendocina - Valentina. We juggled a lot, cooked incredible meals, and shared beers and pizzas at gas stations, just like the locals. Gas stations, believe it or not, are the major hang-outs in Argentina. You can get food, coffee or beer and watch Fútbol all day long. We also went to a silks workshop at an abandoned train station that was pretty amazing. Pictures to be posted soon. The trains have stopped running in many parts of Argentina, and at least four of them that we´ve heard about, have been converted into cultural centers that seem to focus on circus. The workshop had four sets of silks hanging - they cost about thirty dollars a set down here -, had about fifteen ladies in attendance - the only fella was the instructor, lucky dawg -, and it was totally free. And I guess they happen all the time. It was a beautiful sight to behold. It was all becoming quite comfortable in Mendoza and we were getting a healthy dose of Spanish practice after Sam´s departure, but after three weeks, it was time to go. And off to Jujuy we went.
We were only there for a day, wherein we met a juggler that Willy had told us to find, juggled in a construction sight in the middle of a road, and had my guitar stolen - the details of which are too painful for me to go into at great length.
We are now in a lovely little town called Tilcara, an artist colony in a high desert. It´s beautiful and so nice to be in a small town after so many cities. The streets are dirt or cobble-stoned, the people are friendly, and the colors are plentiful, the surrounding mountains changing hue with every passing hour. Sunrise and sunset are the most breathtaking. Purples, oranges, greens and reds. We went on a great little hike this morning and discovered even more beauty along a small river with deep canyons speckled with saguaros. Pictures to be posted soon.
And we´ve been spending time with some great people to boot. A Spanish juggler named Leo and a lovely porteña named Carla. We´re already here a day longer than expected. But Bolivia is well within our sights, and I expect that the next entry in this little blog will come from within its borders. No way to be certain though.

The Sophistificationizing of Juggles, and Other Stories

2007-04-11T19:48:00.000-07:00

This entry was supposed to come a week ago, but I was cut off the Internet while nearing the dramatic conclusion, it was lost, and I haven´t had the heart to go it again until now. I apologize (mostly to my Mother – I´m alive!) for its tardiness.
Needless to say, the lost entry was full of danger, intrigue, romance and high-class debauchery. We, feeling our most touristy to date, threw our spendthiftiness to the wind and rented some bicycles for a whistle-stop through wine country. We toured the vineyards and bodegas, sampling the finest vintages, and dined at the classiest joint in town. We ate rabbit, enjoyed a toilet paper stocked bathroom (proof positive that this joint had class), and resisted the temptation to scavenge the leftovers on nearby tables. True sophistication.
We decided to splurge as a last gas for the Tres Gringo Circo. Sam has left our merry trio for the greener pastures of Brasil and meditation work partying. He will be missed. Almost as much as his camp stove. I kid. Lebn´s already rigged up a new stove with two empty beer cans (emptied by yours truly), a 25 centavo coin (earned at a semáforo), and pure alcohol (blessed by a Mapuche chieftan), so we will miss Sam much more than his stove. And we very much hope to meet up again somewhere down the road.
Lebn and I remain in Mendoza for the time being, though we´re itching to get up to Bolivia as soon as we possibly can. We can´t leave until the “package” arrives though. I´d like to think that putting it quotation marks makes it more mysterious and interesting, but I don´t think I´m fooling anyone. We´re just waiting for a debit card. Mendoza isn´t the worst place in the world to kill some time though. Its full of splendid plazas, outdoor cafes, and wide and lovely, tree-lined streets. The trees are all watered by a series a small, open canals that run along both sides of every street, a system set up by the indigenous people that once inhabited the area. It´s a real marvel, but a bit treacherous for careless drunks or inattentive tourists. We´ve dropped a lot of clubs in them, but never ourselves. Knock on wood.
There´s also proving to be more of a circus scene here than we first imagined. Over the weekend, the main plaza is full of incredibly professional clown acts some of whom have been working together in Mendoza (and travelling occasionally) for years. It really shows too. The performers are all well-rounded and versatile and the shows are all impeccably polished. But we´ve also been hanging out with some kids who are putting it together like we are. We heard about a guy who was doing shows with juggling and silks that he hangs from a tree, that wanted to meet us. Turns out he´s another Chilean named Willy, though much younger than our compadre in Valparaíso. His shows are full of great tricks, but lacks the polish that comes with experience. He´s introduced us to some other circus folks in town that get together for workshops a lot, though they generally seem to happen before we´re all up and ready. But if we have to wait for the “package” near as long as I fear we will, we´ll have plenty more chances.
One other funny store comes to mind. We met three California girls who are studying in Santiago, but were weekending in Mendoza, who travelled across the mountains with the same bus driver that brought us across. We discovered this random fact when they starting relating a story to us that he had related to them about 3 crazy gringos that, when trapped on the pass due to inclimate weather, slept outside on the concrete, instead of the warmth and comfort of the van, and they didn´t even complain about it. We further confirmed the drivers identity when discussing his taste in music and his hairstyle. Night at the Roxbury techno, and a buzz cut except for one curly lock that sprouts slightly off-center from the the back of his head at the neckline. They´re already telling stories about us, the folk songs come next.

A Passenger Van, a Mountain Pass, and a Room Full of Mattresses

2007-03-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

We finally mustered the strength to leave Valparaiso though it was not easy. We made some fantastic connections there if any of you ever find yourself heading in that direction. I know that the three of us would all love to return someday, but the open road was calling and we have a lot of ground to cover.
On Sunday, we did a morning of stoplighting and earned our bus fare to Santiago where we spent two days running errands. These included buying 9 torches, some new books in English, and picking up the new lenses for my glasses. My old ones were so scratched that everything I saw was in dreamy vision like in some 1940´s movie when someone is waking from a deep sleep or seeing the love of there life. It was fun sometimes, but mostly it gave me a headache. You can´t walk around in a dream world all the time.
On Tuesday we boarded a small passenger can for what was supposed to be a 6-hour trip back to Argentina to the town of Mendoza, but the elements where against us. We encountered some bad weather in the pass, snow and rain and fog, and they closed the road due to a rock slide. We backtracked a little to a small mountain town to try and find some lodging for the night but found the whole town booked. We, along with the driver and other passengers, decided to crash in the van and get an early start the next day. We hung out in a lodge for a while, drinking cheap bottles of wine to aid our sleeping comfort, and feasted on the leftovers of the many people dining at the lodge that evening. We got a little giggly after our third bottle, and decided to try and find a place to sleep in the lodge and stumbled upon a godsend, a storage space in the attic at the top of a small spiral staircase full of blankets and mattresses! At closing time, we snuck up, one at a time, and nestled in, but we were so pleased with our discovery and so full of wine that our laughter (however much we attempted to muffle it) disturbed one of the live-in workers and he discovered us. Lebn interacted with him, so we can´t be certain about exactly what he said, but he must have been too tired to care, because he left us alone and we slept in comfort.
The next morning, however, we discovered that all of the doors to the outside were locked and we were trapped, though not for long. After a daring escape through the window in the ladies´room (my personal favorite detail to the entire adventure) we made it back to the van just in time to make our way to Mendoza. It was slow going, but after 20 hours, we finally made it to our destination. We headed straight to the central plaza and within 5 minutes of pulling out our clubs, were greeted by local jugglers bearing gifts and recommendations for cheap accomodations. We even bumped into some artesans that we´d met in other towns. Mendoza is lovely and the people are friendly and I have no idea how long we´ll stay, but we have to start heading North sometime.

Pictures, part II

2007-03-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, there are more pictures. I have decided not to post them here with captions because I don´t want to, but I think I´ve convinced the boys to do it in Flickr so that all of you lovely people can know what it is that you´re looking at.
The pictures can be found on the site from before:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lebnjay
and a new one to boot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samalabares

Enjoy!

Our First Show

2007-03-19T17:50:00.000-07:00

We were invited to take place in a circus/variety show on Friday, by our friends "occupying" the large and no longer abandoned building that we´ve been frequenting for a practice space. The building is owned by a nearby church that apparently knows their building is being inhabited, but has yet to make any moves toward removing them. So for now, it is a free place to stay for anyone interested in the circus arts that is also willing to help with renovation (squat laws here seem to be favorable to inhabitants that make the building better).
The building has many entrances and was, at one time, sectioned off so that there different spaces for different businesses, but now these sections are all connected by large, rectangular holes in various walls. The main entrance opens up to a large staircase to the second floor with a hole in the wall on the right to enter the main floor. The second floor is the one that has been occupied the longest and is, naturally, the most inhabitable one, full of bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room. The main floor looks like its being remodeled, the supplies of a multitude of projects in each room. There are bedrooms popping up on this floor now too, but it is mainly used as the practise space. The middle of the building is all open to allow for a giant skylight that sheds light on both of these floors. There is a wall down the middle of the space separating it into an open floor space for practice, and a huge hole that a previous inhabitant had put in to allow easy access or light to the basement. Not sure about that one, its kind of a strange sight. Each floor has ceilings about 15-20 feet high, so juggling is possible anywhere and with the ceiling in the open middle spot being as high as two floors, it was easy to string up a trapeze and some silks.
The show was in the basement. Most of it took place below where the floor had been ripped out (the silks and trapeze moved for the occasion) though some of it took place in the many corners, the audience moving in darkness, among the concrete pillars, to where lights indicated the next act would appear. And the acts were amazing.
Some clowns hosted the show and started with an act about finding the lights which became a nice glow-club routine by a Venezuelan girl who does some incredible contact and swing moves. She has a lot of stuff I´ve never seen before. Next came a contact routine that was okay and then came the gringos. We called ourselves the 3 Gringo Circus (Tres Gringo Circo) for lack of a better name, and while we dropped a fair amount (crazy stage lights, you know), we were very well received. The crowd was mostly circus kids though, which helped. Of the 75+ people that were there (not including performers), at least half of them had juggling props or unicycles with them, so they were all very accepting and every drop was met with a chant of, "Otra, otra, otra..." which, for the non-Spanish speakers, means "try it again." Lebn opened walking on the slack-line, then juggling these Skilsaw blades that he had Willy weld to some handles. We followed with 2-high passing (where I pass to Sam who´s standing on Lebn´s shoulders), then the round-a-about (a juggler favorite), which lead into the drink-a-bout and and empty bottle of booze. The crowd loved that one. And we ended with (thank you Juggling Jollies) The Human Platform of Death which the crowd also loved. I was glad we finished early because it made relaxing and enjoying the rest of the show that much easier.
There were so many acts, I don´t know if I´ll be able to recount them all, but here goes anyway.
There was a diabolo routine done in the dark with a black-light and a string above him that he would sometimes sling the diabolo against. There was a flaming devil-stick to a Nine Inch Nails song, a hanging trapeze act, a very dramatic (but really original and great) silks routine to a Braveheart song, and some clowns. One was incredible. He used a lot of mime work and acted out a story about a guy with bad luck. He was so expressive and had incredible control over his every movement. The other clowns were just dirty. Pollo and his girlfriend Negra did a killer routine with 5-clubs, and they were dressed like they were ready for Vegas. Make-up, sparkly clothes, and lots of teeth. Pollo also did a routine on a vertical pole which included feats such as flipping on and off of it, and, with hands extended past his head, held himself perpendicular to the ground. We saw a video of this guy in the middle of a 3-high. He´s super-circus. My favorite act though, was this strange avant-garde, Brechtian kind of a mini-play that started in a set built in one corner of the basement, but which had the audience following it all over the space, sometimes scurrying backward suddenly, as one of the masked performers came charging toward their next mark. It ended on the silks with a decent, though not exceptional routine.
It was a great night. The lights and music were all very professionally done, there was cheap and delicious food and drinks, and a wonderful vibe permeated through the whole building.
Its nights like these that are making it very difficult to leave Valparaiso.

Valparaiso - Go to Paradise

2007-03-12T16:17:00.000-07:00

So some juggler/clowns that we met in Santiago on Sunday told us about a place we could stay in Valparaiso and wrote down a series of words that we assumed was some kind of address, and a phone number that we were told to call at the bus station so he (Pollo) could come and escort us there. We had been planning on visiting this particular town anyway, but the free place to stay in circus-friendly surroundings, was a strong enough lure to pull us away even from the charm and sophistication of Hotel Saturno. We took the 1.5 hour bus ride, and upon arrival, promptly proceeded to the nearest pay phone to make the call. In the 60 seconds that our 100 peso coin bought us, we learned that Pollo left his cell phone in Santiago. Luckily, the series of words turned out to be street names. Directions! We followed them to the end, but were left without an address. As soon as the question of how to decide which house was uttered, we saw, spray-painted graffiti-style on a large, metal gate,¨Taller el Litre¨, the last and most mysterious set of words in the list. We´d found it, but before I describe what we found... I´d like to describe the city of Valparaiso a bit.

The city starts on the back side of the mountains, and seems to tumble over the top, down the other side and right into the sea. The mountains are steep, but that hasn´t stopped anyone from slapping some stilts to the bottom of a house and hanging it off a cliff. From a distance, it looks more like a huge pile of colorful, makeshift homes stacked carelessly upon each other, craning for a view of the sea. Once you start exploring the streets, you quickly realize that its not too far from the truth. The mountains are so steep in many places throughout the city, that they use large, gondola-like contraptions to get people to the top. They´re basically small boxes attached to train tracks that run up the side of a cliff. But if you, like I, are more inclined (teehee) to tackle such an exploration by foot, I highly recommend finding one of the hundreds of Escher-esque stairways that snake their way throughout the labyrinth of homes that people have built and rebuilt over years and years. Every new ascent is a new view, every turned corner a peek into the way someone else lives their life.
The city does flatten out as it approaches the water though. And the architecture changes from the ramshackle, found-objects style, to a hodge-podge of 19th century architecture brought over from the variety of Europeans that settled here during that time. But the real life of the city is not in the buildings, but on the sidewalks. Most of the major streets are lined on both sides by vendors selling anything and everything you can imagine. Clothing to hardware to fishing lures to shoe strings. All new or used. And food. Lots of food. The food is all new. I don´t see anybody getting rich, but they make it to the next day, and the day after that, and more often than not, they do it with a smile on their face. The whole city has the feeling of a neighborhood, though its really a large collection of them. Which brings me to my neighborhood.
We entered the large metal gate and were instantly overwhelmed by the collection of stuff. It is an outdoor space, with scrap metal, and old bicycles and circus props everywhere, though it was difficult to process the details right away, because there was so much of it. Pollo was sitting around a table with 5 or 6 other guys and, after the confusion was cleared up about who these strange looking gringos with backpacks were, we were warmly received and everyone went about clearing some space for us. First a place for our tents, and then a large juggling area. There wasn´t much room, and I wondered where all of these people slept, but my question was soon answered as our focus was soon directed to the large house that was practically hanging over us. If it was on the same level we were on it would probably be about 20 feet away from where we were standing, but as it was, it was about 60 feet up, atop the cliff that the ¨garage¨ we were in backed up against. Willy, the guy who runs the joint, shares the house with what seems to be his whole family, except the brother that lives across the street. And a forever cycling group of circus performers share the space below, which Willy also works out of during the day. He´s a freelance welder, and a good one, and when he´s not making a buck, he´s making circus props. The space has an outdoor kitchen, a working bathroom, and a large van that´s been converted to a sleeping area. People from the neighborhood are always stopping by to hang out or borrow a bicycle or something and we´ve been welcomed by one and all.
I want to go more into detail about some of these characters that we´ve met, but I´m tired of looking at this computer screen. I´m not sure how much longer we´re be here though, so I may get in another post before we split. There´s a circus show this weekend at an occupied house that is shared by a bunch of jugglers this weekend. I call it an occupied house, but I swear the building is like a city block. It´s the largest squat I´ve ever seen. So we´ll probably stay for that and keep working the stoplights here (as they are quite good and profitable) and then... away. Or not. Lebn has talked of buying property, but he talks about that almost everywhere.

Santiago: City of Jugglers

2007-03-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

After a few glorious days spent relaxing at the beach and exploring some coastline, we splurged on a luxury overnight bus and woke up in Santiago. We immediately set off to find a place to stay and checked out some recommendations that we got from a hostel webpage and our tattered Lonely Planet guide to South America. They were nicer than many hotels I´ve stayed at, more like a backpackers club house, than a truly no-frills place to stay. 3 had pool tables and one had a pool. With a swim-up bar. They were all a little out of our price-range, though they assured us they were the cheapest places to stay in town. Soon enough though, we found that to be entirely untrue. There was a small, quaint alley near one of them, with a cobbled street and buildings of a classic European style of architecture, clothes drying and hanging plants from several balconies, and a neon sign that read ¨Hotel Saturno.¨ We decided to check it out and I think I fell in love the moment I saw that their lobby was illuminated with a black light. Sexy. Dead sexy. There was smooth love songs piping in, and incense burning, and the short, stout, and gregarious man that runs the place offered us a price we couldn´t refuse. We ended up paying half what we would have at the cheapest hostel and we got our own room with a private bath and balcony. And what a room it was. Carpet on the walls (though none on the floor), plenty of mirrors, and three light switches. One was for the regular light, one for the mood light, and the third turned on the speaker that played the same music we heard in the lobby. Sexy, sexy, sexy! It was all Sam and Lebn could do to keep their hands off of each other. Heehee
We dropped our things and immediately hit the streets to find the jugglers. Folks we´d met along the road had been telling us over and over again that the best jugglers in South America could be found in Santiago, and that they all generally meet at Parque Forestal on Sundays. Coincidentally, it was Sunday, and we soon found out that folks were not exaggerating. Before our evening there was through we´d probably seen over 50 incredible jugglers (6 and 7 club, devil stick, hat tricks, etc.) and the atmosphere was like that of a giant block party. There was music, and drinks, and crowds of non-jugglers hanging-out and perusing the many vendors, Chilean hipster kids selling used clothes. It was strange. All you could by was used clothes, juggling props, and food. And judging from the smell in the air, plenty of marijuana. It was like the best juggling convention I´ve ever been to (no, 2nd best after Lopez), and it happens every Sunday. It was a great introduction to the city. We taught some clowns we´d seen do a show the Round-a-bout and they taught us too many things to remember. They found out that we were interested in going to a town on the coast called Valparaiso, and they invited us to stay at a circus friendly joint they knew of and were heading to the next day. We´d made plans to spend the day doing some touristy things with a native of the city, a friend of ours named Max, that we met in El Bolson, so we said we´d meet them there the day after.
The day with Max was great as Santiago is a wonderful, beautiful city. And its so nice to see a city with a local that shares your interests and sensibilities. As much as I like discovering a city through exploration, its great to be taken to all the best spots that a local has spent their lifetime discovering, without all the trial and error. We saw an old Spanish fort, the mint where they make most South American money, a beautiful cathedral, and lots of sprawling markets with cheap everything. We ended the day climbing a mountain with a big Virgin Mary statue at its apex to get a view of the city and the sunrise. Pictures of these things should be coming soon. The next day we caught a bus to Valparaiso, where I now sit, and it has proven to be my favorite experience on the trip thusfar, but as I long to get back to it, I´m going to have to relate it later. Ooooo... a cliffhanger...

Walking to Chile, or, God bless Germans

2007-02-28T07:07:00.000-08:00

After much debate - mostly involving time and money, though I´ll spare you the boring details - we decided to head to Chile and then North instead of going deeper into Patagonia. Warmth and beaches had a greater call than cold and mountains.
We left El Bolson on... I can´t remember... what day is it now? Anyway... we left El Bolson by walking to the gas station at the edge of town and sticking our thumbs out. Needless to say, most drivers are somewhat reluctant to pick up three, male, and ragged-looking hitchhikers, so we decided to split up and meet in Bariloche. I eventually managed a ride in the back of a pickup truck, and Lebn and Sam got rides an hour later with some truckers. The drive was lovely in the back of that truck, I´ve always been fond of riding in a truck bed, but unfortunately, the driver´s stop was 10 kilometers outside of town. I hoofed half of it and caught a city bus the rest of the way and made it to our meeting spot about 20 minutes before Lebn and Sam who were dropped off within the city limits.
We inquired about a bus to Chile and discovered that, as it is the end of the summer holiday here, buses were booked for days with vacationing Chileans returning home. We hemmed and hawed for a day and a half about what to do next, and decided to ride the local buses as far as we could then hitch the rest of the way. We made it to a sign that said Chile was 30 kilometers away and decided that instead of just waiting in the middle of nowhere, we´d start walking, thumbs in the air. It was 7pm when we started. We walked 10 kilometers without a ride in sight. It was dark when we decided to camp. We set up close to the side of the road with a couple of guys from Chile who were also hitching. We cooked dinner and got more water from a river that was about 25 meters away and went to sleep on the soft earth. It was a pretty great place to camp.
We woke up early the next day, fully prepared to walk the 20 kilometers that separated us from the border, where we felt confident we could get a ride from all of the cars stopped to go through customs because, as anyone who´s ever hitched before knows, unless you´re a girl (and even if you are), it´s a lot easier to get a ride if you´re talking face to face with someone than if you´re just a thumb on the side of the road.
After about 2 or 3 kilometers though, we reached the first border checkpoint. It was the one for the Argentina side, the Chilean check was the farther one. After about 10 minutes, all three of us got a ride crammed in the back of a pickup truck rented by a nice German couple on their way to some hot springs. Once again, the view from the back of the truck was spectacular. There were tremendous cliffs, lush forests all around us and towering, snow-capped volcanoes in the distance. The German couple was so nice, that they took us past the hotel where they were staying, another 15 kilometers or so, to a gas station where it would be easier for us to catch a ride.
It had one pump and was still out in the middle of nowhere. We spoke to the gas station attendant and learned that there was a bus that was coming by soon that could take us to the center of the small town we were on the outskirts of, but we had no Chilean pesos with which to purchase our fare. But the attendant was nice enough to trade 4 American dollars that I still had in my wallet for the 2000 Chilean pesos we would need and the bus arrived not 5 minutes later. Once on the bus, we learned that, for 400 pesos more than we had, we could ride it all the way into the next major city. We offered to buy more pesos on the bus, but there weren´t any takers, then the driver said we could work it out when we got there.
One passenger on the bus though, apparently took pity on our plight, and gave us a bag with a liter of beer and three unidentified canned meats without saying a word. I bumped into him yesterday and found out he was German too and didn´t speak Spanish or English very well through a hodgepodge of the three languages. But anyway...
So we were in the town of Osorno, deciding what to do next, looking through our travel book and some notes and recommendations that friendly Chileans had given us on the way, and decided to inquire about tickets to a town called Valdivia. The ticket agent said there was a bus that was supposed to be leaving right then, but hadn´t arrived yet. We decided to continue on the travel wave we were riding, bought the tickets, and have been here for two days now. It´s lovely, on two rivers, and very close to the coast. So... after 2 pickup trucks, 2 big rigs, 5 buses and a lot of walking, we made it further than the booked buses in Bariloche would have taken us, at a third of the cost, and we beat them to our destination. Not bad for a bunch of gringos.
And today we´re going to the beach.

PICTURES!!!

2007-02-28T07:03:00.000-08:00

There are pictures online and, as soon as I get the password to the account, I´ll add them to this page with tags explaining them. But, until then, you can go to this link to see them if you like:
http://flickr.com/photos/lebnjay

What´s the Spanish word for steep?

2007-02-21T18:59:00.000-08:00

We just returned from a 4-day, 3-night backpacking trip in the mountains near El Bolson. It had been awhile since I´d done a serious hike - longer since I did it with any weight on my back - and I´m still feeling in my legs. Sam and Lebn are too though, so I don´t feel like too much of a wuss.
The trail started simply enough, following a river along a valley, crossing it on a rickety, old bridge. But, after we got to the other side and had some lunch, things took a dramatic turn. Apparently the concept of the switchback has not yet reached the trailblazers in this area of Argentina. There were some spots along the way that felt more like rock climbing than hiking. All in all, it was about 6 hours until we reached our destination and a breathtaking view of a funnel-shaped snow field, on the side of a mountain pointing down toward the green, marshy meadow where we took our lunch and a well-deserved rest.
We set up camp at a refugio just a few meters further down the trail. They have bunks available, if you just want to hike up with a sleeping bag, as well as some hot food and homemade beer, all just outside our budget. We set up our tents and cooked the food we brought. It was a cold night, due largely to the wind coming from the direction of the small glacier just on the other side of the peak.
The next morning we set off for our next destination, the valley next door. Somehow, some members of our party got the impression that this was to be an easier, more level excursion, and for about 200 meters or so, it was. Then we went straight up one side of the mountain, and straight down the other side. I´m not sure which side was harder, but the scenic vistas and instances where my life flashed before my eyes were far greater on the descent. The end of the trek was the best though. We finally made it down to the next river and followed it - scrambling over some rocks and needing a ladder in one place - to a small, extremely high bridge, that spanned a narrow canyon carved out by the river. I hope to have pictures up of all of this soon.
We finally arrived at the next refugio, and I can´t be certain that my brain was still functioning properly at this point, but I´ve never seen a more beautiful place. The green meadow of a lush valley. A sturdy wooden farm house, smoke coming from the chimney. Lush garden. Cows, horse, pigs and kittens. There was complimentary mate or tea when we walked through the door and any time we wanted for the next two days.We decided to stay there for two nights, we liked it so much, using it as base camp the next day.
We hiked out on day four and while it had a lot of incline, it was nothing like our first two. We all jumped off of a small cliff into the icy river on the way and sunned ourselves on some rocks before high-tailing it to catch our bus back into town. When we got back to Ruben´s we dropped our gear and treated ourselves to a steak dinner. Well, I had steak.

El Bolson - We found the hippies.

2007-02-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

Wednesday – February 7

We arrived in El Bolson shortly after dark and proceeded to search for a place to stay that some people in Bariloche had recommended to us. After an hour of wandering the streets of this small town, and asking several people we encountered if they´d ever heard of the place (most hadn´t), we finally found our destination. There are two small houses on an unmarked street that rent space in their backyards (along with access to the kitchen and bathroom) to travelers with tents and sometimes those without. We´d heard that the vibe (o en Espanol, la onda) was very different in both places. We arrived late and the ¨buena onda¨ was full. The ¨mala onda¨ wasn’t that bad though, just a little strange. I don´t know how to explain it other than it was a large family without a lot of love shared. The other campers in the yard were cool though, and that night we went with them and some from next door to a giant circus tent to see a variety show. It was then that we fully realized we´d fallen head first into a hippie town. It was like going to a show in Bellingham. There were dreadlocks and beards, legwarmers and skirts over pants. Buena onda. And the show was really fun too. We got there at intermission so they let us in for free. There was comedy and music, and most importantly, juggling. A great introduction to El Bolson. Its also fun to note that the Spanish word for hippie, is hippie.

Thursday & Friday

We awoke on Thursday to a spectacular view. El Bolson is located in a lush valley, nestled at the foot of an impressive mountain range to the West. The smaller range to the East is less impressive, but the snow-capped peaks that lie beyond them more than make up for it. We did what we always do in a new place, and headed to the center of town. In the summertime, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday (and unofficially Sunday) there is a large artesanal market that takes place in the major plaza, which is a huge draw for tourists itching to spend their money. This means it´s also a huge draw for artesans and street-performers who like to collect that money. This influx of people makes the hostel prices comparable to ones we found in Buenos Aires which, at the 20 pesos (6-7 dollars) a night. These, of course, are the ones the tourist office and the guidebooks tell you about, which are no longer the places we call home.
We spent our first two full days in town exploring the market, hanging out, and making new friends. Lots of artists, lots of jugglers.

Saturday – February 10

Another day spent in the market and a reunion with our Venezuelan friends who had stayed behind in Bariloche to work a little more. They hitch-hiked into town along with some of the people we met under the ramp in Bariloche. We dropped off their stuff at our place and then hit the town. Our first stop was the circus tent we went to our first night in town to see a band, Carmelo Santo. We got there late (as usual) and they let us in for free. We danced until the band stopped playing and kept dancing to the recorded music they played after until they turned that off, then it was off to a reggae show. We were very late and were hoping for free entry again, but ended up sitting, juggling and talking outside the venue until the show was over. Some folks went to a raver party after that, but the weary Americans returned home.

Sunday & Monday

We got a slow start and decided to head to a very large lake nearby to camp for a night or two. We´d heard that the camping was free after the 6 pesos entrance fee in the park, but when we arrived we found out they wanted another 8 pesos each to set up camp. No gracias. The man we spoke to assured us that there was no free camping anywhere so we decided to explore the area and or options. After exiting the pay campgrounds and fording a small river, we discovered a small opening in a thick grove of sapling willows that opened up into 300-square-feet of old river sand almost completely surrounded by the young trees. We would be safe from the wind and the unwanted eyes of passers-by. It was kind of like a magical little spot that opened up for us. And if you propped a guitar against a log just right, what little wind that did pass through the small opening, would play a sweet, soft song, with the wind in the willows as accompaniment.
The next day we took down camp, stashed our bags in the trees and hiked and swam in the cold yet refreshing waters of the brown river and the blue lake. We cooked, played cards, and stayed another night.

Tuesday & Wednesday & Thursday

We returned to town and spent some time in the plaza, reconnecting with friends and found out about another place we could stay, and shortly before dark, set out to find it. It is located in a shanty town the lines the other side of the river that runs through town. All of the homes there were clearly built by the inhabitants and almost all seemed to be works in progress. Our initial welcome with open-arms by the owners, R and N, was proof that we would be comfortable here. R wears a beret and is a big Che Guevara fan. He makes charangos, a small, Argentinian folk instrument with ten strings. Their family is large and their house is small, but its filled with love and smiles. There are so many people around – adults and small children alike – that its difficult to tell who is related to who, especially with my limited Spanish. But its all communal and it really doesn´t seem to matter, if you´re there, you´re family. The yard is bigger than the first we stayed in and this one has a river out back.
There was a birthday party for one of the kids on Tuesday, so there was music and balloon animals and we juggled a bit before going out to see a circus. It was small, but there was a great aerialist and a really fantastic bounce juggling act inside of a giant triangle that was wired for sound. When we got back home there was a fire and music and laughs out by the river, under the stars. Everyone is so warm and friendly here.
It rained most of the next day (Wed.) and all of the night so almost everyone was enjoying the fire inside the house. Needless to say, it was a full house. Many people were working on their crafts to sell, some just talked, and others played music and sang. It makes me wish I knew all the songs they sing so I can sing along too. Give me time.
But today the rain is letting up and the Sun is out and I think I´m going to go out and enjoy it.
I love you all and hope you´re doing well. You should all be here with us. Especially Jules.

Bienvenido a Patagonia

2007-02-07T08:32:00.000-08:00

We got up early Saturday and caught a hot and sweaty three-hour bus ride to a town called Viedma on the Rio Negro. After a good walk from the bus station, a dip in thte river was a welcomed relief. There were lots of families out, plenty of shade to lounge beneath, and we got so comfortable that we decided to stay the night right there. We were there for high-tide in the afternoon and took to higher ground to avoid a rude awakening sometime in the early hours. Shortly after 3 a.m. we realized we didn´t go high enough. We´ve decided the full moon was at fault. We retreated away from the river and waited for the waters to retreat to their source then slept comfortably in a still dry spot.
The next day was spent by the river too, waiting for our things to dry (Lebn´s iPod and Miguel´s camera were the only casualties though some books and other papers now have exciting new shapes) and for the 6 p.m. train that was to take San Carlos de Bariloche. The five of us shared a first-class cabin, which was not only hot, but dusty too, thanks to the desert terrain we passed through and a broken train-car door. It was an overnight trip though, and the night cooled off and we adjusted to the dust. There was a dining car to take refuge in too. I had a cup of coffee there in the morning while the others slept and saw the landscape finally start to change. The vast flatness of the desert gave way to hills, then high plains and trees, then finally, mountains in the distance. It reminded me of the drive from Phoenix to Flagstaff until those mountains came into view, and then there was the Lago Nahuel Huapi, a long and deep watered lake, rolling with waves from the wind blowing strong along its length.
Its breathtaking, but that wind has made it feel close to freezing once the sun sets. We are officially in Patagonia. It´s summer here and I´m dressing like I did in Bellingham before I left. Some of the locals assure us its been unusually cold though. It’s a touristy town, a common jumping-off point for various adventures, and we´ve met lots of jugglers and artesanas. We did what we normally do when we hit a new town and headed for the center of it to find a park or plaza there. Sure enough, before too long, we had heard about a cheap place where jugglers are known to stay. For 10 pesos a night you can throw up your tent in this lady´s yard and have use of the kitchen and bathroom. She was full though and everywhere else was at least 20 pesos which we´ve come to view as too expensive though it’s the equivalent to about 7 dollars.
We ended up hanging out at that house for most of the night anyway after meeting some jugglers who were fortunate enough to have tents in the yard. We made dinner, played music, danced, and when we got tired headed off to set up camp in a vacant lot that Lebn and Sam had discovered earlier. It was right in the middle of the city and on a hill covered with trees and over grown grass and brush, but it was like a little garden paradise. There were apple, pear, and cherry trees, as well as a few raspberry bushes, though there wasn’t much fruit on any of them. In the spot we set up camp, you couldn´t really see any hint of the surrounding civilization, and no one from it could see us.
We were planning to sleep there again last night, but we ended up hanging out under a ramp near the lake with some people, to avoid the rain and wind, and got so comfortable we stayed. The lake was a nice sight to wake up to. We should be leaving town today for a town South of here called El Bolson. It´s sunny and warmer today, but I´m still in a sweatshirt. It’s a good day to travel.

So... we´re still in Bahia Blanca

2007-02-01T09:25:00.000-08:00

It´s been kind of amazing how easily one day rolls into the next. After sleeping in the train station our first night here, we spent the entire next day hanging out in the park, occasionally talking about potentially making decisions, though when darkness fell, nothing was set. No one seemed concerned. There seems to be an overall and overwhelming consensus that everything will work out just fine. We found a pencion that had some beds available, but we also heard about a free crash pad for jugglers, but our only directions to find it were something like: "It´s over there somewhere." Lucy and Sam were walking around downtown, kind of looking for the place, but mostly wandering, when they decided to try asking someone. They stopped, turned around and the first person they asked said, "Yes. I know it. It´s my house."
Crazy! The first person they ask in a town that reportedly has about 500,000 people.
What are the odds?
And so we went to the crash pad.
I thought we´d only stay a night. I think this is the kind of assumption I need to stop making. Last night makes 4, and we´re still gathering information about getting out of here. Who knows how long it will take us to decide?
We´ve been spending our days basically the same way. Juggling is the activity we all share and therefore do most often, but then we all have our individual hobbies that fill up the rest of the time. And so the days just slip on by.
The space we´re staying in is pretty cool. It kind of reminds me of the Juggle Farm, or what the farm would have been like if it was in a giant warehouse. There´s a bunch of them where we are that were mostly abandoned when the economy tanked a few years back, though apparently, all of the utilities have remained on. Our host pays nothing for the space, and neither do we. This has definitely contributed to the fact that we´re still here.
The space is kind of dirty, which we all seem quite comfortable with, and is decorated with old circus flyers, cut-out stars and colorful swirls painted on the walls. We´ve been sleeping on mattresses scattered in one corner of the giant room that is sometimes used as a performance space. It´s a big space and must be great for shows, though I don´t think we´ll get to see one. The entrance to the building is a big sliding door adorned with stars and swirls on a muddy alley we entered through a broken-down wall also decorated with stars and old circus advertisements. There´s another sliding door on the opposite side of the building that opens onto a little backyard, patio area and some train tracks that can barely be made out through a thick patch of fennel that has overgrown as far down the tracks as I can see.
Our host is a gracious fellow named M. It´s difficult to guess his age though I´d put him past 40. He´s about 5´5", really skinny, drinks about 100 Mates a day, has scraggly hair to his shoulders, and the only thing he might love more than circus, is butt-rock. He´s a total headbanger and he´s not alone. People stop by all the time and they´re all into it too. From what we´ve heard, Argentina is big into rock and so we´ve been rocking since we got here. It was fun at first. It´s less fun now, though not unbearably so. Yet. But M is great and he seems to love having us here. His accent is kind of difficult for me to understand and even Sam has trouble with it sometimes, but we usually end up talking about music which works out. Sometimes though, and I´ve noticed this with lots of the Spanish speakers here, he´ll say a word in English, but with such a thick accent that I think it might be a Spanish word at first only to realize that he´s asking me if I know Boston, or L.A. Guns or some other crazy-hair band. Listening has become such an active part of my existence hear. It requires so much more focus.
But we should be out of here by Saturday. The cheapest way out is the train that leaves every Saturday that we just missed the Saturday before. This town isn´t the most culturally exciting, though we´ve all been pretty successful working. We´ve only done the one big group show, but we´ve all worked the stoplights at this point and its been pretty successful. More on that later. I´m hungry. Peace.

Almost to Patagonia

2007-01-27T11:17:00.000-08:00

We left Buenos Aires last night by train and awoke this morning in Bahia Blanca. The train ride was slow, but fun. My highlights included hanging out at the tail end of the train and singing Bob Marley and Beatles songs at the top of our lungs with our new Venezuelan friends Miguel and Lucy, and taking a leak in the bathroom only to watch it run down a small hole and onto the tracks below. And for those of you sick enough to wonder... yes, its the poopin hole too. I guess it doesn´t take much to entertain me.
We also got to get out of the train for a while at one point and finally see some of these Southern stars now that we´re away from the city. I saw stars I´ve never seen before, though the only constellation that I could see was the Southern Cross. We saw Orion too, though he was upside-down.
But now we are in this sleepy little town, hanging out in the park (where jugglers have been known to surface) and waiting for the stores to reopen from their siesta so we can get some food. The only things in town that are open are the Locutorios where I now sit, typing away, surrounded by teens who are ¨gaming¨ all around me.
I´ve heard that the Internet gets more scarce the further South we go - I´ve already noticed that it´s more expensive - so it may be a while before I can post again. But its almost 4:30 so I´ve got some groceries to buy and a campsite to locate. We´re thinking of somewhere along the train tracks. I love South America.

This entry is mostly for the jugglers

2007-01-23T10:57:00.000-08:00

Since our arrival, whenever we told people we were malabaristas, they almost always said we should go to the weekend market at Plaza Franzia. After our all-night adventure with Condor, we slept most of Saturday but made it there before sunset (which doesn´t happen here until about 9:30) and, sure enough found some jugglers. I thought that they would be there to make some money as it is a large artisan market full of shoppers looking to spend some money, though the jugglers we saw were just hanging out in a large open grass area in the middle. Most people were leaving when we got there, though everyone we talked to said that even more are there on Sunday.
We showed up early the next day, and sure enough, the grass filled with jugglers, musicians, and capoera aficionados. It was like being at a juggling festival and apparently it happens every weekend. We heard that most of the jugglers were out of town too, making money in the beach towns where everyone is on vacation right now. There were still a good amount there though. We met jugglers from France, Austria, Venezuela, and, of course, Argentina. The French woman was probably one of the best club swingers and contact club jugglers I´ve ever seen in person. So fluid and with so many tricks. Contact club work seems very popular and I hope to learn a bit before I return. There´s a guy and girl from Venezuela that make 5-club look easy and some of the clubs they juggle are made out of soda bottles on sticks. They´ve travelled here from Venezuela, paying for the whole trip with their juggling. It seems like the most common way to make money here is by stoplighting. At a red light, they go out into the crosswalk, do a quick routine, and collect money from the drivers before the light changes. We haven´t tried it yet but plan to before we head down to the beach in a day or two. I think our Venezuelan friends are going to join us. We´ve been hanging out with them a good deal. Good people.
After our day of juggling a big group of us went to the Observatory where they´re having concerts on the weekends. We went for the music, but also found out there´s a comet in the sky here, though its tough to see in the city. The concert was a local Blues musician and the crowd was easily a couple thousand people. But the jugglers were the only ones dancing. Ah, jugglers.

Adventure 1 - part 2

2007-01-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

Our first stop came 30 or 40 minutes into the train ride and we met our first malabarista on the platform. His name was Mora and he was about to board the train we were deboarding, but Condor convinced him to join us. We left the platform and went to what they called a Cantina. It looked like a convenience store with a table or two in the back and would be the first of many we would stop at on our journey. They sell their beer in glass bottles and only in liters. To avoid paying the deposit on the bottles, we would pour a liter or two into an empty plastic bottle that the cantina was always happy to provide. This allowed us to take beer with us everywhere we went. We´ve been told that it´s illegal to drink in the streets, but it doesn´t seem to stop anyone from doing it. We threw a couple back and juggled in the street for a while, comparing clubs, tricks, and the different things we call each, then headed out toward the ¨circus¨.
We walked a good mile or two before we got to our destination, a grassy area outside of a small office building where jugglers commonly gather to hang out. But this private circus was already abandoned when we got there. Though we all agreed that the walk alone was worth our time. We were finally getting to see the ¨real¨ parts of Buenos Aires. We´ve been staying in a more upper class section of town – though still far cheaper than most areas of the US – and now we were starting to get a taste for how the working class live; the parts of a city that only a local guide can show you. Where we were had the feeling of neighborhood and community, something you don´t feel as much in the heart of the city.
So with our destination a bust, we turned around and headed back to the train, stopping for 2 pizzas and 4 more liters of beer on the way, then back on the train.
I thought our next stop was going to be Condor´s house. Since we were out in the sticks, he offered to put us up for the night, but after a stop at another cantina, more juggling in the streets, and another long walk, we ended up at a house that had a death metal band playing in a big room with no windows. Not normally my scene, but once again, a glimpse into a part of Buenos that, without a guide, we never would have been able to see. We didn´t stay long though. I´m still not a hundred percent certain, but I think the only reason we went there was to get some papers for the mota that Condor had bought for us. I was sure we were going back to his house after we left the show. This definitely seemed like his neighborhood as he and Mora both knew people everywhere we went – at the cantina, walking down the street, at the show – always greeting them and us with the touching of cheeks and a kissing noise and a quick handshake or pat on the back. But we headed back to the train – without missing a stop back by the cantina, of course – only to find out that the trains has stopped running for the night.
Condor said we could walk or look for a car. We asked him how far of a walk it was, to which he replied, ¨Dos o tres cervezas.¨ So we walked. This would prove to be the theme of the remainder of our night. We walked a good 2 or 3 miles conversing the whole time. I´m always amazed at how much better my comprehension and speech gets after I´ve got a few beers in me. The roads slowly turned from pavement to dirt. The cantinas turned from convenience stores to what looked like people´s homes. And we kept meeting other people walking around too, who might join us for a while. Our number grew and depleted again several times. We ended up hanging out under a street lamp across the street from a house that sold beer until the sun came up, occasionally walking across the street and knocking on the window of the house to awaken the woman who lived there for more beers. We juggled the whole time and were probably met by 4 or 5 other jugglers just passing by. The trains were running again by the time we were done, so we caught one back to the city, exhausted, but happy.
I never felt unsafe. I never felt unwelcome. Just the opposite.
This is the South America that I hope to see and write about on this journey. There´s a few touristy things I want to do and see – Machu Picchu, Patagonia, the Amazon – but what I really want to see is how the people live. And who´d have thought that juggling would be the passport?

The journey begins

2007-01-22T10:59:00.000-08:00

The journey begins in Buenos Aires. It´s a beautiful city and has thusfar been the perfect portal for my acclimation to a new continent. It has all the conveniences one would expect to find in any metropolis at less than half the price you´d pay in the States. A liter of beer costs a dollar and I bought a decent traveling guitar for thirty. I´m here with two other jugglers from Washington, Lebn and Sam, and we all bought one-way tickets. We spent the first few days after arrival wandering the city, seeing some sights and juggling in the many Plazas that cover the city. We´ve mostly done this on foot, my favorite way to get to know a new city, though we have taken a bus, or collectivo, on a couple of occasions.
We´d heard before we came that there were lots of jugglers in the city, though we didn´t encounter any, outside of the two juggling shops that we visited, until we stopped in Plaza San Martin to juggle and play some music when a muchacho who called himself Condor stopped by to say hello. He did a little bit of contact juggling (that´s usually one ball that you roll around on various parts of your body for those of you who don´t speak juggle) and told us that he had many friends who were malabaristas (jugglers). He invited us for a beer and we accepted. Little did we know it would be the first of many.
On the way to get the beer he told us about a traveling circus and wanted to know if we wanted to go with him to see it. At least, I think that´s what he said. An important fact to note about this entire adventure is that my Spanish isn´t that great but it is still much better than anyone´s English that we would meet. Sam´s Spanish is pretty good though and he translates what he can for us, but who knows what´s lost and what assumptions I made from the little bits that I did understand. Regardless, we all got on a train with the knowledge that other jugglers would probably be in our future.
To be continued…
I´m going to mail a letter and meet some people in the park to juggle. But the Internet is cheap and open 24 hours, so I´ll finish my tale soon and I´ve already got another brewing.
Ciao for now.