See the city anew

In the Mission District, where Z and I live, not going gaga over local mural art is tantamount to high heresy. It's simply not done. And yet, truth be told, we'd grown less than impressed by the neighborhood's dominant aesthetic. This past month that began to change.

The Women's Building at the corner of Lapidge and 18th street is a women-run arts and culture space that among other things offers pay-by-the-minute legal advice, Friday night Shabbat for the San Francsco's hip and happening young Jewish community, lectures on class war and gardening, and many a raucous quinceñera. It also boasts one of the most celebrated murals--the MaestraPeace--in the 415. Z claims it's a four story monument to breast worship. Others see it as a tribute to the working women of the world. Come on by and you make the call.



Throughout September the building's facade was transformed into an aerial dance space, mesmerizing passersby and our neighbors alike. For weeks we watched as the Flyaway dance troupe practiced gracefully while suspended from a network of wires, pullies, and ropes. Night after night we were treated to a poly-rhythmic soundtrack, something that Douglas Coupland might have called love songs written by cash registers for adding machines. The dancers, lean and lemur-like, seemed to float, oblivious to the incessant pull of gravity, twisting in and out of each night's darkness.



Part of the beauty of returning from a year away has been seeing our adopted hometown through new eyes. These warm nights of dance and drums have done just that.

I left my ♥ in the fog of San Francisco

Really? Seriously, you call this summer?



At least the critters are cute here.

Positive Vibrations

California's granite paradise: The Incredible Hulk

I'd only been back in SF for a few days when I got a call from my old friend Jerry Dodrill who was offering me a chance to return to the Incredible Hulk outside of Bridgeport in the Eastern Sierra. Jerry's a professional photographer and the Hulk boasts some of the best climbing in the whole range, so the decision was an easy one to make.


Jerry channeling his inner-rastafarian

Our route was 'Positive Vibrations', named for the Bob Marley classic, and if you've been following this blog you'll know that there may be no toilet paper on the road less traveled but the Cult of Bob is never far away.

In any case, the route went well, I made a new friend, and got a full dose of natural vitamin D before returning to work teaching in San Mateo.

Here are some images from the day.


Several hundred feet up the route


Inshallah. ¡Cumbre! Mahalo.


Descending to food and warmth

La vegetariana peligrosa

Back on home turf...



Looks can be deceiving...

Re-entry

We're now back in the deep fog of summer in San Francisco -- in fact, Marty is off climbing again on one last run to the Sierra before school starts -- but there was one part of the trip that I didn't want to leave out.

When we flew out of Buenos Aires (in the CRAZIEST airport situation I have ever seen, if my Spanish and Google-gibberish-translation didn't make that clear: lines and lines and lines and lines... turns out Marty is a rather impressive queue-jumper when absolutely necessary), I flew to DC. Marty flew through Atlanta, so he couldn't join me on my somewhat last-minute stop to visit friends and family. Instead, he went to his parents' and (how did you guess) to the Sierra to climb.

When I arrived in DC, I realized suddenly how appropriate, if unplanned, it was to have a moment to appreciate the capital, and see some of the most famous sights of my own country. And it was a delight to visit family and old friends after being so far away for so long.

And, of course, I was pretty excited about potable tap water.


Yes, I took a picture of a water fountain: it seemed to me to symbolize all that is good about the public trust

I thought I'd be exhausted upon return, but I found that I really wanted to hike around and see the sights here in Estados Unidos. So I trooped through the Capitol (got swept up into an uninformative tour but it was great to see the interior) and the Supreme Court building, and wandered dreamily through the gorgeous Library of Congress. And with the help of an icy lemonade, I braved the sweltering sun and walked the length of the Mall to visit and read the entire Lincoln Memorial.


The Capitol: imposing under a muggy sky


A San Franciscan and Baltimorean too


A model of the Statue of Freedom atop the Capitol: it may look dignified at first, but look at that bird


Hallowed halls: the Library of Congress


The quiet heart of the library, as seen through a small window for the Great Unwashed


A slightly surprising genre included in the library's lovely murals

I was lucky to be visiting friends who live just a short walk from the Mall; in fact, just a short walk from pretty much everything.


My hosts, Laura and Edgar, with their impossibly cute and mellow baby, Emmett


Relaxing at home with drinks of choice

Edgar thought I should take a picture of the NPR building; upon reflection, he was right. It was something I was very happy to come back to. (TV news, not so much: we miss BBC and Al Jazeera!)


Almost as important as public water

I visited just one of the Smithsonians, the Natural History Museum, which was full of visitors from other countries. It was a treat to walk through an exhibit on the ancient history of humankind with people from all over the world, musing on our common ancestors.

And of course I had to visit the National Botanical Garden. Despite its imposing name, it's rather small and is largely indoors, but it's a very pleasant place.




South American orchid

To my delight, I found the garden has a special area on Hawai'i -- no other state is called out in this way -- in recognition of the uniqueness of Hawaiian flora.



The botanical garden, the museums, the monuments and halls of government -- they were all free to visit. As I wandered through it all I felt enormously appreciative of things that are public.

The next day, I schlepped my enormous backpack over to DC's impressive train station -- fortunately it was a very short walk -- and after some initial confusion (you'd think I'd be pretty good at this sort of thing by now) I got on my train to Baltimore. It was nice to have one more train journey in this trip; to our disappointment, we rarely traveled on trains. Buses are far more common now, especially in South America, where many old train lines are just rusting away (though in Argentina, one possible presidential contender wants to restore the old train lines -- an exciting propect).

In Baltimore, I visited aunts, uncles, cousins -- and my mom, who actually flew out from Hawai'i. Without much lead time, my cousin Karen organized a big dinner full of summer produce -- in fact, the entire time I was there, I gorged myself on corn and tomatoes and peaches, oh my! It's fun going straight from winter to summer.


Family reunion! Everyone's happy after trying the coca tea and chocolate

My mother and I -- along with every child in the Chesapeake Bay region -- took a day to visit the National Aquarium. Despite the madd(en)ing crowds, and the fact that it's far from free, it's impressive -- how many aquariums include a small fauna-filled rainforest?


The jellyfish exhibit was a sobering demonstration of dying seas, where jellyfish predators have been fished to extinction; they're also better at surviving pollution and climate change. At least they're prettier than cockroaches.

Here we got to see some more South American denizens.


This may take a second to see: look for the caiman's shiny eye, just above water (like at Iguazu Falls, Argentina!)


A gorgeous scarlet ibis from northern South America -- we saw buff-necked ibises in Patagonia on our ill-fated Torres del Paine hike but these are their tropical cousins

Another high point of my Baltimore stopover was visiting my friends Cy and Rob. Embarrassingly, I have no photos of Rob, just lots of pictures of Cy and the dogs they were taking care of. I think they will be getting their own dog any minute now: they got very comfortable while dogsitting.


Cy clarifies a point while the dogs listen closely

Though Cy is originally from Hawai'i, she is now quite the Ballmer booster.



To test this bench-avowed hypothesis, I returned to California.

California: summit to sea

Shooting Stars in the high Sierra

After flying to the US from Argentina I got a little antsy. There'd be no more rickshaws, guanacos, or empanadas to be found and I was worried about taking up bad habits from the past. Z spent a week out in the Baltimore/DC area, visited friends and family, and experienced some serious heat and humidity. Cambodia had prepared her well. I would have just melted.

The best part of the greater LA area is getting away, and there are some really wonderful places to escape to when the mercury rises and the smog obscures the mountains. Rick Graham, my uncle and longest-running climbing partner, and I headed up the East Side of the Sierra Nevada in search of long days on clean granite. We secured a permit for the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek near Mt. Whitney and climbed the 'Mithral Dihedral' on Mt. Russell (14,086 feet), and what a gem it is! The route takes its name from a rare metal from Tolkein's Middle Earth and follows a beautiful 300-foot long vertical corner. This was Sierra rock climbing at its finest.


Massive Mt. Russell looms above


"Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim." Gandalf, Lord of the Rings


Still climbing together: 23 years and counting


Tulainyo, North America's highest alpine lake

Elizabeth returned a week after I did and we quickly scheduled a trip to Crystal Cove, a special beach where my grandparents used to rent a summer home in the 60s and 70s. It was overcast but the waves were enormous and impressive. Perhaps most importantly, delicious date shakes could be secured at a shack above the beach on the Pacific Coast Highway.


My grandparents, Jim and Liz, brother Paul, and aunt Phoebe

It feels good to be back stateside. And I can honestly say I've never appreciated safe tap water as much as I do now.

We took our backpacks and went huge, the last time

[More-or-less English version below]

Desde Cusco, fuimos a Buenos Aires al fin de nuestro gran aventura. Fue un placer de ver los amigos en nuestro departamento en Talcahuano -- ¡y también habia, claro, fiebre de Mundial! Por supuesto, también habia un feriado (el día de independencia), y muchos negocios estaban cerrados.

Tratamos de visitar el museo de inmigración, pero también estaba cerrado. Pero cuando estuvimos caminando por la ciudad, nuestra ultimo camino allá, encontramos una muestra de fotoperiodismo, de muchos fotógrafos Argentinos, de 2009. Los fotos fueron muy grandes y muy impresionante.

Fuimos con amigos a un cafe muy típico, La Poesía, en el barrio viejo de San Telmo, para ver el partido final del Mundial. Fue emocionante, pero tuvimos que salir antes del fin del partido! En la calle afuera de nuestro departamento, escuchamos la gente gritando -- fue el gol de España, y España ganó!

Por el momento, todo de Buenos Aires fue de España. En nuestro departamento, dimos felicitaciones a nuestra compañera de casa, que es realmente de España. Despues de unos fotos (¡que todavia necesito de nuestra amiga!), llevamos nuestras mochilas enormes y salimos, la ultima vez.

En el taxi al aeropuerto, todo la ciudad estaba fiestando, con banderas rojo y amarillo. Una linda vista de la ciudad que vamos a extrañar.

El aeropuerto fue un quilombo pero con mucha suerte encontramos nuestros aviones y salimos para volver a los Estados Unidos, al fin, finalmente, de nuestra gran viaje.

...

I dropped this into Google Translate to check my Spanish. The combination of my errors and its misunderstandings is too good to fix, so I think I'm just going to offer you the translation verbatim:

...

From Cusco, we went to Buenos Aires at the end of our great adventure. It was a pleasure to see friends in our apartment in Talcahuano - and had, of course, World [Cup] fever! Of course, also had a holiday (Independence Day), and many businesses were closed.

We try to visit the museum of immigration, but also was closed. But when we were walking around town, our last journey there, find a sample of photojournalism, many photographers Argentinos, 2009. The photos were very large and very impressive.

We went with friends to a typical cafe, Poetry, in the old quarter of San Telmo, to see the World Cup final match. It was exciting, but we had to leave before the end of the game! In the street outside our apartment, we heard people screaming -- was the goal of Spain, and Spain won!

For now, all of Buenos Aires was in Spain. In our department, we congratulate our home colleagues, which is actually from Spain. After a few photos (which still need our friends!), We took our backpacks and went huge, the last time.

In the taxi to the airport, the city was partying with red and yellow flags. A beautiful view of the city that will be missed.

The airport was a mess but with luck we found our planes and went back to the United States, at last, finally, our big trip.

The Cappucino Kid

Puzzled by the ritual of mate? Just not sure about the legality of coca tea? Had your fill of extraordinary malbecs? If you´re in Buenos Aires, you´re in luck. Porteños speak coffee and wouldn´t be caught dead drinking the dreaded Nescafe, let alone something as morally reprehensible as decaf.

They also seem to have a knack for building extravagent surroundings for your daily constitutional. Take for instance the mighty El Ataneo, the operahouse-turned-bookstore that is without peer.

A bookstore to end all bookstores


Refurbished box seats make great places to read

Un cafesito, por favor

Built in 1858, Café Tortoni is another caffeinated institution well worth at least one visit. Artists, authors, and heads of state have all paid Tortoni a visit and its storied walls and amiable mozos (waiters) add flavor to any of the many drinks on offer.

Inside the famed café

The old master himself (a regular)

Another old master; perhaps he's been working there since Borges stopped by

Z with Borges

No, it´s not a privatised club for intellectuals but a state of mind for all those who refuse to submit to the way our world is run. ...

--The Style Council

Cusco or Cuzco or Qosqo, Peru

The cobblestone streets in Cusco are narrow and treacherously slippery at times, but I think this may be overstating the case.



The streets here were so narrow that when we first arrived, late at night after the guinea-pig-and-chicken bus, we opened our cab doors and gently grazed the walls. I asked our taxi how he would get out. “Can you turn up ahead?” I asked solicitously. “Oh, no, there’s no out there,” he said. And backed up the entire length of the street.

But I guess they've had time to get used to it in colonial Cusco, especially in the hilly and quiet San Blas neighborhood. Our second hostel was apparently in a 350-year-old building.




1660 Año

Cusco is a much more cosmopolitan place than the Bolivian towns we'd been in lately. And more touristy: we saw (and heard) more Americans than we had encountered in ages... must be summer! Still, it's a beautiful city.


Colonial buildings and brooding skies



We enjoyed wandering through its streets and trying not to be intimidated by Quechua spelling.





Roof cows watch over most of the houses. They’re often intertwined with a cross but they seem not to be at all Catholic. I’ve been told they’re good luck. And wouldn’t you feel better with these guys on your house?

Public art--from murals to decorated letter drops--is popular.




Reminds me of Roman Holiday

One of the treats of walking around Cusco is the peeks you get into courtyards.



Although it's hard not to like the white-washed colonial buildings with their ornate doorknockers and quiet courtyards, you do get some reminders that all this was built on top of an Inca city, often cannibalizing its stones for new buildings.

This is particularly explicit when you visit the Church of Santa Domingo, built directly on the central Inca site of Qoricancha, or Temple of the Sun. Many of the walls inside remain. The walls were once covered with sheets of gold, and Atahualpa ordered his people to tear it down to try to buy his freedom back from Pizarro and the Spanish conquistadors. Once they got the gold, however, they killed him.


Smaller stones of the colonial building above, enormous gray Inca stones below -- the Inca stonework is much better, too

Another extraordinary sight that the Spanish reported at Qoricancha (before, presumably, stripping it) was a garden made entirely from gold, silver, and jewels, right down to the insects and the clods of dirt and grass. Today there is a rather nice large garden behind the site -- all natural. And there's a museum below with rather disturbing displays of trepanned skulls (a 60% survival rate!), skulls shaped into oblongs, and mummies.




Around town, many indigenous people sell weavings, hats, socks, etc. Some also bring alpacas or llamas with them to get people to take pictures. It's quite an experience to go down Cusco's foot-wide sidewalks behind the shaggy swaying rump of a llama.

Once you get a couple of blocks downhill from Cusco's main plaza, the tourists start to thin out, the architecture becomes more of a mix of colonial and modern, and things start to bustle. Here we came across all sorts of interesting markets and entrepreneurial street vendors.

For example, the quail cart guy:


Is it just me, or does he look like Hugo Chávez?

This is quite a contraption. Eggs and cooking setup above, actual quails below.




Ice cream at speed




Pedal-powered beer billboard


A gizmo for advertising your own wares

We also explored an enormous market which sold everything from the ubiquitous llama hats to colorful jello desserts to large dead pigs to huge slabs of chocolate... and much much more.



We spent a long time ohing and ahing at the produce, which is far more diverse than what you see in American supermarkets.



The market spilled into the street outside, too.



Our last night in Cusco was memorable: first the cooks in a tiny vegetarian restaurant cooked us a special Peruvian dinner--they'd offered earlier to make us a saltado de soya if we came back at an appointed time, so of course we did. It was delicious. We perched on stools and chatted with the other diner and devoured our treat.



Then we went off to try pisco. I can't say we could tell much difference between piscos--it's all high-octane but fairly palatable liquor--but we did get an awfully good drink with some sort of passionfruit. I think it was maracuya. We have a picture, anyway. Yum.


Maracuya demo



And yes, we still made our early-next-morning flight to Buenos Aires.