Book excerpt. And a tribute to George Carlin.
Category: Travel and Places

Little goats?  Giant frogs?   No, I didn't eat them.  But I had plenty of helpings of dust! 

All those minerals, along with a lesson on the mystical power of Squirt soda, appear in an excerpt of Is There a Hole in the Boat? printed over at Gonomad.com. 

And in a tribute to George Carlin's famous skit about "stuff," where a suitcase is just a smaller version of your house, I'm going to give you an excerpt of the excerpt:

THE PAN-AMERICAN HIGHWAY meanders over 25,000 kilometers from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, except for a break -- the only one -- at the mountainous jungle between Panama and Colombia.

On the Panamanian side, the party town of Yaviza celebrates its distinction at the end of the road with its troupes of salsa-stepping storeowners and humping stray dogs...(click here to continue)

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It Came from a Nicaraguan Showerhead
Category: Travel and Places

This blog has been silent recently because I’ve been busy falling into holes in the Nicaraguan sidewalk and walking around muzzles of shotguns guarding Pizza Huts in Honduras.

But staying odor-free proved to be the toughest challenge. When a Nicaraguan hotel advertises their showers as having hot water, what they really mean is that an electric contraption taped/tied/strapped to the spigot heats the chilly pipe water before it falls on you. You can already see where this is going: all that water and all those dangling wires make for a frighteningly thrilling way to clean tropical slime-sweat off your neck.

However, in a country where passing cars on blind curves competes with getting gored in the face by bulls as the most popular recreational activity (silly me, I used to think it was baseball!), battling heater coils seems so entry-level. Here’s to being stuck at square one:

Currently listening : When I Was Cruel By Elvis Costello Release date: 23 April, 2002

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A Muppet Moment between Talons and Turkeys
Category: Pets and Animals

A few years ago when I was wearing my "Save the trees: wipe your ass with an owl" T-shirt in an airport, one of the security guards told me, "You better be careful. Owls are vicious!" He nodded forcefully, as if he had already tried the shirt's suggested hygiene tip.

But the guard's prostate wasn't clawed up in vain: he was right, at least about the vicious part. Owls are in the same category of avian predators as falcons and hawks, several of which awaited my lesson at the British School of Falconry in the woods of southern Vermont a few weeks ago.

Currently reading : Queens Noir (Akashic Noir) By Robert Knightly Release date: 26 December, 2007

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Uncle George’s Lamb Head
Category: Food and Restaurants

Currently listening : You Bought It You Name It By Joe Walsh Release date: 30 July, 2002

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Is There a Hole in the Boat? wins the silver medal in LTJC
Category: Life

When people ask me why I wrote Is There a Hole in the Boat?, I tell them that I wanted to put a face on a country that is usually only thought of in terms of Noriega and the Canal.

Well, this week, that face might be smiling.

On Monday, Is There a Hole in the Boat? Tales of Travel in Panama without a Car won the silver medal in the 2007 Lowell Thomas Journalism Competition (Travel Book category). I'm flattered to be in such company as Paul Theroux and Tim Cahill, who also raked in medals this year.

Even more flattering is the fact that in my category, Is There a Hole in the Boat? edged out the Travelers' Tales compilation The Best Travel Writing 2007: True Stories From Around the World (the compilation scored the bronze), which was one of the most memorable books I've read this year.

Maybe I should act like a real writer now.  Maybe I should stop using the word "y'all" and start ironing my clothes.

Currently watching : Dirty Pretty Things Release date: 23 March, 2004

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Puerto Vallarta without the Cheese
Category: Travel and Places

Just mention Puerto Vallarta to me and my mind swerves to dodge the disco chorus of the Love Boat theme song. But it's too late. I can already see Captain Stubing's varnished forehead glistening from the deck as he waves to the ship's favorite port of call.

If you've been there, you know what to expect. Syrupy-sweet drinks with paper umbrellas in them, mauve hotel rooms with particleboard furniture, urine-filled kiddy pools--they all await your presumed lapse of taste. Courtesy of your hotel, you'll be wearing a neon wristband, marking you as fodder for drooling street vendors on the boardwalk, should you foolishly venture outside the resort.

And you might want to. Because that is where you'll find the cheese-free Puerto Vallarta, where yeoman Gopher roams not. You probably scored a cheap deal on the Internet for the room rate, so if you don't care for the concierge's creepy smiles as he pimps McTimeshares, then don't be afraid to treat the hotel as little more than a bed. (When you leave the hermetically sealed hotel, don't forget to turn your wristband inside out. It confuses the street hustlers.)

Turtle Camp

While seeking a more authentic Puerto Vallarta might involve hanging out with the locals of the area, there's no doubt that the olive ridley sea turtles have them beat by millennia. The beach that has been pricked by countless metal umbrellas and subdivided by dozens of absentee resort owners is the same beach on which the turtles still attempt to lay their eggs. From August until November, female sea turtles crawl ashore to dig holes in the sand, each mother depositing about a hundred slimy eggs before returning to the anonymity of the Pacific Ocean.


For $45 per person, Eduardo Lugo of Wildlife Connection will bring you to the government-sponsored sea turtle egg hatchery and will explain the difficulties facing turtles in this era of human dominance. For starters, the hatchery itself is crammed onto a thin strip of sand in front of--yes, you guessed it--a condo high-rise, which is where the hatchery will stay until turtles start outbidding real estate moguls.


Even worse, bright lights disorient turtles during their nocturnal egg-laying mission, and since the hotels burn careless megawatts lighting up their concrete façades, it's a miracle any turtles turn up at all.



In a typical evening in the middle of the nesting season, you may see scores of freshly hatched baby turtles--about the size of trench coat buttons--which the project volunteers let out of the hatchery so the babies can instinctively scamper their way to the ocean.

You'll probably also find a few mothers crawling up the beach and dropping their eggs into the sand, which the volunteers promptly dig up and bury into their fenced-in hatchery to keep the poachers out. Some desperate men who have trouble meeting women believe turtle eggs are aphrodisiacs, when really the problem is that those men are just boring.

Follow that Charcoal

When I said cheese, I'm not talking about queso blanco. That kind of cheese, freshly fried, belongs in your soft-shell taco from the street carts. Worried about cleanliness? Don't. At a food cart, at least you can see how the food is being prepared, as opposed to the dumbed-down gringo chow at the hotel. Aim for the cart with the longest line.

Taco carts are great places to find cactus (nopales) tacos. Nopales tacos won't jab you in the gums, and instead offer a citrus-y, roasted pepper-like flavor, enhanced by the street taco's main condiment: the juice of freshly squeezed lime wedges.


While Puerto Vallarta's outpost of Señor Frog's Bar hemorrhages air conditioning, the beachfront grill pits along Playa de los Muertos don't need any A/C, since the breezes blowing in from the Bay of Banderas and under their tents do it for free. The cooks here won't give you that treacly chat-up or that bootlicking smile. You would be lucky if any of them speak English. While you bite into the crispy skin of a whole fish on a stick, you'll be treated to music of roving beach bands, some of which sporting dancers to assist in swirling the hand-drum rhythms around so all can share. The octopus and spiny lobster dishes always seem to come with a side order of surfers wiping out in the waves in front of you.

A Lingerer's Dream

It's remarkable that just fifteen minutes from the hotel zone, the cobblestone streets of Pitillal remain free of street hustlers who stereotype you based on your wristband. But that is not to say that the narrow streets are free of bustle. On the contrary, amidst leather vendors and shrimp taco restaurants, piles of the fruit nance--a somewhat pungent fruit that makes an even more pungent juice--block foot traffic on tiny sidewalks. Raspado (snow cone) carts hawk ice flavored with jamaica, a tasty flower, for a few pesos. Don't expect landmarks: expect a thriving Mexican community studded with colorful, hand-painted store signs and a talent for navigating sidewalks while carrying comically large bags of tortillas. For those who love cultural immersion, Pitillal is a lingerer's dream. Go ahead, bring your Spanish skills and browse. Buses run back to Puerto Vallarta all day.


Public Transportation: Adventure on the Cheap

Speaking of buses, the bus to Pitillal from the hotel zone runs 4½ pesos (about 45 cents). Not only is the bus about 50 pesos (five dollars) cheaper than a cab, but also in the short bus ride, you'll take part in a miniature version of Mexican commerce. You'll serve as an audience to a crooning preacher and have the chance to purchase whatever is on the market that day, from bags of oranges to a book of Spanish baby names from hop-on, hop-off vendors. Not thinking about raising a family? Then you might prefer when the vendor breaks out her stash of books interpreting dreams--in Spanish. They'll come in handy after siestas.


Is That Your Tripod Salivating?

OK, catching the sunset is something you can do right from the hotel's beach. But unlike the 3 pm "volleyball for undisciplined children" class, you don't need a signup sheet or a voucher card to participate. Admittedly, watching the sun melt into the waves might lead to sweet whisperings more cheesy than a heart-shaped bed in a honeymoon suite. But that's all right, because the turtles crawling up next to you can't understand what you're saying.

Currently listening : Ambient 1: Music for Airports By Brian Eno Release date: 05 October, 2004

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God is my quahog
Category: Music

Last week I was so caught up in the tinkling of musical garbage trucks that I am only now getting a chance to write about another musical event: the 2007 Newport Jazz Festival.

Newport is the perfect place to host a musical style that is—for the most part—a feel-good genre. On Thames Street, the backbone of Newport's downtown, cars magically stop if you put one foot onto the street in front of them, which takes the thrill out of jaywalking. Incurable masochists should just stick to the Bronx.

Perhaps salty air doubles as a controlled substance, because storeowners on Thames churn out the kind of unflappably cheerful greetings reserved for stock characters in black and white movies. Such a drug hastens the movement of disposable income around the shops that sell everything from tomato gelato to remote-control fart machines. On the sidewalks, clusters of Polo-drenched frat boys do the bobbing of the crab shack waddle (similar to the street fair waddle, except the former tends to encourage more grunting), while glazed vodka eyes of pub-crawling bachelorette parties attempt to dislodge the boys from buttered plates.

Currently listening : Mauvaises Nouvelles des Etoiles By Serge Gainsbourg Release date: 31 August, 2004

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Beyond a Shadow of a Snout
Category: Travel and Places

Hola, my omnivorous travelers. GoNomad.com just printed my article on Otavalo, where crabs remain on leashes, Castro hangs on strings, and guinea pigs fly (kind of). Let me start you out with the first few lines:


Throughout rural Latin America, I have grown accustomed to navigating by sight -- using landmarks -- since street signs are usually viewed as needless luxuries. The Andean town of Otavalo, Ecuador, encouraged a new approach, however: it was the first place that allowed me to navigate by sound.

I first heard a trickle of fearful shrieks bouncing down the street. Then a savage grunt. I found this unsettling, but reassuring. The auditory beacons assured me that I was walking in the right direction to reach Otavalo's early morning animal market, just off the Pan-American Highway.

At least the field near the highway was where the weekly market was supposed to take place. Convincing various hoofed animals…


Hurry up and read the rest at GoNomad.com, before the cockfights begin.

Currently reading : Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings By Paul Theroux Release date: 01 May, 2001

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A reverse petting zoo?
Category: Travel and Places

Remember how your momma told you that you should never go to Guayaquil? You don't? Splendid, then. Because there's nothing like hanging out with the locals, especially when the locals have three foot tails. Check out my latest piece over at Perceptive Travel and you'll smell what I smell.

Currently listening : Singles Going Steady By Buzzcocks Release date: 27 August, 2001

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Quebec City’s public art made me forget the crappy exchange rate
Category: Art and Photography

The line between graffiti and mural can be brutally subjective.

The difference might be more easily explained by using an analogous comparison of plants and weeds. If the green thing is viewed as tasty, or if it is pretty, then keep it around—it's a plant. Otherwise, it must be a weed. Following that subjective reasoning, I found Quebec City to be chock full of plants when my girlfriend and I went a-harvestin' a few weeks ago.

Plants in the trompe l'oeil ("trick the eye") family seem to thrive in the city the best. Under the highway in the neighborhood of St. Roch, artists converted the concrete supports from urban by-products into 30-foot high canvasses.









Fifteen minutes away, here's the view from a bus stop:



But those above areas—under a dark highway and at a boxed-in bus stop—are not high traffic areas, you argue. That's when Quebec City hits you with this trompe l'oeil fresco staring down at the endless caravan of ogling tourists in the bustling Petit Champlain:



A few sailors from a visiting Colombian naval vessel just couldn't resist.



To an American like me who has had corporate-conglomerate ads shoved down my throat all my life, I was surprised that a wall this large hadn't become a call girl for the highest bidder. Shouldn't a prominent wall like this barf out messages about McDoubleBypass burgers or how fun it is to drive a gas-snorting, street-clogging SUV?

And look here: neither a single dehydrated onion nor a milliliter of corn syrup decorates another wall just a few blocks down:



Here's where reality meets fresco.


Even in squeaky-clean Upper Town (inside the old city walls), where waitresses dress up in floppy, 17th century maid outfits and serve croquet monsieurs to salivating Anglo-tongues, the town's artists have commemorated the fact that in 1639, the city hosted the continent's first hospital north of Mexico.






I imagine a similar plant-versus-weed situation when considering sculptures. This piece accompanies the trompe l'oeil frescoes near the highway overpass without competing with them.


And again, the same gardening analogy arises with posters and stickers. Are the two to be considered filthy vandalism or are they equal-opportunity sources of information? Whenever I saw a lamppost in Quebec, I didn't usually "see" the lamppost itself; it was usually covered with posters for punk rock shows.

The coverage holds true whether the lamppost is near a staircase…



…or at the entrance of a fancy restaurant.



Don't let the quaint design of the city's lampposts fool you. The purpose of Quebec City lampposts is to serve as bulletin boards. As an added bonus, the bulbs at the tops of the posts even glow at night.

And what is the new calling of a Quebec City walk/don't walk semaphore?



Perhaps it's a surface for verbalizing common disgust. (Okay, not common to everyone; I'll bet you won't find too many of these stickers along the main drag of Cowshit Junction, Alabama, and whatever sister cities it may have). For those of you who have forgotten your high school French, Fermez le Bush is a pun on fermez le bouche, or "shut your mouth."

So let's say stickering and postering are not your favorite pastimes. I still must warn anyone planning to have a picnic on the walls of Quebec City: consumption of poutine may make you want to grab a paintbrush and hit the nearest patch of bald concrete.

Currently listening : Ethiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974 By Mulatu Astatke Release date: 06 October, 1998

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