finding the postbox

Buzon. Havana, Cuba.

a memory experiment

I was Antigua, Guatemala for the last 3 days of Semana Santa.   For a lot of people this is a reason in itself to come to Antigua.  And to be honest I had been wanting to see what it was all about since I had heard about it.  My friend Alex was with me for the first night (friday) and with her background in Art History and Latin she was pretty geeked out about the whole thing.  And I have to say the whole thing is really quite impressive, but I didn't take a single picture.
I didn't really think about it at the time, but a while into it I made a conscious decision not to take a photo.  I wanted to see if memory is really affected by not having a photo to reference it.  My idea being that for so many travelers travel has come down to digital images.  Imagine (or maybe you can just remember if this has unfortunately happened to you) that your camera is suddenly lost after an incredible 2 week vacation.  Feel that sinking in your stomach, that ache of desire, what is it that you are missing?  What is it about these images that we are so attached to?  Most of us never print our photos out.  Most of our friends aren't all that interested in seeing them.  And yet sometimes its seems that our photos are more important than our memories, in fact that our photos are our memories. 
I wanted to see if without a photo would my experience of Semana Santa be changed. Though a photo doesn't capture the smell choking smoke of Copal that turns the streets of Antigua in to eerie gray passageways, nor the thundering music which signals Jesus' death, nor the slow swaying walk of the men and women who stoop under the weight of the huge platforms loaded with life size wooden sculptures of Jesus, Angels, Saints and crying Marys, something still impels us to snap away. But what it is that makes us so attached to our images?  Is it this crazy idea that with out a photo we will some how forget where we have been?
I was thinking of this again today as I was walking down the streets of Livingston to the bank.  When we focus on capturing the image we forget to take the time to absorb the details.  Considering this as I walked I tried to take the time to absorb more details, the sounds, the smells, the people.  And now I wonder if my memories of those slow moving marches are sharpened by the fact that while they were passing me I could focus entirely on that moment and not on framing a photo, or if my memories will fade with age and I will wish for a photo to remind me that I was there.
The truth is, I won´t know the answer to this for quite sometime.  Memories take time to settle into the creases of your brain.  Some make an imprint so strong that they never seem to fade, and others are forgotten precisely the moment they happen.
In all honesty, my strongest memories don´t have a photo with which to associate them.  They are standing 9 miles out in the wilderness on my first back packing trip gazing out at an endless sea of evergreen and granite.  Or the feeling of walking out in to Little India my first night in Singapore, the scent of spices and rhythm of bollywood soundtracks pulsating through the heavy air.  Or a moon rising over the freeway overpasses with Mt. Tam in silhouette as I paddle in from practice.  Sometimes that ache or desire to capture a moment is the very thing that makes us remember it with precision.  In our inability to otherwise document it, we take the time to tatoo the present moment into our minds, where it will stay with us, regardless of crashed computers or lost negatives.

sunday in coyoacan, d.f.

a subjunctive méxico

on the plastic stool

pix pix pix. ur welcome vic.

Images (top to bottom) The venerable Tich Ouang Duc's car, Hanoi alley wall, the glorious Edwardarons on Ti Top hill (photo credits to Tom), Ti Top beach sunset.

pure magic.

Forgetting the hords of tourists, red plastic chairs, ridiculous chatter, and how tired I was, this photos just about conveys the experience of an elusive sunrise at Angkor Wat.
I spend a bit of time thinking about how photos have almost over taken the actual travel experience. No photo can properly convey the dicomfort, humidity, heat, and annoyances of travel here. The smells and sounds are lost, the dust, torrential rains, and sweat fade as we reduce our travels down to a series of images. Yet we persist with our obsession of capturing our travels visually, we walk around seeing places through a view finder, more focused on our photos than on giving pause to exactly where we find ourselves. People tell me over and over that without their photos they might forget where they've been and what they've done. I can't imagine that one could ever forget the majesty of Angkor Wat, nor Tikal, nor the Pyramids. Even though countless photos have been taken of these monuments we still need proof that we have been there. Of course one photo of us posed awkwardly in front of these places will not do. We need hundreds of images, and these days I wonder what we even do with them. Thousands of unfocused images make their way onto facebook, we email some back and forth, but mostly they just sit, taking up hard drives.
I often pause in my frenzy to document the beauty of the places I travel and try to just absorb the moment. I notice the heat pressing down on me, my annoyance at the trivial things people manage to talk about in the presence of such beauty, how my eyes ache with tiredness, the empty rumble in my stomach, the itch of the mozzie bite on my ankle, and how the sky went from indigo to almost white with guazy peach clouds stretched across it's curve.

vacation for the girl whose job is vacation

Images, top to bottom (St Peter and Paul, Godalming. Mirrors, Camden Market. The North Down Path, near Farncombe.)


I've been dreaming about being cold for months. Now I am cold and it kind of sucks. I do like getting all cosy and snuggly in my new hoody, and I like wearing socks, I like layering, and hiding beneath the blankets because my nose is cold, but the idea of the tropics all of a sudden seems appealing. Bring on sweaty knee pits, cheap cold beer, mozzies, gap year travelers, tuk-tuk drivers, and all that Asian craziness.
Honestly everyone thought I was nuts to go from SE Asia to England in November, but I love autumn. I like yellow and red leaves, crisp air, feeling like Christmas is around the corner. It has been incredible seeing my family, hugging my mom, eating fish pie at Judy and Jeremy's, meeting Isla, seeing Charlie and Eliot being parents, going for walks, seeing art and very hairy pregnant cows. I haven't drank this much tea in ages, nor ate this much toast or cheese. MMMMMM.

voyuer

bangkok saturated

images: bangkok bound

 
 
 
 

vietnam through a broken lens

rice and noodles have made it hard for me to poop
i miss the peeling off skins of black beans flavored with salsa lizano
and bilingual thoughts
but i am here steaming and sweating like a potato baking in its skin
here is a place that i never thought i would last
a place i don't understand
filled with plastic bags and a lilting choppy language i can't claim to know
i stumble through hello and thank you often speaking vietnamese to laoatians
and responding with 'si' as often as 'yes'
but here i have found a part of myself that i never expected to discover

(view of hoi an from thu bon river, bow of boat on thu bon river and my bia larue -- i returned the bottles to a very pleased vietnamese man, fishing on the thu bon, sunset)

chickens on the bus, fish in my stomach, nicas in the sea!

back on the train

images taken at the Copàn Ruinas, Honduras, Central America


I've been off the blog train for a while now, two weeks in fact. Which is LAME. Because even when I am not writing on the blog shit keeps going down. I like to blame the volcano trail for this sort of thing. The Volcano Trail being the fly by the seat of your zip off pants slalom through central america which I frequently end up leading. This last go round was complete with its wildness, quetzal spottings after late nights at bar amigos, a bit of diving on our stop in Utila, and some ruins visiting in Copàn.
I really dug my last group, they were hard work, but kept me on my toes. I`ve gotten kind of geeked out over birds in the last couple months and a couple of them were really into it. On this trip to Copan I spotted a turquoise crested mot-mot from a fair distances, geeky I tell you.

the haps in costa rica

(Images, from top to bottom, Newly macheted trail and a 'walking palm,' the view from the 'hotel' back down on the disco and dining hall, the famous Rara Avis spine destroying tractor)


I'm in my new christmas sarong sitting in my hotel room in cuidad josefina reflecting on where the last year has taken me. Christmas passed with fewer fireworks but more beach as well as an entertaining round of Secret Santa with my group. It is a bit strange to be divorced from the strange consumer culture of Gringo Christmas and realize what the rest of the world does for the holiday. Strange, but incredibly liberating, I completed all of my christmas shopping in a 15 minute stint on line (books for brothie and pops, an orion magazine subscription for momma and lucky eva). Here christmas seems more to center around family, fireworks, drinking, tamales, church if you are so inclined and/or salsa dancing in the street. I have come to conclude that the Latin way is preferable though there is the possibility of injury by renegade fireworks.

I spent most of the afternoon with Isaac (a fellow tour leader) on the beach discussing why latin/gringo relationships do and do not work, as well as why we need a new name for gringos other than calling ourselves "Americans," which the Ticos find incredibly offensive. The Ticos have a point, America in fact includes both the north and south continents as well as greenland (I think). So the word, American, is kind of a general geographic area, not specific to our country. I am pushing for Statesians, that or Unidians, either really works, or Gringo.

Additionally Isaac explained how he feels like the heavy Gringo influence in Costa Rica has been eroding the core of Latin culture, namely the family. It is true, globalization, mobility, etc, etc... the world's leaning towards mcdonalized homogeneity has an affect here. Isaac reckons that family is more of a responsibility in the States rather than a priority. I feel like that is a pretty generalizing statement, but it has roots somewhere.

Generally in my travels I do see the erosion of a lot of traditions, the revival of others, I see good things happen as the result of tourism, and bad things too. With most of life, I am realizing that it is best to live well, with integrity, to try to do the right thing when presented with choices, and accept what we can't change. It can be hard watching tourists feed monkeys food that is going to make them sick, but I also can't talk to every tourist. I also don't want to be some over aggressive angry chick muttering about how bananas make monkeys sick, how your camera's flash disorient animals, and that yelling in english or botched italian at spanish speakers doesn't make communication easier. I have learned to try inform the people that I can and to pick my battles, and some things I am just learning to accept quietly. Good news is I can brainwash my passengers into believing anything I want, namely convincing them not to buy non-sustainably harvested hardwoods, that feeding animals is bad, that the tap water in monteverde is the best in Costa Rica and it is a crime not to drink it, oh and introduce them to the wonders of guanabana the world's best juice.

Other things worth mentioning....

I finally saw a huge fat male resplendent quetzal and was so excited I forgot all about taking a photo. He sat for 15 minutes, threw up two avocado seeds (a much smaller variety than hass), took a poop, and then flew away. How can you not love a bird that feeds almost exclusively on aguacate?

Rara Avis is my new favorite place in Costa Rica. It is a jungle lodge, 12k out in virgin rainforest only reachable by foot or on the back of a tractor, complete with rastafarian tourguide Wilburth and amazing fried chicken. Riiiigght???


Finally, an important lesson, just because you think you learned how to dance Cumbia once while you were drunk does not mean you will remember how to do it when you get drunk again and try.

Feliz ano nuevo.
damn I need to find the enay on this machine.