How to Waste Time in the Airport

Pace around the McCafe wondering how ethically wrong it really is to crave an egg mcmuffin at McDonald´s whilst on vacation in a foreign country

Realize South American mcmuffins don´t involve muffins at all, just bagels

Think that with a bagel, it´s not the same meal, and walk out of the McCafe, smug, but still wanting a tasty buttermilk muffin breakfast sandwich

Stare blankly at the Aerolineas Argentinas man when he tells you there´s no flight to Auckland today, ma'am, didn´t you confirm?

Regret that huge glass of red wine you drank to put you to sleep on the now non-existent flight that´s making it hard to take him seriously

Feel annoyed by being called ma'am

Wonder if that´s what happens after you turn 30 and frown

Stop frowning to avoid further forehead lines and wonder what´s a step older than 'ma'am'?

Decide there isn´t one - ma'am is as old as you can get

Think about the mcmuffin

Curse yourself for not confirming the flight

Give yourself a break for not confirming because after all, you´re only a human being

Glare at the Aerolineas Argentinas counter and curse the day it was born!

Admit 'curse the day it was born' is an antiquated phrase

Decide to rue the day instead

Realize airline workers are only human beings, too, and feel conflicted

Lament airlines are inanimate objects that aren´t actually born or human, but rather huge evil fucking corporations

Go back to being pissed off

Wonder when it became popular to pay to wrap your bag in lime green cellophane

Practice melodramatic sighing

Decide South Americans are being oppressed by the McCafe with this whole bagel mcmuffin business

Pace the McCafe again

Scowl in protest

Remember the scowl lines, young lady!

Repeat

Beauty Queens and Bumblebees

I have never asked for seats in the barbed wire cage section before. In fact, I didn´t know that´s what I was ordering when I dragged my friend Robbie to the soccer match in Buenos Aires last weekend.

The last thing on my South American to-do list was see a soccer game live. I´d tried in Colombia and Peru, but it never worked out. It was either too dangerous to go alone or too far away.

The only ´sporting event´ I´d found until now was a cholita wrestling match in La Paz, where grown women and men dressed up in spandex diapers and proceeded to knock each other around the ring, against concrete walls and with metal chairs, to the delight of expletive-screaming Bolivians. And their children. At least I learned some new vocabulary from a 12-year-old... isn´t socially-accepted violence great?

So when Robbie arrived, a Londoner more preoccupied with the design and color scheme of the uniforms than any actual sport, I thought ´Oh, Robbie´s European, he must like soccer! A real sport. This is my last chance... this is going to be the best soccer match EVER!!´

Sometimes people find my unwarranted optimism endearing. Robbie does not, which is partly why I love him. But, humoring me, we made our way up the concrete steps to the top of River Plate stadium, one section away from the opposing team´s fans, chanting merrilly along with the drumline and waving their black and yellow banners.

´I like River´s red sashes,´ observed Robbie, bored. ´They look like beauty queens. Little beauty queens running around with bumblebees... geez, where can I get a beer?´

The ´nosebleed section´ is a double-entendre in Buenos Aires. We entered a section rimmed with a tall chicken-wire fence encircled in barbed wire. It was the kind of security measures you see on the outside of prisons (but not in Bolivia!). And they don´t sell beer there.

Police officers stood at the exit and watched the game with their batons at the ready. River Plate fans had their red and white flags out and peole were chanting and jumping around with lots of drums and not enough cowbell. It was as I had imagined: lots of singing, some fireworks and pretty good soccer.

The game started and ended uneventfully. Halftime was a bit of a snore - intermission entertainment has yet to catch on, but I see opportunities galore for marching bands and kiddie slam dunk contests in South America - and the worst part was there was no garlic fries, milkshakes or vendors tossing peanuts in the stadium. Only questionable-looking hamburgers.

We weren´t even in the ´Los Borrachos del Tablon´ section (the Terrace Drunks), but there was good reason we stood for an hour post-match waiting to leave: they were letting the Olimpio fans out first. Not only were we waiting for them to exit the stadium, but exit the actual neighborhood should a mass exodus of beauty queens go all cholita in the streets.

Alas, the only inappropriateness came in the form of four lascivious teenagers who jumped on the chicken wire and thrust their pelvises in the general bumblebee direction with accompanying crude hand motions.

It wasn´t classy, but it was classically South American.

N'Djamena

Usually, I loathe children. Babies are the worst because they are complete narcissists - it's all about them, all the time. I'd like to see a baby cook me mushy peas one day! Children cry for unreasonable reasons, they wet the bed, they can't even drive. Frankly, I am not a kid kind of person and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

But last week, my anti-child resolve was tested by a pair of plucky 9-year-olds living on a hippie commune on the lush island of Chiloe, along the middle of Chile's pretty coast. We stayed at the guesthouse of our travel agent, a lady we met arbitrarily wandering out of the bus station in search of a penguin-gawking tour.

'Well, I have a guesthouse in our backyard, it's beautiful and quiet and we'd love to have you stay - then you can rent our 4x4 to visit the penguin colony tomorrow! I just have to pick up my girls from school, then we'll be on our way'.

I kind of didn't pay attention to that last part after another 24-hour bus journey around Chile. So when she swung around again in the super cool minivan-cum-SUV, not one, not two, but three little girls were sat in the backseat. The two 9-year-olds, and a 3-year-old, all excited and acting goofy because of the funny foreigners in the car and peppering their mom with requests for ice cream.

I assumed they would exclusively speak Spanish, which would instantly impede any attempt to converse with me, the anti-child lady.

'Oh, you're American, oh my gosh, our dad is American, and we're half-American!' the first-born twin, Miska, exclaimed. Her glee was palpable.

'Did you know we have 2 dogs, 5 cows, 10 chickens with little baby chickens - ooh, they're so cute! - and one sheep, but Pepe, our sheep's girlfriend, got killed last month because there was this pack of wild dogs and they got hungry and ate her, and Miska cried because she always cries,' said Tamie, the younger twin, while Miska shouted, 'I don't cry all the time! Moooom!'

We pulled into the neighborhood, which was basically fancy houses with farmland beset on a lush green hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was a shade that reminded me forthwith (!) of Oregon and when I found out Miska and Tamie's parents grow their own food in the backyard, built their own yoga house on the beach, and just got electricity two weeks ago, I just wondered where the organic goji berry bog was. Oh, how it made me miss Eugene!

'Did you know that Thanksgiving is on Thursday, but tomorrow is Saturday, and because Thanksgiving is about sharing, you have to come over and cook with us?' Miska asked, rather, ordered me. 'I'll give your assignments after lunch. Wanna listen to the Jonas Brothers?'

So over the compound we traipsed to prepare a Thanksgiving meal for this family of proud half-Americans, with my two English girlfriends who have never celebrated Thanksgiving Dinner in their lives but gamely sous cheffed our Chilean version. I was on carrot peeling and pie crust kneading duty while Miska played my favorite game in the world: trivia.

I started: Which country has the strongest economy in Western Europe?

'Um, I'm 9, can you try one a little easier, please?'

Point taken. So we exchanged these little gems...

How many countries border Switzerland?
Who was the second US President?
How many land-locked countries are in South America?
What's the deepest trench in the world?
What language is spoken in Suriname?

And so on...

But then Miska asked me a question that made me sort of love her and hate her at the same time: What's the capital of Chad?

I didn't know. 'Can you even find Chad on a map?' she said, hand on her hip, so totally pleased with herself for perplexing a full-on American.

Well, no. I can't. I had been bested by a 9-year-old half-American. And it stung.

It's not my fault I lost the game because somebody is going to be a geography bee winner someday. But if I'm honest, I'd like to be there to watch her win. Perhaps we could celebrate with a glass of organic goji berry tea from the backyard bog? Viva N'Djamena!

Dia de los Snort-os

I knew it was going to be a weird day when the man took my student ID card to cut lines of cocaine for our tour group. For weeks the backpacker circuit had been abuzz with story of the San Pedro Prison in La Paz, a special place for murderers, rapists and pedophiles. Also, a a place you could take drugs with said lovely people. Lots of people were reading the book, ´Marching Powder´, an account of an English inmate who started offering tours of the inside.

The inside was still a mystery. I hadn´t actually met anyone who had been inside. But whenever I talked to someone about San Pedro, we spoke in serious italics. For emphasis.

Generally, I tend to avoid prisons, which I have always found to be wise. I don´t like violence, drugs or orange jumpsuits, and on TV, that´s all prison´s about.

But, it was Day of the Dead. And I had convinced some burly-looking guys from the north of England to come with me. Israelis would have been preferable, but they were too cheap to do it. You have to pay 400 Bolivianos to get in - roughly $50 - plus bribes once you´re on the inside to stay safe. But the pound is strong, and so it was - two electrical engineers from York, and yours truly.

San Pedro is capitalism at its most glossy-eyed. Every prisoner must pay for his own cell (who they pay was never clear), which has created an entire community of strung-out venture captalists. Restaurants, laundry, artisans and drugs or alcohol are all available for a very unfair price. Those who speak foreign languages can make more as tour guides, and those good at beating people up make the best bodyguards. My group got Felipe and Jose for both jobs, respectively.

Felipe is 47, has a tan like George Hamilton and a rasp like Phyllis Diller. A Portuguese national, Felipe was arrested 36 months ago for drug smuggling. He pled guilty at trial and has yet to receive his sentence.

He seemed bitter.

But at least he dressed up for the occasion. His black blazer was just slightly tattered at the elbows and his white button-down was gray, though neatly tucked into his jeans which were held up by a rope. I wondered where he got the rope...

Felipe is a master of languages and almost blew my cover off the bat. We were standing over a pool with a giant painted Beluga whale smiling up at us from below. They used to find corpses floating in the pool every morning not long ago.

´Blah blah blah´, he said to me in French.

´Pardon?´

´Didn´t you say you are from Canada? I thought every Canadian spoke French.´

Shit. I did lie. The York boys told me to because the prisoners here blame Bolivia´s poverty on the United States. Listen, I know we´re bad and stuff, but do I really have to take responsibility for Jose´s armed robbery?

I knew tombe-pas-de-bourrée-glissade-assemblé wasn´t going to help here. The extent of my French is ballet vocabulary. I mean, I doubted Felipe, a self-proclaimed con-man, had ever taken a ballet class, but when you´re on the inside, you can´t make such assumptions.

´Actually, in Vancouver we really don´t speak French. Just English. It´s a western province thing.´ Bright Canadian smile.

I mean, what´s a little white lie among pedophiles anyway?

For two hours, Felipe showed us around, in English. There are 7 main ´neighborhoods' in the prison, all with increasingly better cells or cleaner-looking particleboard. The prison is a hodgepodge, with cells atop each other, and an extremely rickety-looking web of staircases that lead you through atriums, concrete soccer grounds, lots of mini cocaine or chocolate shops or the laundry blocks.

The prisoners get stuff to sell to each other because their wives or girlfriends bring it in. Actually, if you´re married, you can live with your sweetheart in his cell in prison. It´s so romantic that lots of women do. And so do their children. In Bolivia, just because you´re locked up doesn´t mean you lose the right to see your family. The kids are released for school every day, and come back by 5 p.m. for dinner or church.

Prisoners can sell and take drugs because the police don´t go into San Pedro, preferring to let the inmates police themselves. And they do.

Dudes in black shirts with batons are the official security team. They enforce a 3-strikes rule. If you tattle, you get a beating. If you do it again, you are beaten until you bleed. And a third time gets you all that, plus extended time between the walls, where a lot of people are found dead.

We don´t tour between the walls, thank god.

According to Felipe, if you murder someone in prison in Bolivia, you only get 2 years added onto your sentence. He grimaced. There was that elusive word: sentence. Poor Felipe...

He took us into the kitchen where the prison mush is cooked. Bolivia will pay for water, electricity, tea and bread. The rest is up to the prisoners. The day we visited, it looked like they were cooking killer stew. Five teenage boys were peeling potatoes in the corner with 6-inch knives I was praying were dull.

Avoiding actual eye contact, I could see the peeling had become provocative, as you might imagine it would when you´re a 19-year-old convict.

´Íf you can afford it, it´s great to take a shower here because it´s hot water. I take a shower once a week in the sauna room...´

Felipe´s hygiene was fascinating, but the killer spud peeling gallery was getting raucous. I´m glad my Spanish sucks, because the words coming out of their mouths just sounded foul, and I needed no translation. I grabbed on to a York engineer for dear life, Felipe took the hint, and we went to another, equally uncomfortable area with no visible knives. That smelled.

I wasn´t sure if the aroma of boiled vegetables, mold and nervous sweat was making me ill, or the fact I was in a prison on my own will. Prisons on TV actually look like they smell pretty clean, because prisoners are always assigned to mop and things. But San Pedro is not like TV prisons. TV prisons don´t have little girls hugging you for dear life, and the whole time I kept thinking ´Glad I left my wallet at home´, not ´Geez I hope this little girl isn´t ruined for life.´

I am a terrible person. I mean, she´s already got 10 years of therapy ahead of her...

Also, TV prisons don´t have cocaine labs where you can sample the local product, purported to be the finest in Bolivia. Don´t worry mom, I don´t take drugs, and if I did, it wouldn´t be in an effing prison. But I did proffer my ID card - not my Duck ID, of course! - because one has to appease the drug boss when you´re on the inside.

Pablo, another tour guide, told me San Pedro really isn´t a bad place to live.

´Before I was deported, I did 3 years in SoCal, and it was always the Mexicans vs. the Blacks vs. the Russians... shit man, here´s it´s different. Everybody mixes - Bolivians, the foreign dudes, the drug dealers, the hard murderers. And nobody has to wear that ugly-ass orange bullshit. Fuck, man.´

Fuck, man, indeed.

Inca Trail of Pus

When I´d envisioned summiting those devilishly hard steps of Machu Picchu, I never thought I´d have pus dripping from my ankles.

But sometimes pus happens.

Especially when you have an allergic reaction to the 159 mosquito and sand fly bites covering legs, thighs and an odd spot on my armpit. And the bridge of my nose. Is there even blood there?

I know, I know, the first thing you´re thinking is - but what about the knees? Well, the front, non-veiny part has been spared. But behind the knees... where the flesh is ripe for the bloodsucking... it´s been compromised.

It all started 4 days earlier when I booked a jungle trek through the Sacred Valley of the Incas. It was supposed to be an adventure, and it was. Days of mountain biking, white water rafting, zip lining over rivers and a lot of hiking through the Inca jungle.

I can´t say I hadn´t been warned. For days prior, I´d see hikers filtering in and out of Cusco with tiny red pocks imprinted on legs, ankles and arms, in a bloody staccato. But they weren´t that bad...

So I took a bath in insect repellent and asked our guide, a 24-year-old ham named Willy, if shorts were okay for the first day´s 8-hour trek into the Inca´s ancient Pony Expressway.

´Of course, Miss Suli, becasue the jungle is very hot today.´

Worse advice was never given.

By the time we reached the end of the first day´s trek, my right thigh had swollen inward, hips swollen outward, and my cankles were blistered from the poison of those evil little Incan insects. Maybe anthropologists aren´t 100% sure why this group went extinct... but I sure as hell know.

My elephant-lady-ness got worse the following day when I awoke, legs burning, muscles tight and the ooze starting to weep. Willy took one look at my legs and announced, ´Miss Suli, you scratch at night. Therefore, you are a suffering. If you do not scratch, you is fine.´

´But Willy, I haven´t scratched! They aren´t even itchy, just uncomfortable.´

´No Miss Suli, it is your fault! No scratch!´

And there I was, goo seeping onto the faces of two golden labrador retriever puppies smiling up at me from the plush blanket, staring up at the tin roof, the singular florescent lightbulb swinging under the clatter of rain, and arguing with a Peruvian obsessed with fart jokes about the consequences of scratching.

It was the beginning of the end for me and Willy when we started talking about using ´hot´ as an adjective.

´You know, ´hot´as in really cute or foxy?´

´Oh, you mean like a donkey in the spring?´ We nodded, politely.

´You know what this means, when the donkey is in the spring, he likes so many lady donkeys and...´

´Yeah Willy, but it´s not really the same meaning...´

´Yes, but do you understand this terminology, donkey in the spring? I explain it better to you...´

And he did. We realized this was our guide for the next four days and he was giggling like a 12-year-old boy at his own joke. Other real doozies included:

Miss Suli, you to share a room with Mister Ben tonight, do you know the matrimonial bed? But you are not married! Haha!

Miss Suli, I think you want to become concubine of Mister Florian, do you not? Neither he is married! But he has German mamacita! Haha!

Miss Suli, you know the Inca tradition - we have to sacrifice a lady. I think Miss Suli wants to be sacrificed, yeah guys? Guys, she no likes my jokes.

Well, between the pus and the matrimonial bed, self-sacrifice was sounding like a good option.

The German mamacita had also been prescient enough to wear shorts that day. We agreed the second day to take the train instead of more hiking in mosquito hives. At the station, we encountered a gaggle of middle-aged trekkers from Alabama of all places, one of whom was a doctor. One look at my legs, and I got the riot act read to me on the virtues of amoxicilin.

Which I bought, no prescription necessary, for less than $10. Willy was, for once, silent.

Romancing the Shell

I wonder how often south americans come to an Oregon beach and sit there thinking, "Gosh, I could really use a shell necklace right about now. And maybe a massage from a self-taught, but pretty un-professional."

See, in Cartagena, Colombia's emerald jewel on the Caribbean coast, you don't have to preoccupy with such worries. They are right there in front of you. And behind you. And to you right and left, an armful of shell necklaces conveniently nudged your way so you may compare and contrast as closely as possible.

Lucky me, I went to Playa Blanca, Cartagena's 'nice' beach and got my own armada of shell necklace groupies, enthusiastically encouraging me to pick the right one for such a regal neck.

I realize this isn't harassment in Colombia. Or stalking. But rather good salesmanship, because they knew better than me my mind would change with just a bit more shell nudging.

"This is a one-time opportunity, my queen!"
"Youthful princess, you cannot find this style anywhere but THIS beach!"

This style being so special, it is only manufactured in China.

Colombians must be nonplussed to find no one selling ANYTHING on the Oregon sand - no mango slices, no half-melted ice cream, no cocaine (well...), and definitely no shell necklaces.

"You mean I have to go to a mall? But I'm right here! On the beach! Sell me SOMETHING!"

I fear, in the end, my persistent posse are the victims of some kind of South American Shell Necklace AmWay scheme. Nobody bought their stuff. Mangoes, yes. But the puka shell rosary? Surely someone must buy them, lest waste precious time?

The patience and time-wasting award for the day goes to Big Bird, a pretty lady with the most vibrant canary yellow romper - that's right, I wrote ´romper´ - of all time.

As our boat abutted the beach, she was the tallest of her 10 friends, spoke English, and took to me immediately in what was to be a doomed attraction.

Big Bird wasn't selling necklaces, her gig was a massage. And normally, I'm all over that, but I was distracted, fiddling with my life vest, warding off conch bracelets and in the organizational kerfuffle, I uttered the single word every traveller should exorcise: maybe.

Maybe, in my mind, almost unilaterally means no.

Would you like to have a meeting with HR to discuss your poor attitude? Uhh... Maybe?
Do you want cow entrails soup for breakfast? Well - maybe!
Feel like digging ditches in the rain today? I dunno. Maybe.

But maybe to a woman whose only job is to sell her hands to tourists on the only nice beach for miles is simply an invitation to employ your most unflappable sales strategies.

For Big Bird, this meant hovering. She followed me to lunch. She watched me eat said lunch. She waited for me to finish my dip in the lovely warm water. I kept turning her offer down, generous as they were.

"But you tell me maybe!"

It was true. I said it, not realizing she would understand it, or use it like an effing scarlet letter. Worn down, I said in my most snappy Spanish, "No! Do you understand the word NO?"

And Big Bird just sniffed, looked away and left, as if now I was annoying her. She completely ignored my existence, which is what I had done to her and every shell necklace salesman all day as if they were subhuman.

And then a wave of guilt overcame me. Big Bird was just trying to do her job. It was an irritating job, but honest employment nevertheless. And I am a rich tourist who should treat others with more respect. So I thought about apologizing... you know, maybe.

FARC and Circumstance

Second-hand danger stories are always annoying.

Firstly, danger is an overused term. Stranger danger. Austin Danger Powers. Highway to the Danger Zone. So when I heard stuff like kidnappings, armed robberies and other scary death-related stuff goes on in Colombia, I thought - wow, this could be unpleasant. But gee, there's a place that could use some positive press. And off I went.

And the funny part was, as soon as I arrived in Popayan in southern Colombia, I started meeting people who were actually held at knife-point - they, themselves - and taken for the equivalent of $15 by 10-year-old children in Bogota.

And when my two friends finally met up with me in Cali - 3 hours later than planned - it was even funnier to hear them talk about how their bus had been roadblocked by FARC, Colombia's most charming terrorist organization. And when I say funny, I mean in that uncomfortable way that makes you want to clutch your wallet and suck your thumb. Not that I did that...

They told me, first-hand, how they stood single-file while a soldier explained the FARC had nothing to do with the assassination of their leader the day beforehand, and how they were really a peaceful group - difficult to buy when an automatic weapon is aimed at your torso. Doubly difficult when you can see soldiers hiding in the jungle on your narrow stretch of road, rifles ready to cover their compadres should anything turn ugly... Also, their uniforms cost a lot of money. Oh yeah, and all the strife in Colombia, including that leader's death, is the fault of the Americans.

Well, I guess we do have a bad reputation for covert assassinations in this part of the world...

They let them go after 30 minutes of complaining. The FARC could really use a community newspaper or something less, um, scary to inform the masses of their statements of peace. There's a group that could use a PR professional. UO Journalism School, are you reading?

All this wasn't helping my quest to create my own non-danger Colombia story. All FARC and no fun makes Colombia a dull drug lord. So after arriving in Cali, the salsa capital of the world, I decided to make the most of my Mexican salsa lessons and dance for an entire weekend. Employing my best judgment, I decided to first hop on the CHIVA Party Bus with some hostel mates.

For those who don't know, the CHIVA Party Bus is an old schoolbus pimped out in disco lights, a great stereo system and no windows or doors so that innocent pedestrians may also enjoy said strobe lights and overly-loud reggaeton against their will. It is, undoubtedly, the most obvious way on earth to announce I AM A TOURIST, PLEASE ROB ME.

The Party Bus leads you all over town, subjecting all walks of Cali life to our noisome menagerie of shot-swilling foreigners and a fair number of Colombian women, drop-dead gorgeous with their stilettos and silicon out for the night. My favorite was a lady in a red bedazzled tube top and bionic breasts. We called her Boobs. She was extremely friendly and didn't speak a lick of English to her extremely appreciative American novio. I was concerned for her health given the air tightness of her jeans, but 'yeast infection' doesn't translate like you might think it would.

Anyway, everything was going well - we boogied past the posh neighborhoods, then the red light district, and Boobs waved to the skinny and starving homeless people sleeping by the library. I started to wonder just what part of town we could possibly offend next. That's when we arrived at a red light and a huge group of high schoolers were drinking en masse right behind us. Obviously, the Party Bus is way more fun than drinking on the street with your teenage friends. Duh! We had Boobs! So a couple of them hung off the side and danced along with us.

And at that point, all was right with the world. Smiles were smiled. Drinks were drunk. Lovely, young Colombians were enjoying our evening out as much as we were.

But the bus driver was vexed with all this merriment from people who hadn't paid, and lurched the bus forward, knocking some of the boys to the hard concrete below.

Well, nobody likes to be knocked off the Party Bus by a grouchy driver, do they? I mean, I wouldn't.

The DJ cut the music and the boys, mad, started smacking the electric green siding with their fists and yelling things in Spanish that were, frankly, fowl. And it was around this time I thought again, wow, this could be unpleasant.

The boys were scrambling to get into the windowless/doorless bus with agility when the light turned green and we took off, popping onto a viaduct to another classy part of town. Only a few glass beer bottles actually hit us, and even Boobs' botoxed eyebrows seemed to have moved slightly to express pain or concern. I think she was really scared, but no one could tell.

Alas, this could have happened anywhere in the world. And there is no point in running around being scared of the danger that happened to others. Or even the almost-danger that is likely to befall the ridiculous Party Bus on its next round of the city.

I would like to give Colombia props for the following cool things:

* Lush green countryside with deep valleys and pointy, jungly mountains
* Excellent coffee, thanks Juan Valdez
* Fabulous graffiti art
* Men with rhythm on the dance floor (though not even remotely as good-looking as the women - or Ecuadoreans! - they do have pizazz)
* Cowbells in the salsa bars
* Excellent and varied fried food
* Very flirty and helpful police officers
* Super yummy local drink - hot chocolate with melted cheese (mixed) and a fried piece of cornbread

Next stop: Cartagena on the Caribbean coast!

Dar-Won Over

The first rule of thumb when traveling in a foreign country is to always book the first night´s hotel in advance so you have a purpose for being there - finding your room. The second rule is to read the chapter on said foreign country in the FootPrint Guide my Auntie Gayle gave me at Christmas. And the third rule is to always have enough money for instances when, for example, one might need $100 cash to pay for the entrance fee to the Galapagos Islands at an airport with no ATMs. But all of the above requires some degree of planning, something after only two months I´m tired of doing.

So I just bought a ticket from Quito to the Galapagos Islands and decided to wing it when I got there, finally reading the aforementioned chapter on the islands in the airport and boarding the plane last after reading that all-important chapter on ATMs and national park entrance fees. I knew things were going to be all right when, after I´d settled into my seat, the flight attendant paged me and the pilot, a friend of my Uncle George, came out to greet me and make sure I had enough ice in my Sprite. Oh, j´adore Ecuador!

Showing up here on these remote isolas off the Pacific Coast of Ecuador was really half the battle. A single lady with fab knees, traveling alone, looking for a snorkle cruise at the last minute? Discount! Finding a place to stay on the main island while waiting for first-class boat to arrive? Discount! Arriving on board and getting my own cabin when everyone else on board had to share?

My id is on fire, people.

For seven days I cruised with a boat full of 30-somethings, Dutch, German, Brazillian, English and one other American ´performance artist´ named Trek Thunder Kelly. Perhaps you may remember him if you paid attention to the 2003 California gubernatorial race, in which a man spent $20,000 changing his wardrobe to a shade of deep blue ran on a platform of legalizing prostitution. Anyway, we ate a lot of overcooked tuna together and talked about his latest project - he´s in the first of a 3-year journey to write a book about loneliness, and has sworn off drinking, sex and communication with the outside world. I know where he is, and his mom doesn´t. He will spend the next year living in the American Southwest desert, staring at a rock and meditating. In two more years, he promised to add everyone as Facebook friends.

While Trek Thunder Kelly was weird, at least he had some sparkle. Eight of the 16 on board were lawyers. I have tried to think of a joke about this, and alas it just wasn´t all that funny. Correction: they weren´t terribly funny. However, I am accepting jokes about lawyers on a blue-footed booby-watching cruise, and promise to post them on the blog.

I realized I am not particularly a boat person. It´s all that rocking back and forth. And water. Water, water everywhere. Geez, everytime we had to get off the boat, we had to go on a littler one, in the water. And when we came back from the island tours... it all became so obvious. Even when we walked off the boat, we all swayed around like we were drunk in unison - it´s no wonder the animals of the Galapagos aren´t scared of human beings. We were all happy drunks, snapping photos like the ridiculous tourists we were, giggling at the baby sea lions and creeping around the lizards in a Kodak stupor.

The animals, for the most part, obliged, patiently waiting for the flash to come on or the focus to zoom like the little National Geographic covergirls they are. Huge turtles, fat albatrosses, seals, sea lions, iguanas, snakes... you want to pose with a pre-historic, jumbo-sized reptile on the brink of extinction for this year´s Christmas card cover? No problem. Just tilt your head to the left a bit more, by that yellow dragon, please.

We snorkled every day, in freezing cold water, swimming with giant sea turtles lunching on algae in seabeds full of aquamascenery. I just made that word up. Oh yeah, I saw a shark! We had dolphins following our boat, and stalked a humpback whale and her baby en route to the equator line, which was supposed to be a big deal, but it turns out it was just a bunch of 0s on the captain´s computer screen and more vomit-inducing sway action on a windy night. I was hoping for more drama on the boat, besides who had the best seasickness pills. Nobody had to walk the plank, and there weren´t any pirates. There was no mutiny on the bounty. We didn´t get swallowed by a whale.

I had wanted all of those things, but when you´re on a blue-footed boobie boat tour full of lawyers... yeah, still got nothing.

I had such a fun time, I decided to extend my stay in the Galapagos by a week, staying in the only real town here, Puerto Ayora. I feel like I live here now. I know the DJ at Bongo, the only dance club. Javier and I talk about the virtues of Pitbull and all he´s done for Latin hip hop. I make the hike to Tortuga Bay in the afternoons if it´s sunny, being careful not to step on all the lizards and iguanas soaking up the sun. In short, it´s a rough life. But as our nature guide on the boat told us, these Galapagos creatures live so long because they know how to conserve energy, only hunting or moving around when absolutely necessary.

I have embraced this theory of energy conservation and I feel all Darwinian and stuff about my survival. Which is why I eat homemade ice cream and fresh ceviche every day. I recommend you do the same. It does great things for your id.

The knee creeper

You know when you get that gag reflex when the mustard in the fridge you want to put on your tater tots is really sour and moldy, or you're cleaning the bathroom and a mess of clotted hair and shampoo has been clogging the drain, making you wonder for ages why you've felt like you're taking a shower in a foot of water?

Well, the DF subway was like that for me a couple days before I left, and not a spore of mold was involved. There I was, minding my own business attempting to meet friends in DF's main square to look at murals (when I say DF, it means Districto Federal, which is the same thing as Mexico City). Julie (me), advised by her DF hosts (Manny y Maria!), sits in the car designated for women only for added security in the world's largest city. Creepy Random Dude enters women-only car and sits perpendicular to Julie.

Glances become stolen. Julie notices, but ignores. Stares become stared. Julie - still not 100 percent certain glances/stares are aimed at her - continues feigning ignorance. However, when Creepy Random Dude's hand starts trembling, Julie notices said glance/stare is unapologetically fixed. On her knees. Meaning, my knees.

Now, let's just take a moment here to recognize how incredibly fabulous my knees actually are. I, too, have always admired the way the joint moves with ease and they never get too sore, unlike their cry-baby neighbors to the south, my feet. At the moment, they are tan, and the bones don't stick out too much like other people's knees. I have always enjoyed them, and while it's nice for my knees to get the recognition they deserve, I knew in my heart of hearts Creepy Random Dude was not silently praising my superior cartilage, but entertaining more lascivious thoughts in his middle-aged, upper class creepasaurus mind.

Concern was had that creepy trembling hand might be tempted to touch one or both fabulous knees.

Cue gag reflex.

I sat there thinking of all the words I could muster that were rude in Spanish, but assembling them in a sentence just sounded like a disjointed laundry list of synonyms from my dictionary, including 'mean', 'weird', -'heart with cold' and, of course, 'motherfucker'. Veronica, my college roommate and a Mexico City native, taught me that one. Thanks, GF.

Instead of saying anything, though, me and my knees just got up and changed seats - but with a loud sigh and my best eye roll, which probably doesn't translate anyway.

But the problem didn't stop on the Pink Line. It's knee season in Mexico, and I felt hombres undressing my undressed knees all day. I've heard about this whole machismo leering thing before, and how it's all cultural. But hey, in Oaxaca, I didn't get leered.

And anyway, I would prefer it if the hombres interested in my knees treated me they way I'm used to: ignoring my very existence, avoiding eye contact in favor of socially awkward body language, and throwing me a bone with an occasional, apathetic grunt. Then they may proceed to tell me their theory on why wrestling is not a homo-erotic sport. I mean, it's the American way!

I feel I should clarify my outfit before anyone jumps to blame the leer-ee here. Blue dress, cut just above said heartbreaking knees, rather boxy, frankly, and nothing compared to the low neck/high heel combo so many Mexican ladies favor.

So my solution was to put on my sunglasses (it was not sunny), add my rain jacket (nor was it rainy) and glare back. I channeled Crazy Sandra. I stared down potential knee offenders with a wild, arched brow and furrowed my hair. Big hair always scares people off. I got even more slouchy than I normally am, and held my hand on my belly, thinking creepers don't check out pregnant chicks' knees. But they do! Then, when someone would have the absolute gaul to strike a conversation, I'd tell them I was Israeli. "Habla Hebrew?"

My ode to the 'don't fuck with me' charm of Israelis continues (see posts from Guatemala).

This is also what I told to Leatherface the Organ Harvester, a 7-foot-tall 'basketball player' on the Oaxaca basketball team with very suspicious skin (I later learned Oaxaca does not actually have a basketball team). Leatherface skulked around the city and the salsa clubs, looking, in my opinion, like the type of person involved in the black market organ trade. I always felt him eyeing my spleen. He did not habla Hebrew either, which is an excellent way to end a conversation.

On the epic journey from Mexico City to Quito yesterday, a CSI Miami episode centered on illegal organ harvesting which is just another sign that one must be extra vigilant when protecting one's innards. Which, in my book, includes kneecaps.

Sol Searching

Did I mention Guns drives a motorcycle? Just wanted to throw that out there...

We took a second-class bus through the bends into the Oaxacan mountains one weekend. By we, I mean a couple of other American girls in my class, and their 'intercambio' partners - Mexican students trying to learn English. In sum, there were 8 of us. And that was enough.

To give you an idea of the difference between first and second class bus service in Mexico: the first class bus has TVs, reclining chair backs, assigned seats, and a clean, flush toilet in the back.

The second class bus has none of the above. The second class station, however, did have toilets, but they did not flush. Maids swished the loos out with buckets of water, which I found, frankly, off-putting. More for them than me.

The mountain puebla we visited was gorgeous. The air was clean, the food was yummy, and they served us bowls of hot chocolate with breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. Bowls. Of hot chocolate. I took a picture.

We went on a nature hike and zip-lined through the cacti. We wandered the puebla and discovered ancient women, faces leathery and wise, rolling dough in a smoky, wood-fired panderia (bread shop). Their lungs must be immune, black, or both, because the smoke hugged the building like a chubby fleece blanket, blobbing its way out the one open window. Standing from our cabana above, it looked like the panderia roof was levitating. I wondered if it knew about the human body levitation exhibition I talked about in class the week before (see previous post).

The puebla was peaceful, tranquil, effing freezing at night and very oddly empty. There were a lot of children and grandparents, but I noticed a generation was missing: mine. Then one of the intercambios, Judith, dropped this little revelation on me:

'They're all in the United States. They're the ones working in your fields, not their own. The people Arizona wants to keep out? They are from pueblas like this one.'

Ladies and gentleman, a dot has just been connected.

I don't know who I thought migrant workers came from, but it wasn't sleepy little mountain villages, crisp and verdant where even the donkeys seem to bray in a better mood. And you get bowls. Of hot chocolate. At all meals. If the standard set forth by the 75-year-old woman toiling in the smoky bread house is any indication, its no wonder men and women are willing to break their backs picking the organic strawberries I blend with my non-fat organic yogurt and wild harvested honey from the Eugene farmer´s market to go with my free-trade coffee in self-conscious Portland. And thus begins an entirely new chapter of liberalism in the life and times of Jules.

The nights in Oaxacan mountains are cold, even in August, so we huddled around the fireplace in the cabana. (As an aside, the fire would not start. No, seriously. This after I told the group, rather optimistically, ´Don´t worry! I´m a Girl Scout! I can start a fire underwater!´It wasn´t true. I was neither born to dance salsa, or start underwater fires, so please feel free to call me on it next time I utter either falsehood). To keep warm, our group of 8 did the usual - drink beer, tell ghost stories, play truth of dare... they all spoke in English and we all spoke in Spanish and it became a fabulous mismash of incomplete sentences and modifiers dangling in mid-air. Our compadres were college students, around 20 years old, some older, all Catholic. This made for what I thought was becoming a rather boring game of ´Would You Rather´...

´Would you rather marry a rich man who was cruel, or a poor man to painted your pictures in the sun?´

´Would you rather kiss a pretty girl with braces, or an ugly girl with nice teeth?´

´Would you rather make a fart in school, or walk around with toilet paper on your shoes?´

It felt like I was reading letters to the editor at TigerBeat Magazine. Then, just as it all became too Disney for what I´d refer to as a worldly soul, rather than a jaded soul like mine... this little gem popped out of nowhere from a 19-year-old university student:

´Would you rather sleep in a room full of lesbians, or a room full of strippers... who are sick.´

She said this last part, ´who are sick´, with emphasis, realizing this last detail would probably make the strippers look really, really bad. It wasn´t clear, though, just what said strippers were indeed stricken with. Was it gout? Did they just have a headache? Was it the black plague? I had to find out, but I couldn´t form the words because I was laughing so much. So were my American classmates. We snorted, chuckled, slapped our knees, completely lost it and, with all of our stomach clutching and tear wiping, completely freaked out the Mexicans with our reaction to their very innocent game.

All this led to a very interesting discussion the next morning about homosexuality. Some were fine with it, others didn´t want lesbians sitting next to them for fear of molestation (lesbians, you really have a lot of work to be done here in Mexico). In the end, we all agreed it would be best to make friends with a homosexual in order to better understand their lifestyle. So an SOS to all the gays and lesbians reading this - please come befriend Mexicans. They need you.

Infirmed strippers, however, might want to vacation elsewhere.

I would tell you all about a beach weekend that included 18 hours of overnight bus travel and a night sleeping in a suspended ´bed´on a cliff at the hippie commune, but the story sort of ends when I vomited my papaya and yogurt breakfast all over the sea turtle rescue park and I´d rather not memorialize that tale in writing. Whatever you´ve heard about Mexican drinking water, it´s true. And I apologize to the sea turtles, because I love them.

Living in Oaxaca for the last month has been a fabulous start to my adventure. I´ve been living with a 78-year-old woman who makes her living renting rooms and a hot shower to mostly American students. I´m just one of about 300 who have stayed in her casa over the years, and I think all 300 of us should count our blessings - Maria Elena´s food is made from scratch, of the authentic Oaxaqueno style, and super yummy. She is forever cracking jokes, none of which I´ve ever understood, but giggling in solidarity doesn´t really need translation.

She has 8 children, 11 grandchildren and 2 dogs. Everybody wants to talk, until they realize I don´t talk back. Or at least not well.

"Years, how many?" I asked one granddaughter.

"´How old are you?´" she replied.

"No, years, how many?"

"Of course, ´How old are you?´" She was trying to help. It didn´t stick.

"Oh shoot! You don´t understand the word `years`?"

She is 15. I had much better luck talking with another granddaughter, age 5, about our mutual admiration for butterflies, specifically in colors pink, red, and yellow, but not black. They´re scary.

The house is huge, I suspect. Two student rooms in the back garden, 5 rooms in the main house, 2 dining rooms, 2 parlors, a back garden, a front garden, a cactus garden, and a special zone for the maid (who travels one hour each way and earns $15 a week) to iron, wash clothes or do whatever. When I asked Maria Elena if her house was typical in Mexico, she said, ´No.' We did not discuss further.

Everything was going great until Crazy Sandra arrived. Last week at lunch, a woman in her 60s buzzed the door, with chopped white hair that stood straight up, shocked, like her wild, sad eyes. She had stayed at the same house 9 years ago as a Spanish student and had been living in South America teaching English. She was on her way home to North Carolina. Did I mind sharing my bathroom?

At first, Crazy Sandra was very nice. She took the room adjacent to mine and she told me of her adventures teaching. I found her very worldly and brave. Then she invited me for a beer - I had one, she had three, and learned she hates the United States, she´s divorced and her two daughters think she´s nuts.

"You mean crazy, as in ´my mom´s so cool, she´s traveling around the world, following her dreams´kind of crazy?" I asked.

"No. I mean crazy, as in pathologically." Her wild eyes got wilder, and I swear her hair started quivering. I know I did.

Crazy Sandra told me her dentist thinks our host sister is bipolar. She complained about the maid for moving her books so she could clean. She wears pajamas at all hours. She is constantly sick, tired, victimized, and tells me all about it. She also feels at liberty to correct my Spanish, which is really a lost cause for any human being. And the final, damning indictment against Crazy Sandra? She doesn´t like the dogs. The wiener-beagle was crying one day and she threatened to bust his nose. New rule of thumb: people who tell you they are pathologically crazy should be trusted with that fact, and that fact alone.

And so it is with some bittersweet feelings I move on to Mexico City tomorrow, and off to Ecuador next week, away from the beauty of Mexico and its people and away from Crazy Sandra. And Guns. Que triste. More adventures to follow...

Oaxacan on Sunshine

Some people have asked me if my year around the world is really a metaphor for a personal journey to the far reaches of my soul. Anyone who knows me, knows I lack the patience for that level of introspection. I'm not reading Dostoyevsky, Kerouac or anything sponsored by Oprah this year. Who wants to sit around and self-obsess when you can self-medicate with a frosty cerveza in the sun?

So, what am I doing? I'm taking a year off to see the world. Some of you may already know about my trip. In fact, it's been converted into a major motion picture starring Julia Roberts currently playing in theaters across the country. But in case we've been out of touch, you should know I'm now a 30-year-old woman with no job, no apartment, no car, no boyfriend and so far, no regrets.

My first stop is Mexico, where I arrived in Oaxaca City last week and enrolled in a Spanish school to prepare myself for the upcoming months in South America. The school placed me not in the beginner's class, but in the second level after leaving 90% of the placement exam blank, and flunking 95% of what I did fill out. Apparently they have a lot more faith in my potential, but I mainly got stuck with the smarties after boasting I had taken Italian in college. I didn't think it was prudent to mention my straight C average in said Italian classes, so now I get to attempt sentence writing and conversation with classmates who have vastly greater knowledge of grammar, structure, vocabulary and all other skills necessary to learn a foreign language.

I fear my long-suffering teacher, Ita - who has the patience of the Buddha and fabulously groomed eyebrows framed by posh Burberry spectacles - will soon realize I am a dolt and put me with the kiddies class. At her first read-through of my attempt to write a dialogue, I watched with trepidation as her left eyebrow began to quiver:

Would you like you us to watch acrobats on air with me?
Maybe, but no I you like humans levitation presentation.
Taller?
I think the circuses is but for the animals.
This thing event no to have the only body of the humans dead.
Kindness.

Based on my performance the first week, I'd like to think I can't get any worse. However, when I close my eyes at night, I see Ita's brows ticking up and down with pity. Perhaps I should take a personal journey to the depths of my underachievement in all formal language training. My Spanglish, however, has never been better:

Do you habla the Pepto Bismol? Is it cheapo?

That thing! I amored it!

I am el vaca de las oraciones (I am the cow of sentences)

Luckily, people in Mexico are very gracious. And very religious. I've realized it's hard to be godless in this country - everybody wants you to pick a side. Last week the park had a festival that included a lot of live music. My favorite was a band of teenagers covering Nirvana, the White Stripes and Metallica with aplomb (ok, the 14-year-old girl singer was unconvincing as Ozzy Osbourne). The best part was when they turned up their amp when the Christian Evangelists stated singing - in English - about 50 feet away. With a snappy hook and half an orchestra, including strings, horns, drums and a synthesizer primarily utilized for it's 'crashing thunder' effect at the crescendo of ballads, they sang their little blonde-haired, blue-eyed souls out. My otherwise discreet lunch spot turned into Jesus Disco vs. Death Metal, both in competition with festival booths of selling raw beef, Chinese-made cell phone accoutrements and illegally copied CDs of Olivia Newton John's Greates Hits.

It was fabulous and noisome all in one go. I didn't know who to listen to, so I left for salsa class and didn't pick a side.

As part of my life dream to be on America's Ballroom Challenge in magenta heels, a fringe dress with sparkles commingling with sequins, and a severe side parting, I've started taking salsa classes at the school. Four days a week, it's me and a gaggle of mostly Americans following the lead of our teacher who has infinite patience and marvelous biceps. He used to dance with the folk ballet, but I can picture him doing greater things in life as my partner on ABC. We dance in our tennis shoes in the school's courtyard each evening when the clouds roll in and the Oaxacan sprinkles sometimes make the turns more exciting. It's all very Dirty Dancing and our maestro - whom hereinto I shall refer to as Guns - is very Patrick Swayze, but in track pants and a one-size-too-small soccer jersey.

Obviously, I never skip dance class.

All of us girls have a little crush on Guns. We went out one night as a big gaggle of gringas to a salsa club called La Candela, which, in my agnostic opinion, is the Holy Grail of salsa in Oaxaca. The dance floor is in the middle of candlelit tables arranged to face the live band pouring Latin life into merengues, salsas, cumbias and the odd bachata. If you don't know what those are, just imagine a lot of hip-shaking and you're pretty much there.

All the ladies from my class danced and goofed around until... Guns arrived. Then we sobered up, tried to play it cool. The gentleman he is, Guns took each of his students out for a turn on the floor and we lost it. Squealing with delight, we huddled together with abject glee and traded all our maturity as educated, independent, globe-trekking sophisticates to become 12-year-old Justin Beiber groupies. Guns is our Justin Beiber. La Candela is our Casablanca. And that night I proclaimed - remarkably only after one glass of wine - that I was born to dance the salsa!

My illusions of grandeur precede me and I believe I will never live that statement down until I leave this country.