la vida de viaje

king cannavaro, il capitano

2010-05-21T15:35:00.000-07:00

19 days until the FIFA World Cup in South Africa...

...and 18 until I land in London.

I can't wait for the day when Rooney is a caravan dwelling, pork 'n beans sludge-slopping gypsy.

FORZA AZZURRI!!!

lamentations

2010-01-25T01:24:00.000-08:00

This last week I booked my tickets to South Africa for this summer's FIFA World Cup with a stop over in mainland Europe + the UK to visit some friends.

But after seeing this video today...

I am already having some major regrets while also realizing that I should be going to Japan... for a lot cheaper too (at least for the flight portion of the trip).

The following exhibits permeated my life today palpitating my Oriental longing.

Sweet trucks.

Sweet sausage roll pizza.

Sweet Justice plus hot saus. Or maybe I'd rather be in France come June?

gigi...

2010-01-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

...ti amo.

HEI BELLA! You too la mia Puma.

drudgery

2009-12-15T00:09:00.000-08:00

Sun shines cozy gold,
the sky beams brilliant blue,
while I sit inside,
toiling the daylight away.

Published in the December issue of Four and Twenty : A Short Form Poetry Journal.

Download it here.

feeling the fall turn

2009-11-17T01:07:00.002-08:00

Tripping over abandoned railroad tracks, stumbling amongst the obscure docks and semis and delivery vans. Criss-crossing the hulking metal ghosts, spent for the night. The tide rolls gently in and out. Irregular waves echo, pulled not by gravity but propelled by benzine, lightly rumbling along I-84 led by incandescent winking.

The rain tears imperceptibly, streaming gracefully through the cylindrical, amber halos created by bare bulbs. My gaze drawn up to witness this natural eloquence, my eye bats and flickers with the liquid bolt between my lashes. The drops keep falling, cooling, refreshing.

Silence. Relative to the club and deafening boom. The only moment of peace. Solitude. After so many bodies and voices.

A place where I can let go of gravity. Let my body melt into the asphalt. A placid spot in a concrete jungle. The bustle only stops for an instant, even in the madrugada.

Looming warehouses, bleating sirens. Awake. Serenity can't survive here.

hondureña

2009-11-04T23:18:00.005-08:00

Yes, I googled "hondureña" today, and what have we learned?

1) Hondureñas are sexy, especially when filled with beans and cheese.

2) Financial services are important to Hondureñas.

3) Cervezas are important to Hondureñas. I recommend Port Royal, the only one that comes in a green bottle.

Have a look for yourself, there are videos further down.

why...

2009-10-19T15:19:00.001-07:00

Do I take thousands of photographs and then neglect to even view them for years? Here's some Italia nostalgia on my Flickr page.

Mi mancano le belle giornate pieno di sole e vino rosso.

bon voyage

2009-10-14T17:11:00.000-07:00

home

2009-10-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

pastels

2009-10-08T17:09:00.001-07:00

eye spy

2009-10-03T07:34:00.000-07:00

Dark, empty windows stare blankly across the dull steel sea with pairs of vacant eyes deeply set in aged facades, vacuous minds impaired by scant use. Homogenized rows of faces, void of identity, stained synthetic earth tones – beige and sepia, cream and chestnut, trimmed evergreen and topped with rough slate – that stand out sorely against peat shores. Lanky firs with bare trunks point like hors d'oeuvre toothpicks garnished with daubs of greenery to clustered rooftops below. The fog lazily seeps down from a high, enveloping the dwellings, lulling unlit corners to fall into a frozen, dreamless, daytime oblivion.

Nocturnal beings blink awake as the gloaming descends. Four, fifteen, fifty pairs of eyes pierce the black night. Peering, spying beacons that cast peppered reflections all the way to my toes. Thinking unknown thoughts, living behind flickering luminescence only to fade again at dawn's first gray streaks.

looking glass

2009-09-30T14:15:00.001-07:00

sea salt

2009-09-26T14:14:00.000-07:00

divergent

2009-09-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

five minutes

2009-09-20T13:48:00.001-07:00

soup

2009-09-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

paparazzi squall

2009-09-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

Flash bulbs, splash bulbs constantly snapping. Tongues cluck-cluck-clucking against the roof of a hundred mouths ringing a hundred muffled sloshes a second.

A giant with a fistful of chalky, gray stones skipping them all at once, fast as shooting stars across the night sea. Over and over again, producing ripples of whitewater.

Or just countless glimmering, silver herring bellies hopping and flopping like lightening bolts, lit by a full moon through sheer cloud cover.

xtratuf

2009-09-15T13:28:00.001-07:00

the hunt

2009-09-12T14:06:00.002-07:00

Awoken at midnight in a war zone. Distant musket blasts rumbled in the still, moonless air. I cautiously climbed the cold, iron ladder tightly grasping each gray rung where chipped paint revealed spots rusted by the damp, salty environment.

Exposed and wishing I'd not left the cozy comfort of my bunk below, or at least that I'd put on pants, I gazed across the dark waters and into the fog banks drifting like sleeping ghosts, gently pushed by the fragile breeze.

The shots came closer. Echoes crossed the flat sea, passed through my body, and continued for the island behind me. And with them signals of misty smoke rose vertically from the water's surface. An underwater bunker of hidden humpbacks. Firing bursts of oxygen followed by fumes of wet, fishy eruptions.

I crawled back down into the fo'c'sle burrowing deeper into my bed, disappearing under a patch of scratchy, crimson wool to sounds of breathing, nighttime exhalations, steady and rhythmic in the inky gloom. And the echoes bounced off the walls of my cave as my eyes gave in.

A gray day marred by lingering fog masked my surroundings. A magician versed in misdirection deftly camouflaged rocky beaches with smokescreens and threw noises from contradictory directions. "Now you see it, now you don't," murmured the morning as ships vanished and shores materialized.

Yet the battle outside the bay waged on despite the poor visibility. One, two, three blows announced a presence in the canal. Boasting, warning neighbors.

As the day marched on, a mirror fell across the sea. And looking into this glass I saw an azure sky flanked by billowy clouds made somber only by hints of remaining, sooty moisture. Clouds above an eerie calm. Complete stillness abruptly broken by hushed gasps. Long, sputtering puffs moving nearby.

A sudden explosion. A 40-ton torpedo surfaced with a mighty spray and fell clapping the water. The roar hit my ears with the force of trees snapping like twigs, gunshots cracking in the tranquil afternoon.

Were the giants surrendering or celebrating?

Mammoth heads rose bearing chins pocked with pallid tubercles. Spyhopping to reveal half of their bodies, only to bellyflop with a whooshing splash. Breaching and rolling like dizzy children, playfully misting one another with gushing blows. Long pectoral fins sliced while white bellies gleamed triumphantly in the shimmering waters.

Feeding, whirling, dancing, twirling. "This is just a game," they declared. And once they'd tired of their victory cavalcade, raised flukes receded below the sea and the troop swam on.

out to sea

2009-09-10T14:01:00.001-07:00

sea smoke

2009-09-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

the sea bleeds green

2009-09-05T12:42:00.002-07:00

And it's not that mysterious sea green of unknown, emerald depths but an artificial toxic green. Waves of toxicity, a wholly unnatural slick of luminescent green in the pitch night.

Her undulating surface is a magic tablet, a touch screen of life where every slight depression creates a living, glowing reaction.

Every tear of misting rain punctures the sea, stimulating thousands of pressure points and triggering her to come alive, radiating pinpricks of synthetic green and gold.

Each perforation is a miniature underwater mine blast. A living fireshow complete with pyrotechnic explosions and invisible hands waving sparklers, painting vanishing pictures, writing hidden names beneath the sea. Emotive flashes that last just fractions of a second. And quickly dissolve.

Just the moon playing a nighttime trick? Making refracted light masquerade before my eyes?

But then the wind blows, and the ocean bleeds unmistakably. Every glacial chill touches a million points and she responds with fine lines of faint and brilliant luster. Silken cobwebs powder the blowing swells and flow along the ripples.

Hordes of aquatic lightening bugs buzz and surge across wave rips, each piercing, an acupuncture prick trickling one more incandescent lime drop into the waters. Trying to slowly cleanse and calm the restless.

It's no trick. And the moon plays along, disrupting her majesty sea all night long. Twirling his moonbeams across her beckoning curls while she flutters her flickering eyelashes, tossing, turning, tormented. Until he fades stealthily, she continues bleeding, only placating with the climbing, embracing sun.

Why she allows herself to suffer for such a careless voyeur, you can ask her tonight.

guardian

2009-09-02T14:00:00.001-07:00

blink

2009-08-31T14:20:00.001-07:00

I've never looked a whale right in the eye. Really made eye contact, really bored into its soul.

I've never had enough time to see into that immense, glassy eye like a bowling ball. Really, they've never given me the time. Really, it's not their fault. I'm going my way and they're going theirs.

But I've heard staring into a whale's eye is a thrilling experience, an emotive moment. There's a connection. Communication. I've heard.

It's not like vapid adoration in the eyes of a labrador or the blank, winking stare of an iguana or the calculating, mischievous crescents of a calico cat that we're used to. Not like that at all. So they say.

That eye pierces. It's life changing, I've heard.

A behemoth mammal. Plodding along yet close enough to offer a salutation. Close enough to spot pallid barnacles like freckles across a flat nose. Close enough to see natural black rivets in the leathery hull ofa living submarine.

A dinosaur of a beast yet elegant. So large that each movement lasts for ages. A slick humpback breaking the surface followed by its boomerang tail gradually disappearing before diving deep.

The chance to glimpse that pupil is fleeting, passing. Just like the pod across my bow.

But for the chance to peer into that sphere, to share a connection, to watch synapses spark. Let that eye bore into mine. It's captivating, or so I've heard.

It captivates my thoughts.

karluk

2009-08-29T14:01:00.001-07:00

goodnight

2009-08-25T13:15:00.000-07:00

good morning

2009-08-21T13:59:00.001-07:00

( between ) two worlds

2009-08-18T13:25:00.001-07:00

Like snowflakes, no two are alike. And like the artificial sleet in a snow globe, they drift idly in suspended space, quivering inside a living gelatin.

This flood of velum-thin salmon scraps is flushed from the dock back out to sea. One species waste is another's feast.

Thousands of gray specks bob on a swelling emerald and cobalt landscape below an evergreen mountain and cyan sky.

But my eye is drawn to the flutters, swoops, and dives of aggressive, thieving gulls. Black-faced with sharp ebony beaks, white-faced with golden beaks, white-faced with black beaks, or soot-speckled seabirds.

A little skimmer must battle the flocks for a nip of milky, floating flesh. Buoying on an air current he selects a target. He bombs nimbly and with a flash of flaps he dips his bill to emerge dangling a stringy treasure. He swallows in two rapid, choking gulps while fending off vicious competitors out to steal his prize. Bigger and stronger rivals attempt to stay a flight slapping their coral-red feet along the surface while those thoroughly beaten simply alight onto the sea.

Gulls that have gotten their fill lay alongside the frothy path that leads out of the bay with the tide. The crowd chatters and giggles like lunatics in an asylum. Cawing and crying as wings audibly cut the crisp yet faintly slimy air.

And on the other side of this transparency feed cannibalistic pink salmon, slithering amongst the powder in the snow globe occasionally breaking the plane between air and aqua with spontaneous, surging hops.

But a lone, fallen, ash-tipped feather swirls, dances amid the debris, peaceful between two frenetic, carnivorous, swarming worlds.

summertime

2009-08-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

king

2009-08-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

jumping humpy

2009-07-31T18:48:00.000-07:00

What's it like to see it rain falling on an unbroken ocean plane in reverse?

The drops rise unseen to break the surface, leaving dilating concentric rings while disappearing back into the gray mist above. But before vanishing they lose vertical momentum and slap harshly, crashing through the dark glass.

Impervious to rapidly transforming fissures and commotion above, schools hover below, almost frozen in time and space, except for a slight flutter of tails to maintain their position as the tide ebbs.

A select few leap high and land gracefully, sliding smoothly into the water with silent gusto. The rest arc awkwardly and crack the sea with a cacophony of smacks and thwacks as soft bellies are pummeled by the hard edge of the frigid sea.

My peripheral vision is full of inky shapes blotting the ocean and charcoal mountains. I can't distinguish between swooping birds and sailing fish. Both inhabit a space just mere inches above the undulating tide.

And when their silhouettes mix I don't know which has soared and which has sunk.

seeker seal

2009-07-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

Who's it here?

I know we're playing hide-and-seek, but you've reversed the rules. Cheeky. You find me first and then wait patiently for me to find you.

I can feel your obsidian eyes on me. I scan the surface from port to starboard while bobbing on glassy swells in a pea-green, pea pod kayak.

A liquid screen rolls and then falls and our eyes lock. You give me mere seconds before you slip back under, away.

The sea shivers beneath me. I swivel my head, searching the kelp blooms. You spot me. I see you.

Are you as curious about me as I am about you? I hope so. But you're gone before I can ask.

I paddle one, three, five brief strokes towards your last hiding place. Where are you now? To my right? My left? Behind me. I spin a quick circle leaving a halo wake.

You're quicker. Closer, farther away. Left, right. Could you really be that quick? Or is this a trick?

One bullet-shaped, bald head pops up for a peak on my left. Another whiskered muzzle crests on my right. I knew you had a friend along.

Let's just play a little longer.

xip

2009-07-25T20:04:00.001-07:00

playful porpoises

2009-07-24T00:32:00.001-07:00

Who knew a bowling pin was so graceful. Elegant even. Sleek, aerodynamic lines. Perfect for dancing ballet along the bow. Nose first, effortlessly matching our pace.

Pins that bounce erratically in an imaginary pinball machine just below the waves. Crocheting underwater patterns. Looping inside-out then outside-in. Crisscrossing before tearing seams with glossy, ebony dorsal fins.

All this natural weaving, even with a bit of proud dramatics. Three surfacing side-by-side into the salty air. Dipping, diving to do it again. Darting to and fro, zig-zagging above and below one another. And the ever grandiose side spin to bare that white belly.

Show offs.

bear nugget

2009-07-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

for her

2009-07-20T19:58:00.000-07:00

don't shoot

2009-07-18T19:56:00.002-07:00

milipiés

2009-06-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

vino de mora

2009-06-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

burro de dios

2009-06-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

vaqueritos

2009-06-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

vaqueros

2009-06-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

hermanos

2009-06-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

pescadería

2009-06-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

el lavadero

2009-06-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

tampico

2009-06-01T14:44:00.001-07:00

la lava

2009-05-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

cadena alimenticia

2009-05-25T14:30:00.002-07:00

mr chris y su padre

2009-05-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

nacho

2009-05-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

gracias

2009-05-12T16:22:00.000-07:00

an evening in the life

2009-04-22T17:56:00.004-07:00

Honduras is a linen sky stained with cherries hanging above a pocked road covered in a fine layer of gray powder with loose stones scattered about. The blushing air is obscured by a perpetually lingering haze that ominously fills the horizon crisscrossed by wires as the rosé atmosphere melts into jagged, indigo ridges below and smatterings of dirty, swollen clouds above.

Children grin, hailing, "¡Hola! Hello! Gringo!" Women gawk while men shoot by in trucks with blaring horns leaving a suffocating blanket of dust behind. Dumbfounded cows wander along the roadside oblivious to the speeding, rattling vehicles that hurtle by.

Each stride becomes more precarious as the light fades, and the steady whirring, clicking, and croaking cacophony of insects fills the cool, breezy air like an infinite, humming electric current.

Dirty-faced, barefoot girls pad along behind, keeping pace down the hill until they reach the bridge. Then it's time to turn around, climbing back home, "¡Adios!"

Misshapen wooden posts wrapped in endless spans of barbed wire stand alongside verdurous pines whose fallen amber needles fill the air with their scent reminiscent of Oregon summers along mountain passes.

The inky outlines of massive aluminum sheds dent the skyline with their expansive concrete slabs carpeted with milky, yellow beans line the wayside.

On the outskirts, fields of shimmering obsidian and silver flutter in the breeze lit by the distant, burning lemon glow, flickering between beaming and dull, refracted illumination. Above these polyethylene fields, incapable of decay, blink swarms of natural, neon brilliance tracing curves and shapes in the obscurity like streaking, July sparklers. Glimmering green and gold flares of lightening dip and dive between trees signaling that the rainy season is approaching.

Honduras is sitting in a cardinal, plastic chair writing by a wavering flame as the liquid wax cascades down the profile of the emerald wine bottle set upon a wobbly lawn table in my backyard beneath the stars, screams of children, and surrounded by the purr of various winged communities.

Aprovecharlo.

bienvenidos a san marcos

2009-04-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

enrobed

2009-04-13T15:57:00.000-07:00

el signo

2009-04-10T13:42:00.002-07:00

emergency equipment inside

2009-04-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

burger queen

2009-04-01T15:56:00.001-07:00

tu comodidad es nuestro sueño

2009-03-29T15:55:00.001-07:00

golazo

2009-03-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

mi casa blanca

2009-03-23T16:02:00.001-07:00

la tienda

2009-03-20T15:05:00.001-07:00

physical change

2009-03-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

alambres

2009-03-17T15:15:00.000-07:00

bolsa de agua

2009-03-15T15:00:00.001-07:00

fisica

2009-03-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

mi calle

2009-03-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

se venden tortillas aqui

2009-03-07T14:59:00.000-08:00

verduras

2009-03-05T14:54:00.000-08:00

carne azada

2009-03-03T14:26:00.002-08:00

sabo en el campo

2009-02-28T14:09:00.001-08:00

los perros en la sombra

2009-02-26T14:06:00.001-08:00

ruinas copán

2009-02-25T14:32:00.000-08:00

mini super toñitos

2009-02-22T14:08:00.001-08:00

pulperia

2009-02-21T14:14:00.001-08:00

mr chris

2009-02-20T15:01:00.000-08:00

elvin

2009-02-19T13:53:00.001-08:00

beer run

2009-02-17T14:39:00.008-08:00

Let's begin with a little clarification: This was a vino run.

Amanda and I decided we'd take a day trip to Santa Rosa de Copán today. It's basically the commercial capital of Western Honduras and everything you can't find in San Marcos is in the stores and markets up north.

After sleeping in and lolling about the house we made it out of town around 12.30 or so. As we approached the Dippsa (gas station), surprisingly, there was a bus leaving for Santa Rosa. (Normally you have to hitch out to the desvío for a bus.) It's crammed with market-goers and scorching outside today. Should we get on?

No. Let's jalón. Thumb out.

Ride to San Francisco del Valle. Thumb out. Ride to the desvío along the highway. I flag down a black SUV. It's Dr. Miguel. His daughters go the Green Valley School and they're going to Cucuyauga, half-way to Santa Rosa. Good enough.

Awkward car ride. Dr. Miguel who normally chatters constantly hardly says a word but rather listens to the Bee Gees. The girls stare blankly out the windows and act like they don't even know us nor respond to our questions and banter. Although tomorrow at school they'll be bragging about how they gave Mister Chris and Miss Amanda a ride yesterday.

Have you eaten lunch? No, but we had a late breakfast. Would you like to eat lunch with us? Okay.

Now we naturally assume: It is a Sunday afternoon. They're driving a half hour or so away to eat lunch. Probably have family in Cucuyagua and it'll be a nice meal with some Hondureños.

Right?

Wrong.

We stop at a gas station. But not to get gas. Maybe they own the station and the house is out back.

Wrong again.

It's just the Comedor Internacional where you find fried chicken, fried fish, and something that appears to be barbeque ham under hot lamps. Astonishingly uninternational.

Awkward lunch. No one wants to say anything. Isa, the most hyperactive second grader in the school, is eerily calm poking at her fried fish and ketchup splattered papas fritas. Come here often? Yes. Do you have family here in Cucuyagua? No. We just drove out here for lunch.

Thank you very much, we're on to Santa Rosa. No. I insist that I give you a ride back into the center of Cucuyagua.

Thumb out. It's worse hitching a ride here since lots of people are only going a few more minutes to their homes. Ah, look at the good graces bestowed upon us by the gods of El Salvador.

Where are you from? El Salvador. I know I saw the plates on your car. Bravo. The capital.

It's refreshing to have an educated conversation an always-amiable Salvadoreño. He doesn't normally pick up hitchhikers... well not locals anyways. We looked like Europeans or something. That was his excuse. He works in San Pedro Sula. Educating people. Creating a Central American Union. A business network, trade organizations. Working with the European Union to cultivate this. Talked politics, culture. Interesting guy.

Here we are in Santa Rosa. Cost = 0 Lempiras. Bonus = Free lunch?

Buy some household stuff at the BIG supermarket. Just about the same size and containing much of the same content found in American stores. Cross the street to the real market.

Disappointment. With the extra time we spent at almuerzo the show is pretty much over. Oh well. Walk up into town. Sundays are dead. We lazily walk about, sit in the plaza mayor, wander around the church. Back to the bus depot. Cross the street into the supermarket. Gonna buy some vino and some Argentine beer. We approach the checkout.

Fiasco. And not just the bottle. Two bottles of wine tapped together do not cost the price on the sticker. They cost their own individual prices but you can have this miniature bottle for free.

No thanks. I'll go grab a different bottle of wine.

Next ordeal: These bottles have a sign that says they're en oferta for 138 Limps. [Uncomprehending stare.] There's a sign back there that says this brand of wine is on sale. Can you bring me the sign? Sure. [Less understanding than before.] Another worker: No, a different bottle of wine of this brand is on sale. (This is specified nowhere). Okay, fine.

Make another trip back to the wine aisle to get the correct bottle of wine. Pay. Check receipt. (One of the first times I've ever had one in Honduras.) Put in backpack.

Cross street. Bus is leaving for San Marcos. Cost = 40 Limps. Pass. Thumb out.

Ride to Santa Teresa, the next town over. Thumb out.

Frenzied ride with ballistic driver and his gray mother in the back of his candy blue '87 pickup. Out in Cucuyagua. Bus we passed earlier is just pulling in. Cost = 20 Limps. Okay.

It's packed and I get the last seat in the very back of the bus next to a congenial Hondureño who's heading to Guatemala. Note: All of my friends have been telling me how impressed they are with my español progress, but I think they're just being nice. And Hondureños say the same but they're also being polite or trying to sell me something. But today I could see my progression as we talked continuously for an hour or more, mostly about la naturaleza--beautiful places to visit in Honduras and many of the crops raised (or no longer grown like sugar cane because it's not profitable enough) in Western Honduras as we flew by the fields--till we pulled up to the desvío outside San Marcos.

Adiós.

Yellow school bus arrives for the last leg into town. Cost = 15 Limps. A royal rip off for the transitory ride. I'll jalón next time.

¿Tiene hambre? We got some meat, veggies and tortillas from some girls across from the Dippsa.

I've never put so much effort into buying booze before. Should be delicious.

lavame

2009-02-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

diez centavos

2009-02-15T13:48:00.001-08:00

la tapia del fango

2009-02-13T14:00:00.000-08:00

la montaña

2009-02-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

al anochecida

2009-02-10T14:12:00.000-08:00

Pablo took us on a trek as dusk approached.

Maggie, Hailey, and I followed Pablo over and under barbed wire fences, through rocky terrain and bushes, up small peaks and down the following valleys. Across Pablo's fields where we picked orange-tinged limes from his trees, past cocoa plants and banana trees, and between bushy stalks where crimson, ripening coffee hulls grew, each containing a slimy, cream-colored bean inside.

Maggie is a Peace Corps volunteer who works with Pablo to protect nature reserves and solve environmental or pollution problems like the dumping of fermented coffee waste into the waterways.

Pablo knows everything along the way, from the biology of all the vegetation to the symbiotic nature of some plants. Even a shrub with a spiky, orange orb covered in a fine hair; it's called huevos de gato or cat balls.

Descending to the waterfall, climbing up on the rocks, and perching atop as small, black specks circle above our heads in the ever-darkening blue gap between the trees.

Las golondrinas, for which the falls are named, start to dive. Time to nest. Sparrow after sparrow shoots through the narrow chasm past our heads to hover just before the crashing chute of water. With skill and agility the sparrows maneuver expertly into the crevices in the porous rock. Burrowing into their dens for the night. Then they momentarily reappear, chattering and darting between houses, floating in front of the cascading falls.

The string of golondrinas going home for the night surges and slows continuously, seemingly endless. It's now getting quite dark and I'm thinking we should begin the hike back. But the ever-accomodating Pablo has brought a can of manzana juice for each of us and a snack of Sour Cream & Onion Pringles.

We make our way over the dark trail avoiding cow piles and uneven ground up towards the road, a simpler route back in the night. Crossing a stream the cacophony of croaking drowns out the gurgling tributary. Maggie's sure they are an endangered species and we spy the pulsating throats bulge and flutter casting bulbous shadows on the rocks behind.

The road back passes cows grazing in slivers of moonlight and the cemetery outside San Marcos. Why not take a stroll through? Colorful tombs, extravagantly decorated in a way unique to Latin American countries, contain multiple corpses. When the plots fill up, the old bodies are moved but by then the bones are so fragile that they disintegrate into dust as soon as they're touched.

Back onto the dirt roads of San Marcos and home we go.

el ladrillo

2009-02-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

la pulperia en la casa

2009-02-06T13:55:00.001-08:00

la amanecida

2009-02-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

vamanos de jalón

2009-02-03T13:46:00.006-08:00

After 2 weeks of working 6 days, a FULL 2 day weekend was much anticipated. Let's get out of dusty, drab San Marcos. Finally.

Destination: El Zonte, el sol y la playa en El Salvador. Bueno.

Step One: Teach your kids kickball along with Miss Kari Anna's class. The last 2 periods of the day are fisica and she'll be the umpire so we can get outta town a little earlier.

Step Two: Start walking down the road that leads out of town to the desvío. Post up by one of the massive speedbumps and throw out your thumb. A cherry SUV stops and we cram into the back seat, Amanda and I on the seats with Hailey and our packs on top.

Step Three: Jump out at the highway crossroad as your red ride turns east. Luckily coming west right now is a bus. Ask and it's going to Nueva Ocotepeque. Board the world's slowest bus, which chugs up and over Güisayote and then crawls down the other side into town. Catch a taxi to El Poy, the border.

Step Four: Cross the border, exchange money to dollars. USD. Yes, El Salvador technically uses a bimonetary system of United States Dollars and the Salvadorian Colon. Translation: the Salvadorian Colon no longer exists. It's only $$$.

Step Five: Find next ride. Bus to San Salvador doesn't leave for another 40 minutes, maybe. Put that thumb back out. This time a white pick-up truck. Climb in the bed alongside a wheelchair. The wind blowing through my hair and the sun on my arms and legs feels so much better than a bumpy, stuffy, smoggy bus. Time flies as we pass through San Ignancio and La Palma making a pitstop for fresh fruit. Carlos, Rosa, and their little boy treat us to watermelon, mandarinas, and a massive papaya. Fresh cut and eaten from white plastic bags. Back on the road the orange nectar runs down our faces and hands as we demolish the sweet fruit. As we're getting close to San Salvador, I tell them we need to La Libertad next. Carlos is from there and that's exactly where they're heading too. Another guy joins us in the truck bed. We can't believe our suerte and our amazing jalón from Carlos. He finds out we want to be in El Zonte and insists on taking us the whole way there. The sun sets as we cruise towards the coast.

Step Six: Jump outta the truck, thank Carlos profusely and we get his number. Lago de Coatepeque is in the area and he'd love to show us that next time. Walk towards the sound of crashing waves. Check into our amazing hostel, 12 bucks a night. Hammocks sprout from palm trees that line perfectly manicured grass. Thatched roofs shade outdoor bars and lounging areas where more hammocks are as plentiful as the sand. Up an iron spiral staircase where patches of rust show through the chipped green paint we find our beds that look out onto to el mar. Order some food, mar y tierra, before their kitchens closes and sit on tiled area below our room. Casually sip Pilsners and talk lazily until...

Step Seven: Andrés and Carlos, friends from San Salvador, arrive. Andrés picked me up from the airport when I flew in and drove us all over town so we owe him a few drinks. But they've already brought plenty of their own. Talk life, politics, music. Then begin the drinking games. Culturas chupisticas. Translation: Culture suckers. It's identical to categories. Choose a theme and name everything you can under that topic. Brands of shoes: Nike, Adidas, Puma, on and on. Beer runs out, everyone at the hostel is asleep, everything in El Zonte is closed.

Step Eight: You know you don't need more beer when you have to drive 20 km to get it. But apparently that's never how it seems in the moment. Back to the beach and onto the sand with our 6 packs. Stare at the stars shining in the sky above the dark ocean. Black palms and rocks meet the horizon as the tide ceaselessly pushes and pulls at the beach. Play a bit in the waves and crawl into a hammock around 5 A.M.

Step Nine: Wake up early. I slept in a hammock on the balcony outside our room instead of my bed because I wanted to be up early, thus maximizing my time on the beach. It worked. The hot morning sun on my hungover body gets me right outta bed and walking on the sand eating an orange. The sun is blistering at 9 A.M. and I walk until rocky cliffs impede my path. Read, watch the macaws around the pool (which of course we didn't use), wake the girls, eat breakfast at the hostel, lose your sunglasses in the oceans (oh well, they had a good run), and head over to another beach.

Step Ten: Rent a tabla. Surf lessons begin now. Break for ceviche de camarón. Nap in a hammock. Watch some baby turtles get released into the ocean.

Back on the board. Back into the hamaca. Get some impromptu lessons from Ernesto who happens to be staying in our room. The orange orb hangs for a moment before melting into a creamy pink sky and dissolving into the water as I clumsily ride a few more undulations in the ocean. Surfing is awesome by the end of the day but I'm exhausted and my chest is raw and red from rubbing on the board.

Step Eleven: Back to the hostel, clean up, eat another ceviche at the hostel next door. Go down the road with Ernesto and some other guys from El Zonte to a concert where a cover band is playing Bob Marley, Manu Chau, and Sublime. Pilsners for a $1.50 abound. A makeshift stage is backed by the sand and waves while a cord runs across an empty pool to the sound tech. Chat politics with Caminante who is a guerrillero and passionate about what's happening in El Salvador. Presidential elections are in March and everybody I met is backing FMLN, ala izquierda. When the power goes out, the drums begin. Drums ranging in size from snare to several cylindrical monstrosities bellow thumps into the dark night above the outlines of inky palms and into the sparkling stars as we dance maniacally below.

Step Twelve: Realize that you really don't want to go back to San Marcos. Who would? La playa is majestic, la gente are spectacular, and the surf culture is relaxing. Wake up to see the sunrise from my bed but cannot bring myself any farther. But propped up in bed on one elbow is not a bad way to watch the sun cresting the horizon. After a bit more sleep I put my feet in the water one last time before breakfast. As we're settling the bill (having your entire stay, food, and alcohol on a tab system for 3 days can be dangerous), Teco's friend is preparing to drive back to San Salvador. Wanna hitch a ride? Yes sir.

Step Thirteen: Mario is a lawyer in San Salvador who surfs every morning before heading back into the city for work. We talk more politics. Salvadoreños are exciting about their young democracy and the opportunities for growth amongst their entire population, rich and poor. Many I met have a very optimistic, idealistic view about bettering the world and the people around them. Mario drives us through downtown San Salvador and by the massive, fortified grounds of the U.S. embassy. He goes far out of his way to drop us at Oriente, our bus terminal on the east side of the city.

Step Fourteen: Chicken bus* to El Poy, walk across border, taxi to Neuva Ocotepeque, bus to the desvío outside San Marcos. Jalón again. White pick-up trucks are lucky on this trip. Jump in the bed but the guy insists there's room in the truck. No, we're okay back here. No, he's really not leaving until we get inside. Okay. As we climb in, who do we see in the passenger seat? Padre Jon. An 81-year-old Catholic priest from Neuva York who speaks perfect Spanish minus his horrendous accent. I can't say much about my norteamericano acento but at least I try. We met him a week ago at Donya Olga's weekly Saturday lunch and he was excited to chat with us although based on some of our most recent conversation, we not sure if he really remembered us. It was thoroughly entertaining regardless.

Step Fifteen: Buy some avocados, quesillo, tortillas on the walk home. Try not to think about 6 A.M. and school tomorrow. And tonight you'll go to bed without your Superbowl.

---
*Costs $1.80 for the 3 to 4 hour ride to the border in a supped up school bus covered in gaudy paint and Jesus-slogans where vendors of fruit, nuts, candy, enchiladas, vegetables, pupusas, and everything else imaginable jockey for your attention and money while staring at the gringos... especially the 2 blonde girls.

el carro

2009-02-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

el verde del mar

2009-01-31T13:51:00.000-08:00

la tarde

2009-01-28T13:59:00.000-08:00

los días

2009-01-26T13:11:00.017-08:00

I have no concept of time.

That's a half truth.

I get up around 6 A.M. Sometimes I purge myself of dust using a stream of ice-cold water that pours unsteadily from a dirty white PVC pipe onto my shivering naked body. I watch the sun begin to illuminate the hazy mountains through the cross-hatched, wire mesh square that serves as the bathroom window.

I arrive at school just before 7 A.M. my kids loud and bright-faced.

7 to 7.40 A.M : Social Studies. I find it a bit ridiculous that my Honduraños students should learn about the 13 colonies or the Boston Tea Party from a norteamericano social studies book. So I choose to teach them current events and world geography.

7.40 to 8.20 A.M : Matematica. Perimeter = l + l + w + w, so why does the book find it necessary to break something that already works so perfectly and simply. But no, here comes the distributive property of multiplication saying P = (2 x l) + 2 x w). Area is measure in square units. And a unit is a yard or an inch or a kilometer. An area cannot be 64 square units. This is a problem.

8.20 to 9 A.M : Science. Experiments and labs can be very difficult with no supplies. How do I explain this? Illustrate that? Creatively.

9 to 9.20 A.M. : Recreo. If my kids have behaved well, they will receive the whole 20 minutes. Hopefully Saida (Zai-duh) or Mr. Marco will not ring the bell on time.

Clang.

9.20 to 10 A.M. : Reading. Comprehension is pretty good if I can get them to sit still long enough to read a story. Pronunciation is okay. Writing is more difficult. Ask them to express an opinion or finish the story with an imaginative ending... they'll often straight-forwardly answer the posed questions meant to stimulate thought and shout after 2 minutes of scribbling, "Mister, Mister! I'm finished."

"Let me see." They never use punctuation. No capitalization. No quotation marks. "Have you learned about punctuation? You know, periods, commas, question marks."

"Yes, yes. I know Mister."

"Can you use them please?"

The second round of corrections is marginally better. The next two periods are a break for me.

10 to 10.40 A.M. : 8th Grade Science. Atomic bonds, chemical equations. I'm relearning alongside them, but at least I pick up it up quicker. Plus I have the luxury of the teacher's edition. Something I don't have 10.40 to 11.20 A.M. : 7th Grade Science. It's not so bad though. How difficult can teaching evolution be, especially when several students are wary that dinosaurs even existed because the bible says the world is not old enough. They'll tell me this but could care less about having a discussion surrounding it.

11.20 to 12 P.M. : Language. J101 - Grammar for Journalists might be coming into practical use during this period. Still it's quite simple for any native English speaker even with the explicit terminology thrown into your lap.

12 to 12.30 P.M. : Almuerzo. Kids get to eat on time if they were good and have finished their work. Let's hope that bell rings late again so I can enjoy the sun outside of my dim classroom lit only by a single florescent bulb.

Clang. Clang.

This part of the day varies.

12.30 to 1.10 P.M. : Can often be art. Trying to do projects related to science or social studies can be like pulling teeth. Some kids eat it up. Others refuse, drawing motorcycles, cars or skateboards. I don't think there is a single skateboard in San Marcos let alone a patch of ground able to sustain one. A word about projects. Some kids dawdle and won't finish for days while others are done in a blink. Make them do more.

1.10 to 1.50 P.M. : Can be Health or Spelling. But Spelling often blends in with Reading or Language, so we do more Health. Pathogens, noninfectious diseases, diabetes, and heredity are impossible to pronounce.

Some days we go to the library, a small building down the road containing a jumbled array of books and magazines. It's next to the campo, a field where we sometimes play or do fisica.

1.50 to 2.30 P.M. : Can be study time or extra word like vocabulary lists for upcoming tests. It can be games about South American capitals or the spelling words. As long as they're competitive. No one cares who wins. The only requirement is competition.

Here's where timelessness begins.

You realize in Honduras that there is absolutely no way you could accomplish everything you'd like to do in a day. You cannot set an agenda for yourself as you would in the United States. Instead, you set a few goals for yourself and try to achieve those. Such as: We have nothing to sit on. Buy two sillas.

Or: Buy cleaning products and scrub everything in sight.

Then as soon as you think you've got the machine up and working, something goes wrong.

Example: Lock on front door no longer works so side door is taped open with a cinderblock behind it holding it shut. Get lock fixed.

Or: Electricity stopped working 24 hours ago while all the neighbors have it. It's a problem with our house. Get electricity fixed.

Or difficulties arise in what seem like simple tasks: Buy boards to build shelves with the cinderblocks you bought 10 days ago. Still unaccomplished at this point as finding someone who actually has decent sized boards is harder than expected. Or el dueño is NEVER in his ramshackle shop and his workers tell you to return at 6 P.M. Which is tough because time means nothing once you're outside of school. You don't wear a watch. Don't have a mobile phone.

The days meander lazily. Planning for school. Jogging dusty mountain roads. Buying fruit from Jorge's stand where his mother gives us a good price on the best bananas around. Searching for veggies in the mercado as dirty-faced children badger, "¿Que busca?" Wash laundry in a bucket. Try to use the internet once a week. Continue the never-ending search for the things you need in your house. Discover San Marcos and the hills around it. It's mostly uphill in every direction.

Today you could smell the fermenting coffee waste on the wind. This mix of decaying mulch and sewage runs through most of the waterways around here. Repulsive.

Aim to get to bed early and read a book. Relax. It's usually the only time all day.

¡hasta ver adiós!

2009-01-23T14:10:00.005-08:00

On Sundays, don't play fútbol with Jorge.

You'll leaving your house around 10 A.M. wearing a t-shirt, shorts, running shoes, and a light-weight, long-sleeved REI shirt with a quarter zip. You'll bring your house keys and a Nalgene full of agua.

You'll cram into the cab of a camión normally used to transport piñas or melónes but today it will be hauling players. You'll cruise around the bumpy, potholed, dirt streets of San Marcos for 45 minutes, meandering lazily, picking people up, stopping by the market.

You'll drive up the windy mountain road to Transito. Go all the way through town to the end of the road. A dusty, rocky football pitch will unfold along with players kitted in Barça and Argentina uniforms. Lingering beyond will be highland coffee fields on green slopes while smokey gray and fluffy white clouds will mix above, casting ever-changing shadows across the hills and pitch. Bright azul sky will peek through now and again. The sun will appear as often as the sporadic drops of rain.

You'll wish you had your camera.

You'll knock the ball around and be informed that you can't play because it is a tournament and there are reglas. The pelota will bounce awkwardly over the uneven ground and constantly roll down the hillside. A sloppy but entertaining first half will end 1–nil for Jorge's team.

You'll eat some sketchy pollo y papas fritas with some strange ensalada at medio tiempo. You didn't bring any money but Nelson will cover you. He will ask if you want a cerveza. You'll say, "Claro, por supeusto." He will introduce you to his daughter Alondra. The wind will blow really hard now and you'll be freezing. The ice-cold Tecate won't help either.

You'll run into a guy named Angel. You met him at the liquor store in San Marcos two days prior. He spent eight years in Sacramento and loves Americans.* He will persistently offer you cervezas. You'll accept his generosity but damn that whipping wind will make you shiver.

They'll win 5–nil. Then comes the sixers of Tecate, a bottle of Bacardi, some citrus ron. You'll drink in the grass, hitch a ride in the back of a pickup, stop at a pulpería. You'll leave your Nalgene in the bed of the truck because you think you're just making a pit stop, probably to buy más cervezas.

They'll call you inside. You'll go behind the counter and around into a side room containing a table and some chairs. Sit. Drink. When the cervezas run out, there will always be more. You're drinking inside the store. You'll teach them how to shotgun, they'll love it.

It'll get dark outside and you'll still be sitting at that table surrounded by empty, crushed Tecate cans. You'll play with the kids dressed in tattered, stained costumes.

You're glad you didn't bring your camera. You would've lost it.

You'll get a ride back home around 8 P.M. but 6 A.M. will come much, much too early the next morning. Monday morning will be miserable.

---
*You cannot say American to refer to people from the USA in Latin America. Everyone is an American. I am norteamericano but I believe that technically includes Canadians as well, and I don't wanna be grouped with them. So I don't know what to call us.

mi mascota, mi perro

2009-01-19T18:46:00.001-08:00

beginnings

2009-01-15T18:39:00.004-08:00

My name is Mister Chris. Often just Mister, Mister! I teach eight attention-hungry, rambunctious fifth graders math, science, social studies, art, health, and physical education. We read stories. I explain action verbs, direct objects, and proper nouns. I also teach evolution to seventh graders and atomic bonds to eighth graders.

My life revolves around the pila, my source of water.

I shower from a bucket, sometimes in the backyard. I wash dishes outside. Clothes outside. I am constantly dirty. I don't look in a mirror for days. I flush the toilet from the same bucket I use to shower. I splash water on my hands, my arms, my face. Always from the pila. The pila tries to keep me clean. I return the effort.

Dust is everywhere. It's impossible to avoid it. Grubby feet, greasy hair, sticky skin.

Clicking geckoes in my room at night sound like a key tapping on the door. Tonight they chirp like reptilian parakeets. Cockroaches scamper through the cracks beneath the doors. Step on them, shrug it off. No big deal. Sometimes I sleep in the floor.

Horses, cows, chickens ramble the potholed dirt roads. Scrawny, filthy dogs bark, answering another's bawl all day, all night. The racket stops as they claw open a black sack of rubbish and stick their muzzles into the fresh pile.

Tonight it's storming and raining, a rarity during the dry season. There are only two seasons in San Marcos de Ocotepeque: a dusty season and a muddy season.

My address contains no numbers:
Chris Young
Green Valley School
San Marcos de Ocotepeque, Honduras
Central America

This job, this life, this country will surely try me. And I love it.

mi casa, mi barrio, mi escuela

2009-01-13T17:26:00.003-08:00

cómete el mundo

2009-01-04T16:23:00.003-08:00

I leave for my new home in Western Honduras on Tuesday. San Marcos de Ocotepeque, a destination that will never be listed in any guidebooks and is difficult to find on maps considering there are numerous cities christened San Marcos throughout Honduras alone.

I have malaria pills. I have been vaccinated for typhoid and tetanus. I have a new sleeping bag and a backpack full of old clothes.

Western Honduras offers El Cerro de las Minas, the highest mountain in Honduras, and Santa Bárbara, the second tallest. National parks and lakes, bordering Guatemala and El Salvador. An impressive complex of Mayan ruins at Copán and on the Caribbean shores, the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the second-longest coral reef in the world.

I am excited. I am learning español.

I am eating the world.

la vida es un momento

2008-12-24T15:27:00.004-08:00

If this was how it was then this was how it was. But there was no law that made him say he liked it. I did not know that I could ever feel what I have felt, he thought. Nor that this could happen to me. I would like to have it for my whole life. You will, the other part of him said. You will. You have it now and that is all your whole life is; now. There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.

--Ernest Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls

¿honduras?

2008-12-17T17:19:00.002-08:00

La respuesta: Pienso que sí.

After 2 months back in Portland, I decided it's time to go again. I've always had stability in my life so sometimes I seek instability. An adventure, a journey before I settle into a "career." In the last 2 days I've turned down a job and bought a plane ticket.

And I'm going to Honduras. A place called San Marcos de Ocotepeque.

Adiós muchachos.

amtrak cascades

2008-12-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

One of the most beautiful train journeys I've had to date. From Bellingham, Washington to Portland, Oregon over snowy tracks, across frigid waters, and alongside towering mountains. Definitely the most beautiful I've ever had in the United States.

It was my first.

Icy wind blows snow dust soft as down, fluffily floating over dark waters. Chalk soot and pale sapphire stand frozen in complicated patterns of cracks and lines, spider webbing across the water. Rocks cold as ice dance back and forth across sandy patches. Frosty spikes of timber poke heads above the charcoal waters, capped by a white hat of snow.

The delicate moon still hangs as daylight creeps over the water. Freezing blue meets the morning sun on the horizon still darkened by black hills. Clouds float pink above dark waters. White peaks cut baby blue skies across a bay. First sunlight beams a pathway across the water blinding your cold face, guiding you straight to the center.

Sun tops the trees. One dash of bright green amongst white pines and brown bark. Snowfields run endlessly flanked by red timber. Struggling stalks poke through arctic tundra, kissing the cold air, wishing for spring.

The continuous purr of the steel against steel is often broken by the howl of the train’s whistle. Which is better, the journey or the destination? In the company of quiet strangers all facing forward, all thinking their own thoughts, all the staring outside, all lost in the music, the movie, the silence.

Small towns. RVs, SUVs, and auto shops. Train cars, taverns, warehouses. Fast food, icy hills, overpasses. Smoke stacks and brick buildings. Christmas cookies reflected in the condensation saturated windows. The red light flashes as the train idles across roads. Cars stop. Exhaust exhales into brisk air, coughing forth from cars.

And then my thoughts were disrupted. We hit a car.

We had to change trains in Seattle; 6.5 hours became 9. And where did the heat go during the last 2 hours?

Maybe it'll be my last.

no method to the madness

2008-10-25T20:26:00.005-07:00

I added a few new pictures added to my Flickr account... but all of them are from last January in Siracusa and La Valle dei Templi in Agrigento. Enjoy.

ritorno in italia

2008-08-14T12:59:00.005-07:00

Tomorrow Ashly and I head back to Italia from Bucharest, Romania. The whole trip has been amazing but we are tired, and I am really excited to return to Italia... where things are a bit more familiar and I can speak the language.

But so, so much has happened since I last wrote anything. We traveled north through Pamukkale... one of the most amazing surreal natural wonders I've ever seen but was may be trumped by what we saw just a short while later. Then we stopped over in Selçuk to see the amazing Greek ruins at Efes/Ephesus.

After that was Istanbul. Cailan met us there and we had good times drinking in carpet shops with the owners and then going out to some hookah bars. Then came Kapadokya... pictures will have to come when I get home... hopefully. A fairy-tale land where ancient civilizations built houses into the strange rock formations and complete underground cities functioned on a level par to Fraggle Rock. Spectacular.

Back to Istanbul. Bought some stuff at the Grand Bazaar that we scoped out a few days prior and then off to Romania. All of the aforementioned included at least 4 night buses... maybe more and I'm just blacking them out because the rides were so rough.

Now we just spent a few days in the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania... although it's doubtful if the real Dracula (Vlad The Impaler) even visited some of those parts. We stayed a bit in Braşov and are now back in the capital.

And now back to Italia... non vedo l'ora.