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Cayo Jutias, Pinar del Rio, Cuba

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Cua Dai Beach, Quang Nam province, Vietnam

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Aguas Calientes near Laguna Verde, Bolivia.

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The Split. Caye Caulker, Belize.

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Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, El Quiché, Guatemala

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Playa Cuco, El Salvador

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View of the Altiplano near the hot springs, Boilvia

 During my 5 years traveling I often traveled with postcard-sized watercolor paper, a couple collapsable brushes and a set of watercolors my mum gave me on my 10th birthday.  I've finally made the time to scan the paintings I didn't send to friends or family and figured this was the place to share them.

suchi

After a day of following unfit people up hillsides and listening to Don Pablito's recounting of the atrocities of the civil war, the sun went down-- but not before doling out an insane sunset.  I'm not totally sure how this photo happened, my skills aren't very precise, but finally after taking about 50 shots I managed to grab the exact gold of the clouds.  I was standing up on the rooftop of my hotel where I could catch the sounds of Suchitoto settling down for the evening.  Rooftops have that lovely way of managing to let you observe with out forcing you to be a part of everything, sort of the perfect place for me at the end of a long day.  I like the quiet that evening brings, the chattering of birds as they settle down for the night, the slowly quieting hum of people heading home at night.
I'm in Suchitoto, a small town about two hours outside of San Salvador which sparkles with that magic of a not quite discovered place, and makes you feel like an ultra-savvy traveler for just knowing it exists. I've spent my last two days here soaking up the beauty of its white washed walls and tile roofs.
There is something so satisfyingly beautiful about those curved red tiles.  They turn a range of reds and browns at sunset, colors which I have fallen in love with.  The roofs were the same in Trinidad, where I spent most of an afternoon trying to coax the color from the worn-out palette of my 16 year old water colors.

a surreal life

My life lately has taken on the feeling of a chapter out of 100 Years of Solitude: multiple generations of my family eating meals at long tables telling stories of my great grandparents, grandparents, and parents; dreams which feel like life; life which feels like dreams.  Add to all that my outing to see the Surreal Friends exhibition at Chichester's Pallant House Gallery and every thing has started to take on a sepia tinted fuzzy-ness. Surreal Friends focuses on three European women who fled Europe during World War II and met in of all places, Mexico.  Their work is influenced by the surrealist movement and is rich with magic filled details, straight out of the works of Hieronymus Bosch (that's a remnant of all those expensive Art History courses I took at the Dub, parents take note!).  I went with my mum/mom, and her best friend Judy. Watching them chatter in hushed voices in the galleries reminded me of a trip to the museum of Modern Art in San Salvador which I took with a one, Alexandra, a bit earlier this year.
Seeing the art and learning about the lives of these 'European Bitches,' as Frida Kahlo nicknamed them, was inspiring.  Even more so after Eva told me that if I found myself an apartment in Colonia Roma she might come join me to live in D.F. The serendipity of her comment being that Colonia Roma is where these three women made their home during the 40's.
Learning about these creative women standing around their kitchens, telling one another stories, finding inspiration in friendship, laughing about the absurdity of life, sharing their knowledge and encouraging one another to create art, all during a time when women were expected to be perfecting their Sunday roasts, gives me even more faith in the strength and determination of the fairer sex.  Though these days my dream kitchen in Colonia Roma has to be a virtual one, formed of brief emails, inspiring blogs, long winded chat sessions, and the occasional post card from my breath taking group of friends, I am grateful for what I have.
(image: Leonora Carrington, The House Opposite)

"Can you tell me when we get to Polk?"

O.M.G.  Seriously. This week has flown by.  I made a mad dash to 'the city' today with Lindy.  I may have purchased another bag.  HOLY HELL.  Only Gemma princess of the bag, heir to the t-shirt and scarf throne could justify another bag purchase. It stems from a desire to find the perfect bag combination for the vagabond lifestyle. I am sadly coming to realize this may never happen.
I digress. The point of opening up the blog to write was to share my SF adventures.  I think I shall make a list:

1. After an art supply binge at Flax, Lindy and I stumbled upon De Lessio which is sort of a form of salad bar heaven.  I'm not sure words can suffice.
2. Had you ever wondered where all the SF bike messengers hang out? I found out today that they congregate at Post and Market, outside of my friend's office.  I might even go as far as to say that one can find a plethora (and I don't use that word lightly) of them wearing plaid shirts with pearl cowboy-shirt snaps in a size m/l.  I confused one such messenger with a homeless man, and the only way I knew the difference was the presence of his ultra-trendy stickered bike.  I'm not trying to be rude here, this was an honest mistake.
3. New fashion has hit the Apple store with the release of the iPad -- royal blue t-shirts.  They look like a bunch of cheerleaders.  Not a good color choice Mr. Jobs.
4. My current non-foodie lifestyle of worshiping 3-in-1 instant coffee and pan dulce led to a total overload when I entered the SF Ferry building.  I was so overwhelmed that I didn't try a coffee at Blue Bottle Coffee which according to some makes some killer individual drip... hmmm that reminds me I keep meaning to make a world coffee guide on nextstop.com .... manana manana, right?
5. Drinking nebbiollo at 2 in the afternoon is not for the faint of heart.  Vic was so impressed I had to give him a fist pound when he picked me up from the ferry.

Bed. Out.

i heart PP

Phnom Penh is like an ex-pat, do-gooder, NGO flavored, 'let's help these people,' explosion. Wow. Combine that with the remnants of French colonialism and you get kick ass pan au chocolate made by a street kid, who has been newly trained in the secrets of french gastronomy. After breakfast you can head out and buy yourself a wallet made out of brightly colored recycled mosquito netting. End the day having a drink at the FCC with the other ex-pats wearing their, "I voted for Obama in Cambodia" t-shirts which retail for a staggering $15. For that price, as I said to Mikee, those t-shirts better be made in the USA by well paid union workers.
Sarcasm set aside, I really do heart P squared. It has all the makings for a refreshing stint back in the city, wifi, cappuccinos, thai food, americans, western supermarkets, and rock bottom priced dvds. Michael and I headed back to P2 after two nights in Siem Reap. She had some official Peace Corps scavenger hunt planning to do, and I had to be there as moral support, or something like that. Mostly I ended up enjoying the gastronomic offerings of a ex-pat developed city and tried to not get in the way of official PCV business.
Inspired by all the delightful discoveries that Meesh shared with me, I thought I would pass along the tips. First off we stayed in Golden Gate Guest House on 278, along the same street are a number of delightful discoveries, the boom boom room where you can get your ipod loaded with the latest tunes, top banana (Mikee's favorite guest house), and a delicious Thai place (the name escapes me). Another feature of 278 is Maharaja, where all the PCV like to indulge in the gut bomb of Indian breakfast. Right around the corner is, semi-famous Garden Cafe in it's second incarnation, Garden Cafe 2. Besides GC2, is a very very cool recycled product boutique, Smateria. Their products are made from plastic bags, old mosquito nets, and tetra-pack. It was started by two Italianos, and now is a cute little place filled with friendly Khmer, happy to let you snoop around and decide if a wallet will fit your passport and five currencies.
If you are feeling like a traveler with especially full pockets, or just feeling the need to have a shwanky afternoon head over to the devastatingly cute and gastronomic blocks of 240. There you can stock up on killer baguettes and french cheese at VeGGy's, wander down the street for croissant and dragon fruit smoothies at the shop, where all the IT people feed, and buy chocolate for your Khmer sweet heart at Chocolate (the shop's chocolatiere off-shoot). The Shop is that kind of place that makes you feel cooler and more with it than normally your hairy legs and dirty sandaled feet would allow. My first time in there 3 french business men were 'doing ' breakfast in pale suits and crisp blue shirts, meaning I stuck out like a sore thumb, but they do a mean cappuccino, so who cares?
Another ex-pat hot spot is Java, which besides serving Illy coffee, also displays local art and organizes cool events, like Architecture and Urban Design month. Finally another cool food meets art place is Friends they have a little boutique and a restaurant near the National Musuem. I fell in love with their cookbook, From Spiders to Water Lilies. The restaurant is a sort of Jamie Oliver deal, teaching kids about the biz and arming them with a set of marketable skills.
Most of the things that the sell in the little shop are recycled items, in the same vein as Smateria. It has been very inspiring to witness so much positive grass roots community stuff that Phnom Penh has to offer. Almost every cafe you go into talks about how it uses local produce, fair trade coffee or helps disadvantaged youth. The cynic in me wonders how many of them are doing as well as their mission statements, carefully constructed in english, might imply, but the optimist in me hopes that it is an indication of the direction the world might be headed, that finally we might be learning from our mistakes.

geek out

Oh my. I know I can get totally geeked out over silly things, cheese, good pens, fonts, i.p.a.
Still buzzing from hanging with the artsy types in Copenhagen I have been preparing for a more artistic mission on my upcoming trip. Hence the geeking out over mechanical pencils, sketch books, maps, and the like. This all lead to an epic internet binge where I unearthed some exciting stuff.
First thing is Good magazine's cool map that details famous journeys. I think it is worth a bit of an explore, especially if you enjoy a bit of good design. I fiddled around with it for a bit looking at Kerouac crossing the states, and the trans-siberian's epic journey spanning asia.
Though very different Good's map somehow reminds me of the hand drawn maps from Mark Elliot's guide to southeast asia. I used this book extensively while I traveled through the region. Before I arriving I couldn't really grasp the usefulness of the thing, but it quickly showed it's true colors. The maps were way more convenient than all that usual wordiness and the book was missing all that strange commentary that the Lonely Planet writers feel free to include. It is not the book for you if you want a hand holding guide book, but if you are more on the pirate, yarh-ed out end of traveling you might dig it, or you might not want a guide book at all.
In my dreams I will someday write a similar graphic guide book to central america, the problem is I keep getting mildly distracted by other things. Bad excuse I know. One such thing is project inspired by Valeria. She broke my heart when she showed me Stefano Faravelli's book on his travels in India (In viaggio con l’elefante). If I never had a desire to learn Italian and move to India before, I did after looking at this book. Learning Italian so that I could read his writing, and India because, well it's India. I also stumbled upon the blog of a drawing course in Italy that also focuses on documenting travels in a similar manner.
So now my plan is to drag watercolors and pencils to Cambodia and spend my time drawing and painting the days away, while of course laughing my ass off with Michael. We shall see how it goes.