Cabo Polonio Revisited

A while back, I got an email from a guy who had read an article of mine on GoNomad.

It was my story about my trip to Cabo Polonio, Uruguay.

The reader was contemplating heading there himself. While I had arrived there by bus, he wanted to know if I thought renting a car and driving there would be a doable option.

I told him yes, and we exchanged a few more notes about traveling in Uruguay, Cabo Polonio itself and beautiful, beautiful Buenos Aires just to the south.

Well, today I got another email from him. He made the trip to Cabo Polonio. He did rent a car and drive. The whole thing went off without a hitch.

And he also sent me a link to some of his photos. This one, in particular, touched me.

I took a picture of that exact same boat -- "La Nena" -- pulled up on the sand in the exact same spot!

Good to know the boat's still there and my work and words were able to direct yet another traveler to a great and totally unique place.

Anything Che Can Do I Can Do Better

The title for this entry, perhaps, isn't quite accurate. I can't perform radical, revolutionary, doctor-type moves. Nor do I want to.

However, while reading The Motorcycle Diaries, I did discover one thing I can hold over Che:

He took the train to Machu Picchu. I hiked four days through the Andes to get there.

That's me there in the picture, on the left-hand side, carrying all my gear.

My hiking partner was Alison, the very same friend with whom I now write Haiku By Two.

We made this trip back in 1998.

When people ask me to name the things I've accomplished in my life for which I'm most proud, this trip, this four-day hike, always tops the list. It was hard!

Che, with his notorious asthma, perhaps could not have followed this trail. But I did. And I would never give up the experience.

Postcards from Pamplona

After reading When Wanders Cease to Roam, I got a bit nostalgic about my own past trips.

So much so that I dug out my box of travel souvenirs and started rifling through them.

I came across a whole stack of postcards addressed to my parents. I had written them all while a student abroad in Pamplona, Spain.

The postcards caught my eye for a couple of reasons:

First, they were addressed to my mom and dad. Had I stolen them back upon my return home or had my mom given them back to me, figuring I might want them as keepsakes?

I don't know. I don't remember anymore.

Secondly, check out my itsy-bitsy print!

How did I manage to write this small?

And not once, but on postcard after postcard.

I don't know who I feel more sorry for: My parents for having to read this or the postman for having to figure out the mailing address amidst all these words!

These postcards were all sent pre-the-dawn of email. And even though they are a pain in the butt to read, I'm glad I have them.

I wonder if these mailbox missives of mine would have survived this long if they'd been sent over the computer.

Dame Mas Gasolina

I found myself on YouTube doing a search for the title of a song I hadn't heard in a long time, but one that is, nonetheless, seared into my brain.

If I could make a soundtrack of my last trip through Latin America, this song would have to be the first on the list, the last on the list and the underlying thump for the rest of the mix.

It was, without a doubt, the most played song piped over public airways while I was traveling through Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile in the last months of 2005 and the first months of 2006.

The song? Gasolina. The catchy chorus? Dame Mas Gasolina.

In English? Give me more gasoline.

This is the literal translation. I'd love to know if there is some hidden idiom/slag definition that I'm not picking up on

But translation issues aside, oh, I loved hearing this beat again ...

Suspenseful Reading

I recently finished reading Elephant Run by Roland Smith. It's a young adult novel about Burma, Japan, elephants and WWII.

Burma is about the last place I would ever expect a young adult novel to be set, and in truth, this is one of the reasons I picked up the title. The uniqueness appealed to me.

Yet once I got started, I kept reading because I was thoroughly engaged in the plot. The main character, Nick, is a British boy whose parents are divorced and living on different continents -- his mother in England and his father in Burma.

When the Germans begin their steady bombing of London during WWII, it is decided that Nick should part ways with his mother and go live with his father in Burma, which is (supposedly) beyond the reach of the war.

But soon after Nick gets settled in with his dad, the Japanese march into the country, conquer Rangoon and begin sending captives to the Thai-Burma border to construct a railway bridge, which would become the real-life Bridge Over the River Kwai.

While Nick manages to avoid capture by the Japanese, his father doesn't. What will Nick do all alone in a foreign and war-torn land?

Of Talismans and Travel

Before I left on my last big trip, a journey that took my husband and me through eight different countries in six months' time, one of my dearest friends gave me this bracelet.

On a small card, which I still have, she scrawled:

Wear in good health and may you be safe -- XO Michelle

Michelle and I had traveled together before (in Peru and Guatemala) so I knew from past experience that these particular beads, these evil eyes, held meaning for her. On each of our previous expeditions she'd worn similar charms around her neck to protect herself from the preying ways of potential thugs, thieves or the like.

I put her bracelet on the day I received it and in the past two and a half years, it's rarely left my wrist. Just the other day, it broke. The silver casing holding one of the beads simply snapped and the whole thing fell to the kitchen floor as I was cleaning the coffee machine.

I heard it hit the ground and looked down at my feet wondering what had made the noise. When I saw my bracelet limp across the floor, an audible gasp escaped my lips. Those beads had seen me through so many strange lands, so many foreign situations, that I too had come to believe in the protective power of the evil eye.

The loss of this lucky charm has caused me to think about what other small trinkets I've carried about the world as I travel far from home, about what I consider my travel talismans.

There are, of course, my snippets of Sadie hair that have seen me through numerous trips and flights. And I do have a certain day pack I've found to be particularly useful on the road. It has gone on so many journeys with me that it as become, in my mind, a travel necessity.

And then there is this rock, this vaguely heart-shaped dusty gray rock, that has made the rounds with me as well. Like the evil eye bracelet, this rock was given to me as I prepared to take off on my last big trip, the Global Roam.

A group of women I know gathered for a happy hour send off at an area bar overlooking a nearby lake. One of the women came in late, the last to arrive. She'd been out watching the waves break on the shoreline, she said, and produced the rock.

She sent the rock circling the table, instructing each woman there to concentrate her well wishes for my safe travel and healthy return into its form before passing it on, all the way around to me, with whom it would remain. I was to pack the rock in my travel gear and in that way, their prayers -- and a little piece of my home state -- would accompany me, she said.

I was touched by the gesture and the pause I saw each woman give the rock as it circled the group. I brought it home, shared its significance with my hub and promptly added it to the growing stack of things to pack.

The rock almost didn't make the packing cut. It's hard to pack for six months on the road. Lots of items get chucked for their bulkiness or weight. The rock, at one point, was set aside as "heavy."

But my husband, dear man, secretly slipped the rock into my bag. I didn't discover it there until we were already on the road three weeks. When I held it up, curious but happy to see it there, Quang smiled and shrugged.

"We'll take all the prayers we can get," he said.

Smells Good in Cuba

After the Christmas crush, hubby and I hit an outlet mall with some holiday cash. We were in search of new fragrances to accessorize the new year.

Quang especially needed a new cologne. He had drained all his bottles dry, including an aerosol can of musk-scented Axe Body Spray.

This can has been kicking around our bathroom for more than a year and it's been empty most of that time. Each time Quang picks it up and tries to eek out a drop or two, he ends up breathing naughty words about how he thought he'd already thrown the can away. Then he promptly turns and dumps it in the trash.

And I go fish it out of the garbage and put it back under the bathroom sink.

It's not that I'm trying to play tricks on him, it's just that I have a soft spot in my heart for that cheap can of body spray.

He bought it in Uruguay, in the town of Punta del Este, and I remember that morning well. After two months budget backpacking in Latin America, he was obsessed with the idea that all his personal belongings stunk -- his shoes, his clothes, his bag. He was desperate to mask what he thought was an obvious odor, hence the body spray.

For the rest of our trip, which spanned six months, whenever he broke out that aerosol can I'd sniff deep and say, "Ummm. It smells like Uruguay."

On our recent trip to the outlet mall, however, I admitted the Axe body spray was good and gone and that it was time to move on.

Quang chose a couple new smells, one which I pushed him to buy: Cuba.

It was packaged in a brown bottle with a gold seal to look like a cigar. I particuarily liked the fact that the "Cuban cigar" was stamped with a picture of Benjamin Franklin.

"Let me guess, you think it should be a picture of Che," Quang said.

"Che would have been more appropriate than Benjamin Franklin," I said. "Actually, I think they should have put Jose Marti on the seal." Jose Marti is Cuba's most beloved poet.

The Cuba cologne was priced really cheap. So cheap, in fact, that we both figured it probably didn't smell very good. Nonetheless, I argued, Quang needed to own it.

When you buy a new perfume, you never really know if you're going to end up liking it or not. Those trial squirts in the store never do much besides stuff up your nose.

Now that a couple weeks have passed and we've had time to adjust to the individual ways that a cologne sinks under the skin, wouldn't you know it...we both prefer Cuba to the other bottles he brought home.

Oh, Those Hot-Humid Days of Yore

It's really cold here in Minneapolis. Sub-zero cold. Negative-30-degrees-wind-chill cold.

It's that time of year when I ask myself, "Why do I live here?"

And yet, I kinda like the frigid temps. Not because I'm a glutton for frostbite, but because life indoors turns all cozy and comfy. The freezing air is a logical, perfect reason to stay at home, eat hot soup, stay in my pajamas all day, drink loads of coffee and read books (as if I needed an excuse to read books).

My most recent read took me someplace far away and far hotter than home: Burma.

I snuggled up with my doggies and Emma Larkin's book Finding George Orwell in Burma. The title had been on my radar since its release for a couple of reasons.

One - It was written by a woman and I'm always interested in travel tales penned by the ladies.

Two - It was about George Orwell and his life in Burma. One of my all time favorite pieces of writing is an Orwell essay called "A Hanging", which takes place there.

Three - I went to Burma and love to read about places I've been.

Four - This past fall, when Burma (also known as Myanmar) was making daily headlines, a friend asked me what she could do to help the Burmese. I think, the best thing we can do, is to first inform ourselves about what is going on there, to really understand the problem.

After reading Finding George Orwell in Burma, I feel like I understand the country's situation much, much better. Having been to the country, I was totally blown away by the author's travel courage.

When my hubby and I look back on our one week in Burma, we often say that we can't believe how lucky we were to have gotten in, gotten around and gotten out without any major problems.

We were smart travelers, used to the road and used to hassles when we landed in Burma, and still, the country knocked us flat. It was an emotionally draining place to be a budget backpacker. The heat, the culture, the inequity, the level to which the country was under-developed, all of it seeped into our heads and muddled our thoughts and yet we knew that in such a different, different land, we had to remain alert.

For anyone looking to learn a little more about Burma, I highly recommend Larkin's book. It is intelligent, well-written and incredibly interesting.

* Photos
- cover art for Finding George Orwell in Burma
- my own foggy shot of a fisherman on Burma's Inle Lake

Of Dogs and Travel

I'm a bit of a dog fanatic. Ask anyone who's ever traveled with me, and they'll agree. When I'm away from my own poochie-poo, I fixate on other doggies.

This could mean puppies in pet store windows, dog-walkers in big city parks, sad-looking strays digging through piles of garbage. Doesn't matter. If it's a dog, it's got my attention.

This got me in trouble once. Years ago I spent two weeks studying Spanish in Guatemala. The school arranged a home stay with a local family and I was thrilled to discover my assigned family had a dog - Pasita.

Pasita, it turned out, was a flee-breeding machine. I didn't know that when I befriended her and invited her into my room. One particularly adventurous flee made it from Pasita's tail to the covers of my bed. That was a miserable night.

But I still love dogs. In fact, here's a travel secret of mine that (until now) only my closest travel companions knew: I carry dog hair with me whenever I roam far from home.

That's right. I carry dog hair with me. Not just a few random strands that stick to my sweater, but an actual snippet of hair.

That snippet of hair is from my now-dead dog Sadie. Sadie was a sheltie, one of those pretty dogs that look like a miniature collie. Sadie had ample hair.

My mom is a bit of dog nut, too. For example, she appreciates a birthday card signed by her dog. It was no surprise to me, therefore, that when I went off to college, my mom started mailing me cards from the dog. Sadie always signed her cards with a snippet of Sadie hair.

My college roommates teased me about these snippets of dog hair that floated about my desk drawer. I couldn't bring myself to throw any of them away as the act would be equivalent (in my mind) to throwing out the dog.

Sadie was still alive when I caught the travel bug. Before each big trip abroad, my mom would slip me a snippet of Sadie hair as a reminder of home and the loved ones that held me dear. I faithfully carried those clippings through each of my journeys. They became my talisman and I fully believed in them. If I ever felt a surge of homesickness, I would take them out and play with them, much to the horror of all my travel companions.

Sadie is gone now, but her snippings of hair are not and neither is my wanderlust. Even though she was dead, I carried her hair on my last big trip through Latin America and Southeast Asia. In this way, I guess, Sadie has seen the world.

Yet someone had to fill the Sadie void. Enter Aries and Abby. They live with me, not my mom, which means that now I can't just pack up and run off to Timbuktu. I have to find a dog sitter.

As I've recently returned from a trip to San Diego, I've also recently had a dog sitting experience. Talk about guilt. I felt guilty when I dropped them off. I felt guilty when I picked them up. And when Abby spent yesterday messing all over the house because her digestive track had been upset, I didn't complain or yell. I simply cleaned it up with a heavy, guilty heart.

And then I sat down to read the newspaper's Sunday travel section and started inspecting the airfare ads and scheming of my next trip. London, maybe. Amsterdam in the spring?

And then it hit me. The bill I just paid for dog sitting would have bought me a ticket to France.

Remembering Your Roam

My article, Remember Your Roam: Tips and Techniques to Bring Your Travel Journal Alive was recently posed on GoNomad.

It lists 25 writing prompts to help any traveler (even a reluctant writer) keep a diary on the road.

My favorite tip? #21

Write a haiku. Remember the rules? Three lines of counted syllables: 5,7,5. Traditionally, a haiku is supposed to be about nature, but I’ve use the format throughout my travel diaries. Here’s a haiku from my Roam journal:

Sticky table top
Hot waiter winks and I will
Forgive anything

Photo
* My attempt to recreate a green house in a Buenos Aires park.

Broken Hearts and Buenos Aires

I just finished reading a book called The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club. The author's name is Jessica Morrison and her main character, Cassie, flees to the city of good airs after being fired, dumped and evicted from her Seattle life all in one day.

While the book is billed as fiction, the author says up front in her author's note that she went to Buenos Aires after a divorce and on more or less a broken heart. After reading it, it was very clear to me that the author had indeed spent time in the city.

I picked up the book because I, too, went to live in Buenos Aires when I had a broken heart. It was 1997 when I went and the city soothed me. Well, there's nothing really "soothing" about Buenos Aires. It's a massive, crowded, noisy, bright and caffeinated city. Perhaps it would be better if I said that Buenos Aires distracted me. It distracted me from my broken heart long enough for it to heal.

In the book, the main character gets to Buenos Aires and discovers an entire subculture of ex-pats nursing wounded hearts. Oddly enough, when I was there, I also forged my own little broken heart club.

My co-broken hearter was Ali. We taught English at the same language school in the city and became fast friends. She is my Buenos Aires soul mate and, after all these years, continues to be a dear friend. Here we are on our last night in the city together. We both went home the next day.

I remember posing for this picture. We planned the shot. It's taken in the middle of Avenida Corrientes. We wanted the lights, the obelisk and the subte (subway) in the background. And because Corrientes is one of the city's main arteries, the picture was taken quick-quick while traffic was lingering at a red light.

The book, while not a stellar piece of literature, kept my interest. I kept trying to figure out if I liked the book because it was well-written chic lit or if I liked it because it was set in Buenos Aires and somewhat mirrored my own experience in the city. I've decided I'm too biased to make that call.

But the book also got me wondering - about Buenos Aires, about broken-hearted travelers, about where they end up - and I wondered: Is it simply coincidence that this book reflects my own past or is Buenos Aires really some sort of haven for the lovelorn?

Were you ever broken hearted? Did you travel to escape the break up? Did it take you to Buenos Aires? Did the city heal you, too? Or did you end up some place else?

I want to know. Post me a comment.

Confused by El Conquistador

Somehow our name ended up on the mailing list for a magazine called Incentive. It's been coming for about 6 months now. It's one of those curious mail box mysteries...who put us on this list?

The purpose of the magazine is to encourage corporate big wigs to give incentive gifts for employee productivity. Mostly it's full of ads for gift cards, small electronics and resort get-a-ways. I usually flip quickly through the pages before dumping the lot in the recycling box. This month, however, a certain advertisement caught my eye. It was for a resort called El Conquistador.

The ad caught my eye for two reasons. First, it's totally hokey.

Who is this ad aiming at? I hardly think it's targeting a woman. If I were to plan an all-inclusive resort vacation, I'd steer clear El Conquistador simply on the basis of this ad.

I mean really. What woman rides a horse in a flimsy cotton cover up, with apparently no bra or swimsuit underneath, her long hair flowing in the breeze, a hibiscus stuck in her tangled locks, and her arm stretched out behind her, resting on the horse's rump, so that her back arches ever so slightly into a come-hither pose exposing the fleshiness of her breast?

I'd also like the highlight the fact that the woman is riding bareback.

The whole thing looks more like the cover of a video game that should be rated M for mature than an ad for an upscale, luxury resort.

The ad also caught my eye because my husband, on more than one occasion, has called himself my conquistador. Given the rant above, I'll leave you to determine how smoothly that goes over.



Of course I had to look up El Conquistador online. It's a posh Puerto Rican place. The cheapest room I could find started at over $400 a night.

Which brought me right back to the ad. I'd think, pulling in that kind of dough, that they'd have a better marketing scheme. I'm still scratching my head.

* Photos © El Conquistador.

Of Superbowl Rings and Gratitude

I'm not much of a football fan. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm not a football fan at all. But last night, I got to hold a Superbowl ring in my own two hands and I must say, that was pretty cool.

I interviewed Jim Fahnhorst. He's a Minnesota boy who grew up to play for the San Francisco 49ers. He joined the team in 1984 and stayed there for the next seven years, taking part in three Superbowl wins along the way: 1984, 1988 and 1989.

After retiring from the game, he moved back to Minnesota with his wife and kids. It was my job to interview the clan for a local publication. After the interview and picture taking were done, the Fahnhorsts broke out some beers and invited the photographer and I to stick around for a bit. That's when I got the chance to slip on the ring.

As the circle swapped travel tales and stories of the good ol' days growing up Minnesotan, I toyed with the ring and the idea of asking the photographer to break out his camera and take a shot of it on my hand. But I didn't. I didn't want to disturb the flow of conversation and it was one of those moments I decided was better experienced and remembered than made obnoxious by the snapping of a flash.

Before the evening was through and the photographer and I were out the door, the wife had run downstairs and brought up two decorative ceramic bowls she'd painted herself. "Here," she said, "I want you each to take one. Happy holidays."

As I accepted the bowl, I felt a rush of appreciation and thanks. Lately, I've been kind of down-in-the-dumps about my job. I've written so many articles this year that I was starting to feel burned out. The interviews I've conducted recently have felt routine, not fun.

But last night I remembered why I ever wanted to be a freelance writer to begin with: I get to be impressed by people.

I get to meet total strangers, hear their life stories and come face to face with their openness, their kindness, their humanity. It's a reminder of something travel taught me: People are good and we are all, at heart, the same.

Prague Pic from the Past

I've always loved this picture I snapped in Prague many summers ago. The image is nearly eight years old and it's never been in a photo album page. Instead, it hops about my desk, moving from paper pile to paper pile. Whenever I happen upon it, I stop and smile. I've never been able to pin point exactly what it is about this orange-haired China doll that makes me smile so.

I've long since lost the negative. I probably threw it away. So this morning, when the little China girl again popped up on my desk, I decided to scan her into my computer and immortalize her in a digital way.

Georgia vs. Frida in Minneaplis

Every once in a while, being a freelance-writer comes in handy. Yesterday was one of those days.

I was invited on an art tour by Meet Minneapolis, the city's revamped tourism board. The Twin Cities are gearing up for a big tourism push as the Republican National Convention is coming to town next fall.

The redesign of all the official tourism materials is just one of many steps the city is taking to help promote the area before it will be so prominently on display to the nation. Somehow my name ended up on the communication department's list of freelance travel writers. I wasn't about to complain.

The morning started at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, one of my favorite places in the city. The massive permanent collection is open free to the public, and I've always liked to wander the halls, seeking my old favorites and waiting for new pieces to catch my eyes.

But on this day I was entering the featured exhibit for free - with a docent - before the doors even opened to the public. I was so excited.

The featured exhibit from now until January 6 is a collection of works by Georgia O'Keeffe. The exhibit starts with a charcoal drawing from her very first show and ends with a charcoal drawing made at the end of her life. The two are oddly similar. Eerily so. It makes the exhibit feel like it completes a full circle. It also makes it seem as if Georgia O'Keeffe herself struggled, or was obsessed with, reoccurring ideas/images throughout her life.

I was drawn to this painting, one from a series of images she made with pelvic bones in her beloved New Mexico. I so liked this one because as soon as I saw it, it reminded me of this picture I shot on the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentine Patagonia.

After having our Georgia fill, the group of freelancers was loaded into a van and shuttled to the Walker Art Center for a tour of that museum's current featured show: Frida Kahlo.

I have a sort of love-hate relationship with the Walker. I love its funky, boxy, outer shell. I love the very idea that this museum is able to exist in my hometown. The Walker is an ultra modern art museum. Everything in its permanent collection was produced after 1945. Sometimes, when I go there, I look at the installations and think, "What the hell is that?" This ain't no stuffy museum. I've seen things here that make me blush.

This past year, the Walker has knocked itself out to bring some big name shows to town. Over the summer, a Picasso exhibit took over the joint. Now, Frida Kahlo has moved in. She'll be there through January 20, 2008.

Unfortunately, the Walker was already open and the Frida exhibit was already packed (yes, packed on a Thursday morning) when we got there at 10 am. Being a novice Frida connoisseur, I was shocked to see the walls were filled with serious pieces, I mean big-time, famous Frida paintings. The Two Fridas. A Few Small Nips. The Henry Ford Hospital. At least five of the paintings were on loan from a museum in Mexico City's Chapultepec Park, a museum I visited when I was there. Also on display is a huge collection of personal family photographs of Frida and Diego.

After a nice lunch, my media tour was done. I will certainly be heading back to the Walker to take in the Frida exhibit at my leisure. Although, now I just have to figure out when to get there so I can have the art to myself....

* Minneapolis Montage, Meet Minneapolis
* Geogria O'Keeffe, Pelvis Series, 1947
* Walker Magazine cover, Nov/Dec 2007