The Sauce Thickens

Here I am, not even a month into service, in my cozy little casinera north-west of El Sauce, León, and I’m happy to say that things are going very well for me so far. I have gotten used to the pace of life down here, and it is great to feel like you’re accomplishing things and getting started on long-term visions so soon in the game, even though on an average day I do no more than three or four hours of real work. The concept of “work” has changed significantly for me as well. Good advice from current volunteers has gotten me scheduling only one item of business per day, and it’s been great. Not only am I feeling like I’m getting things done, having meetings with important collaborators, going to various local social functions and getting buddy-buddy with the local producers, doing my best to ask around and find the women’s group and local semi-government that supposedly exist, and working with parents and students to put together the vegetable garden at the local primary school, but I still have hours and hours of free time during the day, in which to read, write, play with the kids, and even watch the occasional telenovela or Dragonball Z episode with my host chavalos.

One thing that I find quite interesting is that despite my original plan and the encouragement of fellow volunteers to spend the first three months just getting to know the area, the people, the potential projects, et cetera, I have already surpassed that goal and then some. I’ve met lots of people, yes, and I hope to meet more, especially in the area of women, who I’m supposed to be working with on patio management and food processing techniques, but I’ve met lots of producers, made friends with several of the more important members of the sesame seed co-op, and, probably most concretely, I’ve gotten together a youth group made up of fifth and sixth grades in the primary school, had a meeting and begun work on the vegetable garden. Granted, the school parents had already decided to make the vegetable garden and, in all honesty, they are the ones doing most of the work to get it together. However, me coming along and organizing the kids will be a great help in maintaining the garden, as well as giving me a chance to build relationships with them and teach them about everything from garden creation and maintenance to nutritional values, commercialization and added-value food processing techniques. Hooray for youth groups!

If this one goes well (which I’m sure it will), I plan on starting another youth group at the secondary school in Las Palmas, though probably not until the end of the rainy season, at which point the opportunities to do agriculture-related activities will drop dramatically. That’s ok though, I’m looking forward to just playing games, teaching them how to dance, maybe even sing and read music. I guess it all really depends on what they want.

The one area that’s lacking my attention at this point is the women. At times I feel like it’s almost insurmountable. When working with the moms on the garden, they barely talk to me, and answer my questions and comments with very short and quiet replies. I know that the more time I spend with them the more open they will be, and in order to really build confianza I have to go out and meet them at their own houses and spend time shooting the shit with them, preferably while the male is out of the house. Several times when I’ve been at someone’s house I’ve wanted to talk to the woman but she always bows out of the room when the male sits down, and I fall into the SOP of men chatting with men, women chatting with women.

They emphasize the difficulties for female volunteers working with men in the community, but they never really talk about male volunteers working with women, which seems strange. The program itself is designed around working with women in the patio, and youth in the schools and patios. A female volunteer really doesn’t have to work with men if she doesn’t want to, and from the stated goals and objectives of the PC Nicaragua Ag program, they really shouldn’t be working with men anyways. Maybe give the occasional charla on contour lines and live-/dead-barriers, organic fertilizer and other methods to curb soil erosion and other environmentally nasty issues, but the regular work, family and school vegetable gardens, value-added food processing, patio management, all revolves around the “ama de casa,” the doña. I’m finding the most challenging part of my job is gaining confianza with the women. If there already is a groupo de mujeres like my documents purport, this would be very helpful in overcoming this challenge for me, as it seems building confianza with women around here is easier done in a group setting than individually, as they have a chance to talk behind my back right in front of me, getting the whole talking-behind-my-back step out of the way immediately. But if it doesn’t exist, and Peace Corps expects me to organize one myself, I may be up a bit of a creek…

But honestly, if I have two active youth groups and a sesame seed cooperative that I’m working with on a regular basis, does that not seem like enough to keep myself busy? If I do end up building an oven here at my host mom’s house I will invite women across the land to come see us build it and learn about it’s great benefits, and maybe more will want one. Any project that I do that may be a benefit to the women I will invite them to, but I just can’t see myself organizing a group of women around anything from scratch right now, I just don’t think I have enough capacity to do that without a female counterpart who wants to help—which I don’t have. The only female counterpart listed in my information is the treasurer of the sesame seed co-op. Sure, I’ll talk to her about some ideas eventually, but she might already be too busy with keeping her house and the house of the co-op to do any outside organizing. I guess that remains to be seen.

Anyways, enough complaining about women. Three weeks in and I’m getting stuff done, that’s all that matters to me. I’m surpassing expectations, as far as I see it, and by the end of these three months I’ll not only have a thriving vegetable garden at the school, but I will have a functioning youth group who already know the benefits of vegetables, have begun learning rudimentary English and know how to salsa. With any luck I’ll have come across some added-value techniques for sesame seeds that I’ll be able to teach to the co-op members, and maybe I’ll even get that older kids youth group started down the road. Eat your heart out, Peace Corps.

--------
UPDATE!

My host mom just got back from a six hour long meeting with the alcaldia (municipal mayor’s office) about empowering women, and after talking with her a bit I have found out that there is in fact no grupo de mujeres, but she seems somewhat committed to at least putting an organizing meeting together and getting things started. Small at first, of course, but hopefully if we can get our act together (read: if I can get them to want to put effort in) we can organize an official bono productivo and get some funding from the government, maybe to build ovens or some other way to make value-added products. It is a long road to glory, isn’t it?

3 months down... 2 years to go!

It has been quite a while since my last post, and for that I am truly sorry. But what an adventure it has been! I’ve barely had time to send the occasional email home to the parents and update my facebook status! On top of the daily intensive language classes, agricultural training sessions and bouts with various types of sickness (granted only a couple, and nothing warranting a trip to the pharmacy, gracias a dios), I’ve had the opportunity to visit several large cities (including Masaya, Jinotepe, Diriamba, and, of course, Managua), an active volcano, a volcanic lagoon, the pacific ocean, the mountainous terrain of Nueva Segovia. I’ve learned about how to grow all different types of plants, including how to graft citrus and mango together to make some really crazy hybrid fruits, where cashew nuts come from (and how to make wine from its fruit), all about basic grains, their various plagues and how to combat them, vegetable and tree farms, how to make ovens and wood stoves out of bricks, mud and a metal barrel, and even how to make tofu! I’ve roasted coffee beans, made friends with the director of the local school, joked with my 80 year old host grandmother about compost made from human waste, attended a catholic funeral procession with nearly the entire pueblo—while carrying a shovel and watering bucket, nonetheless—and I’m even in the process of adopting a little kitten that was born right around the time we arrived in Nicaragua. And all of this in 8 short weeks! It’s hard to believe that this could all happen in such a short amount of time, but at the same time it has gone by all too fast. In only 2 more weeks I will be saying goodbye to my training town, to my lovely compañeros, Jeffrey, Danielle and Pamela, to my host family, to the training team, and, for all intents and purposes, to the peace corps corporate structure in general. It’s hard to say goodbye, but after the past five days, I now have an idea of what to look forward to, and it’s looking pretty damn good.

Last Wednesday was the day of our site assignments. Apparently it has been tradition in the Small Business group for everyone to put brackets together guessing who was going where and all put some pesos into a pool. We didn’t know they were doing this until the weekend before the assignment day, so it was too late to do a pool of our own, but nonetheless our jefes decided to turn it into quite the fun little guessing game.

First, once we were all assembled, they had us all stand in groups by region, based on where we thought we were going. For us Aggies, there were only two regions to choose from: The Pacific region (León/Chinandega) and the central region (Nueva Segovia/Jinotega/Estelí). Once we were all where we thought we should be, Bayardo, our Program Director, told us how many people weren’t where they were supposed to be, but not who. So, being thoroughly confused for the entire process, we ended up with one person in the Central region that should have been in the Pacific region, but we couldn’t figure out who it was (I was almost certain I was going Central at the time).

Then came the announcements. They started with the Pacific region, and after a few rounds they came to the one Ag site where the assigned volunteer wasn’t already standing up there, a tiny pueblo near El Sauce called Los Panales, in the northern part of León. The description of this site included a fair amount about a recently formed cooperative based around sesame seeds that needed help building organizational capacity, and so, being the co-op fanatic that I am, I put it down as one of my top three sites, but I also told them I’d rather be in a larger city, more concentrated and whatnot, so I wasn’t really expecting that to be my site. But once it came up and no one was called at first, people began guessing random other aggies (someone said my name first but the person presenting the site didn’t hear her) and my smile began to rise as it became more and more sure that this was going to be my site… and sure enough, it was!

So hooray, I’ve got my site, song and dance, too-rah-loo. Now to see what it’s really like. Two days later, after barely enough time to read the more complete site description (in Spanish) and get my bags packed, we head up to Estelí for our meetings with our community and INTA (National Technical Institute of Agriculture) counterparts. We get there in time for lunch, and after a delicious meal of chicken and cabbage salad (along with the obligatory beans and rice), we meet together in the conference room with all the community and INTA people. Of course, we don’t know who any of them are, and they don’t know us, so of course we have to play another guessing game!

I start roaming around the room asking people if they knew anyone from the El Sauce area or Los Panales and everyone gives me blank stares and passes me by. After a while of this, I locate Fran, who is the ag volunteer from my group assigned to the city of El Sauce (living with her husband, Richard, a small business volunteer). Fran has already found a couple of people, so I go ask them if they know where my counterparts are. As it turns out, one of the people she was with was Witmar, my INTA counterpart/technician. Jolly fellow, seemed to enjoy talking and joking around a lot but also seemed fairly serious about his job (good stuff, but not that surprising. He’s only been with INTA 9 months and it seems he’s already gunning for his boss’s job). The other person was one of Fran’s counterparts in the “programa de amor,” which works with women to build vegetable gardens in their patios to increase nutrition and add a little income to the family budget.

After brief introductions Witmar informs me that my community counterpart, who also happens to be the President of the sesame seed Co-op, and whose name is Ángel, couldn’t come because, according to Witmar, his house was also the local health center and he was needed to help out there, or something. Also, the counterpart of Fran’s who was supposed to come didn’t show up either, for one reason or another, so I started pondering the various ways everything could go horribly wrong, or at least be horribly difficult to get started (no one in the community understanding what Peace Corps does, or how to relate with someone from the States, et cetera…). Whoopee, freakout time! But “no te preocupes” says Witmar, and whatever, as much as I like having plans and planning, I can work just as well by the seat of my pants. Just a minor setback, it’ll all work out fine in the end, I’m sure. It always seems to, down here in the land of Lakes and Volcanoes.

The next day we set out on our journey to the municipality of El Sauce. Some guys from INTA were kind enough to give me a ride most of the way, at least to the highway that splits off in León to head north up to El Sauce, while Claudio led the way in the Peace Corps Mobile full of other León-based volunteers and their counterparts (including Fran and her program of love lady). We sat down at the bus stop there at the intersection and eventually boarded a bus jam-packed with Nicas. They threw my big backpack up on top of the bus and I had to find space in the overhead compartments for my other two bags, both weighing more than an 8-year-old boy. Hooray, already going against the suggestions of Peace Corps about keeping your bags close… something’s going to get stolen for sure. It took us an hour to get up that one stretch of road, through a whole lot of campo and not much else. Talk about remote! But still, once we got there, there was a fully functioning town at the end of the road, complete with electricity, a bus station with posted schedules, plenty of stores to buy clothes, plastic housewares, food and what-have-you. Even full-bar coverage of both cell phone providers and at least three internet cafés! The only things El Sauce is lacking, as far as I can tell, is a post office and an ATM, two things I, unfortunately, am unable to live without. Looks like I’ll be making occasional trips out to León city after all…

So thankfully my site isn’t anywhere near Managua, or any of the other tourist centers, for that matter, so thieves are pretty much unheard of up there. What’s the point of robbing other poor people, right? All my stuff made it to El Sauce intact and together, but of course, being the campo, no one can really be trusted to keep a schedule. Not to mention the fact that last Saturday was the national “celebrate liberation from Somoza” day in all the municipal heads, so everyone was drinking and dancing and shooting off bottle rockets and having a generally dandy ol’ time.

We were supposed to meet the head of the INTA office there when we arrived, but of course it was all closed off and he, along with the rest of the INTA staff, was at the party getting borracho, instead of answering their phones. Thankfully, our program de amor lady (whose name is really weird and I’ll probably never remember) knew where Juan José (the INTA director) lived, so we walked over to his house, all our stuff in tow. We got there, sat down, exhausted, and waited for probably 20 or 30 minutes until an INTA truck carrying Juan José and several other people, who may or may not have worked with INTA, arrived. Whether he had forgotten that we were coming or not was hard to determine, but he clearly was not happy about having to do work-related stuff on this day of festivities. So I throw all my stuff in the back of the truck and get in with him and the driver. We head off down the road and Juan José first informs me about the party and then tells me that we need to go drink beers, but that I have to pay for them. 10 dollars, he tells me. 10 dollars! May not sound like much to you, but that’s 200 pesos and nearly a third of all the money I had for that week. Not to mention the fact that I didn’t want to be totally trashed when I arrived at my host family’s house for the first time. So I told him I didn’t have that kind of money and he seemed a little disappointed. Once we got to the town square where the party was (apparently it was over, everything was being packed up as we drove by), Juan José got out, gave directions to the guy driving the truck and bid us farewell. We drove along and chatted for a bit about the area and his job and whatnot (he, also, seemed like he didn’t want to be there), but we managed to make it out to my house, and all things considered, the journey went quite well. I only ended up spending about 17 pesos on travel, when I had been budgeted something like 110, so that was nice. And I got to see a bit of El Sauce, the only city-like location within at least 70 kilometers.

Now a bit about my host family in Los Panales. It turns out my host dad is the secretary of the Cooperative, and on very good terms with Ángel, el presidente, who we went to meet Sunday afternoon. He and his wife, Petrona, live in a three-house compound with a whole host of children and grandchildren. All in all I estimate there are between 10 and 13 people who live in the three houses, not including myself, and they range the gamut from somewhere around 4 little kids under 10, 4 youth between 11 and 15, a 23 year old guy and a woman I’m guessing is around 27 or 28. It’s quite large compared to the family I’m with here in my training town, and I absolutely love it! The kids are always around to entertain and be entertained by, there are always extended family members coming to visit (their compound is right in the middle of the community), and Doña Tona, as she likes to be called, even went out and bought limes to make lime and jamaica fresco with for me when I told her I liked frescos! They’ve got all kinds of trees, flower bushes, a vegetable garden, chickens, dogs, a cat, and plenty of space for more in their patio. Tona wants to plant coffee trees under the big trees she planted 12 years ago (there were no trees or anything on the land when she got there). I told her I’d get my friends up in coffee country to donate to the cause.

Sunday, the day after I arrived in town, I went out to the baseball field with my host brother-in-law Bernardo, who also plays for one of the local teams, to watch the game. It was a team from Los Panales against a team from El Sauce proper. Bernardo was fully immersed in the game, so I went about myself, introducing myself to various people and meeting them in return (and then promptly forgetting their names…). I met a guy who works for the one of the cooperatives in El Sauce, I met several guys who lived in the area and worked the land, including a couple cheles (nica for white people) who apparently grew up there, several teenagers, the local gay, and a drunkard from El Sauce. Several people invited me to come out and play soccer with them the next afternoon. I told them I would come if I could.

Monday morning we had a meeting with INTA at 10. There are only two buses that pass by my house to El Sauce a day. Once at 8am and once again at noon. If I want to get back to my house from the city after noon I have to take a bus to the intersection of the highway to Achuapa and the road that goes off towards Panales and walk the last 2 kilometers or so. So I show up at 8:30 in El Sauce and call Fran up, and low and behold, she’s got a stomach sickness! I make my way over to her place and we call both Witmar and Juan José and leave messages with both of them, but neither call us back. Well, we figure, if they can’t get their act together to call us, then what’s the point trying to meet with them? They probably won’t even be at the office.

So instead we head out to the local laboratory where Fran took her stool sample earlier that day to get analyzed to pick up the results, relay them to the peace corps medical staff, and then head over to the pharmacy to pick up some antibacterial pills and rehydration salts. In the process of all this I meet Fran’s host family, which seems to be equally as large as my own (including one daughter who seems pretty keen to catch my eye), we run into the local small business PC volunteer (who was in a panic trying to get all her stuff together before moving out on Thursday), we meet another local gringo who works for some New York university teaching English classes and doing educational activities up in the mountains, find the local Eskimo ice cream shop, and thoroughly miss our appointment with INTA.

I headed out at 12:15 to catch the 12:30 bus back to Panales, only to find once I got there that the 12:30 bus had left at 12:10 and the next one didn’t leave until 7am the next day. The next bus to Achuapa left at 2, so I decided to wait around for that one and called my host mom to tell her to meet me at the bus station at 2:30. Well, the 2pm bus actually left around 1:45 and got to my bus stop a little after 2, but as I began walking up the 2 km stretch to my house a couple guys on bicycles came along and one of them offered me a ride on the middle bar of his bike. So an hour walk turned into a 10 minute bike ride that only hurt my butt a little, and I not only got home before anyone had even left to meet me at the station, but I also got to meet a couple more teenagers who could end up being part of my youth group! My family was all surprised and seemingly a bit relieved.

So after a bit of relaxing at the house, playing spin-top with the boys and chatting with the girls, an INTA truck comes up the driveway. Oh no! They’re going to be so mad we missed the meeting! But oh yeah, I’m in Nicaragua, this kind of stuff happens all the time. No one seemed all that angry, and I got to meet a couple more program of love ladies and talk with them a bit about how we were going to go about setting up family vegetable gardens in the community, while Witmar joked around with the family. We set up a meeting time for the next afternoon at 5pm, since I was going down there anyways.

Which brings me to Tuesday. Tuesday morning I pretty much just chillaxed and read until after lunch. I had to travel back to my training site on Wednesday, and the easiest way to get to Managua was to take one of the Achuapa-Managua route buses. Only problem with that was that there were only two, once that passed by the 2km bus stop at 4:00am and left El Sauce at 4:45, and another that passed by around 12:30. If I wanted to sleep in Los Panales Tuesday night I would have had to leave my house at 3am and walk 2km in the middle of the night to the bus stop. To my great fortune, however, Fran has an extra bed in her house (which I will probably end up taking advantage of a fair amount in the future, considering how infrequently those busses to Los Panales run), so I decided to head out to the Sauce Tuesday afternoon. After getting out to the bus stop (the driver of the local bus was sick that day) and taking the bus into town I headed over to Fran’s and hung out a while with Evelyn, until Fran and her husband Richard (who has temporarily changed his name to Ricardo, much more suave, ¿verdad?) returned from their little walk around the block. After they came back we went around getting to know the town a little better and met one of Fran’s host sisters (Linda) who runs a hardware store just a block away from her house. It turns out Linda’s husband has a finca out in Los Panales, and he also has a truck, so maybe I’ll be able to bum some rides from him in the future, which would be nice. They also offered the extra bedroom over there to me if my place with the familia grande doesn’t work out, so that was extra nice. We’re gonna go over there sometime and have a barbecue. And on top of all that, Linda has offered to help me find someone to build a trunk for me to keep my valuables in! Don’t want those little kids in my house playing with my expensive computer, now do we? Thank god for confianza and family connections.

The meeting with INTA was interesting, if fairly uneventful. Juan José and Witmar sat there with their cigarettes and whenever Fran mentioned something specific they were quick to blow it up into more general terms. And whenever they started talking specifics, Fran would counter with her desire to just spend the first few months getting to know the area and the people and whatnot. It was kinda funny. I didn’t say much.

That evening Fran and Ricardo went to look at a fridge that the former business volunteer was trying to get rid of and Evelyn managed to convince me to go out with her to meet a couple of her best friends. We took a mototaxi over to one friend’s house and hung out for probably 10 minutes or so, but I was tired and had to wake up before the crack of dawn the next morning so we didn’t stay long. Her friend had a son who looked to be around 5 or 6, and her husband was off in the states working “mojado” in Miami, but I guess things were going alright so far, since she had a pretty nice house all to herself. They’re going to throw me a birthday party there with dance music and a piñata and everything! But they’re evangelical and, from the looks of it, don’t drink, so we’ll have to make sure my birthday party in Panales is hosted by some less morally sound individual. The other friend didn’t make it in time, but we saw her as we were driving back in the mototaxi and got the driver to wait a minute while we introduced ourselves to each other and she apologized profusely for taking so long to put her clothes on. Oh girls…

I went to bed early that night and fell asleep pretty promptly, even with the loud pool hall right across the street. Every time I go to bed I think “man, I could use some ear plugs,” but then I just fall asleep anyways and by the time I wake up again all I hear is the dogs and the roosters. Life could be worse.

So the next day I spent all morning traveling. 3 and a half hours to Managua, another 2 to Masatepe. Once there I was famished, so I walked down to the bakery and had some pineapple bread and Fanta naranja, then headed over to the cyber but the internet all over town was out, alas. No internet, no phones to the states, all that was left was to buy some toothpaste and toilet paper and head back to my pueblo. I got home around 10:45am and, after unpacking the few things I came back with and bucket-bathing myself, I hit the hammock and read the newspaper. Tonight I’m going to see how everyone else’s visits went.

The one thing that struck me most was that the information packet I got about Los Panales said it only had 400 people living in it. As it turns out, there are actually 2 Los Panaleses, and between the two of them there are actually more people living there than in El Sauce city! The other thing is that it is SUPER campo. There’s at least a kilometer between each house (or cluster, as the case may be), and if you want to walk anywhere you’re going to be walking for at least half an hour. So I’m going to have to buy a bike. Or maybe a horse. Bike’s are cheaper, but horses are cooler. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Spread out and small feeling, but several communities to work with, so there is lots of potential. The next few months are going to be fun.

Nueva pais, nuevas experiencias

Well here I am, only three days into training and already loving it. They've got wireless here at the orientation retreat, so I'm going to write a post now, seeing as how we're leaving tomorrow and I may not have this reliable internet access in quite a long time. Where to begin.....

Nicaragua is amazing! Staging in DC was intense and brief, and we will never again interact with the people who trained us, though we did get a chance to meet all the big wigs in the central Peace Corps system, which was kinda cool. Other than that, I would say it was fairly useless. Everything that directly applied to us was repeated within the first couple days of our retreat here in Managua, but more applicable and valid. The DC trainers pretended like they knew what they were talking about, the Nica trainers actually knew what they were talking about. But whatever, they gave us all $120 for our one night out on the town and the travel to Nicaragua, along with the $60 I got as reimbursement for the plane ticket to DC (sorry mom and dad, I asked them if they could reimburse you, but they gave it to me in cash so that wasn't really an option), so I suddenly had a ton of money that I didn't need, leading to several extravagant and unnecessary purchases, including an expensive dinner in Georgetown and several snacks for the plane ride that I haven't even opened yet. And I still have $85 american dollars! I suppose once we're set up with bank accounts I'll be able to deposit it in there and translate it to córdobas (nica currency) so I can actually use it here.

Oh so much to talk about! Everyone in my training group is super awesome, very outgoing, friendly, easy to talk to, it's just great. Interesting fact: along with being the 50th training group in Nicaragua since the program restarted in 1991 (equipo de oro! woo!), our Ag group is the first to be trained in May (instead of September), the first to go through training with Small Business Development trainees (used to be with environment peeps), and the first to do our PST (pre-service training) in villages to the south of Managua (instead of in the north, near Estelí). What this makes me think is that our posts will probably be in the south as well, since they've been talking about expanding the ag program down there instead of being focused in the northwest and north-central. This is a bit of a double-edged sword, in my opinion. On one hand, I'm excited that I'll probably be starting my own program, instead of picking up where some other volunteer left off. On the other, I have a feeling my site will be in the south (maybe in the same area as my training town), which means no horses. Sadness.

So I just got my training family assignment, and how exciting it is! My mom's name is Fanny, I've got a 23-year-old brother named Eduardo, and 2 sisters, one 25 and one 16 or so. An 80-year old grandmother and no father (one of the volunteers guesses he either lives in Costa Rica or the States) evens it out. They live in a small village in the south of Masaya department, about half an hour south of Managua (sorry, can't post specifics here, for fear of stalkers and whatnot). I'm definitely gonna get Eduardo to show me the local hotspots and teach me some sweet soccer moves. It's gonna be awesome.

Que más.... we went on a tour of Managua today, and now I'm thinking the reason they waited until our last day to give the tour was to make us realize how crappy this town is and get us even more excited to get the hell out. It truely is quite a sight, there's a huge shanty town right next to the capital, that apparently was constructed by a bunch of protesters a long time ago and just stayed up. Buses packed to the brim with commuters, taxis with 3 or 4 families squashed inside, motorcycles weaving between cars, official-looking guards with big guns around anything that looks valuable or governmental, sandinista graffiti and billboards all over the place, trash in the streets, cows and donkeys roaming about, urban poverty at its best. I can't wait to get out to my training site. I think I'll be able to handle the bucket showers and latrines.

Okay, I have to wrap up this blog now, got some euchre games awaiting. Por fin, I'd just like to reiterate how damn excited I am about all of this. The next three months are going to be ridiculously busy and intense, but once I get to my site I am going to rock some worlds. Woohoo booyakasha!

Oh, PS, it turns out regular post is much more reliable for packages than FedEx or DHL, according to the volunteers. Just get a flat-rate box from USPS and pack it as full as possible. Here's my mailing address for the next three months:
Travis Jones
Cuerpo de Paz
A.P. #3256, Managua
Nicaragua

Paz!

Home Again...

I'm back in Ann Arbor! Well, I have been since Saturday, but it's been super busy and I haven't had time to post. Even now I should be doing other things, so I'm going to keep it short. I'm back, and sad that I had to say goodbye to the open road. But it's for the best, I've got a bunch of stuff to take care of before I leave for the Peace Corps. 27 months is a looooong time!

So yeah, now I'm spending time with friends, getting paperwork done for Peace Corps, sorting out my wants and needs for the next 27 months and getting everything settled and ready to go. I'll report on the rest of my road trip within the next week or two, I just wanted to shoot out a quick holler so y'all aren't worried I've forgotten about you.

Talk soon!

Plans Changing...

I'm going to take another pause from the normal blogging updates to write about a very significant event that happened yesterday and the ramifications it will have on my trip. Yesterday, my invitation to the Peace Corps finally arrived! The low-down skinny is that I will be a "rural development extensionist" in some super-rural community in either the north-central highlands or the pacific lowlands of Nicaragua. Orientation starts on May 12th and, from the looks of it, I'll be heading out to Nicaragua on the 13th or 14th to begin the three-months pre-service training. The service period will be August 1, 2009 through July 29, 2011. So if you want to come visit, do it in between those dates (plenty of time, right?).

From what I can gather, rural development extensionist basically means I'll be working with families to develop their agricultural gains, build community, teach lifeskills to kids, and generally help them improve their quality of life. According to the pamphlet, it's an "overarching approach" that involves everything from value-added techniques to agribusiness to integrated patio management, and I'll probably be responsible for working on all five project areas at the same time (which hopefully doesn't mean I'll be spread too thin to actually make meaningful change...). There are currently 35 volunteers that work on the project, so I'll have 34 americans around the country to keep me from going totally native.

I don't know what else to say about the assignment right now. I've got a lot of reading to do about the country, the program, the preparations and whatnot, maybe once I get through all that I'll have formed better opinions on the whole plan and hopefully will be less anxious about what comes next. My dad overnighted the packet to my cousin at Stanford, so I'll pick it up there for further reading.

Which brings us back to this road trip I'm on now. Seeing as how I ship out eight weeks from today, I need to get back to Ann Arbor asap to get all my preparations ready, tie up my loose ends and say goodbye to all my homies. So it looks like I won't be able to make it all the way up to Canada, much less the Pacific Northwest more generally. Instead, the plan now is to spend the weekend in the Bay area and start heading back East on Monday. So the planned drive back will start with a night in Vegas, a night at some national park in Utah, then Boulder, Omaha, and Chicago before heading back home (maybe visiting my bro in Allendale on the way). I'm gonna try to keep at a fairly quick pace too, since I would like to be home before the end of March. Gotta get my ducks in a row!

Oh and also, now that I know I'm going to a spanish speaking country, I really gotta get back to working on my Spanish. So I'll actually listen to the Michel Thomas CDs I put on my iPod on the drive back. Español, here I come!

Ok, my computer battery is about to die so I'll leave it at that for now. Wish me luck, and if you have any advice for stops along the drive back, let me know! Ciao for now...

Ode to a Cactus

I found my poem, yay! I wrote this in the middle of the Sonoran desert. It's deep.

--------

Ode to a Cactus

Cactus cactus, touch the sky
Desert Organ, sing so high
Though at times you may get lonely
Don't forget the other cactii just nearby

O sir Cactus, rising high
I can chart my last two weeks on your body
From nub to root.
Like a treasure map, x marks the spot

At the top of your head,
Where the needles are softest, fresh and clustered close,
Where the view is the best.
I can see deserts, painted with god-sized brushes.
Red, yellow, orange for miles on end.
Canyons, grandest as can be
Cutting deep into the earth,
For feet both innocent and worn to trod down and back up.
Ancient trees, long dead and fallen,
Uncovered from Earth to reveal
Gems and crystals unique from all others.
A snow-capped peak, ripe for alpine fun.
And just below, a cozy town only few call home.
The rest call it Flagstaff.

Oh look! Three little birds have perched on your head!
Mama bird Heidi, watching out for her flock.
Sings a warm and beautiful song until she senses danger.
Best make sure you're not on the end of those talons.
Industrious Kelli, wings of an eagle.
Flying miles along riverbeds,
Just to feel the wind in her feathers.
And then there's the crazy little sparrow, Leigh.
Spunky little thing wants it all and takes what she can reach.
Beat your wings fast, little sparrow,
But don't get confused.
To get anywhere you must first point in one direction.

Moving down the spine we find
A spot of red, strange and foreign,
Full of riches, we shall call it Sedona.
What could be compunding parasites
Erupting from the surface,
Only to wear away in the wind.
This must be where the aliens landed.

Just below, a ring called Prescott,
Old and worn, battlescarred and raw.
Two ravens have made their nest here:
Reuben and Jourdie.
Friends to plants and animals alike
This majestic pair has built its next from recycled plastic string.
One day they will leave this ratty old Cactus
And fly somewhere even more desperate,
And their presence will move mountains.
In an eco-friendly way, of course...

Near the base the cactus swells,
Other plants, furry, prickly and hardy alike
Swarm around the ground, basking in
The protection of the Mighty One.
We shall call this mess Phoenix,
Though its many parts would beg to differ.
In the middle is Pam,
A pine tree from the north
Whose roots transplanted many years ago.
It recently started bearing oranges.
The tree is much happier here.
A two-headed Prickly Pear, recently re-seeded from the East
Named Nick and Brian, respectively
Bring with them the comfort of home.
Until an angry coyote called Chino
Rips a hole in them.
Good thing plants heal.
Coyotes only get shot.

A kind-hearted roadrunner named Isabel,
From a pretty little place called Tucson,
Drops us some water to help us along.
This, in spite of the many problems
She is dealing with herself.

And here we come to the root.
Dry, old, waorn down and grey,
But beautiful still, empty and quiet as it is.
I have found my heart,
And it lies in the center of a cactus
In the middle of the desert.

Something to keep you occupied

So I wrote this long poem while I was camping down in the Sonoran Desert basically comparing my experience in Arizona to a saguaro cactus, but the notepad I wrote it on has gone missing and has yet to turn up, so we'll have to make due with more of the same boring old journaling for now. Hope you don't mind too much....

Day 2 in Prescott.... let's see how much I can remember... it feels like so long ago! I remember Reuben and Jourdie were going to go pick up their chickens for the chicken coop that morning, but the people they were going to get them from sent them an email or text or something a bit before to inform them that the chickens had been killed by a coyote the night before, so in a fit of frustration they decided to drive out to Phoenix to buy some chickens from this guy on craigslist. I spent most of the day just trekking around town and checking out the sights. I visited downtown Prescott (everybody's hometown), checked out the arts district, visited the local info shop (complete with community kitchen, free box, and some lady complaining about water politics), got some lunch at the local greasy spoon, hiked down the creek, picked up some gatorade and more minutes for my phone. In some ways less eventful so far than my first evening in town, but fun, informative and enlightening at the same time. Did you know that if you pull bananas apart from each other when you get home from the grocery store they won't ripen as fast? Also, if you peel from the other end of the banana you don't have to deal with all those stringy things that come off! Interesting stuff!

So I came back from my little walk and chilled for a bit before Reuben and Jourdie got back, then we finished building the coop, put some posts in the ground for the fence and chucked the chickens into their new home. Jourdie made some food for a potluck dinner we went out to after we were finished working. The potluck dinner was more of a party with food, and all they had to eat with were chopsticks, so that's what I used. Ever try eating a pound cake with chopsticks? Not easy!

Made some new friends, chatted it up with an old guy (the dad of one of the guys at the party, tagging along for fun) who apparently went to Michigan back in the 60s (but after my dad had graduated, unfortunately), drank some Jaeger, listened to some MJ and generally had a merry ol' time.

I like these small towns with small colleges. It feels like everyone in my age group knows each other and lives really close to each other too. It was pretty wild going into the InfoShop and finding out that the volunteer working the desk was a friend of Reuben's, then going to the party in the evening and finding all these new people (and a couple familiar ones) who all seemed to know everyone else that went to school with them. I'll bet it makes for some interesting dramas at times.....

The morning of day 3, before I left for Phoenix, I met up with an old family friend and got some breakfast (at the same greasy spoon I went to for lunch the previous day, nonetheless. Small town, right?) and chatted about life, the world, the future, and all that big heavy stuff. It was quite a nice morning. I then headed out to Phoenix, but about 45 minutes into my trek I realized I had forgotten my pillow! Tucked inside the pillow was Geronimo, my stuffed giraffe of significant personal value (yes, I sleep with a stuffed giraffe), so I had to turn around. It's all good though, I had left a couple hours earlier than I was originally planning anyways, so I ended up arriving in Phoenix about when I said I would. Not bad, right?

I was welcomed into Phoenix with open arms by my aunt Pam, which was a great feeling, as being with relatives always is. This was especially poignant this time because I hadn't seen Pam since I was really little, and to be honest I really didn't even remember what she looked like! But when I saw her answer the door it all came back to me and I began to remember bits of memories from my first time in Phoenix (I must've been 6 or 7 at the time), beyond the large-breasted lady in Old Tuscon who danced with me (the visceral experience of having my head stuffed within her busom being the only part of that memory that stuck). We ate spaghetti and caught up that night, and I got to sleep in a real, very comfy bed for once. It was awesome.

Last thought for today, Pam's dogs: Bakhi and Gizmo. Both dogs were gifts for other people from Pam, and they both ended up back in her home through strange coincidences and long stories. Both little toy doggies, Bakhi was the energetic, needy and emotional one, light tan with shaggy hair and floppy ears. He was cute, yes, but I personally preferred Gizmo, the "regulator," as I liked to call him. Gizmo was a dark ash grey color, short hair (except on the head) and shorter ears, and a much more confident stride to his step, as if he knew he was the Boss. Bakhi would try to mess with Gizmo and he would just stand there and ignore him, it was hilarious. They were the cutest dogs too, I can't believe I didn't get a good picture of them! Oh well, c'est la vie.

Ok, next post I will talk about my week in Phoenix and the desert, then we'll be almost caught up! Until then, my friends..

Big ol' hole in the ground

So. The Grand Canyon. If you've never been there you probably won't understand, but it truly is the most epic sight you'll ever see in terms of natural geography, hands down. Standing from the South Rim, looking out over the canyon, it's hard to fathom how huge it really is. It looks more like a huge painting, beautiful and magnificent, but something to look at, not really something you could go down into and explore. So after about 2 minutes of standing there on the rim, saying "ooh, aah" and taking lots of pictures, I was asking myself, "what else?" With such a large area it was really hard to decide where to start. I wanted to be home by dinner-time, which limited the length of any hike I could take. I wanted to avoid large crowds of people, and seeing as how there were really only 4 day-hike trails, 2 of which were "easier" and more popular, the other 2 more "difficult" and less scenic, the options were fairly limited. I decided then and there that next time I visit the GC I would bring full backpacking gear and go on a 3-day minimum overnight hike through the canyon. There's really no other way to experience the Canyon in all its glory, I figured.

Nevertheless, I had several hours before I needed to return home, so I decided to go hike down the Hermit's Trail for a while. Seeing as how it's farther down the canyon from the main touristy area and in a part of the canyon that is not as deep or magnificent, I figured it'd be less congested in terms of hikers and I'd have more of a chance to experience the wilderness sans interruption. And I was right! I only ran into a few people on the trail, and (aside from the European tourists whose english didn't seem to good) they were all very friendly and talkative. Experienced hikers they were, none of these silly city-folk who are used to walking with their heads down and their eyes forward. The first guy I ran into had been out in the canyon for something like 5 days and looked just exhausted. But he was still really friendly and took our encounter as a chance to catch his breath and prepare for the last leg out of the canyon (he was really close, considering how far he must've hiked the past few days). We chatted for a while and talked about the midwest (he was from Wisconsin, I think), and then parted ways.

I just want to say, when I'm hiking in the wilderness I really enjoy the encounters I have with fellow hikers. Some people are more reserved and shy, but by and large, hikers have been hiking for so long either by themselves or with the same person/people, when they run into you, a lone wandering soul, they just get so excited that they have someone new to talk to the conversation can end up going on for a long time, and I'm usually the one who ends it, since I want to continue on my adventure. It reminds me of the inherent good and companionship of wandering souls and makes me smile.

So anyways, I ended up making it down to the bottom of the canyon (which wasn't as deep as other parts, since the part I was in was formed by a feeder creek instead of the full Colorado River), ran into some more hikers and asked them how far it was to the "dripping falls", and they pointed to a distant canyon wall (the white one in the pic, if you can figure that out). It felt very far, so I walked a bit more, took a picture and turned back, expecting it to take twice as long to get back up to the rim as it did to come down (I had been hiking for about an hour and 15 minutes or so by that point). Well, I dunno, maybe I'm just good at meditating on long uphill hikes or something, but it really only took me about 10 minutes longer to get up the wall as it did to get down, so I still had an hour and a half to kill before I had to leave. I guess they were right, slow and steady really does win the race.

So I drove back into the main area and searched around first for some postcards (which were easy to find), and then a belt buckle (which, it turns out, are not sold anywhere in the Grand Canyon tourist area. Surprise!). By the time I decided to send the postcards though, the post office was closed (bastards closed at 4:30!) so I couldn't even get stamps. The postcards are still sitting in my car..... lol. I suppose I'll send them next time I get some more postcards, though by then I kinda feel like they'll have lost their significance. Postmarks are important to me, so if it's not postmarked in the Canyon itself, what's the point? Meh, oh well.

After driving back to Flag and eating some leftovers for dinner, Leigh, Heidi and I headed out to check out this Reggae show at a local venue called the Orpheus. The band itself was....okay, I suppose. Not worth the $15 cover charge, but it was fun nonetheless. They were really weird, they kept switching between reggae and hard rock. And the guy's voice was really weird, it kept wavering all over the place and to my ears sounded really pretentious and annoying. But I'm a bit of a music snob, so if you're not as critical as I am you'd probably like it. Heidi left after only a couple songs to help some friend who had been taken to the hospital, and around that point I lost track of Leigh, who didn't return that night.... but still had a good time, apparently. Whatever, it's all good. No 40-year-old republicans to buy us drinks this time though, but $2 pbrs so it's all good. I hung out and listend to a couple more songs, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but then got tired of it and headed outside. I then ran into a couple friends from before and hung with them for a while, smoking cigs and chillin outside, before heading back to the casa and hanging out with Heidi for a little while (they wouldn't let her visit her friend in the hospital because she wasn't related). Then it was bed time and I passed out on the couch once again.

So that was Flagstaff. Crazy college party town, I had a really fun time. The next morning, Kelli and I drove down to Sedona, had lunch at a Panera-esque restaurant with a beautiful view of the surrounding red rocks, and hiked around for a bit on some trails near town. Then Kelli went to hang with her old golf friends and I walked around Sedona for a while before heading down to Prescott for my next couchsurfing experience.

Sedona is full of fortune tellers, mystics and psychics, and rightfully so. It really does feel like the twilight zone, or maybe a martian oasis, with the crazy red rock formations and the super expensive tourist shops. I did not get my fortune read (I'll save that for the wildnerness of the northwest), though I did see some pretty cool art in "Sedona's number 1 art gallery" or something. I guess they're too rich for Artists' Cooperatives though... didn't see any of those.

On the way from Sedona to Prescott I stopped in the little mountain village of Jerome and found it quite endearing. Very narrow roads up and down steep mountain inclines with 15 mph speed limits, rickity old buildings repainted so many times the paint was peeling underneath the peeling paint, very eclectic little stores and art galleries, and...lo and behold...an artists' cooperative gallery right there in the middle! I went straight in there and looked around for a bit, but the postcards were all $3 each and I'm poor, so I left emptyhanded (save for a photograph of the gallery's sign). It was really cool though, to see a successful co-op out in the middle of the mountain/desert. Artists are the shit.

I then arrived in Prescott to my hosts' house (Reuben and Jourdie) to be greeted by Reuben's friend Clancey, who was also there visiting from California. We hung out for a bit, then Reuben came home and we talked for a minute before heading out to a friend's house to witness a pig butchering. Apparently the way they slaughter pigs in the third world is by taking a sledgehammer to their head to stun them before stabbing them right in the forehead and again in the jugular (or something like that). Well, the only sledgehammer this guy had was a small hand-sledge, so whacking the pig with it really just shocked it more than rendering it unconscious. So it wasn't the most humane slaughter, but I guess it worked, since the pig was already dead by the time we got there. Surrounding it were four mexicanos with blades who obvoiusly knew what they were doing, and while we were there they were shaving all the hair off the pig so that the skin could be left on the meat. Hot water, knives and a sharpening block was all they needed. It took forever, they were still shaving after we went to visit another friend in the neighborhood, walked home to grab my camera and walked back, but it seemed like once they got that done it was just a matter of chopping up the pig itself, which really couldn't have taken too long.

Anyways, visiting the other friend was another interesting experience in urban farm animal raising. These guys had just purchased about 100 chicks, which were all chilling in 3 big tubs under some heat lamps, chirping their hearts out. One had managed to escape and was running around the floor of the garage, but we grabbed it and put it back. It was a trip seeing all those little baby chickens, apparently they have a farm out of town a little ways where they were going to take the chicks once they got a little bigger to begin producing eggs. But 100 chicks, it really was kinda ridiculous. They were super cute though, so I can't complain.

After all that excitement we went home and had dinner, then headed over to another friend's house for a little party/jam session and I got to play the bass for about 45 minutes, which was super awesome. I haven't played bass in years, and it all came flowing back to me really quick. It felt good to make music again. :)

While at the party I met one guy who had been working as a park ranger for a while, another guy from Vancouver who was coming back from some sort of desert living-off-the-land convention and stopped in Prescott on the way, got to eat some tasty Caribou and Elk meat (wild caught game is the tastiest!) hunted by the sister of one of the guys at the party (I really wanted to meet this girl, but alas, she was not there), and drank some tasty Tecate beers. (note: Tecate is not tasty beer). All in all it was a fun and very surprising afternoon/evening. Who knew there was so much urban farming going on in Prescott?

Oh yeah, finally, a note about Prescott's geography. The city of Prescott is located in the middle of a "valley," though really it felt like a crater, since there were mountains in every direction but the area surrounding Prescott was very flat. It was really cool, and seemed like the perfect place for a city to thrive. Apparently Prescott used to be the capital of Arizona when it was still a territory, and according to signs around downtown, it is also the Cowboy Capital of the West, being one of the first thriving towns in the southwest and also a capital. There was a lot of history to this town, and it all felt strangely familiar.... I definitely have cowboy genes somewhere in me. It was cool.

Ok, that's it for today. This afternoon I'm going to Tucson with a couple friends, then tomorrow is Beerfest at the Tempe Town Lake (yes, they have a man-made lake in Tempe, just south of Scottsdale. It' a big waste of water, but hey, who can really complain about a significant body of water in the middle of the desert?), so the next post probably won't come until Sunday. But stay tuned, there's much more to discuss! Prescott day 2 and Phoenix/Scottsdale, coming up!

Alpine Hippie Wonderland

The drive to Flagstaff really was quite a trip. Before I crossed into Arizona I was under the impression that I had entered the desert and wouldn't be leaving until I got to California. Little did I know, Flagstaff (and most of northern Arizona, for that matter) is in a world of its own. As the altitude rose, the temperature dropped. Even though it was still sunny as all get-out, I started seeing snow patches in the shade. The wind got chillier, to the point where I had to put the top up on my convertible. I could begin to make out a very large, snow-capped mountain in the distance.

As I got closer I realized that Flagstaff was at the foot of this mountain, and I began to realize how different of a world it really is up here. Flagstaff has four seasons (well, three and a half, but still). The air is thinner, the wind less predictable, there are occasional morning mists and a constant buzz of conversation about how to get into the expensive ski parks without paying an arm and a leg. There are few places in this country as unique as Flagstaff: a large State-funded university, a thriving tourist/skiing industry, an altitude of about 7000 feet, and the crisp, low-precipitation desert weather, Flagstaff is pretty much beautiful 90% of the year. Though it was still "winter" when I was there (a fair amount of snow was still in the shady areas), it felt like early spring in Michigan, highs ranging in the mid- to upper-60s, sun shining, winds not too strong. I immediately felt at home. And then there were the people!

The couch I surfed while in Flagstaff was hosted by three peace-loving hippie girls, covering the range from über-shower-once-a-month-subsist-on-granola-and-tofu hippie to the still-semi-religious-laid-back-river-guide hippie. They were all hippies and all their friends were hippies too, and pretty much everyone I came across in the town had at least some tinge of counter-culture to them, so that only increased the sense of kinship. I only noticed a few Generics (i.e. frat boys/sorostitutes), and they seemed to keep to themselves. This town was like Austin minus the big-cityness/government, like Ann Arbor minus the frat-dominance. And then there was the mountain, which attracted all the skiers and the tourism and the money. It was really quite an interesting dynamic, I can only think of a few other places that might be like it (Boulder? Somewhere in Washington?).

So anyways, back to the story. I arrived about an hour earlier than I was expecting to Flagstaff, but it ended up working out fine. When I finally found the house, Heidi came out to meet me and led me into the kitchen where there were 4 people (all with varying degrees of hippie indicators on their bodies) standing around chatting, none of which actually lived there. This came as a startling surprise, particularly because all of the communications I had had with Heidi had indicated that they were all going to be super busy with school work and wouldn't be much fun. But hey, it was Fat Tuesday, I guess a little letting loose was in order right?

A few minutes into meeting all these people, more people came in, and one (Leigh, who did live there) was carrying a 30-pack of cheap Mexican beer. Beer for dinner! Works for me! So I cracked one open and by the end of it Heidi was like "oh yeah, by the way, you're in a high altitude, so alcohol's going to affect you more." I'll be fine, I thought, I can handle beer... lol, well that was something of a mistake. 2 beers in I was already pretty tipsy (probably much of which having to do with the emptiness of my stomach), so I made some salad and ate that along with some bread, and then drank more. We did some shots in celebration of the festive occasion, as more people kept filing in and out of the house. Then eventually, after we were all good and crunked, we headed out to the Green Room, where there was a reggae/funk band playing (no cover, yay!). [pic to left, me and my hosts, Kelli, Leigh and Heidi, several drinks in...]

At the bar we met up with another friend, so it was Heidi, Leigh, their friend and I. Heidi said "watch this" and then somehow managed to convince this 40-year-old republican guy to buy us all a couple rounds of drinks, so we got to drink for free! All I had to do was, well into the second round, argue with him about Obama's stimulus policy. His main argument was "research more," and when I told him I had, and made some valid arguments about success versus opportunity for success he got kinda quiet, then just repeated his research mantra. It was kinda funny. At one point Heidi jumped in and said something about McCain wanting to reinstate the death penalty for children, and I think I heard him say he was in favor of capital punishment for 12-year-olds... some guys I'll just never understand. But hey, free drinks, so what the hey. I'll roll with it.

During the band's intermission (around midnight, probably), a drumming troupe came in and performed on the floor. We lost Leigh a while before to the crowd, but I think at one point we noticed her with a drum, or maybe just dancing like a wild thing in the middle of it all. Towards the end of the drumming we decided to head out (after Heidi noticed her foot was bleeding profusely from accidentally stepping on some broken glass). After spending about 20 minutes trying to get Leigh to come with us (she was very resistant...and also very drunk...), Kelli told us to just go home, she'd deal with Leigh (ominous, but effective). We went home and started fixing up Heidi's foot, and not 10 minutes later Kelli and Leigh walk in. We were dumbstruck. Kelli must've just hauled Leigh off by her keester, kicking and screaming. At any rate, it didn't last long. Kelli went to bed and about 15 or 20 minutes later Leigh grabbed her dog Luna and headed into the night again. We didn't see her until the next morning. A Wild Child, that one. She's gonna go far....

So yeah, first night in Flagstaff, epic win. Made lots of new friends, heard some fun music, got some beads, some free drinks, and ended up with a great story! I think I'm beginning to like Flag... The next day I decided to explore the town. First I headed up towards campus and found a relatively empty cemetery (compared to cemeteries I visited in places like New Orleans, Savannah and the like), then I turned around and headed into town, finding lots of eclectic stores and art galleries, murals and restaurants. There was a crepe store right by this one really cool mural, but it was closed (why I could not tell...), so I hit up the Flagstaff Brewing Company, drank some beer and had a killer green chili burger. While I was sitting at the bar, I got into a conversation with the guy next to me and he told me to check out the Walnut Creek National Monument. I had seen it on the NPS website and on the way into Flag, but hadn't really considered going there, as I figured the Grand Canyon was enough. But hey, from what this guy said, it was only like 15 minutes away and there were some really sweet Indian ruins. And with my annual pass, how could I pass it up? So what the hell, I thought, I've got an hour and a half or so before the park closes, I'll check it out.

I got back to the house and was going to invite Heidi along for the excursion, but she was napping and I didn't want to wake her, so I headed out solo. Walnut Creek really was quite a sight. Half the trail was closed off due to a rock slide, but even still, seeing the way these Indians lived was amazing. As opposed to the last Indian ruins I saw on mountains, these guys actually lived IN the mountain. There were different types of sediment along the side of the hill, and so the Indians dug out the softer rock and used the harder rock above as the roofs for their houses. It was so cool! These Indians were mountain goats true and true, it was quite impressive.

I returned to the house around 4:30, about when Heidi was waking up from her nap, and proceeded to nap myself. That evening was pretty chill, just sat around, read, put photos up online, just chilled. It was nice, especially compared to the craziness of the previous night, so I was thankful. I had to get my beauty sleep, for the next day I was heading to the Grand Canyon! More on that in my next post, to be continued..........

Catching Up round 2...Natural Wonders and Jake the Snake

Full Day Numero Uno in Santa Fe. Main excursion: Bandelier National Park. Bandelier was about an hour or so away from Santa Fe, right in the first big canyon of the mountains to the west. The main attraction of Bandelier was the Native American ruins. There was a pretty standard pueblo at the bottom of the canyon, but once you got up the north side a little you started seeing man-made holes in the mountainside, with blackened ceilings and small holes at the top for exhaust. Turns out the Natives that lived in this area actually built their homes attached right to the mountainside. From the pictures in the brochure, it looked like they would dig holes into the rock to insert poles into and build roofs and walkways along the side of the mountain. So they weren't actually living "in" the mountain, more just attached to it. But it's all good, these were my first Indian ruins so I was excited nonetheless.

So I don't know if it's St John's' curriculum or just the people I was staying with, but every time they came back from school we just jumped right in to some deep intellectual conversation, complete with points, counterpoints, arguments and counterarguments. It was really something else! I'm used to Michigan, where you get home from school and your brain is mush and the last thing you want to do is talk about the day's intellectual conquests. Maybe studying only primary sources instead of all of the varied criticisms and rebuttals of said primary resource leaves peoples' minds more ready to form their own opinions. I think I like this way of schooling. Apparently they have an Eastern Philosophy graduate program at St John's, I might have to look into that when I get back from PC. Talk about throwing your head into a spin! The farthest we got in Eastern philosophy in any of the classes I took on the East (particularly Chinese Politics and Zen Buddhism) was the conclusion that the fundamentals of eastern thought are pretty much the polar opposite of that of western thought. I can only imagine what spending an entire year immersing yourself in only those fundamentals would be like......awesome!

So yeah, if I remember correctly, that evening was the night of the Oscars, and my hosts also had "band" practice (they're in a band that started out as a joke then became reality. Anyone want to be in my joke/reality band?), so I met up with some friends of Greg's who he got me in touch with on the way in to town for some drinks. This was when I came to the stark realization that Santa Fe really did have no nightlife. First we met up on the town square around 8 or so (the square was virtually empty). Then we went into a bar/restaurant on the square that they recommended as being pretty good. We sat down and I noticed how high the prices were (yes, everything is expensive in Santa Fe), then I noticed how few people were in the bar (maybe a total of 6 people not including us or the waitstaff). The TVs were on to the Oscars but the volume was all the way down, so it was really hard to tell what was going on. This obvoiusly was not the scene on a Sunday night. But then my new friends told me that this is pretty much what it's like every night of the week. Crazy! I guess people only go out for gallery openings and other rich-person-type things. Or house parties for the college kids. It was kinda sad, to be honest. I don't think I could handle that in a town. I like going out too much!

But Greg's friends were awesome! Eddy, Greg's bud from volunteer stuff over the years, is working for the State restoring New Mexico's riverbeds, pulling out invasive species and replanting native ones (among other things). Tia, Eddy's girlfriend, is a struggling artist, like so many of Santa Fe's socialite hipsters. Maybe she can get with Jodie, the other struggling sociarthipster I met, to start that Co-op I think they should start! One can only hope..... They also told me I should visit Prescott in Arizona on the way down to Phoenix, as it had a similar young/artsy scene as Santa Fe and was cool, so I took note of that (but in the end ended up having a completely different experience in Prescott, as I'll get to later).

It was around this time that I found out that a few friends of mine were going to be in San Diego at different points during the second week of March. Originally, I had planned to be in San Diego the first week of march, but in light of this revelation, I decided to slow down my trip through the Arizona/New Mexico desert so that my arrival in SD would coincide with that of my friends, creating a greater chance that we might be able to meet up. So, taking this into account, I decided to extend my visit in Santa Fe by a day, along with stopping a couple extra times in Arizona on the way from Flag to Phoenix. In effect, I just decided to make my trip through the desert a bit more relaxed, which I will never complain about.

In the morning of full day number two in Santa Fe, Annie and I walked down the local art street (where all the galleries are, just a block from their house) and saw some interesting stuff, then went to a local coffee shop and read for a while over tea. In the afternoon, I decided to make use of the national parks annual pass I picked up the day before and go visit the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks national monument. This place was not even listed on the NPS website, as it is maintained by the Bureau of Land Management and thus not deemed worthy of note by those elitist National Park Service goombahs. It not being listed at nps.gov got me excited though, it made me feel like I might've found a gem that not so many people knew about, and in the end I guess I was right! There were certainly still people there, but it felt much less crowded than Bandelier, and thus more personal of an experience. I hiked up a trail, through a narrow canyon, up the side of a mountain and onto a high mesa with an absolutely beautiful vista of the surrounding area. I could see mountains of all different colors in every direction, and below me were the most phallic rock formations I'd ever seen. It was a remarkable experience, not only because of the view but also because I was the only person on the mesa when I got up there (there were a few people heading up as I went down, but not more than 2 or 3 groups). It was so peaceful, I could just sit there watching the birds, letting the hard (but warm) wind blow through my hair. Awesome.

By the time I got home from Kasha-Katuwe, it was naptime, so I slept for a while until my hosts came back from school. That evening I taught them how to play Euchre and then they taught me how to play a game called Dos Manos (or something). All the while we drank beers and then I broke into the whiskey and ended up losing a lot of games, but still had a great time. Thankfully there was no betting or money involved, or I probably would've lost a lot more than my wits... lol

So that was pretty much my experience of Santa Fe. Adventurous day trips into national monuments and low-key evenings hanging with friends. A little art here and there, but I really didn't do a whole lot of exploring of Santa Fe itself. Guess I'll have to save that for next time.

Tuesday morning (again with a bit of a headache from the night before) I headed off to Flagstaff. On the way I stopped at a couple more national parks, first at El Malpais, an off-the-beaten-path national monument of million-year-old lava flows. Driving down the local highway to get to the park I picked up an Indian hitchhiker who called himself "Jake the Snake". Jake was hilarious. He told me stories about how his woman in Albequerque is always complaining, how he was married for four years, had six kids, and then his wife died of a heart attack, how good piñon is hard to find these days (he was in Albequerque looking for piñon... I still haven't figured out what piñon is.....), and how he was only going home to change clothes and then head out again to Gallup to meet his uncle for some sort of event (maybe a Rodeo?). It was an entertaining 20 minutes or so before I turned into the park and let him continue on his way. I would've driven him all the way to Gallup, since it was on the way to Flagstaff, but I was on a fairly tight schedule and didn't have the time to wait for him to get washed up at home. Oh well, I'm sure he made it there soon enough.

El Malpais is one of those parks that is really not very well developed. In order to truely appreciate the area you have to go backpacking for at least one night. It's a big park with lots to see, but only two roads that run on the north and south edges of the park, so the only way to see the inner parts is to hike in. I had to get through the Petrified Forest and on to Flagstaff by dinner time, so I only had time to trek in for about 15 or 20 minutes before turning back. Another thing to add to my to-do list for next time. I did see some pretty neat caves and sinkholes though! Shoulda brought my (currently non-existant) headlamp!

After El Malpais I stopped at the Petrified Forest national park. First of all, let me say that the Painted Desert is probably one of the most magnificent vistas I have ever seen. Absolutely beautiful scenes of desert hills in all different shades of red, orange and yellow in every direction. The air was so clean and clear you could even see the mountain neighboring Flagstaff, something like 90 miles away. Absolutely amazing. Almost more amazing than the grand canyon, if I do say so myself. Even just driving through the park was amazing, with all different kinds of millions of years old rock and petrified tree remains, the sense of natural history was so impressive.

The petrified trees were pretty awesome too. Beautiful colors in those rocks, so many different shades and hues. Great photos from there, here's a taste.



I'll leave it at that for today. Next up, Flagstaff hippies, the Grand Canyon, and more!

Catching Up....Borderline alcoholics and desert yuppies

I have fallen behind in my blogging duties. My apologies to all, I will try to make the next few posts concise and digestible, as there is much to discuss. I shall begin where I left off, taking in the rays in Terlingua. My last night in town, it was just me and Cynta chillin at her place, so we decided to watch a movie. After first deciding to watch the Motorcycle Diaries but failing to find the DVD (Cynta assumed she lent it to someone and forgot... same thing that happened to my copy of that movie!), we decided to watch a film that was made right in the area we were living, titled Los Trés Entierros de Melquiades Estrada, or the Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. The story of the film is about a Texan cowboy (Tommy Lee Jones) who befriends an illegal immigrant, who is killed by a novice Border Patrol guard (boo hiss) after he discharged his rifle trying to kill a fox or something. After the local authorities decide not to investigate, the cowboy, Pete Perkins, decides to take the law into his own hands, abducting the perpetrating border patrol guard and taking him on an epic journey along with Estrada's body to the place where Estrada was from to bury his body.

Aside from the obvious connotations regarding Texan cowboys' lack of confiedence for local law enforcement, I also took away a keen sense of how strong the cross-border camaraderie was (and still is) between rural Americans and rural Mexicans (we're all just people trying to get by, after all). There is a sense of understanding and comfortability that arises when a white man walks into a Mexican bar and begins conversing with the bartender in fluent spanish, without prejudice or preconception. It is as if they have been living next to each other for centuries, the only thing separating them being their skin color. The conflict only arises with stupid border patrol guards who don't know the lay of the land and don't bother trying to learn it before swooping in and imposing their own rules.

Speaking of border patrol, did you know that the officers in that specific branch of law enforcement are only there because they failed ALL of the other tests to get into other, more significant positions? Yes, border patrol guards are the cream of the crap, the top of the bottom, the worst of the best. It's sad to think that that's how much we value our relationship with our neighbors to the south.

Anyways, moving right along, the next day I drove to El Paso. The first part of the drive was awesome, heading up right along the Rio Grande through more national parkland and beautiful rocky passes. I passed through Marfa (again) and continued northwest, into the mountain time zone and into a whole new world, one really unlike any I have encountered so far.

El Paso sent my head in a spin upon first arriving. Highway signs to Juárez all had "no firearms" images attached to them. I would look north, towards New Mexico, and see mountains and occasional glimmers of fancy mansions and mercedez benzes surrounded by rocks and trees. Then I'd turn my head south and see vast and endless ghettos of shacks and one-story pueblos, probably only getting electricity a few hours each day. I heard stories of journalists in Juárez being massacred and strung up in the trees of this one park to warn others of what would happen to them if they went investigating about the drug problems in the area. I saw cars all over the place with pieces of paper saying "untitled" in the place of a license plate. Cars obviously boosted in Juárez, stripped of their plates and serial numbers and resold on the cheap to needy mexicans only to be driven back over the border again, possibly even smuggling more drugs in. Did you know that 2/3rds of the metropolitain population lives in Juárez, crossing the border every day to come work in El Paso? There's also a 40 mile radius around the city in which the mexican workers are allowed pretty much unfettered access to, provided they don't bring any guns and go back to mexico when the work day is over. The cops are all corrupt and the drug cartels run the show. The level of danger here was much higher than it was in New Orleans, but, interestingly enough, this time I felt much safer, if not more comfortable.

The reason for this lies in my company. I was staying with my friend Monica, who I met through the computer lab at Michigan. Last Fall Monica moved out to El Paso to teach elementary school (don't ask me why she chose El Paso). She lives in a house with three other people, of which I only really met one. Shane (the guy I met) was the nicest guy. He's had a troubled past, spent some time in the marines, had it all and lost it all, and now he's getting back on his feet, getting ready to go back to school and trying to find work where he can. As I saw him, Shane was like the big papa bear; kind eyes and loving care for his flock, but pick a fight with him and he will fuck your shit up.

The day before I arrived, Shane had fallen off the roof of a carport he was working on for this guy up the street and torn the tenden in his achilles heel. Even so, despite all the pain and agony that came with attempting to walk around in his cast, even with the crutches, Shane went way out of his way to show me a good time. We drove around town in the convertible, checking out the sights and learning some interesting cultural facts about the town (did you know mexican drivers are terrible, and none of them have insurance, so if one runs into you they just drive off?). After that we went to the grocery store, picked up some hot sauce and orange juice, and went back to their place to cook up some of the bombinest wings I've ever had. Having satisfied our hunger, around 3:30pm we headed out to check out the bar scene around town. We hit up all Shane's favorites, from dingy dives with dollar beer grab bags to a tequila lounge housed in an old auto shop garage.

By 5:30 or so, when Monica met up with us, we had probably had around 4 beers each already, so I was feelin pretty good. We went back to the house for a minute, gussied up and headed out again to meet up with Monica's friends at a tasty mexican restaurant. Having drank all those beers already and ate those wings not too long ago, I refrained from ordering anything aside from sangría and eating chips and salsa while everyone else stuffed themselves.

By the way, Monica's friends are hilarious. Pretty much all of them are beautiful gay men, an artist, a teacher, a spokesperson for a Texas congressman. And they were fabulous! Post-dinner we briefly stopped at a starbucks to utilize their internet and buy some plane tickets, then we headed over to the local gay bar for more drinks and partytime. As the night wore on and the alcohol built up, I got jollier and jollier, as I do, and before long I was having the time of my life. We ordered a round of upside-down pineapple cake shots (which we had to explain to the bartender how to make), ordered a vodka martini for Shane (the first time they forgot to add the vermouth so it was just vodka and olive juice.....yuck), and I switched from beers to liquors. And you know how that goes.....

By the end of the night we had stopped at two more bars, one with a college feel (and way too many people for my tastes), and the back to the local watering hole by their house, where I ended up purging some of the last drinks I ordered and almost lost my glasses in the bush (good thing Monica was paying attention...). We stopped at Whataburger and I threw some grease in my stomach and then we headed back to the casa and promptly passed out.

The next morning, as you can imagine, was a hard one to wake up to. I had a six hour drive and a national monument ahead of me, and I had woken up late and had the worst hangover ever. The plan to leave by 10 turned into 11:30, and due to spending so much on drinks the night before I didn't feel wealthy enough to go out and buy a real breakfast. Gas station coffee and muffins, 3 dollars. Could've been better.

Nevertheless, I arrived at White Sands national monument still with a bit of a headache, but what I found pretty much erased any lingering hangover that I still had. The crisp, dry desert air, the steady breeze flowing across the tops of the dunes, the blazing sun, and above all, the beautiful scenery all around me. It was truly an amazing experience that made me completely forget about the night before.


Magnificent! If I had more time I would've tried dune-sledding, there were a lot of people out doing that. But alas, it was time to get a move on, gotta make it to Santa Fe by dinner!

I arrived in the Adobe City around 7:30 or so, only to find myself lost and confused. I drove around for 20 minutes or so trying to find the house of my couchsurfing host, Annie, but to no avail (it turns out I had mis-written the address as 1605 instead of 1065... I blame the hangover). To boot, Annie wasn't answering her phone when I called, so I felt like a stranger in a strange world, totally lost and amiss as to what to do.

I drove around for a while until I found a gas station. After gassing up I went inside and asked at the counter if it were possible there were two streets with the same name. The guy showed me a map of the city, but no further progress. Luckily I had the phone number of another couchsurfer, Jess, who was unable to host me but had expressed interest in meeting up for a beer or two. So I called up Jess and what do you know, he answers! "Oh yeah!" he says, "we're down here at this pub drinking beers and getting dinner, come meet up with us!" So I find the place on the map and head on down, walk in the bar and out back to the patio, and find Jess and his friend visiting from Houston sitting there drinking beer and eating chips and salsa. Yay! Friends!

Shortly after sitting down, Annie calls me back and we get the directions sorted out. I invite her out to the bar, but she's only 20 and they're super strict about who they let in (under 21 only with parental supervision), so we agree to just meet up at her place after dinner. Soon after getting off the phone, several more of Jess's friends join us at the table. Things get lively, I meet a struggling artist (who I recommended to start an artists' co-op) and a woman who's joining the peace corps in Morocco (whoa, she's actually leaving tomorrow! It has been a while since my last post....), along with a slew of other interesting characters. I ordered a tasty and satisfying burger and had a dandy time. We left the bar around 9pm and I headed over to Annie's house, this time with accurate directions.

When I arrived at the casa, I found one lone guy sitting at the dining room table working on his laptop. After brief introductions I find out that he is one of Annie's housemates and Annie and her boyfriend were currently out at Outback getting ribs with a gift certificate. We hung for a while and talked about St. John's University (which, it turns out, Cynta from Terlingua went to back in the 70s) and their academic style (all primary sources, like following the discoveries as they're discovered). A bit later, Annie and Cooper return from their outback/beer excursion and we sit around and have intellectual discussions over beer until bedtime. I get to sleep in the makeout nook and there are some interesting stains on the cushion, so I put a blanket down to sleep on top of, with an awesome down comforter to complete the Travis sandwich. I slept very well that night.

Ok, I've written enough for one post. Stay tuned.... adventures in Santa Fe, Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, and more of Central Arizona! Next time, on Midwestern Cooperation!

¡Viva Terlingua! Mi corazón del desierto (oh yeah, and Austin too)

So yeah, I spent over a week in Austin. It was pretty great, I got to hang with old friends, meet some new ones, spend some quality time with my relatives, and see the old sights so familiar to my heart. Austin is my home away from home, and so everything I did there, even the stuff I've never done before, felt familiar and comfortable. This was not part of my adventure across the States. It was more just a waypoint in between the real purpose of this trip.

I did get a chance to go to a pretty unique Lesbian Drag King show one night, followed by hours of dancing at a gay dance club, which was certainly fun. It was basically just a lip-synching, choreographed series of performances from mostly women dressed up as men (most of which probably used male pronouns on a regular basis). There were a couple of "femme" women, one of which did quite the burlesque telephone operator strip-tease, complete with spinning tassles. We left after the first couple of songs of the second half. The one that gave us that urge for going was a pretty sad Dubya spoof where someone came out in a suit with a Bush mask on and proceeded to prance around the stage, at one point pulling out a bag of white powder and shoving it in his face, at another pulling out a banana and pretending to shoot himself in the head. It was pretty lame, so we decided to bounce.

The next morning, after maybe 3 hours of sleep on Black Star Stephen's futon, he woke me up and we headed about an hour out of town to Lexington, TX, home of Snow's BBQ, for some early morning cooked meat. The place opened at 8am, and according to several news articles (including one from the New Yorker), it was highly advised to arrive at opening and expect about an hour wait to get your food. Snow's website said "open from 8 am until we run out of bbq!" We took all this advice to heart and decided to wake up at the crack of dawn and hit the road by 7:15 or so, to ensure that our trip would not be in vain.

Arriving at Snow's, we were pleasantly surprised to find a line that took no more than 10 minutes to wind our way through. And to boot, by the time it was my turn to make my order, Snow himself was behind the counter! This was a truly, uniquely Texan endeavor, I felt, waking up so early for a BBQ breakfast served by a guy who would have looked very comfortable in a cowboy hat and chaps, so I was happy. The food was amazing too! Sweet tea, beans baked in loads of grease and fat, cole slaw and potato salad to go along with the loads of moist brisket, succulent ribs and some amazing pork, all smothered with bbq sauce served from water bottles on the table. It topped off my experience of central Texas very nicely indeed, and I was home by 12:30 to take a 3 hour nap and get some laundry done before going to see Slumdog Millionaire with my aunt to celebrate the Valentine's holiday. The only thing I didn't get around to doing while in Austin was to go down to San Antonio for a rodeo. Maybe next time, I suppose. I did watch a bit of bull-riding on TV though, so I guess that counts....

By Monday morning I definitely felt the road calling me once again, and so I packed my bags and headed west. As I drove I became progressively more and more excited as the landscape around me became drier and less vegetated. Rolling hills turned to craggy rocks. Woods and forests gave way to arid arrays of bushes and occasional trees. By the time I hit I-10, the roads were flat and straight, the speed limits increased, and I could safely say I was in West Texas proper. I could feel my heart growing larger as I could see farther and farther into the distance. It was quite the amazing experience.

I decided to stop on Marfa on the way to Terlingua, since I had heard that it was a pretty neat place with a vibrant artist community and some interesting sights, including Marfa's Lights, strange lights on the horizon that can be seen at night. Unfortunately, when I got there I found out that most restaurants were closed on Mondays, and the fact that it was President's Day pretty much cemented that bet. After asking at the tourist info center and talking on the phone with my host in Terlingua, I decided to just head over to the local laundromat, which had a relatively new, completely unmarked ice cream/coffee shop attached to the side for some Bluebell Ice Cream and Big Bend Coffee. I then headed out to Terlingua at a quick pace, since Cynta (my host) and the other couchsurfers staying at her place were meeting for dinner at the local Starlight Theater, 2-for-1 burgers!

Driving into Terlingua was a trip. Being a "ghost town," I expected very little in the way of modern establishments such as restaurants, hotels, gas stations and the like. I was quite surprised, then, to find, after a 2 hour drive through arid desert and maybe one farmhouse every 10 miles, a very vibrant culture stretching from Study Butte all the way to the Terlingua ghost town. Many eclectic eating establishments, a new "camping hostel" with tents and a school bus on the side, possibly converted into restrooms or something, and a diverse array of housing accomodations ranging from trailers and RVs, to reconstructed ruins. It became clear to me very quickly that this ghost town was ghostly no longer. Many aging hippies and flower children had discovered this beautiful spot and decided to come out here and live on the land. Cynta was one of these.

Back in the day, Cynta was a serious athlete. River guide, surfer, hiker, the real outdoorsy type. Tough as nails, strong as a bull, skinny as a rail, she was at the top of her game. But maybe 15 years ago, it all came crashing down when her joints started seizing up and she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Needless to say, her career was ruined. You cant exactly be a hiking or boating guide when you can't do any sort of heavy lifting, let alone walk far without dealing with serious pain. But that didn't stop Cynta. She packed her bags, sold her stuff, came out here to Terlingua and bought an old ruin and the land surrounding it. Following that, she set to work restoring the building using her bare hands and the help of some illegal mexicans from across the river. It took 10 long years of hard work, but it has really paid off. She retained the original layout of the house, but added many modern additions, such as a composting toilet, a rain barrel collection system, even high-speed internet. Meanwhile, she cemented her place in the community and got to know her neighbors, to the point that now when I meet anyone in the area and mention that I'm staying with Cynta, they immediately respond with warm messages and hugs for me to deliver to her. Despite her disability, Cynta's heart has only grown larger while she has lived down here. She loves everyone and everyone loves her.

Over the past year or two, Cynta was recently turned on to Couchsurfing, and boy am I grateful! Her house is absolutely perfect for surfers, with no less than 7 sleeping areas aside from her own, a beautiful front patio to watch the sunrise every morning, a fire pit to hang around and make smores on at night, and the most gorgeous view of the Park (which I am staring at as I write this). On top of this great house, Cynta already had 5 other couchsurfers staying here when I arrived, so it just turned into one great big party! So awesome!

Just being here makes me want to buy a ruin myself and just stay forever. It's too bad so many people have gotten here already, there's very little land left for sale, and when there is it's like a fire sale at salvation army. I don't think people around here have really noticed any of this economic crisis that everyone else is freaking out about. They're just too far off the grid, they've created their own little cosmos very much independent from the rest of the world. Even the border patrol guys around here are chill! Now how hard is that to imagine?

Yesterday (Tuesday) was my first full day in the area, and I milked it like no other. In the morning, after our sunrise maté and coconut rice breakfast, we all went on a nice little trek around the ghost town with the dogs, checking out fossils, taking pictures and throwing the frisbee around. After that, Cynta, Taylor, Julietta and I went geo-caching (something I've been wanting to do since I first heard about it), and managed to find 4 caches on top of the 3 they found the other day, all within 4 miles of Cynta's house. It was awesome! I gotta get myself one of those GPS thingies so I can do some geo-caching of my own. 21-st century treasure hunt ftw!!

After geo-caching we went to lunch and I got a tasty Reuben. Then we headed back to la casa and I got myself together and headed off to the Park. Big Bend National Park is some of the most gorgeous land I have ever seen. I think I stopped at almost every turnoff on the road to take pictures of the scenery around me (being in a convertible made that really easy). I hiked around the Chisos basin for a while, all the time half-fearing half-hoping that a mountain lion was close on my tail, ready to pounce when I least expected it. It made the hike more exciting. :P

After the hike I was pooped, so I drove all the way down to the other end of the park and then 1.8 miles down a very rocky dirt road to the Hot Springs to get some healthy soaking in. At one time there was a bathhouse built around the spring, but today all that remains is the foundation. The spring is right on the Rio Grande, and I was advised by Cynta to get in the hot spring for a while, then jump into the Rio Grande and let the current take you down a little ways to some rocks where you can climb out and walk back. At first I was a little apprehensive, but after the initial hot-to-cold shock I was hooked, and did it not once but twice more before heading back. This morning I woke up and all my aches and pains from traveling disappeared, my body feels totally rejuvenated. It's so great, I just might have to do it again!

While I was down at the Hot Springs I ran into a couple my age (a rare sight 'round these parts). After talking for a few minutes I soon found out that they were couchsurfers as well, who were camping out in the park while they were here. Jeremy was from Chicago and Kathrine was from England. On top of this, I found out that we were both going to El Paso on Thursday for a night, so I thought to myself what a strange and fortuitous meeting! I told them about Cynta and how she was going to have some beds available the following night if they wanted to come surf here instead of camping again, and then maybe we could either travel to El Paso together and/or meet up while there for drinks or whatever. How crazy to finally find some fellow travelers who were more-or-less on the same path as me at the same time! We exchanged phone numbers and parted ways for the night, but I hope they end up staying here tonight, it would make for a much more interesting evening. Taylor and Julietta left today to return to Austin and the other three kids (Chirstopher, Andrew and Lauri) all went on an overnight hike in the Park, so it's just Cynta, her dogs and I. And while traveling alone is all fun and games, it does get a bit lonely at times. It would be awesome to have some companions, if only for a day or two.

So now I am here, just chilling out and basking in the dry desert air and the warm desert sun. I'm staying a day longer than originally planned because this place is just so much more beautiful, open and comfortable than what awaits in El Paso. Who knows what really awaits there, but I am not ready to leave yet.

I've swam the Rio Grande, climbed the Chisos mountains, almost ran over some Mexican warthogs (apparently half-rat-half-pigs that eat prickly pears), met many awesome desert people, and I haven't even gotten sunburned yet! This is the life. I am in love.