baskdfj city

Lydia B-day

2008 Jan. Tiny Matador

Last night I watched a 12 year old girl kill a bull.

We were hesitant to go to see a bull fight, but figuring that we may never have a chance again we hawked over the cash and followed the crowds up the stone street past vendors of tiny stuffed animals and cowboy hats, gave our tickets to that taker and could see the round stadium they had built for killing bulls.

Trumpets sounded, a band played and like Roman Emperors we walked under an archway that opened up with a view of the dirt ring that made us both excited for a spectacle. Working Mexicans tended the dirt with chalk and rakes as more people spilled into the stadium. Men in white lab coats that advertised corona hurried about taking orders and bringing you half filled cups of half warm beer.

We found a good place to sit up high on the concrete terrace and waited with anxious anticipation for the night to begin. With the stands sufficiently full, the trumpets sounded again, the band started up and out came our heroic Matadors on horse back with Banderilleros (flag wavers) for an overture of what was to come. The crowd stood and whistled to the Matadors who raised and waived their hats in gracious return.

After much bowing and curtseys, each man returned to the safety outside of the ring and the first bull was let out.

He was a young dark bull who bolted through the gate quickly and then looked confused like he had just been awaken from a dream with a start and didn’t quit know which way to go until the banderilleros came out to show him the way. They continued with this taunt and chase to tire and confuse the animal and with random pass they would spear his mighty shoulders with fancy staffs till a deep red blood began to pour down his side. This set up the animal for out first tiny Matador to appear.

Dressed in a tight grey suit at probably not five feet and only 12 years of age she stepped forth into the dirt and sand alone to face the bull. Her ebony hair was pulled back tight and she was armed with nothing but a small red cape and a thin silver sword that glistened from the lights above. The bull approached her now already with a sad expression, his fat white tongue flopping out of his mouth angry that he wasn´t at home, she yelled a command in her small voice and the bull charged head down through the cape. Our tiny matador stepped tight and pulled up straight like a plie, she danced in this way with the bull and with each successful pass the crowd would yell ¨Ole!¨

After several successful passes she stood to face the arena and as if the bull had been coached for this moment of recognition, he stopped and faced the people also.

The tiny matador raised her sword to applause and the bull, now looking much older and slowing looked up as if to say, ¨Why, oh why am I here? Today started off as such a nice day… I had no idea it would end like this. Which one of you will help me go home? I only want to go home and rest. I do not want to play this game anymore.¨

I thought about how American mothers of boys once felt knowing that there may be a time that their sons would be drafted and sent off to war, and I wondered if somehow heifers could innately feel the same remorse for their young bulls, knowing that there would be a time when those babes would be slaughtered for the logic of others.

The trumpets blew to start the band and with the moment over, the small girl, our tiny matador again commanded the tired dark bull to pass. The bull, not realizing what may happen, but only knowing instinctually all that a bull must know- charge, survive, charge, survive, charged again and the tiny matador standing as tall as she was able, reached high her sword and then thrust it down between the shoulders of the beast, stabbing his mighty heart and causing him to stumble with a solemn thud, first his front legs and then his back, you could see him breathing slow and heavy and lay his head at last on the ground to a thunderous round of applause.

At this the workers quickly took to the ring and one ran up to the bull with a long knife, jabbed it in the back of the bulls skull kicking his legs out and shot blood out his mouth. The animal was at last dead.

Two strong Clydesdale type horses came out, and with a chain wrapped around his fallen horns, they dragged the bull away to the recesses of the stadium. His battle done, his life extinguished, he could at last go home.

2007 Jan Mexico: Tulum

Tulum, Mexico- January 2007

Traveling down the Yucatan peninsula eventually those hills that look so much like the desert hills of southern California, give way to half flooded fields and sporadic palm tree. The fields are home to cows, not the domesticated hamburger cow like you find in America, but real cow with great big horns and prehistoric hump on their back grazing lazy like in those lush grasses.

That in turn shortly will change to jungle, seemingly impenetrable greenness all tangled up, and the clouds change to mammoth cloud continents floating overhead and you sense that you are about to run out of land.

And so I arrived in paradise, but paradise was dark. Late night walk to the ocean with fellow backpackers, mumbling yakking babble, cant nobody really understand what anybodies is saying all these miles away from where ever it is that was home. But I stand, we all stand face attention to the sea and I can hear it crash and smell it and feel the salt kissing my face.

After a couple nights in the hostel I took my stuff, my olive drab Korean navy duffle and my back, and my ruck sack on my front and waddled back down to the shore to rent a cabana for a few nights.

Now when I think cabana I think Los Angels beaches... but this was just a stick shack thatch roof, and I was never happier. Inside had cement floor with sand spilled across that had blown through my stick wall. A little plastic table with rusted metal legs, busted up plastic chair that I would sit in and write, a double bed with mosquito net. The lady who took my money gave me a key that went to the pad lock for the chain that rapped through my door, a roll of toilet paper, and two candles. Yep, no light bulbs either.

There was a dive school close by so I went over to it thinking I like to snorkel. It was run by an old Italian man that spoke a mix of englishspanishitailanfrench, so everybody understood a little of something he was saying. He put me on a boat captained by a younger Mexican and his maybe 12 year old son. The two of them worked seamlessly together happy and tan and I wished every father and son could work and live together so simple and happy like.

But as soon as I got on the boat I felt the sickness creep in, and when we got to the reef, I jumped in with mask and fins and trying to enjoy myself had to come up and puke right there in the water. Ha oh well. Swim some more and take in salt water and watch the little fishies go about their fishy business, watch the coral sway and up again to puke.

It wasn't long before I had to just sit on the boat and watch the horizon. 'You ok man?' the shirtless captain would ask. 'Estoy un poco enfermo'- 'oh, no bueno' and he went back to swimming with his son.

At night they'd run a generator for the kitchen and office, and it hummed quite loudly. Id just sit at my table writing whatever is was that I was thinkin, drink some el cheapo tequila, feel kinda funny like, decide I was gonna invent a new type of candle holder out of my beer can, or water bottle, play with the ants, play with the wax, listen to my ipod and sing songs to the sea. Get in under my mosquito net that felt so safe like halo over me and lay waiting for the sound of the generator giving out, oh glorious sound of motor having done its work and knowing now it can rest and sleep too, it fades quick like and gone. Then only the sound of the sea to clear my thoughts.

Each morning Id rise before dawn and walk out to the beach in my undies and linen shirt and sit right there watchin the sun rise. Id ask the sea in whisper 'what is the meaning of the void' and it just roared back at me wave crash like. This morning as I sat a coconut fell right beside me. I shoulda tried to eat it, but not wanting to look like a stupid gringo trying to bust it open, I just left it.

I haven’t had a conversation with anyone in three days and the solitude has given me lots of time to just sit and stare at stuff, or write, or sleep, or drink pinnacoladas. It’s been tough.

It was sad for me today to leave my little hut but I knew it was time. I said goodbye to everything and touched it as I did so. The bed, the mosquito net, the walls, the little table and chair that I sat at to write, the sand on the floor. I’ve always done that since I was a kid, I don’t know why.

A little ant tried to climb in my backpack for the trip. I told him no lill ant, you have to stay here. I think maybe he was sad to see me go to. Who would he stay up with late night and play with the wax? Who would blow on him softly and make him run every which way?

I walked to the top of the hill over looking the sea and before it went back down again to the dirt road I said good bye to it too and it roared back at me.

2007 Sep Ecuador

Ecuador-
I'll be honest, it was not on my top 10 of places I'd ever thought I'd want to go, or planned on going, but whatever you know... adventure is worthwhile in itself. And we were flying first class?!? That excietment alone was enough to make me giddy.

Getting out of Charlotte was a bit of an ordeal. We sat an waited in the airport through a couple of flights as I practiced my spanish phrases on Lydia that were listed in the back of the guide book. "My stomach hurts" "I havent gone to the bathroom in 3 days" and "Yes, I'd love more wine" all seemed like things that would come in handy, "Please dont detain me, I dont know where that came from" also seemed like a good one, but Lydia said if it comes to that, you're phrase probably won't do much good. I agreed and decided to just keep practicing the first three.

We eventually gave up the airport for the day in favor on a crack of dawn flight the next morning. It landed us in Guayaquil late that night, and we caught a cab to the Hotel California... I wondered if they really knew the words to that song. Our room had a window and when I opened it I could lean out and touch the wall of the opposite side of the airshaft. We watched old american cartoons in spainish and hurried through cold showers. The next morning we left in favor of a hostel that looked twice as nice and cost half as much- but still no hot water:(

Guayaquil was not amazing to me. A cross between Bejing suburb and Mexico City dirt, one neighboorhood was nice, the old one on a hill by the water where we'd walk with an old friend of Lydia's and I'd struggle to follow the conversation to the point of exhaustion. When were they gonna say something I knew, like "I havent gone to the bathroom in 3 days???"

We'd take the bus up through the country north and west to the coast, with driver who'd drive real fast and then slam on the breaks and swerve to avoid a pothole, or small child or donkey. The landscape was dramatic and when we finally saw the ocean it was past noon. Puerto Lopez was a dusty beach down with dirt roads motorcycle rickshaws and kids throwing rocks at donkeys. I kinda liked the place. We arrived too late for a boat to "the poor man's galapagos" so we hired a fisherman to take us snorkleing and fishing.

His daughters would go along with us, 5 and 7 years of age, the older being our guide "since she can swim" said her mother. The 5 year old snuck on, despit her mother telling her she couldn't go, and sat at the bow until we shoved off. The mother introduced us to "Capitan" our captain who was so excieted I thought he was going to freak out. He repeatedly pointed out birds and rocks and to the water where he said the pescados(fish) live.

After being in the mountains of asheville for so long, I was starting to think fish didnt really exist. I mean- i never see anyone catch any, Im left to assume everything in the store is farm raised. But after Capitan baited our lines and we dropped them in, it wasn't 10 seconds before I had a tug tug. Mine was a little red one and Lyida pulled up(with help from the 5 year old) that crazy monster fish!

I always wanted to be a sailor, but I'm starting to think that Im not quite cut out for it. It wasn't long before I started to feel sick on that boat, and not long after that I put my lunch over the side "comida para los pescados"(food for the fishes) I told the little girls who watch me with intent. hadn't they ever seen a gringo fisherman??

We forwent the snorkeling lest I have a repeat of my trip to Mexico, again with the getting sea sick, got back on the bus and rode down the coast to the small tourist beach town of Montanita, stayed at a wonderful hostel by the sea and ate an amazing meal cooked by another of Lydia's old friends.

We were only able to stay one night, though longer would have been nice, getting lost in hostel cafe's, sitting and drinking and watching, but more friends awaited us in Cuenca, a beautiful colonial town towards the south of the country. From the bus station to a small bar filled with peace corp volunteers and another old friend Shawn. We'd talk with them all, all night for two nights about the peace corp and the struggles that they faced. The fustration at differing cultural ideaology, and the ground they felt they'd made.

Together with Shawn, we took the "calle del muerte"(road of death) though maybe there are worse and more offical roads of death, this one was quite bad enough for me. With breath taking mountains and long range views swept with clouds and mist, we climbed the Andes and then back down to the Jungle. I sat over the wheel and could look out my window and straight down with inches to spare before a rollingdeath to the river hundreds of feet below. We passed old bus carcases, abandoned and long forgot at the bottom and it was the best i could do to relax and enjoy the scenery.

"Jungle Dave" met us in the center of his small village named San Juan Bosco on the edge of the rain forrest. He was decribed to me in advance as the orchid theif character from the movie Adaptation. That was a pretty dead on description. Dave showed us were villagers were still cutting down rain forrest to plant corn, how that was raising the temperature of the river which will bring disease cause pig farmers set their stys next to the water. And were rain forrest had been cleared to make way for cattle, but raising cattle on those steep slopes was ineffective, and produces poor meat and little milk as well as mud slides into the village.

He hiked us into the forrest to show us rare plants and exotic birds and how their habitat is being threatend. We swam in the river and hunted for butterflies. Hiked back out and made dinner at his house where I'd watch an old Ecuadorian woman use a long stick to knock papaya off a tree. "Oh, look Lydia, guinee pigs!" I'd say. "They eat those you know.." she'd tell me.

For dinner we had steak and wine. And stay up talking again about how to save the world. We spent two days there before we all split up and I headed back up the mountain towards Cuenca, Guayaquil and then home.

It was all more than I expected, and maybe life changing so as travel always is. I thought we were done cutting down rainforrest, but through my riding the bus and flying over american cities, its hard not to feel overwhelmed at how screwed up everything is. So then where to start? I dont know and with the fustration I could hear from the volunteers, what a monumental task to get even anything small fixed...

We'll thanks for reading. We miss you all.