What a Year

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then surely a few dozen

accompanied by a great song would be worth several thousand. 

So, while it would definitely stroke my ego if you read

all fourtysomething posts from our trip around the world, I will

understand if you skim them and watch this video.

click here for the youtube version

 

World Tour 2010 - 2011: Facts

With the trip over, we thought it might be fun to compile a few facts about our adventure over the past year. 

map of our travels
(click to enlarge)



Days on the Road: 334 (11 months)
(11 Aug, 2010 - 11 July, 2011)

Distance travelled: +/-80,000 kilometres

Pictures taken: +/- 16,500

Equator Crossings: 6

Time Zones: 24

International Date Line Crossings: 1

Border Crossings: 33

Stamps Added to Passport: 78

Flights: 22

Hotels: 86 (estimated)
Malaria Pills Taken: 283
Total Sick Days: 5
Maximum Elevation: 5416 M (Thorung La pass, Nepal)
Minimum Elevation: -30 M (Sail Rock, Thailand)
Northernmost Latitude: 45 deg. 30 min. (Montreal, Canada)
Southernmost Latitude: 45 deg. 24 min. (Te Anau, New Zealand)
Highest Temperature: 45 deg. Celsius (desert around pyramids, Egypt)
Lowest Temperature: -10 deg. Celsius (Thorung La Pass, Nepal)
Blog Posts: 45 (+/- 50,000 words, roughly equivalent to 150 page book)
Haircuts: 6 (Colleen - 2, Michael - 4)
Weight of Packs on Annapurna Trek: 26 kg (Colleen - 8kg, Michael - 18kg)
Continents: 5
North America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, South America
Countries: 22
Egypt, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Burundi, Rwanda, India, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, U.S.A., Canada
Major Cities: 30
Montreal, Philadelphia, New York, Cairo, Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, Bujumbura, Kigali, Delhi, Agra, Amritsar, Varanasi (Benares), Kathmandu, Bangkok, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Georgetown (Penang), Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Melbourne, Alice Springs, Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington, Papeete, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Sao Paulo
Languages: 16
Arabic, Swahili, Bemba, French, Kinyarwanda, Hindi, Punjabi, Nepali Thai, Laotian, Cambodian, Malay, Maori, English, Spanish, Portuguese
Items lost: 9
Ipod, spoons, lock, kenga, book, insect repellant, swiss army knife, fleece jacket, alarm clock
Forms of Transportation: 24
Plane, train, subway, taxi, tuk tuk, jeep, motorcycle taxi, scooter, bicycle, rental car, van, songthaaw, bus, dalla dalla, rickshaw, cargo ship, ferry, canoe, kayak, hang yaaw (long boat), motor boat, camel, elephant, walking
Best / Worst Hotel: Best - tied: Hotel des Milles Collines (Kigali, Rwanda), Amari (Bangkok) / Worst - Auberge de Gyseni (Gyseni, Rwanda)
Most Incredible Place we Stayed: Upper Pisang, Annapurna Nepal
Best / Worst Food: Best - Hawker stalls in Malaysia / Worst - roadside restaurant in Rajasthan
Best / Worst Drink: Best - Stoney Tangawizi (Tanzania), lassi (India), white coffee (Malaysia) and sugar cane juice (Tanzania) / Worst - Mate Yerba (Argentina) and Laotian coffee (Laos)
Best / Worst Alcohol: Best - caipirinhas (Brazil), Raxi (Nepal) and LaoLao (Laos) / Worst - every lager we came across
Best /Worst Cultural Experience: Best - Sikh Golden Temple (India) / Worst - sex tourism (southeast asia)
Best Man Made Structure: Taj Mahal (India)
Best Natural Wonder: tied - Himalayas, Serengeti, South Island New Zealand
Best City: Buenos Aires
Best All Around Country to Visit: New Zealand
Least Favourite Places: Thailand, Laos and Cambodia
Least Comfortable Voyage: bus from Luang prabang to Phoonsavanh
Worst Bathroom: MV Liemba
Sickest Moment: near miss in Angkor after drinking bad water
Oddest Form of Communication: head bobble, India
Favourite Places: Everywhere but Thailand, Laos and Cambodia
Best Wildlife Experience: Colleen - Giraffes in Tanzania, Michael - Lemon sharks in Tahiti
Best Adventure Experience: Ice climbing in New Zealand and jumping into Devil's Hole at Victoria Falls in Zambia
Best Travel Experience: tied - MV Liemba on Lake Tanganyika and Tazara train from Tanzania to Zambia
Best Sunsets: Anywhere in India or Africa
Best Surprise Find: Vineyard where wine we served at our wedding is made (Marlborough, New Zealand)
Best Sueprise: Showing up for Sean's graduation in Florida
Best Tout Come On: "looking is free" and "today is a good day to spend money in my shop"
Best Spectator Sport Experience: Soccer in Buenos Aires and Australian Rules Football in Melbourne
Funnest Activity: Lawn bowling in Melbourne
Most Surprising Purchase: dancing shoes in Buenos Aires
People That Joined us Along the Way: Aileel and Tim, Camille, Mom, Colleen, Matthew and Haylee, Zulima
Friends we Met Along the Way: dozens
Ellie Jess and Steve our first acquaintances on the road, Charlotte and Robert who shared our adventure on Lake Tanganyika, Frech who waited with us in Mpulungu, Charity who was the friendliest innkeeper we met and taught me how to clean a fish, Pete the kiwi biking from Cape Town to Copenhagen, Deb and Mary who gave us a ride and a place to stay in Kigali, Carly and Latif  the only other US/Canadian couple in Dar es Salaam, Melissa and Andrew our off and on companions through Rajasthan, Warren from South Africa, Bittoo who drove us through Rajasthan and gave us whiskey to keep us warm in the desert, Nanda our companion in Nepal, the Annapurna gang: Max and Jess, Hanna, Bennedict (who we met up with again in Oz), Richard and Geraldine, and Mem and Micha, Mathilde and Olivier from france we knew in Kathmandu, Chris and David in Laos, Jeroen the Belgian expat we met in Laos who took us out to dinner in Bangkok, Nicholas the frenchman who found Camille's mojo, Alex and Marta yoga instructors extraordinaire, Gavin, Woody and Ingrid from the Dive Inn in Koh Phangan, Haylee who was the world's most understanding person for letting us stay in her living room (she also introduced us to Tim Tams and ANZAC cookies), Matt's friends Ingrid, Claude and Ryan, Jenny and Brett our couple soulmates from Colorado, Janina and Martin who kept us company in Moorea, Cristian the patient tango instructor and Marina the apartment manger in BA to name a few
Currencies: 20
Egyptian pound (5.5:1), Tanzanian shilling (1500:1), Zambian kwacha (5000:1), Burundian franc (1200:1), Rwandan franc (500:1), Indian rupee (42.5:), Nepali rupee (70:1), Thai baht (30:1), Laotian kip (8000:1), Cambodian real (4000:1), Malaysian ringgit (3:1), Singaporean dollar (1.1:1), Australian dollar (1:1), New Zealand Dollar (1.33:1), French Polynesian franc (85:1), Argentinian peso (4:1), Uruguayan peso (20:1), Brazilian real (1.7:1), U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar (1:1)
Books Read: 19
In Patagonia (Bruce Chatwin), Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien), Books Vs. Cigarettes (George Orwell), The Australian Legend (Russel Ward), Life of Pi (Yann Martel), The Killing Fields (Christopher Hudson), Sex Slaves - the Trafficking of Women in Asia (Louise Brown), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest (Steig Larrson), Falling Off the Edge (Alex Perry), White Tiger (Aravind Adiga), Arresting God in Kathmandu (Samrat Upadhyay), Hinduism (K.M. Sen), Untouchable (Mulk Raj Anand), An Imperfect Offering (James Orbinski), The English Patient (Michael Ondatje), Half the Sky (Nicholas Kristof + Sheryl WuDunn), Mountains Beyond Mountains (Tracy Kidder), Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortensen), Africa A Biography of the Continent (John Reader), We wish to Inform you that Tomorrow we will be Killed with our Families (Philip Gourevitch)
UNESCO World Heritage Sites: 22
Egypt – historic Cairo, Pyramids and Sphinx, Tanzania – Ngorongoro, Serengeti, Stone Town (Zanzibar), Zambia – Mosi oa Tunya (Victoria Falls), India – Agra Fort, Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, Qutb Minar, Red Fort, Nepal – Kathmandu Valley, Chitwan, Laos – Luang Prabang, Vat Phou, Cambodia – Angkor, Malaysia – Melaka / George Town, Australia – Great Barrier Reef, Uluru / Kata Tutja, Royal Exhibition and Carleton Gardens, New Zealand – Tongariro, Te Wahipounamu
Airports: 24
LaGuardia (USA), Cairo International, Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), Arusha (Tanzania), Kisauni (Tanzania – Zanzibar), Kigali International (Rwanda), Indira Ghandi (India – Delhi), Lal Bahadur Shastri (India – Varanasi), Tribhuvan (Nepal – Kathmandu), Pokhara (Nepal), Jomsom (Nepal), Suvarnabhumi (Bangkok), Changi (Singapore), Tullamarine (Melbourne), Mackay (Whitsundays – Australia), Alice Springs (Australia), Christchurch International (New Zealand), Auckland International (New Zealand), Faa’a (Tahiti – French Polynesia), Los Angeles (USA), Ft. Lauderdale Hollywood (USA), Philadelphia (USA), Ezeiza (Buenos Aires – Argentina), Guarulhos (Sao Paulo – Brazil)
Everywhere we Went:
New York - USA, Sao Paulo - Brazil, Buenos Aires - Argentina, Montivideo - Uruguay, Buenos Aires - Argentina, New York -, USA, Jaffe (Monadnock) - New Hampshire, Philadelphia - USA, Fort Lauderdale - USA. Los Angeles - USA, Morea (Cook's Bay) - French Polynesia, Papeete - French Polynesia, Auckland  - New Zealand, National Park - New Zealand, Wellington, -New Zealand, Picton (Queen Charlotte Sound) - New Zealand, Havelock (Marlborough, Nelson) - New Zealand, Kaikoura - New Zealand, Greymouth - New Zealand, Franz Joseph - New Zealand, Queenstown - New Zealand, Te Anau (Milford Track, Milford Sound) - New Zealand, Christchurch - New Zealand, Melbourne - Australia, Alice Springs (Uluru) - Australia, Melbourne - Australia, Airlie Beach (Whitsunday Islands, Whitehaven beach, Great Barrier Reef) - Australia, Melbourne - Australia, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia, Penang - Malaysia, Koh Phangan - Thailand, Penang - Malaysia, Bangkok - Thailand, Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) - Cambodia, Phnom Penh - Cambodia, Don Khone - Laos, Champasak - Laos, Pakse - Laos, Vientiane - Laos, Vang Vieng - Laos, Phonsavanh - Laos, Luang Prabang - Laos, Muang Ngoi - Laos, Nong Khiaw / Ban Saphoun - Laos, Luang Prabang - Laos, Vientiane - Laos,Nong Khai - Thailand, Bangkok -Thailand, Kathmandu - Nepal, Chitwan National Park - Nepal, Ilam / Kathmandu - Nepal, Annapurna Circuit (Besisahar, Syange, Jagat, Dharapani, Chame, Upper Pisang, Manang, Yak Kharka, Throng Phedi, Thorung La pass, Muktinath, Kagbeni, Jomsom), Kathmandu - Nepal, Varanasi - India, Amritsar - India, Delhi, -India, Agra - India, Rajasthan - India (Mandawa, Bikaner, Jaisalmeer, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Bundi, Jaipur), Delhi - India, es Salaam - Tanzania, Gisenyi - Rwanda, Parc National des Volcans - Rwanda, Ruhengheri (Musanze) - Rwanda, Kigali - Rwanda, Bujumbura - Burundi, Kigoma - Tanzania, Mpulungu - Zambia, Lusaka - Zambia, Chobe Park - Botswana, Livingstone - Zambia, Victoria Falls - Zimbabwe, Lusaka - Zambia, Dar es Salaam - Tanzania, Zanzibar - Tanzania, Northern Circuit Parks - Tanzania (Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Tarangire, Manyara), Arusha - Tanzania, Dar es Salaam - Tanzania, Cairo - Egypt, Potomac (MD) - USA, Carlisle (PA) - USA, Long Island City (Queens NY) - USA, Fairfield (Conn) - USA, Conshohocken (PA) - USA, Lake Winola (PA) - USA, Montreal - Canada

Final Thoughts

When we first seriously started talking about doing this trip, Colleen would always say “you never regret the things you do, only the things you wish you did”. Well, here I am in Vermont, poorer, older, jobless and with nothing to my name except the clothes in my pack and a few books in a storage locker in Philadelphia. Colleen was right, I regret nothing. As a matter of fact I would say that our trip is the second greatest thing I’ve ever done (the first was tricking Colleen into being my wife). What a year. I’ve seen the sun set over the Serengeti and rise over the Himalayas, swam with dolphins in New Zealand, and sharks in Tahiti, seen the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal and Uluru, and swam in the Zambezi at the edge of Victoria Falls.

When I look back on it though, the best part of this trip was directed inwards rather than outwards. Don’t get me wrong, all the things we saw and did were incredible and I will cherish their memory forever, but often they left me feeling a little empty and unsatisfied. To my surprise, my greatest fulfillment this year came from moments of quiet introspection, long talks with colleen, interactions with people we met along the way, and assimilating all the new ideas we were exposed to. It’s funny, but I guess I set out on this trip not really knowing what I was looking for. The beautiful thing about travel is that, if you let it, it will give you what you need, and it did just that. For me, the true gift of the trip was not thousands of pictures or stamps in a passport. It was new ideas, a modicum of self-awareness, a better understanding of our world, and a greater appreciation for Colleen. If that is all this year gave me, I consider it time well spent.

As for lessons learned, there were many, but they were always difficult, never absolute and certainly don’t lend themselves to a short synopsis. The world is a complicated place. Two very simple ideals have been reinforced in me this past year though: there is nothing more important that family and friends, and that doing your best to be a good person should be one’s highest goal. They may sound trite, but in a year of searching, I’ve found nothing to supersede them. If anything concrete has come out of this trip for me it is to follow these ideals to the best of my ability.

So that’s it, a year spent on a journey inward. Not what I planned or expected, but I guess just what I needed. If the outward benefits of travel were not as important as the inward, was the trip worth it you might ask. Surely many of the things I’ve mentioned could be accomplished closer to home with far less hassle and expense. Possibly, but what would be the fun in that? A girl we met in Kathmandu passed along a quote from a book she had read that stuck with me. I’ll have to paraphrase as she was conveying the quote from memory and translating it from French, not to mention the fact that our conversation was almost a year ago and I never wrote it down, but it went something like “Travelling and seeing the world is unimportant, what is important, what really matters, is always right in front of you. However, it is sometimes necessary to first travel around the world to come to this conclusion.” Truer words were never said.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has read any of the things I have written. When I started writing this blog, my only intent was to keep people informed about our travels. It quickly became much more though. I feel as though I’ve found a creative outlet that I never knew existed. Writing about our travels has been one of the true joys of this trip, and I very much appreciate your bearing with me and all the kind words people sent us.

I will leave you with a quote from my brother as written in our wedding guestbook. It was difficult to read as he wrote it at 4 am and was incredibly inebriated when he did. It was meant as advice to newlyweds, but I think it sums up everything we learned on our trip around the world nicely.

“Don’t freak out – PAX”


Michael
Montpelier
Vermont, USA

thank you

Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Sao Paulo: Wrapping it up

It felt like it could go on forever, but of course it couldn’t. We had to face facts: it was time to go home – well back to North America anyway, we don’t actually have a home. Before we did though, we would wrap it up in style. Our last three destinations, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Sao Paulo were absolutely fantastic and the last few weeks of the trip were every bit as wonderful, unpredictable and exciting as any we’ve had this past year. I could write volumes on each destination, but I thought it might be better to combine them into one post to give you an idea of what the last month of our trip was like. It ended up being a little long, but hopefully it gives you some sense of our last days on the road…

Buenos Aires

Prior to our trip, I would have told you that two cities vie for the title of greatest city on earth: Montreal and Lisbon. Well, now there are three. Buenos Aires not only gets added to the list, it may even take the top spot outright. Why? It has all the attributes any great city should have, interesting history, vibrant culture, good food, appealing architecture etc. and has no shortage of tourist attractions. But Buenos Aires is not a gentrified city for yuppies and tourists only. It is vibrant, and alive, with plenty of imperfections to go along with its grandeur and refined sense of style. For me, the grand boulevards, public buildings, monuments and popular tourist attractions were just a backdrop (albeit an amazing one) for these much more interesting “imperfections”. The dilapidated buildings, surly bus drivers, and hole in the wall cafes and restaurants were the real stars.

the 10 km race

Our month on Buenos Aires was amazing. We had a great apartment in a fantastic neighbourhood (Palermo Alto), and just as we had planned, Colleen and I slowed things down. It was nice to stay in the same place for a while, unpack, and spend time together without worrying about where we were going next. It was also nice to experience a new place without rushing to pack everything in. That’s not to say we didn’t get out and see the city, we did. We managed to get to just about all of the “must see” attractions as well as a bunch of off the beaten track ones. As with most things on our trip though, one of the best parts of our visit to Buenos Aires was unexpected: Colleen’s sister-in-law Zulima joined us for our last week there, and the three of us had a great time together.

ready to tango

Zulima was the perfect travel companion, easy to get along with and up for anything. We took her to most of the typical tourist spots (Recoletta, Caminita, San Telmo, etc.), did a few out of the ordinary things (including a 10 km road race), and spent a lot of time “areglando el mundo” – a Spanish saying Zulima taught us that literally translates as fixing the world, but whose real meaning has more to do with drinking and talking a lot of nonsense, two things the three of us excelled at. However, the main theme to her visit was definitely Tango. Turns out that while it may have originated in Argentina, Colombians (Zulima is Colombian) are mad for Tango, and for a Tango lover, coming to Buenos Aires is like a civil war buff going to Gettysburg or a an Elvis fan visiting Graceland. We did our best to take it all in. We visited the Carlos Gardel museum and grave site (Gardel is Tango’s answer to Elvis only more popular), went to a local Pena (sort of a restaurant / music venue that specializes in traditional food and music styles) to hear live tango, took tango dancing lessons, went shopping for tango shoes (yes, I bought dancing shoes), and went to a milonga (tango dance hall) to tango the night away. Zulima, purely by chance, even found the grave of Augustin Magaldi, the tango singer responsible for the song she was named after. I’m no tango aficionado, so none of this would have topped my list, but am I very happy we did it. Tango is a big part of Argentinian identity and culture, and experiencing it, even in a small way, was a window into that culture.

Buenos Aires was amazing, truly a highlight of the trip. This is the fourth post I’ve written about it, and I still have a hard time putting my finger on just what it is about this incredible city that I love so much. It was always a dream of mine to visit Buenos Aires, I’m not sure why. Having visited it though, I can say that it exceeded all of my expectations, and I can’t wait to come back.

Montevideo

The ways which travel destinations are chosen can be strange. For example, the first big trip I ever took was centered around Machu Picchu in Peru. My decision wasn’t based in any knowledge or research, I didn’t know the first thing about Machu Picchu, Peru or South America. I chose Machu Picchu because it was featured in a National Geographic coffee table book my mother had laying around when I was a little boy. I don’t think why you go somewhere is important. That you go is the important part, the rest just works itself out.

a promenade along the river

Our trip has had its fair share of odd reasoning behind destination choices, but Montevideo has to be the oddest: we visited Montevideo because of the Montivideo unit. Apparently in 1949 two physicians, Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia and Hermogenes Alvarez, both from Montevideo, created a method of measuring uterine performance during labor, and called their new unit the “Montevideo unit”. Apparently this unit is used all the time by obstetricians, and Colleen thought it would be hilarious to send a postcard from Montevideo mentioning Montevideo units to some of her colleagues. A funny postcard is as good a reason to choose a destination as any, so we took the three hour ferry from Buenos Aires and spent the day in Uruguay.

Jose Artigas

We were glad we did too. Aside from providing us with a couple of extra stamps in our passport, and postmarking Colleen’s “hilarious” postcards, Montevideo gave us a really nice afternoon. We only had the day there (we took the ferry back the same night), so we just sort of wandered around the city to see what we could see. From the busy port where the ferry let us off, to the crumbling architecture of Ciudad Viejo (old town), to the lovely Plaza de Indepencia in the heart of the modern city, it was all great. Each turn seemed to present us with another gem: a 100 year old café with great sandwiches and very cold beer, a beautiful promenade along the muddy Rio de la Plata, centuries old colonial buildings with the family laundry hung to dry from the bars on its dilapidated windows, narrow winding alleys, quaint shops, cafes, and beautiful old churches. You get the idea. My favourite was the cavernous mausoleum under the city’s main square that housed the ashes of Jose Artigas (father of Uruguayan nationhood). I didn’t even know it was there until I saw someone climb up a set of steps behind a statue.

This was no voyage of exploration, no attempt to gain cultural insight. It was just a pleasant day spent strolling through a new city, taking in the sights with the rest of the tourists. A stroll, a three course lunch at a nice restaurant, coffee breaks and a few souvenirs thrown in for good measure. We really enjoyed our visit to Montevideo. Thank you Messrs. Caldeyro-Barcia and Alvarez for suggesting it.

Sao Paulo

We have the Puyehue volcano in southern Chile and the good people at Continental airlines to thank for our unexpected visit to Brazil. Without going into too much detail, the ash cloud from the volcano forced our flight home to be redirected to Sao Paulo where we missed our connection on to the U.S. Of course by the time we landed the volcano had wreaked havoc with flights all over South America and we were informed (after waiting in lines for hours) that it would be several days before space would be available on a flight home. To make matters worse, we didn’t have Brazilian visas (we had no idea we would need them), and were detained for hours in the airport’s no man’s land while airline representatives and immigration officers sorted the mess out. It was a classic airport nightmare. I could go on about how bad it was, but that would be far less interesting than how good it was. We were in a new country, Continental was paying for our hotel and food, the visas eventually got sorted out and the three of us (Zulima was still with us) had nowhere else we had to be. We shook off the aggravation and had a great couple of days in Brazil.

The airport and our hotel were in Guarulhos, a neighbourhood about ten miles from central Sao Paulo. While we were tempted to rush off to the downtown area and all the tourist attractions, we decided to stay in Guarulhos. Ten miles doesn’t sound like much, but transportation was convoluted, and given our short stay we didn’t want to waste time in transit. Besides, if this past year has taught us anything it’s that, if you are open to them, some of the best experiences can happen in out of the way places, and that main attractions can often be a disappointment. Anyway, we ended up spending all our time in Guarulhos and were glad we did.

after dinner drinks

Guarulhos is a relatively nondescript place, a collection of shops, apartments, restaurants, schools and churches crowded along narrow streets slung over the top of a hill on the outskirts of a very big city. However, as with every place, it has its own character and appeal if you take the time to look. We started off with an exploratory walkabout. We were lucky enough to be there on a weekend, so the streets and shops were thronged with people. The main street felt more like an open air market complete with street performers, vendors and food. Next we found a little café at the end of the main street under the shadow of a cathedral for a late lunch. At Zulima’s insistence, we tried the feijoada com arroz, a delicious stew of black beans and hunks of pork meat served over rice with a side of fried and grilled pork (my mouth waters just writing about it). Of course what better way to wash down all that food than with some local drink? We found a bar that met our needs nicely, and spent the rest of the evening “areglando el mundo” over beers and my new favourite drink, the caipirinha. The next day the girls found a local salon and got themselves Brazilian blowouts, a hair straightening procedure that involved four hours of chemical treatment, hair pulling, blow drying, and ironing that look more like a form of torture to me. “When in Rome…” I guess. They did look great when it was done. Each of these experiences was great, but the best part was the reaction from and interaction with the people we met. Everyone, from people in the street to the waiters at the bar to the stylists in the salon were surprised to see us (I don’t think a lot of tourists stop in Guarulhos), and incredibly friendly with us. Almost nobody spoke English, but with a little broken Spanish and some hand signals, we were made to feel welcome everywhere we went.

We really enjoyed our short time in Brazil. We only spent a few days there, but we definitely got a sense of the place, enough to like it and know we would like to visit again. We also felt like we did it right, like maybe we were getting good at this travel thing. It’s funny though, how just when you get good at something you have to move on and leave it behind. Hopefully moving on won’t mean forgetting the lessons we've learned, because this year has been full of things I would hate to forget.

Anyway, the next day we left for home. Our flights were relatively uneventful (a small scare with an overbooked plane in Washington, but it worked itself out) and we arrived in New York safe and sound. Next destination: Montpelier Vermont. We drove to Philadelphia to pick up some stuff from our storage unit and a rental car, drove back to New York and then on to Montpelier. We’ve been here for a few interesting months now, but that’s another story…



Michael
Montpelier
Vermont USA

Buenos Aires: Naval Mechanics School (ESMA)

"As soon as one begins to think of the other side as a mass or a crowd, the human link seems to go. We forget that crowds also consist of individuals, of men and women and children, who love hate and suffer.” - Jawaharlal Nehru, Towards Freedom

Throughout this trip, I’ve tended to focus my writing on the good things we’ve seen and experienced during our travels. I’m not really sure why this is. Perhaps I wanted to avoid burdening anyone reading the posts with unpleasantness, or maybe I didn’t have the emotional energy to devote to describing the terrible things we had seen. Either way, for the most part anyway, I tried to keep things lighthearted. Make no mistake about it though, we’ve seen some terrible things. Crushing poverty, genocide, environmental degradation, dictatorship, war, racism, and mysogynism, the world has no shortage of horrors. Experiencing and learning from these horrors is every bit as important as taking in all the good that the world has to offer, and can often lead to real insight. Our visit to Buenos Aires’s Naval Mechanics School was just such an experience.

Naval Mechanics School

The Naval Mechanics School (Escuela de Suboficiales de Mecánica de la Armada or ESMA) is an annex of an Argentinian naval base located in the affluent Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Nunez. Its original purpose was to educate and train naval cadets. However, under the military dictatorship responsible for Argentina’s “National Reorganization Process”, it took on a more sinister role (megalomaniacs always seem to come up with an innocuous sounding, Orwellian sobriquet for their horrendous crimes – the more accurate “dirty war” is more frequently used to describe this period). From 1976 to 1983, it was the largest and most notorious of 400 clandestine detention centres in Argentina where tens of thousands of people the government considered subversive were detained tortured and murdered. Typically victims were snatched of the street, interrogated and tortured, then drugged and thrown out of a plane or helicopter into the Rio de la Plata or Atlantic Ocean. I won’t go into a long description of the terrible things that took place at the Naval Mechanics School, but to give an idea of the depth of depravity there, consider that there was a maternity ward. Pregnant women were tortured until late in their pregnancy, and then transferred to an area where they could receive medical care. After they gave birth, their baby was taken from them, sold to a family loyal to the junta and the mother killed. The scope of the complicity is also shocking. While abductions, torture and killing were carried out by special army units, the existence and fate of the abductees was hardly a secret. Victims were housed in the attic and tortured in the basement of an officer’s dormitory going back and forth via the main stairwell in plain sight for all to see, and young students at the academy were assigned guard duty. Some victims that died on the site were cremated then buried in an adjacent sports field, again in plain sight.

Visiting a place like that is difficult. Standing in the very place where thousands of people suffered horribly and died (5000 people were detained at the Naval Mechanics School, only 200 survived) is a powerful experience. Your mind has no choice but to confront the event, not intellectually, but in a very real and visceral way. I could not help myself from imagining individuals, torturer and tortured, in the room with me, and terrible scenes playing themselves out in my mind. My emotions were raw and alternated between sorrow and pity for the tortured to rage and indignation at the torturer and the system that created him. The overwhelming feeling I had that day though was incredulity. How could a human being do that to another human being? How could so many people be complicit in such heinous crimes?

Officers dormitory

This feeling was not new. Colleen and I have seen our share of examples of awful things man can do to his fellow man on this trip. Genocide in Rwanda and Cambodia, the British massacre at Jallianwala bagh, US bombing of Laos, and the plight of the aboriginal peoples in Australia to name a few. Each time we were confronted by it, we tended to start off by trying to understand it through historical context or intellectual ideas like politics and economics, but always ended up with the same question: how could people do horrible things to other people? Of course it is a difficult question with many answers, but the answer that made the most sense to us was that perpetrators were able to see their victims not as individuals, but as a part of a group, and convince themselves that this group was in some way subhuman and not worthy of consideration or decency. Of course that begs the further question how can one human being dehumanize another to the point of being able to perpetrate horrendous crimes against him with impunity? This is where our conversations tended to end with a shrug, a “who knows?”, and a “thank God it could never happen to us”.

Our visit to the Naval Mechanics School really affected me though. I thought about it often, and Colleen and I discussed it several times in the days following our visit, trying to go a little further than the shoulder shrug. I don’t claim to understand it all, but on the question of humans dehumanizing one another, I feel like I did gain some insight. I think “it could never happen to us” is wrong. As a matter of fact, I think it happens to us all the time, it is done to us and we do it to others. Think of the security guard barking orders at you in line at the airport or your losing your temper at another driver on the road. I’m not suggesting for a second that torturing someone and throwing them out of a plane is the same thing as honking your horn at someone after they cut you off, rather that that they are different ends of the same spectrum, that in both cases not seeing someone as an individual human being makes acting badly that much easier. Maybe our natural inclination is to dehumanize, and that it is difficult to see strangers as fellow human beings, not vice versa. This frightening concept led me to examine my own interactions with people and come to the uncomfortable conclusion that I am as guilty as anyone of not always considering the humanity of those I interact with. Hopefully this realization will help me to avoid this in the future – time will tell.

We have been exposed to so many different things this past year on the road, some good, and some bad, but everything we’ve experienced, good or bad has left its mark, has changed us in ways that we will still be trying to process years from now. The atrocities committed at the Naval Mechanics School in Buenos Aires are examples of humanity at its worst and should always be remembered as such. However, the chance to see the site first hand, learn the history, have the time to process and discuss what we learned and turn that into a positive force in our lives is another one of the many gifts that this year of travel has given us


Michael

Montpelier,
Vermont, U.S.A.

Buenos Aires: Experiencing Argentinian Soccer

Corporal mortification is a religious doctrine that postulates a believer can achieve a spiritual goal by hurting him or herself in some way, the pain ranging from denial of pleasures or fasting to severer forms of self-inflicted pain. What does this have to do with Argentinian soccer you might ask? A crawling man. A man on his hands and knees, with only a flimsy soccer jersey protecting him from the fall chill, crawling miles along one of Buenos Aires’ tree lined boulevards, past cafes shops, silent onlookers and one perplexed Canadian. His destination was a stadium, and his spiritual goal, as indicated by a poster pinned to his shirt, was a win for his club, a desperately needed win. The fanaticism and passion associated with soccer in Argentina is often compared to  a religion, (surely a man in some weird facsimile of a religious pilgrimage to support his team bears this out), and to someone not brought up in its culture can appear strange and incomprehensible. Experiencing starnge and incomprehensible things is one of the things that draws me to travel, and in a year of such experiences, Argentinian soccer ranks up there with the best of them.

When we decided on spending time in Buenos Aires, experiencing Argentina’s legendary soccer culture was high on our list., so as soon as we arrived, I started watching games on TV and looking into getting tickets to a game. Colleen was not as enthusiastic as I was (she was more interested in the Tango lessons), but she likes sports and doing the local thing, so she got on board pretty easily. I looked into it and found that there were basically two ways to get tickets: at the stadium, where you can get a ticket just like every other porteno (Buenos Aires resident), or through a tour agency with all the tourists. Of course all the travel websites and guidebooks recommend tour agencies in lieu of the do it yourself option citing safety concerns and expediency, but if this past year has taught me anything, it’s that tour agencies should be avoided at all costs. They serve only to isolate you from the experience you are trying to have, and usually charge you dearly for it. So we decided to get the tickets ourselves.

La Bombanera

Our first choice was a Boca Juniors game at their home stadium, La Bombanera. From all accounts, this is one of Argentina’s, indeed the world’s, great soccer experiences. So we took the number 29 bus to La Boca, a rough around the edges, working class neighbourhood south of Buenos Aires’ city centre, looking for tickets. Unfortunately, the relatively small size of the stadium combined with Boca Juniors popularity means that tickets are usually in short supply, and the only game that would be played there while we were in town was sold out. The trip wasn’t a waste though. We got to see La Boca, its famously colourful Caminita street, and La Bombanera. Our second choice was Argentina’s other favourite club, River Plate, and a home game at their stadium. El Monumental. We were luckier this time, and were able to get tickets to River’s last regular season home game, a game that would end up playing an important role in what would turn out to be one of the biggest stories in Argentinian soccer in decades: River Plate’s relegation to the B league

On the way to El Monumental

Game day was chilly and overcast, a perfect fall day. The bus we took to the game was full of River supporters wearing their colours: white shirts with a diagonal red band. The bus let us off a ways from the stadium, and we walked past smoky roadside food stalls that lined the streets with the rest of the ever growing crowd to get there, the excitement building with every step. Along the way we bought a red and white River hat for Colleen so that there was no question about our new found loyalties. Getting into the stadium was a little bewildering. First there was the security checkpoint. By the time we realized Colleen was the only girl in our line it was too late to turn back and look for the ladies line. When our turn came to be patted down, the policeman looked at Colleen, muttered something in Spanish and pointed to the ladies line. Colleen then tried to explain that it would be OK if he searched her, but he didn’t understand what she was saying. It was only when Colleen raised her arms and spread her legs to show him she was ready to be searched that he got it. He turned a bright shade of red, dropped his eyes to the ground, and quickly waved us through. He was very young.

view from our seats

Next were the lines to get in. Each section at the stadium had its own line, haphazardly winding through the streets, crossing each other and intermingling. Confusing for first timers, especially first timers with questionable spannish language skills. we eventually found our way and entered the stadium itself. Through old battered metal doors, down a dark cave like tunnel, up an open flight of stairs clinging to the exterior of the building, onto the terrace and through a large opening to our seats. I’ve been to many stadia for many sporting events in my time, but this was different. As soon as you entered the stadium, you could hear the muffled sound of the crowd. At first it was just a dull noise, but as you penetrated deeper into the structure, closer to the stands, it became clearer, more rhythmic, infecting you with excitement, until you passed through the last gateway and into the stands and were assaulted by the sounds of 50,000 people chanting in unison to the beat of pounding drums, stomping feet and clapping hands. If you’ve never experienced it before, being surrounded and assaulted by that kind of noise, that kind of directed energy, can stop you in your tracks. These chants, supporting the home team or deriding the visiting team did not stop, did not even let up, for the entire game.

Visitors section

The stadium was a no frills affair. A dimly lit concrete structure unencumbered by any aesthetic trappings. There weren’t even food or alcohol concessions. Our section was near the top of the stadium, near the section reserved for the visiting side. The visitors are assigned to one section, heavily guarded by police, and separated by empty sections on either side in order to avoid violence. As a matter of fact, when the game is over, the rest of the stadium is prevented from leaving by the police until the visitors section is cleared. It was fun watching the home and visiting fans exchange taunts and hand gestures, but I was thankful for the two high metal fences and hundreds of police separating them.



Although our section was equipped with basic wood benches, seating was not assigned. We managed to get there early enough to get seats, but, being the least expensive, the upper sections were oversold. Our section was particularly crowded, with people crammed into every square inch of available space including the stairs and exits. There was a fair amount of jostling, but no hard feelings. You got the sense that people were used to it. People even helped each other out. We did our part by lifting a young girl out of the crowd and making room for her between us. Her father gave us a thankful nod, but with his daughter’s imminent suffocation averted, he quickly returned his attention to the game. I won’t comment on the merits of handing your daughter over to strangers in order to better focus on a sporting event, but I will say that the act demonstrates a level of intensity and devotion to sports that I had never seen before. This intensity was mirrored in every face that surrounded us. It manifest itself in the attention people paid to the game (no idle conversation or chit chat here), the chanting, the taunting of the away team and their fans, and ultimately in the actions surrounding River’s relegation (more on that later).



Los Milionarios

As for the game itself, River ended up losing 2 to 1. No surprise really, their opponent, another Buenos Aires team called Lanus, was a top team, while River was struggling at the bottom of the league. This was a very important game though, and winning was crucial in order to avoid relegation. I won’t go into all the details, but for those who don’t follow soccer and are unfamiliar with relegation, you only have to understand that in soccer, it is as important not to finish at the bottom of the league as it is to finish at the top. The teams at the bottom are sent down to the lower league while the winners of the lower league are sent up to the higher one. Relegation can have dire consequences for a club such as loss of television revenue, lower attendance, and of course the shame of being kicked out of the top flight. In River’s case, it was this shame that would be the worst. River Plate is Argentina’s most successful club, they have won 33 titles have never been relegated in their 110 year history, and they have a huge national and international following. They would be the equivalent of the New York Yankees. River being relegated would be like sending the Yankees to Scranton to play in the triple A league. 



Los Borrachos del Tablon

Anyway, River's loss forced them into a home and away playoff versus a top team from the B League, Belgrano of Cordoba, which they proceeded to loose on aggregate. This is when the passion and intensity of Argentinian soccer showed its ugly side. Both games were marred by ugly incidents, and riots broke out at the end of the second game. Luckily we were far enough away from the violence that we didn’t witness it firsthand. We were glued to our television though. We watched as River fans charged the pitch to attack their own players during a game, as police fired water cannons into the crowd while fans hurled projectiles at police and players, as the violence spilled into the streets surrounding the stadium (the same streets we had walked only days earlier). We watched hooded youths attack policemen, loot stores and set fires, as armoured cars and mounted police tried to regain order with batons and tear gas. Watched as an entire neighbouhood, not 5 miles from our apartment turned into a war zone. The day after the final game, the home of a club manager was fire bombed.

The violence subsided, but the furor did not. Newspapers and websites were full of stories of the club’s management colluding with hooligan gangs (known as barra bravas in Argentina) to loot the club coffers and bring about the fall of the club. This collusion went so far that the club’s head of security was implicated in leading members of the gang, known by the colourful name of Los Borrachos del Tablon – the drunks of the stands, past security checkpoints in order to threaten the lives of the referees at halftime of the final game. The city, indeed the country seemed to be talking about nothing else. The mayor was accused of not providing enough police because he was loyal to Boca Juniors, River’s fierce rivals, Diego Maradona filed a lawsuit against River’s president as well as the president of the Argentinian Football Association alleging misconduct, and the club’s manager requested an audience with Cristina de Kirchner, Argentina’s president citing national interest! For an outsider, it was all very rivetting, but extremely bizarre. 

So there you have it. another amazing experience in a year full of amazing experiences. You would think that there could be too much of a good thing, but I'm not sure I will ever tire of the strange and incomprehensible.

Michael

Buenos Aires,
Argentina