I really believe that, as human beings, we have an innate need to explore, to see what's around the corner.  Jimmy Chin  I don't climb mountains. I am far too lazy and unmotivated for that. I prefer my athleticism to take place on the back of a horse or under the water. Mountains scare me; they're places where planes crash, they're places where people are lost forever, they're places that might spew lava and ash for days. However, I know people who do climb mountains. One of those people is my brother. I know nothing about climbing resumes but he has one and I'm pretty certain it's impressive. In fact, January 2018 will see him climbing Aconcagua near Mendoza, Argentina. At 6,960 meters (22,837 feet) it's the tallest peak in the Andes and the tallest mountain in both the southern and western hemispheres. This mountain is the real deal and I'm very excited for his adventure. While I may not climb mountains I still find them awe-inspiring. I love to read books about climbers and watch the films. One that has really made an impact on me is "Meru", recommended to me by my brother and made by Jimmy Chin, whose quote I used to introduce this post. If you ever had any questions about what makes mountaineers all around bad asses then this film will answer them. So, as I stood in the shadow of Chimborazo in Ecuador, huffing and puffing at the effort of simply standing upright, I began chatting with a young Greek woman. As she swigged from her bottle of aguardiente and drug deeply from a cigarette she casually mentioned, "It's not so much a technical climb, this one. It's just the altitude." Chimborazo is Ecuador's highest mountain. The elevation at its peak is 6,263 meters (20,548 feet). We were nowhere near the peak but in the tiny town at the volcano's base where climbers gather to acclimate to the altitude and its effects are still very real. And while people come from all over Ecuador and the world to climb Chimborazo someone like me might ask why? If it's not technically difficult and not even close in terms of altitude to the higher peaks of the Andes what's the appeal? Chimborazo is not only stunningly beautiful but it has a special distinction to it that I was not aware of. Despite the numbers this dormant volcano is actually the highest point on the planet. Due to math, physics, and other things that I don't understand, the fact that the Earth is a sphere, and that Chimborazo is only one degree south of the equator it benefits from from the few extra kilometers added at the bulge of the equatorial region. This means its peak is the furthest point on Earth from the Earth's core and the closest place on the planet to outer space. Generally Chimborazo is surrounded by clouds. Like most mountains of its height it makes its own weather. On a rare day it can be seen from Guayaquil, 140 kilometers away. But, like I said, that's rare. The day before we arrived Will had a brief, early morning glimpse of it but by the time I woke up the clouds had gathered. So as we made our way down a dirt road to the campsite I struggled to see it even though we were so close. What if I had to spend the night at 5,000 meters and clouds ruined everything? But, almost as if Chimborazo knew we were coming, the clouds began to scatter not along after we set up camp and there it was. All I could do was sit there and gawk.

It's also very, very cold. As if the snow weren't an indicator, right?

At that point the sun was just a short time from setting directly behind us and I knew if the clouds stayed away the light would be exquisite. And I was right.

Dark came quickly and we retreated to bed, ibuprofen and water flowing like wine. But you shouldn't drink wine at altitudes like this as I learned from our failed attempt to see Cotopaxi, Ecuador's second highest peak. And because we were at the base of the tallest point on Earth we felt it only fitting to watch "Meru" again. It was a good choice. When you're not acclimated to altitude like this sleeping is hard. I woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep. The sky was dark with clouds and I wondered if I'd be able to see anything with the arrival of daybreak. However, I was wrong. I got one last shot before the clouds swirled in.

We left shortly after and I was exhilarated to breathe properly again and for my headache to go away. However, as I often do on this trip, I was more grateful for the experience.

 

Dates hold little significance for me these days. Unless I have to catch a plane, I have a deadline, or something is already booked and paid for on my credit card I pay little attention to dates anymore. I have no need to; I mark the passing of time in very different ways now.

However, days for me are a little different than dates. I have a routine that takes place in more or less the same order every morning. I wake up, hopefully have a relatively accessible and clean place to pee, I put on water to boil, grind coffee, and open my computer.

I brace myself for potential bad news, first from family and then from the rest of the world. I’m far away and I worry too much. But my family is well and the rest of the world? Well, my cursory glances at the news continue to reassure me that the Republic hasn’t burned. At least not completely.

Then along came October 2, 2017. The opening of the computer part of my morning ritual showed me that the flames are rising. More than fifty people dead and five hundred injured at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. How the hell does that happen? Why am I even asking that question anymore?

This isn’t about gun control. Hell, it is not even up for debate with me. Those who know me know my stance on the issue. But what some of you might not know is that I grew up in the country and guns were a regular and normal part of my life. I learned at a very young age how to clean a gun, how to properly load and shoot a variety of handguns, rifles and shotguns, and I’m still a very good shot, or at least I was the last time I went to a gun range.

So while I spent yesterday like most people did, watching the Facebook arguments and reading the “What We Know Now” articles I had no way of knowing that October 2, 2017 was about to get a whole lot worse for me.

CBS was among the first site to report that Tom Petty was hospitalized, brain dead after suffering a heart attack the previous evening, probably about the same time the gunshots were first fired in Vegas. Soon other reputable news sites reported that he had been removed from life support and was dead. Facebook exploded. Videos of everyone’s favorite Tom Petty songs flooded my feed. I scoured the links being shared, still not quite sure what was going on. But what I did know was that I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t accept that one of MY guys had died. It’s not time yet.

This is in no way meant to diminish the deaths that occurred on the Las Vegas Strip. Senseless death in any form is just that, senseless. Cruel, harrowing, and beyond comprehension. But, despite the fact that it took the news outlets hours to actually confirm his death the simple fact that it was imminent brought up some powerful memories for me.

Memories of Tom Petty and guns.

The 1980’s were a confusing time musically. The staid rock and roll of the 70’s was contending with punk rock on one side, glam rock on the other, and had new wave right on its heels. MTV was in its infancy and 8 track players were not uncommon in the Ford pickups that rolled into my driveway, the boys behind the wheel feigning casual disinterest, a cheek stuffed with Copenhagen, and something cool blasting from the tinny speakers.

In the little corner of my 16 year old world music was everything. It defined your style, it designated who you would hang out with, and ultimately it would be a representation of you. New trends had trouble taking a foothold in the country during the 1980’s — little has changed in that regard — so we listened to what it seemed like we had always been listening to.

Rock and roll.

Rush, Yes, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, Black Sabbath, and more would roll out of those speakers when we went out. Free from parents and always hoping to be one step ahead of the cops we’d drive out to the lake carrying our music along with us. In many ways it was all we had.

But there were also the guns.

Those Ford pickups I mentioned almost always had gun racks mounted in the back window of the cab and those racks were rarely empty. But in those days of carefree recklessness and guns galore I rarely paid any attention. What else are you going to do with empty beer cans but line them up for target practice?

However, one memory of that time lives in my head, as tangible and real as anything I have ever known and the soundtrack of that memory is Tom Petty and gunfire.

It was another summer day at the lake, hot and still, cicadas screeching at the cloudless sky. I was clad in cutoffs and an artfully ripped up T shirt from a .38 Special concert. My legs were long, lean, and brown and my dusty bare feet were swinging as I perched on a tailgate and swigged from an icy cold something. Coors or Budweiser would probably have fit the bill. A song came on and I began to sing. I knew all the words by heart.

It was American Girl by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

And as gunshots and laughter rang out behind me I sang, tipsy and beautiful and so impossibly young.

“After all it was a great big world, with lots of places to run to.”

It was than one line, in one song, written by one man who had no idea how much that song and that line in particular would change me. One girl. One girl who wanted more than life in the country. More than getting pregnant, marrying one of the boys shooting at beer cans behind her and staying there in that small town.

That song has been my touchstone since that hot summer day, so long ago. Every word rings true for me and those words speak to my wanderer’s soul. They also take me back to a time in my life that was so deceptively simple; I needed nothing more than music and my friends. But I always knew that somewhere in that quiet and still place in my heart I had more in store for me. And I was right.

So as I reflect on October 2, 2017 I mourn in so many ways. So many people who should have had a great time at a concert were terrorized and died instead. And one other man, hundreds of miles away in Malibu, suffered a heart attack that would end his life as well. A life that intertwined with mine in so many ways and I’ll continue that dance as long as Tom Petty is on my playlist.

 

I am that American girl.

We’ve been in Ecuador since this past Friday morning, August 4th. We crossed the border on the one year anniversary of the launch of this trip. Border crossing days are hard and I kind of go on autopilot; the drill has generally been the same throughout this whole trip. We turn in Moby’s paperwork and get ourselves stamped out of one country then get ourselves stamped into the next country and repeat the process of securing legality for Moby.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to drive across borders in Central and South America it goes something like this. First, you wait. Either there’s a slew of commercial truck drivers also waiting for clearance or it’s breakfast time or coffee break time or some other very good reason why there’s no one at the desk. When someone does appear there are copies to be handed over of everything: title, registration, drivers’ licenses, and passports. Then all the information is entered into a computer and hopefully we receive an official document with all the correct numbers, correctly spelled names, and accurate dates. This can be tedious.

However, the process of entering Ecuador was surprisingly easy. Instead of copies the agent simply took photos of all of our documents and Moby’s license plate. Within a few minutes the photos were merged with our entry file and our TIP (temporary import permit) spit out of the printer, all t’s crossed and i’s dotted. It was a miracle. Fortunately enough, border towns are rarely anything special and it’s not as if the simple fact of moving a few hundred feet changes anything.

As we rolled away I had no “So this is Ecuador!” epiphany. I just noticed that we’re still in the Andes, everything still looks like my beloved Colombia, and I have a lot to say about that. So here are some more of my notes from our time spent in this fascinating, frustrating, and oh so intriguing country. 

 

Getting Around

We use Google Maps to navigate our way through this journey. For the most part Tammy (our name for the tiny lady who lives in Will’s phone) does her job well but there have been times when she’s put us on dead end dirt roads, had no idea that streets were closed for a festival, and other things that has us cursing poor Tammy. But sometimes she makes us laugh. One day we were going to McDonald’s for lunch outside of Bogota. Tammy got us there but as we were preparing to turn into the parking lot she said, “Turn right on Em Cee Donald’s.” That’s right, the m and the c were enunciated followed by donald’s. We got a good laugh at that one.

Oh, and when we use maps.me (another navigation app) the tiny lady who spews out directions is Kiera because she has an Australian accent and on the odd occasion that the Spanish lady talks to us she is called Lorena. Sometimes you have to make your own fun; the simple act of travel doesn’t always just hand it to you.

 

Roadside Attractions

When we were driving to Valle de Leyva we found a wide spot in the road to pull over and get out for a minute. It was a long drive that day and we had already made uneventful stops. However this one was different. There was a small building near the place where we pulled over but no real sign of people. So we’re standing on the passenger side talking and I spied a young Colombian guy coming down the hill toward us, machete in hand. We were both prepared to bolt back into the truck but when he reached the ramshackle barbed wire fence he put his machete down before climbing through the wire. He approached, hesitant greetings were exchanged, then he asked if we wanted hierba, or weed. We kind of laughed and politely declined and he went back through the fence, picked up his machete, and disappeared up the hill. Will looked at me and said, “That was courteous of him to put down his machete.” Yes, yes it was.

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Our stops aren’t always at friendly campgrounds populated by fellow travelers and renditions of “Kumbaya” by a roaring bonfire, although that does happen occasionally. More often, especially when we’re driving with a far off destination in our sights, we stop wherever is convenient and looks safe, although that’s relative. And we’ve found that, in Colombia, these places are generally restaurants. They typically have large, flat parking lots, clean bathrooms, and wifi. If we order food or beers we can usually stay as long as we want for no charge.

But the free factor isn’t why these restaurants make excellent stopping points. It’s the owners and staff members that make these restaurants some of my favorite places we’ve ever stayed in Colombia. One night in San Gil we had actually planned to stay at a hotel but their kitchen was closed. We headed down the road to another restaurant and when we chatted with the owners over our meal they invited us to stay, so we did. When I drank all their wine el patrón hopped on his motor bike and went to get more. Another time we had to leave a campground because they had no water, not even for the toilets. We drove to a restaurant and set up shop. The owner was a lovely lady and we chatted a lot. I mentioned that Colombian style lentejas (lentils) are my favorite dish. They didn’t have any but, again, someone races off on a motorbike and returns with what I wanted. Since lentils take a long time to prepare they weren’t ready until the next day but the lunch I had before we left was divine, including the lentils.

 

Things We Do

I’ve always been a voracious reader but, as you can imagine, I read a lot on this trip. Much of my reading material consists of previously read and loved novels by Stephen King and YA books about horses. Will, on the other hand, reads a great deal of nonfiction and will occasionally recommend a title to me, knowing I probably won’t read it. However, after he talked up a book called The Outliers I decided to give it a go. Wow. It’s really, really good. The basic premise is about the many different factors at play when we look at what success is and is not. My favorite part was about how a flight crew’s culture can cause planes to crash and some of the reasons Asian people tend to comprehend mathematics better than westerners (since I can count in Mandarin I already knew part of the reason why). It’s a really great read and I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

(We don’t do any affiliate marketing. If you buy that book through the above link Amazon gets all the money. They need it, you know. They just bought a super expensive grocery store chain.)

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After a year on the road we’ve finally incorporated podcasts into our lives. I honestly don’t know how we survived on music alone this whole time. Podcasts make me feel smarter and we then have stuff to talk about over dinner because, frankly, there are times when we don’t have a whole lot to say to one another. Talking about politics has gotten so dreary.

My favorites thus far are Lore and Stuff You Should Know. Lore is basically every spooky myth, legend, or true story you’ve ever heard cleverly written and narrated by the smooth talking Aaron Mahnke. Stuff You Should Know is exactly that. I never fail to learn something new each time we listen to an episode. The ones about the Galapagos and the controversial use of solitary confinement in prison are two that I found really interesting. Plus, the hosts of SYSK have a great connection and banter that make each episode more fun. The episode about porta-potties is a great example of this.

If any of you have any recommendations for other podcasts please drop a comment below and help fuel my new addiction.

 

Nature Stuff

Describing Colombia from a natural beauty viewpoint is damn near impossible. It reminds of the film “Contact” and the part where Jody Foster’s character finally goes through the wormhole. As she stutters and stammers into the microphone attached to her helmet she finally says, “They should have sent a poet.” That’s how I felt nearly every day in Colombia. It’s so beautiful, so majestic, so abundant, and so dumbfounding that I felt, well, DUMB! There’s no way to describe what it looks like when you’re high in the Andes. So high that you’re shivering in hastily thrown together warmies wondering how the hell there can be bananas ripening on trees and hummingbirds lazily making their choice from hundreds of flower varieties. I know a few poets and I hope they see this portion of the post. Ladies, get your asses to Colombia and do it some justice.

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One of Colombia’s most visited areas is Cocora Valley, located about 100 kilometers east of Bogota. Parts of the area are as high as 9000 feet and located there in the cloud forest is a grove of some of the most unique trees on the planet. The wax palms of Cocora are Colombia’s national tree and can reach heights of 200 feet. Of course we had to see this miracle of nature. But do we go to the park like everyone else? Of course not! That’s too easy.

Will found a spot on the map out in the middle of nowhere and as we made the turn onto the dirt road to get there my stomach dropped. It dropped even further as we lurched along this rutted, washed out track that has collapsed in places, leaving our wheels precariously close to the edge.

It turned out that this road only gave us a brief glimpse of the palms before we parked in a grassy, wide spot in the road. I fussed and fretted about the possibility of being too close to someone’s coca plantation (a not unusual fear) and what sort of wild animals we’d encounter (a vicious rabbit/pika hybrid). But there’s something to be said for being that far away and that remote in a country like Colombia. It’s humbling in its vast wildness.

 

You all know that Colombia lured me in with a siren song so sweet I don’t think I can ever unhear it, although I didn’t hear it at first. The robbery in Barranquilla left me so shaken I didn’t think I’d ever feel anything but disgust and fear in this wild and unpredictable land. But that’s a big part of the charm. From the street art of Bogota to the untamed Andes and, best of all, the intelligence, tenacity, and kindness of the people Colombia surprised me every day.

 

I’ll be back. I’m sure of it.

 

We have mere days before we cross our eighth border and leave Colombia behind for Ecuador. It’s virtually impossible to express just how much Colombia has snuck her tentacles around our feet so they drag with palpable weight. We’re coming down to the wire on the time we can legally be in the country. We’re about 90 miles from the border and will cross on Friday August 4th, one year to the day that we began this trip.

Colombia is many things. It’s a country that was brand new to both of us, so big that after months in countries that could be traversed in one day that when I saw the first sign indicating Bogota was 800 kilometers away I was floored. So we spent our three months in cities and wild campsites. We went on tours and drove the winding roads through the Andes, a death defying feat to rival anything we’ve encountered so far. We’ve talked about coming back, maybe renting a house for a few months so we can see the things we missed.

There’s so much I can and will say about Colombia but I think I want to start this series with my observations on the legacy of Colombia’s most infamous citizen. Before “Narcos” I think most of us knew who he was but not the extent of his power or the ferocity with which the CIA and the DEA went after him. However, Pablo Escobar and his rise to power was a symptom of much larger problems that had been taking place in Colombia for some time, and when the US becomes involved things rarely work out.

I’m no expert, but I’ve paid attention, asked questions, read books and magazine articles, and thought about the man and the country who loves to hate him and these are my stories.

When Does Violent History Become Entertainment?

When “Narcos” first hit Netflix we were still living in Mexico. The fact that show became a huge hit was not surprising; we all love stories about anti-heroes who won’t hesitate to blow up a plane but shed a tiny tear of compassion when they buy a soccer field for a poor neighborhood. One of our biggest questions was, how long does the mainstream media need to wait to dramatize true events in history, especially those that see a direct involvement by the United States? We decided 20 years seems to be the norm. M*A*S*H* came out in the 1970’s, about 20 years after the Korean War. The slew of Vietnam films in the 80’s and 90’s were also at about the 20 year post-Vietnam mark. Maybe it just takes a generation (20 years) for the wounds to sting a little less and the misguided glory to shine a little more bright.

I also find it very interesting that the two television shows targeting US audiences and focusing on the cocaine smuggling trade in the 1980’s are “Narcos” and “Miami Vice”. The polarity is astounding.

Capitalizing on Terror

Speaking of “Narcos” I’ve found it to be no surprise that Colombia has seen quite the uptick in “Pablo Tourism”, and many of the locals and some members of the Colombian government are not too happy about it. Pablo had estates all over the country, many of which are tourist sites now like Hacienda La Manuela, his bombed out villa in Guatape. You can go play paintball there if you want, or you can stay the night, like we did. We also took a Pablo Escobar tour of Medellin which was about as disappointing as it can get. It was basically a rerun of the television series while being crammed in a van. Seeing his gravestone was an interesting experience but when we pulled up to the curb of the residential home where he was shot on the roof I didn’t even get out of the van. I felt badly for the people who live here now and how their street is one of the most visited places in Medellin. There’s serious talk about these kinds of tours being banned. I’d tend to agree. You’re better off just watching the show if you want the sensationalized version or read one of the many accounts of his life and death in Colombia.

When the Landscape is Your Biggest Foe

The Colombian Andes are no joke. I had no idea what to expect when we found ourselves in the thick of them, sheer drops of thousands of feet, headaches from the altitude, and narrow roads that are the only route through. But they’re impossibly beautiful, filled with thousands of different kinds of trees and plants, all of them indescribable shades of green. But as Will likes to point out, topography wins and loses wars and Colombia is very similar to Afghanistan in that regard. These mountains hide the remote enclaves of guerrilla and paramilitary groups like FARC, ELN, and M 19. The government and the military have been dealing with them for more than 50 years. A civil war of nearly half a decade creates the perfect scenario for someone like Pablo Escobar to slip in and take advantage while everyone is scrambling to keep up with everyone else with guns, drugs, and landmines who can quietly disappear into the Andes and be nothing more than a shadow in a matter of seconds.  

The Court of Popular Opinion

Depending on who you talk to in Colombia you’ll get vastly different opinions about Pablo. When we were at Hacienda Napoles we met a Colombian-American man whose family emigrated to the US in 1973. His remarks were dripping with hatred and he gloated over the many photos of Pablo’s corpse on display there. Then, a few minutes later, I asked our tuk tuk driver how old he was and what he thought of Pablo. He is 25, told me both his parents worked for Pablo in some capacity, and if Hacienda Napoles was not there or if the government had closed it to the public the little town he lived in would have nothing.

The doctor I saw in Medellin was a very smart, well educated woman in her mid-thirties. She told me that when she was growing up her well to do family had a ranch near Hacienda Napoles. One day, as a young girl, she cut her thumb open pretty badly. The only doctor in the area was Pablo’s personal physician, so he stitched her up. I asked if she remembers meeting Pablo and she said no, but that her parents were frequent guests at Hacienda Napoles.

Then I was talking with an older Colombian woman and told her I was reading a book by Colombia’s beloved Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She assumed I was reading Love in the Time of Cholera but when I told her I was reading News of a Kidnapping which is about the journalists kidnapped by the Medellin cartel to protest the fact that the US was demanding extradition of its members she gasped and put her hand to heart and told me to never say his name. I felt like I had just been slapped by my grandma.

Obviously I can’t speak for everyone in the country nor would I dare to but my observations indicate that younger Colombians have a very different and somewhat positive view of Pablo Escobar and older Colombians see him as a stain in the fabric of their nation that may never wash out. And Colombians who live in or have spent significant time in the United States? Their opinion seems to be something like he should have been culled at birth.

Oh, and even though they hate the show they also hate the fact that a Brazilian actor who had to learn Spanish for the role was cast as the lead in “Narcos”. Our tour guide in Medellin was particularly incensed by that.

When Pablo Tourism Becomes a National Embarrassment

If “Narcos” had never been made Colombia might be a different place today. Yes, tourists might still visit his grave but there would be no Pablo tourism industry and there would be nothing like what happened a few months ago.

To better illustrate how many residents of Medellin and the country itself have nothing but loathing for Pablo Escobar we can look at the reaction sparked by Wiz Khalifa when he played a show in Medellin back in March of this year. He later posted photos on Instagram of himself at Pablo’s grave smoking a blunt. All of this ended up on the rapper’s Instagram feed and Colombians lost their shit. Even the mayor of the city demanded an apology and Twitter in Colombia blew up in outrage. If Pablo tourism in Medellin and elsewhere are nice things this is why we can’t have them.

 

It’s hard for a country to distance itself from influential figures who have helped shape a nation’s identity, and Colombia is no exception. Like it or not Pablo Escobar will be aligned with Colombia for years to come and that would have happened even without the success of the show or the rise in Pablo tourism. But while other countries deal with moronic presidents who clearly have no idea what they’re doing there’s no denying that Pablo Escobar was the tipping point on an already listing boat, he was in the right place at the right time, and he was a shrewd and ruthless businessman who would stop at almost nothing to create a product that was in high demand.

And where was that demand in the 1980’s and 1990’s? That’s a question that answers itself.