A Clever Lady and a Burmese Baby

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Burma is a closed off country. Before spending time on it’s border I’d never heard much in the way of specific news or descriptions of problems in Burma, only that it was a rough place. Indeed it is a rough place, particularly for those who born into the Karen people group. From what I understand the Karen sided with the Allies in WWII, which was fine until the war was over and the allies forgot them in the treaty writing and left them at the mercy of their Japan sympathizing countrymen. Ethnic cleansing is the name of the game the controlling party in Burma now plays. One of the best health decisions a Karen person can make is to sneak across the border into Thailand and try to make a new life. Life in Thailand is relatively safe, but not easy: no I.D., illegal status, no access to health care or property rights. Being a refugee is a real drag, but when the alternative might involve literally being dragged down the street behind a truck, beaten, and killed, you go the refugee route if you can manage.

Bamboo School, where we spent the last ten days, exists to help Karen refugees, particularly orphans and other option-less children. Catherine Riley-Bryan Is affectionately known as “Momo Cat” by her “Bamboo Kids” and friends in Thailand. She told us that even though she’s old enough to be grandmother to her bamboo children, she prefers the Thai word for motherly endearment (Momo) since grandmothers are called “Pee Pee” (grandfathers, as it so happens are called “Poo Poo,” perfect right?).

Before Momo came to work in Thailand she did everything from earning the prestigious honor of Business Woman of the Year in New Zealand and Australia, to piloting rescue helicopters, to marrying a Manchester United footballer and traveling the Premiere League circuit on the arm of an Athlete. As Jeremy put it, “this woman has really lived.” Eventually she and her footballer settled down happily on a ranch in New Zealand, but when her husband died God began leading her through another astonishing series of events that has ultimately landed her on the Thai-Burma border having a rip-roaring good time running an orphanage, clinic, and ambulance service.

Momo is the kind of lady who gets things done and has a good time doing it. For example (and examples abound -I can’t listen quite as fast as she can tell stories), she was having a problem with some of the villagers releasing their goats on her property and eat her seedlings at night. She didn’t know who the culprits were so she corralled the goats and spray painted them hot pink. The next morning she hopped in her truck and drove down the hill till she spotted the hot pink goats, then had some words with their darker pink (blushing) owners.

It was inspiring to see how Momo serves God, and to hear her excitedly explain how thankful she is that God has given her a purpose. Even the lady who has “lived” finds she’s getting a lot more out of life now, as a servant to the poor, than she was back in her wheeling dealing days.

For my part, with only ten days at Bamboo School, I caught the vision but couldn’t quite figure out my place in the work. Hard work is a value that Momo is instilling in her kids, and they‘re catching on. There’s a schedule for chores; by the time I’d go hunt down a broom I’d come back to find the girls had finished sweeping already. The boys took Jeremy and me to cut Bamboo in the jungle for a new wall in the main building (the dorms and guest houses are straight out of Swiss Family Robison: floors, walls, and ceilings all from bamboo -these are two story structures, too). We got schooled in machete technique, and learned that, at home in Burma, these boys would likely have been cutting teak wood in addition to bamboo, and loading it on the family elephant (evidently it’s quite common for a successful family group to have an elephant, a strong one runs about $2000).

If I said, “I learned more from the bamboo kids than I possibly could have taught them,” I wouldn’t be being philosophical, I didn’t know how to split bamboo to make flooring, how to cut jack fruit, or how to feed a baby. I’m slightly ashamed but largely relieved to say that I still don’t know how to change a diaper -a skill that’s important for the older bamboo kids to know since they take care of their baby brothers and sisters.

One thing Jeremy and I know a little bit about is pouring concrete without much in the way of tools. We were able to put some of our energy, and your “Good Samaritan” money, to that end. We spent a day running plumbing and building forms in preparation for the pour, but the pouring day was the most fun: Bucket brigades with a median age of nine. I had a good laugh when I remembered and hummed the “Little Rascals” theme song. After we finished the floor for the “club house,” we “he-men” took the afternoon off and headed for the swimming hole. Everything was O’Tay.

-bjorn2bwild

Squeeze the Throttle and Point ‘Er South

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I fell in love with traveling all over again on the second half of our two-wheeled Vietnamese odyssey. My South Vietnamese premonitions were unfounded. The dense, feverish, mosquito infested jungle I expected never showed itself. There were wide open spaces and green hills under blue skies that had me wondering if we’d taken a wrong turn and ended up in Tanzania. The mighty “former rain” which had so thoroughly inundated our first week on the road left us unimpressed by the “latter rain” (about 15 minutes of drizzling…refreshing, really) two days before we reached Saigon. Mostly it was blue skies and balmy breezes. Perfect riding weather.

Bike trips are for dreaming. With nothing to listen to but the wind and the sound of my own thoughts, my imagination went totally bonkers and I got really excited about life, and the things I’d like to do with mine. I changed prospective medical specialties three times during the 800km of Ho Chi Minh highway that separates Hoi An and Saigon. Also it became momentously important to me that I own and run several businesses before I die: hot dog stand, peach orchard, ergonomic design studio, and ice cream parlor. As if all that and medicine won’t keep me busy enough, I solemnly vowed I would learn to sew (well enough to make suits and gowns) and that my culinary repertoire was in grievous need of expansion and would require an ample dose of attention when I get home. Do they have online Home/Ec classes for travelers?

We covered half the length of Vietnam in the last three days of riding. We were up with the sun, and in the saddle almost until dark. Every couple of hours we’d stop to stretch our legs and treat the sweaty hinder regions to some revitalizing breezes. A motorcycle trip, as it turns out, isn‘t a bad past time for a guy who‘s foot is out of order. I could keep up fine as long as we were on the road, it was the stopovers where Jeremy would have to pick up the slack in running errands and getting food and water.

Jeremy, as a rule, makes excellent consumer decisions, so I was happy in my handicap state, to leave hunting and gathering up to him. Everything he scrounged up was great, with the exception of the onion ice cream. That was foul. However, the irony in the fact that the ice cream truck, in rural Vietnam, drove off with it’s speakers blaring “It’s a Small World After All” was sufficiently delicious to leave me with a palatable memory of the experience as a whole.

As we finally entered Saigon I remember thinking passively, “Don’t Crash! Don’t Crash! Aaah there are cars everywhere I‘m gonna die!!.” Luckily I was able to postpone my foray into the maniacal throng thanks to the fact that I ran out of gas. What luck! After I hop-pushed my bike (still in one foot mode) to the next gas station, I realized I was having electrical problems to boot and had to use the kick start to get her going again (her name was Christine by the way…I christened her Christine for the sheer joy of making such an alliterative declaration). .

The goal was to drive to Saigon and sell the bikes. Christine made it to Saigon, and I suppose I should be thankful, but upon arrival, as a bid farewell I suppose, she hit me with a $25 repair bill (this might not sound like much, but it was by far the most expensive tab I ever paid on her behalf…stuff’s cheap in Vietnam). Christine got a makeover and I posted her on Craigslist and also taped a for sale sign to her. She sold easily, and for a good price, as did Jeremy’s bike who’s name escapes me at the moment.

Speaking of paying tabs on behalf of girls, I had a date in Saigon with a Vietnamese girl. Her name translates as “Picture” and as far as those go I thought she is well composed. She has a really cute smile. My attempts to get her to smile turned quickly into flirting, which turned into a date. She picked me up on her motorbike and we went to a restaurant on the river for rice-paper wraps. I was worried that people would think she was a prostitute and that I had hired her (a tragic amount of that business does go on in Saigon), but I think our laughter was too genuine to create that sort of confusion. It was a really fun date, her English vocabulary can‘t keep up with her sassiness. I thought it was cute when she would talk herself into a corner and want to express herself so badly that it looked as if she might explode. She said I could only be her boyfriend if I stay to live in Saigon. It didn’t work out.

Crash

“Uh oh. I’m gonna hit him.” I said to myself as a topsy turvy motorbike laden with a towering bundle of sugar cane veered unexpectedly into the full illumination of my headlight. My next thought was, “huh, so this is what it’s like to slide on asphalt.” By the time friction had finished grating me to a stop my main thought was, “man, I‘m afraid that may not have been healthy for my skin.”
Nothing hurt too badly as my body automatically dragged my motorbike to the side of the road and felt around for belongings that had escaped their bungees during the main event. I was happy to be alive and conscious, and it wasn’t until I managed to move my whole junk-show off of the tarmac that I realized the gravity of my situation: It was dark (we hadn’t yet reached a town with a hotel…so we had continued into the night), Jeremy was gone, my motorbike didn’t look good, I was in a very rural part of a third world country, I could feel my shoe was filling with blood, I had no idea where the nearest clinic was, no one around me knew any words in English or had any way to help me get anywhere.
Thankfully the guy I hit was fine (had he been hurt I might have found myself in jail or the recipient of some vigilante justice). He pulled his motorcycle to the side of the road and started giving me emphatic instructions. He may as well have been speaking Vietnamese (uummmm.) Another guy came along and picked my bike up off of it’s side. He started bending and kicking mangled parts back into alignment. He pressed the starter and, hallelujah, it started!
I fumbled around for ten minutes, reattaching my belongings to my motorbike and wondering what I should do. I hoped Jeremy would realize I wasn’t behind him anymore and come back. Every time a bike would pass I would shout his name. I couldn’t see who was on the passing bikes behind their blinding headlights, and since I was off to the side of the road I wanted to make sure Jeremy didn’t pass me if he came back looking for me.
Jeremy hadn’t returned and I knew I needed to get some medical attention. I didn’t know how bad I was bleeding, so I was worried that if I was really bleeding I might get light-headed and crash again if I tried to ride to the next town. I had a prayer and started down the road.
Jeremy was waiting on the side of the road less than a mile away, it was a big relief to see him. I took my shoe off so we could assess the damage. I couldn’t see the biggest gash (it was on the bottom of my foot) but Jeremy told me it was big. He wrapped my foot tightly in his bandana, but then I couldn’t fit it back into my shoe. I asked him if I could just wear his shoe, I figured his size 15 could accommodate my foot, bandage and all. He gave me his shoe and we started trying to figure out how to get to the next town that might have a clinic.
We were relying on sign language to ask for help and directions and we weren’t getting anywhere fast. Finally (this was a huge answer to prayer) we happened upon a kid who spoke English. He didn’t speak well, in fact he probably knew about 14 words, but it was enough to tell him I would pay him to lead us to the next town that had a hospital. We followed him about 15km to Thai Hoa. I rode with my injured foot slung up over the handle bars to keep it elevated.
The hospital was exceedingly primitive. A man lay grimacing on a table with a splint on his leg that consisted of two sticks bound together with a bunch of tape. As his friends hoisted him up from the table and carried him hurriedly through the door they came within a centimeter of slamming his injured leg into the door jam. I wondered what kind of care I could expect.
I presume the man who worked on me was a doctor. He said (through our 14 word interpreter) that we would have to come to his house so he could stitch me up. It seemed curious that he couldn’t do it at the clinic, but there was no way to ask why. We struck out again on our bikes, following the doctor across the small town and down a dimly lit alley to his home. I knew I was about to get some serious stitches, and I was pretty nervous, wondering whether or not this guy had any anesthetic.
Turns out he did have anesthetic, and other than the fact that his flea ridden dog sat right next to him as he stitched me up, it was a fairly sterile procedure. He produced several syringes and vials of mysterious serums which I hoped were antibiotics. All the labels were in Vietnamese so I just had him hit me with everything he had.
So now it hurts to walk, but luckily it doesn’t hurt to ride a motorbike. So we’ve continued our trip down Vietnam. The interesting thing now is that we’ve realized we would have been better off buying jet-skis than motorbikes. The flooding they mentioned in the news. They weren’t joking. We’ve driven through torrential downpours for the last few days. I’m trying to keep my foot from getting infected, but it’s a bit tricky since it has to spend it’s days in my soggy right shoe.
Now we’re in Hue, the old capital of Vietnam. I’ve made an invalid out of myself, mostly laying in bed keeping my foot dry. Jeremy runs errands and comes back wide-eyed with stories of people in canoes going down main roads. I really wanted to do a motorcycle trip because I was feeling like the train/bus method lacked a certain element of adventure. It hasn’t been hard to find adventure on the motorbikes. Not hard at all.

-bjorn2bwild

Youth In Asia

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I’ve been indulging my audio book addiction, and it’s left me with little time for blogging. But I’ve got about 20 min so I’ll hammer out a quick update (I‘m writing fast, please excuse my grammar errors and my developing tendency to slip into Vietnamenglish):

Here’s what we’ve been up to since last time I wrote:

-bamboo raft down the Li River (look up online -grand scenery) to reach Southern China.
-tasted (just one sip) snake wine -it’s rice wine marinated in a bottle full of dead snakes.
-spent 3 days rock climbing in Yangshuo, China -very epic, see Jeremy’s blog.
-rented bikes for 80 cents a day and got around with out peddling by grabbing passing vehicles.
-got massages -the girl who worked on Jeremy was a lot cuter than the guy I got.
-long lists are boring…so this one is ending.

I hadn’t realized that U.S. citizens can’t get Vietnamese visas at the border, so we had to go to Nanning, in Southern China, to get our papers sorted out at the Vietnamese consulate. Nanning is a regular city. Tourists don’t go there. There’s nothing particularly remarkable to see but that made it a really neat place to spend a few days. People were genuinely curious about us since we were foreigners. Mothers would bring there children over to us and prompt them to say the four words which constitute their English vocabulary: “hello, how are you?”

From Nanning we took a bus to Hanoi, Vietnam. We had our first major hiccup at the border. Jeremy could not convince the Chinese officials that he was the long haired guy pictured in his passport. Despite a whole pile of documentation and identification, including his birth certificate, there was no convincing them. Finally we got out our computers and dug for pictures to demonstrate Jeremy’s Jeremy-ness. I had happened to snap a picture of him cutting his long hair off when we were in Cusco, Peru, so I made a little slide show documentary of the evolution of Jeremy’s hair-do. I’m not sure if the slide show was the reason, but after much ado they finally let us into Vietnam.

Vietnam: Central America is to the U.S. what Vietnam is to China. It got a whole lot more primitive and a whole lot less organized as soon as we crossed the border. Super fun! The people we‘ve encountered are incredibly sweet and enormously helpful. “We want help you first -more important. then maybe second we can make some money,” the pretty lady at the hostel desk said with here beaming smile when we asked here why she was so nice.

I should mention the youth in Asia. This was a big topic in ethics class and I never fully understood why. Anyway, in this part of Asia the youth are splendid. We are regularly befriended. Their help is extended. But my rhyming has ended. For the past two days two youth in Asia have helped us find, buy, and fix up the two scooters we‘re going to drive the 1700 miles to Ho Chi Minh City (plus possible detours into Laos and Cambodia). It’s time to hit the road….blessings, I’ll catch you later.

-bjorn2bwild

Seedy Trains and Rice-Filled Plains

The rising sun of the Japanese flag flew proudly aboard the Su Zhou Hao ferry as we bid farewell to Osaka. We were at sea long enough for the sun to set and rise twice more before a leathery crewman clambered to the top of the bridge to lower the Japanese colors and hoist China’s bright red, yellow star-studded banner. Our landing in Asia proper was nigh. The individual “chugs” of the low rpm engine could be heard as the Su Zhou Hao slowly, but unrelentingly moved out of the swelling Pacific and into the mouth of the Huangpu River to Shanghai.

As we approached the dock an astonishing cityscape peaked through the smoggy haze. On the Huangpu’s Northern bank lies the Bund, a massive but carefully tended walking thoroughfare along the river. Cascades of pink petunias hung from every light post along the wide stone walkway. The Bund lies between the river and Shanghai’s old European quarter where merchants of colonial days have left telltale architectural fingerprints.

The newest and biggest skyscrapers are across the river, both they and their dancing reflections in the river are clearly visible from the Bund. In the past 30 years more skyscrapers have been built in Shanghai than New York City has ever built. The city’s crowning architectural gem is, as ought to be expected here, actually a pearl -the Pearl Tower. The tower is something like the Seattle Space Needle’s big brother. However instead of a saucer on top, the Pearl Tower has two enormous globes (pearls), one on top of the other, adorning its slender frame.

It was in Shanghai that Jeremy and I first encountered the baffling Mandarin language. So far this is what I’ve learned: The word for “horse,” ma, is also the world for “what” and “mother.” Subtle tonal differences allow the trained ear to distinguish between words. You would think context might help convey meaning when foreigners inevitably blunder. If you’re ordering a dish at the corner restaurant, “horse” could likely be found the menu, but “mother” would probably not be offered. The funny thing is how bad the Chinese are at cross-tonal guessing. If you don’t get the tone right it just doesn’t register.

It’s not fair for me to say they’re bad at it, it’s their language after all and for them there’s never a need to guess. Tones positively distinguish one word from another. It just that when you climb into a cab and ask to go to qingwa (a nearby university), it seems like the cab driver should be able to figure out that you want to go to the university and not to “frog” which is what you inadvertently said as a result of mismatched tones.

I memorized a few Chinese phrases that I hoped to use when ordering food, but when I tried to say them the confused expressions I received told me my tones were wrong. I had to revert to the Russian roulette method for ordering food -pointing to something on the pictureless menu and praying. Finally I struck upon a good idea. My IPod can record voice memos so I had a bilingual friend record a few Chinese sentences for me that I anticipate may come in handy. Now I have two sentences to play back in perfect Chinese: ”May I please have my noodles with eggs or tofu instead of meat?” and, “Hi, I am Barack Obama, President of the United States, nice to meet you.”

“Seedy.” That’s the best word I can think of to describe the railway passenger car Jeremy and I endured for 20 hours between Hangzhou (our first stop after Shanghai) and Guilin, where we arrived yesterday. I looked up the word seedy and sure enough they actually had a picture of our railway car right there in the dictionary. Further etymological research confirmed my suspicion as to the history of the word. Sunflower seeds are the snack of choice onboard Chinese railways (I think they help with boredom and motion sickness). People eat piles of these seeds on the train, and thus produce even bigger piles of saliva soaked husks. Very little effort is dedicated to helping the shells find their way to a garbage receptacle. The shells litter the benches and tables; shells on the floor stick to shoes, dirty diapers, and every manner of neglected garbage. So it was here in China that “seedy” came to be associated with general filth and degeneracy. Words are fun, huh?

I have developed what I think is a worthy criterion by which to judge the places I visit. It’s called the smile quotient. Chinese people are quick with smiles (even on seedy train rides) and have earned a high smile quotient. Japan is ahead of China when it comes to automobile manufacturing. So the “miles per hour” award goes to Japan, but China is the clear leader when it comes to “smiles per hour.”

Flags

Bjorn’s Blog

Flags

“You going see many flags.” The hostel manager explained to us over the phone in her broken English. Great, it should be easy to find then right? I quickly became frustrated with the directions, it was my understanding that these flags, which allegedly adorned Tokyo’s JGH hostel, would pop into view and guide our weary souls to the beds and showers we badly wanted. Even after retracing our steps we’d spotted no such flags. When we finally stumbled upon the doorstep I was ready to share a piece of my mind with the manager, but I realized the description of the flags had been correct. She must have meant “mini flags” not “many flags.” Had we been more attentive we easily could have spotted the flags from the road with an average pair of binoculars.

Tokyo, the big city of little flags, is not my favorite place. It’s a massive conurbation of cities (I think it’s the biggest metropolis in the world). Aside from a few parks there’s nothing like countryside for a long way in any direction. We did find hospitality. We were very lucky to be given a tour, and treated splendidly, by one of my dad’s classmates. Certainly Tokyo has a rich history and unique sights, but I’m finding it to be a sad place.

The desire for material wealth and career success seems to have a strong hold on the Japanese psyche. The job market in Tokyo is uber-competitive. Professionals and students struggle under colossal workloads and massive amounts of stress. The speedy Subway trains are frequently delayed by people looking for a way out. Jumping in front of the train is the preferred method of suicide.

As I travel I’m always looking for cultural elements that have value; I like to live eclectically, so I’m always looking for ideas that are worth borrowing. Latin siestas, sauna bathing like the fins, and the bidet method for post-fecal cleansing (our smear method is quite primitive when you think about it) are examples habits I think are worth adopting. Now I’m in Japan, trying to figure out what these folks do right. The public baths and simple floor plans of years gone by seem beautiful to me. But sadly the current state of affairs leaves little room for human interaction. Ear buds and smart phones serve as the only companions for hoards of lonely strangers on commuter trains during short trips home between long work days. Hopefully escaping Tokyo will revitalize my outlook on the country as a whole. We’re taking a bus to Osaka tonight.

Our flight to Japan included a 15 hour layover in Seoul, Korea. Even though we arrived in Seoul in the evening, we had an eventful, if short, Korean foray. You could call us “lucky scuzzes.” (Turner, Jessi)….(MLA way of giving literary credit where it’s due). As it turns out the night of October 9 is Seoul’s annual fireworks festival. The city was charged; millions lined bridges and streets, jostling for a better vantage point from which to see the shimmering display.

After the show we caught the tail end of a bustling evening in Namdaemon market. The market is the place to get right into the think of the culture, and to expose your palate to local flavor. Unfortunately for me, Korean food is my least favorite of the Asian collection; however the friendliness with which it was served makes up for what I think is a major lack of deliciousness. We ate in a tiny restaurant and watched a Korean soap opera with the three other patrons. I’m sure the consternation on my face, as I muscled down pickled vegetables, rivaled that of the unlucky lady on the TV screen who’d been betrayed

A kind, enthusiastic, slightly chubby 19 year old named Kim Taehyung was our volunteer guide on the way back to the airport. We were in trouble, unable to read the transit schedule in Korean and also unable to understand Kim’s well intended advice which came in the form of an epic Korean monologue. Jeremy finally managed to convey our urgency; our plane was leaving first thing in the morning, and the transit system was about to shut down for the night. Kim decided he better just go with us. We didn’t make it all the way to the airport before the transit system closed, but Kim made some phone calls and had us stay at a Jim Jil Bong (Incredible sauna/spa that has a sleeping area and makes a great place to spend the night). Kim insisted on paying for our night at the spa and wrote down our travel needs (in Korean) so that we could hand the instructions to a cab driver in the morning.

Nudity is mandatory at Jim Jil Bongs. There are separate areas for men and women. A troop of boys (8-14) years or so joined us in a steamy tub and gigglingly practiced their English on us. We were having too much fun to sleep. I finally laid down in the sleeping room on a small matt, but when I got up to pee somebody stole my matt. I ended up sleeping for a couple short hours on the wood floor with a stack of books for a pillow; eventually I opted to skip sleeping and headed back into the sauna.

So that’s how it’s been. Three more days in Japan and we’ll be ferrying to mainland Asia. There are ferries from here many Asian ports, including Vladivostok, Russia which is the city through which we originally planned to enter Asia. Since we’ll inevitably visit Russia in two months or so, catching the trans-Siberian railroad, we’re thinking of heading to Shanghai and seeing South East Asia now rather than starting in Russia only to retrace our steps.

Straits: Financial and Bering

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I’m in Sitka Alaska, the Russian capital of the Americas until the U.S. purchased Alaska (19 cents per acre) in 1867. 150 years ago there was regular ship traffic hauling payloads of otter pelts between here and Russia. At that time it was, of course, impossible to cross the Bering sea by plane, these days it’s quite a trick to cross without a flying.

Ten days of “shaking the bushes” up and down the Alaskan coastline, and we are well oriented with the challenges of floating to the Orient. It’s like this: After 9/11 cargo ships have very stringent security mandates and only a handful of freighters in the world are licensed to carry passengers, exactly zero of these visit Alaskan ports. Occasionally cruise companies run trips from Alaska to Japan, but these are prohibitively costly, and long gone by late September.

I made my best effort to leave no stone unturned (no number uncalled), but every time the search would slam to a stop against someone’s utterance of the word “impossible.” Nearly at my wit’s end I finally caught word of a fishing company out of Dutch Harbor (the port from the show “Deadliest Catch”) that dry docks a couple of boats in Yokohama, Japan after the Aleutian Cod season. I managed to reach them by phone and was elated when the crew manager enthusiastically suggested we hire on for the trip across Pacific.

The Cod season lasts through October, so those boats will cross in early November. The thought of waiting for more than a month is a bleak one, especially as the first snows are falling. The year’s last ferry to Dutch Harbor from mainland Alaska (a four day chug) leaves right away, so waiting in Anchorage (land of friends and warm coffee shops with internet) is not a possibility.

I was busy getting my courage up for a bone-chilling, lonely, expensive month in Dutch Harbor (wondering if we’d be able to find work on a fishing boat in the mean time) when the crew manager emailed me. They were already overstaffed so the owner regretfully said he wouldn’t be able to hire us. They, like freighters, are not insured to take passengers, so our invitation was withdrawn. This was our last good lead. Upon receiving the news we surrendered and decided to fly. The relief to not be spending a grim October in Dutch Harbor took the edge off of the disappointment of having to fly.

I reckon what we wanted to do could be done. But especially this late in the year it’s no longer worth the time or money to us. However, we were close, both figuratively and geographically: We visited Sarah Palin’s home in Wasilla and were able to catch a glimpse of the Kremlin from the veranda. Haha, I mean that kindly though. If anyone is sympathetic with her for that statement it’s me. Alaska and Russia are dang close. We drove the Sunbeam to Denali Park’s Wonder Lake, where we were only about 600 miles from Russia. Private vehicles aren’t allowed in Denali; that’s another good story.

Visitors to Denali are prohibited to drive their own cars into the park, they must climb aboard clamoring Park Service buses and take in the sights through little glass rectangles. We unwittingly arrived at Denali’s gate too late in the season for tourist buses. The tourist season had already ended. They told us we were out of luck, but they also told us about the Denali CarPass Raffle. For a few short days the whole park was open to winners of that raffle. All we needed was to win a raffle that had taken place months earlier.

Evie (the dreaded girl from the last blog ) was still with us in Denali. Back in Seattle, when she had joined us, I remember wondering if her arts and craft kit (markers, giant drawing pad, and even ceramics for us to paint) was really a necessary item considering there were three of us (two of us quite tall) traveling in one compact car in which we planned to sleep. I remember expressing my concern as I was wedging myself into the driver’s seat while simultaneously performing a churning act with my legs in an attempt to unearth the accelerator so we could go. Evie is too sweet to discriminate against any of her belongings, so she brought all of them, but this time it payed off. The craft kit included everything we needed to get our raffle pass. We began sign production.

The signs were to ask for people’s raffle passes as they were exiting the park. “What rhymes with “pass?” we asked ourselves, trying to come up with clever lines for our ad. We tried hard to think of how donkeys were relevant to Denali park, but in the end we went with a great line Jeremy thought of. “We’re low class, give us your pass!” And it worked. We gained full access to the park and had a great day among the moose and grizzles in the shadow of North America’s grandest peak, Denali (20,320 ft).

From Denali we headed to Anchorage, the last leg of the trip for both Evie and the Sunbeam. We pulled into Anchorage thanking God that our little $800 car had been such warrior. Jeremy listed the car for sale on Craiglist.

Jeremy, a horse trader at heart, had seen online (back in California) that cars sell for a lot more in Alaska than they do in California. This was part of our reasoning for buying the car, we hoped to offset some of our costs by profiting on its sale. We sold the car (on the way to church, incidentally….our ass was in a ditch) for twice what we payed for it. The profit from the car covered, nearly exactly, the cost of the gas we burned between Los Angeles and Anchorage. We actually underestimated what the car would be worth up here. Jeremy hasn’t had time to remove the Craiglist ad so he’s still getting calls everyday. The girl we sold it to offered us more than we were asking and flipped out with glee when we finally made the exchange.

We are over budget for the trip, but between Jeremy’s horsetrading skills, the generosity of friends, family, and our “store” visitors, we’re still crossing our financial straits (all but the Bering). Church members have been forthcoming with meals, beds, and cheerful smiles. Two Alaskan brothers, who we met on the way through Columbia, gave us a free ride from Anchorage to Haines (where I, of course, changed my underwear). Some kind folks payed for our auto insurance, and more recently a very gracious couple bought us ferry tickets all the way from Alaska to Washington (all the flights to Asia go through Seattle anyway, so flying from Seattle is cheaper and means we’ll only fly once).

We’re sitting on the ferry now, a few hours south of Juneau. We just saw a pod of humpbacks, one narrowly escaped being struck by the ferry. Some Dall porpoises are chasing us. I love it!

Long But Worth It…Kinda Like This Trip

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A duo drove into Seattle, but a trio left. Evie Barnes of Boulder Colorado, a friend of friends from Southern, has joined us for the drive up to Alaska. Evie has dreadlocks and a long list of food allergies. One way she gets protein is by drinking chia seeds with her water (you remember “cha cha cha chia…the seeds that so easily sprout into thick green grass). I’ve petitioned Evie several times to plant the seeds in her dreads, thus achieving a truly unique style. Evie is closed minded when it comes to my ideas.

It takes only three hours to drive from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C., so we made it to Vancouver in time to spend the evening in Gastown. Gastown is the historic and touristy part of Vancouver. Gas lights illuminate the narrow cobblestone streets. At the heart of Gastown a giant steam powered clock billows and ticks the hours away.

I’ve always felt indebted to the people of Vancouver. Once I snuck into a spinning restaurant atop a skyscraper a few blocks from Gastown. I wanted to see the panoramic view without paying $15 dollars to visit the tower’s observation deck. A dapper young man introduced himself in the elevator. Jason was a dump truck driver by day, and philanthropist of his family’s fortune by night. He had three underprivileged Chinese boys with him (Big Brother program) and he invited me to join their dinner party. The boys had trouble pronouncing and understanding the fancy names on the menu (so did I to be honest). Questions arose about many dishes, and Jason would graciously describe each dish, but he also ordered ever single dish in question (at $30-50 a plate) so that we wouldn’t have to take his word for it. He treated us like kings, and as I revisited Vancouver I was eager to return the favor. I found Mike, a hungry heroin addict. We went grocery shopping. Maybe Mike will blog about it someday.

From Vancouver we went up to Squamish to spend a couple of days climbing B.C.’s world class granite. In Squamish the Taco Bell is expensive, but the rock is incredible! We saw one of the hardest routes in the world, Chris Sharma’s “Dream Catcher” (5.14d, it’s only been climbed twice). The rain held off long enough for us to soundly abuse our underused climbing muscles. On the afternoon of our second climbing day we headed North and East to Kamloops.

It’s a bit of a thrill to call people you’ve never met and ask if you can stay at their house. There is potential for awkwardness, but there’s also the potential to encounter greatness. I’m so happy we didn’t pass Kamloops without calling Andy and Inge Anderson. We went to church with them, feasted on all manner of goodness from their garden, and listened to yarns of a couple who, as we do too, live life as a great adventure. It must be the garden food that gives Andy, at 70, a fire in his eye and indefatigable story telling energy.
The Andersons took us for a hike along the Adams river where we watched the Sockeye Salmon spawn. At the confluence of the Adams and a brisk mountain tributary Andy stopped us and pointed to a Sockeye in the midst of making a decision. The fish sampled the two currents, deliberated for a spell, then took off decidedly in the direction from which he had come four years ago and from which his ancestors have come for millenia.

Andy, the old story teller, marched with a large cedar walking stick straight up hills, over logs, and through thick undergrowth. His stride never faltered, nor did his stories. He told of a time he’d gone to the Ukraine to build a facility for the Adventist church. He drove across the border in a “peppy little Volkswagen” and told customs officials the truth: that he was carrying $100,000 in cash.

Not surprisingly, Andy wasn’t far from the border when he noticed a dark car was tailing him. After stopping for gas and groceries the dark car reappeared and confirmed the intent of its occupants to corner Andy and steal his payload. Andy had some church ladies in the car with him, and didn’t want to alarm them, so he mentioned he’d like to see what the little car could do and took the thrilled ladies on a joy ride through the mountains. Once he’d gained a sufficient lead over his pursuers (out of their line of sight) it occurred to him that the women might enjoy stopping to watch the sunset. He dipped off down a little dirt road, and led the Dorcas crew on an evening stroll. Once night had fallen they regained the road miles away from their befuddled pursuers. The ladies never knew.

Andy and Inge’s stories were better than ours, I suppose that comes with maturity. No doubt we bored them with our pitiable attempts at orating. Andy’s ears did perk up though when Jeremy mentioned the mountains we saw in South America. Andy wants to visit those mountains since they’re his.

We salied forth from Kamloops two days ago, our northward drive serving to expedite autumn’s onslaught. Although the spruce maintain their color all year, the aspen leaves are already bright yellow. It’s chilly at night and the taller peaks are already receiving their fist dustings of snow. Yesterday we saw three bears. I accidentally hit and killed a ptarmigan with the car. I’m carrying it along in case I get fired up to gut and cook it, but to be honest my motivation for that has waned markedly post rigormortis.

Yesterday we stopped by the Alger river to munch on the primitive contents of our grub box. The scene was picturesque so I got out my camera bag (an old leather fanny pack that I wear like a shoulder holster) to take some pictures. A few miles down the road, after eating, I again saw a landscape worth photographing. The problem was my camera bag (in which I also keep my wallet and ipod) was nowhere to be found. I realized right away that I had left it on the roof of the car. A quick glance at the roof confirmed the sickening truth that my bag, my luggage’s analogue for the Sanctuary’s Most Holy Place (thieves don’t read this do they?), was no longer with us. We went back. The bag was laying in the middle of the oncoming lane at the first major turn North of our lunch spot, it had slid from the roof of the car at roughly 60mph. Luckily there’s very little traffic here (no cars had passed) so the bag hadn’t been run over, but my heart was in my throat knowing that a crash to the asphalt at 60mph had probably left me with a useless bag full of Canon and Apple shards. I was praying pretty hard and God really blessed. Everything works fine, and now that I have my I.D. back I’ll be able to leave Canada and enter Alaska (remember our passports are still in Seattle at the Russian consulate).

We’re about 30 minutes from Whitehorse, Yukon. Evie is driving and Jeremy and I are typing in anticipation of a good upload session in Whitehorse. Tonight we will camp on the marge of Lake LaBarge. Last night the northern lights were flickering and I hope they do it again tonight. We’re going to build a fire and read “The Cremation of Sam McGee” a poem set on the marge of Lake LaBarge. We just passed another bear! This is fun.

-bjorn2bwild

Live Love Loiter

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I’m staying at my buddy Matt’s house right now. Of my good friends, he’s the one I’ve known longest. Matt, an opportunist if ever there was one, couldn’t help himself one day in our seventh grade Social Studies class. He had been laboriously extracting an enormous booger from deep within his sinuses. Finally it broke free, but before propelling it across the room with a mighty flick (Matt was renowned for mighty flicks), he elbowed me and held his finger out so I could admire his treasure in all of its splendor. My jaw dropped wide open at the sight of such a monumental specimen. I find it difficult to say what happened next but If you recall that Matt is an opportunist, and renowned for mighty flicks, and that my mouth was hanging wide open, you’ll figure it out. Our relationship was a bit rocky there for a bit, but I finally found it in my heart to forgive him. Now I’m at his house in Seattle. If he were here I’d make him breakfast in bed as a sign of the everlasting covenant of peace between us. He’d love my toe-jam omelets; I season them with the perfect amount of dandruff. Anyway that punk ran off to Florida to visit family. Something about prior plans. Hogwash.

Jeremy flew home for the weekend for his family’s reunion and the celebration of his grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary. So I’m loitering in Seattle, a bit lonely but far from sleepless. I’ve been trying to use my time wisely: gearing up for cold weather in Alaska, beginning work on what I hope will one day develop into a book, and researching ways to get across the giant pond you’ve seen in the upper left hand corner of your map.

Last time I wrote from the rugged coastline of Southern Oregon. Lots has happened since then, let me fill you in. A week ago Friday we continued our drive up the coast. We passed the sea lion caves (you may confidently use your powers of deduction to figure out what we saw there), and a handful of quaint harbor towns before reaching Lincoln City. I took the wheel in Lincoln City and soon thereafter applied sufficient clockwise torque to alter our course inland towards Portland.

Between the coast and Portland we stopped only twice: once for a $3.99 lunch special at a Chinese place, and a second time to buy some tires from some friendly Turkish guys who convinced us we were getting a bargain. They did sweeten the deal by putting us in touch with their cousin who sails the Mediterranean. I left them half a quart of black berries I had picked the previous evening, partly out of good will, and partly hoping they’d go ahead and put in a good word for us with the Mediterranean cousin.

Portland required our attention for three reasons: One reason was male, but the other two were female (I hope my use of the past tense hasn’t confused anyone, the three “reasons” intend to maintain their respective genders indefinitely). Bryan and I worked together at Camp Wawona in Yosemite. We arrived at his house a bit late for the 13 mile hike he had planned, but we grabbed lights and decided to do it anyway. Hiking fast we could theoretically finish before midnight, but it’s impossible to hike fast when three different species of wild berries team up to distract you. We managed to summit Silver Star mountain just in time to watch the sun set. The glowing panorama included views of four of the Northwest’s most famous peaks: Hood, Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier (I named the last batch of pictures prior to learning how to spell “Rainier”). Normally it would be impossible to see that many peaks, and often none would be seen, but we were blessed with especially clear weather.

On the return hike Jeremy walked fast and got ahead, but retreated briskly and explained he thought we should walk together since he had just seen a bear cub. I was impressed with his calm demeanor since he had likely been very close to the cubs protective mother. Bryan and I still awarded Jeremy partial bravery points when his bear turned out to be a porcupine.

The two other reasons for going to Portland go by Lauren and Bonnie. Friday night had been an adventure in the mountains, but Saturday night was a social adventure. Several months had passed since friends at college had mentioned there was a cute girl named Lauren living in Portland. They had given me her number so I decided to call and ask for a date. It’s rough to get your courage up to call someone, and then get their voicemail instead of them. I wanted to talk to her in person. It was something like committing to bungee jumping, but at a surprise moment. “Ready Bjorn?”… ” Yeah, I think so.”… “Nevermind not yet.”… “dang it.” After several rounds of this my nerves were fully bewildered. Just about the time I started expecting to get her voicemail, she answered.

Lauren seemed pretty sceptical, but said if she could bring a friend (of course this was fine with Jeremy) we could go to the John Mayer concert. The concert was near George, Washington (they would name their town that) at an outdoor venue called the Gorge Amphitheater. Matt brought a group of friends from Seattle so we met them there. Our seats were a very long way from the stage, but my date was quite resourceful. She brought along a pair of binoculars. John Mayer himself was still kinda hard to make out with the binoculars, but if you used them to look at the jumbo-tron screen you could get a pretty good idea of what was going on. It can be hard to chat at a concert, but it was easy for us, we were far enough away it was almost like not even being at a concert. All the fun none of the hassle! I can’t speak for everyone, but I had a great time.

After the concert we said goodbye to the girls. They had driven their own car in order to avoid aligning their fates with people like us. They headed for a hotel and we followed Matt a few miles to a climbing area where we laid down to sleep in the dirt. As I gazed up at the night sky one of the brightest shooting stars I’ve ever seen burst into view. Matt didn’t see it but I told him about it and he suggested, since he’s been looking for employment, that I use my wish to get him a job. I’m not superstitious so this seemed silly, but just in case there was something to it I went ahead and wished aloud, “I wish there to be a Subway at the exit where we get back on the main road tomorrow.”

In the morning we climbed some picturesque volcanic rock before loading up to head for Seattle. We were starving by the time we got out to the main road. There was only one restaurant at that exit: a Subway. I had a footlong…. It was soooooo good.

-Bjorn2BWild

A Sunbeam

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If we see a swimming hole, we swim. A taco stand, we eat. And if we pass a Saab with 97 surfboards on its roof, we go back to get a picture. These are the luxuries of traveling by car.
After logging over 300 hours on buses, incarcerated in rolling prisons, the freedom of the car is positively glorious. So far the Sunbeam has carried us the vertical length of California. She’s gotten as low as 28mpg in the mountains, but during the most recent stretch she carried us 32 miles for every gallon she sipped. She takes her time accelerating, but hums like a top at 80mph. Her elegant lines are constantly catching eyes, the eyes of State Troopers notwithstanding. The cop told me he stopped me for doing 15 over in the city limits, but I’ve had a pretty girl on my arm before, I know what he wanted.
The Northern Californian coastline is wild and beautiful. Sheer cliffs and jagged outcroppings rise from pounding breakers into lush pine forest. A narrow strip of asphalt a few miles inland is aptly named Avenue of the Giants. Colossal trees, Sequoia Sempervirens, dwarf even the preconceived trees I’ve been harboring in my imagination.
The Avenue meanders alongside the gravel-bottomed Eel river through a series of Redwood groves. For a West Tennessee boy, who is used to being up to his needs in Hatchey Bottom mud, swimming in the Eel river with the Giants for lifeguards, was pretty Narni-esque. The water was clear like crystal and surprisingly warm. My imagination took me to a house built into a hollow Redwood like a giant staircase. A river gently caressed the gravel bar . In that place I could swim to work. That’s my kind of commute! Exercise and bath to boot!
Things continue to go well, and unless the misfortune besets, we should be up to Alaska in a couple of weeks. Looming ominously, like the clouds I see billowing in from the Pacific, is our trips biggest hurdle…the crossing of that same ocean. We are pouring over forums, maps, and websites and calling all manner of people who might have a valuable bit of info. Next week we will be in Seattle, and I think that’s a place where we can learn a lot about shipping in the north seas.
It’s tricky to get papers for Russia. Their thinking doesn’t very well accommodate our spontaneity. Besides the fact that we don’t know if there are ships from Alaska to Russia, we will need invitation letters, and a specific detailed itinerary if we hope to meet welcoming arms. We would much prefer to meet this type of arms than the alternative, side arms.
I’m still hopeful that, with a bit of wit and persistence, we can find a way to cross directly from Alaska to Russia. I’ll be disappointed if we have to compromise. I recently compromised and cut off my mullet for my medical school interview. Although I recognize the value of compromise, I’d rather compromise on haircuts and restaurant choices than the Alaska/Russia jaunt.

The Gradient

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I attended a boarding academy about three hours away from home. Once a month I’d drive home to visit my folks. One landmark that helped me gauge my homeward progress was the Tennessee River. Especially on particularly monotonous trips I would make it my goal to reach the river, thereby deriving a feeling of progress when I did. On one particular trip I remember puzzling over whether or not I had already crossed the river. When I finally realized I had indeed crossed the river twenty miles before, I scolded myself for letting the river pass by unnoticed. I’m certain that neither Lewis nor Livingston crossed any half mile wide rivers without realizing they had done so. I felt embarrassed that, in my cruise-control induced stupor, I was oblivious to the things that lay along my path. That instance made me realize how easy it is to go places without experiencing things along the way.

Getting beamed around the planet in a jet liner allows you to taste a world different than your own. The problem is there are hundreds of rivers that you’ll soar over unaware. Somehow you’ve got to find a way to travel overland.

I’ve watched culture after culture fade away, each yielding to its northern neighbor. Argentina and the U.S. are vastly different places. No ten kilometer segment of our route would demonstrate much of a difference, but little changes add up. I find it extremely gratifying to have experienced the subtle differences, the gradient I suppose, by which one place becomes another.

Something I find markedly less gratifying is the job I’ve done documenting the trip thus far. Generally I’m either too tired or having too much fun to write. I go so long in between blogs that I can’t possibly write all that should be written without compiling a blog Britannica. So, in the oxymoronic spirit of exhaustive brevity, I’m resorting to a bulleted list to cover some recent notables:

-Volunteered for a week at Camp Wawona in Yosemite –Taught Climbing, helped build a barn, lifeguarded, washed dishes, and had a good ‘ole time with people I love.

-Spent four days in Palm Springs and got my first massage. Incredible! Thanks Wilhites!

-Chopped off my mullet for my medical school interview….oh yeah, I applied to med school btw.

-Discovered a Mexican restaurant that makes tortillas from scratch! Life will never be the same.

-Surfed in 60 degree water sans wetsuit. BURRR!!!

-Bought a 1987 Toyota Camry station Wagon ($800) to drive to Alaska. Think she’ll make it?

-Enjoyed natural hot springs near Mammoth CA. Definitely something the hippies got right.

-Went rock climbing in the high Sierras. Breathtaking! Literally, there’s no air up there.

-Traded my 65 liter backpack for a 36 liter pack. Less is more right?

-Rode dirt bikes in the Sierra National Forest. Got my adrenaline fix. Thanks Jerrod and Anthony!

-Did my first solo overnight trek into the wilderness. Solitude.

You can see I’ve been busy having a good time. Jeremy and I have been able to do a lot of things that would have been impossible without the resources of generous friends. To those friends and others, THANK YOU and don’t forget to take full advantage of my couch/shower/fridge when you become a wayfarer. I hope I get the opportunity to treat you as well as I have been treated.

America!

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I don’t know why I expected the bus from Mexico City to Tijuana to actually arrive in Tijuana at the advertised time. You’d think I’d know better by now. I foolishly bided my time in Mexico City so as to reach my destination in the morning (on the third day) with plenty of time to cross the border into California. My frustration at arriving 12 hours behind schedule was easily forgotten at the joy of getting off that bus. I was the only person who rode the bus the full distance from Mexico City to Tijuana. Stopping every hour to be searched for drugs got pretty old. Surprisingly, the Tijuana bus station isn’t a bad place to spend the night. I woke up refreshed and boarded a Greyhound for Riverside, CA.

The ticket to Riverside, by some odd glitch in the system, cost more than the ticket to the city beyond Riverside along the same route. I only needed to go to Riverside but I bought the ticket to the further city knowing I could just get off early. When I got off in Riverside –giddy to be on U.S. soil- I told the clerk that I wasn’t going to use the remaining portion of my ticket, in case someone wanted my seat. The clerk said he couldn’t sell the seat to anyone else, but that I could mail my ticket stub to Greyhound for a refund of the unused portion. I won twice!

A friend from college picked me up at the Riverside bus station. I had learned through facebook –by frantically sprinting to Mexican internet cafes during ten minute bus stops- that Sarah had a personal goal to climb Half Dome. Yosemite was where I wanted to go, so it was perfect. We left that same day.

The Half Dome attempt, as Half Dome attempts tend to, waxed positively epic. We didn’t want to do the fixed cable tourist route so we borrowed some climbing gear and, at 2:30a.m., started hiking towards our route -Snake Dyke. The guide book describes a three hour hike to the base of Snake Dyke. People who don’t get lost along the way miss out on seeing a lot of things, mainly rocks, trees, and rattlesnakes, that we enjoyed during our eight hour approach.

The only reason we ever found the climb was because another team had come along and found us, befuddled, studying our map. The more experienced duo planned to climb Snake Dyke as well, so I figured we could still summit by employing alpine plagiarism. We were out of water and needed to get limit our time in the blazing sun. I hoped that following the same route as the first group, and rigging the same belays, would allow us to complete the 3-4 hour Snake Dyke route in less than two hours. They climbed exposed slab for the first 100ft, not bothering to use the crack system that would allow the placement of protection. The climbing looked easy enough, so I followed suit. I’ve never before climbed that high unprotected. I definitely got scared, but I know from experience that scared climbers become completely incapable of the task at hand. Ignoring my fear, battled upwards, and finally breathed a huge sigh of relief upon reaching a belay ledge. Unfortunately we didn’t climb much farther before lightning, thunder, and rain dealt our climb a final blow. The retreat to the car was rough. We still didn’t know where the trail was; bushwhacking took forever. Luckily for me I planned to stay in Yosemite, Sarah had to drive solo back to Southern California after our all night lesson in the relative sizes of God’s creations.

My arrival in the States was abrupt, but it took me no time to adjust. I’ve spent two previous summers in Yosemite, so I immediately felt like life was normal again. Over the past week I’ve actually been surprised and almost startled when it occurs to me that I’m only a traveler passing through.

Inversely Proportional Tenacity

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Luckily Jeremy and I have both spent time in Central America before; our expedited pace is still painful, but somehow tolerable. Even going fast, we were in Panama long enough for both a good thing and a bad thing to happen. We visited the canal, this was good. I flipped my flop in a poop pile –bad. In the spirit of optimism i´ll elaborate only on the former event.
I didn´t know before, but the canal isn´t flat. A series of locks raise the boats up to a fresh water lake, and then lower them on the other side -so the boats actually go over a hill. The average freighter pays $250,000 for passing through, although Richard Halliburton paid only 36 cents. He swam.

To build the canal they moved enough dirt to build a wall, the size of the Great one our Oriental friends have, from San Fransisco to New York City. Woodrow Wilson is credited with removing the last bit of dirt that finally united water from both ends. He did so from Washington with the click of a telegraph that had
been wired to a dynamite charge.
We were delivered in Panama by ¨Fritz the Cat.¨ Fritz is a former restaurant owner from Vienna, the cat is his 59ft catamaran. We sailed five days with Fritz, from Columbia to Panama, exploring the San Blas Islands en route. The San Blas are home to the indiginous Kuna people who, to this day, maintain they´re own
sovereignty, culture, and language. I got a kick out of meeting people who, though they live a few miles from the mainland, don´t speak Spanish.

Fritz recently bought two new solar panels for the cat. He decided to give his older panels to Edwino, a Kuna man who lives with his wife and daughter on an island about the size of your backyard. We went with Fritz in the dingy to meet Edwino´s family and to help wire up the solar panels. I failed to impress Edwino with my spear fishing skills, but I did impress him with my Polaroid camera. I´ve been lugging the camera all the way from the end of the earth, but the Kuna made it worth it. The Edwino´s now have two things they´ve never had before, a family picture and light by night.

Nicaraguan beaches are spectacular, but don’t take my Word for it, watch the next Survivor. They were filming just around the point from where we were surfing. When it comes to surfing my tenacity is inversely proportional to the amount of skin that friction has robbed from my nipples. When I ran out of skin, I snuck through the jungle to spy on the Survivors. I´ve always wondered if survivor sets are as desolate as they appear on TV. In this case it was possible to buy a sandwich and a soda ten minutes away from the set. I reckon the winner will be the guy who sets up a sandwich/soda cartel through which he controls the other players.

Jeremy and I have argued heatedly twice so far on this trip. We decided to separate for a while. The fact that we argued has nothing to do with the fact that we´ve separated,I don´t even know how they got in the same paragraph, but I may as well elaborate. We argued once about whether or not children should be spanked, and once about when to apply Newton´s second law of motion. I don´t recall any of our discussions about where to go or what to do ever becoming heated. I rather like traveling with Jeremy and look forward to meeting up with him in California in a couple of weeks. In the mean time we´ve got different priorities, and no doubt it will be interesting to fly –figuratively of course- solo for a while.

All Manner of Treachery

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Peru:

In 2006 a waterfall called Gocta was discovered by the outside world. Natives had kept it secret for centuries, fearing the curse of the mermaid who lives in the pool below. It´s the third highest waterfall in the world.

I once saw a family of five on a single 125cc motorcycle in India, I thought they´d reached the weight limit for such a small bike, but Lima proved me wrong. Although there were only four, they were four hefty men.

Ecuador:

I´ve only known Ecuador through the window of a bus. It reminded me of what a child depicts in a finger painting: black and white cows, green grass, blue sky, and white clouds. Things seemed to be in order.

Columbia:

An interesting thing happens in countries that, due to unrest, have been closed to travelers in recent years; the whole country sets out to prove that they really are a nice place to visit. It´s happening in Columbia now and it makes for a good time. People are incredibly friendly, and inordinately helpful –if they don´t have an answer for you they´ll go and find it. Besides that Columbia is beautiful, I´m reminded of scenes from ¨Mighty Joe Young.¨

We know a guy who works at the U.S. embassy in Bogota. He and his wife hosted us in their posh apartment, fed us prodigiously, and gave us tours in their car. On Independence Day they took us to the Embassy to celebrate properly with other Americans. The Embassy is beautiful, although it´s not in the best part of town. Just before we arrived there we passed the seedy looking ¨Eros Motel, ¨ known for its hourly rates.

The Ambassador gave a moving speech. I got a little emotional and, despite my country’s flaws, I am proud to be an American. His speech included mention of the 2007 hostage crisis with the FARC. The Columbian army gave one of their helicopters a decoy paintjob (mimicking the Red Cross), and boldly flew into the FARC´s camp. Someone who was able to mimic the FARC commander´s voice had, moments before, been on the radio with the camp´s leader, explaining that the Red Cross would be permitted to transport the hostages to another FARC stronghold. The order didn´t make a lot of sense, but the rescuers had the nerve to stay in character, and since it appeared to be the commanders will, the hostages were released. ¨Counter-terrorists Win! ¨

My knowledge of Bogota´s previous mayor, Antinus Mockus Civicus, made me predisposed to falling in love with the city. Mockus, as he is affectionately known, is the most unconventional politician I know of. To encourage traffic law observance he hired an army of mimes to make fun of j-walkers etc. Accident rates fell drastically. He made a television commercial that featured him, in the shower, explaining how to bathe without wasting water. Thanks to his water campaign there is potable water piped through the entire city (nearly unheard of at this latitude). Mockus would regularly dress as ¨Super Citizen, ¨ -complete with spandex and a cape- and wander around downtown gaining support for his initiatives. I find his style of politics refreshing. So many politicians get their way through corruption and domination, Mockus twists people’s arms, but he does it righteously. At one point Mockus got up to make a speech in an auditorium full of rowdy students. The crowd simply would not quiet down; he was unable to begin his speech. Mockus coolly walked to the side of the podium, did an about-face, and mooned the entire student body. He waited patiently through their uproarious reaction, and then the room fell silent. He pulled his pants up and proceeded with his speech as if nothing had happened.

We’re in Cartagena, Panama, an old pirate town through which a lot of South American gold passed on its way to Europe. Concentric stone walls, and several forts, were used in defense against many ransackers, including Sir Francis Drake. Although the city has a new face, the pirate vibe remains, including general pirate iniquity. The assortment of prostitutes is astounding: fat, thin, tall, short, African and Latin. The only common trait seems to be ugliness.

There are no roads through the Darien Gap (between Columbia and Panama). The area is controlled by the FARC and abounds with all manner of treachery. We´re looking for a boat in order to circumvent these problems. It looks like it will cost about three times what we anticipated. Ouch! I guess we´ll write it off as an investment in our own future.

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An issue arises in unguided travel, there’s nobody to tell you the names of the marvelous things you see. No doubt they’ll soon have an iphone app that can visually identify plants, animals, and landmarks (I hear the droid can look at random things around the house and tell you their online cost and where the nearest vendor is). Anyway, until apps get even cleverer, I’ve resorted to naming things myself.

Around Machupichu there is an exotic, red-leafed plant that caught my attention. In order to keep the memory from fading I need a way to refer to this plant, even if only in my own mind. I named the plant Sylvester. I reckon I’ve got just as much right as any other human to name things. I’ve got names for all sorts of stuff: waterfalls, constellations, cloud shapes. You should name some stuff too, like Adam did. Make the world yours, it’s fun. You may, down the line somewhere, find yourself at odds with the Audubon Society or the National Observatory. Should this happen, it’s ok to let them think their name has more clout than yours. They’ve been naming things for a while. But at the end of the day, lest you become tempted to deny your authenticity, remember what Dr. Suess said, “Be who you are and say what you feel. Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter.”

Who can be trusted? It’s an important question when you’re traveling, especially when you consistently seek out the cheapest lodging in town (often dormitories which house occasional grungy travelers but primarily native temp workers). An ongoing issue for us is the importance of conveying trust to the people we meet. When you walk in to a hostel dormitory, head straight over to a locker, and put your stuff behind a fatty padlock, you are effectively screaming distrust to everyone in the room. And it’s a shame. Extinguishing trust is a crappy way to initiate relationships with new roommates. Witnessing is what we’re all about, and I’m totally stoked that we regularly have opportunities to talk about Jesus. I feel, however, that without trust, witnessing is painfully handicap. Jeremy and were discussing this problem, and he had a good idea. When we do feel the need to be protective and whip out the padlocks, it is helpful to make a joke out of it. “Hey I trust you guys (Jeremy might say to our new companions), but this joker is always trying to rob me.” And he would point in my direction. Obviously this doesn’t convey complete trust by any means, but it draws a laugh, and lets people know we would prefer to assume the best. We’re trying.

We’ve been staying in an amazingly hospitable home in Lima for the past few days. Our friends Josue and Caleb have neither running water nor sewer, but they’re clever enough to live comfortably without those luxuries. Both brothers are studying theology at the Adventist university in Lima, Josue is spending an extra year studying Public Health. I was asking Josue about his plans for the future and he said something that really inspired me. “I think I will work here in Peru or another third world country (he’s well connected, super witty, and speaks perfect English…he’s got options). I don’t want to try to live a ‘comfy’ life while there are so many people who need me here. It’s about where you are needed, not where you’d be most comfortable.” What a magnificent attitude!

I can’t believe how mountainous this part of the world is. In a lot of Peru there just isn’t any flat ground. And yet they farm… anywhere and everywhere, often building terraces, often just planting regardless of pitch. I’ve seen yucca growing on cliffs that would be rated 5.7 in the Yosemite Decimal System. I’d need my harness and a belayer to feel safe harvesting, but the folks here don’t seem worried about it.

Tomorrow (Monday) at noon, we board a bus that will arrive in Bogota -also at noon- but on Thursday. I only memorized my times tables up to the 12X12, but I’m pretty sure 3X24 is a ridiculous number of hours to spend on a bus. By the time we arrive in Bogota we’ll be swatting the great great grandchildren of the flies we were originally swatting in Lima. I’m wondering if they’ll stop to clean the bathroom. I have a method of dealing with this problem though; if I eat enough white bread I can usually get constipated enough to keep to myself. ‘Til next time…

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Before I left home my local newspaper interviewed me about the trip. I used the opportunity to mention our sponsors, one of which is the underwear company Ex´Officio. Next thing I knew there was an article in the Sunday paper. ¨Jackson Boy to Circle The Globe Wearing One Pair of Underwear¨. My mom was floored. She called the newspaper to demand justice. ¨They have two pairs each, ¨ she growled accusingly. The paper printed a correction. I feel like I´m letting my whole town down. I don´t mind trashing a pair.

We are having a lot of fun grappling with Spanish. On a bus in Patagonia, I initiated a rather laborious conversation with the guy across the aisle. I just wanted to know if he cared to eat the pork that had come on my sandwich. We had a terrible time understanding each other. For several minutes we went back and forth until, in despair, I asked him if he spoke English. ¨I live in England! ¨ he exclaimed with a crisp cockney lilt. We had a good chat. Despite such setbacks, Jeremy and I are definitely improving at Spanish. I learned the word for marriage, ¨matrimonia¨. I aslo learned the word for handcuffs, ¨matrimonia.¨

Mapquest gives an error message (I just checked) if you try to get directions from Argentina to Alaska. So, in case you´re interested in the route, I better share some details. Patagonia refers, fairly generally, to the southern region of South America. If you go far enough south, by default, you go to Patagonia. The Andes mountain range stretches all the way to the Southern tip of South America, even in the extreme south granite skags thousands of meters upward. The lowlands (on the Argentine side where we passed) are reminiscent of Wyoming, not the Tetons part, but the more barren, lonesome part.

Our bus ride from Rio Gallegos to Bariloche (24 hours w/o food –we thought they served food on the bus) was mostly through lonely wasteland where Guanacos and Rheas (mini ostriches) provide the only relief from boredom. For most of the ride we were too far east to see the Andes. The scenery improved in a hurry when we reached the mountains. Bariloche is definitely the South American version of Lake Tahoe, Nevada, complete with several ski resorts.

Bariloche blew me away, but I had no idea what was next. Che Guevara writes in ¨Motorcycle Diaries¨ of his ride through the ¨seven lakes¨ region. Oh my word! The seven lakes route is unreal. I felt like I was on the planet Pandora from Avatar. The lakes themselves are gorgeous, but it´s not just lakes. The forest is a legit rainforest, complete with enormous trees and lush, colorful undergrowth. Granite walls and snow capped peaks jut boldly up from the rainforest into the sky. Below lay the lakes. Most lakes are accompanied by meadows. In each meadow gothic looking skeletons of trees stand guard in their cloaks of Spanish moss. I´m quite enamored with the seven lakes. I wished that our wanderings were less purposeful so that we could stay, camp, and plunge into the wilderness.

We´ve got a long ways to go so we´ll move on in the morning. We´re not sure whether we´re headed: Bolivia or Chile. If we haven´t decided by morning we´ll have to play paper-rock-scissors again. I lost last time but I´ve been lying awake at night contemplating strategy. Jeremy says his brother Justin can beat him nearly every time. I´d like to discuss this with Justin. Our moral is high, hope yours is too.

This is my blog archive. For my most recent blog visit www.thewholeworldround.com
blessings.

El Fin Del Mundo

We´re at the starting line, Ushuia Argentina. The official trip starts tomorrow morning with a 36 hour bus ride. We would rather ¨hacer dedos¨ (hitch hike - translates literally as ¨doing fingers¨), but this part of the world is a bit cold and desolate so we´re going to ride buses a little closer to the equator before trying our ¨dedos¨.

The people here, in the world´s southern most city, are proponants of the upside down world maps that put Antarcitica at the top of the page rather than the bottom. This, ofcourse, is just as fair a representation as the maps that are oriented so that north is at the top of the page. Unfortunately for the Argentinians, history´s more influential cartographers lived in the northern hemisphere and fancied themselves at the top of the page as well. Sorry guys. Anyway, the big upside down map hanging in our hostel claims that Ushuia is the ¨End of the World, Beginning of Everything.¨ This statement may have never been truer than it is in the case of our trip.

The Strait of Magellan, which we will cross tomorrow, was discovered in 1520 by -you´d have never guessed- Ferdinand Magellan in his attempt to do ¨The Whole World Round¨ by sea. He is credited with the first circumnavigation of the globe, although his crew had to finish the trip without him for reasons I feel it is inappropriate to mention in light of my mother´s concern for my own life. Anyway, I find stories of explorers very inspiring, however they also remind me that frontiers can be hard to come by.

The great race to the South Pole between Scott and Amundsen happened not so far from here. Imagine how Scott feld when he arrived at the South Pole only to find Amundsen´s flag which had been placed there a few short days before. The explorers heart yearns for the significance of being the first. It´s a big deal. Even though I don´t yet know of anyone who has done the exact trip we´re doing, the world has been explored and there´s a slew of ¨Lonely Planet¨books to prove it. I may be forced into a career as an astronaut in order to find an satisfactory frontier.

In the mean time, while NASA waits, I´ve developed a method of making everything seem like a frontier. It´s called deliberate ignorance. If I don´t carry a map, a phone, or a ¨Lonely Planet¨ book, my experience will be much like that of the early explorers. Jeremy is an explorer of the highest caliber, but he doesn´t have the same qualms about maps and phones that I do. So we´re practicing a system that I know will work well for both of us. It´s like this: We both assume very somber facial expressions. I –like Lewis and Clark must certainly have done- wave my hands in wild gestures, attempting to ask Jeremy –via sign language- which way I should go. He gives a gruff snort and stares stoicly out over the horizon for several seconds while adjusting his feather, he then squats in the dirt and scratches me a map. We proceed. It´s gonna be good trip.

Sir Richard

The second speech I gave in my freshman speech class was a "how to" speech. I told the class how to light a camp stove. No one listened. I hated the sound of it coming out of my mouth. The audience would have preferred an episode of C-SPAN to my dronings.

I remember racking my brain to think of a good idea for that speech, but my efforts yielded nothing. Since then I've wished so many times that I could go back and try something else:

-how to take a nap

-how to flirt with your teacher while giving a speech about yodeling

-how two emo kids became friends

or even,

-how too many people park at the library

There were plenty of clever alternatives, and I tried really hard to think of one, but the boring stove was the best I could come up with.

At that time in my life I was influenced a lot by this guy named Richard. I started taking his advice because it seemed like he really believed in me. Looking back I don't know whether or not he believed in me, but I do know his method of helping me succeed wasn't helpful. Richard was always comparing me to other people. He'd mention it to me when someone did something better than me. He wanted to be friends with people who made straight A's and had athletic prowess. I tried to meet his expectations, but lame ideas like "how to light a camp stove," weren't cutting it. My teachers and classmates weren't super impressed either.

Making up excuses to give Richard became almost a full time job. It was exhausting. He wanted to know how it was that Derek was so much better than me at tumbling, Drew could hit a golf ball farther, and Ashley could give speeches that people actually enjoyed listening to. When Richard would find out stuff like this it was all I could do to explain to him that this was an isolated instance, and really not a fair representation of my overall progress towards total world domination (I told you he had high expectations). I was using all my creative energy inventing excuses to appease Richard. I had nothing left with which to dream up good speeches, or do anything original, really.

Eventually I realized that Richard's cruel behavior was abusive. I was in an abusive relationship. So I try not to listen to him anymore. Sometimes it's hard though...he gets inside me. He's my ego...He's a real dick.

Hitchhiking 101

It had never occurred to me that hitchhiking was something for which we could train. What would we do? Attach some weights by string and do a few sets of thumb curls? Interestingly, the more reading Jeremy and I have done, the more evident it has become that hitchhiking is an art that involves many subtle nuances. In the spirit of developing our strategy, we went practice hitchhiking.

Some friends dropped us off about 60 miles away in Calhoun, Georgia. Georgians are amiable folks, so we made some good friends. The first guy who picked us up was a Vietnam Vet. (that's veteran...not veterinarian, although he does have horses) named Kenny (the man's name was Kenny, not the horses'...excuse my affinity for the parenthese). Kenny was a very patriotic man, one of those, I think, who rushed to buy ammunition last year when Russia encroached on Georgian soil. Since that time Kenny has been able to sort out some of his geographical misconceptions. He continues to serve his countrymen. We are indebted to Kenny for his service in our military, and for a ride to the north side of town.

We were surprised, for our next ride, to be picked up by two ladies. Leslie and her daughter Lynn were on their way to Dalton for an appointment with an optometrist. I thought it was brave (though reckless) of them to pick up two scruffy guys. When they pulled up Leslie rolled down the window and asked us if we had any "Nine's or 45's." We assured her of our weaponlessness, and she believed us. Evidently criminals in Georgia have a reputation for being honest about their intentions. Nice place, Georgia.

We made it most of the way back home before succumbing to the temptation to have a friend pick us up. Admittedly, it seems like two guys who claim they can make it all the way around the world by buses, trains, and hitchhiking, should have been able to make the 60 mile trip. There are some excuses that I consider relevant, but maybe it's better just to admit that we're soft. Honestly, the practice session leaves me daunted by the prospects of the real trip. But we'll get tougher. We're not overwhelmed, just whelmed.