Roraima

I have been very lucky in my life to have seen some astoundingly beautiful places. Family vacations were to the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, the San Juan Islands off of Washington state and all those scenic places that kids really don't find all that thrilling until they grow up into boring adults. Though despite being vastly visually spoiled there was no way I could have been prepared for what we undertook in the last 2 weeks in more way than one.

All I knew was that we (Hernando and I and our friends Raul and Luis Miguel) would be spending 6 days in Roraima, near Venezuela's border with Brazil. I gathered that meant camping when the list of things to bring from the company we booked the trip through included sleeping bags, sunblock and mosquito repellent. It was not however until we were in the 4x4 jeep on the way to being dropped off did I start to realize we were about to embark on 6 days of endless trekking through desert heat and ravenous blood sucking puri-puris to get to a mountain which we would then ascend carrying all the weeks necessities on our backs. Needless to say, the four of us didn't do any training whatsoever, unless you include the sunbathing we did on some gorgeous caribbean beaches before we got there.

Day 1, we got there late. One tour operator man said it was ok to take the later overnight bus arriving at 9am, but when we got there the other one was peeved off and stressing out to get us out on time. We did have over 4 hours of walking ahead of us and had to find a guide and reach camp by nightfall. The scenery was lovely, very desert like though spotted with rivers with lovely clean water. After my experiences in West Virginia where the coal companies have poisoned all the water so that the rivers are almost all undrinkable I appreciated being able to drink the water straight out of the river. We hardly made it to camp by nightfall though, we spent the last 40 minutes or so walking in the dark with cheap flashlights that all broke by the end of the 6 days!

Day 2, The guides are mostly native Americans from the nearby village. Ours was a quiet but relaxed guy named Sergio. Even though we were a bit lazy I think he liked our company. We were the last ones to leave camp at 8:30 or so with a 6 hour hike winding our way uphill in the heat without shade and with few rivers this time. The most amazing part was watching the ecosystems change as we walked through them, one after the other. Sometimes it only took one hour to start in one type of ecosystem and walk entirely through another distinct one. Trees changed, or disappeared, the flowers changed, the grasses changed everything looked different one moment to the next as we approached the table top mountain.

Day 3 should have been the hardest. This was when we spent 6 hours in sharp ascent up an essentially vertical "path" through the jungle (we spotted 3 different types of poisonous snakes). When we were almost at the end with only about an hour left to go the path opens up to a lovely view point of the valley below that we've been walking through for 3 days already and the bastard of a trail that's to come. We stood there and couldn't believe our eyes. A scratchy white path going straight up a treacherous looking mountain with little moving dots of people making their way over the boulders and sheer madness. One such dot was one of our guides, Sergio's sister, who decided we were too slow to wait for and legged it as easily as though it were a high school race track. It was beautiful though when you weren't concentrating our your footing. As it opened up to the top of the mountain we were climbing over massive oddly shaped black boulders that seemed to have been spilled there like marbles. That was our first introduction to what we were to behold once at the top. Beautiful, eerie, surreal are all understatements. It was absolutely unlike anything I've ever seen before as a human. It felt like we might discover the last hitherto unknown surviving dinosaurs, a place preserved secretly from a bygone era. No words will do it justice, I know I'll have to include photos but I should be packing right now! (not doing this.)

We visited a pool they falsely call the jacuzzi-- it's still freeeezing! but it was no dissapointment since the floor and surrounding area were completely covered in white quartz crystals! The plants are so cool like miniature cousins of palms, simple in design, resilient and stunningly geometric.

Day 4. Just because we felt like we had to we took the note: optional 8 hours of walking this day. We could have been recovering and preparing for the descent but no, we had to see what the top of Roraima has to offer. Of course it was amazing but an hour into it my legs hated me and I got a mean sunburn. We visited a viewpoint that rivals if not outdoes Yosemite's half dome view point. We watched the clouds below coming from Brazil and going over the mountain with a green valley below. We also took a dip in a difficult to reach pool in a cave and are now able to say we stood in the corners of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana all at once- though that was hardly the highlight.

We saw tarantulas and 3 different kinds of carnivirous plants and the shapes the boulders were stunning. Perhaps now I should dedicate time to the photos-- or to packing!

There was a lot of bodily pain of course. Our blisters formed blisters of their own, our knees were shaky and we only wanted to collapse after setting up the tents. The worst though was after day 5. Six hours of going downhill apparently awakens very lazy muscles that hurt a lot the next day. But it was so worth it. I think it's one of the most amazing things I have ever done in my life.

We are concluding our trip and returning to the US tomorrow so it looks like this may be the last post. Hernando and I fly to NYC from Caracas via Trinidad-- random?? but cheap of course. Cheers for reading my rants whenever you've gotten the chance. We hope to see all of our friends in the US soon. Take care.


-Manali and Hernando

Thoughts from a gringa in Venezuela

Car bumpers, engines and the remaining parts of stolen vehicles are dismantled and displayed proudly for sale in storefronts as we pass, winding our way up a mountain on a two lane road thoroughly congested with traffic, as Caracas always is. A truck sells cheap groceries to people waiting in a huge line, thanks to the government. A girl with an ice cream cone passes a group of men watching her go. Orange traffic cones are placed at random intervals in the street, groups of young military police clad in army green with berets on their heads exchange jokes, lounge on their vehicles, and rest folded arms on their machine guns. Political graffiti depicts Uncle Sam being twisted by Venezuelan Socialists. We pass groups of people in red shirts holding banners applauding their president, Chavez is coming to town. Buses on the side of the road are pointed out to me, I am told they are bussed in and thrown a bit of money to show their support for Chavez. We keep winding. We, Hernando, his family and I are on our way to an old German settlement, a lovely tourist site, it's going to take a little longer than normal today but I don't mind it one bit. I love staring out car windows to begin with and there was so much to see today, it gave me a lot to think about.

Venezuela is one of those places like China that is steeped in political intrigue and is stupidly rich in mineral wealth. Obviously being married to a Venezuelan and hearing so much about it, from Hernando, his friends and family for so many years has lead me to spend a lot of time considering it but never have I felt like I've figured it out. I don't have any answers, and I might well make mistakes in my assessments, but I have been collecting lots of interesting tid bits that I'm starting to put together.

In a place where laws can change on the merest whims of the president you have no choice but to be political. The quarrels between the US's democrats and republicans pale in comparison, here you are either a Chavista, a proud supporter of Chavez often seen wearing red, or you are vehemently anti-Chavez, and never seen wearing red. Those with money almost always hate Chavez, unless they can accredit their recent wealth directly to Chavez giving them someone else's job. The poor have always been his stronghold for popularity but these days his popularity is slipping. He's a populist, his face is everywhere, on billboards, on TV, in graffitti, and he does his best to control what people hear. He shuts down TV stations he doesn't like and transmits anti imperialist American/pro Iranian adverts on the radio. He has his own TV show on Sundays where he publicly diverts any possibility of blame from himself when there are problems and pins it on officials, summing the affair up with a public firing. You can watch the man's face fall on your screen while in your underwear at home, just watching the telly. He gives Donald Trump something to live up to. He tries to divert attention from dissenters and makes a big show of silencing the ones that act up. Lately college student groups have been organizing big rallies against him bringing Caracas' crawling traffic to a halt. I'm all for the government offering affordable food to those in need as I mentioned earlier but it could become harmful when seen as part of a larger arching sentiment he encourages. With Venezuela's oil wealth the government should be able to take care of the people, he asserts. He starts work programs, inserts start up resources and then leaves them to wilt, wither and die a lingering death of political disinterest after some time. People are encouraged to put their trust in the government and the government will play god. Public schools for education and public hospitals for health are a joke, the independence of the individual is squashed. He pits the poor against the 20% with resources claiming they are the root of their problems. In keeping with this mentality he swoops in on companies, fires all the people with degrees and puts comrades without proper qualifications in charge. I assume that means he lowers the prices of utilities but I haven't remembered to ask that question yet. However couldn't he just impose that the prices be lowered without firing everyone who knows what they are doing? For the first time in the dry season in this hydroelectric run country there are scheduled water cuts and power cuts. Everything seems to be mismanaged. But at least Venezuela still has oil right? hmm... maybe.

Though the tolls booths on highways are gone, cool, and parking lots are locked in at a nice price that will never raise with the yearly 40% inflation, and the gas at the pump is cheaper than buying a pack of gum. To fill your tank will probably set you back 30- 50 cents in USD.

Back to Venezuela and her oil. Apparently, according to a credible source, Hernando's father who is an engineer for an oil company, the black gold is running out. The government set that price for gas at least 15 years ago when the going was good. When there was lots of high quality oil just waiting to be released from Venezuela's land. Well a year and a half ago it turned out that there is still high quality oil but the cost of getting it would be at least as much as the oil itself, making it inaccessible. This happens all the time with these companies. America's coal companies project they have enough coal to last 250 years but most of theirs too in tucked away deep in the earth and equally inaccessible. So Venezuela has had to move on to extracting fairly low grade oil but their refineries are for high grade oil. Of course they should be in the midst of changing those factories over to accept the new oil but there's some mismanagement going on. Therefore Venezuela ships its oil to the islands off it's coast where there are refineries for this type of oil but those are the Netherland Antilles, a different country. In order to get the refined oil back they have to pay the same price as all the other countries per barrel and so when Venezuelans pay 30-50 cents at the pump the government is ripping itself off. It cannot afford it for much longer but raising gas prices in an oil nation doesn't make you a very popular populist president. What a pickle.

Maybe that's the best way to describe this place, pickly and confusing-- that's a technical political science term of course. It's also unsafe, as I have mentioned before. Paranoia is a way of life here. You're always looking over your shoulder to see if you're being followed, always prepared to do another loop around the block, and watching the electronic garage door close behind you, making sure you haven't attracted any unexpected guests. Though I have thoroughly and absolutely enjoyed frequenting the beautiful Caribbean beaches. And not to rub in anyones face but especially while I know most of our friends are suffering the worst snow storm in years on the East Coast-- though wasn't last year one of the most horrendous in recent history? Is it just me or is global warming catching up to us? Hmm... ok, well conspiracy theorist Manali will be signing off soon but before I go, an update.

Tomorrow we begin the last leg of our adventures. We will spend two weeks seeing this insanely beautiful country before coming back to Caracas to fly back to the US. It turns out that the US government could have grounds to screw us over in our application for Hernando's citizenship if we were gone longer than 6 months. Since we are lawyerless and just about moneyless we're heading back. However we only need to be in the US, not necessarily back in LA as we had always planned to go back to. So we'll be making a visit to our East Coast friends (yea! soo excited!!) before we go back to having jobs that wont give us leave. We arrive in NYC on February 28th, and Boston March 6th and finally LA on March 13th. And then San Francisco a week or 2 after that. So we'll be doing a lot of old friend seeing soon. Hope you'll be in one of those cities! Please email me if you will and want to hang out.

The wheels on the bus...

I would love to write a book about the ridiculous bus rides I've taken in my life-- all so different and all so ridiculous. I don't know why I keep doing it to myself-- oh yeah, because it's the cheapest way to go, by far. Or sometimes it's the only way to go. When you have time rather than money and you're supposedly young and able then you just gotta do what you just gotta do.

Let's travel back in time to 2005 to 2 memorable ones. You know you're in for it when the guide book says don't take the bus tours crossing from Bangkok, Thailand to Siem Reap, Cambodia. But then you ask yourself what are my other options of getting there? Some highlights of the journey were getting ripped off at the border, of course, watching drivers crossing the border figure out when to switch to the other side of the road-- left side driving in Thailand, right side driving in Cambodia. Finding that Cambodia's roads were unpaved and pockmarked with crater sized potholes, leaving one to wonder how many mines might still be in the ground 25+ years later. A dazzling 2 hour lightning display in the distance, adorable begging children throwing bracelets at you and manipulating you to give them money. Passing another bus of tourists just like ours that had broken down at night in the middle of NOWHERE, and villagers removing planks from their bridge to force the bus driver to pay them to put them back and the strong willed bus driver driving on anyway, the bus lurching from plank to plank, the locals banging the sides of the bus in warning. Easily the most dramatic of all bus experiences.

Australia 2005, leaving Dingo where I was a bar wench for outback coal miners and loggers. One of the loggers had a big rig driver taking a load of huge logs up north drop me off 14 hours later in Cairns. That is one of my favorites- no stress, beautiful scenery-- as with all of them actually, and I got to sleep in the little compartment behing the driver's seat. I'd always wanted to do that ever since I learned they had them when I was a kid!

Recently in India, 14 hours on a local bus, a rickety contraption form the 70's that probably hasn't been cleaned since then, and being stared at literally in my face or inches from it by the men who would fill the seat in front of me one after the other. I had to ride with a shawl over me for most of the journey like a bright shroud. And despite how many stares that would get in the US, it doesn't turn a head in India.

The 36 hour bus ride from Bogota, Colombia to Caracas, Venezuela of course brings new offerings to the table. A ride with an eccentric gypsy family past 100's of a dictator's checkpoints throughout the night. This family is a world unto itself, completely free from the shackles of reality that the rest of us are obviously being held back by. And though I don't intend to mock them because they are of course very nice and fascinating people, I wont be able to refrain from doing so. I have never seen anything like them. After 5 weeks of being in Colombia, the land of stylish, clean and presentably dressed people we're waiting for the bus at the Bogota terminal and along comes the dirtiest family I've ever seen. Dirtier than homeless parentless beggar children who live in shanty huts on India's train tracks and bathe themselves in polluted ditches of sewage and rain water, well maybe about equal. The mother and children's fingers, feet and faces were caked in brown trails of dirt and their clothes looked like they hadn't been changed in a month. With them they had tons of luggage and an adorable little puppy. I thought they were a gypsy family and said so within earshot of them safely assuming that people like that wouldn't have access to learning English. Their luggage though struck me as very odd, 2 of their many suitcases looked dirty but new, brightly colored and well made like designer luggage. Well of course this family turned out to American! with a Colombian dad-- which was a shocker for big mouth Manali. And guess where they live-- the Berkshires, Massachussetts. For those less familiar with the East Coast, that's one of the most upscale towns in New England, think mansions galore. Who knows if they live in a mansion or not, I'm willing to believe anything with this crazy family. All that said, they were very friendly and interesting company on the bus for 36+ hours. It was cute when the 6 year little girl developed a crush on Hernando for playing with her for an hour and spent the rest of the journey tapping, prodding, poking and eventually head-butting him. Though their labrador puppy they picked up in Colombia and are taking with them on their overland voyage to Trinidad via Venezuela, before they make it home to the Berkshires was of course not potty trained so there were a couple of accidents during the 36 hours. Without them the bus ride would have been a little less stinky but undoubtedly been much more dull. Until of course we reached Venezuela which makes sure to keep you on your toes.

Ah, Venezuela home to the most brashly outspoken dictator currently in power that I can think of. He's very fond of his military roadside checkpoints you know, pulling over buses at random throughout the night. We were stopped at least 6 times, for the military police to come on the bus and check all our passports and ID cards. And I'm sure I showed each one of them their first British passport, throwing one drunken one for a loop, wishing to cross reference it with a local ID as well. Silly confused 18 year old military police man with a small machine gun, drunk off the liquor seized from the last travelers bags he rifled through. And yes, not once but twice at different check points we were stopped and had all our bags removed from the undercarriage for these very official officials to inspect and remove the alcohol from for their little on the job parties. After a night of travelling in this fashion we finally made it to Caracas.

Being here though is really just about seeing Hernando's friends and family, otherwise it's kinda like being in the Detroit of Latin America but way worse than that. Did you know that Caracas sees more homicides than Baghdad? yeah... however it does have one saving grace. It's proximity to beautiful Carribean beaches. We've already been once and we're going again this weekend- yipee!

a freezing waterfall and a hot jacuzzi

We recently spent 3 days and nights in the quaint tourist town of Villa de Leyva 3 hours outside of Bogota, where we had one truly awesome day. We both unexpectedly went abseiling or rappelling down a waterfall. And it was a total breeze I could have done it in my sleep, um just kidding. So being a bit proactive can bite you in the ass sometimes. I asked for them to let us practice a bit before taking off down the watery cliff edge, so they harnessed me up and tied me to a tree and taught me how to let myself down on the rope bit by bit. Great, easy, no big deal-- when both of your feet are on solid ground! Then being already fitted up they rushed me to the cliff edge had me stand in the freezing water and were like "ok, go for it." So I´m on the edge looking down and they´re telling me to relax, lean back and go and I realize it´s all moving a little fast for me. Their patience was failing as they screamed "Vamonos, vamonos, vamonos!!" and I saw an exit to chicken out into concerned Hernando´s consoling arms. Which turned the pressure onto him to be the first down. He hadn´t practised a bit and also couldn´t believe he was supposed to go over the ledge when he was all kitted to go but being a man, it was out of the question to chicken out so he went. And after that it was all fine. The hardest part is getting started, especially for the first time. He even went twice, the second time without a guide, entirely on his own. When I went (4th person out of 5) I was scared like all the rest but also really enjoyed it, but I didn´t go a second time, that was enough for one day.

Oh and I forgot to mention that we had a crowd. We were doing this in front a family of 10 locals who live on the hillside nearby and their army of as many annoying barking dogs. One of which, a chihuahua, nearly lost it´s life to the waterfall gods. It was literally teetering over the edge and when they tried to grab it, it flinched away from them and I was sure I was going to hear little dog yelps down to the very bottom. Luckily however the rat dog did not fall because that would have ruined our day.

And what a way to continue our day but to be invited to a friend´s fancy hotel, have a nice lunch and enjoy the pool, jacuzzi! and sauna. That was amazing. This is a friend of Hernando´s cousin who we met once before who was terribly sweet to invite us riffraff to enjoy the hotel´s amenities. And if hadn´t been for Laura we wouldn´t have gone rappelling at all, wouldn´t have known we could.

We spent the night drinking beer and aguardiente, the local favorite liquor-- horroble sambuca like stuff, in the main square with the other 2 rappellers from Ireland we had spent the earlier part of the day with.

That was such a highlight perhaps we´ll go white water rafting next. But don´t tell Hernando´s mom because otherwise she might chain us up in the house to keep us from leaving. Tomorrow we leave on a 36 hour bus for Caracas, Venezuela. We are hoping to see the world´s tallest waterfall in Venezuela and we´ll keep you posted.

Cheers,
Manali

Feliz Año

¡Happy New Year and Feliz Año! It´s much more fun being on a spanish keyboard than a regular american one. Funnily enough the last 2 weeks or so since I last wrote have passed by in much more of a blur than any of our travelling in India. Probably because it´s been much less punctuated by singular events. We´ve spent a lot of time in Colombia´s capital, Bogota, seeing the city and more family than you can imagine. Collectively Hernando´s parents are 2 of 19 total siblings, which all of course have one or two subsequent generations behind each one of them. If I can figure it out as far as "mom´s side" and "dad´s side" I feel I deserve a pat on the back. Anything more intricate than that escapes me, despite Hernando´s mother´s best efforts to thoroughly educate me.

We also visited another city quite a distance away where Hernando´s grandparents and yet much more family live. Everyone is very warm and friendly and I do my best at Spanish, though a good number of people speak good English allowing me to be lazy, or take a break once I have thouroughly toungue tied myself.

Today stands out as the most lovely for me thus far. We rode horses in the countryside and it was a dream. Like any girl I love riding horses. I would say I can´t get enough of it but my body would beg to differ especially after losing any extra padding I had before going to India. I am so sore! But it was so worth it. An interesting moment was when Hernando´s cousin Valentina and I went out for a second ride cantering down dirt country roads at sunset and we come towards a woman bent over a body lain on the side of the road and her two children standing protectively in front of it and she´s lighting a match over it´s stomach. Now I´ve just come from India where I spent a few days watching family funerals at the burning ghats and it brought to mind some kind of crude funeral that absolutely did not make sense. Well luckily and obviously it wasn´t, and I figured as much when I saw another stuffed scarecrow figure of a man sitting in a chair with a can of beer in his hand. They make a figure of a man here and burn it to symbolize burning the old year and welcoming the new.

Now if you were to ask Hernando his favorite day it would have to be when we went go-karting with 8 other cousins. And I had fun too because I beat Hernando at it by half a lap! And that´s how I measure my success, mwah hah ha. He asked me not to write that on the blog but what could he expect? Though since he loves it so much we went a second time and that time he lapped me, but I wasn´t racing as well as before.

We still don´t really know what we´re doing as far as making plans. We´ll be in Venezuela by mid-January but we´re not really looking forward to it. Colombia is so nice and safe they can enjoy the luxury of walking around on the street and being perfectly safe here, it´s so much better than before. Though things are different in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. The situation is worsening day by day and people are starting to flee to Colombia. Everyday Bogota´s newspapers print somewhat disapproving articles about the current Venezuelan influx as though the tables have never been turned and Venezuela never had the same happen there with Colombians in the past. So basically being in Caracas to us means we stay in the parent´s apartment a lot especially since most of his close friends from there live abroad! Though we of course most look forward to seeing our friends who are there. There´s a great PBS frontline video on Chavez and Venezuela that you can watch online. I would find you the link if the internet here just weren´t so sloooow that I´d rather pull my hair out.

So as it stands after that we´re leaving the fate of our plans in the hands of Expedia. Wherever we can find a last minute bargain flight to once the peak season passes, we´ll go!

till then, ciao and ¡feliz año!

Q&A

I've received some questions from friends that I thought I would answer here on the blog, since they're the things that I didn't think to bring up on my own.


Where did we spend Diwali?
Diwali is the biggest yearly celebration in India. It's a Hindu custom and it's called the festival of lights. I was so excited to be in India while this was to happen this year. It passed mid-October, but in the end we were in Goa that night which is actually not very Hindu and very Christian so there wasn't much going on to see that night. We were on a super touristy beach, I felt mislead by my guidebook, so what we saw was on one hand touching and one hand ridiculous. The families of fishermen lighting candles by their beautiful handcarved boats was lovely, contrast that with westerner guys and girls and well off Indian men getting drunk in some bar on the beach and making an embarassing spectacle of themselves.


How was the food? combined with "How did you stay healthy?"
So before the trip began I was going around telling everyone how I couldn't wait to eat Indian food everyday for three months. Now this would be an amazing thing to do if we could have somewhat regularly found food as good as my local Indian restaurant in Boston, (Bukhara in JP!), but I should have heeded the word of my parents and not built my hopes so high. Let's just say the food quality is "variant." It's also impossible to find a kitchen to cook for yourself in-- I did once! I'll speak about that next-- so you are condemned to restaurants. Now of course we were on a budget so weren't eating at hotel restaurants everyday and that would have been lame if we did. Local restaurants and cheap tourist restaurants were our lot. When you sit down you are offered a never ending menu, but they only actually serve one or two dishes that day. Of those choices you have to deduce which is A. most likely to turn out ok and not as an unpleasant surprise and B. most importantly, which is less likely to send you running to the bathroom. Now I hate to be such a whiny spoiled tourist but this was a major issue. I've already spoken quite freely about my irregular bowels in past blogs-- it becomes such a banal topic of discussion that often 5 minutes into a conversation with another tourist we'd just met we're all exchanging poop stories. And three months of India left me about 18- 20 pounds thinner and Hernando 10. Though I must say Masala Dosas, the staple dish in the South, were always good. They're like a huge airy, crispy crepe folded over a yellow mush of seasoned potatoes and onions, so yum. And since only local places really serve them they were usually 40 cents for your meal.


Where are you now?
Though I need not complain about the losing weight since we are now in Colombia, the land of beautiful women who wake up looking ready to hit the clubs even though they are at the supermarket, or walking their dog through the park. I don't know if they'd believe me if I told them that celebrities in LA go food shopping in sweats or even pyjamas. So I have returned to adoloscence and become self conscious about my ugly, grey, but ever so comfortable tennis shoes.



Before we got here though we spent a week in England seeing the grandparents and doing a quick one night trip out to London. The weather was as miserable as English weather is in December but I didn't mind it for a week, though that's not to say I didn't enjoy seeing the sun again in Colombia. What we really enjoyed was Grandma's cooking. Especially since upon my departure from India it gave me a last goodbye, gonna miss you present: my last thourough bought of food poisoning. Now, almost three weeks out of the country and I still don't feel right and back to normal. I usually get sick once every 1-2 years, but I can't count how many times I've been ill in the past few months. Don't tell grandma though, she'll worry. Hey good news, as a British citizen (non-tax paying), I took advantage of their national health system, went to the doctor and I do not have a stomach parasite!


And the big question these days is where to next? And drumroll, we don't know. We'll be in Venezuela until mid january but we don't know how much money we'll have left for this lifestyle after that. So it's a big mystery for you and us alike. Hernando's pushing for a swift return to California to start life in San Francisco, which looks like our most sensible option as of yet, but maybe we don't have to be so sensible.... We'll keep you posted!

Hi again...

One more time I have to apologize for my bad negligent behavior in writing here on the blog, almost a month has elapsed since the last entry. I'll be honest, I enjoy writing here but sometimes it feels like homework and I'm not a grown up now for nothing. If I don't wanna do something, I don't do it-- said the mature adult. Well you're supposed to be a grown up when you're 25 but I'm wondering when I'll ever feel like one. Maybe because grown ups aren't supposed to go gallavanting across the globe, but I don't like the people who make those rules. All the more reason why rules are for breaking.



That said- hello. We are alive and well, and have been duly busy, and putting off writing. Let's start back a whole month ago when Hernando and I had missed our train up North and we had to rebuy tickets for the next train heading north. After half a lifetime we ended up at our destination, the village of Sanchi. This is where we had visited at the beginning of our trip and befriended the most lovely family with a grumpy and slightly scary mom. We wanted to visit them again and though it was an absolute pain to get there we were so glad we did when we saw Singh, the dad, and Annu the middle daughter, again. The experience of meeting them was defintely the best thing that happened to us in India. For all the people that tried to rip us off rudely, as opposed to in a friendly manner, and that I could have strangled during the trip, this family more than made up for it with their warmth and kindness. Even with our limited means of communication, they were by no means fluent in English and we of course much less so in Hindi, we really did break through barriers and had a very meaningful time with them. To the point where Annu told her father he was spending too much time with us and it was her turn. When you see the photo of Hernando and 12 year old Annu together (they give her a boy haircut and dress her like a boy, but she is not) you may see why everyone in India thought Hernando was Indian. Though their resemblance is just ridiculous!



Next we went to the world heritage site of Khajuraho's temples. Now if we thought Sanchi was in the middle of nowhere, this stepped up our concept of what it really means for a place to be in the middle of nowhere. Our two most horrendous journeys in India were getting to and from Khajuraho while we continued northboundish with a wide detour to Varanasi in the northeast. The temples of Khajuraho are famous for one thing, erotic sculptures of the gods "enjoying each others company" (I'll let you google the photos yourself) but we went there like we did to Sanchi, becuase I studied them in school and had to see them for myself. Honestly we did. It is a bit of a shame actually because the temples are amazing, they're not world heritage listed and funded for nothing, but of course they become they become comepletely marginalized by everyone obsessing over the sex sculptures on them which were only noticeable on one of the 22 surviving temples. So the temples were amazing but the journeys to and from drained us along with being somewhere SO touristy and dealing with the trappings of being a tourist in India.



The next and final adventure in India, and deservedly the most fascinating and truly cultural Indian experience- Varanasi. A place that of all places I have ever seen in my life across the 20 odd countries I've visited this one is unlike anything else. So unique that I find the task of simply describing it aptly a bit daunting. Mark Twain said this of Varanasi: "it is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together," and being a genius couldn't have put it better. And he wrote that whenever he was alive a long time ago when the world was even older than we're used to it now, a wise man once said. And Varanasi has to be unchanged since then, and since it's conception which according to Mr. Wiki was 3,000 years ago. Ask a Hindu and you'll hear the city is 5,000 years old and started by the god Shiva, which I am willing to believe as well.

So besides being old what is Varanasi, you ask? It is a maze of streets, unmappable and hardly large enough for the thousands of resident cows that wander it freely and with 'tude. Cows that you have to sometimes pass carefully as to not get some horns swung into your bum (happened to friend while we were with her). Another friend, not while we were with her, got stuck behind one of the beasts as it relieved itself. Forget the Ganges, now if that's not a blessing with holy water, what is? Varanasi is like the Venice of Asia but it makes Venice look modern. You get completely lost in the lanes or "streets" but one musn't get too caught up admiring all the fascinating details or photographing them either because it's only a matter of time before a bunch of motorbikes with families on them come through and threaten to smash your toes into the cobbled ground. Everything about the city is about it being holy. Temple after temple will appear before your eyes because past the lines of people, cows, motorbikes, birdsnests in nooks above, cow poop at your heels, scattered flowers, miscreant monkeys and the bend in the road up ahead, you don't know what's coming next. The doors were designed to be tiny to make you stoop as in prayer when you enter a home. Amulets dangle here, an impromptu shrine there and so forth. And of course it is the home of homes to the Ganges. This is the place you've seen in documentaries and photos where people come to bathe in the Ganges, wash their clothes, drink the water and swim in it. You may also know that it is the most polluted river in the world, between it's human useage for waste of all kinds, especially the dead, and the untreated factory effluents that are also offered to it. Which brings me to being dead and/or dying. If you're a devout Hindu this is the place to kick the bucket and cease being. People come here to die, apparently there are centers full of people lying around waiting for death, not a club I'm anxious to join, becuase if you die in Varanasi you end the cycle of rebirth so you don't have to worry about what you may come back as. (I once killed a mosquito in front of my yoga teacher and he pointed out that that could have been someone's mother and then I felt like a jerk.) And I apologize if I'm being a bit forward and jokey about death but after experiencing death through the avenue of a culture so vastly different than our own my relationship to it changed. And that without my realizing it until sitting here and treating it as I do. Death is a fact and a part of life. Just another chapter in the book, and perhaps need not be so terrifying and shrouded in mystery, shall I tastelessly say.

Which of course brings me to the famous burning ghats. The part with the burning funeral pyres, the part that our hotel was near, so we saw a lot of it. So many dead bodies, covered in white and then dressed in gold fabrics are brought down to the Ganges, blessed with some water and then placed in the middle of a fairly tall stack of wood. It takes 200 kilos, or over 400 pounds of wood to burn a body at a cost of $20, and then the flames go on for 3 hours or so. Women are not allowed to attend, a good custom the British began, as women were often expected to commit sati for their husbands-- throw themselves into the flames. The families are sometimes serious, but often have almost celebratory processions down to the river. In Madurai, another holy city in the South, a week or two before this we saw a seemingly celebratory procession with drums and dozens of people. I was readying my camera when we noticed the center piece being carried on people's shoulders was not in fact a shrine but a dead body, dressed in white and seated upright, face revealed and looking forward as though he were a king on tour of his land. There are 5 types of people though who are not allowed to be burned and are deposited straight into the river: children under 5, pregnant women, holy men, people who die of a disease that gives you white spots, and cobra bite victims. Watching the funerals was sobering but I found them somewhat lovely and poetic in their simplicity, handling and tradition.

However the most lovely thing to do in Varanasi was hire a boat and see it from the river. We did it once at sunrise and once at night. At sunrise everyone is up praying, dunking, swimming, dipping, washing and drinking in the river, so much activity. At night there are some rather unspectacular ceremonies with candles you can float past as you admire the little prayer candles amongst magnolia leaves in floating paper dishes coming down the river.

We flew out of Delhi December 2nd, spent a week in England, and are now in Colombia with Hernando's vast network of a family but more about that next time. In conclusion and as your friendly tour guide I will tell you that if you are up to it, make a point of going to India in your life. Make it a must see because it simply is. Though it's not for the faint hearted. Only go if you are prepared for it at times to be more difficult and heartbreaking than you ever imagined, but so worth it all. We had a great time despite how much I believe I may have griped about it here. I love emails, comments and questions from you friends and family out there reading so fire away if you are so inclined.

Cheers,
Manali and Hernando (my somewhat silent partner in this venture whom I speak for freely. He'll have to tell you his side of the story when he sees you.)