Tango in Plaza Bellavista

I was sitting on a bench, reading the novel House of Spirits by Isabel Allende. The vivid descriptions of post WWI Chile gave life to the dry political and economic history I had been reading, and I was completely immersed. My revere was broken as the sound of accordion and strings, the unmistakable sound of the tango, burst from from a tinny boom box a few feet away. I looked up to see a stunningly gorgeous couple begin to dance.

I had started my day with my spirits low. After a burst of activity and meeting people when I first got to Valpo, that momentum has been lagging. I often feel like an outsider and the place where i´m staying, in large part because so often I can´t understand what people are saying, especially when its a big group of old friend talking fast and joking around. Though I keep hearing of interesting social projects, I have not yet find something to get involved in, so I end up with more free time that I would like. On top of that, I dearly miss my baby, who will be arriving in Santiago very soon, but never soon enough.

So as I watched dance after incredibly beautiful dance and happily threw few coins into the old derby they passed around, I was grateful for a reminder of why I travel.

Valparaiso

I´ve been back and forth to Santiago a couple of times now, but most of my time has been in Valparaiso, or Valpo.  Supposedly Chile´s cultural capitol, Valpo is jam packed with artists.  There are murals everywhere, street theater all over the place, and jugglers at every stoplight.
I´ve been hangoing out a lot at Casa TIAO, an "okupa" or squat.  Its been going on for about 2 years now, has water, electricity, and a pretty public image, they have shows there all the time that are widely advertised.  they have huge ceilings, rigging for 4 different aerial aparatus at once, space to juggle, etc etc. its great, someone will be randomly walking through the living room, jump up to the trapeze and bust out some moves, then hop down and continue ontheir way.  in some ways its amazing how similar it is to scenes in portland, the bay, etc; the partially shaved heads, the circo-punk style, but in other ways very latin amreican.  it is more diverse than scenes i´ve seen in the states.  the jugglers here are pretty amazing.  its a way to make
money, juggling at stoplights, so they learn it early and get good fast.

Threre was just an independent theater festival, mix of street theater and independent venues (like the okupa and a converted factory among others), i ended up with a bit part on one of the street peices which was really fun.  I got pulled into one of the shows, and played a crazy doctor in El Mimo Tuga´s street show.  

I´m staying on the other side of town, in Taller El Litre, a metal fabrication shop and hangout of traveler/circus types.  Its run by a crazy guy called Tio Willy and his wife.  I´m living in a theater set peice, halfway up a hill.  Its on a strip about 12 feet wide, with a 15 foot retaining wall above and another below.  Did I mention Valpo has a lot of hills?  Really steep ones too.  There´s about a dozen "ascensor"s, or elevators, built at the turn of the century (starting in the 1800s that is) that take you up the side of a hill on railroad tarcks.

Now, i'm off to the okupa to practice some acro and aerials with folks I've met here.

Hitchiking in Chile

I've been in Valparaiso for about a week.  I dedided to head in to Santiago (1 1/2 hours away) to see a couple of shows, part of a huge international theater festival going on the month of January.  I was with a new friend, Jackie, a contortionist from Portland, and her friend Morgan.  It didnt take long for a car to pull over and give us a ride into the city.  The driver, a very nice clean cut man about 30, turned out to be a prison guard returning from work.  We kept a good converstaion going and when we got to the city he invited us to join him for lunch.  We stopped at his house for a drink, then drove around the corner to the Police Officer's Social Club.  In the restaurant, we had to rearange our seating arrangements so that those of us with sandals (not allowed in the restaurant) would not be visable to those entering.   After our lunch, our guide continued to drive us around the city, to the museum, to the internet cafe, to the park.  Finally he got tired (he had worked the night shift the night before) and dropped us off and went home.

Our return trip was not as unexpected, but quite friendly.  After being passed by a funeral procession (the hearse driver gave us a huge goofy grin and hand signals something like "normally i´d pick you up, but i got this guy in the back..."), we got a ride in a vegetable truck, straight to the market in downton Valpo.

Santiago de Chile

I arrived in SCL at 5:30 AM after nearly 24 hours of traveling. Aside from customs finding my trail mix (and having to sign a total of 5 statements acknowledging my failure to declare my dried fruit, authorizing its seizure and destuction, and agreeing that i´m damn lucky that they didnt slap my ass in jail) my entrance to Chile was smooth. I made my way to Hostal Don Santiago, my new home for 5 days. I found this place on couchsurfing.com; Pato, the manager of the hostal invited me to stay there free of chage.

I passed out for about 7 hours, and got up in time for the new years eve dinner hosted by Pato and Diego, an employee at the hostal. Then we went out to watch the fireworks and celebrate in the street with thousands of chileans. I almost went to be after that, but instead I ended up at a bar with some germans, drinking with Pato back at the hostal, then catching a cab to a club at around 4, dancing for a couple hours, and finally returning to the hostal to pass out.

I spent the next couple days recovering. Finally, I feel like myself again. I bought new juggling clubs here, after leaving my old ones at my friend´s place in Oakland. They´re pretty sweet, and cheap too, about 9 bucks each.

I´m sticking around for juggle club tomorrow, then on to Valparaiso on monday.

Cancun Sucks

Obviously.

I spent last week in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas. It is a sweet town, lots of live music, art, circus, international flavor, and generally cool people. Unfortunately, i spent most of my time resting up and hoping the microbes in my gut would stop giving me hell, after about 5 days resorting to extreme pharmochemical measures. The worst part was seeing so much good food, after the blandness of Guatemalan cuisine, and not being able to eat anything richer than pancakes and rice and boiled bananas.

Next stop was supposed to be Tulum, a small town a couple hours south of Cancun where I was going to camp on the beach and hang out. Unfortunately, the 16 hour bus ride, made even longer when the bus broke down and it took 4 hours before a new one came to get us, rolled through Tulum at around 6 AM with me passed out. So straight to Cancun it was.

Its my last day here, and i´m quite glad i´m not here for longer, i´d be bored to tears. Aside from drinking and partying, there´s very little to do. I went to the mercado this morning, usually that's an interesting excursion, but found it to be just a big souvenir fair! I don't know if there´s a real mercado in Cancun or not, but I guess why do you need the mercado when you´ve got a Wal-Mart? The beach is an endless strip of hotels and condos, to even get to it you pretty much have to cut through a construction site or hope you don't get harassed walking through a hotel lobby.

A rather anticlimactic end to the trip. That´s ok, I´m ready to get settled in Bellingham for another stretch. Summer is just around the corner!

Animales! Malabaristas! Payasos!

I arrived in Flores yesterday. Flores is the closest sizable town to Tikkal (Guatemala´s most famous Mayan site, I will be visiting it tomorrow) and as such is quite touristy. On the way in, I noticed the tents of Circo Barley, and decided that i´d have to check it out. I made my way down there for the last show of the weekend, and was accosted at the door by an endearingly obnoxious israeli lady in her 50´s, asking if I could translate. She needed to know if it was a good show, what types of animals there were, and said that if the show turned out not to be good she would come back and kill the ticket lady. Since the tickets were two for one that day, I went in and sat with her for the amusement and the half price ticket.

The show was a mixed bag, but overall well worth the $2.60. (Non circus freaks, please forgive the play by play here.) They opened with flying trapeze, which was quite impressive simply for the amount of space it took up in the small tent. The level was not especially high, but it was well presented, and the 7 or 8 year old boy did very well. After a clown bit was the areal fabric act. The first few moves were things that I can do (which means that they´re pretty basic). After that though, she flubbed her way through a couple rather complicated drops. Her form was deplorable, but really, overall it was a very impressive performance for a 10 year old. Her size was also an advantage because it meant that she could be raised and lowered by two guys, without the need of a winch.

The juggler was top notch. He kept aloft 5 clubs, 7 rings, and 4 sombreros, with that flashy spinny style, epitomized by his low 4 club triple shower while running around the ring. And he even had a lovely assistant. After an intermission and some more clown bits (given the language barrier, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt). I did see something that i´ve never seen before: head balancing on a trapeze, static and swinging, and with ring spinning on his hands.

The animal part of the show was a bit sad. Thankfully, there were not tigers or elephants, just a couple tired horses that could jump over a low rail and put their front hooves up on the ring curb for a pose. The llama was actually the most talented of the three. (The advertised monkeys were absent, but i saw them clambering around the bleachers after the show).

The young aerialist returned for a hula hoop act that was actually quite impressive. The finale act, the wheel of death (yes, this is the technical term) was again, not technically top level, but still quite watchable and impressive.

Senderismo en el Region Ixil

I just got back from hiking in the mountains surrounding Nebaj. A few years ago, the Spanish NGO Solidaridad Internacional set up the region´s ecotourism by installing posadas comunidades in many small villages where hikers can get a bed and meals, and by publishing hiking guides and maps. We (myself and a German traveler I hung out with a few days) followed the guidebook and walked out of Nebaj on a foot path through fields, pastures, and forest. We climbed up the hillside, getting a good view of the town, passed through one village and hiked on to the the community of Xexocom for the night. The last part of the walk was on a new dirt road that had been completed just 15 days ago, allowing vehicle access to the village for the first time ever. The village has a stream running just below it, so there was plenty of water for crops; the surrounding fields were lush and green.

Xexocom means "at the foot of the mountain," which is quite apt. It as actually surrounded by mountains on three sides. The next day after breakfast we hit the trail, straight up the switchbacks, climbing about 1000 meters in not many kilos. We had reached the altiplano, a dry (at least this time of year), rocky area with few trees. The villages in the altiplano subsist mainly by grazing sheep. Just past the crest of the hill we reached a small village of about 30 families. We were spotted at a distance by a kid and soon a mob of about 30 kids we clambering over the rocks to check us out. They would run away laughing when we got near. We made our way into the village proper, amidst chickens, pigs, turkeys, the kids lurking around the corner of houses (the bold ones coming out to say "Hola"), and a few people going about their business or hanging around the village's one tienda (store). We were greeted, in english, by a young man in flashy new clothes. Rather out of place. It took us a few exchanges to realize that he was really speaking english and answered him that way, not just a few catch phrases like many young Guatemalans. It turned out that he had just returned the day before from Ohio, after working (illegally) in the states for 4 years, to visit his wife and daughter before heading back north.

We continued on to the next village (also accessible only by foot) where we spent the night. The guidebook had said that we could buy purified water in the villages, but they were sadly mistaken. The tiendas, either a tiny wooden shack or a few shelves in somebody´s living room, sold mostly food and a few necessities, not a drop of water to be had. We got the family with whom we ate our meals to boil us some water. Until we returned to Nebaj, we enjoyed "auga pura" with authentic smoke flavor.

It is worth mentioning that communication was very difficult in the villages. The majority of people spoke little or no spanish. More than half of Guatemalans speak one of some 40 Mayan languages as their first language, and while education, including spanish language, is guaranteed to all citizens, the reality in remote areas does not quite meet this mandate. The partiarchs of the villages spoke decent spanish, but with such a thick accent that my paltry level of spanish was only sufficient for the most basic of communication.

The next day´s hike took us back down into the valley, the landscape returned to lush and green. Having grown tired of a diet of noodles in broth (with occasional egg) and tortillas for breakfast and dinner, and agua fumada, we hitched a ride in the back of a pickup, along another brand new dirt road, back to Nebaj. On the way we passed a bus with several live sheep standing within the confines of the roof rack.