G and R World Tour

Italy, Morocco, Spain and then Home Again

2011-02-07T10:26:00.002-06:00

August 2, 2010 to February 1, 2011

The Photos (Link Coming Soon!)

This is the continuation of the letter I started in response to an e-mail from a couple that I met in Guatemala. Some of it will be duplicate information from the writing Rebecca did while we were biking, so bear with that and realize that; No you aren’t going crazy. Yes, some of this is a rerun. Reruns are always better the second time around, right? Sorry we left so many loyal readers in the lurch waiting for tasty morsels of story. All I can really say is get out there and travel for yourself.

Resume Letter:

After much biking, we made it to Paris. We loved it, of course. Although as we have found out throughout our journey it’s not the cities so much as the people we get to meet that make places worth staying in. Rebecca’s mom arrived, which was both unexpected (she had never acquired a passport until Rebecca left) and much anticipated (when we were in Guatemala rumors began circulating that she might join us). It was almost as much fun watching Peggy discover new things as it has been watching her daughter. I captured a really great video of the two of them buying a Coke from a GIANT vending machine.

To top it all off, we made a day trip to Versailles and while we were all awed by the extreme extravagance, I was overjoyed at the discovery that my favorite artist, Takashi Murakami, had an exhibit starting soon. Since the opening was in just a few days almost all the pieces were already placed. I got to see so many wonderful sculptures up close and personal. I think I was just about the only person who enjoyed it though, because most of the other tourists just seemed stunned to see “a giant multicolored lobster outside the king’s bedroom”. It was an excellent pre birthday surprise from Rebecca … although she pretends not to have had anything to do with it! Then, just before we left Paris, we really celebrated my birthday by visiting a couple of modern art museums and having a roiling tickle fight on the streets of Paris getting some wonderful looks from passerby's.

Finally the day came to leave Paris. We packed our remaining belongings (after sending about half of our possessions home with Rebecca’s mom) into the BoB trailer that I bought, leaving us the space equal to three panniers free for provisions. Find the trail out of town to be absolutely dreadful along a busy highway … Then we found the Forests of Fontainebleau. WonDrousNess! We spent at least a week there camping (illegally) in the park. So Yeah, camping in France, we did a lot of it. Sometimes we would find an actual sanctioned campground, which was usually pretty cheap. The rest of the time we would just camp in a field or beside a canal or in a national forest (see above). It was very liberating to bike for as long or as short as we wanted and then camp. I would say our time was split 50/50 between legal and illegal camping in the 1000+ miles of biking.

We biked (almost) to Lyon. I say quibbling over the last 60 miles is too trivial in the overall mile count but Rebecca refutes that it shows exactly how tired of biking we really were … not to mention how abysmal the trail was becoming. Either way we B-iked or B-ussed to Lyon. To CouchSurf (or CaravanSurf if you will) with Fox at La Friche. Fox is a tall bike building, TIG and Stick welding, tree hugging, velorutionist who used to live in Oregon, camping in the trees when necessary and now lives the squat life in La Friche. La Friche is a 34,000 square meter (they are French after all!) factory turned squat in the heart of Lyon France. Well, maybe not the historical heart but certainly the artistic heart and this is metaphor anyway so we can say what we want!

Every available space is either someone’s house or studio or both. Unfortunately we arrived near the end of La Friche’s glorious history, they were in the process of being evicted by the city so a shopping mall or apartment complex or some other uselessness could go up in it’s space. Despite our late arrival, it was still wonderful to see the remnants of creativity that had been the life’s blood of this amazing place. As for the particulars, Fox’ space was a three story construct within the factory along with a very large bike workshop, where he creates anything his mind can think of. Bikes are his passion, tall bikes are his specialty, teaching others how to do for themselves is his mission, all in the furthering of Biking Down Babylon. There’s limited heat, unreliable hot water and blazing fast internet with free calls to the United States. Nearly every bit of wall space is covered in paint, stickers or other fantastic graffiti.

Early one morning Fox took me dumpster diving, as he is completely Freegan. He only buys wine and very rarely cheese or was it coffee, either way his small contribution to consumerism is tiny enough that we were impressed and amazed. So at five o’clock in the morning, I leave the sleeping Rebecca and venture out into the cold with Fox. We mount up two cargo trikes and trike around Lyon heading to all the places that Fox has long ago discovered are good dive spots. Fox informed me that diving in the States is much more difficult for many reasons. First, the stores own the property their dumpsters are on and then lock up their trash so people can’t get into it. If by some chance you can get to the trash, it’s essentially considered breaking and entering and therefore criminal. France on the other hand, has no such property laws and once it goes on the street it no longer belongs to anyone, until some lucky freegan comes by and sorts out the good stuff. Fox even told me that one store owner does not like him and will wait till he has passed before he puts out the trash. I was completely blown away by the sheer quantity of edible food we find as almost half the so called trash is edible. Every kind of vegetable and fruit, mass quantities of milks and yogurts, prepackaged lunch meats and high quality cheeses … which are the most absurd since most of the cheeses thrown out have mold throughout anyway, it’s what makes it cheese! Since Fox is also vegan, most of the lunch meats go to Rustine, the cat, or not so vegan CouchSurfers.

It was amazing to realize how little we all need to survive and sad to see how much is wasted in time, effort and resources as we overproduce trying to out consume.

Our wonderful week of immersion in yet another side of the European artistic world ended with a bang and a whimper when on the way to buy a book for Rebecca we had our second experience with revolutionaries and our first experience with tear gas. It was quite surreal to stand with the crowd behind the riot squad as they fired tear gas into the approaching rioters. The riots started over pension reforms but I think it escalated to all out violence and social upheaval toute de suite.

We decided to go ahead and take our chances on the rioting train workers and make our way to the much more peaceable Damanhur. An artistically based community designed to embrace the future; growing, healing, illuminating; joined karmically to life, meditation and necessity; an organization preventing quandaries by realizing synchronically timed universal variety from welcome xenophiles yields zeal. OK, that might have been a little too alphabetical but I had fun creating it … until I got to XYZ! However, in all seriousness that carefully contrived sentence reads fairly accurately. Situated in the hills about 40 minutes north of Torino, Italy, their most known feature is their underground temples. Built surreptitiously over the course of 14 years starting in 1978 and then more openly from 1992 on. They are absolutely amazing representations of the philosophies the community holds in esteem. They seem to take the best from other world religions, philosophies and beliefs, test them for veracity and embrace the ones that prove beneficial. They honor the elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Water), the never ending Cycle of Life and the human progression through Time, among many other more esoteric ruminations.

We spent about ten days learning a little about the beliefs they value, viewing the seven magnificently decorated temples, talking to Damanhurians and visitors alike to better understand the ideas that draw people here from all over the world, finding the things that felt like matches in our own souls and in the end walking away with more questions than answers, but I think that’s part of the spirit of Damanhur.

We also had some truly outstanding times. A whole day of sculpting in clay. We were instructed to make physical representatives of ourselves. I made a wonderful satyr offering sacrament to a higher power, which spurred all kinds of creative offshoots from costume design to entire art projects.

Then we were introduced to the music of the plants. It was absolutely wild to behold as they hooked a house plant up to a series of machines designed to read the electromagnetic pulses given off by the plant and transformed it into music. Several of us took turns interacting with the plant in an attempt to effect the sounds the plant was making. We were also told a nearly unbelievable story about a guy who had an outdoor plant hooked up to the keyless entry of his house. This worked perfectly as the plant would recognize him and unlock the door. Until he came home sick one day and his faithful door guard didn’t recognize him..

We also got to experience a true Italian feast. We wanted to have a congenial dinner with the fluctuating group we spent the most time with. So we asked our sculpture teacher for a recommendation. He not only told us where to go, he drove us there and joined us for dinner. We had a wonderful time eating way too much food, drinking just enough wine and talking the night away. A lovely group composed of three Dutchies, Herry, Annalise and Art, who informed us there was much more to the Netherlands than just Amsterdam, Mary Helen from France, now living in Berlin, Ilsa from Australia and of course our teacher Agnello. It was truly a magical night and one none of us will forget. We ended our stay at Damanhur by observing a full moon celebration on Halloween night and next morning began the long (in time not distance) trip to Parma to visit the guys we met while camping in Paris.

Despite our utter lack of planning on this leg of our journey, it turned out remarkably well. Our time was almost evenly split between Michele and Marco in Parma and Alberto, his family and extended animal family in Fornovo. Michele and Marco picked us up at the train station and it was truly amazing to see them again. We fell into conversations as if we had known them forever and had only been away for a few hours. We met Michele’s siblings and parents and had an impromptu jam session as Marco and Michele’s brother, Lucas, played guitar and sang while Gregory spun flags and taught flag spinning.

The next morning we met up with Alberto, our CouchSurfing host. Alberto lives in Fornovo, near Parma, in a wonderful old farmhouse which they have divided into 3 separate living spaces for his sister, Valentina, and her partner, their mother and him. Alberto is a teacher and Valentina owns a stable and horse breeding farm, that they all work together on. We got to help muck out the stalls and feed the horses. It was all hard work and despite our desire to help, I’m sure we just slowed Alberto down, but he didn’t seem to mind too terribly.

One of the most heart rending but also amazing things was meeting Sheila. Sheila had been to the farm once before with a male of the same breed, for boarding and training (with a side of fattening up). Once they were returned to their owner, they were (once again) left to waste away. The male of the pair had recently died and Sheila was ‘given’ back to the farm as payment for the previous services never paid for. Sheila seemed in really bad shape to us, but Alberto assured us that she was a lot tougher than she seemed and that she would be back up to the breed standard in short order. It was sadly fascinating to watch her breathing so nervously, seeing the constant and uncontrollable twitching of her soft nose. Fortunately, just as Alberto said, Sheila was doing better even the next morning as she was well fed, warm and loved upon by all of us. One of our last Sheila moments was getting the chance to brush and love upon her after Alberto and Valentina had trimmed her hooves. Slowly working the tangles off her mane and tail and brushing the mud from her legs.

Staying at Alberto’s was not ALL horses and old farmhouses, we also had some wonderful meals and great conversations which are the things we seem to enjoy the most. Alberto and I share a love of skiing that led to several great stories and comparisons of experiences and I just found him really easy to talk and relate to. Yet another wonderful CouchSurf, that continues to reaffirm my belief in every human I have yet to meet.

All of our time at Alberto’s was interspersed by time spent hanging out with Michele and Marco. We took a rambling walking, talking tour of Parma with Marco, seeing all the things that he finds interesting about his home town and talking about dreams, life experiences, tattoos and friendships. We spent several cozy evenings around various fireplaces, eating great food, singing boisterously, talking existentially and roasting and eating chestnuts. We played a fun, involved game of Talisman and ate ourselves fat on pizza.

Then Michele took us to Bardi Castle, a little over an hour away from Parma. Both Marco and Michele had given us glowing reviews of their favorite castle and once we got there it was easy to see why. Built upon an outcropping of red jasper, it is quite formidable in appearance. Once inside, you can tell (with a little help from Michele) that it was a space built and used by many different people over many different times. A structure built to intimidate without over the top opulence the word castle now implies. It was wonderful to wander from the lowest dungeon to the highest tower, reliving the stories Michele knows from his countless trips with family and boy scouts. A great day of friends and explorations, perfectly capped by getting to meet Michele’s lovely fiance, Giulia. We stopped by her workplace and got a quick hello hug which made me even more sad that we had not had more time to get to know her. Requiring to work and not living the life of leisurely travelers are completely understandable but we still don’t like it when it interferes with getting to know people.

With only a day to spare before our flight to Spain, we regretfully said our goodbyes and let the train whisk us away to one of the most beautiful places we have seen, Venice. Sadly we only stayed one night … really, really sad. We know it will still be there and it certainly gives both of us a reason to come back. I can’t compare Venice to any city I have been to. Nor, do I know how the citizens manage to get around this rather large city with NO roads. A pedestrian city of archipelagos connected by bridges and boats, certainly not on the grid system. It is impossible to stand in the street and try to determine how to get from where you are to where you want to be. It was wonderful, we got thoroughly lost and confused even with our GPS. Following paths that dead end into walls or water, retracing, back tracking and completely getting lost window shopping. I do look forward to CouchSurfing this city in the future, because I am wondering exactly how people manage to get anywhere on time.

Next stop Spain, where lack of planning on our part does not constitute a place for us to stay (the ONE time this year that could have been managed better but we totally get a redo, more on that later). Fly into Sevilla, find a hostel, discover our further Spanish travels are quashed, so we continue south. Two bus rides, a peer at Gibraltar and one ferry ride later we find ourselves in Tangiers, Morocco. At the ferry terminal, a suddenly formed group of six is mostly content to wait for the free bus. I, however, scope out the taxi situation. Reporting back, the added price doesn’t seem worth it to Rebecca and I, but the deal I found is enticing to two British girls on vacation who don’t want to wait up to an hour for the free shuttle bus. Since it was my deal and we are always willing to further our adventure, we tag along. Of course, once we get outside the person I made my deal with is gone, but it gives us a place to start bargaining and fortunately one of the girls speaks some Arabic. It’s not completely smooth sailing as the guy who starts our deal speaking broken English, hands us off to another guy who speaks more, or would that be less, broken English. This man deposits us in a cab where yet a third person slides into the driver’s seat, speaking no English, little or no French and even seems to ignore the Arabic our new friend is trying. It seems mostly established that we want deposited at the train station and the girls will continue on to their hotel. So we sit back and enjoy our ride, getting to know our car mates as well as we can in the time. Immediately upon arrival to the train station we purchase our ticket on the overnight train to Marrakech and prepare for the short wait and the long ride, at least we got a sleeper cabin.

Once the sun came up and we couldn’t pretend to sleep anymore, we spent the rest of the trip looking out at the completely foreign landscape and talking to the few other travelers. Earlier we met Daniel and Laura on the bus from Sevilla to Algeciras, where they grabbed a ferry and we went on to la Línea de la Concepción only to find out we had to go back to Algeciras to get the ferry, stupid under-informative, less than current ferry website. In talking to them we found out they were going on a desert excursion as soon as they get off the train. This sounded like a really great opportunity to hang out with them some more so we invited ourselves along … at least to meet the guy and see if there was room for two more.

The guy didn’t seemed thrilled to have additional people, but the chance of making more money won out, so he piled the four of us in the backseat of his SUV type vehicle and took us to a breakfast spot near to his ‘office’. We rushed through our breakfast and then went on a walking tour of automatic teller machines as it was imperative that we pay the 650 euro before we go. Of course the ATM will not let us have that amount of money and Rebecca and I start to take it as a sign that it’s not meant for us this time. We are also feeling quite rushed, harassed and even bullied by our tour guide. Once Rebecca and I stopped to talk it over, we both realized that almost 1000 dollars for a weeks excitement would put a definite strain on finances and despite knowing we would have had a blast we bowed out and said goodbye to Daniel and Laura. Once away, we marveled at the squicky feeling the guy gave us and how stubbornness for this adventure had almost caused a problem for us financially and emotionally.

*We tried to catch up with Daniel and Laura when they got back but they were only in town for one night and we didn’t know our way around town well enough to arrange it. I did get an e-mail from Daniel sometime later and although it was the best part of their trip, they could definitely tell that the guy was not on the level.

During the planning phases of finishing our trip in Morocco, we send out some inquiries through CouchSurfing for an apartment to rent. Rebecca gets back decent responses and we decide to meet with a guy who has an agent looking for something for him on his claims that a furnished little apartment won’t be that expensive. The meeting goes well and we all seem to get along so we have no qualms about the slight change in plans to rent a space with Younés instead of our own space. He currently lives at home, but also rents an efficiency with 5 or 6 other guys. Younés uses that space for CouchSurfers, the other guys use it to get away from their wives and hang out with the guys. With Younés’ encouragement, we get a cell phone so he can get ahold of us easily and then we wait. We meet with him again to see the place and it’s not furnished but Younés says we can get a bed for cheap. With the weekend and the hours our host works it’s taking longer than it should to get the apartment issue settled. Finally, I force the issue of wanting to stay in the new apartment and Younés takes us to his CouchSurfing pad.

What a dump. Two small rooms, a gross kitchen and a bathroom with barely running water. The main room is almost cozy with sofa lined walls and pillows but the smell of hash smoke is pervasive and the road noise from outside is unbelievably loud. The bedroom is nicer, but that’s strictly from the perspective that the overhead light is red and it’s hard to see anything after the sun goes down. Once the sun comes up, you know you should sleep in your clothes and with one eye open. The first night we get almost no sleep, the second night slightly more. Next day, we go out with Younés to sign paperwork and get keys and a mattress and then he drops us off to grab our stuff and he’ll pick us up later to take us to the apartment. We walk in to find 3 guys on the sofa and the door to the bedroom locked. We sit in the hookah room and try to make some conversation with the guys who speak Arabic and French but little to no English. Eventually the door opens and a man walks out, talks to the guys and then goes back into the room. I get engrossed in watching the American movie with Arabic dubs and don’t see the man and woman finally leave but Rebecca sees them scamper out without giving us a backward glance. Considering we know all the guys are married, we couldn’t tell if this was a girlfriend or a hooker, either way we dubbed it the Hash and Hooker Hovel. It really gave us the creepy crawlies and we were suddenly quite happy not to be spending another night on THAT bed!

*We find out later that people don’t go to the theaters in Morocco to watch movies, they go to have sex because they don’t have a Hash and Hooker Hovel.

Younés makes many promises to further furnish the rather spacious 3 bedroom apartment and to spend time with us but he only comes by once without calling in the 3 weeks we lived there. We were exceptionally lazy in Marrakech, mostly because we allowed ourselves to be as lazy as we wanted. We spent plenty of time following wikipedia thoughts down rabbit holes and really only left for food and groceries. In retrospect I think some of our laziness is directly proportional to the sleep we didn’t get on the crappy mattress we bought. On the day we left for Fes, we took the mattress up on the building’s roof so we could watch the sunrise and then Rebecca got the joy and justification of ripping open our mattress to find out why it was so damned uncomfortable. It was literally a box spring sandwiched between cardboard covered with the barest amount of foam sewn into a mattress cover. Horribly, horribly uncomfortable.

Which brings us to today, not the real today when this blog was finished and posted but a day much like today when it was started in response to an e-mail. We are now in the wonderful city of Fes. I found a fantastic family through CouchSurfing that was willing to rent out a bedroom for 200 euro for the month. The outside temperature has dropped significantly, it is 48 on Christmas Day, which has allowed us to be motivated to work on the blog you are reading now. Fes is a massively wonderful change from Marrakech. They are both deserts but Fes has water. That sounds silly but Las Vegas without water is a desert. That water has created a vibrant OLD town. Fes was the first city in my life that I would compare to Venice. Fes is a walking labyrinth without the water or canals. It is wonderful to walk out your door knowing you will be on an adventure for some time, although mostly because you can’t find your way back to the house. I used a GPS and was able to get close but since the signal doesn’t want to reach all the way into the bottom of the labyrinth, I was off by a few twisty turning blocks. I highly recommend Fes as a safe lively place to become familiar with this wonderful Arabic culture. So many people making their wares right there. The tanneries, the metal pot makers, the foot spun stone-wheel knife sharpeners, macramé hat makers, dress makers, weavers, musical instrument makers ... the Medina was almost endless. I took a pretty cool video of the tanneries that ALMOST captures it's size and importance to their culture.

Then we have our home life. We are living on the top floor of a three story three bedroom, two bathroom concrete home. The home is owned by Fatiha, a divorcee with two boys, Marouane, 24 and Nizar, 19. Fatiha’s two siblings, Khalid and Hassania, also live here as does their mother, Zhour. They have owned the house since Zhour’s husband traded a rifle for it in 1966. Fatiha works in an office, Khalid works at a farm when there is work to do, and Hassania prepares the majority of the meals, keep the house neat and takes care of Zhour. Marouane is going to school for tourism and Nizar is going to school for economics and or accounting.

Mealtimes were absolutely wonderful for me. I’ve always preferred to eat with my hands and in Fes we rarely used utensils. Each meal is served in a large communal bowl called a tajine usually some vegetables, a little meat and lots of juice or broth. Instead of forks, we used fresh baked bread to sop up the juices and pinch at the meat or veggies. Every day Hassania would prepare the dough into round flat loafs about a foot in diameter and then take them across the street to the neighborhood bakery. We eventually learned that you can bake anything in the community oven. They pay a monthly fee for all the bread they bake and pay a per pan fee for cookies, cakes and other baked goods. It was also strange to me that there was rarely a beverage served with lunch or dinner. Breakfast and tea time were amply supplied with tea or coffee but the other two meals were lacking in refreshment. Occasionally a large bottle of tap water and a single glass would make an appearance but for the most part no drinks at the table.

One of the strangest things Rebecca saw, I never got to witness but it was bizarre to me while at the same time making sense within their culture. Before the men go to prayer they have quite a bit of preparation to do. First they enter the mosque, taking their shoes off before stepping inside. Then they go over to the public water fountain and begin cleansing. First they wash their feet and fairly high up on their legs. Next they wash their face and ears and some even wash their heads. Then they wash out their mouths, using their finger along their teeth in a toothbrushing action repeating 3 times. Last they wash their hands and go to find a place to pray. They do this FIVE times a day. It makes me think there was a plague or something in their history that makes them highly aware of hygiene.

We spent Christmas Day with the family and some neighbors playing clay drums and tambourines. Earlier that day we set up the plastic Christmas tree that the family has had for 6 years. I have no idea why this Muslim family owns a Christmas tree, possibly the French influence. They try to buy a new set of ornaments every year and they have some neat ones from years past. Not a traditional Christmas for either of us, but we definitely felt like part of the family and that means a lot to both of us.

New Years was amazing. More instrument playing, the wonderful tradition of eating cakes for a sweet year (and for Fatiha’s birth day) and then I spun fire on the roof for our hosts, friends of the family and visiting CouchSurfers. Right before we left Fes we had the awesome luck of being invited to a wedding. This gave me the chance to wear the jalaba I had made, from scratch. I ordered the cloth woven having vert little idea of what do with it other than possibly sew some cool sock poi. Once we picked it up from the weaver, Nizar said that it would make a great jalaba, so Fatiha and I went to a seamstress and had it made. When they first quoted me the price of 8,000 Rials, I was in shock as I thought it was in Dirham. Which would have been about 800 Euro. It was quickly pointed out that the price was in Rials so doing all the conversions (8,000 Rials to 400 Dirhams to 40 Euros to 50 Dollars) it ended up costing me about 60 dollars total for my one of a kind desert wear and it was elegant enough to be worn at the wedding. Fatiha provided a lovely kaftan for Rebecca, from her collection. It was amazingly ornate and decorated.

The wedding itself was amazing and unlike anything either of us had ever experienced. An unbelievable number of ornate outfits. The bride went through at least 6 costume changes and every woman there was wearing a kaftan of intricate beadwork and decoration. I was saddened that the men have transitioned to plain business suits and have lost the cultural flair of either a jalaba or decorated tunic and pants. When we arrived, at the wedding hall at 6pm, everyone was waiting for things to start. The guests were standing outside waiting to be invited in. Shortly after we arrived the band started playing and we all troop in. The room is set up very similarly to a Moroccan home with couch lined sitting areas on left and right and a large space between them. Just inside the door was a large curtain draped couch that also got in on some of the costume changing action as it started out white, then changed to green, then purple. Everyone grabs a seat in the two side rooms and the few chairs in front of the wedding couch and then the band really starts up. Nizar and I go outside to watch and take pictures as the bride is carried into the hall in a carriage carried by 4 men and the groom rides in on a horse … right into the wedding hall.

The couple is maneuvered around the small dance floor with the groom pumping up the crowd and the bride looking like she might shatter at any moment. They finally disembark and go to the couch. Lots of singing, lots of dancing, lots of entertainment. The wait staff bring the tapas style nibbles around the room and we quickly fill up our tiny table with cookies, nuts and savory treats, many of which end up in Hassania’s purse to take home for later. At first we thought this was quirky and then we saw other women also filling their purses with goodies so that’s just what is done. Several of the costume changes are accompanied by more carriage carrying of the couple and the most memorable was the last time as she comes out in this giant golden crowned embroidered cobra hooded dress that we were amazed she could even hold up. Immediately she gets placed into a carriage and they begin the star patterned shuffle while the groom really pumps up the crowd. We took plenty of pictures and videos of this event and the set can be viewed HERE!

I was flabbergasted at the sheer cost obviously associated with everything required for this wedding, but I was eventually informed that almost everything is rented, from the decorations, carriages, horse and most, if not all, of the costumes. I’m sure it’s still a pretty penny to rent it all but I was relieved to find out that the costumes and carriages were not now the property of the new couple as that seems like a storage nightmare and not the best way to start a new life together.

Immediately after the wedding, we get on the 2 am train to Tangier with a final destination of Granada, Spain. Not realizing we are supposed to transfer we unfortunately get all the way to Rabat before the conductor checks our ticket and tells us the best way to get back on track. We double back and arrive in Tangier without further incident. Trying to find the best way to Tangier Mediterranean, we find a taxi driver who tells us we can get a fast ferry to Tarifa and a bus to Algeciras without the hour drive to Tangier Med. Wonderful. He drops us off and sure enough we are sitting at the train station in Algeciras with tickets in hand for Granada.

We grab a coffee to shake out the cobwebs and sit down to have a marvelous conversation as we wait for the train. As the time for our train approaches, Rebecca goes to check on it and wouldn’t you know it, we missed that damned train. In our defense, the train station was under some serious renovations AND we were completely unaware that we had lost an hour coming from Morocco to Spain. Damn and Blast. The ticket counter won’t refund our money and there are NO more trains running today to anywhere. So we go across the street to the bus station to see what our options are. We can take the next bus to Málaga and from there with very little turn around a bus to Granada. We call our lovely Granada hosts to make sure our eventual arrival will not disrupt the house and they graciously tell us to come on over.

Garrick and Dziu live in the heart of Granada and I have not seen either of them in several years. We have been friends since college when Garrick lived next door to me in the freshman dorm. It felt really good to be able to spend time with old friends and they have a really wonderful life that is fulfilling to them. It seems their biggest decision right now is when or even if they should return to the United States so their children can be sure of a good education. We spent the next few days getting reacquainted with them both and watching how their children, Evelyn and Mathis are adapting to life in Spain. Smack in the middle of our stay we celebrated Three Kings by watching a crazy candy throwing cabalgata. Think regular Fourth of July or Saint Patrick’s Day parade, add 10,000 kilos of hard candy thrown with gusto and hundreds of people on the sidelines absolutely desperate for their fair share of that candy. Despite the warnings from Garrick and Dziu we were quite surprised at the force with which candy was thrown at the spectators and I know Rebecca took a hit to the forehead before deciding the safest way to collect candy was to pick it up off the ground.

We were not ready to leave but leave we must, off to Paris to catch our plane back to the states, stopping off to visit Rebecca’s brother, Brady, and sister-in-law, Airon, in New Jersey and various friends in New York. I really enjoyed watching Rebecca and Brady goofing off and hassling each other. She really lights up around him and I always like to see that. So as not to be too burdensome on Brady and Airon, we found a great place to stay in Brooklyn through a friend of a friend, giving us the perfect central location to meet up with Pedro Perez from high school, Friar Tuck from one of my previous visits to NY and Nissim, a former coworker of Rebecca’s. We also reconnected with Aaron, whom we met in Guatemala and shared as many laughs and stories this time as we did when in Guatemala. On our last day, we split up our forces so Rebecca could meet up with a former lover and I could catch up with my oldest family friend Mike Dorman. He shared with me his love for Japanese culture and cuisine then topped it off with a walk across the George Washington Bridge on a FREEZING day. What a great way to finish up New York.

The last time I was in New York, the House of Yes burned down. So it was certainly a highlight to catch an Aerial Variety show in their new location. It was great to see the new space and realize that so much good came out of that accident. It seems like it came at exactly the right time to make it grow at a point when it could have just fizzled away. Brady and Airon hadn’t seen anything like it and I’m sure they were shocked and secretly tickled to see their sister go up on stage and staple $20 to a clown’s ass.

While in New Jersey we also set up a CraigsList ride with a guy who frequently drives from New York to Dallas and back. His estimated leave date fit perfectly with our plans and despite the nonstop driving we were both really looking forward to the trip. However, car trouble and wintry weather in New Jersey caused him to indefinitely postpone his trip so we cashed in our flight miles and bought a ticket home … to arrive on the very first day of Snowmagedden 2011. Strange thought … it snowed the day we left Dallas on December 1, 2009 and we thought it was Dallas trying it’s hardest to keep us here. Now it snows on our return February 1, 2011 … makes me wonder what message it’s trying to deliver this time. It’s definitely good to be home, even if we don’t recognize it all dressed in white.

For those of you not willing to wander through our 10,000+ photos, here is Gregory's HighLight Reel at just 350 of the most interesting.

Gas Prices as We Left

Gas Prices Upon Our Return

Goals-revisited

2011-01-31T18:58:00.000-06:00

As I sit in New Jersey at the end of a multiple country 428 day trip, I feel it is necessary to update the things I wanted to accomplish with the reality of what was accomplished.

I gave myself some goals in my first post near the beginning of the trip. I think the better way to refer to them is expectations...

Lets see how I did.

1. Get better at writing my adventures down.

I did help out-- but mostly by getting Rebecca motivated. I added my two cents and Rebecca fleshed it all out. So in terms of my own posts, I created only two and even then I had Rebecca look over them. I still feel like a 12 year old working on a book report.

So I give myself a C.

2. Get Rebecca more confident in world travel (one month of traveling on her own is the goal)

Very glad I gave myself a specific goal to work towards but this month goal was not achieved. Though Rebecca is quite familiar with what it takes to be in many (in fact any) foreign countries. I am unable to determine if she can do it on her own since the longest period of time we spent apart was 8 hours. Upon reflection I think that I require more personal time than I had previously thought, but traveling together sharing every moment allowed me to get to know one person in my life better than any other person on this planet.

I gave myself a B- but I feel I was being a little too optimistic in my original goal.

3. Document the travel costs of two people

(creating a real number for those interested in wandering the world)

This I am proud to say I did with flying colors this spreadsheet shows my expenses for the year. I was worried that I would not be able to stay focused on the day to day grind of this monotonous behavior. I got a wonderful little Moleskin pocket book (though an iPhone app I imagined would easily type right into the spread sheet) that I kept in my pocket for easy access, next to my pen. I broke down the finances into these 5 catagories.

We spent January-June in Central America, July-October in Europe, November and December in Morocco. Holland was the big spike in July since we did not change our spending habits with regard to eating until biking to Paris.

This taught me more about my spending AND most importantly how to do it cheaper in future. Food is by far my favorite entertainment and is a sharable experience. Even though it did fall under Fun I kept it as Food. In hindsight I should have separated out the meals I bought for others under Fun.

If you want to travel for a year or any extended time frame (more than ten days) go to a cheap country like Guatemala or Morocco (I have also heard Turkey, Bolivia, Peru, India or Southeast Asia). Rent an apartment for cheap and cook your own food and use local transportation to explore the surroundings of each spot you come across. The less long distance transport you have the better off.

If/when doing it again I will pick four places to spend three months each. Maybe Guatemala/Honduras, Peru/Bolivia, Turkey and Malaysia. Offering enough cultural variety and enough time in one place to rejuvenate yourself to go further. Before this trip I found only one website that seemed to focus on the financials of traveling . As it turns out I was probably being too specific and lost the forrest... This was that site . It is a very good place to start in multi country budget estimation. I estimated the cost of the trip at $26,000. In reality the cost came to $21,000. Also you adjust your trip according to how your budget is being depleted. We had not planned on biking across France for three months but it allowed us to stay in Europe and enjoy traveling at our pace.

I give myself an A, though I got lazy in the charts and implementation of the results. I am hoping someone will look at my spreadsheet and see some details that could be of benefit to those wishing to travel abroad. I only recorded the first 13 months and gave myself the last month off to reflect and to remember what it was like to just make a purchase without writing it down. I wanted to prove that traveling does not have to be extravagant. I believe our expenses should be evidence that cost should not be a hinderance for travel. Certainly 20K is a lot of money but you don’t need that kind of money to have a really long fantastic trip. According to my numbers $3000 will provide just over 2 months of travel in Central America (and longer if you stay in one place - Guatemala!). After this trip I believe I am ready to take on the budget for the TBoL project .

The road of excess DOES lead to the palace of wisdom.

4. Get myself more comfortable with long term travel (in hopes of multi year travel in future.)

The hardest part for me was finding a good person to watch over my properties. Once that was discovered freedom was just around the corner. Thanks Ian Ray! The next hardest will be doing it on my own.

I give myself an A+

5. Perpetuating the portions of the Dallas life we hold so dear.

For those that have not found the joy of Facebook you were probably dissuaded by the game applications (Farmville, Tarot or Mafia Wars) or the flood of people posting about every little thing they do in their day “I just parked my car”. Like all technologies, they change and we adapt with them. It has been fantastic being aware of what is happening in New York while at the same time knowing what is going on in Morocco, Dallas, Paris, Holland and Costa Rica all in the same digital space. It does bend the mind some for those not familiar ....but who is familiar with keeping in touch with the whole of humanity? It is new to the entire human race to be able to communicate with ---everyone. Soon each person will have the opportunity to speak whatever they like to the entire planet (btw -Social Translate is WONDERFUL for those that have friends that post in different languages and have Google Chrome -a must). One really interesting fact. I got more Facebook accounts a preferred form of contact than I did email addresses on this trip. Blew my mind. I think FB or a spin off will become the new replacement for email/IM/chat rooms etc. Just need to figure out a better way of filtering the information. Fact is FB filled in this gap of connecting with home and abroad wonderfully.

I give myself a A+.

6. Practice on a weekly basis an exercise in distance connection through meditation.

Not so good. In concept yes but in practice no go. I did embrace more breathing techniques - more aware of my breath every day in fact. It has taught me that I am not very patient with myself. who knew? For the original goal of distance meditation with another I give myself an F.

7. Practice yoga on our own (does GREAT things to your body)

After the first month at Bikram in Berkeley this was a fail. As I said above breathing has been quite a wonderful way of getting to know more about myself. I notice the jitteriness (i.e shaking/nervous energy in my leg) in my body go away when I pay attention to my breath. Since yoga does include control and awareness of breath which I practiced on a daily basis.

I give myself a B-.

8. Allow chance to determine direction using I Ching

Really was hoping this would have come up more but it was a no go. Had the book but there were only about four real unknown points on the trip and the moment allowed for the evolution of the direction. I really did love that aspect of not knowing where we were going next. Something that gets lost when you get settled into a place for a week or so. I get very comfortable in a place very easy and lose motivation if not pressed.

So F on I Ching usage but A+ on just going with the flow.

9. Go to Machu Picchu and participate in a Ayahuasca ceremony

Well I should have seen this as being a two parter ...but I am still learning about this setting goals thing. So I get an F for Machu Pichu. But an A for Ayahuasca in Costa Rica with Vismay and his pregnant wife - a moment for the books. I still desire to explore Ayahuasca another instance to see what can be learned.

10. Develop www.TheBallOfLight.com for Burning Man 2012

( Please donate if you see it a worthy goal)

This has been on my mind almost constantly. I don’t know if all roads lead to The Ball of Light or It has just become my reference point for the understanding of the world/existence. I have come to see what is most important in this project and it is to see it from beginning to end. To see the full life cycle of a larger scale project and watch it as it evolves. If it does not end up being 100 foot tall not to worry. In fact I have found a way to incorporate sacred geometry (in short the way the universe grows itself) which allows the project to scale depending on the space provided. Giving myself this time period of a year to focus on having one project to rattle around in my brain has done some amazing things. I am quite an impulsive person. Usually when I get an idea I act on it and have the idea evolve in a very quick cycle. This time I was not able to actually build anything immediately for over a year. QUITE frustrating! Though it has allowed me to scrap ideas before ever beginning. Since after discussion/consideration it was determined completely unnecessary, saving time/money/effort. Also the pent up creative energy has spurred a LOT of other projects which I am burning to get started on.

I give myself high marks A++.

As I said these are better seen as expectations. Which I am trying to figure out a way to get rid of or at least see them differently. Once I feel the pressure of expectation I get anxious, start to create doubt and begin to worry.

Breathing helps.

Before

After 14 months

Before we left, I got rid of quite a lot of stuff I had been accumulating or had locked away in storage in Dallas -most through gifting to those who wanted the stuff. That way I get to visit the new owners and see the next chapter in the life of those things I once possessed. Not only does it make my life easier to move it also frees up space in my head of how much stuff I feel I need to manage. I feel so much time is spent knowing where stuff is even if I am organized. These two photos are the before and after shots of what I took on the 14 months trip. You can click on the links and hover over the photos to find out more of the details of what was brought. The basics: 4 shirts button down, two pair of pants (replaced both after 9 months) and four pair of socks - PLENTY. Bought a pair of pants in Guatemala for spinning fire, a jellaba in Fez, an external flash, replaced the day pack, picked up a scarf in SF at a lost and found some comfortable and rain pants(cycling in the rain). It looks like a lot but when weighed at the airport it was only 10K(22 lbs). I wanted to stay light so carrying my pack did not factor into my desire for moving. You see a lot of stuff along the way but really replicated touristy stuff. Experiences were the best since they are very personal and they have no weight. Sadly those are the ones you lose first as you get older.... just have to keep mak'n em.

Happiness is not real unless is shared - Into the Wild

Most importantly I have become as close as I have ever been to any one person on this planet - Rebecca. I knew this would happen to some extent but it went beyond my expectations. Learning and sharing with Rebecca has been my absolute favorite part of the trip. It has expanded my understanding of how close two people can be. Reminding me how little we know about the people we hold close in our lives. It really challenges my mind when I consider doing this trip again without a companion. So much of the trip was spent happily watching her learn something new. I smile when I think of being able to relive the trips experiences with her years later.

I hope to have a follow up blog post after being in Dallas for awhile. Thank you for following us on our trip. Thank you Rebecca for being so patient with me.

************************************************

Things I felt I needed to add but couldn't bring it all together.

Found this to be great back fill on my science knowledge (a touch professorial)

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Torrent

Some Must sees

City Museum (land of wonderment)

Avenue of the Giants(Humongo trees)

Fez(craftsmen/architecture/culture)

Venice(get lost)

Amsterdam(get on a bike!)

Guatemala(spring all year round)

Our time here is momentary

Face your fears

Get out there

Never stop exploring

Ramona & Eggroll's Last Ride

2011-01-03T11:20:00.004-06:00

October 8, 2010 to October 21, 2010

The Photos

October 8 ~ Early-ish start gets us 40 miles down the road to Bourbon-Lancy. We are exhausted by the time we get up the hill to the city center and that exhaustion increases exponentially when we realize we have to double back to camping. Pay for three days of camping and settle in. Attempt to buy desert stuff and juice but we miss the closing time by mere minutes.

October 9, 10 & 11 ~ Little bit of internet and a sorely missed taste of home ~ chips and hot sauce. The brand is Old El Paso which I would never buy at home but it’s pretty damned good in France and then even more wonderful when we combine it with a kind of cream cheese, YUM. Gregory sends out his first official CouchSurfing requests. We do our now redundant walk into town on a Monday to find NOTHING open, I’d think we are too dumb to learn but I know it’s merely a disconnection from the days of the week. Pay for one more night of camping with road hitting plans in the morning.

October 12 ~ Set the alarm for 7:30 but tickle fight, breakfast and packing means we don’t mount up until nearly noon. Fortunately, this section of path is super easy and we get to Digoin a little after 2. Try to decide if we want to continue biking to Lyon or take a train. One map makes it look really easy and I’m stubbornly set on seeing the biking out to the very end. Partially out of guilt that Gregory bought the BoB and we have only used it for a few weeks. Gregory’s superior map reading skills inform him that there are too many of the 5% gradients that nearly killed us getting to Bourbon-Lancy. A quick trip by the train station indicates that it’s only 20 euro to get to Lyon … but we are told there’s no train today*. Heading away from the station, I recommend that we stay in a hotel tonight knowing it is easier to get going if we are warm and don’t have to pack up the tent. However, hotels near the station are exorbitantly expensive and decidedly unfriendly to Gregory. They do direct us to their sister location on the cheaper side of town. Gregory and I have some communication problems because I feel like I’m forcing the issue to stay in a hotel when he would rather camp and he’s perfectly content to hotel it because he sees the sense it makes. Either way, we end up at a hotel, take long hot showers, eat a little and then watch a movie until sleep claims us.

*Later I find out through FaceBook that train workers are on strike.

October 13 ~ Wake up plenty early but not particularly rested. It is a cold, foggy morning. Easily leave the hotel by 9 and bike to the train station. Only to find out that the trains are on a different schedule from yesterday (due to the strike) and that we can’t get a train to Lyon from here. Our only option is to bike 11+ kilometers to Paray-le-Monial. That train is at 3, giving us plenty of time, but since we are up we decide to press on.

Biking next to the foggy canal is beautiful and serene but very, very cold. We are not really prepared for cold weather (I mean give us a break we thought we were going to be in South America for goodness sakes!) Make it to P-le-M in no time. Go directly to train station. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Only to find out we can NOT take our bikes on the train, but we can on the bus … which will be here in a little more than an hour. Scramble, rush and hurry to repackage our stuff into the most efficient use of space. We put all our personal items in one backpack (it was neat to find out it all fit after sending stuff home with my mother), the bedrolls in another, removing the panniers and packing all the bike and tent equipment in the BoB trailer. Then I strapped all five tires into one bundle while Gregory strapped the two bikes together. We finish just in time and Gregory goes to find celebratory brunch items before we get on the bus for who knows how long.

OMG, you would not believe the trouble we had getting on the bus. The station attendant indicated that we should buy the ticket from the bus driver. Then by the time the bus arrived and informed us we should have bought tickets inside, the station attendant was gone. The ticket machine wouldn’t take ANY of our cards and the bus driver couldn’t take cash. To complicate matters, we still don’t speak French and the driver didn’t speak any English. The two young men at the station waiting for their own trains and busses spoke some English but not confidently enough to be of any help. Ultimately, the driver lets us load our gear and get on with the ‘understanding’ that we will buy our tickets when we get ‘somewhere.’ After we drop off the only other passenger, we change bus drivers and he never tells us where to pay for our ticket.

Riding the bus we see more and less, more variety of landscape but for less time. This variety becomes both more valuable as we enjoy the changes and less valuable as the changes happen too fast to keep track of. I have missed the rattle and squeak of a long distance public bus. Strangely neither of us feels the desire to read or sudoku or otherwise involve our minds as we seem content to enjoy the movement without the expenditure of physical work.

Arrive in Lyon and quickly check on the train situation, there’s no point in putting Ramona and Eggroll back together if we have to disassemble them tomorrow. Trains schedules are still in flux, therefore continue with reassembly of our bikes. Someone asks if we need help, we reply no and I keep working while Gregory stops to talk to him. Come to find out he know the guy and place that Gregory wanted to CouchSurf with. Our new friend is Aaron and he starts to give us directions then decides to lead us there instead. How serendipitous! We finish reassembly and repacking quickly to start the 10 minute ± bike ride to the squat known as La Friche to meet Fox.

Although Fox’ reply had been only maybe, we hadn’t had the chance to check e-mail before being dropped on his doorstep like stray kittens, he graciously found space for us and welcomed us with little hesitation. He showed us to an available caravan and we settled into the squat life. Despite the comparatively effortless day of travel we were strangely exhausted. Dine on a canned dinner and retire with movie watching.

October 14 ~ Wake up and nosh some cereal and yogurt in bed, I love lazy mornings. Make our way to Fox’ bike workshop and offer our assistance. Our first job is to sort a large pile of bikes into Trash (technically sell as scrap metal), Trash with usable parts and Good Frames. Finish the sorting tout suite and move on to removing those usable part from those trash frames. Learn how to remove pedals and pull axles amongst the more general job of simply unscrewing one part from another. Get greasy, greasy fingers despite initial gloving. Gloves are much to bulky to do some things in. Then once they are off and your fingers are greased there’s not much point in trying to re-glove. After working we follow Fox back to his house and talk to him while he prepares his meal. He ends up making enough for all of us and shares his really wonderful veggie stir fry over rice grits*. Lots more talking and Gregory washes up our few dishes before we head to bed.

*Yep, rice grits. Fox’ friends mill hemp and to clean the mill of hemp oil they run plain rice through it. This cooks like grits do but of course have the rice flavor and a slightly strange color compliments of the hemp oil I guess.

October 15 ~ Slow morning but we finally make it over to the bike warehouse. We only do a little bit of sorting, pedals and axles, before we leave so Gregory can paint his face and I can get warm before our Critical Mass/Velorution ride starts at 5:30±. I go out to acquire bread and cheese for our lunch and we watch Kill Bill while Gregory paints and I pet the cat named Rustine, which means inner tube patch.

Velorution is crazy as we stop traffic and create havoc throughout Lyon. Gregory and I are biking a tandem cargo trike with trailer and are the longest thing in the parade of tall bikes, small bikes, cargo trikes and even one six person 4 wheeler that virtually defies description. We are just about the most disorganized conglomeration I have ever been a part of. We completely stop traffic to argue about which way is the best way to go. One problem arrises when an irate BMW driver tries to cause trouble. He has been weaving in and out of regular traffic and coming shockingly close to our parade until, of course, he makes contact and loses a small bit of paint. The police come but A) Gregory and I are removed from the action because we don’t speak the language and we weren’t involved directly with the event and B) the Police realize that it’s a bullshit claim by the driver trying to create drama.

Back on the road and it looks to be smooth sailing the rest of the way home until a lady tries to hedge us over and one of the bikes on our trailer gets stuck in her wheel well. We extricate, she doesn’t pitch a fit and we continue on … beyond the points of comfort and fun. Finally we return to the warehouse, park the bikes and remove ourselves to dinner nearby. We end up at a place that looks very fancy especially when compared to the ‘bombed’ out look of the squat directly across the street. We share a salad, real quenelles (not out of a can) and desert before heading home to wash Gregory’s face and rest our aching sit bones.

October 16 ~ Rainy cold morning keeps us in bed, as if we needed excuses. I’m developing a sore throat and runny nose which will not be helped by my next act of a quickly cooling shower (it started out warm enough but didn’t last). Gregory and Fox talk while he waits for me and then we try to find a warm place to read and eat some lunch. Share an interesting meal where we get to cook our own meats on a hot stone brought to the table. Tasty and Unique. Now we waste time till Indian dinner with Fox tonight. I write and Gregory reads.

*I’m feeling the pressure of needing to decide our next step. Do we hike and camp in Corsica or do we try to get to Turkey and do who knows what. We both still want to go to Damanhur and Parma, Italy but don’t see how they fit into our plans, nonexistent as they are.

October 17 ~ Didn’t exist at least as far as my daily writing went. In retrospect there was probably a concert/art installation at La Friche, which I did not enjoy and therefore didn’t stick around for.

October 18 ~ Today the members of La Friche go to court. They find out the next step in their imminent eviction from the squat. We arrive with only minutes to spare … well some of us do anyway. Florian, Fox’ CouchSurfer from Germany, and I follow Silvere to the court room. Gregory, Fox and several others are delayed either by the riots outside or the metal detectors inside. Once in the court room, it quickly becomes clear that it is beyond full and police officers are outside preventing anyone else from entering. I think it makes sense for the two non-French speakers to switch out with two French speakers who have a vested interest in the proceedings. However, I am unable to convey this correctly to those outside and Florian and I continue standing in the back of the court, fully expecting to be ejected at any point.

The proceedings start and it reminds me of my few dealings with traffic court. The lawyers and magistrates are all wearing black robes with white sashes, which is cool because, like all uniforms, it attempts to diminish any class distinctions. One magistrate is rapidly going through a HUGE pile of case files calling out the case and handing it off to one of several other magistrates at the bench. The representative for each case comes forward and discusses with the magistrate in charge of their file. Eventually the officer asks Florian and I to sit down in the now available space beside Silvere. Silvere asks if we are understanding the proceedings and we have to say no, at which point Silvere hits upon my earlier idea of exchange. We concur and Florian asks him to explain it to the officer watching the door, who agrees to exchange two CouchSurfers for Fox and Thomas … except that neither is standing outside waiting. The exchange still occurs but for people that I didn’t know. Gregory, Fox and Thomas show back up after about ten minutes and Gregory has been enjoying the chaos of strikers and riot squad outside.

After a little while the La Friche representatives come out of the courtroom and everyone gathers around to hear what the lawyer has to say. In a nutshell, they all have to come back at 5 o’clock for the actual presentation of information in the case. Fox and his surfeit of (couch)surfers leave shortly thereafter with stops to check out the menus and prices of two Indian restaurants. A plan is formulated to dine at one after the 5 o’clock return to court. Back at La Friche, Gregory and I internet and work on our next move while Fox and Florian work in the shop. Florian has fallen in love with tall bikes and is learning all the steps while at the same time making one of his own. We all quickly loose track of time and at 10 till 5, I rush out to ask Fox if he’s headed to court. The warehouse is absolutely full of people and there is no way Fox is going to make them leave to be one more voice in a sea of voices.

Being on our own for dinner, we decide we still really want Indian. However, I have no idea how to get back to the places we chose with Fox. Instead we follow the directions I found online to a different restaurant. We drive right past it because it doesn’t exist anymore. Unfortunately we have to retrace our path to figure that out. We end up at a little square with shops and cafés but no Indian place. At Gregory’s insistence, it’s my plan after all, I ask for directions at a pharmacy and he directs us straight to the place we had found earlier. We thoroughly indulge in the great food and wonderful warmth. *Have I mentioned yet that our caravan is not heated … neither is most of La Friche … that I feel like I’m nearly frozen to the core … and that I thoroughly despise the cold. Well, now you know!

Arrive back home to find out the court proceedings did little more than delay the inevitable and as it stands now, they are supposed to know in about 3 weeks time exactly how long they have until they are evicted. Also of note, but not of my experience, Gregory goes dumpster diving as our host is completely Freegan!

October 19 ~ Decide to bike to the bookstore for more English books for me. As we are getting closer we notice the streets are crowded with people and police. We bike across the bridge and into even thicker crowds of people and a smoky haze in the air. A block later we stop as we realize through bleary, teary eyes the haze is tear gas because this is where the strikers started this morning. We attempt to continue but we are not strong enough to continue to an unknown destination. We hightail it out of there and head back towards home for internet and food, with a stop for groceries along the way. We intended to ask Fox’ recommendation on a place for internet but we end up at McDonald’s. Two large fries and almost all my battery power later, we potentially think we possibly might have a probable next plausible destination … maybe.

October 20 ~ Spend a little bit of the morning fully packing our backpacks to see what we are and are not taking on this next leg. Disassemble the BoB trailer, pack it with bike shoes and parts and send it to my parents house. Plan anew to venture to the bookstore and the train station to see what our options for Torino tomorrow are. After several blocks we are roadblocked by crowds and riot squad. The strikers have moved across the bridge and down the street. We stop to gawk with the rest of the crowd and follow the riot squad twice as they attempt to take back two blocks. Eventually we move beyond this impasse to find that there is additional chaos at the bridge. We aren’t sure why the bridge is completely empty but the riot squad book ends encourage us to chose a different route. Despite Gregory’s continued interest in the happenings, we move on to the bookstore hoping to arrive before they close. I buy the Complete Works of Jane Austen and I have to admit I’m dreading the read.

I fear I have gotten us lost trying to find the train station but then things begin to look familiar and suddenly we are there. We are told that we need to take a bus to Chambéry where we can get the train to Torino. The bus leaves at 1:30 (YAY!) We don’t have to rush around tomorrow morning. Final Indian dinner before retiring to bed.

*Later I am very sad to have left our trusty steeds, Ramona and Eggroll behind in Lyon. I know that they will be cared for or made use of in a tall bike creation but I can’t help feeling the loss of security and freedom they allowed us.

October 21 ~ I write this (and the last few days) sitting on a nonmoving train, having just realized that the reason we were encouraged to take the bus was so we wouldn’t miss the train to Torino … but I’m getting ahead of myself. Wake up, tickle fight, eat breakfast, tickle fight, pack, tickle fight, check out of our caravan and say good-bye to Fox and Florian. The short walk to the Metro and figuring out our stops and connections is easy peasy, except they keep announcing something about our stop that I can’t understand. As Gregory peruses the map, a French girl asks if we need any help. Gregory tells her where we are heading and she assures us we are on the right track. She starts to go and I ask her what the announcements have been. Exactly what we should have puzzled out, this is the last Metro stop because the following stop is shut down due to the strike. Fortunately the strikes didn’t effect us at all … cue ominous music!

Arrive in plenty of time but can’t use the ticket machine to buy our tickets. We divide our forces, putting Gregory in the outrageously long line to buy tickets while I get in the significantly shorter but much more impatient information line. The info I get is that the train we want is leaving in 10 minutes and that if we ask the conductor we might be able to ride for free. I motion Gregory out of the ticket buying line and we haul ass up the stairs, clear our lack of ticket with the conductor and take our seats … where we now wait … and wait … and wait …

Our 12:45 train finally pulled out of the station at 2:24!

Arrive in Chambéry with enough time to grab a slight meal and play my first game of pinball before catching the train to Torino, which is PACKED! At first we thought we had lucked out with a nearly empty car, but we were quickly moved to a car that was ACTUALLY going to Torino, rather than staying in Chambéry. We find two seats across the aisle from each other, which was better than we had hoped when initially getting onto the train. My seat mate is Melissa an organic esthetician from Paris via New Orleans. She immediately recognized the American in us and we talk about our trip, her life in Paris and things to do in Torino. The main thing she recommends, and the reason for her trip today, is the Salon de Gusto, a slow food festival happening this weekend.

Gregory completely fixates on this opportunity, despite our arrangements to be at Damanhur in the morning and once we arrive in Torino we spend at least two hours trying to locate a hotel with vacancies. I’m completely detached from this process as I watch the desperation of trying to force this chance to happen. After driving us to two or three hotels with no luck, the taxi driver even offers to let us spend the night at his place. At this point Gregory turns to me for help and decision making but since I refuse to offer any advice, he decides against it. We eventually return to our original plan of train to Ivrea, spend the night in a hotel, then taxi to Damanhur in the morning.

Finding a hotel in Ivrea was’t easy and there were not that many people out and about to ask directions of. We did find a group of young people who directed us to a hotel nearby (in relation to everything else of course!) Showers! Hot Wonderful Showers (remember no heat or hot water at La Friche!) Clean hair and mostly new clothes for tomorrow.

In Which We Find, You CAN Have Too Much of a Thing

2010-12-28T09:00:00.001-06:00

September 18, 2010 to October 7, 2010

The Photos

September 18 ~Leaving Paris. Get up at 8, shower and pack until the house cleaner arrives at 10:30. Make last grab of stuff and finish packing in the courtyard. A quick stop at Jordan’s to drop off stuff and say goodbye. Then head to ‘a point’, versus heading to ‘point A’, on the trail. Oh yeah, Gregory bought a BoB trailer for the majority of our stuff. This makes me navigator. Finally meet up with the trail at nearly 2. Bike THROUGH the airport (WOW, how scary!) and spend most of the day on 2 or 3 lane roads trying NOT to get run over. Stop near Pringy hoping to find the tourism office open and fully stocked on cycle route maps. It’s not open, and as we are deciding our next move, a girl shows up with office supplies. Although she isn’t at work to work, she tells us where camping should be and directs us to a sushi place on the edge of town. Our first impulse is to just press on, but the road ahead looks bleaker still and it’s getting late so we decide to wait the 30 minutes till they open. The sushi was OK, but NOT worth the price, Stupid All-You-Can-Eat places! We are two tired kids and there is no sign of camping, so we pull into a field with a shielding tree line and set up in the gathering dark.

September 19 ~Day of rest. We don’t really need it but the trail remains unappealing, and we slept late and to be honest we just don’t feel like moving forward. Gregory goes to town to find lunchables. While he’s gone a truck drives right by the tent but doesn’t stop. We spend the day reading and watching people ‘work’ at a little forested oasis in the same field. After the ‘workers’ leave, we trek over to take a look. It seems they were building hunting blinds possibly for dove or other fowl creatures. Watch some Dr. Who and try to find our regular sleep schedule.

September 20 ~Get up, pack and leave by 10. Today I’m hauling the BoB and Gregory is navigating, but this means that we are riding each other’s bikes without resetting seat heights and other personal preferences. I didn’t know this was the plan and I’m NOT happy with the change. Fortunately the path starts out flat enough and we are easily distracted when we see a Decathlon Sporting Goods store. We move the better kickstand from my bike to Gregory’s, for stability with parking the trailer and buy a standard kickstand for my bike. We get back on the road around 12. Shortly thereafter we stop in a forest to eat some tuna. We aren’t quite hungry yet but we have a good tête-à-tête and just around the next corner is a GIANT hill. I’m suddenly wishing a pox upon Gregory and that each person was responsible for their own load of crap instead of me carrying it all, even if Gregory was hauling it all yesterday. I walk and push my bike almost all the way up, by the time I arrive Gregory has decided that we would be better off leaving the path since the path is highway. Begin to trail through the forest and while it’s a wonderful mountain bike trail, it’s hard as hell with a trailer.

We decide to camp here for a day or two, so Gregory goes to get some food in ‘nearby’ Fontainebleau while I set up camp. The spot we quickly chose before Gregory left was not that level or ideal for sleeping in so upon Gregory’s return we find a new level campsite. Dinner, reading and one more Dr. Who before bed does nothing to bring on the sleepies when we need them at bedtime.

September 21 ~Croissants and honey for breakfast disturbed by a nearly endless parade of old people just beyond our ‘table’ rock. We spend the day exploring our newest home with the help the gift we received from René in Amsterdam. Having no constraints on our time or resources we talk about everything before finally deciding that we were sitting at the crossroads deciding between nonexistence and grandchildren. Mind bending explorations and realizations all but forgotten in the next instant.

September 22 ~Long night of nearly no sleeping with a really strange dream about the Unseelie Court, spells and enchantment (really wish I’d written that down, grr!) Breakfast is Lunch followed by a hike to the parking lot looking for a trashcan and water supply but finding neither. Back to camp for reading until we exhaustedly fall asleep. We take a quick shower which would be more of a rinse with just about the least amount of water either of us has ever used, but we are hoping it will facilitate more restful sleep tonight. We don’t know if we should be worried or not that our days are essentially nothing more than reading, eating, shitting and sleeping, not in any particular order. We make the grand plan to bike to town tomorrow for more provisions since we are staying here a couple more days. A great place to unplug and reconnect.

September 23 ~Trip to town for internet and groceries is harder than it sounds with a bumpy downhill, towering uphill and steep downhill. Gregory gets reprimanded by the police for not stopping at a red light but we are able to talk ourselves out of the 19 euro fine. Lunch and internet to upload pictures and try to find a new better path to almost anywhere (at this point we don’t have anywhere we HAVE to be). We find a few potentials but they all seem more hiking than biking. We buy three days worth of groceries, trying more canned prepared meals and less sandwiches. Yes, we are limited by not having a stove but we just don’t have the spare room and cold canned meals aren’t THAT bad. After a stop for bread and bike repair, we discover that Gregory has ripped his pants. Nice butt not the impression we might hope to make on the locals. Fortunately, we are stopped directly in front of Global Sport. Gregory goes in to find new adventure pants (his second pair since we just bought one replacement in Paris) but low blood sugar from eating too long ago, means he can’t really focus on the task. I lock the bikes and come in to find him pants to try on. One fits OK but looks dumb so we settle on the one that fits slightly too big but looks better and seems more functional. Gregory steps up to the counter and gets embroiled in a great talk with the store owner about our trip so far, our current camping and our upcoming plans. He in turn tells us that there are wild boar in the forest and that Corsica, which we have been considering, is a special place not to be missed. We restart the bike home but stop two additional times for Gregory to fix at his bike. The last stop, at a gas station, requires the help of a 10-12 year old boy and the loan of his tools to fix the kickstand. Reverse the steep uphill, towering downhill and bumpy uphill back to camp. Nibble the treats we have acquired while we read (Gregory) and write (me) till dark. Which was at least five minutes ago …

September 24 ~Rain off and on through the night continues today. We only leave the tent for breakfast, lunch and breaks of sunlight. We try our first canned dinner of Three Cheese Ravioli. It’s not completely new (see August 13^th) but we are unwilling to try the more adventurous tins at the moment. More reading by both of us will probably continue until it’s too dark to read then most likely an episode of Dr. Who before sleeptime (which in reality is talktime until sleeptime).

September 25 & 26 ~Lots and lots of doing nothing. Rain and cold keep us cooped up in the tent. Reading and eating are just about our only diversions. I notice we are checking the time fairly constantly so I ban time checking on the 26^th. Ruled by the requests our bodies make, we seem to eat less because we are hungry and more because we think we should.

September 27 ~Bike to Fontainebleau for luxurious hotel stay. Luxurious in the fact that I can stay in the hot, hot shower for as long as I want. The hotel claims to have WiFi but we eventually give up on it. The decision to go out for lunch, turns into grabbing pre-made sandwiches then scurry back to our room for cuddles and movie watching. We do venture back out for Indian food and I learn that I do NOT prefer Matta Paneer … too many peas and not enough paneer.

September 28 ~I didn’t sleep well and we still feel the need for internet so we decide early on to stay another night. The internet at the hotel is still ‘broken’ so we find our way to a restaurant for lunch and taxes (Gregory’s). I locate pictures on Gregory’s Flick’r that I don’t have from our time in Guatemala and in searching figure out that his Guatemala set has massive duplicates. *We blame crappy internet and not yet having the cool Flick’r Upload’r application! I clean up the duplicates, download the ones I need and upload the ones I’ve found while Gregory assembles his tax files to send to his accountant. Five hours gone in no time. In deciding what’s for dinner, we opt to buy groceries for about 3 days worth of meals. This gives us the freedom to camp anywhere without then sending some poor soul (always Gregory) off to find food and it saves us a little bit of money as we won’t need to eat out at often. Gregory sends me home (around the corner and up some stairs) with our provisions while he stops to get samosas at the ‘other’ Indian food restaurant in town. He arrives with Samosas & Palak Paneer & Matta Paneer & Nan. A tiny argument ensues because IF I’d known he was getting more than Samosas I would have preferred NOT to get Matta Paneer again so soon, if ever. We made up before things digressed to a knife fight, but it seems a fairly typical break in communication. Watch a movie during dinner and try to go to bed early so we can get on the road first thing!

September 29 ~Great morning as we both wake up ready to hit the road. Yet after hasty showers and repacking we are back to being our regular grumpy, don’t like moving selves. For some reason moving is too much work and makes us snipe at each other. After my frustration of the giant hill while pulling the BoB, Gregory has gone back to BoB detail and I am navigator. I want to say that if I’d known in advance there were giant hills on this crap highway, I would have been fine, but I really think I’m fooling myself. *Of Note ~ It has been easier to write this journal when we are moving and there is day to day change. I didn’t write at all in Paris and didn’t write much when we were camped in the woods*

We get on the road close to 11 and cycle, cycle, cycle. Boy it’s hard work and I find myself wishing I had more strength and more stamina but I just don’t and I don’t really see how to get it. I’m quite frustrated that Gregory’s pace is about a block faster than mine AND he has the extra weight. I spend about half the day trying to keep up with him, wearing myself out physically and emotionally. Eventually we talk about it and agree that it’s pointless for me to further frustrate myself by trying to keep up, so we will each go at our own pace and he will have to wait on me occasionally. Just outside of Montargis, we discover that my back tire has gone flat. We air it up at a nearby gas station where the attendant tries to talk to us about a guy who cycled from Lisbon to Thailand.

Back on the road, but a punctured tire won’t get you very far. I eventually stop in a parking lot so I don’t damage my rim while Gregory goes looking for a repair shop. He comes back soon with a replacement tube and pump, but we don’t really have a wrench in the tool set. With no other option, we walk, read as Gregory carries, my bike to the shop and borrow the appropriate tool. In short order, we find the offending sharp item and replace the tube. As luck would have it, we’ve seen signs that camping is close by. Quickly set up tents and beds before returning to the center of Montargis for reading and dinner. Gregory is really enjoying his book, Magister Ludi also known as the Glass Bead Game, and I finish writing out today’s adventure while we wait for dinner to arrive ~ Escargots, Salmon and desert to share!

September 30 ~Rain sets in around 4am and continues until after 11, thereby keeping us confined to quarters. Fortunately we both have books to read *There has been a large increase of reading on both our parts but impressively on Gregory’s. This time of biking seems to be the first time he has allowed himself to just sit and read.

During an excursion out of the tent for the restroom and exploration of the buildings on property, he meets a German couple also biking on approximately on the same path as us. At some point his enthusiastic “No Way!” resounds through the campground, rousting me out of the tent to come meet the new and exciting people he has found to talk to. Never 100% sure what to do, I decide to make an appearance. Gregory gets annoyed by my reenactment but the conversation progresses until we finally let them continue on their way. They have told us about a potential cycle path along the canal that should be much easier and take us almost all the way to where we want to go. We watch two movies and some Dr. Who in the ‘Salle de T.V.’ only really breaking for Lunch and then Dinner. A perfect veg out day with a relatively early bedtime and hope for sunshine tomorrow.

October 1 ~My camera tells me this is day 305 of our trip. It doesn’t seem like that much time has passed. We both wake up in cheerful moods and the sun is shining brightly by 9:30 or 10. So we pack up and prepare to head out. Sock warming during breakfast in the ‘S de T.V.’ before hitting the road. Stop around 2 for lunch on the side of the road and hope that we are right about having only 10 more miles to Briare, which is where we can pick up the canal path. IF it exists it will get us off the highway, so fingers crossed. We stop on the outskirts of Briare for groceries and zip ties. Then, I catch up the last two days while Gregory searches for a wrench suitable for removing bike tires. Right after lunch my left knee began to hurt in that ‘feels like it needs to pop but won’t’ way so I enjoy the rest no matter how short lived.

We stop at a hotel in Briare for a couple of reasons.

1. Shower

ii. I’m Lazy

3. Don’t want to go too much farther on my knee

4. Tourism office is closed and it makes sense not to bike past it just to double back in the morning.

e. Did I mention lazy? I did, well then tired, I’m Tired.

6. It’s starting to sprinkle and then continues to rain

7. Internet *although I don’t really need it, Gregory needs to do some banking.

Wonderful hot shower then use the lint roller on the sleeping pads (should have done that in Paris!) Start Flick’r uploading one of two uploads then head to dinner ~ sharing another thirty euro meal of escargot, veal, cheese plate and tiramisu. I’m excited and hungry. Early to bed (planned) and early wake up (also planned NOW!)

October 2 ~Morning comes, I don’t feel that rested, blaming scratchy sheets and a restless Gregory. Breakfast in bed, yogurt and cereal from our provisions, followed by a quick rinse, cause I’m NOT passing up hot water, pack and on the road. First stop is Briare’s Office of Tourism for information about the canal path. Spend two euro on a map that looks like it goes exactly where we want to go. The tourism lady is awesomely helpful and we both comment later that she would be a wonderful addition to Gregory’s CB Ski trip. We encounter some difficulty deciphering which of the two available white rocked paths is correct but Gregory asks a fisherman, who sets us straight.

We are ON the Path! It is beautiful, quiet, serene, deserted, perfect and completely appreciated. At some point it changes into a paved road with light traffic but the map indicates it switches back and forth for the duration and we are ever so grateful that it’s nothing like the highway. A stop for treats (for now) and baguettes (for lunch) gives me the chance to catch up the writing.

We continue until near Sancerre because our map thinks there is camping almost directly on the trail. However, like the last place we stopped at because the map said there was camping, it is either nonexistent or closed for the season. A helpful Frenchman out biking with his children, directs us to a perfect flat space suitable for pitching the tent, very near to the canal where his and several other houseboats are currently docked. We set up the tents in no time flat, I think we are almost pros at this, despite the light drizzle that seems to be settling in. Read and rest until dinner. Once dark falls, we try to watch two different movies but I keep falling asleep so in bed by 10, one exhausted girl and a boy who claims not to be that tired.

October 3 ~Wake up around 9. During breakfast we hear some nearby gunshot and some whistling and/or bell ringing. Just beyond the hedge covered fence, we see at least one hunter with a shotgun. So very glad we DIDN’T camp in that field last night. A short time later a shot rings out much closer and later still we hear several shots in a row. Gregory thinks there must be a shotgun range nearby. Just a typical Sunday morning in the French countryside. Decide to walk into town for baguettes and maybe reading at a café. Town is small and we follow a one way street the long way around thinking the center of town is bigger. First we stop at a bar right on the corner of the busiest (read only) street in the center of town. Not exactly the best reading spot so abandon it for a quiet little patio space at a hotel with restaurant around the corner. Much better for reading and even some talking. As I write this we are trying to decide if we should lunch here then have our baguette for dinner or be cheap and go back to the tent for both. End up sneakily eating our baguette at the restaurant and reading until they close up for the late afternoon. The walk home turns into watching the tag end of the local rugby game. I think we won, but it was difficult to tell who was home team and who was away.

October 4 ~Rain, Rain, Rain. We start to pack up because it seems like the sun is coming then it starts to sprinkle so we pause and walk to town for bread. NOTHING is open! Not the cafe, Not the bakery, Not even the hotel with restaurant from the day before. Gregory asks at an insurance office and they direct us to the next town. Start long walk on foot to next town. As with all our trips into the unknown, getting there always takes longer than getting back. Our initial desire to just get lunch and return to the tent is completely overwhelmed when we realize we can stock up on food for the next couple of day. Of course, by the time we finish buying groceries, the café is closed for the afternoon*. Trek back home, stopping for our now standard baguette for lunch sandwiches. Back at the tent, it seems sunny enough to finish our previous packing and get on the road even if only for a couple of miles. Once more it starts to sprinkle but we press on.

*That is something so strange to me, that restaurants are open for lunch, closed for the late afternoon and early evening and reopen for dinner. It’s not that I don’t understand the need for it, I’m just an American used to getting food whenever I damn well please!

The road is easy and we don’t get very far but progress is progress. Yet again we are led astray as our map says something wonderful is just around the corner. This time a youth hostel in Herry. We abandon the path and begin the search. I thought it was near to the path, but Gregory and the map say otherwise. After wandering in the drizzle, we end up at a tennis court where the available locals say NO youth hostel. However, they are willing to lead us to a ‘nearby’ bed and breakfast, IF we can keep up with their car. Gregory does admirably and I just keep pedaling until I catch up. The B&B doesn’t really look open and the sign says 70 euro a night so we think we’ll pass. Gregory asserts that he saw a sign someways back and we head there. Even if it’s the same price, it’s closer to the road and the town. Gregory is right, there was a sign, it’s only 45 per night and it’s much more inviting as it’s essentially the spare room of a family home. Super friendly couple goes so far as to garage our bikes overnight, even though Gregory and I don’t think it’s necessary.

October 5 ~Good nights sleep and breakfast at 8 with no real packing makes for a really early start. Head back to the path which is great for a little bit, when suddenly it disappears completely. Well, the path doesn’t but the signage for it does. Glad we are fresh and aware. It is quite rainy or drizzly for a significant part of the morning but we easily make it to Nevers by 3 or 4. Check into a ‘cheap’ hotel and walk around some looking for a sporting goods store or a book store. Find them stacked on top of each other. Sports store doesn’t have better rain pants than I already have. Book store is not much better off with only about eight books in English. Choose two only to remember that I hate paying for books, especially when I have at least one in my pack to trade. Indian food for dinner and it’s the best since San Francisco but my love for Chai means no sleeping girl so write this then internet until tired and hope that tomorrow doesn’t arrive too early.

October 6 ~I force us out of the hotel and away from the internet to explore Nevers. Visit the cathedral which has strange modern stained glass due to the destruction of the original glass in ’44. Wander the town until lunch, where we decide we will head back to our hotel to trim and re-dye my hair. *Who does your hair? Point to Gregory “He does!” More Indian food for dinner but less Chai followed but beginning the series 4400 until tiredness kicks in.

October 7 ~On the road by 10 or so and it’s easier that just out of Paris, cause it’s NOT on a highway but it’s very rough terrain on an unpaved road held to varying degrees of maintenance. Arrive in Decize and Gregory is buying groceries while I catch up the days. Next we find out if the camping shown on the map is real or not. *Rough relationship day as this is the day Gregory tries to help me improve my pedaling power. I resist because it’s just about the worst terrain we’ve biked and I feel like I’m doing good to make forward progress.

Camping CLOSED! Apparently the French don’t believe in camping in the Fall.

Things I forgot to write about today

This picture is actually from when
he fell AGAIN on the 12th,
but I didn't write about that
one for some reason.

*Gregory fell. HARD. I’m not exactly sure what happened but he has strained or sprained his right forefinger and it’s beginning to swell, making it hard to change gears although it’s not that necessary right now.

*We played leap frog with a boat. They get stuck at the locks and we would pass them. Then we’d stop to rest, snack or rehydrate and they’d pass us. They always called out to us when they saw us so it brought a smile to my face that the rough path couldn’t completely remove. Eventually we passed them and then left the canal path, but it was fun while it lasted.

*I love and trust Gregory, despite how I might act sometimes.

*Still no signs of our path but I think the map calls it provisional. Although I just looked up provisional I have to say… “I do not think it means what you think it means.’ I’m guessing they mean it’s there but not paved and quite ready for the average cycling tourist. Fortunately we are just a little bit more hard core … or is that stubborn, I confuse the two sometimes.

*The days are very blendy right now. I think we are both tired of cycling but neither of us will say *Stop*. Need to have a real conversation about it, sooner rather than later.

*Despite being half of a partnership, I don’t think I pull my weight and I feel like Gregory agrees with this but won’t say anything. How much of this is real or just fears, I don’t know. I do seem content to just float along in life. Right now Gregory is in the tourism office trying to figure out OUR next move while I sit outside content with whatever decision he makes. Theoretically, I’m guarding the bikes but how crucial is that really. I don’t know how to show him that I appreciate him and ALL that he does, I don’t think that words are enough.

*I LOVE dogs. They make me smile when everything else in the world seems impossible.

Find a hotel in Decize, where we have some of the above conversations and reconnect with each other.

Things I Am Looking Forward To… Heading Home Edition

2010-12-25T09:26:00.003-06:00

Originally I posted this to FaceBook and then as I was working on Things I Will Miss… Leaving the Road Edition (currently still in the writing) I came to realize these were indeed blog posts. As you can see, I left them unfinished with the idea to add to them, so maybe that's why I thought they were OK for FB and unworthy of Blog status. However, I don't know IF I will add anything more to either one so I'm not going to tell you to watch this space in anticipation of more insights. Either way, I thought they were good exercises in appreciation both for the things that I've experienced and for the things I yearn for.

1. Showers! For as long and as hot as I can stand it.

2. My own BED! Oh bed, I’ve missed you so much. I hope you’ve misses me too. I can’t wait to be back in your soft warm embrace. I can almost feel the weight of you pressed against me in ALL the right places. I’m even bringing you back some custom made Moroccan lingerie. I hope I got your size right.

3. Hugs! Tons and Tons of hugs. Not to insinuate that other people in the world don't hug, but really for the most part they don't. I'm not talking about your run of the mill back pattin' hug. I'm talking about fully enveloping, melt into the moment, you are exactly where you need to be, never let go hugs from the people I consider family.

4. Family! I have the most wonderful family in the whole world. My loving parents and wonderful bother. My wonderfully eccentric aunts, uncles and cousins. Every single member of Gregory's family who have not only accepted me with open arms, but have let me steal him away from them for a whole year. And of course my chosen family, who are all the more wonderful because they love me for me, not just because they have to.

5. Mexican Food! A weekly (or more) staple of my routine that has been sadly missing for the last 52+ weeks. Chips, Salsa and Exceptional Queso, Refried Beans, Sour Cream, Warm Corn Tortillas, Sizzling Fajita Meat, Guacamole (the kind that's just Avocados, Garlic and Spice!) and Cheese Enchiladas. All the SPICY I can handle.

6. Clothes! Well not so much clothes but the variety that allows me more (and less) than 2 pairs of pants, 4 shirts, 4 pairs of socks, and 2 pairs of undies. The clothes I have had this year have held up great and have continued to look good all year. BUT, I'm ready for a change. I'm ready for, among other things, skin tight blue jeans (I even dreamed about them!), nice button up shirts and a variety of shoes...

7. OMG Shoes! No this didn't turn into a crappy Rick Roll. My one year old + cross trainers have just about given up the ghost. They have almost no tread and despite their truly wonderful drab functionality, I'm ready for a little bit of Foot (tr)Action.

8. Poi Practice and Fire Spinning! Unlike Gregory, who can spin at any time. I require quiet near uninterrupted space and time to practice. It's also handy to have some friends around to tell me what looks good and what still needs work helps too!

9. POPCORN! Whenever, where ever and however I want it.

10. Chocolate Milk! Icy cold, chocolatey rich, what else is there to say.

These are just a handful of the things I can think of right now. I will update it as I think of new Things!

And Then There Was Paris...

2010-12-22T07:33:00.001-06:00

August 26, 2010 to September 18, 2010

The Photos

*I don’t know if I’m going to keep up the daily journal. Gregory wants me to (as well as some blog readers), but it will completely depend on if I can make it a consistent habit, like before bed or something.*

August 26 ~ Three Ducks ... worst hostel EVER! Crap room, next to patio. Loud voices until after 2:30. My bed is basically fine (I’ve slept on better AND worse!), but poor Gregory had two low spots. We still find it odd that the French don’t seem to believe in breakfast, only coffee and a croissant, and it makes me wonder how they get anything accomplished. Of note Gregory wants me to lead using the GPS more. I’m afraid that I wear out too easily but we agree to try to find a second bike cradle for the GPS so that either bike can lead at any time. Quick run by Jordan’s to fix my handlebars, I think if I can just STOP dropping my bike I will have less problems. Using a Google maps to GPX import tool I found online, we create a trail to a very busy campground. Once we get there we are unable to check in for at least an hour and a half and the line waiting is incredibly long. However, once we check in, we get a great spot in the back corner near the spillway which produces a wonderfully lulling white noise. We easily nap the afternoon away.

NOT Actual Size

Upon, awaking we decide to have dinner at the camp restaurant rather than bike ‘into town’. We end up have a weird, over priced Salmon Pizza (don’t ask me, I was happy with the idea of a Margherita pizza, which in France is just an American cheese pizza). Anyway, we’ve about decided on showers and more sleep, despite the lack of sleepiness at the moment, when the fellow sitting next to Gregory comments on the Tome he is reading. The official title The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Philosophy is more than interesting enough to catch Michele’s eye. This starts a long wonderful conversation with him and his friend Marco, both from Parma, Italy. We talk about our trip so far and their recently finished walk about of the Normandy Coast, our non specific plans of Paris exploration and their completed and planned Parisian attractions, our more solid plan to visit Italy and their warning about Italian drivers and bicycles. An energizing conversation that eventually ends as we decide on showers and they head to bed as they have their last day of exploring tomorrow. We find out they are camped in the same area as us and I hope to talk with them again before they leave.

August 27 ~ Waste almost all day napping, but then it might not be a waste as we seem to have really needed it. Bike to Jordan and Annie’s for Veggie Taco Dinner and our first macaroons. Gregory and Jordan have so much catching up to do and it is very late by the time we head back home directly through ‘les bois de bordel' *not their official title. Paris has two pleasant woods (not big enough to be called forests) on either side of the city centre. They are called the lungs of Paris and they are filled with paths and trails good for walking and biking. They are also filled with prostitutes. I don’t seem to appreciate their presence nearly as much as Gregory does so once he adds his two cents, you’ll possibly gain the same sense of awe (or derision) we felt as we happened upon their territory, despite Jordan’s low-down on their probable presence.

August 28 ~ Late to bed means late to rise. We finally crawl out of our tent around 10. Michele and Marco have left already and I wish I’d had the chance to say good-bye. Wander up to the cafe for weak coffee and watery hot chocolate. We talk to a group of girls from Dublin who are here for a 3 day music festival. It sounds cool, but for some reason we can’t fathom what would make that trip worth it. Maybe we are getting old. This festival is the reason for there being so many people filling this Parisian campground. Head back to the tent for planning out the rest of the day and find a beautiful note from Michele. A tickle fight and a movie cap the afternoon. Gregory goes to call Jordan about a possible movie tonight while I write out the last couple of the days. Hard to documentate when you’re sleeping! Movie is a no go and we are without plan for the remainder of our day. Go on a completely directionless bike ride which ends up at the Eiffel Tower.

August 29 ~ Today we get our apartment. Twenty days of luxury after twenty-five days of roughing it … er, I mean camping. Tear down camp and pack up. Arrive an hour and a half early to check out the neighborhood. A half naked French woman notices us from her balcony and spends the next several minutes singing and generally letting us know that she is loony tunes. In our haste (and lack of internet for the last couple of days) I have neglected to get the numeric code that lets us into the building. Once our 3:00 appointment time comes and then goes, I trudge off to find internet and the code, so that we are at least waiting in the right spot rather than looking homeless on the street. I come back and enter the four digits, just as Gregory and our landlady are disappearing from the foyer. Our initial impression of the space is that it is SMALL, but on second opinion it is pretty amazing. It is essentially one room with a tiny kitchen and decent sized bathroom, but it has a lofted bed area over the bathroom and kitchen which leaves mom the downstairs room once she arrives.

I get a great haircut...
promptly re-dye it purple!
I’m back to being the
Purple French Mushroom...
in Paris even.

September 5 ~ No writing for SEVEN days. I’d like to say we were exploring the city ... but we haven’t really. Blazing fast internet at the apartment makes us think that either Paris is the centre of the intertubes or Parisians just don’t spend their time online. In the time not written about we have had dinner with Jordan and Annie again. They came to see our ‘janitor’s quarters’ as Jordan pronounces it and we have a tasty Lebanese dinner at a place nearby.

Now, sitting in a cafe near the Louvre there is too much noise to write or think so more later (I hope!)

I have to look at photos to attempt to remember even a portion of the last couple of days. We have dinner with Thomas, a CouchSurfer we met in Dallas through Boarhead, a year prior. Thomas was in the States working on his American People Project. We find out that while he was an inspiration to our attempts at better fire spinning photos, we were part of the inspiration for his current art style, Photo Composites. Wonderful moment of realized inspiration surrounded by great conversations about life and art.

Oh, and as you can tell from some of the photos, my mother has arrived. This is momentous and beyond my imaginings. Initially I thought she was arriving on the second, but silly me that’s when she was leaving Dallas. She landed in Paris on the third at about 9 in the morning. It takes her just enough time getting to the apartment that I’ve started to worry, but she shows up just fine. We get her settled in and then wander out for some small explorations and some lunch. We decide to share two Plat de Jour’s, one starter and meal and one meal and desert. Despite our utter lack of French (well mom and I had some in college, but that was longer ago than either of us likes to think about) mom knows just enough to suss out that the entrée is rabbit. It was remarkable tasty and absolute proof positive that mom is NOT in Texas anymore. We buy groceries for some of my favorite ‘home cooked’ meals and decide on Hamburger Mushroom Gravy over Potatoes. It was delicious although not exactly the same as at home.

*Gregory distinctly remembers a moment that reminds him that neither me or my mother has traveled out of the United States before when after looking at a menu my mom says “Now I understand how hard it must be for foreigners to come to America."

We wake up super early for our scheduled tourist activity, the City Segway Tour. Brisk walk to the Eiffel Tower where we wait for our tour guide and fellow tourists. Seth arrives on Segway and is a great mix of my brother’s humor and all the geeky boys I miss from back home. His humorous take on French history and his witty repartee make the day speed by. Gregory and I are initially worried about mom being able to handle the new technology of Segwaying, but she masters it tout suite. I, however, learn the hard and painful way that Segways and dirt paths are not BFF. In fact, they seem to be more the hair pulling, shirt shredding, scratching, biting, slapping enemies that we all remember from cat fights in High School. Put into simpler terms, the mechanism of the Segway works great on concrete and other hard surfaces, but the same mechanism that makes it work is completely counter intuitive on dirt … wait a minute that wasn’t any simpler. What I’m trying to say is that when the Segway feels like it’s not getting the traction it needs, it automatically speeds up the wheels, which is a lot like spinning out in loose gravel with your car.

*Now let me state for the record, that Gregory feels I was fooling around inappropriately on said device which led to my eventual literal downfall. However, in my defense I say that I was merely monkey see, monkey doing what he was doing.

Right or wrong, I fell … hard. Gregory stops, helps me up, dusts me off, rinses my hands and we are about to try to catch up with the group when here comes the cavalry! Eight Segways come charging back, led by Seth and my mother. One of the girls had seen me fall and rode ahead to tell them I was down. Scraped palms and bruised ego aside, the tour was marvelous and Segways are great fun.

Once back at headquarters, we get food recommendations, including a Pho restaurant to fill in mom’s Cold Noodle Bowl card. Hobble walk to a nearby cafe for coffee and eclairs before heading home to rest, change clothes and re-bandage my hand. The fabric bandages that mom brought, because she’s Mom, immediately became ‘handy.’ After resting, we take a substantial walk, back to the Eiffel Tower, over the Pont d’Léna, through the Jardins du Trocadéro and over to the Palais de Chaillot. Despite all the signage and mom’s shuttle driver pointing it out repeatedly on her ride that morning, we were never really sure what we were looking for in our search for the Trocadéro. We decide on dinner in China Town and take our first Metro ride over to find mom’s Cold Noodle Bowl. The place we were directed to had at least a 30 minute line out the door and we were all hungry more than 30 minutes ago. Along the way, mom had perused several menus to see if she could find the elusive CNB. Fortunately, she knew the Vietnamese word for what she wanted (Bun Thit, if you are curious) so we doubled back to a restaurant with immediate seating. Mom and I got Bun Thit and Gregory got random Ginger Chicken with rice (on the server’s recommendation).

After dinner, we Metro home for sleep and a lazy morning. The first Sunday of the month is Free Museum Entry day and despite being warned off by Seth from the Segway Tour, we decided to give it a shot. Using the Metro entrance, saved us a ton of wait time and we got in nearly straight away. Although Gregory is the main one that wanted to see the Louvre, we really only saw the things my mother was interested in, such as the Napoleanic Apartments and the Flemish, German and Dutch painters. Gregory may go back to see other stuff, but I think he would prefer finding a modern art museum.

Suddenly the writing stopped. The day to day activities took precedence over blogging. The touristic whirlwind caught us in its might and dropped us at random points around the city. We dragged my poor mother up to the highest reachable point of the Eiffel Tower, it was nerve wracking for her but she did it! We also dragged her to the lowest depths of the Catacombs, she found it outré. We watched her explore a cemetery. We day tripped to Versailles, where we were all stunned by the overwhelming, over the top opulence. We saw Notre Dame but found more enjoyment watching a man feed the pigeons nearby. I know we walked and walked and walked all over the town, sometimes with a purpose, but most times without.

Then saddest of days,
my mother flew back home.

Costa Rica then Panama with a Veer to the Left

2010-12-16T09:11:00.001-06:00

April 10, 2010 to August 2, 2010

The Photos

This started out as a response to an e-mail from a couple that I met in Guatemala and has turned into a full fledged blog post, started by me, REALLY polished by Rebecca, elaborated on by me again (ouch, this writing thing is painful), re-polished by Rebecca and then finally published.

OK, it is true we have completely stopped updating the blog. Neither of us really knew how to get motivated or how to motivate the other to do it. Once we were behind it seemed impossible to catch up. We know it is better to live it than blog it, but we find the guilt near the end almost overwhelming (considering that so many wonderful people have wanted to live vicariously through our blog).

So last you saw us we were in Guatemala, but getting ready to leave in the next day or two.

What started out as a leisurely jaunt to Costa Rica, turned into a mad dash as we suddenly realized we might miss the very person we wanted to see. We made it, but just barely, skipping all of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras. We did arrange a brief but wonderful stop in San Isidro to CouchSurf the incredible Arine, Pierre and their three month old, Tristan. The main attraction of Costa Rica was spending time with our friend Boarhead, an added bonus was Hello/Goodbye hugs from Sam since we arrived mere minutes before she left. BH recently bought into the intentional community Feunte Verde, where he is creating a completely new life for himself, while divesting himself of the bulk of his interests in Dallas. The community consists of 11 amazingly diverse families (with space for 11 more) attempting to create a sustainable neighborhood. They are two years into creating this community which I can already see will be wonderful when it is complete.

While there we helped build his composting toilet and cleared some land, in the process rousting out some of the more dangerous critters of Costa Rica, (a Mama Fer-De-Lance and several large scorpions.) Our final undertaking before Boarhead left was to unearth two massive slabs of rock perfectly situated as the Mother Hearth for his new home. The inauguration was very exciting as about 30 minutes into the first fire, a shard of rock suddenly exploded upward, spraying us with fire. No one was hurt but we were all made aware that we are only here because we are allowed to be. The next night’s community fire performance went off much better, further enhancing the atmosphere BH is creating. His own slice of paradise at the base of a 1000 foot jungle wall where the monkeys wake you up and put you to bed every night.

After BH headed back to Dallas, for continued life consolidation and a little bit of fun, we just kinda hung out at Feunte Verde. For quite a while. Absolutely nothing was pressing us onward and the chance to experience Ayahuacsca, with a Ayahuasquero relocating his group from Brazil to Costa Rica, was certainly enough of a draw to keep us around for a little while. In the meantime, I unintentionally invited some turbulence into our lives by trying to catalyze the life goals of a truly wonderful Chilean chef. Despite not reaching the desired end goal, we experienced so many wonderful times over delicious meals with abundant conversation. We even managed a crazy jaunt to the beach, where I had the pleasure of teaching our chef about fire spinning. Rebecca would definitely have enjoyed the nighttime beach more if she hadn’t been made so miserable by salt in existing scratched bites being compounded by new biting No-See-Ums, ouch!

*One of my joys in life is to help people do what they want to do, it doesn’t always work out at the time, but I know the ripple effect will create what is to be. In the end, I always feel the positive energy of at least trying when no one else thinks it’s even possible.

We wrapped up Costa Rica by participating in a very intimate Ayahuacsca session with Vismay Amrit, his pregnant wife and a close friend of theirs. The session started and ended around a table full of candles, singing and chanting in Portuguese and English. As the night progressed, we began a shuffling dance that Rebecca enjoyed but was not the movement that I felt I wanted. It was probably for the best, however, as it soon became harder and harder to keep focused on the words and movement. After throwing up twice, I experienced what I would call a slight body buzzing with some doubling of vision, as If I were looking at an old 3D movie without the proper glasses. It was not the powerful visionary experience we were expecting from the research we had done on this jungle medicine. Despite my disappointment, I am looking forward to trying it again and it seems there are many opportunities within the United States...

Our rested Costa Rican vibe rapidly evaporated once we got to Panama. We enjoyed walking aimlessly around, exploring this current slice of the world. In doing so we reconnected with each other, reminiscent of our days in San Francisco. However, we began to worry as we started hearing rumors that crossing the Darién Gap was problematic at best. The little information we found on traveling overland from Panama to Columbia, stated it was both uncommon and unsafe. The suggested modes of transport were either fly* from Panama City to somewhere in Columbia or take a boat.

*I feel it is important to make note that when we left Dallas, one of our main objectives for the year was that we would NOT use airplanes for transportation. We also planned to be in Peru by June and somehow never made it. Despite the regrets I have over these missed obligations, I think the trip has been better from NOT following such arbitrary rules. We lived and learned, what I feel many people already know ~ You can’t do it all, but you do all that you can. You never close yourself to opportunities and opportunities arise that you could not have imagined.

We had already been thinking about finding a boat to travel with and work on but nothing had come of our two and a half months of searching. We priced out both flying and boating while at the same time Rebecca put out a post on CouchSailing, part of the wonderful CouchSurfing network. Almost immediately we get a response from Mik in Trinidad with an amazing offer. We find out that flights to Trinidad are only slightly more expensive than the other two ways to leave Panama. So we book it post haste.

Getting into Trinidad was interesting and shows how trusting Rebecca and I are in the world we find ourselves in. We were completely prepared to fly 1,200 miles to an unknown place to meet a guy we had only talked to online. Immigration, however was not nearly as trusting as us. Since Rebecca is not familiar with International flying, she didn’t know to stay with me through the process. Despite that, she had no problem getting through, while I was sent back into line to wait. It helped that she had just enough information on who we were coming to see and eventually immigration called Mik to verify our story. Finally we were allowed to enter the country and luckily without purchasing the normally required onward flight.

We spent the next month in Chaguaramas, Trinidad living on a boat. We soon learned that Chaguaramas is very well know amongst the sailing community as a good port for storing and restoring sailing vessels. It is ideally situated South of the Hurricane Zone and an easy landing spot off the Trade Winds of the Atlantic Ocean. Our time was split between dry dock and docking in port as we helped get the boat ready for sailing. It was a very relaxed time for us, as with so many phases in our trip. We also spent truly interesting times exploring Trinidad and talking to Mik from Denmark, Jessica from the States and Nombuso from South Africa.

Mik was in Trinidad checking out the boat we were working on with the intention of buying into the group (only $15K/person) that co-owns and co-operates the boat, a kind of test run to see if personalities and desires would mesh. If they did, Mik would spend several more months getting ready for a two year voyage. We got some neat photos of us painting the entire underside of the boat ... rather artistically if I may say so myself. After getting the boat in the water early, the rest of the 5 person crew arrived and we soon started on our 7 day trip that turned into only 4 days when the motor on the boat went out and the wind died. We found ourselves drifting towards Venezuela where it was reported there were pirates! We all spent the night in watch shifts making sure we didn't drift too close to land or get run over by other boats. Eventually we got more wind and sailed back as far as we could before getting the boat towed in by essentially a speedboat.

Before we were able to take our sailing trip the Captain (because of the strict 30 day Trinidadian Visa restrictions) required us to have an onward plane ticket. In continuing to look for the things that would exhilarate Rebecca, I off handedly said "Why don't we go to AMSTERDAM!" She seemed quite taken with the idea and I knew I had a great group of friends from the Dream-Your-Topia project at Burning Man in 2008. I also couldn’t wait for her reactions* to a completely new culture. So again off we fly, further throwing our trip into the chaos of explorations that I think in retrospect has been one of the most amazing elements.

NO PLANS = Wonderful Adventures

* This trip has largely been inspired by finding the things that bring out the inner light within Rebecca. I LOVE watching as her face lights up when she encounters something that seems familiar but has just a little bit of a twist in taste, texture or look ... Like Fresh Mangos! WOW, I have to admit it actually pushed some jealousy buttons when I saw the look in her eyes! Wonderful to see let me tell you!

We spent an incredible month in Amsterdam. Starting with a couple weeks at Dadara, Thera and little Mundo’s house, all remarkable artist in their own ways. I spent countless hours watching Dadara paint, reminiscing about past projects, prognosticating about future ones and talking about how to make a living as an artist. That was followed up by several nights camped on the deck of Martin’s Voorzanger houseboat on the Amstel, the most wonderful caring man and father I have ever known. Followed up by renting an apartment from Kamiel Proost with his wonderful art displayed around his space.

I have to say, I really LOVE that city. I am sure it had a lot to do with the nearly perfect temperatures (after the heat of Trinidad and Central America) and the cherry on top was the complete LACK of mosquitoes. The two combined allowed us to sleep with the unscreened windows open which was pure BLISS after a month of trying to get air circulation through mosquito netting and the previous month trying to sleep under a fan to keep the beasts at bay and prevent the itches that require scratches. One of our best days was spent in Vondelpark. We biked* over, set up a blanket, talked about everything, watched the people and the dogs and the ducks, eventually wandered all over the park, alternating who picked the next direction, climbed all over several sets of amazingly interactive playground equipment and one weirdly wonderful tree, which I later documented in Dadara’s guest book. We were stunned and impressed to find a park specifically designed to enjoy nature. Especially, since in Texas, the word park generally means Baseball Diamond, Basketball Court or Soccer Field.

*Amsterdam is BIKES, forget anything else you have heard, go there to be completely immersed in the biking culture.

Having a little over a month before we meet Rebecca's mom in Paris, we were once again floundering on what to do. We had talked about how much we were both enjoying the experience of biking around Amsterdam and one day Rebecca said "What if we just biked to Paris?" Since anything she desires to do, I'm immediately completely willing to do, it didn't take too long before the random thought turned into a real live plan. Rebecca Google searched 'Bike Route Amsterdam to Paris' and sent me the first path she found (she eventually sent me one or two more but I don't think I even looked at them.) I began trying to see the lay of the land topographically and trying to guess if this crazy girl, who has never biked more than 10 miles at home has any idea what she's getting herself into in the 400+ miles from Amsterdam to Paris. Fortunately, a large portion of the trail is beside water so that's going to be as easy as 'shoveling sand.' Rebecca searches on Marktplaats, the CraigsList of the Netherlands, for bikes and finds a matching set for 300 Euro, that we arrange to check out in Purmerend, just a quick train ride away. In almost no time we outfit ourselves with panniers, tent, sleeping bags and pads, rain pants and a GPS to navigate by. I know it was hard on Rebecca and you can read the day to day report here: Part 1 and Part 2 That was the most amazing thing to me, once we began biking, Rebecca began writing almost daily. I couldn't have been happier and wanted to keep her on the bike for a long as possible, just to facilitate that creative burst.

This was just about the most wonderful part of our thoroughly fantastic trip. Holland was super easy, with no hills for at least the first 150 miles. Eventually we did have to climb some hills that required pushing the bikes, but for the most part we were absolutely fine on our Wal-Mart(esque) bikes with only 6 gears. Yup, you read that right. In the end we only needed lower gears for half a dozen places in the entire 3 months we were biking.

Letter to My Sister from Paris

2010-09-14T09:54:00.000-05:00

Gregory here

Ok so I have not been anywhere near as good about posting as I would have liked this year. I just seem to not like writing. I hope in time to get better at getting my thoughts down. I have been told I am lazy and impatient (I need a more positive way to say this by the way.) It is difficult to write when your brain jumps from thought to thought so quickly. This post was inspired by a note from my sister who asked about my trip and how it was going. The thoughts seemed to flow forth - I can only assume that is because I was telling someone who really wanted to know and also it was someone I really wanted to tell. I am not sure what that means but enjoyed the results. I hope you do too.

Kim: Greg, how are you/where are you? can't believe you're 3/4 into your journey!

Gregory: As for the trip, I am almost overwhelmed with the desire to see and experience more. CouchSurfing seems to provide the best experiences. And extremely similar to GlobeAware, in the opportunities to be part of peoples lives and get to know people from the area.

I have always been fascinated by the pattern of roots and trees.

And now, I am starting to see the natural patterns in the growing natural world (lightening, water, even in fire in Costa Rica still looking for wind) and I am desiring to see the way that same natural pattern applies to humans. I believe this is what Uncle Robert does - applying behaviors to data and relating that to bell curves looking for patterns and especially things that fall out of that pattern. This Pattern is what I see existence to be.

I have not done as much studying as you, more importantly I have not retained what I have read. I have seen a difference in what I feel is expressed. The Yin and Yang/Positive and Negative/Good and Bad. I do not see any of these as truth, there is only the Creative and Receptive.

It is all things. So many people get lost in trying to prove whether or not we are alone in the universe. Just as the small part is a representation of the whole in so many growing things so are we to the universe. We are not alone we are just a finger or a sensual receptor of the universe. The whole is just so big we feel disconnected from it(if we could see the feet and the hands at the same time maybe). I think the social sites, like MySpace and FaceBook, are evolving to fill in the separateness. To attempt to feel more connected and aware of what is going on in the world. To try and give us all a better chance at knowing what is going on so we can be driven to take part - to contribute - to effect the whole. GlobeAware is definitely one of those programs. A chance for people to get out of the house, out of their normal work/sleep/eat pattern and to have a new cultural experience. To share a another way of looking at life and in turn appreciate the life they have already.

I wish I had the knowledge retention you seem to possess. Have you come across another male that has the same level of knowledge retention as you do?

Rebecca and several other woman that I have dated have had exceptional knowledge retention. It is very possible I have not gotten to know as many males as females. The minutia in knowing themselves seems greater in women. A few males I know seem to be able to call upon knowledge from many different sources internal and external. I can only assume this stems from so many males focusing on doing rather than feeling ( to provide in order to be loved). I know I come across some extremely amazing moments and knowledge kernels that seem to inspire a sense of wonder and knowing but I seem to lack the ability to be able to hold on to it and apply that to other parts of my life.

I can not tell you how much I have loved this trip. The largest and most important aspect being the removal of myself from all influential people and places in my life and allow myself to have my time. I am realizing more and more the things that make me happy and the things that keep me driven. I may not have a house, I may not have a wife or a child and maybe someday, I will. But I am not going to try and plan these things out. I work towards the things I need and want everyday.

Over the past several years I have pulled further away from being tolerant of listening to the present state of world affairs. Part of this has been my personal test to see if it takes an active ability to stay connected in todays connected society. Part of this is my own dislike of the time required to stay involved as it takes so much time from the things I really want to do, to actually experience life not just read about it. I know that each one of us has to pay attention to our needs and realize if our desires are too much.

My woodworking instructor told me the way to be happy seems to be
To Make Something
To Cook Something
To Grow Something

Also, just the other day on a TED talk, (happy planet index) I learned of another way to work towards happiness. I really like this one. I am thinking about putting this on a serving bowl to be used at the dinner table. And in this same vein, I am also considering using it as a fund raiser, which at a certain donation level you receive a hand painted pottery bowl with these happiness principles. It would certainly support the first step...
1. Connect - to those you love and love you
2. Be Active - get out of the house
3. Take notice - of yourself and what is going on around you
4. Keep Learning - stay curious
5. Give - give back in a way you can to those around you

In short, this trip has changed the way I look at life. I do not know where my life will lead but I know now that whatever happens is the right thing to happen. There is no coincidence - only serendipity.

I seem to feel better about myself when I am able to get my thoughts written/typed down. It allows for the connection/s to grow with myself and those who read my words. Which would be step number one on this last method of pursuing happiness.

Love,
your Brother

*****
SO a touch scatter brained but it is on paper - or screen
On another wonderful side note this is a TED Talk that we seem to discuss again and again on this trip.
The Riddle of Experience Vs. Memory

Biking to Paris (deuxième partie)

2010-09-02T10:30:00.001-05:00

August 14, 2010 to August 25, 2010

The Photos

August 14 ~ I’m gonna kill a rooster (and the noisy neighbors near us)! Early start, LONG day and we didn’t let the afternoon drizzle slow us down. Almost forty miles, with two miles OFF track. It is determined that Gregory has to sleep O-U-T-S-I-D-E, outside. It is not determined if he gets to sleep on the ‘porch’ and out of any potential rain or plain old outside. It is determined that he does NOT get a sleeping bag as I plan to mold it into a boy shape and cuddle it. Finally see sixth gear (and 26 mph!) on some long swooping downhills followed by not terribly strenuous uphills. A really great stretch of road which we enjoyed so much, we completely missed the turn leading to the 2 miles offtrack. We hit France around 6pm almost immediately after we got back on track. It is pretty wild NOT to know when you change countries as we are not using a map, per se. We stop in Maubeuge for dinner at one of the busiest eat in/take away places I’ve ever seen. They have a kriek, St. Louis, despite 2 previous bad experiences I take a chance and order one. It was very tasty and I really wanted another one, but the service was slow enough that it was easier to pay the bill and leave then try to order another beer. Gregory noticed a fellow patron was inspired to try the kriek also. I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did. Camping appears to be nearby so we head that way after food and find a quiet spot to pitch our tent.

August 15 ~ Resting day, both knees really hurt. I’ve quit griping about it in the journal but it’s definitely a hinderance. We have a weird wet walk to find almost nothing open on a Sunday. Have my first eclair and if France doesn’t have eclair rehab, it should. Decide on sandwich makings from a mini grocery and hope for dinner at last nights place. It continues to rain to varying degrees so we ‘campout’ in the reception/lounge area of the camp ground. A woman comes in offering cakes to the receptionist and then to us. We decline but then end up at her camper for a cup of coffee ... which turns into 7 hours of talking over coffee, tea, dinner and more tea. They are Janet and Sydney from Manchester (or thereabouts). We talk about everything from all of our histories. Sydney gives Gregory an atlas for France, where he becomes completely immersed in the awe of cartography and the places we can see. Janet commiserates with me about my knee as she had twisted hers getting out of her camper not that long ago. She offered me some of her anti inflammatory gel, so I gave it a shot. An absolutely wonderful couple who brightened a really dull grey day. Gregory and I do the dishes and then depart for home to baby wipe showers immediately followed by breaking of tent supports and two punctures in our rain fly ... did I mention it rained all day, was still raining and seemed like it might continue raining indefinitely. Gregory rigs it so that we won’t drown in the night and we worriedly head to bed.

August 16 ~ Gregory, in my slightly less wet shoes, bikes to the local ‘Home Depot’ for copper tubing to fix the tent supports while I use the hair dryers in the shower room to dry his totally soaked shoes and socks. Once he finishes fixing the tent, we switch shoes and I work on drying mine. We spend the rest of the day charging computer batteries, reading and resting my knees while it rains and rains and rains. We venture out into the rain for the dinner we planned the night before, lasagna, steak and more kriek. Gregory says it can rain till 5 am then it has to stop and I think it pretty much does.

August 17 ~ Up and mostly packed by 9:30, but then spend an hour eating left over groceries so we don’t have to carry them. While packing and eating we meet a guy from Antwerp who repairs hail damage to cars. An extensive traveler and one of the few people we’ve met who had been to Dallas. The day starts out with a sprinkle, which becomes a deluge, petering out to a sprinkle ramping up to a deluge ... are you noticing a pattern. Very few stops today because not that many things are open for business on this particular portion of path. In the end we bike 55 miles, wear out 3 knees and Gregory is amazing at my stubbornness concerning deviating from the trail for food, warmth or shelter. Eventually he puts his foot down that we have to stop. So we end up on the edge of a field overlooking a construction yard and the road for tomorrow.

August 18 ~ Day of REST. Gregory goes to the nearby town and luckily finds provisions. More reading than either of us has done in a while and a very early bedtime.

August 19 ~ Standard start time, up by 8 (or so) on the road by 10 (or so). Send Gregory to town for breakfast fixing with the plan to pack up the beds while he is gone. He does his before he leaves and I’m nearly done with mine when he gets back, good thing he helped. The store isn’t open so we make do with what little we have, six pieces of Melba toast, a Bounty bar (like a Mound) and four Ibuprofen, split between the two of us. Stop for tea at the first place we see that is open and are told that food is just around the corner, but off the trail. I leave the path under duress to find a decent mini grocery around two corners where we acquire great sandwich makings and stock some provisions for later. Arrive to Noyons around 3, make our way to the tourism office asking for a cafe with internet and recommendations for camping. We get info for both, but the internet cafe doesn’t pan out. End up at a Turkish grill room, where a friendly but extremely lonely guy somehow recognizes we are ‘from’ Amsterdam. The food is good and plentiful, especially since we ordered one meal to share and ended up with a meal each. Initially the bill was more than Gregory expected, but once I told him we got the drinks for free (a beer and a coke) he stopped griping. Since the tourism person had been wrong about the internet cafe, we decided against her advice on the camp ground. The booklet, she provided, listed two in Carlepont, one mentioned having internet and the other didn’t. Completely led by our desire to FaceBook and catch up on over a week’s worth of e-mails we head down a quiet road ending in a nondescript camp ground. We ring the bell for service and immediately ask about internet. We are told that the book is in error. Since the grounds weren’t that appealing and we had passed a sign for Les Araucarias not very far back, we decide to take a chance on it instead. So glad we did because we got a great tent space with a picnic table, free WiFi and hot showers for a mere 4 Euro each. We internet till it’s dark and we are cold, grab quick warming showers and watch half a movie before drifting off to sleep, forty miles closer to Paris.

August 20 ~ Rest day and catching up on internet. Camp ground cafe has satisfying breakfast, lunch and dinner so not much movement today. Finish the second half of last night’s movie followed by sleep.

August 21 ~ We thought we ordered breakfast the night before, but it got lost in translation. We need to work on the definite sound of our voice. Fortunately we had chocolate croissants from provision buying on the nineteenth, paired with large cups of coffee, just about enough to get us moving. However, we don’t move far. A planned trip to Noyons for groceries turns into only buying fruit and 3 hours at the sporting goods store for unplanned upgrades to the bikes. We were specifically looking for stronger longer (harder faster) rear tire racks to better support our panniers. We ended up with new front tires, new valve stems on front and back*, clip-less pedals and bike shoes. Altogether an expensive day ‘in town’ and a giant increase in my worry about being able to bike any real distance literally stuck to my bike. Dr. Gregory assures me that the change in my form will “help disperse the load of peddling over more muscles hopefully helping my knees.” I especially like the hopefully in that previous medical statement! After spending so long at the store, we opt for a Mc Donald’s lunch nearby and then bike home with my feet incased in ‘tiny prisons’. More internet followed by a delicious roast chicken and giant bowl of green beans, YUM! While we were eating, a German family came to see if the cafe was still open. Once they established that food was obtainable, we chatted briefly with the mother about biking around Europe. She has plans to bike for half a year, but the ages of her children and taking the time off from work have kept her from doing it ... Yet! Also when we were in town today I bought a hat, promptly tore it apart to make it better and hope to get it put back together before we leave which will be who knows when!

*Not sure how it escaped our notice but we had been traveling since Minderhout on the ninth with mismatched valve stems and absolutely NO way to air up our back tires. Fortunately, this information came to our notice and we changed them all to Schrader before it became an issue.

August 22 ~ We are so close and yet so very far from Paris. It’s only about 2 days ride and we seem to be stuck mentally and emotionally in Carlepont. Neither of us can figure out our lack of forward progress. I spent the day transcribbling this journal into blog material and Gregory spent the day working on bike routes from Paris, France to Piedmont, Italy. It would have been a great day to move forward, but we just didn’t have any momentum. We do get early showers complete with hair washing so that both heads have as much time to dry as possible. After dinner, Gregory strikes up a conversation with a Dutch couple, Joost and Damiët, who are camped near us and are also biking. I interject sparingly as I am still pecking away on the computer. Eventually, we all head to our various beds as it begins to drizzle. We still have NO idea what tomorrow will bring.

August 23 ~ Tomorrow brought rain, pain and hunger. We laze in bed till nearly 11, trying to let the rain finish and figuring out the plan for getting to Paris. We can’t tell how much rain is to be expected and eventually decide to stay one more night with an alarm set for an early start tomorrow. I decide we should bike into Carlepont (approximately 4 blocks away) for breakfast items from the bakery. However, the bakery had other ideas as it is closed up tight. Gregory meanders over to a place where several cars are parked and I attempt to follow him, with disastrous results. A simple move into the parking area turns into falling off my bike, hitting my right knee HARD and having a concerned old French man peer out at me from his car window. I attempt to assure him that I’ll survive and he drives off as Gregory comes back to check on me. No blood, no foul. We start back towards home, when alas, our short ride in drizzle turns into a slow ride in the rain, thereby soaking our pants.

August 24 ~ Early Wake, Early Start. Practice release of clips without falling down. Start out going the wrong direction because I didn’t understand that our camping spot was ‘on the path’ and because I thought we would go by the bakery on our way out of town. We missed a turn for a beautiful forest path because it looked like a residence, fortunately we didn’t have to backtrack too far. Twenty miles into our day we arrive in Pierrefonds and get to wander around the Château de Pierrefonds. A beautiful castle that Gregory refused to buy for me. After NOT getting our bikes stolen, we stopped for lunch. Gregory orders the second item on the menu, Andouillette (which we have since decided is French for do not order). The server tries to warn him off the idea, but Gregory adamantly states he’ll be fine ... he wasn’t. It was GROSS and completely inedible. It tainted everything it touched and some of the things it was only in the proximity of, including poor Gregory’s upper lip. So we end up sharing my Croque Monsieur, which wasn’t exceptional or big enough to share. Back on the road and French farmland BLOWS! And the wind is an awesome power against two little bikes and their drivers with no trees or foliage to break the current. Stop for dinner sandwich fixing but wind up with pizza and wine in the bellies instead. No luck finding camping so we pitch our tent in a field beside a forest right in the flight path of Charles de Gaulle airport and a big full moon overhead. Only one more day of cycling expected.

August 25 ~ Fitful sleep for me but Gregory says he slept fine. No lazing in bed today so I pack away the sleeping bags and pads (see I helping). Immediate start cycling UP a long tiring hill followed by a fast, fast 28.6 mph downhill. Stop for eclairs and coffee. I do way too much walking in my new cycling shoes! Some wind (but not nearly the gale of the farmland). Gregory predicts rain an hour from Paris and I threaten to run him over if it does. It sprinkles on us a little, but not enough to make me run him down. Oh and yeah, we made it to Paris. Heading to see Gregory’s friend Jordan, we cycle through the courtyard of the Louvre and take a gander at the Eiffel Tower. Jordan and Annie, who just got back from vacation in Finland, welcome us to Paris and Jordan walks with us to a nearby hostel pointing out shops and places of interest along the way. After finding out the hostel price, the plan is to find camping tomorrow and camp until my mom arrives (more or less).

*I’m now up to date (kinda, sorta, but not really)! It is weird to have the ‘blog’ so current. I’m not sure if I will continue writing the day to day recap, either for myself or for the blog. We’ll have to wait and see.

Biking to Paris (première partie)

2010-08-29T14:15:00.003-05:00

August 3, 2010 to August 13, 2010

The Photos

Right before we left Amsterdam, we stayed with Cathelijne and Renée. A couple we met in Guatemala, who live in Amsterdam. We got to talking about how awesome it was to meet once and then again so much later and so far from the original spot. Then Cathelijne pulls out her journal to see what it said about the meeting. It wasn’t even in there, BUT it did inspire me to track more of the day to day of this amazing bike trip we were undertaking. So in an attempt to give you, our loyal readership more current information than you have been getting from us, I’m going to transcribe that journaling here for your enjoyment. I think I will leave it out of the sequence, as other posts finally get written and then possible comment on this portion of the trip in a separate post once I get to it chronologically. Blogs you can expect to show up later: Costa Rica, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago and Amsterdam. I guess it’s hard to live and write about it at the same time.

However, as the editor of this rag, I reserve the right to change my mind. I also reserve the right to add details that I didn’t write in my journal at the time.

August 3 ~ Biking to Paris Day 1 Late start, after several stops to get new center kickstands and food and mailing a package and who knows what else. Arrive to Amsterdam’s Central station close to 12 or 1 and start the route I found online. The first result in a Google search of ‘Bike route Amsterdam to Paris’. After biking around the city for a month, I really thought I was ready to undertake such a trip. The first day showed me how wrong I had been. It was hard work, damned hard. Compounded by the fact that suddenly my derailleur quit changing gears for me. Now I don’t have much biking experience, in fact I don’t even know how to properly use the gears, but I do know that biking all the way in first gear is going to wear me out. Despite this hiccup, we have what feels like a long day of biking, accomplishing about 30 miles, to arrive in Utrecht. Fortunately Cathelijne and Renée suggested a campground for us, unfortunately nearly everyone we asked directions of didn’t know it existed. Eventually we follow a little old lady though a city park to the road the campground is on. First night in our new tent, with our comfy sleeping pads and cozy sleeping bags. It all works perfectly and we sleep cool and snug all night long.

August 4 ~ No Movement. We wake up to bunnies nibbling nearby and a pond full of ducks and geese. Spend almost all day in a bagel coffee shop to internet for bike route GPS manipulation and Flick’r uploading. This gets us completely caught up on photo uploads before an indeterminable amount of time without internet. The bike shop very close by fixes the shifty cable and tells me that it got snapped by the other repair shop that put on the awesome kickstand. I’m hoping this trip is not a bike shop to bike shop tour of the Netherlands, Belgium and France. I also buy bike caps to cover our seats which are super squishy and don’t require us to wear bike shorts but are showing wear. We head to a great little bar for dinner and then to the movies to see Inception. What a great movie. Dutch movie theaters are strange though, because they have assigned seating and despite buying our tickets fully an hour before showtime we got crap seats! Also at a really intense moment of the movie ... there was an intermission! Great timing as the line to the restroom testified, but still weird.

August 5 ~ Leave Utrecht. Long painful day of biking. Getting out of cities seems to make Gregory tense and hurried. This does not help when I’m immediately confronted by steep hill climbs and both knees hurting. Not sure why I am having knee pain but I am. I put the ace knee wrap I bought after walking across Golden Gate Bridge on my left knee and it seemed to help some. During late afternoon stop in Gorinchem to rest in the town square, we see a fellow biker with a really cool trailer. We follow our GPS breadcrumb trail to a ferry dock. We have NO idea of which ferry we are supposed to take and end up on the same ferry as the biker we had just seen. Gregory strikes up as conversation with him as we shuttle ‘up’ the river to a tiny Dutch fort outside of Woudrichem. Bad Breath Albert, our fellow biker, says he’s headed to a campsite relatively close by so we hitch our wagons to his trailer and head there. After setting up our camp, we head into the tiny fort town to find some dinner. Looking at the map, it seems the fort is quite separated from the town of Woudrichem, either way it is all of 12 streets and nearly no places for food. We end up with stinky cheese pizza and thank goodness I have some lunch leftovers as I’m NOT a stinky cheese fan. Ice cream close by caps the night ‘in town’ and we head back to our campsite. Albert invites us to a cup of tea, so we spend a little more time talking travel, bikes and GPS’ with him. While Albert and Gregory wander off to compare breadcrumb trails, I meander over to a couple enjoying their dinner on a beautiful rattan mat. They are both medical students from Ghent, Belgium and are headed to Amsterdam, also on bikes. Eventually Gregory shows back up and we all have a great little chat about jobs, dreams and travel. Eventually our twenty-eight miles of biking calls us to our beds and we say our goodnights.

August 6 ~ Early start. My left knee is still braced and hurting almost immediately. We finally eat the 3 sandwiches that Cathelijne made us. One cheese, one lunch meat and one *Surprise* Hagelslag! Hagelslag is like high class cup cake sprinkles, but better. It kinda tastes like Betty Crocker frosting, which everyone knows you can easily eat a whole can of in one sitting. It’s a Dutch treat usually sprinkled over buttered bread. Arine in Costa Rica told us it was a ‘must try’ and we had eaten a couple of handfuls out of the box, but this was our first official and correct ingesting of Hagelslag. It was such a wonderful treat on a morning when we weren’t able to find a cafe for breakfast. Thank goodness Dutch weather had been cool and we had a great little insulated food pack that came with the bikes. Yesterday I popped the valve off my front tire. I was attempting to percussively maintain a bothersome noise and got my foot caught in the front tire. Immediately after coming to a stop we hear a pop and a hiss. Damn. A passing cyclist directs us to the closest bike shop, at least a kilometer off track, and we limp over. The teenaged boy working at the bike shop was concerned about the wobble he found in my front tire and wanted to disconnect my front brake to reduce the drag. At the time I didn’t allow it but right after breakfast today, Gregory decided it was better to have no brake than have the drag on the tire. While crossing on a ferry, Gregory attempted to move his bike and broke several spokes on the back tire. Once again we hobble to a bike shop. This place is not on our GPS path but wonderful anyway, repairing the broken spokes and recommending stronger back rims. We would have replaced them then and there but being a small town bike shop he just didn’t have the supplies to do the job. He also fixed the bent left pedal I had discovered that morning, which probably was NOT helping my knee.

*On an unrelated note Gregory stated his resentment that I don’t take pictures of him or even of the events we endure. I’m literally at a loss for how to respond or knowing how to make a change. I barely take any pictures at all, certainly not any of myself and rarely any of him. I thought he was content taking his long arm shots. I am shocked and disheartened to know that he isn’t.

We make it past Breda to Camping Liesbos and get literally the LAST available tent camping space. A mere 22 miles of pain and biking.

August 7 & 8 ~ No biking today. Internet and blog writing mostly and yet still no actual blog to show. We do discover that Dutch soft serve tastes exactly like frozen whipped cream. Very yummy. Also discover one of the reasons the camp ground is so very packed. They have an annual event similar to karaoke that seems to be a big deal. Gregory checks it out and reports back. [It] “seemed quite silly but the group involvement was amusing to watch. Apparently last year the contestant who won the event was NOT from the Liesbos inner circle and created quite a stir … so [even if we had gotten there in time to sign up] we were not allowed to enter the show.”

Random Conversation

Rebecca ~ “I don’t think drinking soup from the bowl is couth”

Gregory ~ “Couth, what do you mean couth, we’re in a trailer park”

August 9 ~ Biking again and with sharp knee pains. I think at this point I have switched the Ace bandage to the right knee, but I didn’t make a note of it so that last sentence is pure speculation. Seems like it will be a slow going day of not very fast or far. Just as we turn a corner, I tell Gregory I need to rest. We sit down and Gregory immediately hops up and runs into the field across the road. It’s a strawberry field and my Gregory Rabbit raids it three times. Those were the absolute BEST strawberries I have had in my entire life. We later pass a packing plant with accompanying fields for Hoogstraten Strawberries and then shortly later a strawberry vending machine by the same company. We marvel at the differences between the 3 euro berries and the 4, deciding that we easily ate 3 pints of 4 euro strawberries for nothing. In Minderhout, the first town we come to, just about the first shop we see is a bike shop. Not wanting to miss a single stop on the Repair Shop tour, we glide in to see if they have stronger back rims. He does and even gives us a deal on the price. Gregory gives him carte blanche to upgrade tires as well and we drift off to find food, drinks and entertainment for the approximately 2 hours we are told it should take. We discover that we are now in Belgium, nearly nothing is open in this town on a Monday but the ibuprofen is stronger than in the States. We read in the ‘park’ outside of the church until time to go ransom our bikes and with new back rims and better tires, we hit the road again. A thirty-six mile day finds us sharing an unspectacular 27 euro meal in Zandhoven then doubling back on our route to camp in a field rather than travel an additional 8 km off track to find camping.

August 10 ~ Early morning awake, but late start back on the road. We have a fight that goes strange stemming from Gregory’s perception that I’m not that helpful setting up and tearing down camp. We ‘enjoy’ an 8 euro American breakfast consisting of overcooked eggs, fatty greasy bacon, undercooked cream sauced potatoes and barely toasted white toast... One of the most unAmerican things I’ve ever eaten. As we are leaving, a woman asks me where we are from and where we are headed. I quickly tell her the story of two crazy Texans touring through Central America, magically appearing in Amsterdam and then deciding to bike to Paris. She seems impressed by it all and wishes us luck. Thirty-six miles later we have a great dinner with camping nearby and wonderful free hot showers.

August 11 ~ Leisurely morning and stroll into Grimbergen looking for coffee, breakfast and WiFi. Easily find croissants and bready breakfast products. Barely find coffee. Don’t even think about asking for WiFi. At the pub for coffee, I notice they have Lindeman’s Kriek on tap. Being one of my favorite beers, I have to snap a picture of the tap. This causes a short conversation with the owner about how good it tastes and then a “Wait one moment, I think I have a something special for you.” Something special, turned out to be a Lindeman’s Kriek bar mat and I was tickled pink to receive it. Coffee, followed by reading in the square outside of the church leads to Gregory suggesting we check out my first European church. Impressive and weird are the best words I can think of. I liked the fact that the statues were carved from wood and that I could pick out a wool pelt on some saint before seeing a lamb in the arms of some other saint. We share a very melty lasagna then wander home with enough groceries and snacks for the rest of the day. We have a brief chat with Ian, a fellow camper from Scotland on holiday with his kids, about camping, biking and ferries from Bruges. Just before he leaves he comes back over with some Scottish Rock candy to get us through the sugar dips when we are biking. All in all a great day of rest and reading. I think we’ll do it again tomorrow!

August 12 ~ I walk back into town looking for a hairdresser and the grocery store. The hairdresser was closed, but sandwich makings and snacks were easily acquired. While I’m gone, Gregory makes friends with a guy from the Netherlands who is driving, camping and biking. I missed the initial introduction and story but apparently he had lost his bike key and thought he was going to have to drive home to retrieve his duplicate. Fortunately, once the office opened after lunch the missing key had been found. They talked about various biking things and then he left for his night biking excursion into Brussels leaving Gregory and me to our reading and resting.

August 13 ~ Slow morning but great progress of thirty-six miles. As evening comes so does rain. We follow the GPS down a dead end trying to figure out why. Just as I tell Gregory to turn around and we will go to the restaurant we passed, Low and Behold, a campground. We race the rain to set up our tent and just make it. We go back to the ONLY restaurant we saw in town, to be told that they were booked with no available space. It sounds like total bullshit but unwilling to force the issue (and not speaking a lick of French in the French part of Belgium) we grab canned ravioli and other miscellaneous items at the mini grocery store. Read until dark and then sleep.

More to come, sooner rather than later!

the Gringo Trail

2010-08-03T10:00:00.004-05:00

March 21, 2010 to April 9, 2010

The Photos

Guatemala was the first place we began to meet other travelers who had just come from “that really great place." So we talked to them and wrote down their suggestions and began the initial planning of where to go next. That next location became Antigua, Sacatepéquez, Guatemala. Especially since we were really close to Semana Santa (Holy Week), the biggest celebration in Guatemala. We took a bus to Guatemala City and spent a couple of nights in a nice but unremarkable hotel in a not so nice but also unremarkable part of town. While we sussed out the best way to get to Antigua.

As usual there were several modes of travel available from Guatemala City to Antigua. The two main contenders became the direct shuttle for tourists or the more adventurous option of the ‘chicken bus’. Not feeling particularly touristy, we grabbed our gear, hailed a taxi and shortly found ourselves on a garishly painted, radio blaring, haphazardly driven and eventually over packed North American style school bus, with about 100 of our new ‘closest friends' ... did I mention it was crowded! Not wanting to separate from our packs and not really fitting into the ONE seat with the size of my backpack, the ‘conductor’ attempted to charge me for two seats. I quickly rearranged my worldly possessions into the most uncomfortable configuration I could manage to save the extra fare and get that 101st customer on the bus.

Once we got close to Antigua, it seemed we had picked both the best possible and worst ever time to arrive. A bus that normally would have taken us directly to the city centre could get no closer than a mile out parked behind 30+ other chicken buses, with more coming in, on the side of the road. So we shouldered our backpacks and began the long hot walk into Antigua. As we neared a decision point, we met a tourism representative who wanted to ‘help’ us find a place to stay. His ‘help’ entailed bad mouthing the hostel we had been recommended and advocating that we stay with a Guatemalan family he knew. Despite being tempted by his offer, we were not enticed by his pushiness and the only real benefit he provided was a Xeroxed map.

We found our hostel fairly quickly and despite the crowded city were able to procure a series of beds for the initially short length of our first stay. Yes, you read that correctly, our first stay. When we arrived it was still at least a week to the Holy Week celebration that we had come for. Despite the pleasantness of our chosen hostel, it made more sense to take a quick jaunt over to Lago Atitlan and then come back for the festivities, so we did.

Lago Atitlan, and the cities surrounding it, endure as one of our most enjoyable stays both times we were there. Yes, you also read that correctly, we enjoyed it so much that we came back to it after Easter. However, let’s do this remembrance in some kind of orderly way.

So back we go to Antigua to experience one of the strangest religious customs (other than the church in Chamula, Mexico) we couldn’t have imagined. First envision walking down cobbled streets where every 10 feet or so a group of people work to create a beautiful piece of art from colored sawdust, flowers, flower petals, seeds, grasses, reeds, candles and other items I’m sure I didn’t recognize. Visualize these beautiful alfombras (meaning carpets) being trod upon by a procession, at least three city blocks in length, of purple robed men and boys waving censers, carrying framed and lighted images of saints and martyrs, pulling the generator cart (to power those lighted images), two sets of musicians playing sombre marching music and even some men dressed as Roman Soldiers. The focal point of this procession is a GIANT wooden platform with statues of saints, angels and the central figure of Christ carrying the cross. A platform carried on the shoulders of more than 80 men, with a constant rotation of fresh shoulders. A platform with statues whose sheer height is so large that a separate group of men walk beside it with long trident like poles to raise the power lines above the highest points. A platform so long that turning a narrow street corner involves the subtle backwards and forwards motion we associate with parallel parking in the tiniest of spots. Now imagine a second platform, slightly smaller but still impressive, carried by at least 40 women dressed in black, with a statue of the virgin Mary. Try to realize the uncountable number of backup players this procession required in additional people waiting to step in and replace anyone who becomes tired as they work their way through the streets, slowly and methodically for approximately 24 hours. With that many people involved in the procession you might expect no one to be watching but each street we saw was absolutely full of spectators. As Gregory puts it ‘This swaying Jesus caterpillar galleon working its way through the streets across the oceans of intricately designed sawdust carpet is a site to behold.’

One of the other reasons we had ventured to Antigua was it’s proximity to Pecaya, an active volcano, and the story we had heard about camping nearby and viewing it at night. So once the festivities of Semana Santa were over, we quickly booked our excursion through the very hostel we were staying at, Ox Base Camp. Our small group of 5 adventurers and one guide set out on a sunny afternoon with loaded packs and freshly bought hiking poles (a thriving business amongst the children of the local village and an enterprise more in renting than in actual sales!) to hike to a spot just beyond the edge of the lava field. We set up our tents with sleeping bags and rested till almost sundown before we began the awesome experience of the final ascent up the lava field. The stark comparison of black lava to green fields of flowers and trees. The crunch underfoot that sounds like walking on eggshells or broken glass. The popping sound as it erupts so close and yet so far. None of these things prepare you for the sheer alien nature of a mountain spewing molten lava from it’s pores. Breathing it’s sulfurous breath in your face. While you stand on porous ‘ground’ that is literally being eaten away from underneath and melting your shoes in the process. Nothing can top the experience of defying all that unnatural nature by nakedly spinning fire you have lit from that lava. Gregory adds ‘One of the more frightening experiences of my life!’

So sated by our adventure we returned to camp and then Antigua, again without any idea of what to do next. Fortunately we did not flounder long, as we met Aaron, a fellow traveller, headed to Lago Atitlan. Since we had only seen a small portion of the area surrounding it and I had read that it had a decent dive spot for pretty cheap, we hitched our traveling wagon to his and set out once again for Lago Atitlan.

The group opted for the cheaper and more adventurous route of chicken bus, only this time the adventure was more adventurous and much more costly. I had been carrying a sleeping pad I purchased in San Francisco because I am a fairly delicate sleeper. The additional bulk of this pad essential created the space of two backpacks on my pack. Not wanting to be charged for additional seating or sitting uncomfortably for the entire ride, Gregory persuaded me to detach it from my pack and place it into his care. He put it very securely into the luggage rack above us and we started our journey. Unfortunately, we were not on a direct bus to our destination and in the rushed change of getting off one bus and down the street to catch the next one, we all forgot about my sleeping pad until the bus was out of sight. I lamented the loss and we all laughed about the eventuality of it all and hoped that it ended up in a good place where it would be appreciated. Shortly thereafter I reached into my pocket to get my camera, to snap a random roadside picture, when the true cost our trip was discovered. I had been pick pocketed on the bus ... did I mention it was jam packed! I lost my camera and my backup wallet where I had been keeping an extra credit card and the larger amount of money so as not to flash it around. In the long run, the ride with all the bus transfers cost the same as a shuttle would have and I lost over $500 in stuff and money (mostly stuff!) I was fortunate not to have lost my debit card or passport, but still felt fairly violated.

The area surrounding Lago Atitlan was absolutely beautiful. The weather was sunny but comfortable. The flowers were in brilliant bloom. The lake water, it’s reported, was cool and refreshing. Aaron hung out with us for quite a while, and with him we kayaked to nearby San Marcus. The excursion across was good fun and exercise. Exploring San Marcos and finding a new wonderful hostel was great. Then we started the voyage back across the lake. After a full day of power boat traffic the lake was now a roaring, rolling tempest. Gregory valiantly guided us back home with constant words of encouragement and insightful uses of paddling techniques, not to mention humorous banter as we eyed the ‘Guatemalan vultures’ circling our boat waiting for us to give up. I’m positive he could have easily made the voyage without my extra weight and ‘help’ but I sure wouldn’t have made it without his positive attitude and cheerful repartee ... did I mention I can’t swim.

After a full night’s sleep, we packed our bags and returned to the little town of San Marcos to stay in an amazing hilltop hostel called Xamanek. As you might have guessed from the description it was not an easy place to get to but it was well worth the pilgrimage as the view was spectacular. We snagged a great open air loft bedroom, slightly separated from the rest of the dorm areas and woke up to sunlight, birdsong and a beautiful view of the lake every morning. This made it really hard to leave Guatemala but leave we must and sooner than we wanted to even though it was for a very good reason. However, one more exciting thing had to happen before we could go. One night we came home to find our lovely hostel locked up tight with all our stuff still in our room. After checking all the doors, Gregory climbed the tree next to the building and let me in. We spent an extremely restless night expecting some kind of trouble for breaking in even though our stuff was still there. When morning came, we promptly packed up and left.

There are just a few things I have left out of Guatemala and so they go here!

We didn’t go diving as I thought we would. Some of that was the trauma of kayaking and nearly ‘dying’. Some of it was my inability to want to learn to swim. Most of it was deciding that the lake was just not exciting enough to make diving enjoyable for Gregory.

We did spin fire for our dinner at a restaurant in San Marcus. We didn’t get any pictures because we were performing. Some people in the crowd said they would send us pictures but that hasn’t happened yet. We were also offered a share of the tips from the musicians but that didn’t manifest either.

We ran into Kim and Will (from San Cristobál) the first time we were in San Pedro. I got to hang out with them for most of a day while Gregory went cliff jumping. When Kim mentioned she was planning to cut her hair, I imposed upon her to cut mine as well since I had previously admired her pixieish haircut while in Mexico. It was one of the best haircut memories I have, partially since halfway through she said “Oops” and partially because it turned out really great. We meant to meet up with them again, but when we got back they had moved on.

Kim introduced us to a really awesome jewelry maker named Leah. Leah makes swirly twirly rings and things from forks and semiprecious stones. I found a stone I liked and asked her if she could make me a ring that was more swirly than twirly and she said she could. We almost didn’t get a chance to reconnect before we left but after fleeing the scene of our break in, we spent one more night in San Pedro. I found her late in the afternoon, she showed me the ring, which I loved and she polished it off to be picked up later that night. In retrospect I would have had her make me a bracelet instead since I can’t seem to make big rings and traveling work together. But ce’st la vie!

Next up ~ A swift journey straight to see one of our most favorite people! Where we helped unearth the Mother Hearth and experienced Ayahuacsca.

Ghosts in Mexico

2010-07-29T08:40:00.004-05:00

March 16, 2010 to March 20, 2010

The Photos

Leaving Mexico certainly elicited more excitement than getting in. For one thing we delayed a day or two to become travel ready (but you’ve read that sad tale already). We arrived at the bus station with little time to spare and headed to Palenque, Chiapas. In Ocosingo, Chiapas approximately two hours into our five hour voyage, our bus slowed and then stopped. Initially of course we had no idea why or for how long we would be delayed. When the driver shut off the engine, we realized this was no short stop. Noticing the vast number of smaller transport vehicles backing their way up the other side of the two lane road should have clued us to major happenings. Eventually we disembark and wander up to discover the problem. Zapatistas have closed down the road, with a rather intimidating 2x4 full of nails, in protest of the privatization of the jungle and the eviction of the locals from their land. Initially we think waiting it out is our only option but once we find out that the projected wait ranges from 2 hours to a literally unknown quantity of time we start thinking about other plans. Fortunately for us, some fellow travelers beat us to this thought. I am kicking myself for not remembering their names, but she started feeling sick and the wait on a now unairconditioned bus increased her discomfort so her boyfriend found a taxi to Palenque for $60. Split between the two couples it was as much as the bus had cost but relieved our impatience at the wait and uncomfortableness in the heat of the day.

Palenque seemed in the process of being completely rebuilt. We can’t be sure that the increase in construction will cause the tourist boom they obviously expect but the city will definitely be able to handle it IF it happens. Getting to the ‘city’ and finding a hotel amenable to the now four traveling companions wiped two of us almost completely. So we rested while our cohorts saw the ruins. We all bought tickets to Flores, El Petén, Guatemala, shared dinner and a tequila shot and retired for our morning shuttle. Six A.M. came early, as bleary eyed we made our way outside the hotel to wait and take bets on which approaching vehicle was ours. My aunt used to contend that the best way to make your food come at a restaurant was to light a cigarette, so I facilitated the arrival of our bus by taking off my unreasonably cumbersome backpack.

Eight of us, as 4 sets of couples, made the shuttle ride to the Mexico Guatemala border. Our arrival at the border seemed filled with confusion. Neither Gregory or I spoke enough Spanish to fully figure out what needed to happen. We think that we were supposed to get a magical form filled out in Palenque saying we had paid the appropriate amount of money, 25 dollars, to leave. Also adding to the confusion was our lack of a passport stamp saying when and where we had come into Mexico. Not having the proper forms or even any Mexican money, thoroughly confused the man behind the counter and eventually he just washed his hands of us. He stated that he didn’t know what trouble we would have in Guatemala but we ceased being his concern. We walked down to the end of the road where we expected a 30 minute boat ride on the Usumacinta River. Again confusion struck. Our driver was nowhere to be found and none of the boat taxies were owning up to expecting a group from the tour company we used. Eventually someone came to our rescue, paying the ferry man and sending us up the river into Guatemala.

Thirty minutes later, we trudge up a steep muddy bank into Guatemala. The ferry man responsible for paying our next shuttle driver deftly passed that job on to one of the other tourists among the two boatloads. Our group of 8 remarkably doubled in size as we wait for our next chariot. It eventually arrived with just barely room for all of us and our baggage. The next untold number of hours were spent on just about the worst country road one could imagine, in a 20 passenger shuttle van that had made the trip several times more that the shocks were warrantied for. With a little bit of Gin and Vermouth we would have been perfect martinis ... thoroughly shaken.

Eventually we arrive at the immigration office of Guatemala. We let a little more that half the group go before we went in. Giving us plenty of time to try to figure out how much trouble we were in for not getting stamped in Mexico. The consensus was that we were not supposed to pay anything (that’s what ALL the guide books said). Each group of people heading in was adamant that they were going to fight it. Strangely each group came back out paying their fee and moving on, a true testament to the power of bureaucracy. We of course had no desire to be difficult and when it was our turn we were very friendly, apologetic and tractable. After being reprimanded for knowing better but not doing better, we paid our five American dollars each, were duly processed through and allowed to continue on our journey. Hugh sighs of relief, followed by sardine-ing back onto the bus and continuing more countless hours (on eventually better roads) to our destination.

About an hour before we reached Flores, the translator put on his tour guide hat and became quite adamant that he schedule the rest of our stay in Flores. Unwilling to be railroaded into tour packages and hotel stays we listened patiently and rebuffed him graciously. Fortunately there were enough people willing to be scheduled that he left us to our own devices. Our arrival in Flores was halted by several attempts to procure cash, the better to pay for our prearranged tour packages. If it hadn’t been so very frustrating, I sure we would have found it amusing. Finally we arrive, to be ferried around to the ‘best’ hotels around (or at least the ones with the fattest kickback). None of the offerings entice us, so we break off from the group and just begin to walk around. An old man sitting by the road asked if we were looking for amigos and not really understanding what was being asked (yes we knew it meant friends, but we had just left the ‘friends’ we had ... hence the confusion) we followed his indicated direction to a great hostel called Los Amigos.

Our first night was in a shared room with a couple completely crashed out from a hot day exploring Tikal and since we were so exhausted from the agonizing drive we likewise crashed. The next days and nights however were remarkable. We moved to a tree house type room overlooking the common area, talked to plenty of travelers to get more suggestions for destinations, uploaded pictures while downloading movies on their blazing fast internet and ate wonderful vegetarian meals. Our chosen hostel had similar tour packages for the Tikal ruins and we eventually planned an early morning wander without tour guide based on the information we had gathered from our fellow travelers.

This time 6 in the morning seemed even earlier as we piled into a bus headed to the Mayan ruins. Gregory and I had agreed that we would go as deeply into the jungle ruins as quickly as possible then slowly wander our way back to the front and thereby avoid the sheople mentality of the guided groups. This ended up being a brilliant plan and for the most part we were the only ones at the majority of the temples we explored. ‘Disaster’ did strike towards the end of our adventure when with the help of a communication error we were separated for a couple of hours.

My version of the story... I left Gregory listening to a tour guide because he was hot and tired and I still wanted to explore the back side of the main plaza. I thought he would stay in the general area I had left him in, so when I came back and he wasn’t there I went into only a slightly panicked mode. I attempted to calmly stay near where I had left him thinking he had just wandered as I had and would come back. I felt fortunate that I had remembered to bring a book and with some people watching and some book reading I fretfully passed a completely unknown quantity of time. Eventually I decided that he wasn’t just wandering nearby and wasn’t coming back so I tearfully headed towards the exit without any more site seeing and fervently hoped that an obvious waiting spot would present itself so that we wouldn’t further miss each other. Fortunately, at the gate our paths crossed and neither of us was lost for ever in the jungles of Tikal.

Gregory’s addition ~ Rebecca’s version is essentially correct, but I will say that before we parted ways unexpectedly the plan was to head toward the front gate to leave, when I could not find her, I went to the front gate. When she didn’t turn up as I expected, I began asking people if they had seen my Purple French Mushroom and had just begun to head back to the last place I had seen her when we found each other.

Happily reunited, we returned to our hostel and planned a day of rest and relaxation. This included a pampering visit for a massage and steam bath from a flyer in the hostel. I cannot honestly say what I expected but I can say that the experience was an experience. I went first for the massage and at Gregory’s urging requested an hour long session. The unimposing little Guatemalan man was only able to offer a limited amount of small talk and shortly the massage commenced. Initially it was interrupted by at least one phone call and a trip to secure an open window shade. However, eventually it proceeded as one expects. That is until he flipped me over on my back. Gradually it became apparent to me that one hand was doing more probing than massaging and after arguing in my head about was and wasn’t appropriate in a massage I said, “Please Stop.” This was met with an increase in pressure and feigned incomprehension. My “STOP” was repeated louder and with more force, which resulted in stopping of the pressure but NOT removal of the hand and the act of not understanding English. Immediately, I moved to the offensive with a more forceful “ALTO” and he removed his hands from my body and began to appease me. He complemented my body and beautiful skin but I remained firm in my stand to NOT have him touch me again and the so called massage was over. He left the room and I prepared to change places with Gregory who had been in and out of the steam bath in the next room.

My hour in the steam bath was spent reliving the scene and trying to come up with the best Spanish delivery of the story to Gregory. Eventually I landed on the phrase ‘Tu pagar por el feliz terminado?’ To which I expected a ‘no’ and the follow up phrase of ‘incluido en hora masaje!’ However, Gregory is hardly ever predictable and the verbal exchange went nothing like I expected. We showered quickly and prepared to pay and leave. The increase in the time made the expected price misunderstood and unarguable but eventually we gave him enough money that he determined we could leave. Except the adventure was not over yet, as he insisted on giving us a ride back to our hostel. We had been prepared to take a TukTuk back, but he was adamant. So we get into his car and start down the road, only to run out of gas a few blocks away. Glad to escape and not feeling particularly bad about abandoning him, we scrambled out and grabbed the next TukTuk for home (which in case I haven’t mentioned before home is where ever our stuff is at the time).

Next up... Death Defying Adventures, Crime and Religion!

Furthering Our Education and Spanish 101

2010-05-06T20:20:00.004-05:00

February 11, 2010 to March 16, 2010

The Photos

During our stay at Casa Caracol, we met Anne, a young lady travelling through Mexico by bike and she recommended the Spanish school Tierras Mayas, located in beautiful San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. With no other destination in the plans and wanting to start learning sooner rather than later, we bussed to Mexico City and caught the first bus for San Cristóbal. Although we didn’t actually explore D.F. (de efe), we found it noteworthy that it took over THREE hours to get out of town. And while a portion of that time involved crossing from one bus terminal to the other, ALL travel time increases because the city is SO congested! After a days journey we arrive in San Cristóbal.

So once again we set down our packs and stayed in one place for a length of time. And, as with our last month long stay (and apparent refusal to blog until it’s over) there is just too much that could be written about the day to day routine, therefore I’m just gonna cover the highlights!

the City ~ San Cristóbal lies in a valley surrounded by mountains. Which may or may not create the beautiful weather I consider perfect for camping (upper 70’s/lower 80’s during the day and lower 60’s/upper 50’s at night.) All was not nirvana here, however. There were (unfortunately) three rather noisy distractions to be noted, 6+ churches with indiscriminate bell ringing whenever the bell ringer seemed to deem it necessary, random explosions of fire works at all hours of the day and night, and the incessant barking of ‘stray’ dogs long into the wee hours, making it sometimes hard to get up in the morning in time for...

Spanish School ~ Obviously, it’s what we came for and while we did not walk away fluent in the language, we are definitely better equipped to attempt those long conversations we love so much. The school was a little more than halfway up a hill in the center of the city (the main church was at the top!) Once we signed up for our classes, we were offered one of the two apartments they rent out. It was a perfect little ‘Penthouse’ apartment with a 270 degree view of the city. As an added benefit, we also had (almost) exclusive use of the wonderful terrace looking out over the city, which we utilised for entertainment of our...

Neighbors & Teacher ~ Shortly after we moved in we discovered that we had a neighbor, sort of. An Australian guy named Jonathan lived there while attending school, but after finishing school, he arranged to leave the majority of his possessions and wander the surrounding areas. At the point we figured out we had a neighbor, he was in the last few days of his stay. We did get to have dinner with him on his last night and he gave us many wonderful suggestions of places to visit.

Almost immediately Kim and Will, from England, replaced Jonathan. Will and Kim met in Miami while travelling solo. They decided they got on well enough to continue travelling together South to Mexico and further. The twenty somethings were gracious enough to let us old fogies hang out with them and Will even began to spin poi. We enjoyed many dinners together and one really awesome night of fire spinning, where we eventually coaxed the reticent Kim to give fire spinning a twirl. Before they left, they bought a scarf and some rice so they could make their own set of practice poi.

Ailyn and Tomi, from Germany, soon replaced Kim and Will as our neighbors. Initially they planned to travel for a while, but shortly after arriving, Ailyn received word that her master hat making test, recently postponed, was back on. This drastically changed their trip, but I know they will travel again soon. Tomi and Ailyn, both great cooks, knew of numerous phenomenal restaurants and we shared several meals with them, out on the town and at home. Gregory even got to visit one of the local market areas with them while I persisted in Spanish class. I believe they planned to leave almost the same time as us, however our paths separated as we went in different directions.

Although he was not a neighbor, we created at least one opportunity for paint night (well day) with my conversation teacher Daniel. During class we talked about so many things that inevitably we ended up talking about body paint. Daniel said that the one opportunity to paint had never manifested so I easily set up a Sunday afternoon to give him another chance. While he played with a new medium and the visualisation of artistic ideas we picked his brain about everything from his ecotourism company to the history of Maseca use in tortillas, (which started out as a program to feed the indigent of Mexico but rapidly changing into a private monopoly) we neglected, however, to ask him about the strangeness we witnessed in...

Chamula ~ As the closest indigenous village, we would have been remiss in our tourist duties to miss visiting Chamula. Despite being told that the indigenous beliefs strangely mix with the Catholic ideas, nothing prepared us for the absolutely amazing customs we witnessed. To begin with, you procure a twenty peso ticket (about 2 bucks) just to enter the church. Once inside, you must let your eyes adjust to the dimness of smokey candles. Then it gets weird. A completely empty center space approximately half a football field in length with the floor covered in pine needles. Except for the places cleared and set up with vast candle arrays. We watched a pulsadore go through the whole ritual of candle lighting, object blessing via waving eggs and a baggy of water over the lit candles and then waving the eggs and sprinkling the water over and around the people paying for his services. The particular pulsadore we watched acted in a way that seemed very unprofessional to us as in the middle of one ceremony he not only answered his cell phone but remained talking on it for several minutes before resuming his candle lighting. Nothing can impress upon you the bizarre mixture of ancient culture and new religion we observed in Chamula, especially when you realise one group has a dead chicken.

Just outside the church exists an open air market selling everything from food to handicrafts to masses of junk made in China, with very little of it being stuff we couldn’t find just wandering in San Cristóbal on the...

Pedestrian Avenues ~ Just about the most pedestrian friendly place with multiple walking streets. And although we enjoyed the many pedestrian avenues with shops and restaurants aplenty, the constant stream of tourism creates the unique environment (at this point in our journey anyway!) of selling native crafts, trinkets, shoe shines and of course, candy or cigarettes to those tourists. No meal or outing was complete without at least one indigenous person approaching with their wares and if one approached you, three more were standing at the ready should you even look interested. The pushiest vendors sold cloth. So pushy in fact they would block your path and hold the cloth right in your face. In our infinite silliness, we decided that they were actually trying to convince you to pay them to remove it. Walking everywhere (as one does when one’s car remains in Dallas) we created at least two games to keep us entertained...

Beso Bug ~ Beetles represent a large portion of the car population in San Cristóbal but knowing that Slug Bug or Punch Buggy would eventually lead to a real fight, we modified the rules a little bit. Whoever sees a bug has to call out the color is Spanish and then claim a beso (kiss) from the ‘loser’. If you call out the wrong color, the other person corrects and claims two besos for the win. Not a difficult game by far, but Gregory found it slightly amusing that when I was distracted, he would be the clear winner, until I was focussed again and then it was much more difficult to find one before I did.

Switchback Kisses ~ Since we lived slightly less than halfway up a hill, it is fairly needless to say that there were many stairs to be climbed each time we came home... many stairs. Fortunately the stairs were laid out with 2 different types of steps and multiple landings to avoid complete exhaustion. Unfortunately, it was still a long draining walk to get home. Being able to motivate each other all the way up eventually turned into a game of sorts. We would separate at the bottom but at each landing the first one to arrive would claim a kiss when the second arrived. This had the double benefit of giving the faster one a moment to rest while giving the slower one something to look forward to. During one of my ascensions, I counted the steps from the bottom all the way to our third floor apartment... almost 300 footsteps all while trying not to be violently...

SICK ~ Monteczuma is a pure rat bastard as he afflicted us multiple times in our short stay. We were both extremely sick twice, I was pretty bad off at least one additional time and we never really achieved 100 percent health after the first time we got sick. Fortunately, there exists a great OTC antibiotic that really only works on the bad bugs and doesn’t completely destroy every good bacteria in your system. We also drank a significant quantity of electrolytes and soups. With the sickness and continual queasiness of belly, we were quite ready to move on once school finished. However, Monteczuma had one more strike in store for me and we pushed back our leaving until I felt well enough to travel. Once I did we began the strange journey that landed us directly on the Gringo Trail...

The Coolest Place You've NEVER Heard Of!

2010-04-04T15:39:00.019-05:00

February 3, 2010 to February 8, 2010

The Photos

Once again I am at a complete loss for words. How do you describe the indescribable? I guess for the most part the best place to start is at the beginning, but at the beginning of our adventures there or the history of the place... too hard to choose. So instead you get a rambling story in the order of our discovery and the hope that it will inspire you to venture there on your own.

Contemplate sitting down with someone you’ve just met who doesn’t speak your language (or you hers.) And using Google translate, she begins to tell you about a place she believes to be phenomenal but she’s never actually seen. She only has the recommendation of a FaceBook friend and the various images she has found on the internet. But the sincerity with which she speaks of this virtual unknown is so enticing and the images she presents to you so unbelievable that you have literally no choice but to incorporate her recommendation into your trip plan. And so slowly you begin to wind your trip in the direction of an unknown place called Las Pozas.

Envision yourself in the past, of noble(ish) English birth and after inheriting some small fortune through that most unjust agent named death, you start to shape the world around you into what you want it to be. But being of noble(ish) birth you are surrounded by other so called nobles who find your desires strange and/or disturbing. You are also a collector of art that appeals to you, but that makes you even stranger to those around you. And now you’ve started to find the English nobility uninteresting and quite probably judgemental. So you wander the world some and find a place deep in the Mexican jungle where you can do whatever you please. You purchase eighty acres of natural beauty and you begin interlacing it with the most elaborate and amazing concrete structures taken from your travels and your dreams. Of course eventually the money runs low, but fortunately you are a man ahead of your time and all that art you collected has now become popular and quite literally worth millions. You spend the rest of your life (from 1949 to 1980) and all of your money (approximately 5 million British pounds) working on your dream. You are Sir Edward James and you have created Las Pozas.

Consider in the convolutions of planning your trip, you do a little bit of your own research and discover Casa Caracol (meaning snail house - and the addition of more spirals to the world of Gregory), a destination that seems too good to be true. Removed from the city life and situated on the edge of the jungle. A magical place with tepees (or teepees or tipis, you pick your favorite spelling!) for lodging, a great communal space for resting and recharging and an atmosphere that seems to be exactly what you are looking for as the perfect compliment to the adventure that awaits you at Las Pozas.

Visualise a long and windy bus ride that you barely remember, because once you get to Xilitla, the town nearest this extraordinary location, you find it to be spectacular as well. In this village, you are two of maybe a dozen foreigners, but perfectly accepted as you wander through the market and welcomed to watch and participate in their traditional dance during a festival. At night fog envelopes the city creating an air of mystery and pockets of wonderful golden light. You decide to stay for a couple of days at the self proclaimed castle turned hotel, that was the former residence of Edward James’ closest friend. And you get just a glimpse of the wonder associated with what you have specifically come to see and already you are getting the flavour of something strange and a little bit removed from the norm, yet solidly in the middle of Mexico. Once you are finally ready, you start the long walk down the meandering road to Las Pozas.

Two videos of sliding down the Fire Pole at the hotel... one significantly crazier than the other!

Without Backpack WITH Backpack

And this is where it gets complicated. Do I fully describe just a few of the sites available? Do I completely gloss over any of the details hoping that one day you, loyal reader and future traveller, will wander there of your own accord? I turn to my travelling companion and ask his thoughts... Gregory suggests a rambling detail of the wanderings of two wide eyed children starting at around 11 a.m. and ending with a scrambling escape over a closed gate and barb wire fence in absolute darkness and quite a bit of panic. However this sounds way too unbelievable and certainly not the reality most of you have come to expect. But what you have no way of realising is this is a wander through a combination of your favourite M.C. Escher and Salvador Dali paintings.

Las Pozas is a surrealist dream, in some spots man’s will clearly dominates and in others nature is slowly reclaiming land that will always be hers. Towers of concrete, spirals of stairs and platforms thrust into the sky contrast with nearly indistinguishable paths, tree roots breaking through and a thundering waterfall at the end of a path. However, stand marvelling long enough and you start to see the shape of things and doubt is created as to what is man made and what is not. Having no real idea of surrealism before this moment, we believe Las Pozas defines it for us, but makes it hard for us to describe it to others.

As I presume you are starting to understand from reading this and seeing the images (it is unimaginable that you haven’t popped out of this page to do a Google image search for Las Pozas) only through experience can you fully appreciate this portion of the trip. And I am left with how exactly does one describe the indescribable? Vaguely and with lots of imaginings!

Next up Reading, Writing and Arithmetic... or something like it!

Some Silliness, then Some Blogging and then More Silliness.

2010-03-12T17:16:00.004-06:00

January 14, 2010 to February 3, 2010

The Photos

Welcome back to XGRFH radio, you are tuned to 31.2 on your travel dial. I want to ask if anyone remembers a little blog I used to read on here, ‘GandoR’s World Tour’? ZOMG, what the hell happened to those guys. I keep checking their blog and it’s the same entry I’ve already read... and not just once. I read it, it was cute, then I checked back after a sufficient length of time and no new entry, so I read the last one again. Still cute. Then I checked back again and still no new entry so I read the last one yet again, but this time to see if there were hints as to where they were (there weren’t... and it was getting less cute!) And then I checked back once again, once again no new entry. So I reread the last one and ran it through several decoders to see if there was a hidden message about kidnappers, torture or a reference to the Blue Sun Corp. (in case you were wondering, NO, there wasn’t and that Rebecca girl’s rambling broke two of the decoders!) So now here I go again to check the blog and see if they have checked in from their wild adventure and ZOMG... real actual words!

*But First a Word From Our Sponsers!*

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So yeah, enough silliness for now, but not because there has been a sudden ban on sillines, but because I started this post 10 days ago and it seems to have stalled. So again I’m gonna give the hightlights.

CouchSurfing ~ Awesome Sauce! Every host has been fan freakin’ tastic. I’ve gotten better about selecting and sending out requests. I try to make them more personal and give them a feel for who we are and the response has been phenomenal. I’m sure I will have more to say about the system as the trip progresses and a whole bunch of pictures of all the ‘couches’ we’ve surfed.

Hermosillo, Sonora, MX ~ Our very first Couch Surfing experience and it was spectacular. Edgardo was a wonderful host with a great love for his city and a willingness to teach. His sister and girlfriend were equally wonderful and we had several great conversations, one solely through Google Translate! We had great food in the form of a 3/4 meter long burrito and other noms. And our last night there turned into an impromptu face paint night (Edgardo was so entranced by the paints that he kept 2 small bottles of paint water, one of metallic and one of black light reactive!) We were definitely sad to move on but move on we must.

Mazatlán, Sinoloa, MX ~ Our second surf of the couch was also wonderful. The night we arrived Jeremy was throwing a party, so we immediately got introduced to a passel of people (hey look the correct use of a vocabulary word!) Almost all of them were students at Tec de Monterrey, Campus Mazatlán. We had a joyful day of blog writing from a hammock and even took a rather long walk up a hill to the lighthouse, where we got to spin flags for a bit. Gregory taught Jeremy how to spin poi and we made a complete debacle of tie dyed socks for him (note make sure the material will actually take the dye!) We spent a little bit of time on the beach with Jeremy and his crew, where we got in the first of TWO opportunities to paint. The second came on the night before we were leaving (it’s possibly a trend but staying up all night before a long bus ride does NOT actually make the bus ride enjoyable!) Also one night we had sushi, which was pretty strange in that none of it was raw, all of it had Philidelphia cream cheese and one had strawberries... strange and not partucularly repeatable.

One of the more wonderful moments of Mazatlán was when Gregory and I were walking back from the adventure of the light house. Thinking we had gotten on a bus that took us almost directly back home, we ended up in a completely unfamiliar part of town. Gregory asked for directions from several people and we carried on our way (no Kansas references please!) We ended up walking what was essentially the long way home (no SuperTramps here, either!) and came across some young people spinning fire at the stoplights. We spent at least half an hour talking to them, watching them spin and learning how to make poi on the cheap to share along our journey (or in case ours get lost or stolen!) Gregory even spun fire to try and busk a little dinero but to no avail. It was such an inspiration that we had to spin fire for our host and show him how the tricks he had learned so far looked ‘con fuego!’

Querétaro, Querétaro, MX ~ No I didn’t suddenly develop a stutter, the city and the state have the same name. Not to sound too much like a broken record, however (as you probably intuited!) this experience of awesomeness was totally couch surfing! Wait that’s not right... well, close enough. Robin and his lovely wife Pepix, not only put up with us for an extended amount of time (see the glossy bit below), they fed us wonderful food, tried to teach us how to cook some for ourselves, let us borrow a tent and sleeping bag so we could escape to San Joaquín for a nice weekend and sent us merrily on our way when the time was finally right.

We also enjoyed a Couch Surfing event on our first night in the form of a Cantina Crawl, where we met many of the Querétaro crowd and enjoyed some fine rattlesnake mescal. Among this crowd was the organizer of the event, Rodrigo, an artist of stunning talent in the pen and ink style and we were subsequently invited to a private gallery showing of some truly beautiful art.

So yeah I kinda glossed over a little bit there...

My new state of the art Apple MacBook Pro started glitching on me after we had been there a couple of days (Gregory thinks it important to mention a stumble and a fall but since I’m writing this blog, I will pretend I am perfectly graceful and it got sick eating Mexican Pop-Ups.) Talking with Apple, they wanted me to use my install disks, which are safely in Grand Prairie, TX and generally didn’t think they would be able to help me without them. So I asked Robin if he knew anyone with an Apple that might have disks I could borrow and Robin instead found me an authorized Apple repair shop. It ended up being the hard drive, which was replaced at no charge.

While waiting for the repair to be completed, Robin urged us to visit San Joaquín. It was beautiful and exactly the escape from the currently normal life that we desperately needed. A perfect little vacation in the middle of our vacation. We camped the first night and hoteled it the second night. Staying in the hotel was not actually part of the plan, but it ended up being quite nice and we were able to leave our bags behind twice and go exploring. In that exploring, we saw La Gruta de Los Herrera (caves and interesting rock formations) and La Cascadas de Maravillas (beautiful waterfall at the end of a very long downhill walk.) We attempted to visit Zona Arqueológica de Ranas, but they were closed, so we wandered through the city some and eventually bussed it back ‘home’.

Next stop, Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, MX and a portion of the trip to fully expound upon if I can find the words.

Heading South...

2010-02-12T09:17:00.009-06:00

January 11, 2010 to January 14, 2010

The Photos

Leaving San Francisco was a completely different kind of adventure than getting there. Although once more, we turned to CraigsList, this time to look for a ride share heading south. Most of the southern routes from San Francisco were only going to Los Angeles or possibly San Diego. I found one I thought would be perfect, picking up furniture from Long Beach, so I e-mailed him. Unfortunately, someone beat us to him. Trolling the list some more, I found a girl headed to Los Angeles. Gregory called her, waded through the drama of her really small car and the possible discomfort it would cause at least one rider, but eventually she decided that as long as Gregory’s girlfriend didn’t mind being scrunched in the back, we were go for takeoff. *note~Can you say annoyed girlfriend...one should at least meet the couple and determine who will fit more comfortably in the scrunchy backseat and not just assume.

For whatever reason, I can’t remember all the drama that ensued over this ride share but what I do know is that she kept changing the time to leave, initially by a day and then pushing back the hour at least 3 times. Also despite her CraigsList notice saying LA, she eventually told us she was only going as far as Echo Park, which would leave us scrambling for public transport to our lodging in Long Beach at an unknown time of night. Needless to say, I got antsy and started looking for other options. While searching CraigsList and popping back and forth to my e-mail and FaceBook, we received a second e-mail from the first find asking if we still needed a ride, as his intended passengers had taken an earlier lift. The only catch was that we would have to leave the next day (which was no problem since it was almost 5 p.m. and we had already agreed to leave the following day with flaky girl) and spend one night in a hotel. Going completely against the etiquette of CraigsList, we canceled our arrangement and jumped ship to our first choice. *note~yes indeed this caused more drama, involving at least two phone calls to tell us what cads we were for bailing on her. Gregory handled it much more admirably than I would have.

Feeling much more secure in our plans, we headed to the city for our last, and technically only, night of San Francisco living. We decided on the Green Tortoise Hostel where Gregory stayed during his April trip to San Francisco. It was as Gregory said, quite hospitable and the awesome girl who checked us in chose to give us a room upgrade. We trudged up the steep, steep stairs to our room on the ‘second’ floor (technically the third since you have to walk up one flight of stairs just to get to the lobby), dropped off our packs and headed out for some dinner in Little Italy. My first hostel stay was both completely new and exactly what I expected. We were privately in a semi-private room, which was great and not the dormitory experience I was wary of. The drunken revelry and door knocking at 2 a.m, was exactly what I was dreading, yet figuring unavoidable. We slept the night away, grabbed a quick shower, leisurely devoured some breakfast and headed to the BART station for our last train to the end of the Dublin/Pleasanton line where we met our ride out of town.

Our chariot arrived as a green Toyota truck pulling a U-Haul trailer driven by Randy, a former university professor, now Persian rug historian with a passel of Australian cattle dogs (really only 4, but that’s still a surprising quantity of a specific type of dog in one place). Of the four, Panga, Sheila, Mirre and Laika, only Panga got to ride in the cab with us, and despite being put out that she was required to give up TWO of her favorite spots, she was the perfect hostess. After riding with Randy for a day, we found out that his final trip destination was Arizona, and not just anywhere in Arizona...Bisbee, AZ, only a couple of miles from the border towns of Douglas, AZ and Agua Priete, Sonora, MX. Talking it over during our first nights stay, Gregory and I decided that offering to pay a portion of the gas and helping to load the furniture would be a worthwhile investment to get us so much farther on our way. Over breakfast the next morning it was settled. It meant 2 more nights in hotels, but it sure beat hosteling it in Los Angeles or San Diego, then finding yet another ride south (and as it happens, we didn’t even have to pay for gas.) It also placed us firmly on our path into Mexico. Best of all, I was able to work on the blog while Gregory and Randy talked about all kinds of things and every mile furthering the beginnings of our real adventure.

This decision of course, put urgency and desperation into our need to begin CouchSurfing. Being on the road limits one’s access to internet thereby reducing the rapidity with which you can respond to either the yea’s or renew your search if you only get no’s. It also creates potential problems as you try to get people to send quick notes to your phone e-mail rather than through the CS website. My preliminary blast of six ‘will you please host me and the crazy guy I hang out with’ was met with one no and one yes, but only as an emergency. Initiate wave two, three more requests. Immediately I get back a yes, even with the convolutions of text-mailing. Hermosillo, here we come.

Randy, whose kindness radiated in the care he gave his canine companions, deposited us on the road to Douglas, with the admonishment that if we were not able to hitch a ride that day, we were to call him and he would see what help he could provide. Fortunately, we were not required to further lean on him, as we received a ride immediately from Hector who was heading home from the Dr.'s office.

The short ride from Bisbee to Douglas flew by as we talked to Hector about our trip plans. Originally we thought about hitchhiking, from Agua Priete to Hermosillo, but Hector talked us out of that idea saying that a cab to the bus terminal and then a bus to Hermosillo wouldn’t be terribly expensive. Also, in his opinion, the bus would be safer and easier since catching one ride going exactly where we wanted to go seemed unlikely whereas getting stranded in some small town seemed inevitable. He offered to drop us off where ever we needed to go in town and deciding not to delay any further, we elected for the border crossing. Anticlimactic is the best description of crossing the invisible line from the United States into Mexico. I’m sure that crossing all the other invisible lines will be more involved, even if they are as easy.

San Franciscan Adventures

2010-01-21T14:47:00.005-06:00

December 12, 2009 to January 11, 2009

The Photos

San Francisco itself is an awesome area and I know we did NOT do it justice. So sadly I’m just gonna give highlights...

Pocket Cave ~ Gregory and I did a ton of walking, across the Golden Gate Bridge; to and from Tantra classes; up, down, around and through both San Francisco and Berkeley; in and out of Muir Woods... So much walking that I wish I’d had a pedometer just out of curiosity. It’s true that at one point on the GGB (which was neither Golden nor Gated, but I digress) my knee hurt pretty bad, but that’s a low light and I’m focused on the highlight, which was walking hand in hand in pocket with my lover. A most wonderful way to stay connected and to learn to read each other’s moods. I am not sure how this translates in the warmer climes we are headed to, but I’m positive we will adjust and evolve.

Wicked Cool... but cooler than cool. We arrived super early to the theatre on a Thursday night for the ticket lottery they have for each show. After about 6 people they called my name, which meant we got to purchase ‘Limited View’ seating for $25 per ticket. Wandered the streets to kill the two hours until show time, then found our seats. Yep... when they say limited view... they mean Limited View. Fortunately, Gregory the ninja, knows how to seat jump right as the lights go down and the curtain goes up. This embarrassed me so completely that I sat there mortified, in the dark with blazing cheeks until the magic of the show took me away. After the first act, the real owners of our seats showed up, so we booked back to our places to wait for the light/curtain tango and to seat jump again. Clearly this is more about the experience than the actual musical, but what can I say... you need to see it to believe it because my words could NOT do it justice. I’m pretty sure I found a rather large hole in the plot as compared to the L. Frank Baum book, which definitely makes me want to read Wicked and possibly other Gregory Maguire stories. We did try to arrange for me to see it again with Gregory’s friend Brenna, but work overcame her and time ran out.

Muir Woods ~ Beautiful and breathtaking. We bussed as far as we could to Mill Valley, then asked around for the trail leading to the park. I’m pretty sure we missed a sign somewhere... not because we weren’t looking for it, but rather because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there. However, all was not lost as we hitched a ride from a gracious gentleman who deposited us directly at the gate. Driving in with him, we realized just how much walking he had saved us. Which makes it so disappointing for us that we can’t remember his name. As for the woods, again it is the experience more than the woods themselves, but I will say I was initially underwhelmed as all the ‘trails’ seemed to be covered in walkways. Eventually we were able to get off the beaten path and do some actual hiking. In that trailing we eventually found a back way out (again with help... fools and small children... that we may be!)

Wandering down the Panoramic Highway to Mill Valley in the dark, we stopped to ask a man in his driveway how far the walk was, he informed us that 1) we had missed the trail head, that 2) it was still quite a ways and that 3) he or someone in his house would be heading to town shortly and could give us a ride. The long twisty ride back to Mill Valley made me extremely grateful for the kindness of strangers as it had been a long day on my feet and I was beat.

New Year’s Eve ~ Our tantrika mentioned a clothing optional retreat in Middletown, CA called Harbin Hot Springs. After researching their New Year’s Eve celebration we decided to go. We rented a white cargo van, which we affectionately name Cracker (using both of our car naming systems in one swell foop!) and hit the road. Regenerative is just about the best description I can use and despite missing the drum jam, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Talking with a lovely couple over breakfast, they suggested we head west to Badoga Bay and then north to find some Redwood camping areas.

...and the fun we had after ~ Badoga Bay was not that exciting, maybe it was the fact that it was New Year’s Day, or possible even that we wanted to see nature more than cities, and even more likely that by the time we got there we had absolutely no idea what we were supposed to be looking for. Despite their best efforts we were not eaten by the Badoga Bay cannibals (possibly a story for it’s own blog, or perhaps you had to be there!) We eventually ended up camping in the only open campground on the Avenue of the Giants and hiking just a little to find the largest recorded Redwood and the trees he hangs out with.

Standing among the Redwoods felt almost like home, a little colder than home, but very similar. I could sense that I was among family, although extended family to be sure. Giving credence to my thought that ALL trees are connected to each other through their roots, a collective conscience if you will. Since telling Gregory, he has decided another of his goals is to help me find my home. I’m not exactly sure what this means, other than maybe I am a tree nymph who has lost her way.

The rushed drive back to Berkeley was not nearly so nice as leisurely making our way to a place unknown, but we needed to return the van by four o’clock. We made it just in time, even with doubling back two Petaluma exits to drop off our completely non-communicative hitchhiker.

What else... oh yeah, I ran into a tree. Smacked my left Frontal bone right above the Coronal Suture where it meets the Zygomatic bone (read the outside edge of my left eyebrow!)

(not my actual skull!)

The streets of San Francisco ran with blood... my blood. While Gregory laughed! Those of you flick’ring and FaceBooking already know this. But you all must be wondering how an intelligent girl like myself runs into a tree? Well, it wasn’t easy. Long story, still kinda long, we were riding the Muni, as it turned a corner, the bus disconnected from it’s electricity line above. An intriguing situation to be sure. Once we disembarked onto the street, Gregory and I began heading to the BART station we had just passed. Still wide eyed about the bus disconnecting, I was watching Gregory out of the corner of my eye while watching with the rest of my eye as the Muni driver ‘flipped his reins’ to reconnect the bus, leaving no spare eye resources to watch out for stationary objects... like fully grown trees.

Obviously I have lived to blog another day, but damn did I feel stupid. And as for Gregory laughing, I guess I’ve let you think him a callous cad for long enough. He held me close, found me napkins to staunch the blood flow, procured antiseptic wipes to clean my wound and band-aids to cover it. Which for some reason is not enough to remove the sound of his laughter from my traumatized mind. Fortunately, I know his reactions well enough (and we have talked about it since) that eventually I was able to realize his laughter comes from his fear that I had done myself some real damage.

And so publicly I apologize for the terrible fight we had about the incident. I love you, Gregory Haley, in my own way... now go make me a grilled cheese sandwich... please.

Next up... leaving San Francisco and possible doubling back on any events I’ve miss in the telling.

Settling in California

2010-01-20T22:21:00.005-06:00

December 12. 2009 to December 15, 2009

The Photos

Ah, California or to quote Gregory...

Berkeley, Berkeley, Berkeley (Chanted a la Eddie Murphy from the Nutty Professor)

Originally when I contacted our Tantra coach, I had hoped to stay with her or at least get recommendations for accommodation's. Not in a position to host us, she suggested a search of Craig’s List. Once we acquired Amtrak tickets and set up firm dates for our classes, I began to search. Several intriguing offers presented themselves, the most tantalizing find... a student headed home for the holidays. She was going to be gone from December 12th to January 10th, almost exactly the length of our course. The asking price of $100 a week, for one bedroom in a three bedroom Victorian, with three flatmates, fit perfectly within our budget even giving us some flexiblility of funds. It seemed perfect and I wanted to book it at once. I was almost devastated as it seemed like someone already in town would likely get it but we eventually transferred $100 to her bank account to hold the room for us. And, with lightened step and heavy backpack we headed to Berkeley.

... via an exhausting train ride. Pricewise, Amtrack to California versus Greyhound to California is roughly the same. Timewise... still up for debate having no reference information as to whether Greyhound had similar (or possibly even worse) weather conditions to deal with. Foodwise, fairly sure it’s a tossup, since we didn’t really stop for food a lot on Greyhound and the stops I remember were Subway and McDonald’s which are cheap but not great versus the expense of a (arguably decent) prepared meal on the train and the complete lack of planning on our part to bring our own snacks and not pay exorbitant depot prices for crackers and sweetly flavored water. Comfortwise, Amtrak is clearly the winner (unless you like it cool for sleeping but that may have just been the ‘broken’ train we were on.) Real Reclining Seats, Multiple Electrical Outlets, Leg Stretching Room, Sunny Lounge Car, Dineresque Dining Car, Unknown Sleeping Bunks (cause we didn’t pay the additional hotel prices for beds!) and Bathrooms Galore. We read, we watched movies, we slept, we ate... all while effortlessly moving westward. And despite the ease with which we were traveling, it was an exhausting nearly 36 hours.

Ah, Leg Room (and Breggie!)

When I initially arranged our trip via Amtrak, I thought we needed to go to San Francisco proper (and we would have if I hadn’t found us the sweet housing deal.) The train only goes as far as Emeryville with a connecting bus to the city. Gregory soon figured out that we didn’t need to spend the time (or money) crossing the bay just to have to find our way back to Berkeley. Talking to fellow pasengers on the train, we were told that a cab to Berkeley would be cheap enough and deliver us directly to our destination in easily less than half the time. Catching a cab proved slightly more difficult, as Eddie Izzard pointed out in Dress to Kill, ‘...Taxis! Of which there are *five*! Five taxis, all going, "I got people in." Then when you get in, they don't know where they're going.’ Just before giving up and walking (not really... we had NO idea which direction to even start in!) our cab showed up.

Arriving at our new digs, we were pleasantly surprised to find we were diagonally across the street from the best grocery store in Berkeley, the Berkeley Bowl. Gregory was almost dancing in the streets because he had been there on his last trip. Of course, we went that very night to get food for the week and it was a pretty amazing place I have to say. To me it seemed like a cross between a Fiesta and a Whole Foods/Central Market. The produce and meat departments were very Fiesta like but the bulk goods and just about everything else in the store was Wholly Central Market. Also of note, there was a Bikram yoga studio only a couple of blocks down the road with a super cheap introductory price to boot and a BART station right around the corner.

Cool Digs

We had absolutely no problem settling in and meeting the other flatmates, Jason from Arizona and Sandra and Damien, from Spain and France respectively. Early into our stay we even prepared a meal for the 5 of us plus a neighbor. Gregory and I made Pasta Primavera and (accidently overtoasted) garlic bread while Sandra made a mouth watering salad with the incredients that Jason procurred. In typical Gregory style he learned a lot about them all and in typical Rebecca style I learned about them through listening to Gregory... we’ll see if that trend can shift some as we continue to travel.

Tantra classes started almost immediately. Our coach, Jan Robinson, talked us through what expectations and goals had brought us to her and quickly assessed a plan of attack. Sometimes it felt a little more like couples counseling than tantra, but her understanding (and ours as well) of how we already communicate and how to communicate better give us a good foundation to build on. We defintely took a lot from the course and suggest it to anyone interested, but we do wish we had started it in Dallas, where there is less city exploration to be done.

Soon... more blogging... more fun! (and maybe even a ranty post about why this blogging thing seems so difficult, but maybe not.)

Words are not enough...

2010-01-13T13:43:00.007-06:00

December 5, 2009 to December 11,2009

The Photos

Since last YOU heard from us, we had finished the City Museum in Saint Louis and we headed to points west... long pause... you kept checking back wondering if we were ok... wondering if one of us had killed the other... just wondering...

I’m sorry. We are fine and currently tooling down the highway toward Long Beach and then further on to Tuscon... Feeling all the shoulda’s following me and making me feel bad. Realizing that blogging when things are going right is slightly harder than bitching about what’s wrong (that’s Gregory’s supposition and it’s starting to sound correct!)

Let’s quickly get you caught up on what’s happening!

We moved from one lovely hostess to another by Greyhounding it to Columbia, MO to stay with the sweet and generous, hatedome queen Kara Carr (and her equally sweet and generous but much less hatedomey Ian!) We stayed for 2 nights and had wonderful conversations, a round of the Glass Bead Game and then that hateful hussy put us to work sheetrocking her ceiling. I mean WTH, we’re on vacation...

J/K it was great. We got to contribute (which we love) and now everytime Kara and Ian look up at the ceiling they will think of us (and whoever else helps them with the next step.) We got to meet her awesome Papa, who suppervised the construction and generally just got to hang out with wonderful people that we love. Monday morning came early and Kara dropped us off at the Greyhound Station to start our long and weary trip to Denver, CO to spend some quality time with my dear friend David Price (and his foxy lady Laura!)

Backtracking just a little, let’s talk about Greyhound. What an interesting way to travel (and I mean interesting in the way Gregory sees interesting which is what people tend to say when they don’t want to say something bad to one’s face!) Don’t get me wrong, I would definitely do it again, just not anytime soon and not for a great distance. For the most part it seems a very lonely way to travel and the people traveling seem fairly desperate but not for companionship just to be someplace different. But enough of that... On to Denver.

David picked us up in downtown Denver and trekked us home to his den at the end of an icy roaded cul-de-sac on the outskirts of town. He has a personable book and art filled territory with a genuine homey feel and a snowfilled garden that Laura adores. Despite having to work some, David was just about the perfect host, giving us plenty of time to internet, though not to blog apparently ;-) and then carting us around to find entertainment at the best damned brewery in the states, New Belgium Brewery.

Their beer is TEH awesome, their brewery tour is phenomenal and everyone should have at least one Abby Ale... the award winning amber ale that started as the VERY first homebrew attempt of a truly exceptional man! We made an expedition into Denver proper to spend some money at REI (the biggest one in the world and the one that started it all), to oggle the exhibits at the Denver Art Museum (‘DAM, that’s art?’), to learn some history (or attempt to anyway) at the Colorado History Museum and wound up the day meeting Laura at the WynKoop Brewery for dinner.

Eventually we prepared to say our goodbyes to the Colorado pack and Gregory arranged a brief hello/goodbye visit with Nikki Whitfield, who graciously drove us to the Amtrak station, where every click of the track was further west than I had ever traveled.

Next stop... getting to Berkeley, CA and the life we lived there.

Day 17 - summary up to now

2009-12-17T23:07:00.000-06:00

To sum up

Leave Dallas in Uhaul to St.louis - took furniture to Rebecca's family
LOVED The City Museum - celtic knot humming voyages in the inner ear
Chatting with Anji, Katie and Jen - meeting people for the first again
putting up sheet rock for a ceiling in Columbia, MO- played GBG on the road
New Belgium Tour Fort Collins, Prognostication with David - 4 years till each world citizen owns a copy of every movie, book and song ever made contained on the size of credit card. New TheBallofLight.com website up on David's server space!
Train from Denver to San Francisco much better than greyhound! stopping for no reason
San Francisco Rebecca finds a room for rent on craigslist for $400 from a UC Berkeley Marxist student who went home for the holidays. YEAH saving $500 from the budget! three blocks from $40 month Bikram. Three blocks from the BART station very close to our Tantric class three times a week. yay REBECCA! the three people we live with are unique. A couple one Damien EE from france who really helped to develop the Lights for the BALL OF LIGHT. another chick who is from Madrid is here on a fellowship a MS in feminist archeology ?? let me tell you it sounded funny digging up dinosaurs and arks to free women-- but i guess it works.
Rebecca injures her knee and sits out a day.

I feel I will be blogging more about the moments that stand out beyond a regular days events. really enjoying the unplugging from the Dallas world. a couple more things to take care of and I will have turned off Dallas for a year. WOOHOO!

oh the places you'll go--Dr.Seuss

seen on Fishermans wharf

OMG!

2009-12-17T00:04:00.008-06:00

December 4, 2009

The Photos

I hate that combination of letters but I was still left thinking OMG after 8 hours of playing in the most amazing place I have ever experienced, the St. Louis City Museum.

The day started reasonably enough, the place we wanted to go for breakfast had shut down since Gregory was there last and we ended up ordering breakfast sandwiches from a street vendor (not quite as suspect as it sounds... it's St. Louis for goodness sake!)

Breakfast, Before the Drop Off!

Anji dropped us off just in time to meet up with Lucille. Gregory had been there a couple of times before so he got to watch each new surprise cross my face and got to see what drew me in and what made me shiver with fear.

I am really torn between trying to tell you each experience and just leaving it alone and hoping you will go experience it on your own. So I guess that means I should give you the highlights. Highlights include but are not limited to...

Slides... everywhere, long and short, straight and spiraled, fun and scary. The really famous one is a 7 story shoe chute that is just amazing.

Monster Slide... Need We Say More!

Detours... every situation you come across has at least 4 visible directions to take and sometimes more. At one point I came up through a hole in the ceiling to a place I had stood on and hadn't seen the exit down.

Climbing... up, down, around, through. Come prepared to spend some time on your knees. Several people I know have had the thought to rent knee pads and I'll tell you, if they had been available I would have rented them. I don't think it really limited what I was willing and able to do (you butt scoot eventually to stay off the knees) but I do think it would have allowed me to explore some areas longer, I hardly spent anytime in the ceiling ducts because it was all knee work.

School Bus, Fire Truck, Tour Tram and Airplanes... I don't even know how to explain these items, but they are there and you just have to see them to believe them.

Caves... these are so wonderful, on many levels. It's not quite spelunking, but we did find ourselves in a great little out of the way spot that made me wish for our headlamps. Lack of light didn't keep us from exploring but it did keep us from finding the quarter that fell out of my pocket. Oh well, think of it as a geo cache, some one go find it and let me know! This little cubby hole we found was a perfect opportunity to sing some Devo and do some meditative humming.

Are you sold, yet? You should be.

Around 3 or 4, my cousin Katie showed up. We sat in the cafe to chat (and in Gregory's case meet for the first time) for a few minutes then we all started exploring. Gregory forced the issue (Gregory interjects to say he made the offer for her to ride and I say his force of personality made him hard to resist) of Katie riding the Ferris Wheel on the roof with me. I think it ended up being a conquered fear and then we showed her some of our favorite experience places and I hope that she decides to wander back to it sometime soon either with friends or by herself.

We Ain't Scared!

Plans we made for the evening kept us from staying the whole night (they were open till 1am) but spending an evening with our hostess and her friend was imperative especially since it was our last evening in St. Louis. We were able to drag my cousin home with us so she could be introduced to the awesome Burners we know near her and hope to get her to an event soon.

Next up... Columbia, MO; Denver, CO; Berkeley and San Francisco CA.

Gregory's First Post - Denver 8 Days In

2009-12-08T16:00:00.001-06:00

I seem to have difficulty getting motivated to write (and Rebecca has been cracking the whip on me to do so.) Here we go...

Let me 'splain...

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

(although it is LONG ~ my first post)

I am 36 years old.

My entire network of family and friends are in Dallas.

Born in Oak Cliff raised in Garland and Dallas

My education was from Dallas schools kindergarten (in garland) through Grad-School (in Irving).

I have lived in Dallas my whole life.

While I have traveled the world to some extent, (Russia, New Zealand, Suriname, Mexico, Germany) the longest I have been away from Dallas is 5 months. I just realized this 8 months ago and felt this needed to change. ESPECIALLY since I consider myself to be an open minded and adventurous person (says the guy who sold his passport for $5 on the British Guyanese black market and bought it back for $4 the very next day...but I digress). I know that I keep coming back to Dallas because I am unable to make connections with people in the way I desire while on the road ~ leaving me the inability to recharge fully and press on with the adventure.

The trip became a reality when I came back from San Francisco in April of 2009 and I asked Rebecca Fetch if she would travel the world with me. I offered to pay for her food for one year (projected $7,300).

She said yes!

In Rebecca, I have found the best travel companion anyone could ask for. Eager, intelligent, sexy, fun, upbeat and a great lover to boot. Her limited travel experience has been parts of Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri (she was born there, but moved when very young so she doesn’t think this one counts), Iowa (and the states between Texas and Iowa but not really exploring so she says it doesn't count) and Arkansas ... with very few memories or even explorations of the areas visited. She has saved up ~ shit she has more than saved up ~ she was in $3,000 credit card debt when I met her a year ago and now has $7,000+ in the bank for this trip. She lived at her parents home to save on rent and cut out extra activities to save money. She is quite the admirable soul.

I reduced expenses down for the last 8 months by living on a couch for $200/month and put the rest into savings. Moving off of my couch and not paying rent when I was traveling (a really great option let me tell you). Switching all of my FUN time to spending time with friends (Face Paint Night) rather than bars, movies and costly entertainment.

My last big expenditure ended up costing me very little as I used up all of my flight miles to go to Berlin for the Dream Your Topia project, which coincided with the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.

Even on this trip I worked the whole time for my keep (really cheap only $200 for 2 weeks). I had no 9 to 5, except managing my properties, to keep me in Dallas. Fortunately, I have a great friend from my college days, Ian Ray, who will watch over my properties for a year at the going rate of $400 per month. I was dissuaded from going with a management company as they have no vested interest in my property. I hold Ian in high regard and his experience helping his father with their

rentals gives me great confidence that I have chosen wisely. He lives nearby and is UBER handy with all that pertains to a house from general maintenance to eventual improvements and any issues that go beyond his experience, he can refer to my father or email me to solve it. (I am now full of warm fuzzies)!

Now the work begins, research must be done on how much it could cost. Turns out it is about 14K a person AND even cheaper with two people traveling. WEEEEE! Yay for us. However, I could not afford this cost on my own [14K(my travel expenses)+Entertainment+7K(Rebecca’s Food Cost)+Property Expense], so I did the one thing I have not allowed myself to do yet. I turned to my parents and asked for support in this endeavor to expand my horizons. This is not a trust fund kid asking yet again for more money. This is me taking a small portion of my inheritance that has been untouched for 12 years and using it the way I want to. I do NOT desire the big houses and shiny cars that other people might have used such money for. I DO desire exploring and experiencing my world to the fullest of my potential. I have struggled with writing this portion of my blog post as I feel like people WILL think less of me because I did not earn my money. I am coming to realize that people’s opinion of me shows their true colors and I am learning to let history determine if my actions are good. For me, I subscribe to the Wiccan Rede ~

Do as you will, Harm none.

In that very vein of openness and full disclosure I have posted the budget and will be updating it throughout the year. I believe this to be a conservative estimate on most line items but I am sure we will come across pitfalls as most do. That which I do NOT spend will be returned to my inheritance. The budget is in the goals at the bottom of this post.

Food, Accommodation and Transportation are the main ways to save money.

We plan using as many money saving avenues as possible: cooking our food, staying with friends and friends of friends, using couchsurfing.org, “catching rides”, working at hostels, working where possible and helping out EVERYWHERE!

GOALS

Blog Posts on these later

1. Get better at writing my adventures down (this blog ~ thank you Rebecca)

2. Get Rebecca more confident in world travel (one month of traveling on her own is the goal)

3. Document the travel cost of two people for one year (creating a real number for those interested in wandering the world)

4. Get myself more comfortable with long term travel (in hopes of multi year travel in future)

5. Perpetuating the portions of the Dallas life we hold so dear

6. Practice on a weekly basis an exercise in distance connection through meditation

7. Practice Yoga on our own (does GREAT things to your body)

8. Allow chance to determine direction using I Ching

9. Go to Machu Picchu and participate in a ayahuasca ceremony

10. Develop TheBallOfLight.com for Burning Man 2012 (40-80K Budget, Please donate if you see it a worthy goal)

Does it look like LOVE and the number 42... still working on it

Writer's Block of Adventure

2009-12-08T15:00:00.005-06:00

December 2, 2009 to December 5, 2009

The Photos

Getting out of Dallas was quite difficult and now the blog writing has become arduous as well. Part of that is waiting on Gregory to start typing, but as you can see he is much more interested in posting lots of ancillary things to the blog rather than details! So here goes...

Back on the Road!

Our last post (no, not the one about Hell freezing over, the one with actual details!) was written during a non continental breakfast at the Candlelight Inn of Savanna, OK. We stopped there around 9pm or 10pm because we were too tired to drive any farther (getting out of Dallas really took it out of us!) When we arrived, the owner/manager was decorating the Christmas tree with lights. And I don't mean just kinda haphazardly strewing them about, I mean really wrapping every limb (even the center post was wrapped in lights!) And it is a tradition of theirs to have people guess the number of lights used in the tree. Gregory has entered in the magic number of 3,100. Everyone keep your fingers crossed that he wins the prize (whatever it may happen to be!)

Getting on the road in the morning was a little harder than should have been, partially from typing up the post and partially because my family expected us to be on the road sooner. Hating to have our actions dictated but realizing we still had quite a distance to go, we packed up our gear and hit the road about 11am. Driving a U-Haul makes for some back breaking, mind numbing times. Heading North as the days get shorter multiplies that effect. Having it start to snow on you intensifies it even more. However, without incident and only really stopping for gas, we made it to Hamel, IL and my uncle's house. We quickly unload the heavy furniture and stop to break cornbread, eat chili and talk with my aunt and uncle before hitting the road. Gregory learns more about religion than he thought he wanted to know and I learn that the baptists are not the only fractured religion out there, we are just one of the most prevalent.

Quest Completed, Earn Gold
and Experience Points!

Then it is on to Anji and Oniero's house in St Louis, minus the Oniero as he is still studying to be a helicopter pilot, where we will spend a couple of nights and see the City Museum. Our original plan was to go to the City Museum on Thursday, but in returning the U-Haul, walking through Tower Grove Park and eventually landing at the City Diner we had fairly wasted half of our day and calling the City Museum we discovered they were on shorter hours during the week anyway. So regroup, change of plans and spend the rest of the day, lazing at Anji's (but NOT writing Blog posts which might have been the smart thing to do.) We ate dinner at Everest Cafe & Bar, where we discovered that we do not like Mango Achar, we do not like it Sam We Are, but I cleaned that portion of my plate in the spirit of adventure and trying to find the good (or at least non poisonous) in the food set in front of me. Mango Achar is basically pickled Mango and other Veggies and when I say pickled, I'm not talking sweetly bread and buttered, I'm talking full out salt and vinegar pickled pieces of indeterminate origin. But yeah I cleaned that portion of my plate and didn't even get a gold star. The rest of the food was really yum, but it is hard not to get stuck on the thing that makes the biggest impression.

Anji Holding Our Place, While We Marvel at the Menu!

After dinner, I'm feeling the pull of ice cream as I've noticed some green tea ice cream on the menu. However, once I mention dessert of the frozen cream variety, Anji sparks us with the thought of frozen custard from Ted Drewes. So to Ted Drewes we go, only to realize that it is the happening joint in St. Louis on a frozen December night (ok so it wasn't frozen yet, but I get the feeling that the increasing cold does not keep the citizens of St. Louis away from their Ted Drewes!) Gregory ordered the All Shook Up (if you couldn't guess from the name or spend the research time on the website provided) a banana and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup creation that would make the King proud. I ordered the Sin Sunday (although I think they've changed the name from the website to the stand) a tart cherry, hot fudge creation that would make a preacher's wife blush, but not stop eating. And Anji ordered a creation of her own devising that started like mine, but then got nutty with some pistachios. And that is just focusing on the yum, not on the 10 to 15 minute wait in the cold to order it *I've been instructed to interject that although we did not have an actual thermometer to check on, it was pretty fuckin'n cold! It was crazy busy!

More blog to come... exploration of the City Museum, a short bus ride to Columbia, MO and the fun we had there and a much longer bus ride to Denver where we sit at the moment.

So We Left...

2009-12-03T15:10:00.002-06:00

and Hell Froze Over... er.. I mean it snowed in Dallas. It NEVER snows in Dallas. I mean not never but rarely to be sure. Even more glad we have escaped the DGW!

We Left on a Tuesday...

2009-12-02T10:16:00.011-06:00

The Photos

December 1, 2009

A cold and rainy tuesday.

And it took forever.

Who knew leaving family and friends behind would be so very difficult (ha ha), even if it's only for a year.

So here's the way it began...

Since our ride to start flaked on us, I arranged an alternate means of transportation (and I get to do my family a favor.) However, this puts us in a 10 foot U-Haul heading North. Not ideal but a start none the less (and FREE! we just have to focus on the road for 12 hours rather than sitting back in a Greyhound reading). Saying good bye to my family was not as hard as I expected it to be, but it was certainly snarky-er and I was really expecting some snark (Gregory interjects by saying negativity.) Saying good bye to Gregory's family was certainly nicer but a lot more involved (stop after stop after stop.)

As we spiraled out of the Dallas Gravity Well, and it tried desperately to suck us back in (original ETD was 10am), we finally broke free at 19:27. At one point in the early evening we almost gave in to the pull and considered staying another night, but Gregory was adamant that we at least leave the confines of the city suburbs to say we have BEGUN the one year Adventure. About an hour later, after we determined we were out of Dallas, we saw a brightly lit Christmas display on the West side of the road (in Grayson County we later discovered.) We both really wanted to stop and we both felt the overly strong desire to create distance from the DGW (for fear that it might still be able to drag us back in.) We let the Christmas lights win as a signal that we really are on our way, doing what we want, when we want.