DID a PA job March 27th for Autofuss Studios. Took us four guys about 10- hours to unload, prep and adequately apply white paint to two huge yellow industrial robotic arms (similar to the one pictured above). The arms were planned to be used in a Louis Vuitton promotion featuring imminent NASA astronauts. An additional robot (painted the previous day), had mounted to it the cutting-edge state-of-the-art Red Camera.

With my buddy Abdou at the California Bears vs. Washington State Cougars basketball game in Haas Pavilion, Saturday evening, February 6th. Cal won the close and exciting game, 71- 63.

When we were kids, my dad would frequently tell us that "money don't grow on trees", so I was glad when my cell quietly chirped the morning of Wednesday the 19th (Happy 41st to Dee!). Mr. Westerman was calling to ask if I was working that day, and did I want to make $200. About 90 minutes later, I was driving to Montara State Beach to work as a Production Assistant on a single day video shoot for some pharmaceutical company. That's yours truly in the background of the photo in red, sweeping sand along with Westerman. Beautiful beach. But boy was it cold (brrrrr!!!). Those stepping stones don't look so formidable in the photo, but they were heavy. After completion of the shoot, we had to drag them across the sand, six-at-a-time, atop a furny (moving blanket), then about seven of us daisy-chained them up some very steep stairs, before they were put back into the moving van.

Muchos gracias a Jihyun for sending me the pic.

Friday, November 14, 2008
With Mutabaruka at the San Francisco Green Festival.

Election Day 2008!

my mom and i casting our votes in Pittsburg, California.

PA's, grips, camera crew and director setting up a shot.

Yours truly with the insuperable Mr. Michael Westerman.

Art Director, Dylan Kahn

On October 17, 18 & 20, I worked on a shoot for a Honda car commercial at Lafayette Square Park in downtown Oakland.

The job was fun (and hard work!). We laid a lot of sod (Saturday turned out to be "Sod Day"), and hung too many Christmas lights in that big tree in the photograph. Turned out none of the lights showed up in the shoot, and the ones that did, particularly those we painstakingly wrapped around the trunk of the tree, did show, but apparently so much so, that the lady from the agency requested we take'em down!

Had the pleasure to work with a great group of Los Angeles fellas, especially our very cool and funny Art Director, Mr. Dylan Kahn (pictured above), who apparently was diggin' the scene to such an extent he had to git down wit one-ah dose Oaktown tees.

Muchas gracias a Tina Tamale for taking and forwarding the photo with Michael. If you happen to find yourself in downtown Oakland with a grumbling tummy, be sure to check out La Borinqueña Mex-icatessen & Specialty Shop.

And that's a wrap!

The PA Squad (l-r) Hiawatha, Yasmine, David, and Joshua.

On Saturday, September 20th, I had the opportunity to work in Corte Madera as a production assistant for Tom Donald Films. We were shooting a promotion I am not at liberty to divulge after signing an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). Arrived at an empty house at 6:45am, and by about 9am, the place was jam packed with people and equipment. It was a lot of fun. A great group of folk. I learned how to install floorboard, and that the term "C47" is production-speak for "clothespin". I was also able to participate in the shoot as the slate handler (and let me tell you, actors work hard. The two actresses did about 50 takes, as well as a lot of sitting and waiting). The house we shot in was beautiful. Gorgeous weather. And the catered food (breakfast and lunch!) was sumptuous.

The Rocinha Favela Tour On Friday, February 1, I participated in a tour of the Rocinha Favela with a Rio de Janeiro organization called Be A Local. I met a small SUV at the bottom of the street of the hostel, and drove about 20 minutes with 6 others to the bottom of the favela which rises up the Rio hillside. Each of us then hopped on the back of a motorcycle taxi (we guys were explicitly instructed not to put our arms around the drivers' body - this was OK (of course) for the women! - but instead, but to hold on to the seat handles), which zoomed us up a crowded street which wound up to about midpoint of the hill. After disembarking the motorcycles, we were given a brief history of Rocinha by our tour guide and instructed not to take photos of any kids holding guns (they turned out to be automatic rifles!), and to be careful to avoid walking into the middle of a gunfight should one break out between the cops and the gangsters (I'm not kidding, these were actual instructions). Then we walked into Rocinha. "Favela" means "slum" in Portuguese. Rocinha is home to about 300,000 people, making it not only the largest favela in Rio, but the most populous in all of Central and South America . Rocinha had quite an effect on me and made me reassess my idea of "wealth" & "poverty". To witness the dignity and spirit of the people in Rocinha, particularly the children, I considered one of the most valuable experiences of my visit to Brazil. The following are some photos from inside Rocinha favela:

These boys put on quite a concert for us playing a very rhythmically sophisticated composition on cans and scrap metal (the tall boy with the white cap and black shirt lead the ensemble playing a small, but very loud hand drum similar to a tambourine without the medal discs).

Notice the dwellings are made of brick and mortar.

Most have no windows.

These two photos are taken from the top of Rocinha.

Muito obrigado! to Sivan Gefen for sending me these pics.

Walking through the turnstile to enter the Sambodromo.

Rio de Janeiro: in the Sambodromo, Sunday night, February 3, 2008.

The famous samba school Sao Clemente is in the background.

Back to Cali
On February 6th, I flew from Rio to Miami Beach, and from there to St. Petersburg, Florida to visit the Salvador Dali Museum.

In St. Petersburg I took the Greyhound Bus to Orlando to visit my friend Mr. Bryan Zell. We rode roller coasters at Universal Studios Orlando and did some fine dining and partying at the Bob Marley - A Tribute to Freedom Restaurant.

On February 22nd I flew from Orlando to Oakland.

Rio de Janeiro

A new person joined our dorm this evening. Her name is Nafir (spl???) from Israel & she´s just completed her army duty there. She is traveling solo & arrived in Rio today after 4 hectic days of flying & lay-overs including Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Sao Paulo & Rio. I told her I was from California. She said she didn´t like Los Angeles very much & was surprised to discover that many people there didn´t have passports, nor had ever been outside of the county. She said in Israel, a high school graduate is required to join the army - 2 years for young women, 3 years for young men. After completion of army duty, she said, a person is expected to travel for 3 months to 2 years before returning to civilian life to enter college, or to gain employment.

This afternoon, i saw a guy jogging along Copacabana beach balancing a full liter plastic bottle of Coca-Cola on his head!

Rio de Janeiro

i have met many Europeans as i have traveled, & what fascinates me about them is how much they travel. i think i already mentioned the 23-year old on the boat to Panama that quit his job so he could travel for many months throughout Asia. There was a young woman Camille that i met at the hostel in Olinda who has traveled for 10 months in Asia & is currently traveling in South America for an indefinite period of time. There is the young fellow in my dorm from Wales. He & his buddy, "sick" of their jobs, quit their jobs, took their savings & booked in advance an intinerary that includes all prepaid airfare, deposits on all hotels & hostels, safaris in Africa, & travel around the world for the next 18-months! Another fellow in my dorm, John from Amsterdam, 2-years my junior, has quit his job on at least 2 occasions & consummated two 10-month traveling stints including Africa & Asia. He says in Europe, the reputation of Americans is that we work too much. When I said something to him about "2 weeks per year time off for vacation", he shrugged, chuckled & said it´s funny, because he says that to Europeans, "America" symbolizes "freedom", yet what Americans do with this freedom is work.

Rio de Janiero, Brazil

"What would u attempt to do

if u knew

u could not fail?"

i am happy to report i am writing to you from Rio de Janiero. i arrived this morning via a quiet 20 hour bus ride from Porto Seguro. i´ve just checked into the Rio Backpackers hostel in Copacabana.

Olinda, Brasil

Hobbled into Olinda yesterday after a short 20 minute or so bus ride from Recife. i say "hobbled" because i caught Moctezuma´s Revenge on the Amazon River Ferry (8 days ago, get my drift?), since yesterday i started experiencing the symptoms of a cold i probably the little kid sitting next to me on the lonnnnnggggg bus ride from Belem to Recife who kept sneezing on me & my iPod, & somewhere i mysteriously tweaked my right ankle. that said, my timing apparently is good in getting to Olinda, because they have 2 Carnaval celebrations, & the 1st 3-day celebration starts tonight @ 8pm! How i ended up in Olinda is a result of meeting a musician when i came across the border from Venezuela. He noticed my cornet case & i told him i was headed to Carvanal in Bahia & hoped to play my instrument in the celebration. he said the music in Bahia was more guitar based & suggested i check out Olinda, where the music centered around brass instrumentation, & there was a chance i could join one of the orchestras. Also, on the last day on the Amazon Star i met a French couple, & the husband asked his wife to speak with me because she spoke english. i told her my plan to visit Olinda. She said Olinda was beautiful & she recommended a place to stay there, the Pousada d'Olinda.

The Pousada d'Olinda is lovely. It is similar to a hostel. I have a 4 bed (2 bunks) dorm, that i now share with a fellow who speaks english (!), a young college student from Maine named Eric who just arrived this morning. The pousada includes complimentary breakfast with fresh fruit & fruit juice, & they have excellent buffet-style lunch & dinner (fresh vegetables, yay!!!), for $5,99 reals (about $3.75US). There's also a small swimming pool & hammocks.

Last night i got to sit in the 2nd trumpet chair in one of the Carnaval orchestras. The orchestra had 8 trumpet players, about 10 saxophone players, 8 to 10 trombone playesrs, tuba, & a bunch of drummers. They play a music style called frevo, a fast paced, booming, thundering music. According to the women who told me about the rehearsal, this style of music originated in Olinda 100 years ago. The horn lines were like Charlie Parker solos! Either it was the room acoustics, or everyone was playing at fff (triple fortissimo aka "very loud"). i woke up this morning thinking i had lost some hearing in my left ear (seems like it´s cleared up now). After the rehearsal water break, & i returned to my chair i was sure to put in my earplugs.

Recife, Brasil
From Manaus, i took a 5 day trip up the Amazon River on a ferry called The Amazon Star. The Amazon is a huge river, supposedly the largest in the world. This means that there is a section we came to where u could see land on the left side of the boat, but off in the distance to the right, there was just the horizon which made it seem like we were on the ocean. the trip included 3 meals a day - banana or slice of watermelon, bun, & coffee, for breakfast; rice, noodles, beans, stewmeat, & water, buffet style for lunch & dinner. brazilenos are also fond of smothering their food with manioc meal. Manioc meal looks like crude cornmeal, but is a lot tougher to chew.

In spite of the kind & generous email advice of Mr. Volker Poelzl, whom i contacted prior to initiating this project, & having read his article "Travel in South America by Boat", i still managed to get into a bit of a mix-up. It goes like this: firstly i speak essentially no Portuguese, and understand even less. on Monday, i bought a 1st Class ticket for the boat. the ticket was for a departure time of 12 noon, and the agent even wrote down on paper to make sure i understood "12:00pm". Mr. Poelzl´s article mentioned the necessity of a hammock. in front of the ferry terminal were over 50 vender booths. i surveyed all of them & not a one was selling hammocks. i also didn´t notice anyone getting off any of the ferries with a hammock. so the next day, i go through my phrase book, & thought i figured out how to write out the question in Portuguese "Do I need a hammock on the boat?". i return to one of the ticket agents, slip the note under the window, she reads it, then looks up at me absolutely puzzled. so i say "hede?" ("hammock" in Portuguese), & after exchanging gesticulations & facial expressions & bad Portuguese on my part & minimal english on hers, & after she smiled, & raised her arm to make one final gesture, i interpreted this to mean "Dude, no worries. U have a 1st Class ticket. This includes a hammock, or maybe even your own private cabin." (WRONG!!!) So, like i said, my ticket says the ferry leaves at noon. Wednesday, i get to the terminal & board the boat about 11:15am. get checked in, go upstairs to the First Class area, & low & behold, there they were, hammocks
! so i found one i liked, set my backpack & cornet in the designated area for luggage, & swung in my hammock ´til noon, then 1, then 2, then 3... Now, all this time there are people boarding the ferry, & setting up their hammocks. To the left of me were 2 vacant hammocks, & to the right of me 1 vacant hammock. At about 15 minutes after 3, a guy enters my area, with apparently his wife & 2 kids "claiming" (as i´m surmising from his Portuguese that i do not understand), that he bought all 4 of these hammocks, that they belong to him & i need to leave. so one of the ferry employees comes over, escorts me off the boat, and about 15 steps off the boat is a guy sellling hammocks. i buy one (turns out it was too small), return to the boat to the hammock deck & set mine up. i return to the guy, and say "desculpa" ("sorry"), & we shake hands. so, this means that, although the ticket agent emphatically insisted i understand the boat departed at noon, & even though my ticket was written with departure time of 12 noon, this guy & his family knew the boat was not leaving until at least 3:15pm, & not only that, got to the boat before me, to set their hammocks. Go figure.

arrived here in Recife Monday evening after a 20 hour bus ride from Belem.
I am now a short bus ride from Salvador & am trying to arrange lodging in Salvador before i get there.

i am currently at the "Shopping Recife", a huge mall, including restaurants with waiters in white jackets.

Manaus, BrazilWell, i have made it to Brazil aka Fruit Juice & Smoothie Heaven.
The story goes a little bit like this:
On Thursday, December 27th, in Caracas, in the Montserrat Hotel, as I´m going up the stairs to my room, I run into a guy coming down the stairs. He says “buenas”, I say “buenas tarde”. he says, “are u American?”, I say yes. So, the night before the day i´m to check out (of course), I meet this guy Nate, who is celebrating his 4 year anniversary to his beautiful Venezuelan bride Irina.

The next morning, after picking up my passport from the Brazilian Consulate, I return to the Montserrat, gather my things, go down to the lobby to check out, and Nate & Irina are in the lobby. They reside in Minnesota. Nate is in the insurance business, and Irina is a columnist for a Venezuelan newspaper. They offer to walk me to the bus terminal to assist me in purchasing a ticket. The bus doesn´t leave intil 7:30pm, so we hang out. Irina takes us to one of her favorite restaurants for breakfast. We walk over to the Parque del Este & hang out there for awhile. On the lawn at the cultural center behind the Montserrat there is a free live music concert featuring a variety of bands, in preparation. We get in line to go in. The line is divided boy/girl. And while we wait, two guys go through each line distributing a single condom to each of the guys, and a female condom to each of the women. After being searched & admitted, it turns out the concert is not starting ´til much later, so we take a few photos, @ return to the hotel to wait for Irina´s friends. After their friends arrive, we hang out & talk for a while, then go out to purchase baseball tickets (baseball is Venezuela´s favorite sport) for Irina & Nate (coincidentally, Nate was wearing a classic San Francisco jersey T-shirt from the days when Nate Thurmond played for the Warriors), for the next evening, and then we went in search for dinner, finally settling on a sushi restaurant. The food was good, but the service was lousy, so, instead of money, we left one of the condoms as a tip! Returned to the hotel, got my backpack & my horn, said our farewells to Irina´s friends at the Altamira Metro station (a block away from the hotel), then Nate & Irina walked me to the bus station, & Irina assisted me in navigating the crowded terminal & getting on the bus. It was really a joy to have met them & be able to hang out with them on this day.

Caracas to Ciudad Bolivar via Bus

It was about a 12 hour bus ride to Ciudad Bolivar, and i arrived there the next morning at about 6:30. The featured film was "Inside Man" starring Denzel Washington, that consistently froze at the most crucial parts (though i had scene it already last year when it came out). Irina suggested i book a tour in Bolivar to visit the famous Angel Falls, but to be honest, i was ready to get out of Venezuela. After walking around for 2 hours in vain to find an ATM that would give me some bolivares because i got on the bus with only 2000, i finally bargained for a 60,000 Bs ticket to Santa Elena, for $21US plus the 2,000 Bs.

Ciudad Bolivar to Santa Elena by Bus

About 12 hours to Santa Elena. Though my ticket read "Servicio Ejectivo", this was not one of those big, cushy buses, designed for a long trip. To the contrary, this bus was small, the space between my seat and the seat in front of me was cramped, and i was squeezed between the window, and a gigantic 20-something. To add insult to injury, for 4 or 5 hours ), the bus driver blasted latin big band music from the 40´s & 50´s , and then for the remaining 7 to 8 hours, latin ballads from the 60´'s(?) featuring vocalists, guitar, drums, & this eerie sounding organ. Pure misery.

Santa Elena

Arrive in Santa Elena at about 6:30 at night. Santa Elena is about 10 miles from the border with Brazil. As soon as i walk off the bus, i´m face to face with a "man" in the form of a mustachioed pit bull in camouflagearmy fatigues. He asks to see my passport. I show it to him. He holds on to it & with his arm, signals me to follow him. We walk into a room with a desk and a few chairs. He closes the door. Asks to search my cornet case & my backpack (i can never quite understand what these guys are looking for - "brains"?, "courage"?). Then another guy in the form of a pitbull (no mustache on this one), in army camouflage fatigues enters the room. Were they lovers? (well, they were dressed alike, and sometimes couples do that as a sign of their affection for one another). In my backpack was my money belt. Mr. Mustache finds & unzips it to find about $1,000 in U.S. bills. He then started talking some dog doo-doo to me in spanish about "declaracion" & "illegal" & i was like "hay una problema?" & "no intiendo" (i said that a lot). Then his lover wanted to get in on the fun, saying in spanish did i want to give them a Chistmas present (!!!). I could get on a soapbox here about "men" abusing their authority, but i don't want to digress too much. Suffice it to say, after i said "no intiendo" one too many times, & these fools not having the courage to just take my money, there was some unspoken signal that this charade was over, and i put my backpack on, grabbed my cornet, walked out of that office, and out of the terminal, into a dark, unlit street, and started walking. i walked to my left for a while, then decided to turn around, and walk the other way. And i walked, and walked, and walked in the dark, on the narrow shoulder of the street, trying to stay out of the way of speeding cars, until i passed by a sign that read "Suites Refugios Cristal". I almost walked past it because i thought they were apartments. But i decided to inquire. There was a door with a sign that said "Abierto", so I opened it. Inside was a young girl on the computer, and i asked her in spanish if she had rooms available, and she called for another woman (turned out to be her mother), who came in & started laughing when i asked her for a room. She took me to one of the suites. It was huge. 2 bedrooms. 5 beds. livingroom & kitchen. i was thinking to myself no way am i going to be able to afford this on the $20US i had exchanged at one of the stores we stopped at on the bus to Santa Elena. She said "treinta y cinco"(35), and i said "treinta y cinco mil?", and she nodded yes (i got 80 mil for my 20). I said i´d take it. after paying her and dropping off my stuff in the room, i returned to the office to inquire about a nearby place to eat, and the woman was there with 3 other girls which i took to be her daughters, and when i asked, they started laughing, and one of the girls said something to her mom, and that´s when i realized what they were laughing about. They spoke Portuguese, not spanish! So i ran back to my room, got my phrasebook. Asked about a place to eat in (very poorly spoken) Portuguese, and understood the answer good enough to find a pizzaria about 7 minutes walking distance away. Ordered a vegetarian, and it was scrumptious.

Santa Elena to La Linea, the Border

Yesterday morning, checked out, and took a taxi to the border. The border between Venezuela & Brazil at La Linea is clean. No trash. No vendors. No money exchangers. No traffic (except for the taxi line to pass by the Venezuelan uniformed inspection officers). As we passed by the Brazilian immigration office, i told the taxi driver i was Americano & needed to get my passport stamped, so he let me out, i paid him. I went into the clean Brazilian office. The pleasant agent there, went through my passport, noticed i didn´t have an exit stamp from Venezuela & i explained to him in spanish that the taxi driver drove right past the Venezuelan office. He shrugged his shoulders, & stamped me into Brazil at about 12:30pm.

Took a bus from La Linea to Boa Vista. Then Boa Vista to Manaus. Neither bus had music nor were equipped with televisions. Tomorrow, i should be taking a ferry up the Amazon River to Belem. Brazil? So far, so good. The smoothies & fruit juices are fantabulous!

Caracas, Venezuela

Day 7

Well, tomorrow at 11am, i am scheduled to pick up my passport which should include my Brazilian visa. Then, i plan to catch a bus to Ciudad Bolivar.

Some final thoughts about Caracas. Caught the Metro twice today, and did much walking around. Today was a particularly good day because i serendipitously discovered a buffet that had a reasonable selection of food including (drum roll please) salad! fresh vegetables! lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado. This was for lunch. Later i went back for dinner & they weren`t offering food, only pastries. So i started walking again (i`m on the Venezuelan Plaza which is lined with shops for miles), walked through a door which seemed to open into a mall, & it indeed was the entrance to a small restaurant emporium which just so happened to offer one of my favorites - falafels. So i had a falafel for dinner (yum! yum!).

i´m about less than half a block away from the beautifully lit plaza that i mentioned in my previous post, & was sitting there for awhile, taking in the atmosphere on this my last night in Caracas, and it occurred to me how we never hear about Caracas in the news in The States. It seems to me that Caracas is the most civil & "peaceful" big city i have ever been in, and i´ve visited all the big cities in The States. I´ve been walking around for days, having observed thousands of people, young, old, & in between, and not once have i witnessed anyone acting out, acting rude, being loud & obnoxious. And with all the street vendors, have observed no instances of stealing. Not a single instance have i observed anyone fighting, or of a boy, teenager or man being disrespectful to a girl or woman. Boys walk around here civil, in their saggy, baggy jeans, & caps on backward. On the Metro (subway), i have observed more than once, men giving up there seat for a woman. Today i say a younger woman (not a teenager), give up her seat to an older woman. Speaking of the Metro. Some of the stations are very, very crowded. But people jam themselves into the trains orderly, with no pushing or shoving or bad attitudes.

It is common to see men & women walking with their children, holding their hands. Lovers holding hands. Boys & girls holding hands. As an outsider, because in general, everyone seems so cooperative (Venezuelans are cooperative, but they are not necessarily a smiley-face culture. In other words, a Venezuelan may be absolutely, sincerely courteous to you, but not necessarily give you a smile) (i guess, somewhat opposite from the states where someone may "smile in your face", but not necessarily be sincere), the people of Caracas seem like a family. And as i mentioned in a previous post, it seems common for families to go out together, mom, poppy & the kids.

Another interesting observation, or comment regarding what i´ve seen of culture in Mexico, Latin America, Colombia & Panama is this. The culture that u see down here, in my opinion, would be de facto illegal in the U.S. One example, and think i brought this up before, is that of street vendors, & particularly food vendors. Selling food on the street, as i understand it, is absolutely against the law in the US, due to health, sanitation, & zoning regulations. As a matter of fact, when i was residing in San Francisco some years back, a fellow who had worked with an organization called "Food Not Bombs", told me it was against San Francisco city law to distribute free cooked food on the street to the public.

Skin Color

One thing this place has brought up in myself, is my own skin color consciousness. What i mean is, & pardon me if this is a false generalization, but i think intrinsic to American "culture", or American "consciousness", is the awareness of a person´s skin color. We speak of "diversity", "people of color", "Asian-American", "Latino", "Black", "African-American", "White", "Caucasian", etc., etc. Here in Caracas, the skin color of people is anywhere from what we would call "white" to what we refer to as"black" (have never quite understood why in America we call a people, the majority of whom are brown in skin color, "black"), but mostly everybody is in between. In the park on Christmas, I saw families, where mom, dad & the kids, in our world, would all be considered of different "races". You see couples, and families, that we in the States would consider "mixed race" or "inter-racial". Colors mix comfortably here, and at least as an outside observer, i get no sense of this culture defining the "other" in terms of skin color. As I observe it, here, regardless of the lightness or darkness of your skin, you are Venezuelan. Period.

Stranded in Caracas, Venezuela

Compared to the other countries i have visited so far, this place is crazy expensive. A quick example: Big Mac, fries & soda costs 17,500 Bolivares (2,150 Bs per $1US). So that would be about $8. Now i don´t buy or eat Clown Food, but my suspicion is that Ronald´s customers in the states aren´t paying that much for a burger, fries & soda.

Caracas is a big city. Mucha, mucha gente, traffic (best be careful crossing the street, pedestrians DO NOT get the right of way), hi rises, banks.

I am residing in the Montserrat Hotel in the Altamira section of Caracas. This is my 3rd hotel. After leaving the Brazilian Consulate, i hailed a taxi, and asked the cabbie to take me to a good, but cheap hotel. First he took me to a good, expensive hotel (about $90US), then we got back in the cab & he took me to one of the hotels i had on my list, The Hotel Ritz in the Sabana Grande district. The hotel was neither ritzy, nor Sabana "grand", but i took the room anyway. 8th floor. The traffic on the street was so loud, i had to wear earplugs in order to sleep.

I was not particularly impressed with Sabana Grande, so the next day i checked out, and took another cab to another motel on my list. Turned out it was practically around the corner from the Ritz. So, I decided i would try to find a hotel near the Brazilian Consulate. I found a couple of cabbies chatting at the curb, waiting for a passenger, and told one where i wanted to go. Neither he, nor his colleague knew where the consulate was, so i told him i would get the directions, and come back. Found an internet cafe. googled the consulate, wrote down the address, returned to the taxi stand. Different guy. Gave him the directions and off we went. After much asking for directions, we found the consulate. He dropped me off and i went in search of a hotel. Well, to make a long story short, after much walking around, i found one, Hotel la Floresta. It cost a lot more than i wanted to spend but i was in a "nicer" area, and i was tired of walking around toting a backpack. The next day i checked out after inquiring about the availability of a cheaper room, and being told i was already in the cheapest room. So off in search for another place to sleep. And again, after much walking around and being time and time again, no rooms were available, i returned to the Montserrat (i remembered having buzzed it the day before and told no vacancies), and did my best to charm the receptionist, in spanish. She gave me a long look, then ask me to wait for a moment. i sat in the lobby for a few minutes. she called me and said she had a room for me. i was ecstatic. Room 333. In the rear of the building, so quiet, with a view of the landscaped grounds of some kind of cultural center.

Language

Caracans speak fast, and are fond of rapidly rolling their r´s and cutting off the ending of words. "Diesiete" becomes "diesie", "gracias" is "gracia".

Cuisine

I have found it a challenge to find food here that i want to eat. Fast food restaurants seem to be all the rage. There are also guys who have hamburger/hot dog stands. The hamburguesas come with a fried egg as a topping on the meat. Sandwiches are big here too. Made with processed meat. Ham. White bread. Yesterday i bought something called a cachapa, a folded crepe over some cheesy stuff. There is, however, near my hotel, a fast food sushi restaurant. Real sushi. Though the portions are rather small.

Spent most of Christmas at the Parque del Este, a huge public park with a zoo and exploratorium similar to Golden Gate Park. I had planned to take the subway there, but the station on the corner of my block was closed. I thought perhaps, the Metro was closed due to the holiday, so decided to take a walk anyway. I walked right to the park, about 10 minutes from my hotel! It has a small zoo, with monkeys, these big hairy, chipmunk looking animals, toucans, and a huge bird called a aguila harpia . Many, many families were in the park. Balls flying about, remote controlled airplanes and cars. A little girl in pink on her new pink bicycle. Kids running and jumping. Dads playing with their boys. Hanging out at the park, i got the impression that Caracas (or Venezuela) is a family oriented culture. Or, perhaps it is just this time of the year that brings all the families out.

Went to the consulate this morning to inquire if perhaps i could get my Brazilian visa before Friday. The answer was "no".

Caracas, Venezuela
Well, made it to Caracas safe & sound (& tired) after two, not quite "Bus Rides from Hell", but challenging nonetheless. The 1st bus ride from Cartagena to Barranquilla to Santa Marta featured a Japanese horror film, played a bit too loud. The movie was played back to back, from Cartagena to Barranquilla, then from Barranquilla to Santa Marta (4 hours total). The movie was about 2 hours long, 90 minutes of the soundtrack consisting of a woman screaming & shrieking, a baby crying, & glass breaking & shattering. Indeed the movie was a true horror. Thank goodness for earplugs & the iPod.

The next bus ride, about 17 hours (!) from Santa Marta to Caracas featured the movie "The Bourne Identity". It was shown in english, in english subtitles. I didn´t notice anyone complaining & even saw the 2nd driver (on most of these long distance journeys there are 2 drivers), look at it for a while, but he didn´t do anything to change the subtitles to spanish.

La Frontera (The Border)
The border crossing was slow & disorganized. We had to disembark & wait in line in front of the immigration office to officially exit Colombia. Then we had to walk through a noisy, crowded, trash strewn area to another, unmarked building to officially enter Venezuela. We stood in line about 2 hours. Finally, a guy, don´t know if he was Venezuelan or Colombiano, pitched a fit at one of the Venezuelan immigration officials. And this is why: there were about 100 people waiting line. The Venezuelan immigration "office" consisted of 2 windows, one marked "SALIDA", the other "ENTRADA". The "SALIDA" line, oddly enough, moved quickly, but the "ENTRADA"window moved at a snail´s pace. And even when the "SALIDA" line was emptly, the immigration agent would not take a person from the other line, those of us waiting to enter the country. After 2 hours, when i finally got to the window (a blue tinted window with a small slot at the bottom, and a circle about 4 inches in diameter at face level), what i saw was this: a fat, uniformed guy in a small, naked room, sitting & chatting next to a scantilly dressed woman, displaying much cleavage, sitting with her legs crossed ala Sharon Stone in "Basic Instincts". He thumbed back in forth through my passport enough times to give me the impression he was intentionally taking his time (as he continued chatting with Sharon). Then, apparently satisfied that he had made everyone wait a sufficently uncomfortable & inconvenient amount of time, he stamped my passport & gave it back to me. Not a particularly stellar introduction to one´s country i must say.

The remaining bus ride to Cartagena featured a western flick (before screening i heard folks asking the driver to make sure it was not in english). The air conditioning was set at 19 degrees celcius (66.2 degress F) , so the ride was a bit chilly & i found it difficult to sleep.

Applied for my Brazilian Visa this morning. It will not be available until next Friday, the 27th. So looks like i´ll be doing a Caracas Christmas.

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Santa Marta, Colombia
Wanted to comment briefly on the street vendors in Cartagena. There are a lot of street vendors in Cartagena selling practically everything - fruit, coconuts, cooked food, snacks, gum, cigarettes, umbrellas, cellphone minutes, jewelry, crafts, paintings (particularly copies of Fernando Botero), chips, orange juice, clothing. There are even guys who go around with thermoses & little plastic take-out catsup/salsa containers selling shots of coffee. They also have motorscooter taxis (they call'em "telemotos") - where a guy (saw no women driving them) on a small motorcycle provides the customer with a helmet and a reflective vest and provides taxi service i suppose for a fee less than the car taxis. There is also a lot of street hustling. A guy asking me for spare change all of sudden became a guia (guide) upon discovering i was not particularly fluent in Spanish. However, the best example of spontaneous improvisational entrepreneurship i saw was after about a 10 minute downpour. As i mentioned in a previous post, the streets in central Cartagena are narrow, the same streets used back in the horse & carriage days going back to the 16th centuryThe draining is not very efficient. As a result, some streets became flooded enough to make it impossible to walk across some intersections without dipping ones shoes or sandals in the water. I look up the street and see a guy with 2 yellow hard plastic milk cartons (similar to our old style recycle bins), placing one in front of the other in the street, creating a moving platform for women to use to cross the street!

Another thing i noticed is that everytime (and i'm not exagerating), everytime someone "befriended" me on the street, the encounter eventually turned into some sort of hustle. Have i mentioned yet all the prostitutes? So eventually i got the impression that money is tight here for a lot of people, and there must be some poor folk. From the window seat of the bus from Cartagena to Barranquilla, i got to see where some of the poorer folk reside . Just about 15 minutes out of downtown Cartagena, i saw shacks built on the river where people lived with their small boats and fishing nets. Young boys cycling bicycle taxis. Men using horse drawn carriages as trucks. Kids transporting stuff on donkeys. Shantytowns. And i realized that downtown Cartagena was at the top of the wealth pyramid. Home to the descendants of the conquerors, and their entourage and support staff.

Bought a ticket today for a bus leaving tomorrow morning at 11am for Caracas Venezuela. Received a very snooty, entirely unfriendly attitude from all the ticket agents for the Brailia Venezuelan bus company both here & in Baranquilla. Don´t know if it was because I spoke no Spanish or what. It reminded me of something i read on the Lonely Planet website where a guy said after being in Venezuela for a while, he thought they didn´t like Americans. Guess i'll have to wait 'til tomorrow to find out what´s in store for me from my Venezuelan hermanos & hermanas. Adios for now!