max in central america

hasta la victoria siempre en el salvador...

2009-03-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

hey friends,

some photos from the day before and the day of the presidential election, where i drove around in a pickup truck as part of the election fraud special forces and then took to the streets to party with el pueblo...

tienen miedo?

no!

estan cansados?

no!

entonces, adelante, adelante, la lucha es constante!

i'm leaving this land of central america in a few days to head back to the land i call home. it's been amazing and at the same time i am so excited for what's next.

thanks for reading,

much love,

max

elections in el salvador day 3

2009-03-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

this morning, we hung out for a while at the fmln headquarters, which is called 1316 since that is the address. while we were there, someone asked us if we could read a quote in spanish with a gringo accent, so that they could use it in a radio commercial. so, they recorded cody saying, "i am confident that neither TPS nor the right to receive remittances from family in the united states will be affected by the outcome of the election, despite what some of my colleagues in congress have said," which was a quote released today by house of representatives committee on foreign affairs chairman howard berman in order to counter balance the fear tactics that arena is using here.

in the afternoon, we headed over to the radisson hotel, where the tribunal suprema electoral (tse) has set up offices to process the over 5,000 election observers. we fileld out some forms, had our pictures taken, got our credentials, and became offical election observers.

while at the hotel, we accidently walked into a press conference by arena's presidential candidate rodrigo avila. the press soft balled him questions such as "why is the fmln so violent?" or "how is chavez in control of the fmln?" or "how would things get really bad in el salvador if the fmln wins?" and he put out the same threats that have dominated the media here. basically, arena's message is that if the fmln wins the united states will deport salvadorians and stop remittances to el salvador and that at the same time the fmln is secretly controlled by venezuelan president hugo chavez who wants to dominate and repress all of latin america. as avila left the press conference, he walked right by me and paused for a few minutes to answer another reporter's question. suddenly, i found myself standing right next to him and surrounded by cameras and reporters. i had to remind myself that i am here techinically as a neutral observer, and so i couldn't say anything to him.

in the evening, we went to a reception that the fmln was putting on for the hundreds of international observers that they have invited. sadly, my camera died so i don't have any party pictures. it was really incredible to meet so many people from so many countries who are involved in so many interesting political projects. i met a labor attorney from new york who is friends with a friend of mine who is an immigrant rights attorney in san francisco. i ran into a couple of panamanian folks who i had met in panama city at a revolutionary poetry reading in honor of the cuban 5. i met a man from kuna yala who knew many of the amazing kuna people i had met just over a month ago. i hung out with a couple from toronto who do a radical radio show and work in a feminist bookstore and know someone who used to work with my union. so many parts of my trip coming together.

much love,

max

elections in el salvador, day 1 & 2...

2009-03-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

hey friends,

well, i've arrived in el salvador for the last adventure of my travels. the presidential elections are this sunday and thigngs are really heating up here. this is an extremely critical election, as the ruling right-wing party has been in office for 20 years and has been moving an aggresive neo-liberal program that has made the rich richer and the poor poorer. currently, the fmln is leading in the polls, and their victory would be a huge step in moving el salvador towards being a more just country for all of it's people.

day 1...

we got into san salvador, and were immediately blown away by the completely biased media coverage of the elections here. every page of the newpapers was supporting the right-wing arena party and bashing the left-wing former guerillas of the fmln. after a long day's journey, we met up with our salvadorian friends who are part of the fmln. over dinner, we learned about all of the ways that the right-wing is trying to steal the elections, including employers telling workers that they need to take a photo of their vote for arena or they will be fired and arena providing false identification documents to nicaraguans and hondurans so that they can vote for the right-wing. we also found out that arena has been threatening that if the fmln wins then the us governement might deport salvadorians living in the us and might also stop all remitances into el salvador from salvadorians living in the us. this of course has been helped by us republican congressmembers who have been making the same threats from the floor of the house of representatives while claiming that fmln is a "pro-terrorist" organization.

day 2...

we went to the fmln office, where we met up with hundreds of people from all over the world and received an extensive training in the political history of the country, the history of the fmln and arena, the specific processes used on election day at the polls, and what to look out for in terms of voter fraud. later, we got to attend a press conference of sana (salvadorian american national association), which has brought dozens of election observers from all over the world to insure that there won't be fraud on sunday.

overall, the energy here is excited, but nervous. people here have gone through a civil war, where many of them lost loved ones, and 20 years of an administration that has only benefited the rich. every time the fmln has gotten close to gaining more power, the right-wing has done massive fraud. we shall see what happens this. as the slogan from the fmln presidential candidate mauricio funes goes, "esta vez es diferente."

much love,

max

nica & catracho otra vez...

2009-03-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

hey friends,

cody and i managed to have a few more adventures in nicaragua and honduras before making it to el salvador for the elections. in this update, i bring you...

1. the community side of touristy granada

2. a few hours of radical managua

3. in search of soy in leon

4. gangsters and revolutionaries in esteli

5. baleadas and haircuts in hondruas

1... from san jose we made it up to granada on the shores of lake nicaragua. we ended up hanging out with these two guys who spend nearly their entire day sitting around and guarding an outdoor food vendor area that is closed during the day. they took us to play futbol rapido, which is soccer played with teams of 5 on a basketall court sized cement field with a very small ball. it's basically the equivalent of street ball and is predictably accompanied with a good amount of machismo and physical play. amazingly, as the sun went down over the dramatic view of towering mountains and rough lake, we actually won a game. later, they took us to a community center called carita feliz to see youth dance performances, which ranged from breakdancing to folclorico.

2... on our way to leon, we stopped in managua for a few hours. while, we were there we went to the parque de la paz, which was built after the civil war in order to destroy most of the weapons. basically, a huge hole was dug in the ground and then filled with guns and cement. part of the park sculpted into a lighthouse and an abstract modern structure of squares. while, the other part of the park is really rough and crude, and looks as if they poured a bunch of concrete on the edge of a small hill and then started jamming rifles into the quickly setting concrete. we also stopped at a huge monument in honor of the workers of nicaragua and the main union, the federacion nacional de trabajadores. and yes, that is an enormous gun that the worker in the sculptre is raising. as we were leaving the center of managua to go to the bus station, we noticed a very large shanty town across the street from the national assembly building. we stopped there to find out what was going on and it turned out that this was a group of former banana workers who were staging a protest because the had been affected by a pesticide used by the banana companies. they used to work for large banana companies, like dole and chiquita, but then about 16 years ago, workers and their families started to get cancer. predictably, the companies fled the country and won't take responsibility. over 7,000 people in nicaragua have been affected by this chemical, which has caused cancer, deformities, and other illnesses in the banana workers, their kids, and their grandkids. after years of protests and lawsuits, a group of around 700 former workers and their families decided to camp out across the street from the national assembly in order to try and pressure the nicaraguan government to support them in holding these banana companies responsible. they have now been their for over 2 years and are running their protest/community in a very powerful and democratic structure. we met the president and vice-president, whose stories of illness and struggle are both so disturbing and inspiring. we exchanged contact info, and cody and i are doing some research into how we might be able to work in solidarity with their struggle, especially looking into ways that we all in the us can work to hold these us companies responsible for all the pain and suffering that they have caused to these workers and their families.

3... last time i was in leon, as i was leaving on the bus, a local guy told me that all of the hamburgers that are sold by the street vendors in town are actually made of soy. cody and i were, naturally, very excited and decided to go get some. however, none of the vendors would admit that their hamburgers were made of soy as there that is an insult. we kept tryign to explain that we actually wanted them to be made of soy, but still none of them would give in and tell us the truth. they just kept directing us to other vendors sayign that their competition used soy in their burgers. so, it turns out, that everyone in town knows that the hamburgers are soy, but no one really wants to talk about, and especially not the vendors. so, in the end, sadly we couldn't bring ourselves to eat the hamburgers. despite the lack of soy, we did find a folkloric dance performance by a nationally famous group at the nice old theater.

4... our last stop in nicaragua was the northern town of esteli, which was the center of the sandanista revolution in the late 1970's. we found ourselves hanging out with the local gangsters of calle 5, who like to chill at the bus shelter, smoke kush and local cigars, and drink a local hombrew made from a fruit called cojombro. they bragged that they could get us some crack rocks for 2 dollars in 10 minutes, but we kindly declined. we went to a local museum that has been put together by the association of mothers of heros and martyrs, which was absolutely incredible. not only was there an extremely detailed and powerful explanation of the histroy of the revolution in nicaragua, but there were also photos and recuerdos of many of the young revolutionaries who were killed by the dictatorial government. we hung out with the director of the association, whose son left home at 14 to join the sandanista guerrilas in the hills and then two years later was killed and beheaded by the dictator's national guard. she was an incredibly strong woman who works every day to keep the memory of her son and other mother's children alive. we found out that her daughter just moved to san francisco last month, so she gave us a bag of cookies to give her daughter when i get back to the bay. once again, places don't feel that far apart and history not that long ago.

5... in honduras for a few hours, we ate a bunch of baleadas, which i didn't realize how much i missed from my adventures a few months ago with manjula. before cataching the bus to el salvador, we happened to walk by a children's barber shop called kidz kuts, and decided that since we were going to be official election observers we might want to clean up a bit. so, we got our hair cut at this place that had a play structure and toy trucks for kids to sit in while their hair is styled. very official, don't you think?

much love,

home in a week,

max

adventures and now on the road home

2009-03-03T21:18:00.000-08:00

hello friends,

in this update, we have...

1. a bit more bohemia in panama
2. los carnavales en las tablas
3. a hostel in a cloud forest
4. a failed attempt at going to bocas
5. another 54 hours in costa rica

1... i got back to panama from kuna yala and met up with cody who flew down from california to travel the last month with me. we hit up all of the vegetarian resturants again and in the evening went out to see what was happening at the communist metal head squat bar called banos publicos. instead of metal, though, they had local live cuban style trova music. the scene was so bohemian with the tiny dilapitated and graffitied bar filled with people dancing and a continually rotating cast of characters playing insturments and singing. we ended up at an after party on a rooftop where we danced, drank, and smoked under the stars with 360 degree views of the old section of panama. we then somehow found ourselves at an after after party in an apartment with a hammock in the middle of the living room and a leaky faucet that flooded the whole place while also creating a high pitched shriek that at the time sounded like amazing experimental music. as the sun cam up, we got into a cab, picked up our french friend valerie and headed to the bus terminal to catch the first bus to las tablas and carnaval.

2... los carnavales in las tablas were simply unbelievable! the tiny town goes crazy as thousand and thousands of people come for 5 days straight of non-stop partying. the are two tunas, basically like opposing teams, called calle arriba and calle abajo who compete throughout the carnavales. during the day, each tuna would arrive at the town's center square with their culeco, which consisted of a super blinged out float featuring the tuna's queen followed by a large group of openly gay men called cuecos who sang songs bashing the other tuna along with a huge live horn and drum band called a murga. to make the whole situation even crazier, the roads were lined with water trucks which would douse everyone with cold water as we danced through the streets to the cueco's congs and the murga's beats. after the culecos went around a few times, we would go to one of the outdoor clubs to dance. it was a total fantasy of the ultimate party that was so packed you basically had to grind everyone near you in order to dance. at night, the tunas would compete again with their culecos back in the center square with a completely different float and costume for the queen. then after the culecos, we would go back out to the clubs and dance until the sun came up. at the end of all this, we would head home to sleep a few hours before doing it all over again the next day. the last night was truly magical and ridiculous as at 5am the two tunas lead marches through the city. everyone follows their prefered tuna and danced along to the music by the murga. when the two tunas meet at the center of the town, they put their respective queens on tables facing each other and the queens battle in full-on dancing and waving competition as each tuna's supporters yell obsenities at the opposing queen and sing nasty songs about the other tuna. after about an hour of this queen-on-queen action, to finish off the whole extravagnza each tuna lights firecrackers on the ground for as long as possible. it looked as if the streets were on fire. after about an hour of this madness, calle arriba's supplies ended, and calle abajo was declared the winner of carnaval. one super interesting thing to note about the carnavales in las tablas is that despite all the machismo and homophobia in panama and central america, the carnivales are almost completely organized and run by the cuecos. cuecos design and build the floats, dress the queens, and even write the biterly homophobic songs against the other tuna. it's a documentary project just begging to be made.

3... after carnaval, we decided to go and relax in this hostel called lost and found, which is actually located in a cloud forest. it was pretty unbelievable to cook in the outdoor kitchen while watching the clouds glide through the treetops along the mountains as cacomistles, olingos, and kinkajous (all varieties of jungle raccoons) would just wander through looking for food. we got to take a hike down to a cool mountain river to take a dip and a nap, and then up to a lookout where we saw an incredible double rainbow. the hostel also had a great foosball table and a collection of over 400 movies so we just chilled for a few days.

4...we decided to go to bocas del toro, which is a group of islands on the caribbean coast of panama. however, after the over-priced dorm rooms and toursit food, the rainy weather, and getting ripped off of five dollars while trying to buy pot, we left town the next day.

5... this time in passing through costa rica i spent a few more hours. we found some fun adventures in our 54 hours in costa rica including staying at a hostal run by quakers who were hosting a conference on depleted uranium, hiking through the goregous jungle line beaches in cahuita and seeing howler monkeys, running all over san jose to get back to the vegetarian restuarnat i went to last time, and hotboxing a van with two costa rican hippies as the drove us from the border stopping along the way to look at a three toed sloth, a grey hawk, and a tucan.

well, that's it for now. i've got a little less than two weeks to go on my trip as i'm coming back to the bay area on march 18th. we our currently in granada, nicaragua, and plan on spending a few more days in nicargua and honduras before getting to san salvador, el salvador in order to observe the presidential elections and the last week of the trip.

much love,
max

through costa rica and into panama...

2009-02-18T16:27:00.000-08:00

hey friends,

in this update, i share some photos and words about...

1. costa rica in 33 hours
2. finding a house in las tablas
3. panama, panama, panama
4. the beautiful and revolutionary islands of kuna yala

1... i crossed into and out of costa rica in about 33 hours. along the way i walked through hotels filled with crackheads and prostitutes, drank canned rum and coke in the park at 1030 am with a french rasta guy, found the first vegetarian restuarant of these travels and ate a club sandwich with jamon de soya, and saw the brightest rainbow i've ever seen in my life.

2... i arrived in the small town of las tablas in the interior of panama and started looking for a place to rent for carnaval in a few weeks. i found a few random postings around town, called around, and made a plan to meet up with a contact in the central park. i told ivana and yasilka it would be pretty easy to find me since i was the only gringo in town. they took me to ivana's parents' house, where rita made me my one of my favorite drinks, chica de maranon (cashew fruit juice), and chinto told me about his love of current events magazines from the united states... seemed like a prefect fit, so we sealed the deal. ivana, yasilka, and i went out that night to the one club in town, drinking seco (a local sugar cane derived liquor) and dancing and singing along to the official song for carnaval 2009... looks like it will be incredible!

3... since i was able to arrange stuff in las tablas so quickly, i decided to head to the big city, panama city, or panama, as everyone calls it throughout the country. it's also in the state of panama, so it's panama, panama, panama. panama's public city buses are totally pimped out with air brushed designs, bright lights, and lots of hood ornaments. i spent my days here hunting for vegetarian restuarants, which i actually found three of them and two of them are even vegan buffets! yes! in the nights, i managed to find a bit of the city's alternative cultures with a revolutionary poetry reading focused on the cuban 5, an all night afropanamanian dancehall reggae party, and a bar called banos publicos which is a squat by a collective of local communist metal heads.

4... my friend jose, who is from panama, told me that the one place in all of panama that i definitely had to go to were the islands of kuna yala, and he was totally right on. he gave me a list of names of people he knows on one of the islands, so i booked a flight and headed out to the remote islands. kuna yala is an autonomous indigenous territory on the carribean coast with 366 islands and 49 communities. the kuna won control of their land through an armed revolt (la revolucion tuli) in 1925 in which they killed most of the panamanian colonial police occupying their islands. in recent times, the kuna have become internationally famous for their molas, which are a amazing beautiful hand made cloth designs using a reverse applique technique. i didn't take pictures of the more traditionaly dressed kuna women because it is seen as a sign of disrespect since some tourists travel to kuna yala and start snapping photos like they are at a human zoo. i spent four days on the island of ustupo, which is the largest kuna community with 5,000 people and was the center of the revolution. there i stayed with tomas de leon, who at 83 is the oldest person on the island and is a saila (chief) of natural medicine healing. he told me so many amazing stories about the revolution, in which his family were the main leaders, and his experiences of traveling all around the americas as part of international indigenous leaders' conferences. tomas also took me around to meet all the elder men and sailas on the island. these folks were incredible, i would buy them pepsis and we would talk about the kunas' philosophies on the sisterhood and brotherhood of all things on earth and the importance of equality between women and men. while i was on ustupo, there was a group of local youth practicing a street theater performance reenactment of the 1925 revolution. i got to meet one of tomas's son, andres (although everyone calls him pequeno) who offered to take me around to different islands for three days. pequeno works with the panamanian government's dvd based adult literacy program called "yo si puedo," which was developed in cuba and has been used in venezuela, bolivia, and nicaragua. i also got to travel around the islands with the government's scholarship program for grade school students. through these connections, i got to take boat rides through the wild rolling turquoise sea to many different island communities, where i was invited into people's homes and they told me about the successes and challenges of these programs. we also stopped on a tiny uninhabited island where i swam in magnificently clear waters and got to eat the large squishy seed of a young coconut tree. once we got to the twin islands of nargana and corazon, which are connected by a bridge, where pequeno stays when he is working, i got to know his friends and we stayed up late, drinking too much, playing pool, and talking about revolutions. the super nice and radical people along with the stunningly beautiful islands made kuna yala one of the most amazing places i have ever been in my life.

so, yesterday, one of my bestest friends cody arrived in panama. we're going to spend the day here, and then head out to las tablas. carnaval 2009!

much love,
max

two weeks in nicaragua...

2009-02-03T07:38:00.000-08:00

hey friends,

so, i´ve spent the last two weeks in nicaragua and tomorrow i´ll be heading to costa rica. as i cross the border along the rio frio, what people call themselves will change from nicas to ticos and their choice of beans will shift from red to black.

in this update, i have for you...

1. wandering the street of leon

2. granada´s gringoland

3. the volanic island of ometepe

4. wildlife adventures in los guatuzos

5. family life in the arts and craftsy island of archipelago of solentiname

***also, check out manjula´s flickr site for a bunch of great photos and commentary from our first weeks in honduras (more instalments will be coming shortly) www.flickr.com/manjula

1... despite the heat (leon being the second hotest city in all of central america because of the surrounding volcanoes), leon is a great city for wandering about aimlessly -- winding streets with single story colonial buildings, murals and memorials celebrating the revolution, and a tradition of sitting in front of your house in big wooden rockign chairs as the sun sets. in my comings and goings i found myself: dancing in the streets with withes in a night time parade celebrating the life of poet ruben dario, selling green mangos for a woman while she tried to explain the significance of all the revolutionary murals to a few tourists, helping a few local college kids practice their english and working on their pronounciation of the word ¨can´t¨ which theyt said like ¨cunt,¨ hoping around all the different bar cafes with an international group of 10 backpackers, eating the best street food ever of mashed yucca topped with a big piece of fried cheese and coleslaw all served on a banana leaf and eaten with your hands, playing cards with the young guys working at the fruit market and trying to get them to gamble with me, and listening to a primitivist painter´s stories of his travels in the united states as a guest artist. so, as folks from there say... vive leon jodido!

2... granada is nicaragua´s toursit capital and for good reason as it is filled with absolutely beautiful colonial architecture. unfortuantely, this also means that it is filled with young european backpackers, wealthy american families, ex-pats buying up all the restuarants and hotels, street children doing hip hop dances for change, and people from all over nicaragua coming to try and sell just about anything to tourists. but i made the best of it and had a great time: learning about russian religious cultural studies from recently graduated alaskan college students, getting beat by kids at the local chess club, drinking way too many beers with local folks who shared with me their experiences of being openly queer in a country that up until recently legaly outlawed homosexuality, hanging out ever day with two streets kids -- oscar and abraham -- and playing their favorite game which entailed walking down the street spinning against the colonial walls (it´s actually really fun).

3... from grananda i took an all day bus, taxi, ferry, bus trip to merida on the isla de ometepe, where there is a hacienda that is sort of a backpackers´resort with cheap rooms, inexpensive all-you-can-eat-buffets, and a pier from which you can swim in lake nicaragua as the sun sets beautifully every night. while on the island i had an incredible time: playing baseball with people from the local villages where the diamond was a cow pasture, the bases were dirt filled rice bags, the outfield was a volcano, the backstop was the lake, we shared the only 9 mitts that they had, and i hit a double; hiking amongst fruit trees to a huge waterfall with an american guy and reminiscing about the wonders of trinidad & tobago; hiking to the peak of an inactive volcano which is topped by a cloud forest. from granada, i hopped on an all-night 12 hour ferry trip across the lake to the small port town of san carlos. along the way i got way too drunk on beer and rum & cokes with a really nice group of international travelers. luckily for me, somehow i ended up sleeping the german guy´s hammock, he slept in the slovenian couple´s hammock, and they slep on the floor.

4... from san carlos, i took another boat to the tiny town (10 families) of papatourro in the guatuzos wildlife reffuge along the rio papaturro off lake nicaragua. in town, the spanish organization amigos de la tierra has set up an ecological station in order to engage in biological studies of the area, create a sustainable collective of organic cacao farmers, and develop local community-based tourism. the area is overflowing with amazing wildlife, and while i was there i saw howler monkeys, white faced monkeys, spider monkeys, huge green and orange iguanas, cayman crocdiles, small lizards that run on the water, tiny brightly colored poisonous frogs, so many beautiful birds, super bright butterflies and dragonflies, and a three toed sloth. the vegetation was amazing, ranging from the worlds smallest orchid flower to trees with trunks as wide as houses. i had an incredible guide named armando who was born and raised along the river and no only knew the name of every plant and animal but was also friends with everyone in the surrounding area. we took an all day hike and came across such an amazing variety of things: a man trying to teach a one day old cow how to nurse, a family who made us a traditional drink of corn and cacao called pinolillo, an old man who played ranchera music on guitar for us, a woman who had recently found a piece of indigenous pottery that was hundreds of years old, and so many families that gave us different varities of citrus fruit, coconuts, cacao, and star fruit.

5... while i was waiting for the boat outside the ecological station, a family came by and they said that they were headed to the archipelago of solentiname, which is renowned for it´s primitivist painters and artisans. they offered me a ride, and how could i pass it up. as we rode up the river spotting iguanas in the trees, they invited me to come and stay with them. they lived in a one room house on the isolated far side of the island of mancaroon surrounded by their extended family in 6 other similar homes and all of their rice, bean, and plantain fields. these folks were some of the nicest people i have ever met in my travels. we hung out, took hikes to talk to artists, milled rice by hand, visited the local museum (which they had never been able to go to), ate meals of freshly caught fish, played with my camera, and i answered their many questions about the united states and my travels. the next day, we left at 2 in the morning to come to the town of san carlos where they hoped to sell wood and and plantains. as we pulled into the rough docks at 4:45am, four other boats pulled in at the same time with similar goods for sale. they are usually able to sell the wood at 1 cordoba per piece and the plantains at two for 1 cordoba. 1 cordoba is worth about 5 US cents. the people in san carlos who buy the goods then turn around and resell them for three times the price. as the sun rose, i went over to an internet cafe by the central park to print out a few of the pictures of them that we had taken together since they had no pictures of themselves. when i gave them the pictures they were very excited -- especially the two little girls -- but they were also sad as their sales had not gone very well. since a few other boats had shown up at the same time as them with the same goods, the buyers in san carlos were refusing to buy it all. i asked them what they would do if they couldn´t sell it all, and they told me that they would just have to leave it there on the docks and head back on the three hour boat ride home. we said goodbye and good luck.

well, that´s it for now. i have a lot of thoughts on the very complicated current and historical political situation in nicaragua, but i´ll wait for another post to share those. tomorrow, i will be lining up at 8am at the immigration station to get my exit stamp and then hopefully take the first boat down the rio frio to cross into costa rica in the small town of los chiles. from there i will be moving quickly through costa rica to reach panama and with some luck set up a place to stay for carnaval.

thinking of you all often,

much love,

max

adios honduras, hola nicaragua...

2009-01-20T14:38:00.000-08:00

hey friends,

congratulations to us all on the obama´s first day at work. it´s been incredible and reinspiring to hear from people in honduras about the hope that they feel with the start of obama´s presidency -- a reminder of the global impact of our elections.

in this update, i bring you... (oh, no photos for now as i fell into a river and killed the camera. but have no fear, i bought a new one yesterday, so more photos will be posted soon)

1. the fantasy island of guanaja
2. the road back to san pedro and manjula´s departure
3. crossing into nicaragua

1... as a special treat to ourselves, manjula and i splurged in our last week of travelling together at flew to the tiny island of guanaja where we stayed at a ¨resort.¨ the island has incredible white sand beaches with perfectly clear warm water all with an unexpected background of mountains covered in a pine forest. the place we stayed was called the island house and is run by an island born and raised guy named bo bush. he and his wife (although bizarely we never saw the wife) built their quaint wood house and guesthouse set back from the beach at the foot of the hills. a few years ago they also built a bar on stilts at the end of their small peir, which is called the green flash non-exertion club and purposefully promises ¨no activities.¨ we were the only guests and so in between walks to waterfalls, swimming in the ocean, and chillaxing in hammocks, we hung out with bo and his family in the bar. throughout the week, we saw sea urchins on the beach, starfish bigger than my head, a 5 foot long metallic black snake, lots of tiny bright green lizards, and glow in the dark worms swimming in the ocean. simply, dreamy.

2... we flew back to la ceiba, again on the tiny 15 passenger plane, and took a way over priced taxi to the bus station. usually we would have just walked from the airport to the main road and flaged down a bus, but apparently the road at the airport has become increasingly dangerous and just the week before someoen had been killed there in a robbery. i´ll take over priced taxi over deadly robbery any day. we then hopped on a rickety old school bus just as it started to storm and headed back to la finca el eden where we had stayed at the beginning of our trip. as we walked in from the pouring rain, it felt like being with family, as delsi and berti greeted us with big smiles, hugs, and a joint. the next day we headed back to san pedro sula and found the only backpaker hostal in the city, which was totally dead and once again confirmed our sense that honduran tourism has a very charming quality of feeling abandoned after a heyday that never actually existed -- sounds potentially terrible, but after 5 weeks it really grew on us. we had our last dinner together with super typical fare -- baleadas at a roadside cafe -- and reminisced about all the amazing experiences. the next day we headed to the airport, and manjula took off to san francisco via miami. it was super hard to say goodbye after having such an amazing time together and being together 24 hours a day for 5 weeks. tears. smiles. hugs. kisses. memories. new adventures.

3... so, i´ve made it into nicaragua and i´m currently in the colonial town of leon. along the way, i came across a writer who bought me coffee and sang to me a song he learned from his venetian girlfriend, a friendly pilot who convinced his wife to give me a ride from the airport, a 30 something year old guy who hung out with the punk and rasta teenagers in the parque central and who wanted to talk to me about every current international political event, and a director of the garifuna cultural center who took me to a bar in a rough part of town so i could try the traditional garifuna alcohol called giffiti made of 4 different roots. only a few hours into being in nicaragua, and it already feels quite distinct from honduras with murals celebrating revolutionaries and even a state-sponsored casa del obrero (house of the worker).

off to explore,
much love,
max

into 2009!

2009-01-11T09:32:00.000-08:00

hey friends,

i just got back from 8 days in the jungle and have been trying to catch up a bit with the news. although we´ve only been in 2009 for a few weeks, it already has been such a devastating year for so many folks. my heart and thoughts go out to the people of oakland and gaza city. may we find and fight for peace and justice in 2009.

in this update, i bring you... (sorry no photos, camera batteries just died, but you can head over to manjula´s blog at http://www.scenesfromthenext.blogspot.com/ for a bunch)

1. the continued saga of my health
2. celebrating the new year in sambo creek
3. the first day of 2009
4. adventures in jungles of la mosquitia

1... so, the puss has stopped leaking out of my ear, and i´m starting to get back some of my hearing. i can hear pretty well, although i struggle a bit when there is a lot of ambient noise. i bought some swimming ear plugs so that i can take a shower without worrying about water getting in my inner ear through my perforated ear drum. my health overall has been great and i feel like myself again, so i have decided to stay with my original plan of traveling in central america for the next few months with the goals of reaching carnaval in panama in february and the presidential elections in el salvador in march. the only other health related news to report are a lot of ticks, pimples, and splinters, but i´ll get to that in my update about the jungle adventures.

2... for new years, manjula and i headed out from la ceiba to a small garifuna community on the caribbean coast called sambo creek. as we quickly found out there are a few amazing and unique new year traditions that the garifuna celebrate. just as a reminder, the garifuna are a group of people living on the caribbean coast of honduras, guatemala, and belize who are descendents of escaped and marroned african slaves and indigenous caribbeans. one of these traditions is the indiu barbaru (or entilado as it is called in spanish), who is a character played by man who covers himself in burned oil or red pepper and oil, wears a mask and a grass skirt, and carries a whistle and a walking stick. when the indiu barbaru approaches you, you have to give his assistant one lempira or else he will touch you with his dirty oily hand. the kids in the community are quite scared of him and will run away from him screaming. the thing is that there isn´t just one man playing the indiu barbaru, but in the small town of sambo creek, there were about 3 men and 5 boys playing indiu barbaru. so, every time that you went out, you had to make sure that you had a few lempiras on you or else face the wrath of being chased and slimed. it was great! the other new year garifuna tradition that we came across was that as the night approaced midnight and the one club in town was bumping with all the young folks getting down to reggaeton, a group of older women gathered in one of the small town´s public houses in order to dance and sing. they were accompanied by a few men on drums and a man who played the conch like a horn. we jsut happen to be walking by the house, when one of the women invited us in. the women wore hand-sewn matching traditional garifuna outfits of long skirts with a belt along with a frilly blouse and head scarf. we bought a few beers and hung out with the few other folks who were sitting on the sides. at one point, manjula was invited by one of the women to dance with them and try to sing a long with their songs, which had a beautiful call and response structure and as we were explained later mainly focused on revolution and liberation of the garifuna people. one of the greatest parts was the way in which this was a space where women were really in control and expressing themselves. in most public situations, such as on the streets or in bars or billiard halls, that we have been in honduras, the space has been completely dominated by men, but here was a community space and practice where women were in charge. as midnight struck and the older women begun to walk around and give each other hugs, manjula and i kissed and walked out to dip our feet in the ocean.

3... on january 1st, 2009, we headed back to la ceiba, only to find that the city, which is the third largest in hondruas and is its largest port, was completely shut down. i had never seen anything like this -- not a single store was open and the only people on the street were sleeping homeless people. we had to get dinner at pizza hut because it literally the only other two options were wendy´s and dunkin donuts. incidentely, the pizza hut meal was the first to make us ill in three weeks of travelling.

4... so, we decided to make our way out to la mosquitia, which is the second largest rainforest in all of the americas (the amazon being the first). in order to get out there you have to take a day and a half journey by bus, pick up truck, and a series of motorized canoes. i´ve been on quite a few pick up truck rides in latin america, but this was something i had never experienced. we loaded up on the back of a truck with 15 other random local people, a massive stack of bags, 3 large tanks of gas, and a stove. the ride took 6 hours and highlights included driving along the beach and through the ocean to cross river mouths, the truck overheating so having to find empty plastic bottles and run to the river to fill them up in order to pour over the engine, the driver and his assitant having to strip down to their underware to wade through the water to find the shallowest part to drive through, putting the truck on ferries built out of barells and boards that were pulled across the river mouths by a lone man, the truck falling off the road and having to jump off before it almost flipped over, the truck having to be pulled by another truck, and getting to ride on the roof of the other truck for the last bit of the ride.

we stayed in simple, but beautiful thatched roof hospedajes along river, lagoons, and oceans. after two days, we reached the furthest town up river, which is called las marias and is made up of miskito and pech indigenous peoples.

the next day, we headed out with three local guides in a pipante, a small dugout canoe that is propelled using large sticks to push off the ground and river banks. once we had gone further up river for a few hours, we got out and did an ardous 5 hour hike into the jungle along small rivers and up a steep hill until we reached an amazing little cabin in the middle of the jungle. the next day, we hiked further up the into the hills for another 3 hours to reach pico dama (lady peak). the route on this day was quite difficult with extremely narrow paths that barely existed and sections that were actually veritcal so that it meant that we had to climb up through the root systems of trees. this route was actually tougher that even the paths that i had been on in colombia while hiking up to la ciudad perdida (the los city) that up until a few months before had only been used by guerillas hiding in the jungle from the paramilitaries and the government. that being said, it was absolutely amazing -- the diversity of the plants and trees and the ways in which they shifted and changed as we climbed higher was unreal. from pico dama, we could see endless stretches of rainforest which was quickly swallowed up by a wave of rain clouds. the rain was so strong and intense that we had to wait it out and hide under the roots of trees. after the rain cleared up abit, we headed back down hill for another 3 hours to reach the cabin. in many ways, walking down hill was atcually harder because it is just so slippery. in fact, i fell down once and grabbed a tree to try and catch myself, but the tree was covered in long thick spines. i had to removed dozens of spines from my hand, and manjula actually pulled one out of wrist that was over an inch long. along the way, we saw many animals, including spider monkeys, macaws, tucans. a king vulture, and a huge toad. the next day, after rough 4 hour hike through the jungle, we reached the the river again in a place where a family lived and grew cacao. the offered to make us hot chocolate, which was just absolutely incredible, and we were able to buy some blocks of pure cacao that they had just made the day before. our guide, avelardo, found a coconut tree and cut us down a few young coconuts to drink, and we felt like the luckiest people in whole world. coconuts and cacao, what more could you ask for? well, how about thousand year old petroglyphs? we got into the pipante again and went up river through some rapids and reached a series of petroglyhs in rocks along the river that were depictions of human faces and a two headed alligator. in fact one of the petroglyphs had only been discovered two years ago by our guide.

we got back to las marias, where the owner of the hospedaje, rutilia, and the cooridiantor of the guides´collecive, mariano, found out it had been my birthday. they planned a party and rutilia actually backed me a two layer cake. as we found out, a party in las marias means eating cake and chugging soda pop, banana flavored being the flavor of choice. after getting loaded up on sugar, it was time to dance. but you don´t dance in the dining room, you have to go and dance outside because it is abajo de la luna (under the moon). a few kids started making a beat on an empty plastic gas tank and a broken washboard, and then the women stared clapping and singing. it started off slow, but pretty soon, we were all singing and doing coordinated couple line dances. the songs usually had a main lead singer, while everyone else who repeat a certain phrase over and over. we danced and danced and danced until we were all tired and sweating. then came the time were we all to go back into the dining room for a night cap of coca cola. it was time for bed then for everyone, as it was already 10pm and most often people go to sleep just after susnset at 7pm. it was an incredible evening, which reminded me of how special it can feel to include people. here i was a total stranger to everyone in this town, and they threw me a party and shared their songs and dances. i was absolutely honored and humbled.

the next day, we got back to raista, which is dramatically located on a spit of land between a huge lagoon and the caribbean ocean. we decided to stay an extra day in raista and chill out. we ran into a pair of really nice hungarian-speaking chemical engineers (although one of them was from guatemala, but had studied in hungary), and shared stories of each of our jungle hikes while we drank some moonshine that we had bought at a local store. at three in the morning, we got on a motorized canoe to reach batalla where we could connect up with the truck for the return trip to la ceiba. along the way, some sections of the canals were so dry that manjula and i had to get out of the canoe and into the crocodile filled waters in order to help the guys push the canoe. the return truck ride felt like luxury with only 7 people in the back of the truck and no large appliances. although along the route, we did have to stop for a while to help another truck that had actually got stuck in the ocean while it was trying to cross a river mouth. amazingly, they were able to push and pull the truck out despite the fact that the water level was starting to reach the truck bed.

---

well, there you have it for now. tomorrow morning, we board a tiny little plane and fly 45 minutes to the island of guanaja, which is part of the famed bay island, but has seemed to escape the hyper tourism of of roatan and utila. interestingly, despite the fact that the bays islands are part of honduras, the native language there is english. we´ll be staying at bo´s island house, which was built and is now run by bo bush, a local guy who claims he is related to the pirates who used to hang out on the island. he also writes emails in island-style english, which comes with sentences like ¨ok not problem you rice beans vegetale¨ and ¨see you some whi be there on the airport.¨ looks like it´s going to be fantastic!

happy new year,
much love,
max

and so it goes...

2008-12-30T09:06:00.000-08:00

hey friends,

in this upate, we have:

1. more on the status of my health (note... it is a little gross, so don`t read if you are squeamish)
2. christmas and hanukah in gracias
3. the ruins of copan

1... so, immediately after posting my last blog entry, i got really sick. i went back to the hotel room and i felt as if i was both burning up and freezing at the same time. this continued for a few days, and then just as it seemed to be clearing up, my right ear got clogged up and i started getting insane headaches. this was some of the worst pain i have ever felt in my life. then next day, i went to the pharmacy to get some antibiotic drops to put in my ear, but the drops didn`t seem to have any impact on my ear or the pain. to make matters worse, my nose was running and i was waking up multiple times a night sweating profusely. i started feeling better, so we decided to move on to another town. while on one of the three buses we took to get from gracias to copan ruinas, i felt and heard a strange movement inside my ear, which i would later come to find out was my ear drum rupturing. then, puss with a little bit of blood started leaking out of my ear. scientifically, this is called a perforated ear drum and is caused during an ear infection when there is a large buildup of puss inside the ear and then finally with no place else for it to go, the puss breaks through the ear drum. i know this sounds terrible, but now i actually have a lot less pain then before when my ear was filled with puss and caused almost half of my head to throb. after visiting a hospital and doing some on-line research, the good news is that often times a ruptured ear drum heals itself in two or three weeks. if it doesn`t, then a surgery ican be necessary to drain the ear and reconstruct the ear drum. but there is no way to know now what is going to happen. it`s a wait and see kind of game. luckily, i have my original return flight booked for january 18, so if my ear drum hasn`t healed by then, i`ll come home and look into the surgery. for now, i`m doign well. i have antibiotics for the infection and other pills for both the fever and the pain. and since going to the hospital yesterday, i feel the best that i have felt in almost two weeks. manjula has been amazing and despite her own illnesses has take amazing care of me. i don`t know where i would be without her.

2... well, despite all of the above, we did still manage to have some holidays cheer. we bought candles at the local store and made a makeshift menorah, so we could light the candles every night. i think this was actually the first time i had lit candles all eight nights in quite a while. on christmas eve, we went out to an incredible little resturant called mi rinconcito graciano (my little corner of gracias), which specializes in reviving regional indigenous foods. we ate ticuco (a tamale wrapped in a corn husk with a leaf called chipilin, beans, green beans, the loroco flower) and chorococo (a tamale wrapped in a banana leaf with onion, sweet peppers, cilantro, celery, and beans called chinapopa) along with an encurtido de hojas (a picked condiment with celery leaves, radish leaves, eggplant leaves, carrot leaves, beet leaves, green tomatoes, garlic, onion, spicy peppers, weet peppers, pepper, orange, olie oil, and radish). we also drank a very sweet non-alcholic carrot wine. the woman who runs the resturant, liseth, was amazing. she was bor and raised in gracias and talked with us a lot about her goals to use the retaurant as part of a larger project to support local development from below. she is currently partnering with local rural women engaged in micro-businessess in order to develop a self-sufficient local economy so that children don`t have to leave in searchof job in the cities or overseas. after dinner, we walked through the town, and along the way stopped to take a picutre of an incredible nativity scene in someone`s living room. this was no ordinary nativity scene, it took up half of the living room and featured a landscape of dozens of little scenes all lit up with blinking lights. the family invited us in to take pictures, and then next thing we knew we were dancing with them in their living room to cumbia music. we must have impressed them with our dancing skills because they wanted to take lots of pictures together. after a few twirls across their living room, we said good bye and promissed to email the son the photos. it was amazing to feel some family-ness during the holidays. we then head oer to the old colonial church which was packed for the late night christmas eve mass. we went inside, but it was so incredibley hot, and we were still sick, that we decided to call it a night. as we walked back to the hotel, the neighborhood kids celebrated the holiday by blowing off firework after firework after firework.

3... it`s hard to write about the ruins of copan. i think it is better to show through pictures. i guess i just want to say that of all the ruins i hae ever seen, these were absolutely the most artistic and awe inspiring.

well, that`s it for now. we`re currently on the north coast again in la ceiba and makign plans for jungle adventures and a trip out to the tropical island of guanaja (i think the first place the christopher columbus landed in honduras in 1512)

much love,
max

hit the ground running

2008-12-21T11:59:00.000-08:00

hello friends,

in this update...

1. status of health
2. misadventures in the small, seedy beach town of tela
3. visiting the garifuna village of miami
4. camping on a deserted beach in punta sal
5. relaxing on a rural farm in santa ana and then hiking up to a jungle cabin in pico bontio

1... i've been doing well, except today i got reall sick for a few hours -- running nose, sore throat, headache, and lots of time in the bathroom -- though, it seems to have mostly let up pretty dramatically. on other news, it seems that i have contracted coloradillas, which are microscopic red ticks that love to hang out on your ankles and waist. they dies after a few days, but then the itching persists for at least a week.

2... tela was rumored to be a nice little party town on the coast with a little bit of a rough edge. trouble was there was absolutely no party to be found (except very macho billiard halls) and we got mugged on our first full night there. don't worry, everything is fine. we were walking around town just as the sun set in search of this very cute little restuarant we had seen earlier, when all of a sudden a very young kid with a gun on a bike rode up to us and said, ¨money.¨ overall, we only lost about $25 dollars, but manjula's camera was also taken in the incident, along with the great photos of the old abandoned train station in town. so, we rolled with it -- wrote a song about the mugger, ate some baleadas (thick tortillas filled with beans a nd a little bit of cheese) from a street vendor, and made a plan to leave town the next day.

3... a bumpy bus ride and lift on the back of a pick up truck brought us out to the village of miami. the very small village, which is picturesquely located on a very narrow spit of sand between an enormous lagoon and the ocean, is known for being one of the few villages in all of honduras were people live in the traditional way that the garifuna have lived for hundreds of years. garifuna are an indigenous people who live along the caribbean coast in belize, guatemala, and honduras, whose orgins stem from marooned african slaves and amerindians on small caribbean islands. over the past few hundreds of years, the garifuna have been forecfully removed from various islands and coastal lands before settling in the current locations. they have developed the own language and dances, one of which -- la punta -- has become a national dance of sorts. all the homes in miami are made in the traditional garifuna style with hard dirt floors, walls made of reeds, and thatched roofs. one of the most interesting bits of info about miami that we found out was that it was only founded 30 years ago and most of the residents self identify as indios -- a catch all term for non-white, non-black, indegnous people -- rather than garifuna, who now mainly live in a minorly developed town nearby called tornabe. in fact, from one of the conversations that we had there, it seems that there is a good deal of racism against the garifuna peoples by the indios. it was the usual bullshit that black people are just lazy -- once again, the worlds of central america and the united states are a lot closer than we sometimes think. for me, the whole situation brings up critical questions on cultural legacy, racism, land authenticity, and power. very poor indios, who are being displaced by poor landinos (non-indegenous hondurans) cutting down the forest for farms, are claiming a cultural identity of even poorer garifunas as a means to generate money from wealthier tourists (foreigners and hondurans). all this, while tour companies who are run by wealthier hondurans from the city are making the most profit. oh, and did i mention, that most of the people who work on the tours are garifuna and receive almost no money. oh, and also that currently there is an monstrosity of a resort (5 hotels and a mall) being built just between miami and tornabe.

4... after a night in miami, we convinced a local fisherman, giovani, to give us a short ride across the bit of water that connects the the lagoon and the ocean, so that we could walk to punta sal in the national park jeannete kawas. we were walking along amazing deserted beaches, stopping along the way to rest under the shade of coconut trees. and then, much to my surprise, i figured out that i could climb a tree, get a young coconut, and actually open it with my little pocket knife. it was the best tasting coconut water i have ever had. we had heard that at the end of the loooooooooong beach there were a few small huts -- champas -- that sold drinks and a sign with trail markers. as we walked for hours , the horizon played tricks on us and it seemed that we would never make it. at one point, manjula was getting heat stroke and almost hurled. but we made it, but there were no champas anywhere to be found and the sign only became visible as we took the very last steps along the beach. we celebrated with an amazingly refreshing dip in the warm water and a light snack. while we ate, we heard a loud noise from the jungle behind us as if a person with a very deep voice was going ¨ka-kaw, ka-kaw.¨ the noise kept happening very few minutes as we started hiking along the trail into the jungle. at a fork in the trail, we chose the path that led more towards the noise because it was flatter. however, as we got closer and closer to the noise, it changed, and became a deep, long, loud screach that didn´t stop until we turned around to take the other path. we had no idea what it was, we were really scared, and despite our tiredness, hiking up the steep path seemed like a much safer option. at the end of the steep path, we reached a picture, perfect cove with loud roaring waves and squeaky monkey noises. there was no place to flat place to camp, the bugs were getting worse, and the screeching noise in the jungle was freaking us out more and more. luckily, though, manjula did a little research in our guide book and found out that the screeching noise had to have been a howler monkey, which apparently is quite docile and only eats plants (rather than unsuspecting gringos). so, with our new found knowledge we hiked back through the jungle to the first beach which had had a good place to camp, all along hearing the howling monkey roar. continuing our tradition of creating songs for things that scared us, we wrote a song about the howler monkey. we set up camp next to a small palm, and there we stayed on a beautiful, deserted beach for two nights. we swam, drank so many young coconuts, read together, made camp fires, and developed a plan in case we were ever actually stranded on a desert island. despite our fears, we were safe and sound, although one time in the middle of the night i jumped up from sleep and grabbed my knife as i thought i heard a wild pig at our tent. on our last day there, we hiked back along the beach for hours as the sun rose amongst a, thankfully, cloudy sky. we had made a plan with giovani to pick us up at the place he had dropped us off at. after a few minutes of waving towards the empty, sleepy village, giovani actually saw us and picked us up.

5... after a long taxi and bus ride we made it back from miami to tornabe to tela and then out to the small in-land town along the tela - la ceiba road called santa ana where a very nice hoduran/german couple run a lovely farm called finca el eden. on the farm, they grow lots of pineapple and have small orchards of tropical fruits including papaya, mango, star fruit, and crazy pear-shaped apples. we hung out here for a few days relaxing while swimming in a crystal clear river and drinking special german beers that the owner imports. the finca also had a small, rustic cabin in the pico bonito national park that literally was their backyard. we had a great few hour hike up through the tropical jungle, and along the way i saw plants growing upon plants upon plants, brilliantly colored butterflies, huge birds, a small snake a group of around fifteen kinkajou, who are locally called micos de noche and look like jungle racoon monkeys. once we reached the cabin, we enoyed amazing views down the whole mountain and of the swaying jungle in the misty breeze. we found a small creek and bathed ourselves next to a tiny waterfall that created lovely little bubbles throughout the tiny pool. as night approached, i tried desperately to make a fire, but the damp wood would not catch, so we ate a raw dinner that manjula lovingly made while my eyes watered from all the smoke that misguided and macho attempt had created. the next day, after a muddy down-hill hike we made it back to the finca, where delsi made us coffee and berti rolled us a joint -- what hosts. berti then delighted us with his tales of supporting himself as a young man by traveling through the united states playing his accordian at german restaurants and oktober fests. he also told us about how in the 80´s, he had done an epic 2 year motorcycle trip alone from san diego all the way down to paraguay, where he then sold his bike for 1,000,000 of the local currency.

well, wow, that's quite enough for now.
hope you are all well.

we are currently in gracias in the western highlands and will be taking a two day hike in the celaque national park tomorrow to see one of the most intact cloud forests in the americas, where there are rumored to be many of the beautiful and elusive bird the quetzal.

llegamos...

2008-12-12T13:42:00.000-08:00

24 hours, 3 flights, 2 taxis, and a bus later... we´re here. the beach town of tela on the atlantic coast of honduras.

going to hang out here for a day or two, and then off on a bus/boat/hike adventure to the tiny towns of tonrabe and miami with the goal of reaching the national park of punta sal to camp on the beach for a few days.

i´ll write more soon. but for now, check out manjula´s thoughts at http://www.scenesfromthenext.blogspot.com/

let the adventures begin...

2008-12-10T14:06:00.000-08:00

well, in typical fashion, the adventures start even before i realize.

manjula and i had our flight for tomorrow, but as we left the house this morning, we casually looked at our itineraries and noticed that we had totally screwed up in booking our flights. basically, the short version is that it would be physically impossible to make our connection in miami (unless you've got any ideas on how to go backwards in time five hours). so, we had to book red-eye flights to go to miami tonight.

a shot of tequila later, and we're ready to go...