reasons to love chile...

las once 
nectarines
manjar
olives
good wine

today you find me in: buenos aires

January has taken me from Austin, Texas to Buenos Aires, Argentina.  3 days into February I find myself sitting in a very posh cafe just outside of the Microcentro with a view of blooming palo borrachos with their gorgeous pink flowers scattered across the green of the neighboring park.   I'm in town visiting Courtney who is busily working on her expenses on the other side of the table.  Summer is in full swing here, walking along the streets one can hear the air conditioners humming in full swing, their condensation dripping on unwary pedestrians floors below.

settling in...

I’ve been meaning to write on this blog for months, but it seems in being settled I have less time for everything.  It appears to me, that regularity takes up more time than my inconsistent day to day wanderings ever did.  I suppose it is because I fill up much of my spare time boiling beans, grocery shopping and going to the gym.  All that sounds quite mundane and boring, but quite the contrary, to me the novelty of being in one place still hasn’t worn off. 

Antigua is an interesting place to live, at the very least I love living by volcanoes.  I stare at them on my way out in the morning, watching the inconsistent ashy rumblings of Fuego spill across the morning sky.  At night, as I am walking home, I choose a route which allows me to stare contentedly at the hazy silhouette of Agua. 

After 3 years of being self contained I feel funny trying to grow roots.  I constantly feel like I should be packing my bags and to move on—but I like the notion of being settled.  It has its pleasant aspects—cooking for oneself, having routines, meeting people or at least making slow attempts at doing so. 

All in all I still haven’t gotten my sea legs or land legs, and my job doesn't make it any easier.  Most of January I spent out of Guatemala and February didn’t fare much better. Maybe I’ll never really stop and grow moss or roots but for now I like the sensation of trying.

niagra

Ask alex, I am a water fall cynic, but Niagra took my breath away.  I was just in Toronto for a business trip, which took me to the fantastic town of Niagra and the falls themselves.  From my 16th floor room at the double tree I could see one half of the falls and the amazing mist which they create.

In a half hearted attempt to rid myself of a hangover I went for a run down to the falls and was blown away.  They are big, I mean kind of huge.  The air had that great crisp early winter chill where just breathing feels like it is doing your body good.  The water is the color of liquid jade, and the mist is freaking amazing.  Actually, I think I will let the photos do the rest of the talking...

pausa

Sometimes life tires me out.  Getting on my plane from Bush internat'l to Costa Rica two nights ago I was struck just how f'n tired I am right now.   Leaving the life of a paid wanderer behind I thought would provide a bit more stability but the last three weeks have been anything but stable.  Not that I can complain, I've been surrounded by friends, been inspired by the company I work for, been more excited and enthusiastic than I've felt in a LONG time, and drank a wee bit too much.  And maybe that is exactly why I am tired.  Living life to the extremes tires a person out.  I spend so much time running from place to place like a crazy woman, drinking it all in, but everyone needs a pause, a break, a moment of stillness.

Traveling for a living has taught me this.  To search out that place between breaths, between places, between people.  To search for a quiet spot in the in between.  I am learning how much I need this to survive.  How I need to make a little time each day where I am alone, not talking, not working, not really doing anything.  And how stopping for a moment we realize the absolute beauty which surrounds us.

november is here... well almost

I like to forget what month it is.  I realize that we have almost 10 days of october left but as I am missing out on Halloween I've decided to forgo the end of October and move straight into November.  Plus we've just gotten our first winter rains here in Northern California so I feel fully justified in this calendrical adjustment.
Today I drove up to Kenwood in Sonoma county under the rainy skies, passing by fields of grape vines, their leaves turning a fall yellow.  The hills are yellow too, that ruddy yellow of dried grass, but a couple more days of rain will turn them their winter silvery gray.  As I drove  I was thinking about the normal descriptors people use for gray: gun metal (or maybe that is for cars), steel, aluminum, etc.  I decided that the sky was the color of that pale almost white ash that develops in flakes on burning logs, ash gray.  And the light was flat, pressing the hills into a painted backdrop of burnished gold grass with the dark olive stain of oak trees lining the clefts in the hillsides.  It was a pretty drive.

packing

My room looks like a bomb went off, which is not a real deviation from standard practice, but gives me anxiety all the same.  I've realized that 3 years of living out of a back pack has given me some strange habits; the one at hand being a deep desire to know that I am all packed up and ready for the next day's adventure.  The problem is that this packing for this departure is a bit more complex than my normal day to day packing and repacking of Poppy (my Osprey waypoint 65L pack).  In the next two weeks I have to brave November in Toronto, the beginnings of the dry season in Costa Rica ( I just checked the weather there: a high of 80 with thunder storms), and then I wrap it all up by moving to Antigua, Guatemala... for a year.
Moving is not my favorite activity, though the prospects of having my own little place where I can grow a basil plant and make coffee and put up photos sounds AMAZING.  Right now I am focusing on those images rather than the overwhelming feeling that thinking about packing brings up. ufff.
Catch you in Guatemala or Chepe or Toronto.