Oktoberfest 2010

Beer selection is one of the few things Buenos Aires is lacking. Quilmes and Stella are the most popular options you find at bars, restaurants and grocery stores, but occasionally we change our scene and play cards at breweries for a broader selection. I always make a point to try the local beer at each new city/province we visit, so naturally I was excited about the endless cerveza possibilities at Oktoberfest!

Kelly, Megan, Flor and I took the 14-hour bus trip west the first weekend of October to attend an Argentine Oktoberfest in the little German town Villa General Belgrano. We spent the weekend drinking beers, watching parades, dancing, socializing and taking pictures. I didn’t manage to find a single new beer that I really loved, but it certainly wasn’t for a lack of trying!

Oktoberfest crew
(L-R: Flor, me, Kelly, Megan)

parade = dancing in the streets

child gaucho adds Argentine culture to Oktoberfest parade

this is how we watch parades...

...this is how we party

shadows of love & peace

me & Megan

me & Flor

me & Kelly

me & random old German man?

Ukrainian dancers - best in the show

(obviously we had to take a picture with them)

making new friends (air mattress was crucial)

Villa General Belgrano - Oktoberfest - 2010

daydreaming

How easy it is to forget the busy city around you while hidden within the thick green walls of the garden. Nature covers you like a cloak – protecting you from the sound of buses, cars and pedestrians polluting your environment with their mere presence. Only the faint humming of chaos reaches you in this sanctuary where life progresses steadily, but peacefully, and time is measured solely by the sunlight on your back. The trees wear new blooms on old branches proving that change is not only possible; it’s inevitable. With each new season is a new opportunity for beauty. Then how quickly we forget our tranquil thoughts as we step back through the shaded walls and are caught in the rushing current of life - forced to fight for our footing on the cobblestone.

The above was written on the second day of spring in Buenos Aires (Sept. 22) when I stumbled upon a botanical garden enclosed within the busy city streets.

a storm with a story

Having lived my whole pre-Argentina life in Florida, I’d say I’m pretty used to rain. I’ve endured serious storms on land and by boat and celebrated the occasional hurricane days off of school. I have always functioned perfectly well under wet conditions and actually enjoy listening to, watching and sometimes getting caught in the rain. Unfortunately, the people of Buenos Aires do not have the same sentiment. A rainy day in this city throws people into a state of confusion and chaos where stores close, people stay in and cabs disappear from the instantly flooded streets. This city’s reaction to harmless water falling from the sky truly baffles me! Then I discovered this solitary instance where the people of Buenos Aires actually welcome the rain.

The “Tormenta de Santa Rosa” (Santa Rosa Storm) is a three-day storm (mas o menos) that comes at the end of August every year and changes the entire city. Only this storm is a little different than the rest… it has a story!

I first heard about the storm when commenting to a local friend how happy I was with the recent change in weather. She told me the rise in temperature just means the Tormenta de Santa Rosa is coming and it will be cold and miserable for a few more days before spring begins. Turns out all the locals know about this storm that crosses the country from Santa Rosa to the Atlantic Ocean – and many of them count on it yearly to mark the end of winter. The cold, dreary days of winter stop as the Tormenta de Santa Rosa’s rain stops, and the people of Buenos Aires are left with beautiful spring weather.

I was clearly fascinated by the myth of this storm, which made me enjoy those three rainy days even more than usual. I just love that this particular storm has a story and felt the need to share it with my fellow Floridians back home.

Agata & some victims of the Tormenta de Santa Rosa on my street (Montevideo).
Unfortunately my friend Agata was in town for the whole storm and left with the winter.

Bolivia Part 3: DEATH ROAD

As I said before, many days of research went into planning our trip to Bolivia. We basically wanted to see and do as much as possible in the little time we had. However, Kelly did turn to me one day while we were planning and say “there’s only one thing I refuse to do in Bolivia: Death Road.” Just the name alone was enough to keep us away… so we thought. Not only did we find ourselves on Death Road - we found ourselves on MOUNTAIN BIKES on DEATH ROAD!

Yungas Road (also called Death Road or El Camino de la Muerte) is known as the “world’s most dangerous road” due to the lives it has claimed every year since it was built along the Andes Mountains in the 1930s. It used to be the only road connecting the rainforest region of Bolivia to the capital city of La Paz and is still the only option for some towns along the mountains. Bolivia eventually responded to the numerous fatal accidents along Yungas Road by creating an alternate highway that was finalized in 2006, but many people still drive along the world’s most dangerous road – and now they do it with the company of adventure-sport enthusiasts!

Death Road

It has become very common for tourists to mountain bike Death Road even though bikes and cars continue to collect in the vegetation trap lining the side of the mountains. I kept trying to remind myself that I was in safe hands as we listened to our biking instructions and put on our thick black pants, orange jumper, gloves, knee & elbow pads and serious helmet.

rocking my gear on Death Road

The 4-hour ride: begins at 4,700 m in the high lands of La Cumbre and ends at 1,200 m in Yolosa (3,500 m vertical drop). Covers 67 km with 25% on tarmac and 75% on dirt.

our group toward the end of the tarmac section

our group on the edge of the mountain

One of the great things about the bike route is that it’s mostly downhill. There are short stints of uphill climbing, but the van drives us up the most dramatic incline leaving us to make our way down to our final destination. The only bad thing about going mostly downhill is that you gain frightening levels of momentum while trying to maintain control of your bike on a narrow, uneven dirt road. Speeding downhill on the paved section was a little less nerve-racking because at least there was ample space on the road. Well, other than when we had to pass semi trucks while bending with the road’s curves and watching for oncoming traffic. While I loved the ease of gaining speed as I leaned over my handlebars on the tarmac; I preferred the dirt section because of the nature and peaceful environment.

Somehow it was easy to get lost in thought while cruising through the Andes Mountains. I thought about how I stopped “mountain biking” in Florida for all the wrong reasons and started getting excited again about the bike waiting for me at home. I also thought about all the unique and incredible experiences I’ve had and the places I’ve seen all over the world, and I realized I’d like to do/see more of them on a bike.

I didn’t struggle with the bike or trail as much as I struggled with the desire to take my eyes off the road and enjoy the view. I stole glances into the mountains and over the edge during the fleeting moments I felt confident enough in my safety. There were times that the road’s cliff-like edge was merely inches from my tires (occasionally as a car/van drove passed me on the inside of the road) but I oddly felt invincible on the bike… that is until Kelly fell.

I heard a quick, terrifying scream within seconds of mounting our bikes after a lookout break and knew in my heart it was Kelly. I immediately jumped off my bike and turned around to find Kelly on the ground attempting to recover from a headfirst fall over her handlebars. After slowly getting up, she realized she was unable to move her wrist or fingers – and we realized she was unable to get back on her bike. Even if she wanted to ride, the intense force of the bike tearing down the bumpy road called for a firm grip on the handlebars – one that was even difficult for a strong arm/hand to maintain the whole ride… one that she could no longer make. Seeing Kelly finish the ride in the back of a van with a (later diagnosed) fractured wrist instilled an all-new level of fear in me. She lost control of her bike while trying to adjust her elbow pads – something I had been fidgeting with all morning. I suddenly realized how serious this ride was (apparently the name didn’t do that for me) while also realizing how lucky she/we were that the consequences weren’t much worse. I tried to be a little more cautious of keeping my eyes on the road and my hands on the bike while still allowing myself to get caught up in the adventure.

standing in front of "death corner" - narrow part of the road where most automobiles fall over the edge

Agata, Kevin, Kelly (injured), me and the Andes Mountains
(Agata and I were too hot to keep our pants up, and I'm sporting a sweet farmers tan from the Isla del Sol hike)

The end of the route met us with a beautiful, relaxing area where we were able to shed our gear and collapse with exhaustion by a pool that overlooked the mountains we were unable to fix our eyes on while biking. We soaked our feet, analyzed Kelly’s arm, shared laughter through grunts of pain and ate lunch before getting in the van for what would become the most painful part of my Death Road experience.

not a bad place to finish the ride

recovering

I can honestly say I felt safer riding down that mountain on a bicycle than I did riding up it in a van! I held my breath and looked away each time we had to share the narrow road with an oncoming automobile - and the anxiety of flipping over the edge didn’t help the sharp pains I was feeling in my stomach. I’ll spare you the gory details… but let’s just say I was suddenly crippled with what could only be described as food poisoning and spent the 3-hour ride back to La Paz forcing the driver to stop, and the 6 other passengers to wait, while I was violently ill on the side of Death Road (in multiple places)! But while I was fighting the pain and Kelly was fighting the tears from her arm being jolted with each bump, something incredible happened… “Stand by Me” came on the radio in our miserable van navigating the world’s most dangerous road and the entire atmosphere shifted. Kevin provided the baritone as our motley crew of defeated thrill-seeking travelers slowly began singing and laughing.

We spent the next morning in a Bolivian hospital getting Kelly’s arm reset and put in a cast. That experience was one of the most obvious moments in my life where I realized the importance of being able to communicate. The doctor knew very little English and I tried to understand what he said in Spanish as he twisted Kelly’s arm and stabbed her with needles (yes, it was that dramatic…if not more!) but I couldn’t. I was brutally reminded that my need to learn Spanish is more than a luxury but a means of survival down here!

Kelly's Bolivian cast

I later had my own experience with a South American hospital. It turns out I was not suffering from food poisoning during our ride back from Death Road. I know this because I was horribly sick for almost 3 weeks before I went to a hospital in Argentina. I did finally recover - AFTER 4 hours in the dirty yet free hospital (that must double as a homeless shelter), having blood drawn by a gloveless nurse on a bed next to an open box of used needles, giving a “caca” sample (you don’t want to know that story) and taking a lot of prescription drugs. Luckily I had my friend Megan there to translate the Spanish-speaking doctors/nurses/lab people for me and provide entertainment/laughter in light of the traumatizing circumstances! Thank you, Bolivia.

sick, sad and disgusted at the hospital in Buenos Aires

an unBOLIVIAble trip (part 2)

Bolivia: August 14-23, 2010
Part 2: Stuck in La Paz & Sucre

The 3-hour bus ride back to La Paz was almost as sketchy as the city we left behind. I drifted in and out of consciousness – catching glimpses of the sunset over small towns and placid waters before being dislodged to cross Lake Titicaca. There is one point in the journey were everyone has to get off the bus and board a small passenger boat while the bus crosses on a raft-like boat next to you. This didn’t feel as awkward on the way to Copacabana because that was during the day, but there was something very uncomfortable about crossing during the night with people crammed next to each other, no life jackets and no lights on any of the boats or docks. I would have been more nervous if it weren’t for Kevin’s distracting laughter at what an “experience” Bolivia is compared to the rest of the functioning world. That laughter continued when our bus was later stopped so the police could “check for drugs” as we heard others unloading packages in the back of the bus (I’m not implying anything illegal happened… but it was sketchy).

We woke up on Wednesday (Aug. 18) to our typical Bolivia breakfast: bread, butter and jam and set out to wander the streets of La Paz. We originally planned to leave La Paz this day for Salar de Uyuni where we were going to take a 3-day Jeep tour of the world’s largest salt flat. Unfortunately the miners in Potosi chose to go on strike during our trip to Bolivia so traveling to Uyuni was impossible due to roadblocks and potential danger. I have to admit I was most excited about seeing this part of Bolivia and am now left with this desire to return one day (at least my visa is valid for 5 years). Since we weren’t going to see Uyuni and Potosi anymore… we decided to stay in La Paz and mountain bike what is known as “El Camino de la Muerte.” Yes, we decided to mountain bike Death Road! (That adventure will be a separate post.)

La Paz struck me as a rather dirty city with typical market streets filled with vendors, backpackers and panhandlers. La Paz struck me as a rather dirty city with typical market streets filled with vendors, backpackers and panhandlers. We purchased artisan jewelry, took a cab to the top of the hill to look out over the city and took pictures of llama fetuses for sale in the witches market. Llama fetuses are believed to bring good luck when offered to Pachamama (Mother Earth) in Bolivia.

La Paz from Mirador Killi-Killi (the lookout)

our crew overlooking La Paz
(L-R: Agata, Kelly, Me, Kevin)

an uncharacteristically quiet market street
(La Paz could probably use some wiring advice)

Witches Market - notice the llamas

One interesting site we saw in La Paz was San Pedro Prison. Rusty Young’s book “Marching Powder” details the abnormal penal system of this prison where the inmates basically govern themselves and function as a small community. Family members actually live with the inmates but are free to come and go as they please. We saw children entering the prison in their school uniforms as normally as if they were entering their houses. Women walked through the front gate with excessive quantities of items they were clearly going to sell or trade on the inside (one had crates of eggs, another had toilet paper). Many travelers take illegal tours through the prison conducted by inmates and supposedly worth the $400-ish Bolivianos. We weren’t able to take a tour, but I did take a few pictures – which I was immediately forced by a heavily armed prison guard to delete.

entrance to San Pedro Prison in La Paz
(I pretended to delete all of my pictures but really only deleted the last one)

We finally left La Paz on Friday (Aug. 20) and took the overnight bus to Bolivia’s constitutional capital: Sucre. Driving into the city that morning felt like we were entering another country. It is immediately apparent why Sucre is known as the “white city” because nearly everything in the city is painted white – from the colonial-style buildings to the trees.

Sucre: the white city

My research tells me that Sucre is home to one of the first universities in the world, and it’s said that the liberal thinkers of Sucre took the first steps toward independence in South America. The reason I was even tempted to research the history of Sucre is because the image of a cracked bell (much like our Liberty Bell) caught my eye in many forms and places throughout the white city. Turns out the Campana de la Libertad (Bolivia’s Liberty Bell) rang out across the city in 1809 as the (16-year) revolution for independence began. Our hostel attendant told me the bell recently cracked on May 25, 2009, when used in honor of the bicentennial celebration of independence (but I can’t find anything online to support that fact).

Sucre is a relatively short bus ride to Potosi (silver mining town). Kelly and I decided to check out the bus situation since we didn’t get to see Potosi/Uyuni during the strike. It was the walk to the bus station that changed the course of the day. I have never felt more like a walking target than I did on the way to that bus station dressed in my tennis shoes, sweater dress, purple scarf and North Face jacket. I could see the fear of imminent danger reflected in the faces of people we passed on the streets: children stared at us as if in awe of their first tourist sighting; adults watched us like lost puppies about to cross a highway. We stopped to ask a young girl for directions to the bus station and, after pointing us in the general direction, she advised us not to go. She told us it was unsafe for us and said she might go, but she is Bolivian; we are not. We continued on, but we were so crippled by mal onda (bad vibes) by the time we reached the station that we decided to forgo our trip to Potosi and return to drinking beers, playing cards and relaxing with Agata and Kevin (who we would part ways with the next morning). I later received an e-mail from Agata reinforcing our decision to trust our instincts because they were almost robbed in a cab in Potosi the next day (fake police tricking tourists to abandon belongings in cabs apparently happens often there – luckily Kevin read about it before the trip and didn’t fall for it).

We talked about life and travel over beers in the park before flying to Santa Cruz on Sunday (Aug. 22). I watched the Bolivian children beg for money in multiple languages and wondered what their lives were like outside of the park. I’d love to see a documentary following the life of a shoe-shinning Bolivian child learning the ways of the world solely from the tourists he begs for money. More importantly, I’d like to see where that child is in 20 years! One of the children who offered to shine our (tennis) shoes knew the capital of almost every country (Agata stumped him with Poland), knew more about France’s president than we did (therefore outing Kevin for lying about being from France), showed us the change he had “collected” from all over the world and said he wanted to be Justin Bieber when he grew up (singing us part of Bieber’s hit song “Baby”).

our park in Sucre

Our night in Santa Cruz followed the recurring sketchy theme of the trip. After our cab pulled up to our hostel surrounded by what I’m inclined to believe were gang members and prostitutes, we rerouted ourselves to a new hostel suggested by the driver. Even there we immediately locked the door, pushed our beds together and ate crackers to avoid leaving for dinner. Perhaps Santa Cruz has more to offer than I give it credit for – we were only there for the night and clearly selected the wrong neighborhood – but it didn’t do much for me but make me crave Buenos Aires.

It felt incredible to come “home” to beds, showers and clean toilets after 10 exhausting days of carrying my 25 lb backpack all over Bolivia. While I was admittedly ready for it to be over… the impact of that trip will forever be ingrained in my mind and soul!

You may conclude by reading this that I found the trip sketchy and uncomfortable. Yes, at times. However, I mostly found Bolivia eye opening and unparalleled by anything I’ve ever seen. I was uncomfortable with the lack of running water on Isla del Sol (making for interesting toilet situations) but mesmerized by the sunrise over Lake Titicaca. I was frustrated by the packed, filthy streets of La Paz but calmed by the nightly orange and blue lights that blanketed the city in resemblance to something a Gator fan might create with a Lite-Brite (a personal childhood favorite). I was shocked by the disregard for safety regulations on the high-traffic tourist attraction of Death Road but experienced a rush of euphoric emotions while biking through the unedited trail tracing the edge of the unenclosed mountain. I was annoyed with the incessant begging in Sucre but entranced by the lives of those attached to the out-reached hands. My limits of personal comfort were stretched at times, but I loved (almost) every moment of it!

A few helpful lessons I learned in Bolivia:
- plans will change…adapt
- never hike unprepared (however short you may think it will be)
- rely on the unreliability of transportation
- be careful what you eat
- always carry toilet paper
- TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS

an unBOLIVIAble trip

Bolivia: August 14-23, 2010
Part 1: La Paz & Isla del Sol

My friend Agata is one of the first people I talked to when I was thinking about moving to Argentina. I remember pacing on the phone outside of my office listening to her words of encouragement and promise to visit after her bar exam. About six months later, we were planning our trip to Bolivia! Agata and I logged hours of online research and Skype conversations planning each detail of the adventure. We mapped out how long we were to stay in each place and how long it would take us to get to the next. We had a solid plan that would allow us to see and experience as much of Bolivia as we possibly could in 9 days!

Well… you know what they say about the best laid plans… a combination of current events and accidents changed our course significantly, but we all adapted well and embraced each turn of events. I’m going to try to break this trip up into a few entries due to the length and significance of the trip. Keep in mind as you’re reading that I’m writing for my family and friends to follow my adventures, but also to serve as a reminder to myself when I read this blog years from now.

This trip to Bolivia was perfectly timed for a few reasons: I needed to renew my 90-day Argentina visitor’s visa, I was feeling an itch to get out of Buenos Aires, I was craving something/one familiar from home and it was a distraction from the fact that I had to say goodbye to Damien. Damien was returning to France the same day that Kelly and I left for Bolivia. He has become a close friend over the past few months and saying goodbye to him was very difficult – though I know we will find each other again one of these days… somewhere on the map.

Kelly and I spent our first night in Bolivia playing cards and sharing beers with our hostel-mates in La Paz. Are you all starting to pick up on a recurring theme here? I experienced altitude sickness for the first time on Sunday morning when we woke up to catch the bus to Copacabana. This was our first shift in plans. Both of us were unable to get out of bed because we were nauseous and lightheaded. I could barely walk to the bathroom, so I certainly couldn’t put on my 11.5kg backpack (just over 25 lbs)! Yes, I know how heavy my backpack was because they weighed it at the airport and I was cursing that number for the next 9 days.

We wandered the streets of La Paz for a few hours before boarding the three-hour bus to Copacabana. We watched part of a service in a church, paid our respects to those no longer with us in a beautiful cemetery and took pictures of Bolivian women dressed in traditional garb carrying babies in make-shift swaddles and selling vegetables on the side of the road.

Vegetables on the streets of La Paz

I didn’t think Copacabana was anything to write home about, so I won’t waste blog space saying more than this: the streets were dirty, the hostel was dull and our food was bland, but the sunset over Lake Titicaca was beautiful.

Copacabana

Monday (Aug. 16) is when the trip really began for me. We piled onto a small, rickety boat and began the two-hour voyage across Lake Titicaca to Isla del Sol. I sat on the top of the boat listening to fellow travelers and reflecting on my own knowledge and experiences. As I listened to Aiden recount the history of fighting in his home of Northern Ireland, I realized how little I know about the world and even my own country’s history. How many places have I seen without learning more than what it looks like through the lens of my camera? I suppose that’s one of the hard parts of traveling – there is always someone who has been somewhere you haven’t. Meeting these people only feeds my addiction to travel and my desire to be more culturally knowledgeable, but that’s a whole separate blog entry.

Our first mission when we got off the boat on the south side of the island was to climb to our hostel. I stood there at the foot of what had to be hundreds of steps, strapped myself into my backpack, tightened my new hiking boots and reminded myself to take advantage of each moment. I was sitting on the side of the walkway about forty steps later struggling to catch my breath (I blame the altitude) and cursing my habit of over packing! Kelly and I laughed at one point when we thought of how proud my dad would be of us “load walking” up a mountain in Bolivia.

looking up the stairs to the top of the mountain

side view of the steep mountain we had to climb

After we ditched our backpacks in the hostel (which we didn’t end up staying in), Kelly and I walked across the island to Temple del Sol. The stone establishment known as Pilko Kaina (meaning “resting house” in the Incan language) was interesting, but I was naturally more attracted to the water. I sat on a dock stretching into Lake Titicaca wondering how I got to be so blessed in life!

native woman looking out over Lake Titicaca - between the south village and resting house

Lake Titicaca

I was a little nervous about meeting Kevin and Agata on the Isla del Sol because we didn’t have phones or an Internet connection, and I wasn’t sure if they got my last e-mail with hostel information while they were in Peru. Ever wonder how people function without cell phones and Internet? Well approximately 800 families on Isla del Sol do it every day. Luckily there is only one set of stairs ascending the mountain, and we met Agata and Kevin as they were reaching the top. Our goal was to meet their boat to be sure they got off on the south side (the boats then continue to the north side) but we didn’t notice the time change and started walking down an hour late. I was immediately thankful they knew to get off – and even more thankful I didn’t have to walk up the stairs again! We walked around for a while with the group finally together then resorted to playing cards in the restaurant by our (new, cheaper) hostel.

We woke up before sunrise on Tuesday (Aug. 17) morning to hike to the north side of Isla del Sol. We were told the hike would take a couple hours, but to give you an idea of how little we knew about this island: Agata thought there would be bars and ATMs on the other side.

Kevin & Agata leading the way to the north of Isla del Sol

I’m inclined to describe this hike as one of the most physically difficult things I’ve endured, but I know that’s a little over dramatic. I think it just felt more difficult because I wasn’t prepared for the strenuous hike ahead of us. We set out on a 6 km path that would take us around the island but somehow found ourselves on the 16 km path after we missed an unmarked fork in the road (Kevin said he noticed it and I’m still bitter that he didn’t point it out). The sun was strong, our water was sparse and the altitude was just less than 4,000 meters.

I began to view each stint of level ground as sacred – a chance to catch my breath and remove my eyes from the rocks I struggled to pick my feet up over so I could shift them to the beautiful landscape surrounding me. I could feel the sun beating down on me as I prayed for shady relief from the heat and my burning flesh. I tried to remind myself to simply put one foot in front of the other as I felt the weight of my boots dragging me down with each step.

looking/feeling rough but loving the view

We didn’t find bars or ATMs on the north side. In fact, we didn’t even find open restaurants or a place to buy drinking water. We walked along the beaches and through the houses of the north side taking pictures, taking breaks and giving Kevin hell. “Kevin, I just realized we only have enough Bolivianos to get three of us off this island,” was my exact response when he informed us that we should climb over the mountain we were walking around and pick up the trail on the other side.

took a shortcut over the mountain
Kevin (look close to the water) and Agata leading the way down the side of the mountain to meet the trail again

still looking for the trail - which Kevin claimed he could see from the top of the mountain

north side of Isla del Sol

I could barely eat or drink when we got back to the hostel. I just wanted to sit and wallow in my sunburned, exhausted misery for the few minutes we had before putting on my 11.5kg backpack and walking down the mountain to catch the 2-hour boat ride back to Copacabana. But at the end of the day, it suddenly all seemed worth it for the pictures and sense of accomplishment I had after the hike.

Che Guevara

If there is one person you should know when moving to Argentina, it’s Ernesto “Che” Guevara. His name is often used in political conversations, reflections on history and as a term of endearment between friends. Even just the term “Che” has become slang for “buddy” or “dude” down here. I liked the movie “Motorcycle Diaries” enough to own it and in turn thought I knew Che Guevara – I was wrong.

Motorcycle Che rode through South America

During our “family vacation” to Cordoba in July, we all took a short bus trip outside of the city to visit Che’s house in Alta Gracia. This house (now museum) is allegedly where Che grew up, but many places claim to own a piece of Che’s life. Rosario claims his birth, Alta Gracia claims his childhood, Bolivia claims his death and Cuba claims his remains…and heart. Most of South America holds a piece of his revolutionary spirit and legacy.

Samm and Jake entering Che's house

I am not going to write a history lesson on this revolutionary Marxist and his guerilla warfare, because I truthfully don’t know enough about him to do it justice. But I will write about how being in his house, looking at his pictures, standing next to his motorcycle and reading translations of his letters to family and Fidel Castro made me feel. Enlightened yet ignorant. Empowered yet insignificant. Mesmerized, motivated and suddenly completely confused about my own political beliefs.

I left Che Guevara’s house with the desire to fight for something. I don’t know what I want to fight for and don’t really even know what I want to do with my life, but I guess I have time to figure that out. Even Che changed his “profession” many times before finding his passion and place in history. Though I may not agree with all of Che’s political statements and tactics, I found his steadfast commitment and unwavering fight for change inspiring. Unfortunately, he wasn't very good at growing a full beard!

Che in his younger (more attractive) years

Please don’t let this post worry you that I’m going to come back a Marxist or some anti-imperialism radical. I am not; but I will say that I am certainly not returning to the United States of America with the same political views I had when I left. Though I guess that’s to be expected from an expat who spends a year (or so) on the outside looking in before eventually finding the way home.

hanging out with little, bronze Che

the clothes off his back

powerful letter written to Fidel (translated into English)

"...always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone anywhere in the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary."
- a letter to his children, Oct. 1966