The North American Way

I'm back. Easy flight to Washington, though there were no border agents on duty when we landed sometime after midnight. When I finally got placed in line to see an agent, I almost thanked him in Spanish. Got home sometime after 1am. Fascinating Indian taxi driver whose father has worked for Indian Airlines and had thus traveled a lot as a kid.

Trying to resist the urge to see my surroundings as normal.

Panamanian Purgatory

Tocumen International Airport, Panama. Air Margaritaville Bar and Grille. Sara Bareilles playing in the background. Have emerged into the airport terminal to forage for food while spending the day in the COPA/Continental Presidents Club, a vacationing purgatory.  The lounge apparently won some sort of award in 2010, which makes one wonder about the qualifications of lounge judges. Since 11am I have:

• Watched the end of a Wimbledon match
• Fallen asleep to professional golf
• Tried to fall asleep to two middle-aged Americans playing cards.
• Consumed the vast majority of the New York Times Film Section online. 
• Chatted with a former roommate who is traveling in India. 
• Explored the vast annals of Wikipedia.  

How did I get here?

My 7am COPA flight from Lima landed sometime after ten, and I disembarked to discover a frenetic Panana airport beehive, with no mention of my upcoming flight  on the departure screens. After hiking over to the terminal on my boarding pass, it became clear that
a. my flight to Cancun (enroute to Dulles) was delayed, likely due to El Nino.
b. most of the Panamanian airport staff speak no more than ten words of English
c. the above staff had a relaxed atitude to getting me back to DC.
d. I had lounge access.

After my first two hours in the lounge, I was called to the front desk by a suited man, who provided a $10.00 voucher to the food court and told me that they were working on rerouting my ticket. Twenty minutes later, I was put on a direct evening flight to Washington. After some quick googling, I decided not to chance a visit to the Canal.

My flight to DC boards in two hours.

Macchu Picchu and Back again

Resting in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, next to the Urubamba River. Totally exhausted from yesterday's adventures. Some highlights:

• Seeing Macchu Piccu. An amazingly intact ruined city discovered almost exactly 100 year ago by Hiram Bingham, a Yale professor and later Governor and Senator. Great tour guide, a 29 year-old named Carlos. Our tour group was called Chaquis, the Quecha (Incan) word for runner.  The Incans were a pretty fascinating people. They had a labor tax on the peoples ruled, were good farmers, ate/used a lot of coca, and built a bunch of sturdy stone structures. There's still a great of mystery around Macchu Piccu: the name and purpose of the city are unknown. 

The Chasqui

• Climbing the actual mountain for which the site is named, which towers 2000 feet above the site. Hard hike up mountain steps, which at times were almost vertical and without safety rails. We ran into an archeologist who studies Easter Island and is convinced that the Macchu Piccu site is primarily religious. We summited after two grueling hours. The mountain top was cold and beautiful. 
• Crazy costumed dancer in on train back to Ollanta. Then the train crew a did fashion show of the merchandise, catwalk style. The performer participated.  They served a very tasty pasta salad. There was no differance between the Vistadome and Autowagon train services. 
• The taxi driver who picked us from the Ollanta train station brought his two little kids along for the ride. Cute and hyper, neither spoke a word of english. Key lesson: regardless of culture, kids like the iPad. 

Hot water

We're in Aguas Calientes, a town at the base of Macchu Picchu. We left Cusco by minibus this morning, stopping in Pisac, a town of 900 that is famous only for its market and an exquisite set of ruins that hang in the mountains above.

We spent hours hiking around the archeological site, a collection of a few ruined settlements, sets of Incan farming steps, stone pathways, and a small tunnel in the side of mountain. The Incans clearly were expert masons: much of the stonework seemed like it had been built in the past hundred years.

We taxied through the Sacred Valley to Ollanta (full spelling involves the word Tambo and a y) and boarded a cute two-car train to Aguas Calientes. Comfy seats, half-windowed viewing ceiling, and a little snack and drink served in a colorful straw basket. The ride from Ollanta is less than two hours and is punctuated by recorded announcements that frequently mention that this is an unforgettable journey.

Aguas Calientes is a small riverside town in the middle of the jungle. There are no cars and tons of hotels, hostels, restaurants, massage parlours, and shops. We're staying a place called Rupawasi ecolodge, which is not unlike staying in a treehouse with art-laden walls. The hotel's restaurant is magnificent: a cozy, well-lit culinary temple.

Tomorrow we wake before dawn to see a wonder of the world. Tonight we'll fall asleep to the rushing of Urubamba river.

Tomorrow, we

orogenesis and its discontents

The air is thin and the sun is strong.  When it starts setting at 5pm, the air gets chilly. There's a small blanket pressing down on my brain and I'm strangely congested.  I'm in Cusco, a town of 300,000 Peruvians, 11,000 feet above sea level in the Central Andes mountain range.


Easy flight from Toronto to Lima, with a free seat next to me. Met two Peruvian-Canadians on the plane, a professional skateboarder from Vancouver and a friendly woman from Montreal. I met the former while boarding, during which he offered a treatise on the women of Colombia and promptly to take me around Lima. The latter sat in my row and seemed not speak english, so we ended up in French. She warned me to be careful in Lima, which she said was very dangerous. 


Watched Limitless (of limited cinematic value) and the new Gulliver's Travels with Jack Black (of no cinematic value at all). We landed at 12:35am, and the passengers applauded, which reminded me of landing in Tel Aviv on my first adult flight on El Al. 


Lima is not pretty at night. From what I saw the next morning on the way back to the airport, it's not pretty in the morning, either. Lots of police, some of whom appear to be paramilitary. I checked into my hotel, slept for six hours, ran a mile in the gym, and eat a breakfast that includes miso soup and gyoza.


The LAN flight to Cusco is full, but I get an emergency exit row seat with another free one beside me. They serve a cute paper snack box with an enormous chocolate, a slice of cake, and some strange crackers. I try Inka Cola, which is the color of mountain dew and tastes like bubble gum.


My brother (Y) meets me at the airport. I'm lucky to have him as a traveling partner for the week, particularly since he speaks spanish and is spending the summer in Peru. He's arrived the day before, after spending a week in Lima. It's good to see him. 

The South American Way

Toronto Pearson Airport, maple leaf lounge. Hanging out in the lounge for a three hour layover on the way to Peru.

The lounge is packed but still pleasant. Canadian television is focused on grilling the Canucks coach and the death of someone who is referred to as Canada's greatest national hero. Never heard of the guy.

A seven hour flight to Lima awaits me, followed by a midnight arrival in one of the least popular capitols in the developing world.

Five Years Later

I was told that the five-year college reunion is the good one: few people are married with children and there's high turnout. Everyone's in the mood to party, whatever that means. By the ten-year, the children have arrived and fewer people show up.


With this in mind, I went to my five-year college reunion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

Took a packed 9:15pm US Airways flight out of DCA to BDL. I'd hoped to split a cab to Middletown, but no dice at 10:30pm. 


Arrived on campus sometime after 11pm. Dropping off my bags in the dorm (where reunion alums can stay), ran into an excited group of folks from my year. Spent the rest of the night enthusiastically running into old friends while an alumnus band played perfectly chosen covers. A wonderful, friendly energy prevailed. In the words of one of my classmates "everyone just needed a break from their lives."

Saturday's main event for the class of 2006 was a reception and dinner in a private tent. More reconnecting, albeit with less enthusiasm. Lots of people are teaching, with grad school as the runner-up. Five years seemed to have a positive effect, interactions were noticeably less awkward, people considerably more secure, and a social generosity seemed to prevails. A larger all-class tent party followed.   


Wesleyan does a nice job of combining reunion and commencement into one weekend, with Sunday for the latter. As the designated speaker, Paul Farmer did a nice job of mixing humor with personal anecdotes from his work in Haiti. One got the sense that Farmer is cut from the same cloth as Wesleyan graduates: irreverent, critical, globally oriented, and focused on improving the world. 

After the ceremony, got Indian food at Udupi Bhavan with L, S ('06 alums) and S' father + grandfather (also alums).   By the time L and I got back to campus at 3ish, it was totally deserted. 


A lifeless and empty college campus is a sad place to wander, particularly after you've spent a weekend wandering its walkways with hundreds of friends and acquaintances. I felt enormous relief when the taxi pulled up to take us to the airport.


Our driver was wearing a tee-shirt from Nicholson, the dorm where L and I spent our first year of college. The 2002-2003 version, our year at Nicholson. 

Sugarloaf For Passover

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Easter Sunday, middle of Passover. Time for a hike on Sugarloaf Mountain, in Maryland.

The hike began uneventfully, a quiet walk up a small mountain on a hot April afternoon. Nice rocks, trees, the usual.

After stopping for lunch a mile or so in, it began to rain gently. We continued.

Within minutes, we were sitting in the middle of full-blown thunderstorm, with flashes of nearby lightning.

We squatted under/near large rocks to avoid lightning strikes and tried to wait out the storm. The downpour accelerated.

We eventually decided to keep hiking in the rain, after being completely soaked. The rain stopped after a few minutes on the trail.

We hiked back to the car in the cool quiet, appreciating the clarity that follows a spring rainstorm in the forest. 

New York and Back Again

Thursday night Acela. Friday wandering Soho and the East Village in the cold rain. Tokyo 7 has moved, and I found a completed building in the former parking lot next to my old apartment on 9th and C. New espresso machine at the 9th Street Espresso. The sandwich from Barnyard didn't taste as crisp.

Found a cool sock shop in Soho where they gave me a glass of scotch for free. Saw Win-Win at the Angelika.

Drinks at the Pegu Club, modeled after a colonial watering hole of the same name in British Burma. Dinner at a French restaurant on Houston. Stopped a by a friend's newly-purchased apartment in a coop, a first for friends in New York.

Saturday was sunny, warmer, and devoted to Brooklyn. Dinner on Smith Street. 

Notes On the Middle West/Upper South

The 1:15pm Delta flight from DCA->CVG left at 2:50pm. My first Delta flight of 2011 and my first with Silver Medallion status. Delta offered an alternative flight through the web, with one segment in First Class. Turned out to be a mechanical problem, which is never reassuring.

CVG  is entirely different as a final destination, rather than as a transfer-point.  I wonder how many cities get more transfer-only visitors (who never actually visit a city) than actual visitors. I've passed through but never visited Dallas, Detroit, and Chicago.

We get into Cincinatti around 5pm. The city is grey, industrial, and very mid-western. My colleague remarks that it looks just like downtown Minneapolis. Do mid-western cities look the same?

There is a large Teacher's union demonstration in Fountain square when we arrive. The speeches boom into my hotel room on the thirteenth floor, the cheers and chanting of the crowd. They seem energized, something about pensions.   Is there is something particularly nasty about the attack on public sector workers in the mid-west?  One envisions 1950's and '60's Cincinnati: prosperous, orderly, friendly, a well-respected public sector. The height of American Power.  Expectations and changing economics, oy.

We eat at a wonderful new French restaurant that I find on yelp. The food is excellent.  I'm impressed.

***

It's raining in Kentucky. We pass fields, cows, horses, and strip-malls. We labor to and successfully find a Starbucks, the great American constant.

After the meeting we drive back to CVG, eat some chili (apparently Cincinatti is famous for Chili), and buy Kentucky-themed souvenirs. Our flight to BWI is delayed and I talk Delta into putting us on the flight to DCA.  I narrowly miss getting upgraded.