LiveDeliberately.org

... And here we go again!

2009-06-19T12:28:00.002-06:00

Hi all, I know it's been quiet hereabouts, but I'm back in Latin America and loving it! I've take lots of pictures, and have a lot to say, but will have to wait 'til I'm back and home in a couple weeks.
But until then, just know I'm loving the cigars and classic cars!
~Micah

Real power isn't who takes orders, its who does favors.

2009-03-05T21:28:00.002-07:00

More than a feeling

2008-12-12T21:40:00.005-07:00

There has been a lot of concern, as of late, about Obamas appointments. For the first 'progressive' president in a generation, he has been appointing staff from across the political spectrum, ranging from Robert Gates, the current Republican Secretary of Defense to stay in office, and rival Hillary Clinton coming in as Secretary of State.

Barack Obama kicked off his presidential campaign by writing a book, Audacity of Hope about this topic. It was an eloquent, and passionate screed against the ‘smallness of American politics.’ How the government today is so fossilized by partisan disputes today it is crippled. Not only is there a Republican/Democrat divide, but there are the extremes in both parties fighting to assert dominance. Obama burst into the national scene targeting this very topic, in his 2004 convention speech (“There is not a red America, and a blue America. There is the United States of America!”). The thesis of that entire book was that this partisan rancor has to change, and that can only done by meaningfully bridge the gap. In other words, get ‘buy in’ and advisors from across the political spectrum.

Obama suggested he wanted to change these political litmus tests (talk about audacity!) but knew he needed to win an election in a partisan society, so he ran a campaign dominated by vague phrases so he could be anything to anyone… Change & Hope (as if everyone else was pushing Stagnation & Despair). He’s said himself in his books and speeches, that people perceive him to share their values even if he doesn’t. There is something about his charisma that makes many of us (myself very much included) feel he agrees on everything important without him ever actually saying it. Obama ran on a feeling… and feelings are not legally or politically binding.

So, contrary to the Obama that I (and many liberals) felt was running, the Obama that is starting to assert himself is the one that he told us he would be. Although he has been against the Iraq war since he ran for the Senate he asked Hillary Clinton, an unapologetic supporter, to run the state department (the office that plans our foreign policy.) Today she can walk into a room and say ‘I, like most of you, supported the war. Now we need to get out.’ It’ll be an opportunity for political redemption for people across the political spectrum, even for those that had the spectacularly bad judgment to get us in the mess in the first place. The main thing that the ‘extreme anti-war liberals’ will have to show from this appointment is an end to a horrible, expensive, bloody never-ending war.

Personally, I think that counts for a lot.

Discovery of an entirely new direction

2008-11-30T18:26:00.003-07:00

Before I moved back to Colorado, I never really understood the point of ritual. When I ask my devout Catholic friends 'Why?' their first answer is never about Heaven nor Hell, it is simply 'tradition.' That seemed harmless enough, but also seemed pointless. Why wake up early every Sunday morning to see something that you've seen before, and that you will always be able to see again?

Don't get me wrong, as a fan of a multicultural world I've never wished (most) human traditions would disappear, I just saw little reason to play a part in them myself. In Japan I joined in an intricate 'Tea Ceremony,' and found it fascinating and amusing. About 800 years ago a man dedicated his long life to 'perfecting' the art of making tea and has been subsequently mimicked by Japanese ever since. It's a long, tedious, detailed process to make cup of gritty tea that could be replicated (more or less) in 20 seconds with a teabag and a microwave. I appreciated it as something cultural that I could attend to get a 'Japan experience' but what could possibly be in it for eight long centuries worth of Japanese who just want something hot to drink?

It took me about a decade and a half after that to figure it out, but it's starting to make sense. Every holiday since I moved to Colorado, I've been a part of some unique family rituals. They are loosely based on Native American traditions adapted heavily by my uncle Stephen. One such tradition, that crops up on every major holiday and gathering, is a prayer to the six directions. In a nutshell, everyone faces each direction (compass direction + up and down) offering a prayer to what we find there. For example, towards the East we pray to the direction where the sun rises, the great plains, and the possibility of new beginnings... etc. After that we each, in turn, wave sagebrush smoke over us as a spiritual cleanse.

When Tyler and I moved to Colorado we dutifully joined in on these quirky family rituals to try to fit in as the prodigal sons from east, but before long I caught myself craving them. There is something I find incredibly powerful each and every time we do it. Every time I play a part I feel connected in some vital way to me, and the others there, doing the same ritual both into the past and into the future. To an outside observer, or a surly teenager, it is nothing more than an incantation spoken into a suburban backyard. And although that may well be accurate, it misses huge impacts in how it can inexplicably change how each participant sees the universe. The effect, for me, in some way fuels energy, focus and understanding that do alter how I face the world. When on Thanksgiving this year I felt myself connected to Thanksgiving '07, '06 I couldn't help but get an understanding of personal, and community evolution. I can't begin to explain it, but I can no longer deny it.

Beyond the personal benefits, rituals like this have a powerful way of connecting people. Although I only started a few years ago, I've been able to watch new people brought into it. Last year I brought my Chinese friend Zhuolun, this year his new wife Katie came too. When people circle up and we start the prayer new people fidget unsure of what they're supposed to do. Somehow, by the end, everyone involved feels a measure closer to the others and that comfort stays with them, long after the ritual is over.

It doesn't really matter why these rituals have such power. What matters is they have it.

For all the power of continuity, this year the ritual changed. Stephen took inspiration from a Lakota speaker and added a whole new direction. In addition to praying East, South, West, North, Up and Down we now also take a moment to focus Inside. It seems apropos, obvious in retrospect, but it also represents a brand new dimension in my spiritual evolution. Going into a new year, I'm looking forward to finding out what something so simple actually means.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey buddy, can you spare a dime....

2008-11-25T10:09:00.003-07:00

... or $5 Trillion, so I can get a hot meal. Thanks!

I'd just like to say, kids are great. They have that wide-eyed innocence and naivete about them and they're quick to help out a friend in need (even if they haven't been born yet!) I just wish I had kids, so I could take out credit cards in their names.

Curious what I'm talking about? These bailout bills that keep showing up in the news are staggering in scope and I just found a blog post that puts them into context.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.
People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion
This doesn't mean we necessarily should not do it, leaving the next generation a crumbled economy helps no one. It does mean that we should expect and demand that the bailout should have a massive impact on how humans live on the planet.
As we sell the next generation of Americans into desperate debt the least we can do is leave them a well running planet. Or, perhaps, we should just continue to funnel resources to the greediest generation of Americans in history, the Baby Boomers.

Awakening from a Coma

2008-10-19T20:55:00.004-06:00

Shocking fans world wide LiveDeliberately awoke today from a coma. In mid 2006, for no apparent reason, this wildly popular blog keeled over in front of friends and family and lost consciousness. Initially, all assumed it was a joke and the blog would soon be up and alliterating. As the days stretched to weeks, then months and years the gaunt frame of this once vibrant blog was only a pale shadow of its former glory. It lost weight, withering into the generic 'blogger' template. Aside from a short bout of delusional ranting in 2007 not a word has been heard from this once mighty internet pulpit. Until this moment.

I just blinked my eyes awake...bewildered by the bright lights of 2008. My last memory was something about a pool table and a dream in 2006, but that seems like a lifetime ago. So, what've I missed? Huh? An Obama is a what? Really? OK, OK, Wise guy. You almost had me believing that America was about to elect him president, until you pushed the joke too far with hints that the 'very experienced' Republicans chose a weathergirl to be VP. Cute. Seriously, who has Clinton chosen as her running mate?

It turns out, Micah has been a little more active than I have. When we fell silent he had just netted a dream job, and was anxious to plunge into life in Denver. Home was a Koi pond with an adjoining building, and the job was doing energy modelling of buildings at a little consulting firm. It had everything Micah was looking for interesting projects, brilliant colleagues, and meaningful work. It had everything, except passion.

Micah and Tyler moved into a large apartment in the up and coming part of Denver called Five Points, and were soon joined by their lovely cousin Crystal. This trio made the house home, and invited dear friends to use it as an entree into Denver. Peter, Holly, and Raph also started their Denver stories at that mansion on Glenarm.

Micahs 'dream job' didn't work out for anyone. Feeling down, because he had found the career he'd been preparing for since the last millenium made him miserable when he did it. Micah chose to to go into the Peace Corps and signed on with a tiny nonprofit called iCAST to pay the bills 'til the plane left... but didn't quite leave. iCAST gave Micah an opportunity to do more of things he hoped, with a lot of luck and hard work, he might do in the Peace Corps. It quickly became the best job he ever had. His coworkers are dear friends, and the projects were dizzying in scope and variety. Micah taught farmers how to make biodiesel, sited wind turbines, tutored students, upgraded homeless shelters, and generally working tirelessly to shrink the gap between fantasy and reality. The world woke up, green turned hip ... and iCAST quintupled in a year and a half.

In addition to the deliciously frantic pace during the week this blog was left all alone on weekends too because of the big lumbering giants to the west. In the grey northeast, blue skies can make a compelling argument to drop everything and go outside. In Colorado there are blue skies 300 days a year and Micah still can't resist going out to play in the mountains. Somehow, with good fortune and a tall tale about Herbert Hoover Micah met his muse. Erin is a teacher who has built her life around chasing hope, dreams and passion all over the world.

Micahs era at iCAST ended with smiles and hopeful handshakes. Today Micah spends his days talking to utilities about how they can make more money by polluting less.

But this, and the rest of the tale, is a story for another day. The ice has been broken, and once more this blog will share the unfolding saga of the Brothers MacAllen.

Micah MacAlien

2007-09-30T00:05:00.001-06:00

cliff dwellings of the mole people

I know it's been a while since the last post, but I have a good excuse.

I had to return to my home planet to see if anyone else had survived the supernova. Nobody did, aside some from foul smelling mole people, so I came back to Colorado.

I've only been gone about a week, but all this traveling at relativistic speeds, makes about a week for me equivalent to over a year for earth bound mortals.

Did you miss me?

Delicious Denver Daydreams and Delightful Delusions

2006-06-21T21:58:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I last blogged, and much has happened so I've got a lot to recap. When last I wrote I was living in Colorado desperately looking for work I could believe in. Much has happened since then, so I've got a lot to catch this blog up on.

I made it back to paradise. Last night I was lounging in a hammock on the north coast of Colombia, sipping a warm beer and chatting in my near-perfect Spanish with a lovely bikini-clad Argentinean. Looking for work up in Colorado was entirely too stressful. It turns out unemployment is more work than work but pays a lot less.

Having gotten fed up, I went back to Parque Tayrona, a coastal rainforest with unbelievable beaches that Tyler and I visited way back in October. Through some outrageous good fortune, several characters from the trip were there. Andy and Io were kicking up their tired feet after the long hike in, Ben was smoking rollies, and Wim figured out some way to make Beef Medallions in the tiny beach kitchen. Patricia made the long trek north across all of Brazil to be there for my vacation from unemployment.

Last night, while watching the lighting across the Carribean Patricia motioned, with a smile, to come a little closer. I slid close enough enough to smell the salt water drying from her hair. She leaned over to whisper in my ear, winked, and said,

"BRAA-BRAAA-BRAA-BRAAA-BRAA-BRAAA,"

...in that obnoxiously electronic way she has. Really loud. Right in my ear. As I blearily blinked my eyes awake all I could think was: "that isn't very adorable at all."

Home under a pool table

It was my cell phone screaming at a painfully early hour. And I wasn't in a hammock being gently swung by a Caribbean breeze. I was waking up on a mattress under a half a pool table in my aunt and uncles basement in Colorado. But thats only part of it; the alarm clock was going off because, get this, I had to go to WORK!
So, which life is real? And which is the fantasy? Truth be told, it's not entirely clear to me. While in Colombia Tyler and I spoke a lot about what we wanted out of life. Although thouroughly enjoying our time in paradise, we also fantisized about our ideal life after the trip was over. We imagined ideal jobs, ideal living situations, and ideal lifestyles. With little to limit our daydreams we'd spend entire days chatting about any life we could imagine. Tyler imagined himself leaping into an entirely different career path. I imagined a career of using technology to mitigate the damage due to technology. We talked about businesses we wanted to start, political campaigns we wanted to run, and how we'd both get in Mr. Universe shape. We both wanted to live in Colorado, a fanciful place we both left as children. We daydreamed about getting a kickass apartment, downtown, together. It all felt vaguely outrageous, ridiculous daydreams for a couple homeless drifters.

And it is still anticipation, but now it is wobbling on the precipice of plunging into full reality. Last June Tyler and I gave up nearly everything stable in our lives for a broad lifechanging experience, of which the trip to Latin America was only a part of. We wanted to restart everything, to find entirely new anchors to build brand new lives around. And now, over the past two months we've been building the context that will define what new chapters of our lives will be written about. We moved to Colorado, inserted ourselves into a large family network, both got jobs BETTER than we daydreamed about, and are due to move into our kickass downtown Denver apartment in one week.

So which is the dream? Hanging out in a hammock looking out at the Carribean with dear travel buddies or living well while watching outrageous daydreams turn into reality in front of my eyes?

PS Speaking of daydreams turning into reality, does anyone out there ever imagine living in the fantasically cool city of Buenos Aires, Argentina? You could study tango, learn Spanish, or just live in a city that everyone who visits loves? I'm asking because Patricia lives in a cozy apartment in heart of the city and she is looking for a housemate. She is really friendly, has lived in BA for most of her life, is well-travelled, internationally minded, speaks fluent English and would be an all-around great person to live with (I wish I could!). It's a great deal at $200/month so if you are curious at all check out some some pictures and then write to me (MicahMacAllen@LiveDeliberately.org) so I can put you in touch.
PPS She also promises to never wake up her new housemate by screaming "BRAA-BRAAA-BRAA-BRAAA-BRAA-BRAAA" in their ear. If only I was so lucky

Naturally Networking

2006-05-10T16:04:00.000-06:00

    There is a lot of information out there about how to go about getting a cool job. There are tons of books, thousands of websites, and billions of people with jobs that could clue me in as to how to go about it. Now that I'm in this game, I've been sampling enough of those resources to discover that 99% of them share one piece of advice that I didn't want to hear. They almost universally say the most important thing is "networking." I hate that term. It sounds so cold and calculating, like you're treating people as opportunities rather than humans. I want my dream job, of course, but I worry that I don't have it in me to be like that term sounds.

    After the trip I went to Massachusetts to visit with my former boss and friend, who started asking about what I wanted to do now. After I talked a bit, he mentioned that he had a few friends that were doing cool related stuff in Colorado and asked if I'd like to speak with them. Hell yeah! This can't be networking though, it is just taking up a good friend on the offer of a favor, right?

    Speaking of friends, last weekend, I had a chance to connect with a couple old pals. Shawn came out from California to visit Tim and I, and we had a long merry weekend. It started with a visit to the Coors brewery in Golden Colorado, proceeded through a couple wild nights, and finally ended up on a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the park; Shawn teaching me a little Cappoeria while Tim sprinted continuously for an hour and half in his amateur soccer league.

    I've known Tim for longer than almost any non-family member. He has been living in Denver for most of this millennium. The two of us have some remarkable similarities. We were both: born in Colorado, moved to Guilderland, NY in time for middle school (where we met), love cycling, love the outdoors, are handy with math/science stuff and care about environmental issues. We even kind of look alike, a description of one of us given to the police would get us both in the lineup. It's no wonder we ended up friends. The similarities, however, don't end there. Tim is graduating this weekend with a degree in building systems engineering, his focus on sustainable design and energy efficiency. This, oddly enough, is almost exactly what I did in school. So now we are both looking for the same sort of job in the same region at the same time.

    If I really was a cold hearted networking machine I suppose it'd be a good time to end the friendship and engage in a ruthless competition. But, we're just too good of friends, so instead we've decided to use eachother as respective resources towards our common goals. It is, thus far, the coolest thing that's happened to me in this whole job search. I studied what I did in school because I earnestly believe that it'll be up to my generation of engineers to use appropriate technology to save us from ecological woes. The fact that someone whose intelligence and passion I've respected since middle school came to the identical conclusion is profoundly validating. And, honestly, I'm sure there will be jobs for us both. The earth needs all the help she can get right now.

    So, job hunting is no longer as lonely as it was a couple weeks ago. Now I've got someone to swap leads with, read over resumes, and empathize with the ups and downs of the search. And one day, hopefully soon, we'll both be hired somewhere spiffy and each have the other as an ally doing something related nearby.

Wait a gosh darn second.
Is "Networking" just a fancy word for friends?

Charming Chicks

2006-05-06T09:55:00.000-06:00

    The MacAllen Brothers have been in Colorado for over a month now and so far the trips good luck has been holding. I have however, fallen behind in telling our traveling tale, so let me catch you up on this past month.

We're blessed with kindhearted relatives scattered all over the state who we've been leaning on as we struggle to get to our feet. Most helpfully, we've spent the bulk of our time at our aunt and uncle's house in Lakewood, a suburb of Denver. They've been wonderful, generous, thoughtful and didn't hesitate to invite two furry travelers and all their possessions into their home.

    As further evidence of how fortunate we are when we're together is the amazing fortune we've had with housemates thus far. I mentioned before our delighted surprise when we returned to Albany to find that Madre MacAllen had rented out spare rooms in her house to, as it turned out, two lovely ladies. Well, within a week at Buz and Nancy's home in Colorado we found ourselves sharing the house with a dozen cute chicks. Sweeeeeeet!

    We've spent much of the last month running around visiting people and have checked in with many of our family and friends, save a few stragglers we're still trying to hunt down. A lot of folks insist on seeing us, personally, before they'll trust that we're actually here. You see, I'd been promising to move to Colorado "very soon" ever since I was getting ready to come back from Denmark in 2002. One thing kept leading to another and I didn't get out west for longer than few brief visits. Tyler joined me in issuing earnest, but untrue, promises when two years ago we jointly declared we'd be here for good in 6 months. It's not really our fault as the MacAllen brothers aren't known for our sense of direction; we moved to Colorado via Central and South America.

    We're here now and are working hard to commit ourselves to this state. Although we're both proud bicycle commuters, neither of whom have owned a car for years, it didn't take long to come to terms with the fact that the wide open spaces of the west make for a hell of a lot of pedaling. Despite a very respectable mass transit system here in Denver, so much is out of reach to one without a car. So, last week, the MacAllen brothers both went in on a shiny '95 Honda Accord. I almost pity the nice guy we bought it from. He had no idea he was dealing with a team that had spent most of the last year bargaining with Latin Americans for everything from food & accommodation to package tours. We smiled, chatted, and ended up talking ourselves into a 30% discount from the asking price.

    Even more has changed than the spontaneous existence of the motorized MacAllens. The earth very nearly shifted on its axis when it suddenly saw Tyler shed his beads, and looking rather dapper in a suit, on his way to an interview...

...And one morning I woke up and decided that the key to finding true love, a meaningful career and the solution to world peace was to drag a very sharp blade over my shaggy face.

-->

I feel Naked!

Rambling to the Rockies

2006-04-08T00:43:00.000-06:00

    It took me 23 years to do it but I finally moved back to Colorado. Tyler and I just moved to the Mountain state from New York, a round trip starting a little before Christmas in my sixth year when my family moved the opposite way.

    We almost didn't make it anywhere back in 1983; on our way to NY we were caught in the worst snowstorm seen in years. When the engine of our tiny Honda Civic stalled out under a thick and falling blanket of snow on a desolate stretch of highway our our eastbound motion disappeared but more importantly it took the heater with it. The car was tiny, so small that when our family of four moved across the country we didn't have room for luxuries like winter coats or boots. We huddled as much as we could, but it got cold really fast. A guardian angel trucker eventually picked us up and brought us to the nearest motel but I still see the look of fear in my mothers eye when she tells the story. Happily, I was oblivious to everything. My biggest complaint about the whole experience was that my feet were freezing when I had to walk across the snowy parking lot of the motel in sneakers.

    Tyler and I both travel light or at least we thought we did. We've lived out of a shrinking backpack for much of the year and returned home to purge even more. We intitially figured that because our family of four could move to NY in a little Honda Civic the two of us would surely be able to move back to Colorado in something similar. But, the more we piled stuff up the more we saw it wasn't to be. Our computers and camping gear alone would fill out a trunk so when we added a couple guitars, three bicycles, a couple dozen books we couldn't bear to part with and a feast of Madre MacAllen cookies we reluctantly gave up. We rented a mini-van and still just barely fit it all.

    The ride itself zipped by as quickly as 30 hours of mostly flat straight highway could. We drove in shifts, listened to a Harry Potter audiobook and daydreamed about what we're getting ourselves into. One odd highlight of the journey is a random rest-stop we pulled over in Iowa, the Herbert Hoover memorial rest stop.

    I've been fascinated with Hoover for years, much to the chagrin of those I inflict Hoover trivia on. His life was incredible. He went from working in the bottom of a mine to being the most highly regarded international expert on mine engineering in the world within ten years. He found a treasure map to an ancient and lost chinese treasure mine and then proceeded to find it ( organizing the defense of a city during the Boxer rebellion along the way). Although he was a Republican he was also a pacifist, so when WWI broke out he focused his formidable energy and resources on keeping european non-combatants fed and healthy. By the end of the war he brought 34 million tons of food, clothing, and supplies to people in twenty nations. He was elected president on the strength of his massive humanitarian achievements and then muddled up his presidency so badly it soured his reputation ever since (even though he did equally amazing stuff after). He is one of the few people that has ever walked the earth that can count the human lives they've personally rescued in the MILLIONS. So, as I walked around his Memorial rest stop I couldn't help but think one thing... "I hope no one ever tries to remember me with a rest stop."

    Undeterred, but slightly exhausted, we finally made it to the state of our birth. Tyler and I rolled into view of the mountains listening to John Denver's Rocky Mountain High trying to imagine what'll happen next.

Courageous Convoy to Colorado

2006-04-04T11:02:00.000-06:00

    When I hit the post button on this blog the MacAllen Brothers will officially be back on the road. We've spent the last five weeks reconnecting with our roots in the northeast and time has flown by much faster than we'd thought it would.

    Our long streak of good luck has continued unabated. When we learned, while in Peru, that Madre MacAllen started renting out rooms of her house we were a little nervous. We needed to remind ourselves where we came from, and there is nothing like stranger housemates to turn a home into a house. We arrived home to discover that our new housemates were two lovely and talented art grad students named Lisa and Mihee. The awkward introductory phase lasted all of 3 seconds before their sweet and friendly nature took over and made us feel like we had returned home to dear friends. Although we've got the relaxed daily schedule of the broke and unemployed we found our selves spending the month running from one merry reunion to another.

    I have a selection of former lives to return to, so I chose another of my favorites and revisited the Pioneer Valley, Massachusetts where I lived for two years before the trip. I caught up with old friends, stayed with a sweet and generous dancer and generally just thrived on watching spring arrive to one of my favorite areas in the world (which means we had a 3 week winter this year, I should migrate below the equator every year!). I went in to my old office one day to check in with friends there, and accidentally fell back into my routine. It took me three days of going back to my old job all day to help catch up with a deadline of theirs, reacquaint with that whole "work" thing and remind myself of what a good life I had. I really miss everything about the valley but mostly the people.

    Such a wonderful time at home made me wonder if leaving this side of the country again was a good idea. But the wheels were already in motion. Tyler and I had rented a big van, loaded it up with all our worldly goods and are momentarily going to leave for a mad dash halfway across the country to Colorado. Is it a good idea? Methinks the universe approves and it's letting me know by a bit of chronological mathematical magic. We officially will transition from this life to another at time so special it won't happen for another hundred years...

...It is exactly 01:02:03 04/05/06

An Albany And Amsterdam Ancient Affiliation

2006-03-13T10:48:00.000-07:00

My hometown Albany, NY

    The difference between traveling and vacationing is who returns. After a vacation I return recharged and refreshed but ultimately the same person who left. A traveler, on the other hand, lets the experience wash over and change them. Coming home after trip like ours can be one of the most intense experiences of the entire journey. Suddenly we're somewhere that I know should be familiar but it's changed because there is a different person seeing it.

    For example, the Albany I left was nothing special. It was just the city I grew up in. But last weekend I wandered downtown with a friend to catch the St. Patrick’s Day parade and snapped pictures of the amazing architecture until my camera’s battery died. The city felt both familiar and foreign but it was also familiar to something foreign which blew my mind.

    Downtown Albany has many brownstone buildings; tall narrow buildings clustered so close to that they can lean on one another. The architects had to show their creativity with only the facades, the windows, roof gables, and other architectural details on the narrow wall facing the street.

    That makes it look like another cool city I have visited in my travels, Amsterdam. In the Middle Ages the city of Amsterdam charged property tax not based on the size of home, nor the plot of land, but it's frontage to the street. So, the narrower the house is the less they needed to pay. When the architects were limited by width they went to great lengths to make the facades, windows, and the roof gables distinctive.

    Coincidence? Not really. A little detail from the dusty recesses of my memory floats up. In a middle school I learned that that the Dutch colonized much of New York, and founded Albany, long before they gave it to the English. They established some cultural traditions, like our annual Tulip festival, as well as built buildings. They created places like they knew, like home, like Amsterdam. And even after the English took over the next generation designed buildings to fit the already existing feel of Albany. In other words, Dutch.

Amsterdam, Holland the former capital of my colonial city

    A highlight of traveling in Latin America was the countless colonial cities we visited. Throughout the trip I wondered what it must be like to grow up in a place influenced so much by an ancient European power.

It wasn't until I got home that I realized that my hometown, and a house I lived in, was shaped by a Dutch tax code from the Middle Ages..

Computation Conclusion Catalog Coda

2006-03-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

It's finally official. The (first) MacAllen Latin America Epic is over. We got home, to Albany NY with one day to go before I plunged headlong into the last year of my twenties. My birthday kicked off a long week of parties and happy reunions with friends and family so it still felt like the trip was going all the way until after our Homecoming Hullabaloo party over a week later. Madre MacAllen was kind enough to throw us a homecoming party and the house filled up with smiling friends bearing great food and wine. People came in from four different states, and were nearly overflowing out of the house. I'd like to thank everyone who helped and came to the party. It really meant a lot to both of us that you took the time to share this moment with us!

Nearly everybody's first question is "So, How was the trip?" It's a fair question but I always feel a bit overwhelmed by it because it feels too small to engage a topic so big. As soon as it's asked a landslide of thoughts leap into my mind fighting to be the answer I give. My immediate thought process is something along the lines of...

"This trip was relaxing, stressful, beautiful, easy, terrifying, delicious, horrid, hard work, exhausting, fun, educational, foul smelling, wonderful, merry, playful, serious, energizing. I lost myself, saw things I'd only known from books, got to know my best friend (Tyler) even better, fell in love, caught myself thinking in Spanish, built a building out of shit, leapt into ridiculous situations, learned html, got close friends from all over the world and ultimately found myself... Etc"

But a tiny question begs a tiny answer. In all likelihood it was just a polite query and the person asking isn't ready to get assaulted with my verbal diarrhea on the topic. So, as these thought go streaming down to my mouth I scramble to pick a simple reply like "wonderful". Unable to summarize, I pick one phrase from the onslaught at random to answer with. Usually it works, but sometimes when the phrase that comes out is something like "I learned html" it surprises and confuses both of us.

Even now, when I'm sitting at home with all the time in the world to compose this post, I don't know how to summarize an experience like that. Because I am an engineer, I'll put things in the language I understand... numbers.

The trip was 8 1/2 months long and spanned 10 countries.
(Tyler also went to Chile, bringing his count to 11)

We took 5,688 pictures:

1042 from Guatemala	303 from Honduras	190 from Nicaragua	781 from Costa Rica
201 from Panama	526 from Colombia	526 from Ecuador	526 from Peru
278 from Bolivia	1015 from Argentina	242 from Chile	At least 293 of Art
At least 176 of Tyler	At least 148 of Micah	At least 530 of Flowers	At least 146 of Creatures

(these photos are a random pic from each of these sets, click its link for a slideshow on that theme)

Tyler and I went through 5 cameras. We started with 1 old beat-up Canon camera, bought 4 more before and during the trip, and broke or lost all but 1 of these.
(The old Canon made it through, and took most of the pictures of, the whole trip like a champ! )

We each got at least 1 infectious parasite.

We were both robbed, mugged, or assaulted a grand total of 0 times.

I spent the night in 72 different places.

I tried parilla, an Argentinean delicacy made with parts of a cow like the stomach and intestines, 2 times.
(I'll try anything once, twice if it doesn't kill me, and three times if I like it.)

Tyler bought, made himself, or was given 23 necklaces, beads, or other pieces of jewelry.

Smuggled 6 bottles of Argentinean wine home.

We wrote 16 Blog posts in the lead up to this trip, and another 81 on the road for a total of 97.
(98 when I press publish!)

Sampled at least 6 new types of alcohol.
(Chicha, Fernat, Pisco, Vino de Cana, Singani, Bolivian Agua de Fuego)

Started seriously planning to start our own hostel in 3 places.
(Panama, Medellin, Lanquin)

Had a merry reunion with others we met traveling at least 16 times.
(Arwen, Katherine, Bernat, Nell, Rizwana, Kuku, Edwin, Andy, Io, Kristina, Ditte, Ben, Krista, Flor, Rose, and Patricia)

The biggest number, I'm sure, would be the number of times we swore we'd return to Latin America. But this number got too high to count after the first month.

Tyler and I hung up our backpacks at Madre MacAllens home for the time being and are struggling to figure out what to do next. In many ways this trip gave us a lot of answers that we went into it looking for... what we wanted out of life, who we are and what we want that to mean to the world. On the other hand, this trip gave us more questions than answers. Tylers career and life aspirations went from including Albany and a 10 mile radius around it to a broad five year plan that puts him in an exotic country for most of it. I've got a better sense of who I am, what I want to do with my life... but have returned home to find I left half of my soul below the equator. I don't really know where I'll be in a year, or even a month... but I plan to keep this weblog in the loop. Keep on comin' by!
An entirely new adventure begun the moment the Latin American Epic ended. And I'm even more excited, and curious, to see how this one plays out.

Pondering Post from Past in a Pretty Plush Place

2006-02-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

Buenos Aires is Big. Thirteen million people, about a third of Argentinas population, make this city the most populus in all of South America. Generally I'm not a huge fan of enormous cities but I was excited about this one. Ever since we started way back in Guatemala northbound travelers that Tyler and I met put Buenos Aires in a different class than everywhere else they visited. They would say something like:

"Quito has great mountains, there are rockin' dance clubs in Lima, Cuzco has ancient ruins and friendly Peruvians..." they would tell us before getting a goofy grin and saying, "...and then there is Buenos Aires. Well, you know, it's Buenos Aires"

    Although they might share some comments about huge streets and nice parks it was always a mystery what almost universally makes everyone who steps foot into the city want to stay for good. That's why, when Tyler and I had to book a flight home we thought this city might making a fitting finale for our epic adventure. That made sitting on the long bus ride from Mendoza a bus with Patricia curled in my arms a bittersweet moment. I was sad because the end of this long trip was rapidly approaching. But I was simultaneously excited to go to a legendary city with a lovely guide who has lived most of her life in the center of it all.

    This location, well situated on a river near the ocean, has had an irresistable allure for its entire history. It was first founded in 1536 but the natives weren't going to give it up without a fight so they kept the Spanish away for nearly 50 years. Eventually the Spanish rebuilt it, and mandated that almost all the trade from most of South America had to pass through its ports. The city thrived on this monopoly but the wealth attracted pirates and the English Navy (often one and the same) like moths to a flame. The Portugese built the city of Colonia across the river to facilitate raids and blackmarket trading and continually fought Spain for control. Eventually, when Argentina declared independence in 1816 it encouraged immigration to fill in its wide open landscapes but the massive immigration didn't go quite as planed. Many of those arriving fell so in love with the city they started in, Buenos Aires, that they never left. So the Italians, Jews, Koreans, Germans etc. collected in certain neighborhoods giving each a feel that was a combination of their old home and the new. The history of this special city had a profound effect in a couple ways.

    Although there are still plenty of people immigrating today time has blended all the disparate groups into proud porteños (people from BA). Walking the streets here, and much of Argentina, one is just as likely to see a blond Argentinian as someone with native heritage. Although many of the immigrants original cultural roots have long morphed into something new every neighborhood still retains a distinctive feel. Its many different faces is one of the many powerful allures of modern Buenos Aires. We could wake up in the morning and get a coffee in the bustling urban neighborhood of Congresso (much like Manhattan), spend the morning checking out street art in the working class but brilliantly colored Bocas, have lunch in the high cost and fancy area around Recoleta, have dinner near the Palermo zoos and gardens, and finally finish off the night dancing in the worlds center of Tango in San Telmo which looks and feels like an American movie from the 1920s. And that day only began to sample some of the faces of BA, every day there are even more places to taste.

    And a student of history trying to understand this cities mystique can't ignore one other consideration: wealth. For over four hundred years the trade, power, and population of one of the continents largest and most affluent countries (at times, it was of the most prosperous in the world) has been overwhelmingly concentrated in one Metropolis. These centuries of opulence have an effect on everyday life today. Everywhere in the world occasionally someone comes up with the idea to build something cool, start a festival tradition, make up a new dance, or coin a new word. And a people might immediately embrace it but often just wait until the person dies to do away with what they've tried to start. But some things, ideally the best things, slowly accrue as decades roll into centuries when great men and women take the time to invest their inspiration. And Buenos Aires has had the inspiration, the capacity and people for quite some time. Walking around I saw striking and grand buildings from nearly every architectural style since the 1600s. It rivals Rome in its numbers of public statues, fountains and feral city cats. The deep rooted culture extends far beyond its distinctive accent to include things like a subculture of Tangueros (people who dance, and live, Tango ) with their own words, attitude and lifestyle. It has urbane folks who regularly go to the opera as well parks where every weekend young people gather to practice circus skills (I saw a woman hang a trapeze off a tree in a crowded city park!). The city is very rich in every sense of the word.

    It doesn't have the same reputation for Carnival that Rio, Brazil does but Andy and Tyler caught up with us again in time to find out that porteños still love to party (and hose down innocents with shaving cream). When Andy found me it was the fifth time I got to meet up with our favorite Australian on this trip. And then with only three days to go before our flight home Tyler finally showed up in Buenos Aires. I wasn't looking forward to telling our parents how I lost my little brother somewhere below the equator so I was relieved to see him. He did well on his solo journey; Tyler accomplished what we both vaguely set out to do. He got some spectacular pictures and stories from his trek through Chile to and around Ushuaia (the southernmost city in the world.)

    The better life is the faster time flies by. Before I knew it, the last full day of this long journey was upon us and Tyler and I were both feeling reflective. About two months ago we were so weary that although we were happy we had more travel ahead we started looking forward to going home. But by the time our departure finally came neither of us were ready to leave, our weariness had long since evaporated and I would have leapt at the opportunity to do it all over again. After such a long and incredible journey it is hard to remember what kind of life we left and what I was thinking when we set out. And then, by yet another outrageous coincidence, I got an email that told me exactly that.

It was precisely one year ago when our crazy idea for some sort of trip stopped being a fantasy. I had just given my friend (who was also my boss) two month notice, asked my housemates to start looking for a replacement and stared down the barrel of the unknown. I was excited. And scared. I called Tyler and sipped a beer while we tried to imagine what we were in for. We had very few specific plans outside of a one-way flight to Guatemala. We had some vague ideas about going to the southern tip of South America but we didn't know where we'd go, how long, nor where it'd end up. Although I didn't remember it until now, after hanging up I apparently decided to write to my future self. FutureMe.org is a free website that you use to write an email and specify when you want it sent to your email address; sort of digital time capsule. I sat down and wrote a message for exactly one year from then. I had no idea where I'd be when I recieved it and find it it an amazing coincidence that on the very last day of the trip I got this:

From: Micah -exactly one year ago-
To: Micah -today-
Date: Feb 21, 2006
Subject: Message from your past

    Greetings Micah. So, I'm awake, a wee bit drunk, and curious who the hades you are. I'm sitting in a nice room in Northampton, Mass. with a house full of great people that are both housemates and friends. I've got a girlfriend, Elizabeth, who I'm in the early giddy stages of falling in love with and a job I don't love... but certainly don't hate. I've got really good friends, I'm living in a wonderful, practically utopian place but my wanderlust is raging.
    I don't really understand why, but I'm anxiously planning on quitting my job, abandoning my life by living in South America for a few months and then moving to Colorado with Tyler. I'm craving the change, the escape, the freshness of a new place... but I'm worried I may be making a big mistake.
    I'm wondering if you, in retrospect, will be looking back to now as the best time in your life. And if you shake your head in disbelief that I gave it all up to, well, become you. I guess the thing that gives me a measure of courage is confidence in myself, in you. I feel like if your life isn't giving you what you want you will pack up and roll the dice again with another move. If the life I end up choosing isn't, in the end, satisfying, you'll find it within yourself to fix things. I don't know if it'll always work. I don't even know that it'll work for me now,
    I guess, on the balance, I just don't know. And so I don't know what to do. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to throw lifes dice once again to see what happens. And I hope you not only forgive me but thank me. But only time (and you) will tell if that really happens.
         ~Micah

It's not often one asks oneself for either forgiveness or appreciation so I'll answer.

    Micah, you didn't have the foggiest idea what you were in for. It was crazy to gamble so much that you loved on the throw of metaphysical dice. As much as you knew you were going into the unknown, you were confident that you knew yourself. And that this knowledge would be a constant that would carry you through the trip and beyond. But somewhere along this trip you lost even that. I am not the same person that left for this incredible trip. It is said that "You can't find yourself until you lose yourself." You did the losing and I'm happy to say I that did the finding.
    This trip was a huge gamble. And you, you lucky bastard, won. And although I honestly don't know where our life will take me I found more than either of us could have imagined in Latin America. And for this incredible gift, Thank You!
         ~Micah
PS Estudias tus Castellano!

The adventure, and this blog, aren't over!
If Living Deliberately is worth anything as a life philosophy it must apply to the world of alarm clocks and bills as well as that of mangos and the constellation of the Southern Cross.
I intend to find out and will share more stories and pictures along the way.
So keep coming back to read about the next chapter in the adventures of the Brothers MacAllen

An Abrupt Absence of Andes

2006-02-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

    I feel at home in the mountains. Even when they are exotic and in the opposite hemisphere to those I learned to love as a child. That probably has something to do with why I've spent over 3 months of this trip in the Andes. We entered the Andes as we roared out of Colombia into Ecuador and kept our altitude high throughout most of that country, Peru, Bolivia, and even into Argentina. I've been reluctant to leave the thin air, but as our flight out is from the sea level its due to happen sooner or later. Fortunately we found a spectacular way to leave the mountains behind. Pato, a British friend Tom, and I abandoned the buses and rode bicycles the last 50Km out of the mountains. Quebrada de Cafayate is a national park we passed through on our way to Cafayate. We rented bikes, and hopped off the bus at the top of the park and zipped through the (mostly downhill) fifty kilometers of a surreal landscape.

    Cafayate itself is a city where the Andes shrink from mountains to hills to a deep flat valley. The valley itself has a hot and dry, climate ideally suited to growing grapes so its major industry is wine. It is said (by locals) that Mendoza is known for making most of Argentinas wine but that Cafayate makes the best wine. Not to be remiss in my responsibilities I sampled the wares. A lot of wares. We went from vineyard to vineyard getting tours of the vineyards, the process the little bar in the end where they gave us free samples. Being all very respectable they provided places to spit it out after tasting it so one doesn't get intoxicated. Have no fear, my dear reader, I most certainly did not spit.

    It wasn't all bike riding and wine, there was music and dancing too! Pato, it turns out, is a big fan of traditional music. So, while travelling together we inevitably end up at places called peñas. It's somewhere between a folk concert, and dinner at a nice restaurant with a dash of dance club thrown in if the mood is right. While eating dinner a succession of groups playing traditional ballads come on to perform with music, stories, and sometimes professional dancers. It's a lot of fun and as the night winds on often the crowd joins in the festivities and hops on the dance floor for some bailando!

    Interest in slow traditional music is by no means limited to older people in Argentina. I was repeatedly surprised to be at peñas where, at 28, I was older than average. Hippies and partiers who looked like they should be going to a techno dance party sat smiling listening slow ancient ballads. Knowing that, its little surprise that Los ~~Divideros~~ Divididos, one of the top rock bands in Argentina blends traditional lyrics and melodies into their hard driving sound. An it's no further surprise that upon hearing the Divideros were giving a free concert in a tiny town called Amaicha del Valle nearby that we hightailed there. It was a GREAT show.

    Slowed only slightly we continued our quest for wine across the wide plains on our way to Mendoza. Argentina, much like the US, is blessed with huge wide open grasslands. Perhaps not as visually stunning as mountains the plains, known here as Pampas, are invaluable for growing food. The Pampas are how Argentina became legendary for beef, feeds itself and exports food, and even produced it's own brand of cowboy. And Argentinian cowboy, called a Gaucho, roamed the Pampas on horseback weilding bolas (weights attached to a rope, thrown to tangle the feet of their target) where American cowboys used lassos. Both cowboys and Gauchos play a cherished role in their respective countries both as what little boys aspire to be and how the country sees itself. Both are legendary for their personal independence, courage, skills on horseback, hard living, and sad romantic songs. It's a reputation well earned by some and abused by others.

    It is often said that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it but that's only half the story. Some who know go to great lengths to repeat it. George Bush Jr. has a degree in history so it's likely he knows the story of Juan Manuel de Rosas ; a man who had a similar trajectory to power 170 years ago as he has now.

In the 1820s Argentina struggled to find balance between its strong central government based out of Buenos Aires, and the desire of the more scattered rural people to have a more decentralized system sharing power throughout the country. Rosas carefully cultivated his image as a Gaucho so as he clawed his way into government he was a hero those who wanted the Big Mean Government to have less power in their lives. They trusted that because of his image he'd fight hard to maintain their indepedence. By 1829 Rosas worked his way into absolute power but proved to be a very different kind of leader. He consolidated power in his own type of Central government, one ruled by him exclusively for 23 years. He formed a brutal secret police, hung the corpses of his dissenters in the Central Plaza and put only friends in positions of power. He used fear, war, and the church (his picture was hung in churches all over) to hold onto power for decades until he was defeated and exiled from the country. There was plenty of dissent but a sizable portion of the population never lost faith in him because they trusted he was a Gaucho and never bothered to look beyond his words to his actions. I find it a curious coincidence that a man born in a mansion in Connecticut worked hard to build an image as a Texan cowboy on his ascent to power. And that he too preached the evils of Big Government before he expanded both the size and power of the centralized government. But a cowboy wouldn't ever do that, would they?

    Mendoza is, without a doubt, one of the most livable cities I've had the pleasure to encounter. It is full of vast tree lined avenues with sidewalks 10meters (30ft) across. Its a city designed around the idea of strolling down the sidewalk, stopping for a coffee at an outdoor cafe, before winding your way to the Museo de Arte Moderno. The city was lovely, the wine delicious and the weather was great. It made it difficult to leave, on a long overnight bus, to the final destination of this long strange trip... the legendary Buenos Aires.

Gleeful Gringo Gap

2006-02-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

    "The Gringo Trail" is a phrase South American travellers use often. It refers to the long chain of cities and destinations that North American and European travellers tend to visit. Even though we all fancy ourselves to be rugged individuals ultimately we're a big group of individuals often visiting the same places so we often run into eachother, over and over, along the way. When we met long term travellers in Central America one of the first questions asked is "are you going North or South?" Tyler and I were headed south, so when we met someone going north we grilled them with questions about where we should go next because they probably had similar interests. When we met someone also going south, we almost always knew we had previously visited some of the same cities, the same places in the same order. Furthermore, when it came time to say goodbye we'd do so with a smirk, knowing that we might run into eachother again along the way. The gringo trail isn't as straightforward in South America, now that east and west are options, but it exists nonetheless. Almost anyone who goes to Peru goes to Lima, Cuzco and Machu-Pichu and if they made the trek into Bolivia we might see them again at Lake Titicaca or Salar de Uyuni. The trail is exciting because it is determined by the cool destinations but Tyler and I discovered, several times, that sometimes things are even better off the trail.

    It's easy, while on the trail, to forget that the majority of the country your visiting is different. Off the trail it's hard to find English speakers, organized trips and familiar food. I've been thinking this a lot recently because I've been well off of it for about a month now. Travelling with a trio of Argentinian girls has been an entirely different experience than anything else I've done on this trip. Coupling that with the fact that Argentina is itself, in many way, exceptional has lead to a feeling that this is a different trip than the one I was on before.

    Some things are similar; there are a lot of shaggy travellers with a wanderlust. More so than any other Latin American nationalities young Argentinians, it turns out, love to move. Everywhere I looked while wandering around Jujuy I see scores of new Che Gueveras on his youthful journeys. But it's not only men, in about equal measure I constantly see groups of 2-5 (lovely!) girlfriends seeing the world together. I can't imagine what I did to be this lucky, perhaps I cured a major disease in a former life, but I got to travel in one of these groups with Pato and two other Porteñas (women from Buenas Aires) all over Jujuy.

    The small provence of Jujuy is not on the Gringo trail, it barely recieves three pages in our travel guidebook but having been there I have no idea why not. It's on the top of Argentina, where the high Andes of Bolivia plow into Argentina before dramatically plunging down into the lower plains. In one small area we found 4 very different climates. One day we were in the tiny low elevation town of San Francisco, pushing our way through thick rainforest jungle while on an Indiana Jones-esque adventure. And then the next day, and a few hours on a bus later, we saw the much more arid town of Pulmamarca. In addition to seeing traditional dances on the center square we saw entire mountains painted with such impossible colors its hard to concieve. From there, an hour on a bus took us to high altitude lakes of salt. We visited countless small towns, a medium sized city, and constantly drank in mountain geology unlike anything I've ever seen. This region is mostly undiscovered by Gringos like myself but is far from undiscovered. The low cost of living, plethora of unique cultures and spectacular scenery draws Argentinian travellers like moths to a flame.

It's been a well needed, but nonetheless difficult, workout for my Spanish. Not only has my meager vocabulary been pushed beyond its limits, but just to complicate my life Argentina has a much faster and much different accent. For example, instead of pronouncing "-y-" and "-ll-" with a y sound, like everyone else, the Argentinians use a sh sound. So words I've long been comfortable with, like "Yo" (I), are suddenly hard to recognize in a conversation. But I'm getting it, slowly but surely, and despite triggering much laughter along the way patient folks along the way have coached me along. I've found it to be better than any spanish class to sip maté and try to stay engaged in a conversation. Partly, because the topics are more interesting and fun. But mostly because I'm quickly becoming hooked on maté!

    Maté is a decidely Argentinian and Uruguayan tradition. It's a kind of tea, called Yerba, that you fill a special cup with. After adding about a quarter cup of near boiling water to the mix, you sip it with a special straw that filters out the tea (Sampa, the guy on the left in the picture to the left, is drinking maté). After sipping it all, the Maté gets refilled and passed to the next person in the circle (or the closest stranger, as this is a tradition that makes friends with everyone in Argentina). Every group of Argentinian travellers always has at least one steel thermos of hot water with them so they can be prepared for maté on a moments notice. Maté itself has a strong bitter, taste (although some add sugar) and has a reviving affect not unlike coffee. I like the taste, and the effect, but I really love the tradition. It's a great excuse to sit in a park with friend and talk while the cup goes around. But, its nearly as easy to sit in a park alone and offer a cup to a stranger as an excuse to start a conversation.

    Conversations with newfound friends have been great and I've finally begun to think in Spanish enough to not be constantly translating in my head. I've been a little more engaged in the culture I'm in and learning a lot more. Particularly, not surprisingly, learning a lot more about Patricia. The day we met in Granada was great, but over the last month I keep shaking my head in disbelief that there was so much I didn't know about her. Now she is finishing up her studies of Psychoanalysis, focused on working with kids, but has a history more varied than my own. She has worked as a waitress, studied theater and spent years working as a circus performer. She was an only child to older parents in a country with a long and troubled history and grew up (and still lives) in one of the worlds most vibrant cities. But despite the differences in histories we've found a lot in common an urge to stand apart from groups and an itch to see more of the world. Somehow, when I met her in Granada, I had the impression she was a lovely and fun but mostly superficial person. I was still looking forward to re-meeting her but when I did I was shocked to find myself in great conversations about literature and life philosophies. It's funny how four years, several thousand miles and a lot more time together can change things.

    Another misconception was what I was in for. I was expecting to stick around the small state of Jujuy until we meandered back to Buenas Aires together. I should've realized that I was with another traveler and that she has a bigger appetite to see this country than I. So, after we saw her friends off, we kept moving. But now, having discovered a mutual interest in red wine we were on a mission. Argentina is world famous for it's vineyards and if we take a few long bus trips....

Dramatic Dinero Development

2006-01-30T05:10:00.000-07:00

    It guess everyone loves a romantic story. My last post got more comments, and more email responses, than anything I've ever written for y'all before. Thanks for the kinds words! It is great to have people interact, great fun to write that blog post, but trust me... I'm having an even better time living it! Patricia (Pato) and I have been travelling together for about 3 weeks now and things are going brilliantly. I'll write more about that when I get a chance, and more pics up, but for now I'll give you a little background and use some random pictures from Tylers solo journey (because even though he's been mute on this site lately, he is still a clever photographer visiting amazing places.).

    One day I was complaining to Patricia about the fact that my money seems like it's worth less every day. Almost every time I go to an exchange booth, and see how much local currency I can get per dollar, it is lower than the time before. She rolled her eyes and told me I had no idea what bad was like. When we met, four years ago, she was overseas when her countries economy collapsed. She had the humiliating, and difficult, situation of trying to see how much she could change her Argentinian Pesos at exchange booths and seeing a big fat zero. Ouch!

    The story that led to that collapse is an interesting one, and explains some key things about how life is here now. In a lot of ways Argentina feels like home. It's organized, generally well maintained, and clean (Finally! Latin Americans who have a taboo against littering!). People are generally well educated (Argentina pays for university for all able students), well travelled and there is a high standard of living. Whats incongruous is that has a history of a developed country but the economy like it is developing. Although its a little more expensive here than Bolvia, things cost much less than a third of what one would pay in the US or Europe for equal or better quality. And Argentinians are really struggling: unemployment is high, poverty is on the increase and people generally feel like their opportunities in life are stifled.

    In the early 1990s Argentina was plagued with rampant inflation in part due to the huge payments it spent on maintaining its national debt. The president Carlos Saúl Menem came up with an idea that didn't sound too unreasonable; he linked the Argentinian Peso to the US dollar by declaring 1peso=$1. Although its risky to bind one economy to another it was a reasonably safe bet because the economies had some strong similarities. The US, at that time, had been led for over a decade by Republicans who enthusiastically borrowed money to finance tax cuts and deep military spending. The debt hobbled the US economy, much the way Argentinas debt crippled its, so the two countries functioned in much the same way. So, linking the peso to the dollar was like tieing a rope from a bicycle to the fender of an old slow car going about your speed. They may not get up the road much faster, but it'll probably even the ride out.

    All was well and good, until the Americans screwed things up by electing a Democrat in 1992. President Clinton had different priorities and one of them was to cut the deficit and ultimately to pay down some of the national debt. Between that, and some other shifts, the US economy took off like never before. The country went through the largest, and longest economic expansion in the history of the world. All with Argentina struggling to keep up. Its like that old car they tied onto turned out to be a Ferrari.

    In some ways, as the nineties went by, it was good for some Argentinians. Those who had money found it to be worth a lot as the US improved its own economy. Those who didn't have money in the bank, however, suffered. Argentina couldn't keep up with the US economy so soon everything they wanted to export was so outrageously expensive on the world market that no one would buy it. That made the incoming money too minimal to pay the interest on their debt.

    By the end of 2001 the IMF forced Argentina to service it's debt, which effectively made it detach its value from the dollar. As every day the value was less and less, Argentinians that had money in local banks (ie, the poor and middle class) rushed to banks to withdraw what they could before it fell in value further. The government, in turn, couldn't let that happen so they declared a limit on how much people could take out. So most people just has to watch as their savings halved, dropped to a third, and then less than a quarter. Foreign exchanges that Pato visited on her trip didn't want to deal with it so they simply said Argentian money was worth nothing.

    The economic collapse hurt and it hurt bad. Argentinians stormed the Pink Palace (their version of the White House), kicked out the president and trashed the place. People were killed in the many riots, and they went through 5 different presidents in 2 weeks.

    But, poco a poco (little by little,) things are getting better. Today one peso is worth about 1/3rd of the dollar and their economy is slowly coming back. And ironically in 2000 the US got tired of a having healthy economy and elected more Republicans. It happened too late for Argentina to catch up, but between the current governments appetite for more military spending and more massive tax cuts (mostly to the wealthy) the US needed to borrow nearly ¾ of a $Trillion last year just to pay the bills.

    Although wary of the big behomoth to the North the Argentinians are taking advantage of our shortsightedness. Much of their debt is held in dollars, and since the Republicans got back the value of a dollar has plummetted (today it is worth about half as much, compared to the Euro, when I met Patricia in Europe in 2002.) So quickly, before the US puts a Clinton back in the White House, they're paying off debt. Early last month Argentina paid off every last penny of its IMF debt before it was due, all $9.5Billion of it (the largest and most complex payment in history).

    Putting all this talk about money aside, another interesting thing is what happened to Argentina when everything collapsed.Today people go on vacations in their own spectacular country. They drive perfectly usable cars that are 4+ years old. I see them all over in parks, and immaculately clean center squares, with families. The eat the worlds best steak, and sip some of the worlds best wine at night. They sip Mate on a park bench, in lovely city, with good friend. I don't know what it was like before but I feel like this whole country is pulling wool over the eyes of economists. Despite the all the statistical financial reasons why life should be horribly difficult it seems pretty damn good to me.

Random Romantic Reunion of Ramblers

2006-01-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

Granada, Spain in January 2002
    Exactly four years ago I was travelling in southern Spain. I first visited Granada with my mother and her fiance but after a couple days we had to leave. I loved that city so after they left I inexplicably wanted to return. I did, found a great hostel and had a wonderful time. On my last day there, before I went to Morocco I met an Argentinian woman called Pato. We hit it off right away, and had a wonderful, albiet brief, time together. We exchanged emails over the years, but after a while it slowed as we were living in different hemispheres and had little opportunity to reunite.

    When Tyler and I started this trip I wrote to Pato to let her know I was finally on my way to her country. But, to my dismay, the email bounced and I had no way of getting in touch with her. Dissappointed, Tyler and I continued our trek south.

    A few weeks ago, in Bolivia preparing for our entrance in Argentina, she wrote to me out of the blue to say hi from her home in Buenas Aires. I wrote back immediately with the news that we were closer to eachother than we'd been in four years. Tyler and I were heading towards Jujuy, a provence in the north and oddly she was simultaneously plotting a camping trip to Jujuy with two girlfriends. It all was an outrageous coincidence, like something out of Hollywood movie. After a flurry of emails we chose a spot to remeet and I spent the next couple weeks in anxious anticipation. I tried hard not to expect too much, and get my hopes up, but failed miserably.

    Tyler and I spent our first day in Argentina on a succession of long busrides so we could make it in time to meet her; finally arriving in Salta in the middle of the night. I got up early to meet her bus in the morning and was dazzled. Over the next few days I realized that my expectations were overblown and awry. She is a lot different than I remembered, she is better.

    I got a new travel partner and lost another. Throughout this whole trip we've been vaguely planning on making it to the southern tip of Argentina, the continent and the world. But Pato was planning on staying in the Jujuy to travel with her friends and having just remet her I was in no hurry to leave once again. Tyler, on the other hand, has his heart set on the penguins and glaciers in the south. So having spent more time together than most newlyweds we decided to part ways.

    We've seperated before, in Nicaragua, but for less time. Although I love my brother, and would do anything for him, spending so much time together (7+ months, almost always sharing our days) has inevitably led to small frusterations and annoyances. We still have a great time together, and look forward to a lot more, but both of us started craving a little space. Also, curiously, this seperation helps us both answer some questions we started this trip with. The very first post on this blog was written by Tyler describing our differences and what we hoped to learn down here. I've spent my adulthood travelling around the world fully connecting with little. Tyler, in turn, spent his former life almost never leaving Albany partly because he was happily together with a girl. We hoped this trip would help us learn from the other how to be more fully balanced. And now, independently, Tyler decided to give his wanderlust full reign and make a mad dash alone for the southern tip of the world. And I've chosen to spend the majority of my remaining time in one of the tiniest provences of Argentina because of wonderful girl.
Sometimes life is poetry.

Salt lakes in Jujuy, Argentina in January 2006

An Absence of Air and An Admission to Argentina

2006-01-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

    I mentioned before that Potosi is high. In Denver, Colorado people gloat about their "Mile High" city, which is actually closer to sea level than it is to Potosi (which is at 4082m, or about 2½ miles up.) It's too high for trees or much water so it is a high altitude barren dessert. Gasping as we walked around this bustling city we puzzled what would inspire humans to build a city there.

    The answer is surprisingly easy. Under the rule of the Conquistadors an Indian farmer brought his "owner" a shiny rock that he had found. That rock turned out to be silver and when they looked a little more they discovered that Mt Potosi was made of the precious metal (not one penny of, incidentally, did it's discoverer ever get). It was the biggest find of silver in history and the Spanish were quick to take advantage. They used Indian slaves and some imported from Africa to pull wealth out of the earth and ship it back to Spain. Almost immediately, and for about a hundred years, the city they founded became one of the largest, and wealthiest, in the whole world. For many money came ridiculously easy. If they didn't have a mine of their own they just imported something on the long hard road up, charged an obscene price for it and got paid in freshly mined silver. Which, not coincidentally, made it the biggest and flashiest party center in the world for almost a century (at one time there were over 200 world famous prostitutes living there). Thats why the face of Bacchus (The roman God of wine and merrymaking) shows up all over town (thank you Alison, for the pic)

    But those who did the digging didn't have time to celebrate, between long hours of work and dying young. The conditions were, and are, terrible. Between black lung and mining accidents more than 8 Million have died since it's discovery (The Holocaust in WWII, for comparison, killed 6 Million people). The conditions then were hard, but they aren't too much better today. Today the mines are collectively owned by the miners and their pension goes to their relatives if they die young. Which is important, because even today statistically Potosi miners will probably die within ten years of stepping foot underground the for first time. This is a kind of heroism that they don't make Bruce Willis movies about. Imagine an 18 year old boy walking to work for the first time. He knows that he'll likely die before reaching thirty but he does it anyway because his family will get a small pension after he is gone.

    The next stop was Salar de Uyuni (The salt flats of Uyuni) one of the most psychedelic landscapes I've ever seen. The salt flats is a "lake" that extends for about 12,000 square kilometers only there is more salt than there is water. In the dry season you can stand ankle deep in pure white salt. In the summer (like it is now, here) there is just enough water to reflect the sky and surrounding mountains like a perfect mirror. Tyler, Andy, Io and I signed on to a 4 day jeep tour of the area which is where we met Hans Peter and Nick; two other adventurers in our jeep which. We visited a hotel made out of pure salt, cut from the ground in brick-like blocks and even visited an island in this sea of salt. Looking out from the island it looked like we were back on a Carribean but the ocean had frozen. We spent much of our time in the jeep, riding, but never really got bored. We were entertained by HPs Norwegian theories on how much people should work (as little as possible), American 70s music (driving through such a psychedelic place, listening to "YMCA" was more surreal than can be described) and a landscape quite unlike any other. On the second day they offered us Saltine crackers for a snack, but ironically... they weren´t salted. We all had a great time, but Io had a strange reaction to the hot and cold salty climate. She shrunk. A lot.
Io, our pocket-sized German.

    The salt sea was only the first day, and we spent another three traversing this exotic land. We saw geysers where the earth belched up thick clouds of sulfur and steam. We grinned as we saw white flamingos standing ankle deep in a brilliantly red lake. In some wild twist of erosion rocks were shaped like God was trying too see what gravity would let him get away with.

    Sadly, one morning we lost both Io and Nick. They both had flights to catch from Santiago, Chile and this tour took them close to the border so they hopped off at a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. The Latin American leg of Io's trip is finally over, but I don't feel too bad for her because the second part of her adventure has just begun. She is now in New Zealand, and plans to make it to Australia in time to see Andys triumphant return. We love you Io, and are looking forward to when you visit the MacAllen Bros!

    Unfortunately our time in Bolvia also quickly drew to a close. From Uyuni we took an all night train to Tupiza on the worst train ever invented (I believe it was designed by ergonomic engineers with the goal of making it an utterly miserable experience for those too cheap to pay for first class). We passed, on a sleepless cramped night, the little town where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were finally gunned down. Andy stuck around long enough to hike around Tupiza, but then got on a bus bound North. We hope to see our staff botanist again on this trip, but he's gotta check out Venezuela first.

    From there it was a hop skip and a jump to the border where Tyler and I both took a deep breath and got ready for another horrendous border battle. We bought tickets, careful to pay little attention when they tried to confuse us by talking about time in Argentina and Bolivia. We didn´t want to be distracted by details and focused on getting the right price before we walked across the border. We had a few hours before the bus so we did some internet, spent the last of our Bolivars, and strolled to the border. They rushed us through the process, with several people in the long line telling us to cut ahead of them and 20 other patiently waiting latinos. It was uncomfortable to cut ahead, as the preferential treatment likely came due to our light skin, but it is also uncomfortable to tell people you don´t want the favor they are offering.

    Having rushed through the border we casually walked up to the bus and arrived half an hour early. We checked in to see where the bus would arrive and the woman only shook her head and pointed at the clock above her. Argentinian time is an hour ahead. Despite the fact that everyone we encountered at this border town giving us every possible break we still missed our bus. Doh!

Onward to Argentina!

Dinosaurs and Dazzling Diversity of Delicious Diversions

2006-01-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

    By the time Christmas was behind us, Tyler were far too much in love with Sucre to have any intention of leaving. Tyler and I have been feeling a little weary for months now, and hanging out in one place with friends was too good to rush away from. So, we spent a few days doing the gringo tourist thing, including visiting the largest and most diverse collection of preserved dinosaur tracks in the world. It was as action packed as anything from the Cretaceous Period, 65 Million years ago, that I've ever seen... we saw one big set of tracks overlapping a set of smaller tracks. And then, mysteriously, the smaller tracks dissappeared. Yum, somebody ate well!

    Speaking of eating well, in all my travels I've discovered a counter intuitive rule about life on the road. The food in the poorest countries is exquisite and the food in wealthy and more developed countries is simple, boring, and of poor quality. Ok, I suppose that isn't entirely fair. It might have something to do with the fact that I always am travelling on a tight budget. And when I go to a wealthy country like France, I subsist mostly on the cheapest food I can buy at a supermarket. And when I find myself in a country where each dollar stretches far, I find myself at upmarket restaurants that at home wouldn't let a fellow like me walk through the door. So while in France I ate almost nothing but bread and cheap cheese but in Bolvia we went to an unbelievably chic French restaurant in the heart of downtown to eat a feast for $3. Bolivia is a country rich in resources, but deperately poor in coastline and economic stability. This is hard on both the downtrodden people and my expanding waistline.

    The meals were fantastic, but the chocolate, Oh God, the Chocolate! Ironically, although Cocoa was found and still is mostly produced in Latin America most random local candybars you will get down here are waxy or with too much or too little sugar. It gets so bad that I've caught myself craving just a generic Hersheys bar which is no stranger to wax itself. But the chocolate in Sucre was a shining exception. On a single street downtown I counted three high end chocolate shops that each sold some of the best wares I've ever sampled. Our praise of the chocolate was so high, in fact, that Tyler and I were able to lure Io, the smiling German we met in Peru, to backtrack on her plans and meet us in the "Chocolate city" of Sucre. It was a joyful chocolate coated reunion.

    Despite keeping myself busy in Sucre sleeping in, strolling the pedestrian streets, lounging in the plaza reading as the days rolled into weeks I decided to add even more to my stressful schedule. I called my secretary, and had her clear my timee enough to volunteer at a nearby orphanage. A friend Paul, had been volunteering at a local Catholic run orphanage for about a month and invited me to join. We walked over to the nice, clean and large orphanage and said a hello to the nuns working. Before we met the kids we quietly wandered through the halls, noted some lovely views and thought about how pleasant the day was. We heard some kids so opened a door and then WOOOOSH! We were swamped by 22 five and under screaming giggling kids screaming "Pappi, Pappi!" ("Daddy, Daddy!"). We played games. They squealed demands to be picked up, spun around and carried which I did 'til too exhausted to raise my arms. Exhausted I collapsed onto the ground where they piled on me giggling, drooling, smiling and playing. Before long I realized that despite all their entreaties for games and elevation the most important thing they were craving was human contact. A hyper kid kicking and crying turned to a ball of warm smiling putty when I reached an arm out from under the mass of other kids and pulled him into a hug. Every time I went it was gratifying, satisfying and one of the most fun things I've ever done. Not to mention tiring, after three hours at a time I could barely sum up the energy to walk my knackered body home.

    In much of my travels to other places I've always felt grateful, and a little guilty, when my monolingual nature alters the flow of conversation. For example I'd walk over to a table of French, Belgian, and Swiss friends chatting away and say "uh, Hi." There would be a moment of hesitation where they paused mid-conversation and switched their brains from French mode into English. Living in Europe as a monolingual American you quickly become grateful that much of the world values languages as much as my country values big loud cars. So when Ben mentioned, "I have a French friend from work who is a really great guy and I'd like to invite him out with us... but he doesn´t speak english," we happily agreed. When we switched the conversation from english into struggling spanish as Antoine sat down at our table I finally got to start paying back some of the lingual generosity that so many Europeans have shown me over the years. Speaking with him has been one of those seminal moments that has made practicing another language worth it. I suppose it helped my good feelings when, on a epic climb through 7 waterfalls with Antoine (a mountain guide at home) he declared our team "Los Fabulousos Gringos" ("The fabulous Gringos," Hell Yeah!).

    Our time in Sucre came to a crescendo on New Years. Paul, who we'd invited to the Christmas dinner insisted on returning the favor by cooking up a feast for New Years eve at the hostel. He cooked the main dish, many of us made a side dish, and everyone brought alcohol. Halfway through dinner we were singing and throwing lemons at eachother and lost all track of time. Somehow, some timekeeping person rallied the troops fifteen minutes before 2006 arrived and got us out the door singing and wobbling towards the Plaza central. The clock struck, and we were howling hugging and dancing. Much of merrymaking population in Sucre was with us there and before we knew it we were hugging and getting offered drinks by a plethora of the normally reserved Bolivians. We heard a brass band strolling by and suddenly we were in the road, dancing our way up front of them through the streets hand in hand with locals and eachother.
    We awoke in the first morning of 2006 with heads throbbing but faces smiling. Not being satified, we see what more we could do to abuse our poor, poor bodies. The next day we decided to get really, really High...

Welcome to Potosi, the Highest city in the world

History of Holiday Hullabaloo and Happenings

2006-01-01T16:22:00.000-07:00

    I hope the holidays went well for everyone. It's sometimes difficult to be away from friends and family this time of year so I wanted to send each and every one of you a gift through the mail. And I found the perfect present, something distinctly Latin American that nobody would already have and you would never forget. Unfortunately, cooler heads prevailed and Tyler vetoed my idea of sending you each your very own dried Llama fetus.

    Battling with a little travel weariness, Tyler and I decided over a month ago that we were going to make a point to make this Holiday season special. But that´s easier said than done than when homeless and friendless in an exotic country, but we felt up to the task. Tyler and I had met a scruffy englishmen named Ben way back when we were studying in Casa Rosario and he'd since moved to Bolivia to volunteer with a non-profit working on their food supply (amoung other things). So, shortly after Machu Pichu Tyler, Andy and I did our best imitations of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance kid and made a run for the Bolivian border. After one long night on the bus, we found ourselves in Copacabana on Lake Tittikaka, the highest navigable lake in the world.

Remember back in Guatemala, when I was dazzled
by Lago Atitlan, another mountain lake far lower and smaller than this

Tyler and sipped some of a goddawful tasting cactus tea and spent the day climbing mountains and walking along the coast.

    I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn´t gasping for air because of some scary adverse reaction to the tea but for the (only slightly more comforting) reason that we were so high up there IS no air. The weather that day was ideal, Tyler discovered that he is a rock (ask him to explain) and I had an adventure myself. The only person who didn´t have so much fun was Andy who had been feeling under the weather since Cusco and spent the day in bed. The next day, we woke up and took an overnight bus to wake up in the chaotic city of La Paz.

    We only had that day to walk around that city, but from what we gathered the entire city seemed to be a market. Everyone seemed to be adamantly and strenuously selling anything and everything you can imagine, including the Llama fetuses above, on every square inch of sidewalk. I used to think that the people in New York City were the most pushy salesmen, but La Paz raises the bar to a whole new level. This is a city that convinced the whole world that the capital city of Bolivia is NOT Sucre, like it was established in the constitution, but La Paz (which annoys the folks from Sucre to no end). Until NYC has the president living in Manhattan instead of Washington DC I will consider them woefully outclassed.

    The next overnight bus took us to Cochabamba, ever closer to our Christmas in Sucre. As the holiday season went by I found I prefer the media culture down here to that at home in the US. There is much to love about the US in Christmas season, but the advertising for the consumer culture rachets up to a fever pitch starting the moment they take down Halloween decorations all the way through New Years.
    Here its more about family and friends because people don't have the same resources to consume as much so no one screams at them to Buy! Buy! Buy!. Well, I am embarassed to admit, almost no company here is that crass and materialistic. Coca-Cola has a long history of weilding the advertising savvy it learned in the media saturated US on populations that aren't accustomed to the barrage of ads that Americans see everyday. For example, while walking around Cochabamba we came across a huge "Christmas tree," in the center of town made out of 2L Coke bottles. Now I understand why, after watching people who can´t afford a meal drink soda by the liter, so many have so few teeth.

    But Cochabamba was only a stopover, and we quickly hopped on another bus to Villa Tunari. That tiny, remote, town buried deep in the jungle that we thought we'd escape the election chaos in. That wasn´t the only reason however, the biggest one was to visit the Inta Warri Yassi animal refuge. They have a constantly changing cast of volunteers who work to take care of formerly captive, or injured monkeys, birds, and pumas. In much of the world there are some (arguably pretty reasonable) regulations about how much education and experience one needs to, say, take a fully grown puma for a walk. Here in Bolivia, however, you only need to arrive and say you are willing to volunteer for a month+. We, sadly, didn´t have enough time to do anything but visit for a day but even that felt like climbing into the monkey cage in a zoo. Within a minute of sitting down in their part of the park we had monkeys climbing all over us. We spent hours playing, tickling babies, and having our pockets thouroughly searched by nimble furry fingers.

    One day and one night bus later we finally arrived, with glee, to Sucre. Here we caught up with the legendary Ben Upchurch to show us around town. With a few days to prepare before Christmas we leapt into it. In addition to our "old" friends (Ben and Andy) we met a bunch of new friends at the hostel and invited them to celebrate with us at Bens apartment with us (poor bloke, he had no idea what he was in for). And then, to make this Bolivian Christmas one I'll be talking about for years, we went out and got ourselves a live somewhat bewildered turkey in a burlap bag. Thank God Ben had known what he was doing, and led as all through the process... from snapping its neck, to plucking, to gutting, to cooking.

    Although I eat meat when I'm travelling otherwise I've been a vegetarian for about 6 years now which made the turkey preparation a bit more difficult. Although it made me a bit woozy to see the turkey flop around and blink its eyes with it´s neck broken it somehow seems better to be a part of the whole process of killing, cooking, and eating.
    And so, two countries and countless adventures after we we decided to make Christmas special...

...it was a Brilliant success!

Radical RSS Reader

2005-12-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

DANGER, Digital Dorkiness Disclosure

Several of our readers rarely actually visit the website and never see all the cool doo-dads I've been putting into it (check it out sometime!). You sneaky folks use RSS readers, a program that visits all the weblogs you read and combines all their recent unread posts into one handy little window. Although you don't get to see exactly how I lay out the website it makes it much more efficient to read all the news and posts you went to the online to see.

If your eyes are glazing over now, you should merrily skip to my post below. But if you know what I'm going on about I might have something new for you. I was first introduced to RSS readers at the site Bloglines.com which I really like. But I recently discovered that Google is moving in to take over even more of the internet in that lovable ubiquitous monopolistic way they have. Google labs made a new beta-software RSS reader that is intuitive, simple and free but with some powerful options that I've been using for a few weeks now and really like. It´s a nifty little program, so if you're computer-geek inclined check it out here!

My Macho Machu-Pichu Mecca and Macgyver Mindset

2005-12-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

Waking up from a well-earned rest, I stretched and took stock of where I was. Machu Pichu Pueblo (the town closest to the ruins) is, a really terrible place. It´s a very ugly, haphazardly and hastily constructed tourist town set in an incredibly beautiful location. It's got all the bad parts of a typical tourist town and few of the good parts. The locals are only "friendly" when they have an angle to get you to open your wallet but couldn't care less about you when the money has exchanged hands. The kitshy, trashy feel of towns like this is often offset by a collection of interesting travelers from all over the world but as this is the most expensive stop on most backpackers trip few are interested in socializing, or spending any more time than neccesary (us very much included.) All this town has going for it is Machu Pichu. But, as it is one of the "7 wonders of the world" it's enough.

Weary from the hike the day before we thought we'd take a take a bus the three kilometers from the town in the valley to the ruins on a peak. We were shocked, disgusted, and dismayed to discover that that 10min bus ride would cost $6, each way. To put that in perspective most of the great, comfy, buses we've been taking throughout the continent we've been paying an average of a little under a dollar an hour. Tired as we were from the long hike the day before, and with the specter of huge peak ahead of us, we couldn't justify throwing away that much money. So, with yet another "$%&/ You!" shouted to the Peruvian-Tourist-Rip-Off-Machine we started walking up. Fortunately, before long, our Incan allies stepped in to help once again. While the road up to the top switches back and forth up the steep slope the Incas had built steps our of stone, directly up.

Although it was a hard hike it went quick, and before long we were at the gate. After paying the $25 per person entrance fee (almost our entire daily budget) we finally stepped into Machu Pichu.

And yes, it is even better than all the hype.

Machu Pichu has a history that is cloaked in mystery. It´s a "lost" city that had farmers working its terraces when Hiram Bingham hired one of them to bring him up to "discover" it 1911. But at the same time there is little evidence that the Conquistadors, nor their Incan slaves, knew anything about it nor was it occupied by the farmers working it. So it was, in a way, lost and forgotten. But that brings up a whole host of other questions. It is a truly incredible piece of work, huge stones had to be drug up the mountain, hand carved to fit perfectly together, into a city large enough to house about 1000 people. So, how does something like this get built and then forgotten in the less than 100 years the Incas existed?

Speaking of which, how did the Incas find the time to conquer much of South America, develop a complex and intricate culture, build these remarkable buildings, cities and stone footpaths all within such a short period of time? Perhaps we shouldn´t underestimate the Coca leaf!

Speaking of mystery, work, and discovery this trek has been really cathartic for me. Hiking clears my head to think better than just about anything I can think of. And, while drinking in the scenery and adventure on this trip something clicked on our hike to and through Machu Pichu that answered the question of vocations I started this trip with. Throughout this journey I tried to picture an ideal, a persona I could imagine I'd like to grow towards when I return home. One night, while sitting next to a campfire, despining a cactus with my pocketknife, I had a flash of one my most enduring childhood heroes. Macgyver and his everpresent swiss army knife was, without any doubt, my favorite 80s TV character. He was a kind of superhero without having anything particularly super about him. He didn´t have Batmans toys, supermans powers, or any guns at all. All he had was a strong sense of morality, a eclectic and creative mind, a handy pocketknife, and an urge to help to help those in need. He´s the only character I´ve ever seen in pop culture that could be described as a "Cool Engineer." And his generally accepted level of coolness is so astronomically high that he can even make a mullet haircut seem hip.

His job, through the Phoenix foundation, was to travel all over the world helping people. He sometimes built stuff, sometimes helped out orphans, and sometimes beat up bad guys with taekwondo-esque karate kicks. He was an engineer, but much of what he did was more engineering-related. He used his technical skills in conjunction with talking to people, going places and generally helping how he could.

I started thinking back to what I enjoyed about studying technical things in college. I really enjoyed learning how things worked but it I liked it when it was balanced with other aspects of my life. My days would be busy but eclectic; in a random day I could run a newspaper, do some thermodynamics homework, manage a club, and apply for a grant to go abroad. But then after school, I went into jobs that were nothing but sitting in front of a computer for 40 hours a week wondering why I wasn't satisfied.

So, with this insight, I've opened my mind to careers beyond the narrow focus I thought I was working with. Is it possible to find a job working with something like MacGyvers Phoenix foundation travelling around helping out? With that in mind I felt like puzzle pieces started falling into place. For example, I've always wanted to do something like the Peace Corps, an American program that sends people abroad to work in developing countries. Although it seemed like fun, I'd always worried that doing it would just be a two years diversion from a engineering career at a time I really should be focused on getting established. Now, with MacGyver in mind, it seems like a first and obvious step into where I want to be. I don´t have exact answers about what I want to do, those I hope will come, but I've now got a path to follow.

After spending all day exploring the ruins we wandered back down the hill and tried to figure out our next step. We debated hiking back the way we came but were so sore and tired we broke down and bought an overpriced train ticket back. We went back to Cusco to recharge our batteries, say hi to friends in the hostel and set out for Bolivia!

Trials and Tribulations Transform to a Terrific Trek

2005-12-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

So, our blog posts are a little out of order. I had to write about the Evo phenomena as it was unfolding, but in doing so we had to put Machu Pichu on the backburner, but no longer. So, without further ado, let me tell you a tale of deceipt, ancient allies, gastrointestinal disorder, price gouging, and sneaking behind enemy lines ...

If you´ve never made the trek to Machu Pichu but have heard about it, you probably assume that it´s a spectacular ruin right near Cuzco (aka. Cusco), Peru. On countless T-shirts, travel agency posters and every other piece of tourism trash you see the two linked together as if the ruins are in the same place. Its actually just a huge misleading media blitz to make travelers visit two tourism destination instead of one (check out CuscoPeru.com, a city tourism site dominated with a picture of Machu Pichu). In fact, they are a nearly three hour train ride apart with plenty of cool places between. Thats like saying "Come visit Stonehenge, London" or "check out the Atlantic Ocean in Paris."

Fortunately, Cuzco is a great city in its own right, with plenty of things to see and do.

The Incas made foundations for their buildings out of stone carefully carved to fit into eachother without any mortar or anything else holding it together. This difficult, pre-iron age ancient technology oddly enough works better than much of what we´ve got today. It resists earthquakes, doesn´t rot or fall apart, is environmentally sustainable, and is sturdy enough to last centuries (at least six already, and counting!).

When the Spanish came they didn´t have much respect for the cultures here but they did know quality building when they saw them. So they tore down most of the Inca buildings, but kept the foundations to build their own on top of. This means, all over this city you can see history in layers.

Having made our way to Cusco, the MacAllen brother were travel weary and were craving seeing another friendly face (the brothers are getting so shaggy at this point, that their faces barely counted). Happily we had a joyful reunion with Andy, the shaggy Australian we met working on a farm in Costa Rica and who all animals adore. He is the one oldest friend we´ve encountered since we left so we had alot of catching up to do. We talked about the infamous card game with Madre MacAllen, building a shit house together and our infamous contests of flatulence. After a while we noticed, in one corner of the room, a lovely German girl named Io that wasn´t fleeing in disgust. Astonished by her smiling tolerance for testosterone we begged her to join us. And, with her, our international team of vigilante illicit tomb raiders (or rather, ruin visitors) was complete.

We first went to the train station, like obedient little brainwashed tourists, because everything you see leads you to believe thats the only way to get to Machu Pichu without paying a fortune for a guided trek along the Inca trail. That´s when we discovered that a one way, 3 hour train ride, would cost us between $38-$109 dollars. That price, in a country where you can get a good three course meal for 50 cents, was the most expensive train I´ve ever come across in all my travels (including Japan!). Locals, however, were allowed to take other trains that we´d get arrested for stepping foot on because of our white skin, for somewhere between $1-5. Peru-Rail and the Peruvian Government, you are racist bastards!

Our fearless troop was underdeterred and after a bit of searching around we came up with an alternate route. We took a bus to Ollantaytambo a cute town far closer to Machu Pichu with an ancient feel, nice market huge mountains, and impressive ruins of its own.

We had heard that if we picked up the train there, it´d be only an obscene $17 each way. Upon arriving to the train station we discovered that that price had doubled but that it didn´t matter anyway because trains weren´t running for a couple days for repairs. We were stymied, from everything we´d been able to find there we only two ways of getting there. One was to hire a guide (for about $220, per person) do do a 4 day hike along the "Inca trail" in to Machu Pichu. And the other is to take the train which followed a river that went all the way down through the sacred valley to Aguascalientes, the REAL town next to Machu Pichu. We pondered it for a while before we stumbled upon the hair-brained scheme of building a boat out of inner tubes and random pieces of lumber and rafting our way there. The river looked relatively calm near us and it went all the way. We started shopping for materials until we discovered that the passable points were Class 3 or 4 river rapids and that others you´d have to be out of your mind to attempt.

So we begrudgingly gave up that idea, and then decided we could walk the 44kms there, following both the river and rail. No one had explicitly said we couldn´t do such a thing but it was pretty emphatically implied. On one side of the river was a national park, including the official network of "Inca Trails." To even enter the park we needed to pay a big fee as well as hire an expensive guide to step foot inside(yet another way Peru screws backpackers who want to go to Machu Pichu). But, when we started to think about it, it seemed odd that all the Incas would only walk to Machu Pichu up and over huge mountains when there was a river valley gently sloping down to it. There had to be, we thought, trails on our side of the river.

Having faith in the Incan people, but no indication of another trail we started preparing for a long hike far from flush toilets and showers. In order to complicate my life my stomach took the opportunity to let me know it didn´t approve of my recent experiments drinking tap water. But, undeterred and with butt cheeks clenched, we set out on our journey.

Although we didn´t really know where we were going, nor what we were doing, the Incas took care of us. Shortly into our trek some friendly locals pointed us to an ancient trail generally following the river but winding up and done hills with stairs hewn out of stone centuries before. It was still used daily by folks who lived nearby but was happily neglected by the police and backpackers on expensive tours.

It took us a day and half to do the hike and we found it to be incredible. We found cool mudbrick houses, a colorful contemporary graveyard and were constantly surrounded by the majestic Andes mountains. When we made it farther out of civilization we walked by, and got to explore alone, at least a dozen Incan ruins. One of which we camped at. It was a truly magical experience to spend a cool silent night with great friends on next door to the stone home of a farmer from at least half a millenium ago.

One of the last towns we past before we made it to the the end of our hike had two trains stopped and what seemed like hundreds of police walking around. It was one of the official entrances to the "Inca Trail" park across the river and near a train tunnel that we feared we´d need to walk through. Since, thus far, no one had specifically told us that we couldn´t hike the way were were going, we decided that it´d be better to keep it that way. So we cut back, and climbed up a hill, and snuck around the town. It took us a while to circumvent and it involved sliding down a cliff, but we finally felt like we´d made it behind enemy lines with only our wits and an ancient civilization as our allies. The trek got cooler and cooler. Well, rather, as we slowly descended from the arid high altitude to a rainforest jungle it got hotter and hotter. Once we got into the jungle we didn´t see nearly as many ruins because they were likely buried or undiscovered. But occasionally we strolled across something truly spectacular.

We ended up hiking on the railroad tracks for the last half of the journey. It was flat, impossible to get lost and afforded some remarkable views. But it was a long hard hike and stepping, with a heavy pack, on the large stones in the track took a toll on our energy and our feet. As great as our hike was, we were elated to make it to the town of Machu Pichu Pueblo (which, elsewhere is called Aguacalientes for no better reason than to confuse tourists, methinks). After dinner we barely had the energy to make it to our hostel and sleep. And we needed all the sleep we could get because the next day we awoke to more adventure. We were almost screwed again by greedy folks preying on visitors, rescued by our Inca allies, saw a wonder of the world and I had a flash of insight that is going to alter the course of my life. But that, my dear readers, is a story for another day...