January Books

David Foster Wallace - Consider The Lobster
Fun stuff in this collection of essays from the 90's and early 2000's. Though ironic that I read it WHILE reading Infinite Jest (see below...). I really enjoyed the 9/11 and the Adult Convention essays, felt like classic DFW stuff. Reminded me that I might like his nonfiction better than his fiction, but still...

David Grann - The Lost City of Z
Now this was super fun. Although maybe a little long (basically its a book length version of the New Yorker article from a few years ago, and didn't need that much expansion) it was incredibly entertaining and informative. I was also reading this while I was planning to visit the Amazon, though unfortunately I then found out that the Leticia region in February is the rainy season in the rain forest, and opted not to go this round. But this book is a fascinating look at hundreds of years of history and anthropology of the Amazon, told through a thread of searching for a lost city in the Amazon region. Although the ending was a bit of a letdown, especially having already read the article, I'd still highly recommend this for a solid adventure travel book complete with crazy-ass stories of the past and present in the Amazon region of South America.

Malcolm Gladwell - What the Dog Saw
So basically this is just a collection of his New Yorker pieces over the last five or ten years. Which frankly, are a lot better and more engaging than his last book (Ouliers) which felt really scattered. I was kind of getting sick of his glib "you think its this way, but look at this quirky counterintuitive explanation for how the world really works and get your mind blown" shtick, which is usually backed up by cherry-picked evidence and mediocre-at-best science. This collection though reminded me of why I do/did enjoy Gladwell's older and shorter pieces, which don't make as many claims so much as put forth ideas for consideration. I'd still definitely recommend this, in spite of not thinking so much of Outliers, and its nice to pick it up and just read a piece or two and then put back down.

Superfreakonomics - Leavitt and Dubner
Basically, see my previous complaint about Gladwell's "Outliers." Though this had some thought provoking ideas that were sort of fun to think about, a lot of them felt a little bit half-baked at best, particularly the global warming ideas. However, some of the stuff about neuro-economics and decision-mkaing was interesting, and certainly more engagingly written than the disappointingly dry "Nudge" by Thaler and Sunstein I read last year.

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Yeah thats right. I finally finished it. (Let me clarify, this was an 8 month ordeal in which I read many other books, passed my boards and wrote a book....) And frankly, I'm not sure if it was worth it. (I know, I know...) I think I would have liked it more when I was younger. Thats not to say I didnt like it, or think it was well-written, I just didnt think it was terribly mature I guess. Although the recovery/halfway house stuff was brilliant (and accurate to a T!), I didnt exactly find the non-plot compelling (not the point, I know, I know...). And you know what, I'm not afraid to say he could have used a good editor and it would have made for a better book.

Resumption of Recipes: Thai Iced Tea Ice Cream

With graduate school and now the licensing exam receding into the past, time, though not abundant, does create some space in my life for cooking and posting recipes. This evening I am making Pad Thai (from Hot/Sour/Salty/Sweet) and for dessert homemade Thai Iced Tea flavored ice cream, I invented this recipe, though when I googled the concept, I clearly was not the only one to come up with the idea of thai iced tea flavored ice cream:

THAI ICED TEA ICE CREAM

3 Cups of Light Cream (or 2 cups 1/2&1/2, 1 cup heavy cream)
2-3 egg yolks (I like this ice cream relatively light, though still think a custard is important for texture)
1 Can condensed milk
1 Cup Thai Tea (From good ol' Super 88)
1 tsp vanilla

Gently heat cream mix with thai tea until almost simmering, then let steep for about 30 minutes.
Strain the mix, and make custard by constantly whisking yolks into cream over gentle heat until bubbling and thickened. Stir in vanilla and condensed milk. Let chill, and freeze according to ice cream maker's instructions to yield about a quart.

VIETNAMESE (THAI) ICED COFFEE ICE CREAM
So really, this is the same thing, except using espresso (or finely ground french roast, or cafe du monde coffee), in the place of the tea. I also don't let it seep for so long, and of course leave out the vanilla. If you are using cafe du monde (used commonly in vietnamese coffee in america after so many vietnamese refugees settled in louisiana and near the gulf of mexico), let it seep longer or grind it more finely.
If your strainer is particularly fine, you may want to add a teaspoon of fresh grounds for texture before putting into your machine.

Either of these ice creams (or both!) make a wonderful treat to end a southeast asian style dinner.

San Gil and Environs

The security situation here is quite odd. Colombia is no doubt in civil war/ its quite apparent from the newspaper headlines every day and from the soldiers walking around with AK47s slung over their shoulders. And yet, I have never yet felt worried or in danger, and this trip almost feels like its been fewer adventures than almost any other. ELN is almost over, and FARC has had aterrible year of operational setbacks, and a massive turning of public support away from the guerillas as they continue to hold innocent hostages.
And, it does feel as if the vibe of the country is that the war is ending, peace is very nearly here. Rebel groups like ELN is in practically final negotiations, and the infamous FARC has had aterrible year of operational setbacks, and a massive turning of public support away from the guerillas as they continue to hold innocent hostages and move farther from their original ideology and compromise themselves with terrorism and narcotrafficking to pay the gun bills. What was once a movement to liberate the peasant class, fueled for years by cold war politics like the rest of South America, then had the fuel of cocaine money keep the conflict burning. But now, after forty or sixty years of war, the people are ready for peace. Still, strange signs abound of Colombia's brutal history and continuing brutal present. We drove past a minefield yesterday, and Ive noticed that cars and buses all have signs advertising that they have GPS. I never saw any GPS units, and thus took me a few days to realzie that that is a kidnapping deterrant, that a GPS was hidden somewhere on the vehicle. Boarding the bus we were frisked up and down, but no one ever asked to look in our carryon bags, and while the bus had a separate locked compartment for the driver, as I wrote before, the airplane cockpit was wide open...
Anyway, so we left little occupied Minca a few days ago and headed into the mountains near San Gil, where we are now. The drive was beautiful up winding roads and into the mountains. Unfortunately the 9 hour drive became more like 11. I sat staring out the window into the dark half asleep and felt the white noise of the bus change abruptly, only to realize we were breaking down. Now, I just explained how peace is coming to Colombia, but I'm still not exactly thrilled with the idea of spending a night in the Colombian jungle on a sitting-duck prize of a bus, even if Colombia had a better reputation for safety. Some guys got out and stood aroudn, a few tried to fix it and we were off and running within a half an hour, although three more breakdowns only added to my anxiety. Had a layover night in Bucaramanga, and arrived to San Gil at a reasonable time the day before yesterday.
San Gil is a lovely colonial town tucked into in the mountains with a rushing river running through the center. The streets become incredibley steep, and some have the old sidewalk-for-stairs thing, and with flowers bursting in bloom the whole thing has a bit of a San Francisco like feel architecturally. Spent yesterday morning hanging out at our excellent hostel chatting with the other travellers, a few know-it-all Americans and some other nationalities represented, and had a hilarious talk with the Aussie owner who explained in depth how the guidebooks worked. One brand that will remain nameless simply emailed him to ask his to write a description of his place and a little about the town, another never bothered coming to San Gil at all, despite being only six hours away, and wrote incorrect information (though did receive and apology when he emailed undiclosed backpacker guidebook company), and another visited the town but never came to the hostel, and was quite open about this fact when he got in touch. Come afternoon we took a great rafting trip, having opted for the easy float trip rather than the hardcore rapids trip. The fonce river was still bumpy enough to be fun, and the views up the canyon onto local farms, through mossy banyan like trees and jungle vines, was a lot of fun, in spite of the worlds grumpiest river guide.

Santa Marta, Minca, Taganga

Bill had -negative 1 days of getting a stomach bug, having gotten food posioning in Florida delaying his arrival by a day. We agreed to meet in Santa Marta, a smallish beach town on the way to Venezuela, next to the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains. I took the most hellish and overpriced collectivo ride, rather than the bus, resulting in a six and a half hour voyage that should have only been four. It was certainly a pretty if long voyage, past ocean on one side, banana haciendas and mountains on the other. Got to Santa Marta finally, but found no rooms at the inn we had been hoping for, so I got us a room elsewhere and left a note behind for Bill who was coming later in the evening. I immediately changed into my bathing suit and headed straight for the beach, only to discover that although I had been excited by how genuinely Colombian Sta Marta felt, that genuineness extended to the way they treated their beach, the hordes of Colombian tourists left garbage all over the beach, and the swimming looked none too appealing with the sight of a massive oil tanker loading up from the pipeline on the edge of town, (apparently unbombed by los FARC today), and another massive boat loading bananas onto pallets into containers. Didnt exactly seem all that clean. Wandered the city as darkness approached, and wondered if Bill had made it into the country without a return ticket out, apparently a real headache for getting through migracion. But finally I wandered back into the hotel to find him checking in, apparently having received no note from the hotel we had agreed on, and only finding it after checking his email. It was great to catch up over dinner and wandering the boardwalk, past giant 30ft light filled Santas sleigh and a Feliz Navidad sign. Ive not seen Bill since my 5 year Wesleyan reunion, which is a long time as my ten year is coming up in a few months! But its a been great travelling with him, reminsicing about the past, and talking about our various lives and futures.
Wanting to leave Santa Marta we decided to head to the fishing/backpacker town of Tanganga, next to the national park. No longer so backpackery, it was now mostly Colombians who occupied nearly every hotel. With no hotel again, we ended up sleeping at an elementary school that had been converted to a hotel for the holidays, and slept soundly amidst desks and chalkboards, beneath a row of enciclopedia de ninos. Hit the beach, where we enjoyed some fresh fried fish and did some swimming and lounging about. It was New Years Eve, and we barely made it past midnight, having a generally pretty mellow evening wandering the town. The people in town were revelling by draggin massive speakers out onto their patios and eating and drinking with friends, inviting people to stop in and chat. It was a nice low-key new years scene. People also tended to have some sort of new years scarecrows out, what they represented I'm not quite sure. We retired shortly after midnight, which we only realized had come when the firework-lighting kids started lighting their firecrackers in greater force than before. We also managed to miss the first death of 2009 (according to the local paper) when a drunk driver killed someone in Sta Marta shortly after midnight.


Onward the next day, we'd decided to head to San Gil in the mountains on the way up toward Bogota. Unfortunately, New Years Day meant nothing was open, not even buslines. Probably safer that way to avoid a driver still drunk from the night before trying to navigate mountain roads. So we took a taxi up to Minca, a small partly Indian town a few thousand meters into the foothills of the mountains,. Minca looks down over the beach towns and the ocean in one direction, and with views into the mountains in the other. We took some walks to waterfalls, watched coffee being dried out on the side of the road, and chatted for a while with an absolutely batshit crazy German guy. Bill had it right when he described this fellow as Herzog-esque, the man had been living above Minca for nearly ten years. Old Klaus Kinski claimed to be an intermediary between the rebel groups and the government and people like journalists and anthropologists. He also tried to scare us with stories about posionous snakes killing people, scorpions attacking tourists in their sleep, and other horror stories of the jungle. It was hard to tell how much he was bullshitting, though on the other hand hed been living in the jungle for the last ten years. Not to mention, our little cabin we'd rented not only had massive spiders, but Bill killed a scorpion and I chased a few bats around before giving up. And the bug bites I'm still itching three days later.
It was a gorgeous town and a pleasure to explore., though did feel like an army occupied town. Apparently it was only pacified a few years ago, and this was clear with the fact that army troops wandered around town chatting casually with their mistresses by cell phone in one hand, AK47s in the other. I have my doubts that the safety was on. From there on to San Gil in the moutnains, the next entry coming soon...

Islas

Up early for breakfast and to get to the docks before the boats lefgt for their daily tour of the local national park and islands. A lot of hurry up and wait, while I watched seemingly thousands of colombian tourists pile onto the same boats that I too was sucker enough to get on myself. A very choppy voyage out to playa blanca, a miles long stretch of sand about an half hour away by boat where we dropped half of our passengers, and then the rest of us fools on to the national park and aquarium. Disgorged the boat at the island that was about an acre total, and headed to the so-called aquarium, admission not included in boat trip. Holy shit, without a doubt that was the most bullshit aquarium ever, and when I glimpsed it from the ticket booth, I immediately decided not to even bother with the outrageous price for a bunch of docks set around giant nets with fish caught in them. Thats right, basically a giant cage for fish from which one can look down into the water and attempt to view fish. I then returned to the dock where I watched hundreds of colombians climbing out of their boats to overrun the sweltering hellhole of an island. Finally able to get back onto the boat, and headed past tiny islands with solitary giant houses on them (I wonder what line of work those folks are in?), back through the ocean, past tiny wooden canoes that were far from shore, carrying just one aging fisherman and making a very hemingway-esque picture.
Finally made it to the beach, and though a famous one from cartagena, it was not too crowded. Offered some amazing fresh oysters and lobster ceviche upon arrival, which I enjoyed with lime juice, and then was charged a whopping 20k Pesos. I handed over 1000, and walked away. Met some Colombian-Americans who cheerily asked me about my trip, and invited me to go out with them later. I took their phone number and they told me to call at around 1230!!! I didnt. I feel old.
Although, I actually ended up staying up late (for me) that night, wandering the streets of the el centro neighborhood, charming colonial buildings and the streets packed with people until midnite. The plazas that had stood near empty a few hours before were suddenly bustling with people, a few colombian afro-caribbean groups were doing dance routines, some kind of combination of krumping and flamenco. The plazas were packed, people acting like human satatues, selling cotton candy and trinkets, it was like europe. Wandered around some more, talked to a few locals, but mostly people wanted to offer me drugs (perico-parakeet, cocaine) or women (amigo- conozco blancas, indias, mulattas...) No gracias amigos. I think thats the curse of travelling alone, looking forward to meeting up with Bill soon.

Cartagena de las Indias

Overnight flight to Bogota was, for the most part, sleepless. Arrived pre-dawn to stumble through customs and attempt to find my connecting flight to Cartagena in three more hours, hoping I could catch the earlier one since I was so early. No such luck. Waited around the Bogota airport ina terminal with no ATMs and tried to sleep, but found my stomach eating itself with hunger was keeping me awake. That and the blaring telenovelas from the various tv screens around the terminal. Finally boarded the plane and promptly fell asleep, only to awaken to the beginning of the descent toward the coastal city of Cartagena from the mountains. Needless to say, spectacular landscape from the air, high green mountains, low blue marshes and lakes, and an amazing view through the cockpit windshield (not the same security concerns here I guess, the door was wide open), that revealed on one side turqoise glimmering carribean waters and on the other side a snow capped Andean peak. Damn, not many places where one can see both of those things together.
Getting from airport to city was painless, both hassle-wise and financially, although my first greeting upon stepping out of the cab was a swiftly tilting colombian offering me "cuatro gramas de heroina pura." Ugh, No gracias amigo. Found a decent enough hotel for too much money and set out for breakfast. A fair number of gringos abound, but its actually rather hard to tell the gringos from many of the more european looking locals, except that the gringos are generally the ones wearing shorts and flipflops, and the locals wearing jeans and carrying fancy handbags. Felt completely safe here by the way, and read about Cartagena not having seen political or narco terror violence in at least ten years, to reassure all potential fretters out there.

The old town itself is gorgeous, hands down the prettiest colonial town I{ve seen in the Americas, and believe me I{ve seen my share from mexico to bolivia. Bouganvillea spills out from spanish balconies over wrought iron gaslamps, horse drawn wagons clatter down cobbled streets, sun soaked plazas and brightly colored houses wind down alleys... you know, the standard colonial thing, plus an amazing fortresslike wall surrounding the town, and the breezes of the caribbean wafting through when it suddenly feels too humid to move. Somehow managed to explore much of the old city in the afternoon before I collapsed in a sleep deprived wreck. Wandered the old spanish fort, the largest and thickest walled in the Americas.

Cartagena was a major port for Spanish gold coming out of the south, and their primary port on the Atlantic, hence it was a rather tempting target for pirates and privateers for centuries. Not wanting to see the same fate that repeatedly befell, say, Granada Nicaragua (multiple burnings to the ground) the Spanish erected a massive complex fortifcation complete with underwater walls and chains to keep out invaders. It worked. The fort and walls surrounding the town stand today, and I wandered around for a while in the blazing heat, taking occasional refuge in the old tunnels and dungeons, before realizing I had completely forgotten sunblock. I returned to the hotel, over the little causeway past fishermen throwing nets, and lathered up with sun block at my hotel. Out for more exploring, Cartagena truly lives up to its reputation as the gem of the Americas. I paused to sit and read or sip coffee in one plaza after another, each more beautiful than the previous. Some with shady jungle plantings and tropical birds overhead, others with pigeons cooing and ice cream sellers ringing the bells on their pushcarts. The last was full of umbrellaed cafe tables where I sat for a while and rehydrated myself and watched the people drift by, taking photos in front of the massive Botero sculpture. Men and boys came by offering me cuban cigars and/or grams of cocaine, both priced at less than 3dollars. I declined and made my way back through the market vendors selling shoelaces, a man pretending to sneeze and showing off the fake snot dangling from his nose that was for sale for a quarter, (kind of weird in a country infamous for its other products for the nose), and decided to check out the parque central. MUCH less nice than the various plazas I´d been in all day, the parque was nothing but men sleeping or chatting in low voices and prostitutes galore. Okay, to be fair, they may have been extremely friendly though ragged looking women. Back to hotel for a siesta.

Woke to find that it was well after 9PM and I had slept clear through my alarm, the earplugs likely didnt help on that front, though probably did help when it came to the blasting vallenato music seemingly on the other side of my hotel door. I wandered down to the street in search of dinner and foudn the streets completely transformed by night. The afternoon quiet had given way to thumping music, and it seemed like every place that had its wooden shutters closed by day was open for business at night. Scrounged some grilled chorizo froma street vendor, listened to music in a nearby plaza bustling with skateboarding children and ambling old men, and went back to bed not much later.

More of the same today. So no great adventures thus far. Looking forward to my friend Bill Wilson (no, not that Bill Wilson) arriving tomorrow in Barranquilla, though we'll have to see how the logistics work out for meeting up. Hopefully the morning and afternoon will be spent exploring local islands and my next post will be a bit more interesting.

11/5/08

Few sentiments I can express that haven't been expressed already. What other synonyms are there for "elation" and "relief?" Its the opposite of when something bad happens and you keep remembering the next day, constantly flooded with sadness again and again. I keep remembering "oh yeah, this means the supreme court is saved... oh right, the wars can finally end... health care... global warming and alternative energy... and the symbolism to the world, and the inspiration to the world. No more smug Europeans, I can ask those snotty French why they haven't elected an Algerian, the Brits why no Indians or Pakistanis have been PM yet, or German folk why the German Turks haven't risen to lead their country. And far more important than that, is that our example allows all these former colonial powers can now rise to the occasion, and will competitively feel the need to. What an amazing day of hope for America, what an amazing and hopeful day for the world....
Thats all for now. Off now to lean back, smile, and not have to read polls for a few more years.