Musings from Mexico

Mi Ultima Noche

2006-11-18T18:52:00.002-08:00

A sense of nostalgia and sadness and saudade blind-sided me my final week in Mexico. When I left DC, I felt nothing of the sort. Perhaps because I had years to prepare. But as much as I wanted to leave Mexico, in fact, I wasn't fully aware of how attached to it I had become. Of course it was more being attached to friends, the people and what for me turned out to be a formative experience.

My final week, I contemplated all that had happened; leaving DC behind, dealing with the perennial drama of my house and tenants culminating in its sale during the peak month of the real estate boom. Learning Spanish, Portuguese and developing friendships here and all around the world. Finding friendships with people and places so different than anything I had every known. Finding music, culture and art I had not known before. Thinking about how the world had changed me. How I had become friends with people like Claudia, Peter and more recently Brizia. How I would miss these people and how special and unique my time in Mexico was and how unlike it will be from any of time in my life. I was saddest that I would not be able to have my near-daily cafes and conversations with Claudia.

I packed my stuff. I took Domino and Yuki on a well-behaved trip to the vets to get their pussycat-passports. The cab driver took a liking to them and strangely, ended up being one of the two drivers (yes, I had that much stuff) to take us to the airport early Sunday morning.

Even though the cats usually freak out in the car or at the airport, this, the second time, it didn't seem so bad as the first. In fact, everything work, like clock-work, even though I was expecting the worst based on previous experience. Much of what is hard the first time becomes easy the second time and easier still subsequently. I need to remind myself that next time I embark on doing something entirely new and different for two years of my life.

The last day at work, Friday, the office took me to eat at my favorite Japanese restaurant (I know, not a very Mexican despedida). It was nice that everyone showed up to say goodbye and maybe have a free meal.

At night I went to eat at my favorite restaurant, Rojo Bistro, in the Condesa with friends Claudia, Stefan and Brizia. Later we went to my house and Alex and Peter joined us while we kept the neighborhood up on my roof downing bottle after bottle of tequila. I felt a sense of liberation and felt entirely un-selfconscience about our drunken antics. I finally fell asleep mid-party but that was around 5am.

The next day was a cloud until my actual, formal, despedida Saturday night. Many of the folks from the office showed out in addition to some of my friends from Startbucks (where I was well known in my time!) and the crew from the previous night. It was nice to see so many people come to say goodbye. After the previous night, I was on a strictly tonic water and orange juice drink regimen.

I felt badly, but it was nearly 3am and people were showing no signs of leaving so I politely said goodbye to everyone. I had a plane to catch. Peter and I went back to my place, crashed for an hour and cabbed to the Mexico City airport. We checked in all 11 pieces of luggage and a staggering $500 in excess baggage fees. Domino and Yuki came with us onboard and were super-well behaved for their 4.5 hour direct flight to San Fran. No glitches. No nada.

Arriving in San Francisco, I rented an SUV to drive the all the stuff to my new and empty apartment. Since then, it's been like one big shopping spree. After departing with the majority of my worldly possessions when I sold my house a year earlier, I bought a new bed, sheets, silverware, flatware, pots, pans, a sofa, a coffee table and even a new cyclo-cross bike.

M32 Edge of the Ocean

2006-10-16T18:13:00.001-07:00

There's a place I dream about
Where the sun never goes out.
And the sky is deep and blue.
Won't you take me there with you.

Ohhh, we can begin again.
Shed our skin, let the sun shine in.
At the edge of the ocean
We can start over again.
--Ivy "Edge of the Ocean"

The other night, I signed a lease on a flat in San Francisco's the Mission Dolores neighborhood, just a block from the park. My new place is huge, on the top floor and set on a tranquil, block-long street with no through traffic.

If I walk a block south, I am in the heart of the gritty hipster haven, the Mission. A block in the other direction and I am in the 18th Street “gourmet ghetto" with its plethora of cafes (including one I am dubbing "cafe-cutie"), health food stores, bakeries and Michelin-rated restaurants. Together, they have some of the best restaurants I think of. Anywhere. Fortunately, Amoeba Records is at a safe distance, in the Haight, thus I don’t have to factor into my rent what I would spend there. There is not a chain store in spitting distance.

The Mission is the Latino neighborhood should I want use the subjunctive tense in Spanish for giggles. Maybe I will just torture an unsuspecting immigrant with my accent that’s one part Mexican, one part Norte-Americano, one part Brasileiro and the other Argentino. I’ve spoken Spanish every day this week.

To me, San Francisco is paradise. I am a ten-minute bike ride to work. Just 20 to get over the Golden Gate Bridge and into Marin. 15 to the Marina. A few less to Pac Heights or Russian Hill. 5 to SOMA and my new favorite restaurant on the planet, the all vegan, Gratitude. If I want to be at work by 9, I can leave just fifteen minutes earlier on the BART subway or the beautifully restored, colorful 1920's trams that run along Market and Church Streets.

The people are smart, cool, progressive, friendly and healthy. They work hard and have good careers, but know how to play equally hard. I am impressed with how nice people are and how they talk to me everywhere I am.

I have a feeling it's not going to be as hard as, say, moving to a country where I didn't know the language or even a single person. But I won't make any predictions, I am sure they'd just come back and bite me on the ass.

As psyched as I am to be in SF, I am sad to leave el DF. This is my last week here and I am feeling some serious saudade. The hardest part is leaving friends behind. But, as the one whom I will miss the most, Claudia, reminded me today, we’ll always be in contact and San Francisco is a just quick flight 4.5 hour flight to Mexico City.

In the same way I am about to reconnect with San Francisco friends Doug, Cynthia, Mary, Josh, Dylan, Dave, Becky and Doutschan, I know one day, when I least expect it or plan it, I will reconnect with my friends here.

My friends have shown me not only the best of their countries, but they also shown me what I consider to be the best of the world. I hope I showed them that there are Norte-Americanos who didn't vote for Jorge Arbusto, who don't support the US current administration and who are actually enthralled by other countries, cultures and languages.

Moreover, people in general and my friends in particular, showed me patience when I was lacking it. They showed me understanding and tolerance of cultural differences and in doing so taught me to be more empathetic and tolerant. They showed me there are different ways to do things and to think about things. They showed me how things can work out without forcing them.

Without them, I’d have a lot of photographs, but few experiences and nothing to tie me back to the rest of the world. I wouldn't feel changed.

I am thankful to have had the opportunity to step further outside myself than I thought was possible. Mexico City wasn’t exactly the best place on the planet for the outdoors, biking and healthy lifestyles. But two years hence, I've grown in ways I couldn't have imagined before - even if I don't ride as quickly as I once did. I can speak Spanish and even Portuguese especially when aided by my favorite type of beer in the world, Brazilian schopp. I’ve discovered my love for other countries and cultures and someone else paid me to do it.

I feel like I have come full circle. Like the kid in "The Alchemist", Santiago. He sets out to find a hidden treasure and travels in search of his dream. At first the universe conspires to help him but he has to over come many obstacles to get where he wants to go. When he gets there - it's not where he thought it was. (I don't want to give away then of the story). He survives by keeping his dream alive and listening to his heart.

It might have taken me two years to admit, but I miss home. I miss soy sausages. I miss riding. I miss bikram. I miss my friends. I miss normality. I miss healthy-lifestyle culture. I miss clean air. I miss green. I miss my snowboard. I miss snow. I miss 20 brands of cat litter. I miss having my own furniture. I miss halloween. I miss speaking English. I miss convenience.

And I will miss Mexico.

It doesn't seem to make sense to send musings from Mexico if I am in San Francisco. So other than posting a few laggard trip reports, I will retire this blog, but it will remain online.

Who knows what SF brings? Most likely not what I expect. At least it will make a good story for a future blog or yet-to-be-invented medium.

M31 Dos Anos Despues

2006-08-19T09:27:00.001-07:00

I've now been in Mexico exactly two years and one more than planned! My Spanish has improved greatly, though is far from perfect.

It’s been a while since I wrote a mass-email, so I thought I’d send a quick update. From November through April, I led a major project for my company at a large bank. That consumed most of my time and I fell out of the habit of writing my regular emails.

I skipped Thanksgiving and then only made it to Boston in the nick of time for Christmas, though failed to write my usual holiday cards. The life of Brian as a work-aholic. I am now in recovery.

My blog, however, is up to date.

After my project, I took some time off and went to the Yucatan. Photos here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/brian.kemler

Then the excitement was the World Cup. Alas, each of my four teams lost, USA, Mexico and Brazil and then finally France fell to Italy. It was fun to be in a country where soccer is taken seriously and during the matches everything stops. My company purchased a TV and cable subscription solely for the purpose of watching the games.

As the cup wound down, the next competition heated up, the Mexican presidential elections pitting the center-right PAN candidate, Filippe Calderon against former Mexico City Mayor and the not –so-center-left PRD, Adreas Manuel Lopez Obredor (AMLO). There were three other candidates, but the race came down to these two with a .05% victory for Calderon of 241,000 votes of 43,000,000 cast.

AMLO immediately demanded a re-count and has staged increasingly large protests to complain of alleged fraud, robbing him of the election. Sound familiar? Only when it happened in the USA, to my knowledge, neither Bush nor Gore stood up and declared himself president stating he would disregard the ruling of the supreme court. For the past three weeks, there has been a PRD-subidized sit-in of sorts on Mexico City’s main avenue, Paseo de la Reforma. It spans 12 kilometers, including the one block on which my office sits.

Mexico City is not the most commuter-friendly city in the world to begin with and my non-cycle-commuting colleagues have seen their one-way commute times double to two hours.

I am all for protesting and I agreed with AMLO there should be a recount. Though de disregarded the Federal Election Institute's findings and in doing so undermined a critical and functioning democratic institution that was crucial in helping to usher-in the first democratically elected president in 79 years, Vicente Fox.

AMLO’s critics have likened him to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez fearing he will stop at nothing shy of a government take-over. Some of his supporters openly call for revolution. I was skeptical of these claims, but his actions are proving this out.

Clearly he is tapping into a valid undercurrent in the population. There are many poor and disenfranchised people in Mexico who view the government as out of touch or in cahoots with the rich elite that has run Mexico throughout its history. I don’t question that sentiment. However, my concern for Mexico is that he may be pursuing semi-legitimate means (threats, confrontations) to achieve his goals thus undermining the democracy he claims he supports.

His supporters in front of my office every day are doing anything but protesting; they're playing football, chess, doing aerobics, being fed and housed in tents courtesy of the PRD campaign and the Mexico City government whose mayor is an AMLO ally. The local police, aligned with the mayor, won’t move them. Now we're on week three and counting.

It all makes for lively theatre, but we’ll see what happens on Independence Day in September. That is the day that Mexicans gather at the central square or Zocalo to celebrate their independence from Spain. This sets the stage for a possible confrontation with the military. Already, there have been minor injuries and it’s hard not to see how one side might provoke the other into an escalation of tensions leading to violence and political instability. AMLO's supporters have threatened to close the international airport as well as other targets. The military has been brought in to deflect prostesters from closing the airport and the other targets.

For the Calderon side:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/26/AR2006072601497.html

and for the AMLO side:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=59&ItemID=10766

I just returned from trips to Chile, Argentina and Tulum. I am gearing up for another trip to Argentina as well as vacation in German and Portugal the first two weeks of September.

That’s about it to report for now!

2006-06-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

Futbol vs. Soccer

Video Musing #3

2006-06-21T23:05:00.000-07:00

Bike Commute

Video Musing #2

2006-06-21T19:56:00.000-07:00

Meet Las Gatas de la Casa

Video Musing #1

M30 The Museum of My Childhood Colonia Doctores

2006-05-31T16:29:00.000-07:00

Jardin Dr. Ignacio Chavez is a park that stradles Avenida Cuauhtemoc on the fringe of what is reputed to be one of Mexico City's shadiest neighborhoods, Colonia Doctores. Doctores, for short, is known as a place to find cheapest rents and to avoid stopping your car if you like your hubcaps and gold fillings.

But to me, it is home of one of my favorite markets in Mexico City: the Museum of My Childhood. While a fraction of the size of a typical flea market, it more than makes up in quality what it lacks in size.

If it was thrown away somewhere else, you can bet that they've saved it here. And if they had went out and tried to put together a place with more pieces of my past, they couldn't have done a better job than what has been randomly assembled here.

Like most of the best finds, I stumbled upon it while riding my bike. At first I thought it was an ordinary market. But on closer inspection, it turned out to be the motherlode of antique markets. I have never seen anything like. Not in a flea market or store. I suspect eBay is the only thing that could actually rival it.

While I can't claim to have ever owned a "Continental Transistor Radio-Phono", I am pretty sure it was the Ipod of its day. Sleak in its faux-gold package, it contains a still working radio and portable record player that I have yet to test. Its single speaker still picks up radio and lends a low-fi charm and authenticity to the Cuban music I pick up from my dining room.

There is something about its sound that is real and reminds me of the truth that those who love music the most are not necessarily those blessed with the best equipment. That music can be enjoyed by the poorest among us. It even came with batteries to boot.

My parents probably threw this find out two decades ago. Though it is possible Mattel Football 2 dwells somewhere in the recesses of our basement, which is something of a museum itself. However, I wasn't going to take any chances on reclaiming this piece of my past and certainly not for $5US Dollars - batteries included.

My younger brother, Justin, and I passed many a Saturday night playing Football 2 and ogling the Solid Gold Dancers while sucking down cokes and eating cheese Doritos.

M29 Bodas Mexicanas (Mexican Weddings)

2006-05-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me if all my friends were married. Come to think of it, all but one is. I myself am still working on the girlfriend thing.

This spring weddings have been sprouting up like flowers. I was honored to attend two weddings of my closest Mexican friends; Claudia's wedding to Stefan and Fernando's wedding to Loary.

When it comes to weddings, Mexicans go for broke. They rent out giant haciendas (huge farms with castle-like buildings, moats and walls) have massive white dinner tents the size of football fields, multiple dinners, bands, dj's, mariachi performances, lucha libre masks and even mock bull-fights. And to top that off, so to speak, alcohol that flows like the Amazon er El Rio Grande.

Even the most extravagent American wedding would look austere by comparision.

As formal as Mexican weddings are, they are often characterized by the kind of improvision at which Mexicans thrive and us gringos cringe.

Just prior the ceremony, Claudia asked me if I would pass her "lucky coins" during the ceremony. This is a symbolic ritual presumably meant to signify luck and prosperity.

It would mean that I would have to be onstage, suddenly cast into the limelight as a member of the wedding party. I practically blushed with honor. I didn't quite understand what was going on, but it turned out her childhood best friend was supposed to do this and no one had heard from him. Plan B for Brian.

About 10 minutes before the actual ceremony, he showed up. So much for my fifteen minutes, but I had another fifteen coming.

Claudia and Stefan invited me to make a two-hour Bossa-Nova mix for the dinner. The plan, however simple, like many things in Mexico, worked out to be complicated.

Give the sound man the CD, insert it into CD player, press play. Voila! We would then we'd be entreated to some of the nicest romantic Brazilian Bossa-Nova this side of my favorite country.

Instead, I arrived underneath the wedding tent, to my ear-stabbing horror, to a Muzak version of "Dust In the Wind". For a funeral, maybe, but a wedding?!?! That right that there would have been enough to ruin mine.

I went to the head table. Claudia implored us to "Do Something" in Spanish. I went over to the mixing board and tried to explain to them the should play the Bossa-Nova CD's. They said there was a problem, so I proffered my Ipod. But aparently they were missing the cord to connect it to the mixing board, even though Claudia had asked for that.

The missing cord then suddenly materialized, but that didn't solve the drama. Then they couldn't figure out (after reassuring me they had taken Ipod 101) that you had to tweak the volume to get the right sound. So it sounded like were were listening inside a tin can.

For some reason they thought they should make their talents known by mixing tracks between the Ipod and the CD's. That wouldn't have been such a disaster on its own, if they hadn't kept playing all the songs twice. EQ'ing forget it. For the most part, my fastidious ears were the only ones that really noticed. I was flattered to receive compliments about my playlist.

After a delicious gourmet meal, dessert and more drinks than I care to or probably could remember, the dancing started. They hired a band which played mostly covers of wedding and Mexican pop standards. They got eveyone dancing their asses off. It's probably the only time in my life I will hear the Village People's "YMCA" played right after Daddy Yankee's regaeton anthem "Dame mas gasolina". I was absolutely delighted when they covered Belanova , my favorite Mexican pop group.

But it worked and it was 100% unselfconscience fun. As if the music wasn't enough, we celebrated their wedding while conducting mini-celebrations for carnival, mardi-gras, the running of the bulls and luche-libre. The later is Mexican "free fighting" which is basically this country's masked equivalent to our WWF wrestling. Though luche-libre has more culture poignance due to its link to the use of masks in pre-colombian Mexico - but that's another story.

The handed out feathers, hats, long ballons and even a picture frame. By the time the band ended, it was time for another dinner. Then the garter toss which was hillarious as Stefan pulled from underneath Clau's dress an enormous gag bra and garter belt before tossing the real thing to a gaggle of solteras (single women). Shortly after the mariachis entered and played for seemingly hours.

While they played, there was a mock bull fight with Stefan as the madator. After all that, the mariachis left and we switched venues to what appeared to be a Mexican beer hall to dance the rest of the night to a DJ. By my watch, the wedding began at 1pm and ended around 5am without a minute's pause.

More photos here: Photography by Brian Kemler

Selected tracks from Claudia and Stefan's playlist:
Track - Artist
1 A Ra - Joao Donato
2 Diz a Ela - Lisa Ono
3 ¿gua de Beber/¿guas de Marco - T.Jobim-V.deMorais/T.Jobim
4 Samba de Verao - Marcos Valle
5 Carta Ao Tom 74 (Toquinho E VinÌcius De Moraes) - VinÌcius De Moraes
6 Chega De Saudade - Tom Jobim
7 The Girl From Ipanema - 45 Rpm Issue - Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto
8 Cinnamon & Clove II - Balanco
9 Disse Me Disse - Manoel Da Concricao
10 Ela e Carioca - Marcos Valle
11 Bossa 31 - Rosalia De Souza
12 Falsa Baiana (Jo O Gilberto) - Various Artists
13 Mas, Que Nada! - Jorge Ben
14 Monsieur Binot - Joyce

No Worries

2006-05-11T21:27:00.000-07:00

The other day I had a small, but interesting, realization about to worry. If I worry about a future event, I suffer one more time than I may need to.

When I worry, I first suffer in the present and then again if that future event comes true.

Note the word “if”. It may or may not come true.

So if that event doesn't come true, then I suffered unnecessarily by worrying. If it does come true, then I suffered twice; the first time while I worried and the second when it occurred. Note the worry can’t have any material effect on the future, but it can have the profound material effect on the present of making you live in a state of fear.

It makes no rational sense to worry. I will have to remind myself of that next time I am freaking out about something.

BK Brazil

2006-05-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

El Principio de Final..?

2006-05-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

May 2004. My well planned move to Mexico City is only going to last 10 months. I am then going to come back to my house in Washington and in all likelihood get married to my girlfriend.

May 2006. I no longer have a house nor a girlfriend and they're mum on the idea of rolling out.

Will I have to accept a local position at a reduced salary? Is my current position available for me if I want to stay, go back to the States, to Brazil or to Argentina? How will the organizational changes afflicting my company affect my current position?

I thought hard work and setting clear expections would yield the desired outcomes. I have now been asking what my next move is supposed to be since July - the month I was supposed to come back.

Still no word.

In the mean time, I have saved them close to two million dollars single-handedly saving a multi-million dollar account at a global firm where it's safe to say were there Brian, there would also no longer be the aforementioned account.

From November through April, I was the tech lead on an implementations of our company's most complicated and expense solution. I had never taken a training course in this solution and never had a mentor walk me through its implementation. I picked it all up on my own and in the process became a hero as the president of my company watched my work.

I earned the respect of technical support and even eclipsed some of the seasoned and trained specialists in the United States. My work made me a lot of friends and perhaps if not a few enemies, I made some people scared. I gave up weekends, evenings and peace of mind. They gave me a Blackberry.

The harder I work and the more I accomplish, the happier they are keeping me right where I am. And now that they are ready to take up my cause, organizational changes have stymied my plans until they know what the organization is going to look like.

I am getting used to not knowing my fate and in the mean time I am savioring my time in Mexico because I know it is not going to last forever. Truth be told, I could probably hang for another year. However, I really feel like I need a vision of what my future is.

Since my geography is very much tied to my job, I very much need to know what I am going to be doing so I can know where I am going to be living.

In the past month, since my tenure as technical lead on the above mentioned account ended, I have relaxed in a way unknown to me since living here and in the process made me wonder just what the hell had turned me into a work-a-holic in the last year and a half.

Stay tuned.

Top 10 Tracks of 2005

2006-02-15T20:02:00.000-08:00

Moving abroad has broadened my taste in music. And that music, in turn, has greatly improved my comprehension of Spanish and Portuguese language skills. Music is one of the only things in my life that can make me feel at home when I am traveling 50% of the time or more. I don't know what I'd do without it. One of the things that I have most in common both with Mexicans and Brazilians is our mutual love for music.

In 2005, I discovered Mexican pop idols, Belanova and delved deeply into Brazilian Bossa Nova which had already reached its peak of popularity while by the time I was born at the end of the 60's. I fell in love with Ive Mendes and discovered Argentine tango-electronica by random on a three day trip to Buenos Aires. After repeated trips to New York City, I reconnected with some rock that I actually like (Tegan and Sara) after years of all but ignoring the genre as a whole. Washington DC's Theivery Corporation blew me away their latest and best album,The Cosmic Game, all the while making me long for so many bygone evenings at ESL.

All in all, it was a pretty kick-ass year for music. Let's hope '06 brings more good vibes.

I invite you to check out these tracks and these artists.

Track - Artist
1 "Niño" - Belanova
2 "Stay" - Astrud Gilberto
3 "Sur Ton Ile" - Isabelle Antena
4 "Me lastimas" - Belanova
5 "Esta Vez" (Belanova & Juanitoz mix) - Sara Valenzuela
6 "Sol Tapado" (feat. Patrick de Santos) - Thievery Corporation
7 "Natural High" - Ive Mendes
8 "I Think Of You" (K-Klass Mix) - Blaze And Amira
9 "I Won't Be Left" - Tegan & Sara
10 "El Solitario" - Tanghetto

Paraty Brazil

2006-02-07T20:56:00.000-08:00

Two weekend trips in early December to Paraty, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil.

M28 Closing

2005-11-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I thought I had returned to Washington, DC to close on the sale of my house, but my life seemed to bring some strange, interesting and yet welcome twists of fate even if I didn't perceive them as such at the time.

Psychologically I was a little down. First, I hadn't much sleep having just arrived on a 10-hour overnight flight from Brazil. Second, I had purchased a plane ticket for my friend Peter to come up and help with the "move" much as I had done with Solange and the cats.

Peter is hard working and more importantly would serve to help focus me in the two tight days I had in which to pack, give away, trash or sell all of my material possesions.

I called Peter as I knew he'd be at the airport while I was on my way to the airport in Sao Paulo. Apparenyly, American Airlines denied him boarding for his flight to the USA due to the fact that his passport didn't have the required barcode for entry into the USA.

But, funny, they don't tell you this when they sell the ticket. And who would think there would be a problem with a Danish passport, Denmark being a visa waiver nation that supported us in our "fight against terror in Iraq". But that's life in the days of George W. Bush and the United States of Syria.

I called American and pleaded with them from the back seat of my cab, but it was all to no avail. Add them to my airline shitlist right behind Aeromexico.

I would have to pull it togther without Peter's emotional and physical support. Saturday I arrived just in advance of my army of army of helpers. I thought "F8&^"! How the hell was I going to get rid of all this stuff, put it into storage or give it away? Fortunately, each member of my movers' army manned a particular battlestation; John the less than well attended yard sale, Steve, trips to the thrift store, Julia, whose birthday it was, packed odds and end. Dara and Robb pyschological support, Cyn and Doug packing and trips to the thrift store.

Fortunately, when you live in the 'hood, the thrift stores are nearby.

Much of what I had amassed in terms of stuff over the years, had been garned from yard sales and thrift stores. Our society produces a glut of stuff and if there was ever a glutton, it was me all in spite of having a yard sale every year for the last six. The rest of the stuff, I left in the alley. Yeah, it was sort of a ghetto move, but I figured I had enough neighborhood karma banked after cleaning that street and alley for 6 years, that I could make a karmic withdrawal and still maintain a good conscience.

M27 No Sleep For the Weary

2005-10-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

Just because I am not writing, doesn't mean nothing is going on. In fact, quite the contrary. In the last month and a half, I've been to three continents and six countries - some several times.

North and South America plus Europe. The USA, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Spain and France. I've met so many new people yet I haven't even had time to send them all messages. Let alone keep in touch with my regular correspondents.

After trips to Brazil and Argentina see post below, my friend Dave and I threw a surprise bachelor party in New York City our soon to be married best friend, John. We saw the Red Sox play the Yankees (and get their arses handed to them no less) at Yankees Stadium. Let's hope that holds a similar portent as rain does on a wedding day!

The Needham Crew; Brian, Justin, Dave and John
The next night the surprise was kept up and we held a party for all of John's friends his friend Jessica's ridiculously amazing flat at Central Park West. My friend Cindy, a neighbor dropped by and it was great to catch up with her. She's a doctor in New York City and a super-fabulous chica. We've never lived in the same city, but I still count her as a solid friend.

Brian and John

Felines Fly the (un!) Friendly Skies

After fun in NYC, it was strictly business for three days in North Carolina then it was tending to the house that was a headache in Washington, DC.

At the beginning of September, I flew my friend Solange up to DC from Mexico to help me bring my cats, Domino and Yuki, to Mexico. A single passenger can only bring a single animal abroad at a time so I figured the price of her ticket and the value of her company and the fact that one of the cats wouldn't have to fly in the cargo hold were well worth it. Little did I know. I don't trust airlines with pets. And my instinct was right.

Despite calling and asking multiple times and paying $100 per cat, we were nearly denied boarding on our connecting flight in Atlanta on Aeromexico. We were abruptly removed from the aircraft as they were about to close its doors for take off by an unsympathetic flight crew. (NOTE: This has to be the shitiest, rudest airline I've ever encountered. I pray every night that when they're privatized early next year, they are quickly run into the ground by the competition and that that particular flight crew is the first to be laid off. All that being said both Delta and, surprisingly, the Transportation Security Administration were unusually obliging and friendly.)

I don't know who was more freaked out, the cats, or me. What they hell I was I going to do without a hotel - let a lone a litter box in Atlanta with two freaked out felines that have never traveled more than two miles in a car to the vet? After dealing the most curt flight crew on the planet they asked the captain, who agreed to let us reboard. Our plane took off late with everyone including the cats. Thank god Solange was there to keep me from not completely loosing my shit.

That same morning, I signed the contract to list my house with Kelly Williams, one of the planet's most fabulous and effective real estate agents. Kelly was my agent when I bought the house. A week later, I landed in Barcelona and the house hit the market. I tried not to think about it as the house was empty and I was paying the mortgage yet not getting rent. Somehow, even $1,100 down the drain a month seemed like a bargain compared with dealing with my former renters. Within four days we actually had two offers. I ended up getting more than the asking price and the house has appreciated greatly over the last six years. I am convinced I have the market timed.

All this while, I am still trying to collect September's rent from yet another less-than-reliable tenant. (Oh, I promise this one has the makings of good post, so stay tuned). I guess that's why I sold it to begin with. It is a big pain in the ass and as an absentee landlord in another country I have had to fly back all the time to deal with the constant drama. I am glad it's nearly done and I will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Spain and France were fabulous, though somewhat of a blur now. I rode my bike and took some Spanish courses. I couldn't rent a car because I left my license in Mexico so I couldn't go to the city I intended going to in the first place. I met up with my friend Severine in Montpellier and she gave me an insider's view of French society and culture. I spent time with her fabulous family and the were most welcoming of me and even let me read in Hewbrew whilst I celebrated at their Jewish New Year's dinner.

I must say my love of France is nearly on par with that of Brazil. I don't know what to say. Americans and French aren't supposed to get along, but I loved everyone I met and they seem to love me back. I have never had a rude experience in France and I admire their food, culture, music, lifestyle and society. I have come to think that the reason Americans criticize the French is because we are actually insecure and jealous. Inside, we know that they're on to something that we're not. That we might have bigger houses, refridgerators and cars, but they have five weeks' vacation, free health care, education and they're not trapped in their automobiles 24-7.

On the bus on the way back to Barcelona, I met two lovely women from Singapore. Unfortunately, the photographic evidence has been left in Massachusetts. Over the course of the next few days we became friends and went out at night. They were smart, interesting, friendly and beautiful. I really like the people I meet traveling, especially when I say in hostels or travel by bus. It seems to me that non-Americans are more interested in travel than we are as a nation. Also, it seems that women tend to be more adventurous and prone to travel on average than men.

From Spain, I flew to Boston. I saw my friends Florian and Carolin off at their farewell party in August. They were my first and closest friends in Mexico. I am happy to report they have relocated to none other than my home state of Massachusetts, where I saw them! The other consolation is at their going away party, I met a super lovely Mexican woman named Claudia and we have become good friends.

In my hometown of Needham, I was honored to be best man in John Wyeth and Vanessa Hawkins' wedding.
I really wish I had written down my toast to John and Vanessa because I don't fully remember it now. I know that before I spoke in front of 150 people, I sucked down two beers. But John has been my closest friend even though we have not lived in the same city for 18 years. It's funny, but the speech I gave wasn't so much trip down memory lane as a tribute to someone with whom I am still just as close as ever. I wish him and his fabulous wife Vanessa the best of luck!

My writing can't keep up with my life and I am not sure I like that. In fact, I haven't been feeling so creative or inspired. What I have been feeling is tired and forgetful. It's a little weird, in the last month, I've lost keys, left my driver's license in Mexico when I needed it to rent a car in Spain. Only Solange's presence at the DF airport saved me from leaving behind a coffin-sized piece of luggage before we go into our taxi with the cats. I thought I lost my memory card with 500 photos of Spain and France, but Dave's father found it in their house. Gracias a deus!

It felt good to be back in Mexico other than to be working under pressure on client sites for 14 hours a day immediately upon my return. I've also been asked at the drop of a hat to go to Venezuela and Brazil this past week. But my work is super cool and fun and my management is super relaxed with my schedule and my travel so it's the least I can do in return.

I missed the friendliness of the people in Mexico and was psyched to be back and greated by my close friends, Karin, Alex (her husband) and Peter. Domino and Yuki no longer look like DF street cats as they did when I picked them up in DC. They are happy, relaxed and they sleep with me every night. My landlord, whom I was worried would not permit the cats, actually loves them and cares for them when I am away.

Friday, I head up to DC to close on the house, get rid of most of my material possesions and start the next chapter of my life. Hopefully, one that is simpler and more relaxed.

M26 "Keats and Yeats Are on Your Side, While Wilde Is on Mine"

2005-08-31T08:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday I went off to explore Buenos Aires' most exclusive neighborhood, a gated community, so to speak. I wanted to see its fabulous architecture and art. There, I met a girl so beautiful she brought tears to my eyes.

The streets are too narrow for cars, cats run at the feet of the pedestrians. It's the most elite neighborhood in town and to get in, you have to have money and know someone in the highest echelons of Argentine society. The eclectic styles of architecture run the gamut from classic Greek and Roman styles, to Italianate, Art Nouveau and Deco and mid-century modern.

I didn't go to any art museums in BA, but Recoleta was a better substitute than I could possibly imagine, especially when it came to sculpture. Every building was a work of art onto its own. Two or three levels in some cases all seeming to stretch themselves all too thin in their reach toward heaven. As beautiful as Recoleta is, it's absolutely the last neighborhood in the city I'd want to get stuck alone in a night.

And it's not because of the crime.

Recoleta is a cemetery. It's BA's most exclusive and famous cemetery and one of the city's prime attractions. The likes of Eva Peron, "Evita" and the elite of Argentina are buried here in mausoleums bigger and more ornate than most homes. Notably, her husband, Juan was not interred here. Some of them have open windows displaying racks of family coffins.
Most have glass doors and waiting rooms with chairs so you can go into the family mausoleum should you like to literally be right next to your deceased relatives' coffins. I am pretty sure that when there is a shortage of cherubs and angels in heaven, God imports them from Recoleta.

Much of it, however beautiful, seemed more a monument to vanity than memory. The rich and famous and powerful and their preoccupation with death and eternity. It seems no matter what worldly can power can buy them, they end of up dead just like the rest of us. What was equally as striking was the conspicuous absence of flowers or other evidence that the graves had been recently attended to by relatives. All that effort and no one even shows up or even bothers to remember.

There was one notable exception.

It was the most moving monument in the entire "marble orchard" as my grandmother likes to say in her thick Pawtucket, Rhode Island accent. Mahbull orchid.

I stumbled upon a beautiful, life-size bronze statue of a young woman who had died of cancer. There was a plaque with a poem in Italian dedicated to her. She seemed decidedly human and yes, sad, but not in the utter throngs of grief like so many of the grief-stricken cherubs imploring the heavens.

Now that I recall, it was the only statue of an actual deceased person in the enitre cemetery. She stands with her beloved dog. His nose shinning, as though polished, from where people pet him. Interestingly, the same could not be said for her as if she were beyond reach.

Her hand held freshly cut flowers as if in an offering to the living. As if the only antidote to grief were carried by her, by the power of her life, her beauty, her energy, her love for her family and even her dog. As if we could only be consoled by and through her and her alone. Not through god or even a combined army of bereaved cherubs and stricken angels.

As I pondered her life, tears welled up in my eyes. There was something powerful, tragic and moving in her and missing from the rest of the cemetery. Something that was able to move me, a stranger, thirty years after the death of someone I had never met.

M25 Closing One Chapter and Opening Another

2005-08-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

I feel relieved. I finished my (paper) journal today. It's 120 pages long and it took me a year and a half to write. It's only the second journal I've ever completed in my life. The other one took four years to complete.

On the first page of my newly completed journal, I wrote:

"My last journal was something of a watershed for me. What I'd like to do with this journal is, firstly to continue the habit of writing more regurlarly and secondly, build upon it by pushing the limits of recording events and devling into the creative realm of fiction."

I didn't write any fiction, but that doesn't mean my journal wasn't filled with its critical elements; drama, action, conflict, love, hate, passion, change and all too occasionally, glimmers of happiness. I often feel I am flying standby on an emotional roller coaster.

Today, in a fabulous and newly discovered cafe in Colonia Roma, Azul y Blanco (Blue and White, Orizaba 161 y Queretaro), I reflected on the last page of my journal.

"I am feeling more relaxed. I rode around the city taking pictures. It's nice to reconnect and continually rediscover a city with a seemlingly infinite supply of new and interesting places such as this fabulous cafe from which I write. The cafe has an antique espresso machine and art by a Mexican artist named Carlos Marquez. I stumbled apon the cafe just riding around and I decided to stop and check it out. Even the music agreed with me. They were playing some wonderful Brazilian Bossa Nova.

One of many incredible blue and white paintings by Carlos Marquez at Cafe Azul y Blanco, stumbled upon while riding the photogenic streets of Distrito Federal.

Maybe I've been pushing things too much as my friend Peter suggested yesterday."

Peter, a Dane and founder of DF's only bike messenger company, CiclosMensajeros, is acquiring a taste for baseball in general and not surprisingly, the Boston Red Sox in particular. Peter didn't know much about baseball, and unprompted, he watched a Sox game the other day. This is what I like about Peter, he is completely and totally open to new things and needs no prompting. I find this is a very rare trait in people and this is perhaps why I consider him to be one of my better friends these days.

He was impressed by the relaxed batting stance of David Ortiz Boston's super-slugger. He said this guy was just so chilled, it was like he was just waiting for the perfect pitch to come so he could knock it out of the stadium. And he was. Peter picked this up on first glance, perhaps because he is a similarly relaxed and unphased person. Minutes later, he hit a grand slam and the Red Sox won, continuing a great follow-on season to last year's World Series win.

It's not like getting stressed really ever gets you anywhere. The best athletes and most efffective people in the world, are also the most relaxed.

I am "putting that one on a shelf in my brain".

I wrote further, "It's all about embracing what is right now, because it's not always going to be and I am going to miss it when it's gone. As much as I want to be the author of my own endings, that is simply impossible in life. For endings are only beginnings. And neither are necessarily good or bad because because they are in or out of concert with the outcome we set out to write".

The fact is when I am here, I often bemoan the fact that I am single, the fact that I can't exacly ride my bike in Rock Creek Park or out the Potomac, the fact that I am sometimes feeling trapped and claustraphobic and the fact that for the time being I am powerless to change that and there is no exit strategy in what was supposed to be a one year move. But today I felt like I could be here for another year.

I just enjoyed DF for what it is, a fabulously diverse, interesting, colorful and world-class city filled with amazing cafes, art, restaurants and yes traffic and pollution. It's an up and coming city. The kind of city that is not yet acclaimed and concomitantly, not overwhelmed by acclaim. It's like a city of cool neighborhoods before the suburbanites discover they're cool.

I am in on the ground floor.

The other day at a work lunch some co-workers asked me jokingly if I had been to Giribaldi. When I replied "yes", they laughed in disbelief that a gringo would have gone there. But I had gone, and in fact, it's home to one of my favorite antique markets. I buy little paintings of miracles on tin there. I learned at the Frida Kahlo museum that Frida loved these little tin paintings too and there's, in fact, a whole room in her house devoted to them. They have a Spanish name that I am forgetting right now.

Perhaps they laughed because they themselves hadn't been and could not imagine a foreigner going where they themselves don't go. But sometimes it takes being a foreigner to appreciate what's right in front of your own eyes. But I take pride in the fact that I do not hold myself up in my house or in my car (that I don't have any more). That I get out on my bike to see things that others don't or have long since forgotten.

I wonder how much people see of this city cruising around everywhere in their cars? Always going somewhere yet never being anywhere.

As crazy as riding bikes around DF sounds, it's the best way to see this city to connect to it and to discover its fabulousity. And in that way, to me, cars, buses and taxis all seem like ways not to see this city. Weekends provide a rare, relatively traffic-free window for exploration and recreation. On the bike I've seen more things than would be humanly possible by foot, taxi, car, micro or subway.

Perhaps that is how I've seen as much in so little time. Almost everything cool I've discovered has been on bike. Whether archictecture like the fabulous old theaters and buildings of Roma, cafes, monuments, the art garden, San Angel, the antique markets, street art, parks or old hulks of buses, I've found it all riding. I am pretty sure that aside from some of my fellow cyclists, I've seen more than most people who've lived behind the winshield of a car. I wonder if they know what an incredible city is in their midst?

But I know what it's like not to see. I am not talking about just because you're behind the wheel of a car. Much of my life is spent behind the windscreen of my own brain. Perpetually wrapped up in thought. Fears of the future, regrets from the past, neglect of the present. Not living in emotional time instead of living in real time. In that way, I am just like the drivers missing out on the city.

When I got home from the cafe, I somehow felt a chapter of my life was closed. I was both glad and releived. I can only hope that I will be happier or at least more accepting than I have been since I started my last journal.

Finishing a journal should seem like a rather arbitrary event with no greater significance than say a birthday or New Year's. There's no real reason I should feel differently, yet I do.

Maybe it because the pages of my new journal are still blank.

More pictures from today here: Photography by Brian Kemler

A note on Carta Products

The most fabulous of fabulous of paper journals are to be found here for your writing enjoyment. They're handmade from recycled leather in Italy and designed in California. They will inspire you to write as they have me:
Carta Products

The Sweet Beats of Belanova

2005-08-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to stumble upon Belanova one day while wandering around D.F.'s Colonia of Cool, Condesa. I stopped into Kulte, a super-hip clothing shop, on Calle Atlixco and I knew immediately that I had to have whatever was playing.

I inquired in Spanish and was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was a fabulous homegrown act, Belanova. There is nothing particularly Mexican-sounding about Belanova, but I love them because of the sexy, yet innocent, vocals of their diva, Denisse, on whom I have the most serious crush I've had on anyone in a long time.

I am a sucker for female vocals and electronic music even when if verges on pop, which takes me to Dulce Beat, the new Belanova album, already a resounding hit here in Mexico. It is a more accessible, and yes, pop-sounding departure from their debut LP, "Cocktail" and thus It's sure to attract a broader audience such as the girls in my office who are already asking me whether I can burn it for them. I take it as a compliment that the office gringo is the one being asked about all things music - even musica latina!

Dulce Beat opens with "Nino" a super sweet and delicious track that has me tapping my feet and smiling ear to ear. It sets the tone for this refreshingly happy and uptempo album. It there is such a thing as "feel good" music, this is it. If they make music like this in the States (yes, I know Mexico is the states too!), it doesn't make it to the surface. In the four or so hours since I downloaded the entire album, I must have played "Me Pregunto Por Que" (I ask myself why), fifty times. The album is that sweet, catchy, accessible and yet cool.

Be my novia!

I haven't had a chance to fully ingest the lyrics of Dulce Beat yet, I can tell you that Cocktail is full of fabulous songs many of which cathartic for me (See "Suele Pasar" lyrics and my translation below). The songs are about long distance and sometimes unhappy relationships. One song "What a Shame", is in English, presumably to tap into the massive music market north of the border.

Belanova are on Universal Records here in Mexico. If you can find their CD in the USA, buy it. If you can't find it, check Limewire or better still, BitTorrent.

How can you not love Denisse?

Suele Pasar (It usually happens)

hablas,callas, gritas (you talk, shut up, scream)
a mi me da igual (to me it's all the same)
sabes que te quiero (you know i love you)

alto, me lastimas (stop, you hurt me)
no puedes cambiar (you can't change)
para eso estas hecho (this is a fact)

y se que yo estuve mal (and i know i was bad)
y tu solo existias (and you only )
y se que yo estuve mal
tal vez no queria darme cuenta (maybe you couldn't on my account)

alto, me lastimas (stop, you hurt me)
no puedes cambiar (you can't change)
para eso estas hecho (this is a fact)

y se que yo estuve mal
y tu solo existias
y se que yo estuve mal
tal vez no queria darme cuenta

suele pasar (it happens)
me suelo equivocar (usually I am mistaken)
me suelo equivocar

M24 Get Out of the City

2005-08-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

"Summer days are long and lonely.
Cars are moving slowly.
The streets are filled with air so still.

I'm trying to get out of the city.
Trying to get out of the city.

Everybody's angry.
It's hard not to be lazy.
It's a bad time to have work to do.

I'm trying to get out of the city.
Trying to get out of the city."
Ivy - Get Out of the City

I've been feeling an inexplicably urgent need to get out of the city for the past two weekends.

It just didn't jump off. I suppose I am like the jets here; in need of extra fuel just to get off the ground at 7,300 feet above sea level.

I got the extra boost I needed this weekend. Friday night late, my friend Peter, the Danish founder of Mexico City's only bicycle messenger firm, Ciclos Mensajeros, his girlfriend Arlette, her daughter Gala and I made the five hour trip to the Pie de la Cuesta, a small, rustic and waiting-to-be-developed Pacific beach just north of Acapulco. We didn't arrive until 3am.

The next day when I wasn't sleeping in, I was lounging in the hammocks at Casa Blanca, a sleepy hotel abutting the beach. It's the kind of place that's so chilled out it takes just a day to get used to. Here in the shade you can relax as a parade of beach vendors proffers fruit cups, mango cocktails complete with spicy jalapeno pepper and salt (!?), shrimp, clothing, pot and even - this is my favorite - taxidermied squirrels. I hope I didn't give away anyone's Christmas gift.

The hotel has an unpretentious vibe and is owned by a friendly and unsurprisingly flamboyant Frenchman. During the day mellow dub vibes flow from the outdoor speakers segueing to a more up-tempo house vibe at night. It's the perfect aural back drop for a perfect place.

The place attracts mainly in-the-know European tourists and Mexican middle class beachgoers. There is nothing chi-chi about it yet, that's precisely its charm. There is not much to do save lounge, relax, swim, eat and fish. Did I mention watch the sun rise and set? It's not overrun by any stretch and you won't find ridiculously luxuriant accommodations, internet cafes, tourists shops or fancy restaurants. If you want that, you can have it in spades up the road in Acapulco. The entire weekend, I left my cell phone off. When I came back, there were no extreme emergencies that I missed out on.

Surprise, surprise.

What did surprise me was the conservative beach attire of the typical Mexican beach goer and their generally shy attitudes toward their bodies. My perspective may be a little skewed since the last time I was on a beach I was in Rio de Janeiro where thongs are de rigeur. Here, however, I was shocked to see people swimming in the ocean fully clothed. I also saw full peice bathing suits on young women. And alas, there was not a single thong to be spied. Truth be told the excess clothing shielded us from the dark, unspoken underbelly of libertine Rio; the specter of grandma in a thong.

It was still an interesting visual commentary on the contrasts of the two societies that seem much one the same in the eyes of most Americans.

We often confuse Mexico with Brazil and vice versa. But the two countries aren't a whole lot more similar to each other than they are to, say, Canada.

Firstly, the girls in Mexico are not all hot goddess-predators throwing themselves at the feet of men. Quite the opposite is true. Most live at home and display a shyness and innocence I witnessed the beach when I saw two Mexicanas reluctantly disrobe then run to the ocean in their full piece swim-wear only to return again an instantly cover themselves again. And one of them was actually kind of hot.

Thongs can be witnessed on the city streets of Rio. Do I need to say more? Yes, and it gets even better than that but I will save the good stuff for another post.

Further, Mexico is a country which is more conservative, inwardly focused, Catholic and "family value" oriented. (Hey they have a presidential election coming up next year, maybe they could take our family value president off our hands?) Brazil on the other hand tends to be more focused and open to the outside world due to its the links to the rest of the world stemming from its relatively open immigration policies. Everyone knows it's more liberal in its sexual mores but this also holds true with its progressive politics.

For the record, in Brazil Portuguese, not Spanish, is spoken. And speaking of Latin America, both Mexico and Brazil are in Latin America, yet only Brazil is in South America. So if I am asked "how do you like living in South America?" I have to say, "I don't know because I still live in North America". A lot of people think it's hot in Mexico. But much of the country is mountainous, D.F. included, so the thermometer never goes north of 80F degrees and there's no humidity. It's the land of perpetual spring. Most of the population of Mexico is urban and interior. A more rushed urban culture like New York City is prevalent. Contrast to Brazil; while most of the population of Brazil is also urban, it is situated near the near the hot, humid, equatorial coast and thus a more laid back beach culture akin to say, California, is predominant.

So that's the cultural and geographic lesson for today. I know a lot of it seems obvious, but based on the queries I get, apparently it's anything but.

Over the weekend I couldn't get enough of the water and the waves. The sound of the sea. Sand. Sun. Pelicans skimming the cresting waves with the guided precision of one of Donald Rumfeld's "humane bombs". Saturday night the entire beach was gathered to watch the sunset. It was one of the most spectacular I have ever witnessed. The sun, a giant burning sphere descending into the sea. I half expected the sea to start boiling. When the sun was below the sea, the beach goers spontaneously applauded. I will post pictures when I resuscitate my .mac site which is still down, by the way!

Monday we headed back to D.F., a theoretical four-hour drive. We were making good time going 100mph down the toll road, the most expensive mile for mile in the world, with repeated tolls exacting the kingly sum of 100 pesos or nearly $10usd a pop. The road does a good job at masquerading as a first world autobahn. That's until you bottom your ride out and scrape pavement on one of the many hidden drop-offs. We saw a fallen motorcyclist due to the selfsame drop that woke up our entire car. Ouch.

As we neared the edge of D.F. it was my turn to drive, in a Brian Kemler first and likely last, manning the helm of a motor vehicle on the mean streets of D.F. I actually thought I would get to work by noon. That was until I helped get us lost, and practically had a panic attack. People drive in this madness on a daily basis. Now I know that the reaction of just laying on the horn is a reflection of how these people feel on the inside. I know, I felt it too. But I didn't lay on the horn.

It took another three hours to get home and I didn't get into the office till a shameful 3pm, as noted repeatedly by my co-workers who seem to be quite good at making mental time stamps of the office comings and goings.

Let the record reflect, I stayed till 8pm the last two nights out of guilt and shame in violation of my own policy to leave by 6pm!

D.F. seems to have a gravity all of its own, but outside its borders lie vast, varied, interesting and relaxing places. I wish it were easier to come and go, but the difficulty makes the trip all the more worthwhile.

Mexico City Bike Laws

2005-07-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

Mexico City Laws

"Boneshakers, safety bicycles, and any other similar machines are banned from the center of town."

"Bicycle riders may not lift either foot from the peddles, as it might result in a loss of control. Also, anyone who whistled at or annoyed a bicycle rider could be arrested."

I like the second!!!

Source: Dumblaws.com

Street Scenes: D.F. by Bike

2005-07-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

All Shots Taken this morning on my commute.

Bike Wheel Swallowing Sewer Grate Designed By World's Foremost Bicycle-Hating Sadists. My purple Masi is newly outfitted with fenders for the evening showers, 28c tires to suck up the bumps and lights for riding around town at night.

Fellow cyclist! I want to capture the guy that carries four massive banana crates on the back of his bike. Stay tuned for that.

I wonder what the chilangos thought of a camera-wielding gringo riding no-hands? This is a lovey side street in Colonia Condesa.

Say "ah"! Trademark D.F. Micro bus (say "Meecro") with green and white taxi astride a bike-sized hole.

Across from the Torre Mayor Looking east on Reforma. Look carefully (or click to enlarge) to see the Diana sculpture in the shadow of El Angel.

Believing in the Midst of Doubt

2005-07-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

"You know it's there so take it, even fake it till it comes true"

--Astrud Gilberto "Stay" from Beach Samba, 1967

Feeling normal. Relaxed even. Seeing things as they are rather than how I want them to be. On a positive vibe, but not overly so. It's just like when I let go of expectations everyone can sense there is no agenda.

I myself feel a sense of freedom. How easily I am caught up in a story. A story of romance. A story of moving to a place. A story of something of which I have already determined and am tied into its planned outcome. Attached and not free. Trapped and blocked. Coming down off a high. Withdrawal.

As I reflect near the end of my (paper) journal, I am shocked at the number of pages devoted to the perennial negativity. Sometimes years of my life submerged in conflict, misery and complication. Like I was at the same time feeling pain but somehow numb to it. As I reflect back there were times too when I was numb to the joy as well. That my mistakes, if I can call them such, have served a purpose and have informed me. Even though I may not yet know to what end.

The day I fall in love it will all either make sense or cease to matter.

Because after all, I believe that love is real, tangible and accessible to all, including myself. That one day I will find someone and it will just click. And then, I will look back, smile and say to myself "I wouldn't change a thing - though it all would have been a whole hell of a lot easier had I just known what I now know".

The Blog That Finally Was

2005-07-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

After a few years of surprising technophobia for someone who is usually an early technology adopter, I've finally started my own blog called "Musings from Mexico". I thought "from" makes more sense than "on" since I am not writing exclusively about Mexico but rather from my perspective now that I am here. In the past I had used both "on" and "from".

I had avoided blogs because I thought they were too trendy, clique-y and insider-ish. The term "blogsphere" still makes me wince. I'd rather drink the tap water here than read all those sycophantic blogs waxing poetic for Dubya/www.blogsforbush.com or even the Dems for that matter. Prodded by my friend Joel Gwadz my mom (!) and being somewhat inspired by a fabulous blog called The Brazilian Muse, I decided I wanted in on the action.

Last night I posted all my old "musings", some new ones and some photographs to Musings from Mexico My fear was no one would read my blog but that was rapidly assuaged when I woke up to an email from "Kay" complimenting my new blog. That felt fabulous! I take back everything bad I said! I am hooked!

I've decided to stick mainly with the (relatively) single-theme of adapting to life in Mexico, my perspective now that I am here and travel stories. The alternative would be to have an all inclusive "today I bought cat litter" and "parked next to a grey BMW" type of blog, which would just be boring. If my theme diverts too much, I will just start another blog. I've found it's difficult to follow blogs that are all over the map and I sense that was what was behind some of my initial hesitance in posting my own.

I use my real name on the site though in some instances I omit or change names to shield the guilty (and innocent). I am not voyeuristically opening up my personal (paper) journal to the world's prying eyes, but you will find some kiss-n-tell information if you dig deeply enough. I will continue emailing my larger "feature length" stories for your reading enjoyment, but you will also find posts on the blog that I don't email so as to entice you into checking out the site regularly.

I am not totally sure what my "editorial policy" is. But I think it's going to be about finding balance. For it to be interesting, it needs to be real. But sometimes real crosses the line and might hurt certain parties or be of the TMI (too much information) variety. Please be patient with me as I find that balance.

Disfrutan!

M23 Back in the Saddle

2005-07-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

I am ashamed to admit that I am only bike commuting after nearly a year of living in Mexico City. Today was my second day. I’ve already had my first run-in with rent-a-cops and an accident.

Fortunately, the former didn’t involve bribes or handcuffs and the latter only involved flesh and liquid as opposed to say, metal, pavement and/or glass.

It all started by selling my car and then getting my act together to build up the dream bike that I’ve been talking smack about for so long. For only slightly less than the price for which I sold my SUV, I’ve got one of the world’s nicest road bikes, a Seven Axiom, custom made in my home state of Massachusetts and pictured here for your viewing enjoyment:

http://homepage.mac.com/briankemler/PhotoAlbum46.html

Now I am car free and carefree. Well, car free at least. We can talk about the cares later.

You might think that commuting in Washington, DC on a brakeless fixed gear and competing in live-traffic alley cat races up and down the east coast for the better part of the last decade would prepare me to ride in the world’s second most populous city.

It didn’t.

This is one of the most, if not the most, crowded, car-centric and bike-unfriendly cities on the planet. There is no regard for bikes or pedestrians. None. If you get hit, they will run you down again just to make sure the job is done and you don’t live to tell. I am not kidding.

I am always amazed at just how often locals warn me about the ever present threat of crime. Yet, it just doesn’t seem that sketchy here. And I say that as someone who has been held up. In fact, crime seems to be a rather abstract threat compared with the clear and present one manifested in the culture of the motor vehicle. How about the threat of walking off a curb? I am still frightened. And, as an aside, shocked at how many times cars would actually stop in the middle of traffic to let me cross the in Massachusetts! That’s happened to me here a grand total of one time.

Bike dangers here include but are not limited to the following: sewer holes without covers, foot-high curbs, glass, storm drains designed by bike hating sadists with slits that are created specifically to trap bicycle wheels, pollution, blatant disregard for traffic rules, wild bike attacking dog packs and policemen that will arrest you if you pee in a deserted area unless you bribe them - not that I would know any of that from personal experience.

Should I be surprised then by any of this in a city that is building triple-decker highways to solve its traffic woes? If your sink wasn’t draining would you add a second faucet? Well, I guess they’d rather send their money down the drain of automobile transport instead of mass transit or god-forbid encouraging the use of a mode of transit that is actually within the financial means of masses, the bicycle.

The sad thing is this city is potentially perfect for bikes. It’s mostly flat and has perfect whether. Then why should it be that there is better and more bike culture in frozen Toronto than perpetually 75-degree DF?

But I still prefer riding to walking, the subway with sweaty people pressing against me and taxis – even here.

So I am converting my trusted road bike into my commuter and starting to ride to work every day. Day One I forced myself to ride even though I knew I would think of all sorts of excuse not to. “It’s only a 30 minute walk or for that matter taxi ride, there’s no where to lock the bike, what will my coworkers think when I walk in sweaty in my Sidi’s”?

Blah blah blah. My new motto is “who cares”?

Monday when I got back from Boston, I hopped on my purple Masi with my new Baileyworks messenger bag containing my dress shoes, my laptop, power supply and work papers. It felt like I was carrying bowling balls.

When I arrived I was entreated to Spanish lesson on not locking my bike to an out of the way railing by the building’s rent-a-cop. It seems Latin America’s tallest, most modern and expensive building doesn’t have a single bike rack. Not one. It barely has anything that will even substitute as one as I found out in today’s fruitless search.

El renta-policia instructed me to go to puerta tres or door three where I was told to lock my bike. So I went there today but there was nothing to which to affix ride.

As I pulled out of “door three”, making my way down the back street in search of a proper mooring, a woman was standing on the curb with arm extended like a slot machine’s in the down position.

She was holding a big gulp-sized cup of coffee.

I was already late for work because I had been on my long Tuesday morning ride with my riding friends. I kept my focus ahead on the look out for traffic in the upcoming intersection when I felt an abrupt smack on my right shoulder and then a warm rush of liquid. Jackpot! Was I bleeding? It wasn’t so mellow dramatic.

The mujer con café walked into my path without looking. Strike! My white dress shirt was now cafe brown. At first I was kind of irritated, but then I thought it was pretty funny.

And because of my bike, it only took me 14 minutes to ride home, change and get to work, albeit an hour and a half late. I locked a half block away to the railing of an unused building.

Maybe my new found daily 46 minutes coupled with my new policy of not leaving the office after six or checking email from home will allow me time finish all the stories in my backlog.

As always, stay tuned.

M22 Planes, Trains and Meeting New Chicas

2005-07-04T20:29:00.000-07:00

Musings From Massachusetts

I just don’t feel like writing.

I mean I feel like getting my thoughts down, however I am not feeling moved or inspired right now.

I am home and I miss home. I am not unhappy when I am in Mexico but I am unhappy about Mexico when I am in the USA or in Brazil.

Euphemistically, I put it as “I am over my enchantment phase”.

I just want to come back to New York, buy a little brown stone, ride my bike everywhere and have a nice life with friends even if that means that I have to give up having the fabulous career and the international jet set lifestyle. Sometimes I feel am done with not having a normal life.

While meeting women has not been a problem, meeting ones that engage me has not happened until this week.

On the plane up from Mexico, I met a lovely flight attendant on Delta 278. I was waiting in line for the rest room protected from from meeting anyone with my noise cancelling headphones. She asked me for a piece of gum anyway. I took the headphones off and insisted she take a peice even though she said she was just joking. Even before, I had sensed something really amazing in her just as she walked down the aisle. It was my first impression and it was strong, though we hadn’t even spoken. It was a vibe though I did not intend to pursue it.

We continued to talk during the flight and her co-flight attendant egged me on. As we talked and flirted I debated giving her my card. Something in all my travels I have never done with a flight attendant (hard to believe, but true).

Well, I just felt moved to give her my card as I left the flight. I worried what people would think, including her. But I figured what the hell. T heir problem – not mine. I handed her the card and she smiled. I left the jet, then proceeded to baggage claim.

Soon, I ran into her at customs while I was having my bags searched by an agent who asked me about the police in Mexico and then said I should never trust police anywhere. She handed her number on a peice of paper. I called her the next day.

We met Saturday to have coffee on Smith Street in Brooklyn. I felt a vibe and an electricity that confirmed my first impression. It was connection I haven’t felt in a long time. We only hung out for an hour or two, but it was nice and I most definitely wanted to see her again.

We made tentative plans to get together the following Thursday.

The week I spent in Boston was stressful. I worried too much about work and I was stressed getting into and out of Boston by motor vehicle. I couldn’t pay attention in my class and had email ADHD all day.

By the time I boarded Amtrak Thursday to go back to New York, I was starting to relax. I finally felt chilled listening to a remix of Este Vez by Belanova when a nice looking woman reading a yoga book sat down across the aisle from me and I just couldn’t resist making conversation.

It turned out she was totally cool and into pilates and yoga. I was also attracted to her vibe and presence.

A lifelong Brooklyn resident was interesting and interested in listening to me. She was strong opinioned, though tolerant, smart and had expansive quality of acceptance. She teaches pilates and had opened a yoga studio. I remember her saying “I put that idea on a shelf in my brain”. I liked that a lot and am now using it with credit to her. She also mentioned feeling connectedness in a place like Brooklyn that I could really understand when I was there.

When we arrived at Penn Station, we hugged and went our separate ways. I hope we will cross paths again.

Hours later the flight attendant and I met in the lower east side at a little sushi place. She was looking gorgeous with a sexy summer black dress. She was hot and stylish – just right and not overdone. A tiny line of black make up that made her eyes look so nice. I was impressed that she made reservations at three places for us to decide together.

I practically just stared at her in awe all evening.

We talked about everything. I probably said too much but at least I wasn’t pretending to be someone I am not. We discussed siblings, ex’s, travel, jobs, etc. It was pretty deep for a second date.

We went to a Le Souk's, Moroccan restaurant, on Avenue B, that had an ill house dj accompanied by bongo drums! It couldn’t have been more perfect. She must have really caught my interest as I was more interested in leaving to a quieter locale than I was in listening to house music.

She has a nice bike and is into yoga. Damn. Count of biking/yoga practicing women I've met in Mexico: 0.

It's just nice to know, whatever happens, that there are nice women out. It lead me to the conclusion that I may need to be in a place like NYC to meet the kind of women who have the same sort of multifaceted personalities that I am into.

It also caused me to realize most of my life has been spent working and devoting time to travel for work and that this has not helped cultivate calm and centeredness in my life. Nor has it helped the relationship department.

M21 Non Stop To Brazil

2005-06-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

The long awaited and much anticipated Trip Report: Brazil 05/05

"Silver jet take me I’m all set
Take me though the skies
Fly me to her side fly me
Where the air of Rio sings
All my hopes are ride on your wings
Don’t ask why
Love waits at the end of the sky
So fly me to Brazil"

Astrud Gilberto “Non Stop to Brazil”

Take One: Everything Fabulous You Need to Know About Brazil is Encoded in the Language

I’m officially declaring Brazil my favorite country.

Everything I love about Brazil and Brazilians is encapsulated in their spoken music otherwise known as Brazilian Portuguese.

It makes French sound guttural.

It is gentle, flowing and flirtatious. It’s the closest thing to spoken music that you can hear. I am pretty sure it was invented for the sole purpose of flirting. When Brasilieras speak, they may be discussing their latest colonoscopy, and yet, it sounds sexy just the same.

The last time I came here on the 10-hour overnight flight from Mexico City, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. That’s right, 10 hours.. It’s actually the identical flight time to SP, Brazil from Mexico, DF or Washington, DC, 9 hours and 40 minutes. This time, I only managed to fall asleep on the flight because I didn’t drink coffee the entire day, knowing the world’s best coffee would be awaiting me upon touchdown. Still, I greeted this, my third trip, with the same giddy enthusiasm a school boy might greet a first date.

Take Two “No Stress”

“No Stress” is a popular saying (they say it in English) in Brazil. You can buy it on T-shirts. It seems rather simple, but it actually took me a couple trips here to get in to the vibe. My plane ride set the tone for the trip. No body sweated anything. Not a thing. On the plane, it’s just as acceptable to have white ear buds dangling from my ears as it is to have my seat back in the reclined position during take off and landing.

Brazilians are friendly and warm and not in a politely superficial way. It’s an authentic friendliness that lacks the edge and the tendency toward political and social conservatism else where in the world, like say in my own country the United States of America.

Everywhere I went, I was treated like I was some sort of rock star –uh international DJ. Brazilians express a keen interest in foreigners. They’re honored that you would travel so far, honored that you attempt to learn some Portuguese and even more honored still you’re into Brazilian culture. They openly welcome outside cultures and influences, perhaps because they are secure in their own culture. They have a remarkable ability to assimilate other cultures into their own and come out with an end product that’s unique and entirely original as you will read soon.

They are patient, relaxed, understanding and completely refreshingly without edge. I have yet to witness an argument or the futile, yet incessant, horn-honking of Mexico City or New York – even though the traffic, at least in Sao Paulo, equals that of Mexico City or LA.

In a week’s time, I had already been invited into two co-worker’s homes and to another’s birthday party, a Balada. It’s much more common here and bonds are more rapidly created. I didn’t stick around long enough to see if they are dissolved as easily, but I somehow doubt it.

While Brazil may be fraught with many of the same problems present in other Latin America countries, one gets the sense that they are at least making a go at building a functional society. You see recycling bins everywhere and even in my office they made a point to use the reverse sides of the flip charts. Que legal (How cool!)!

There seems to be a lot less pressure to finish dinner and give you a check. And uniformly the service is polite, if not prompt. But then again, dining here is not about stuffing your face and running off to your next meeting. It’s about relaxing and socializing. It’s much the same in Mexico, for that matter, but not so in the USA.

Take Three: The Loveliest of the Lovely Ladies

Belo Horizonte, where I was working for a large energy concern, is Brazil’s third largest city after Sao Paulo and Rio. It was rated by the UN as one of the top 50 cities in the world to live and now I think I know why.

Not because of its mid-century modern architecture and successful urban plan that served as the basis for the futuristic Brasilia. Rather, it’s because of its most interesting statistic; the male to female ratio.

It varies between 1:9 and 1:11 depending on with whom you speak. Even taking into account the national penchant for exaggeration, I was skeptical. I had always heard about a mythical Brazilian city where women out number men as a thirteen year-old reading Penthouse Forum I had purloined from somewhere. As much as I wanted to, I never believed anything I read in it.

Till now. It’s true. Why? I’d be a fool to question a good thing.

Did I mention the women in Belo Horizonte are supposed to be the prettiest in Brazil? They are tall, sexy, natural, wear no make up and have long flowing hair. They dress sexily and there’s always the ever present gift of mid-drift.

In Mexico, you have to go to the beach to see anything more than ankles on a good day. And even there you may be disappointed as I learned on a recent excursion. In the states, I am not sure I’d want to see thongs on the ever-fattening asses of most Americans.

The ratio keeps the worst excesses of both genders in check. It tempers the jealousy and possessiveness of men while at the same time relegating female snobbishness an anti-evolutionary attribute.

For example, I went into a surf shop the other night and struck up a conversation in English, halting Spanish and Portuguese with Anna Paula (If only you could hear her say it!), a tall and lovely surfer chica. At first I was self conscious that the guys in the shop would be protective or summoning of her back to work.

But, the opposite was the case. They were warm and friendly and it seemed the store was not going to go bankrupt any time soon because Anna Paula was talking to me instead of folding board shorts for the fifteenth time that day.

She offered me a cigarette which I promptly accepted even though I don’t smoke. This girl was so hot, she could have offered me crack and I would have had a toke just to have the chance to spend another minute with her.

We hung out and talked and as far as I could tell, it was entirely innocent. I made plans to come back to see some music at the adjoining restaurant in a week.

It wasn’t a date, but then again it wasn’t not a date.

During this interaction, I learned as much about my own culturally cultivated reactions as I did about Brazilian culture. Mainly, they don’t function here.

Obrigado deus (thank god).

That is the gift of travel. It allows you to step out of yourself.

I can’t recall being this chilled out or unselfconscious in ages. I am not sure that it is possible in the US or in Mexico.

The attitude toward relationships is interesting and at least in the case of a newly found Brasiliero friend, seems to be considerably more lax than in northern countries.

Cheating on your wife with prostitutes seems to be a perfectly acceptable topic of conversation among new acquaintances or even co-workers. I had to repeatedly turn down attempts to send me $50 “room service”.

My friend seemed disappointed and so I sort of felt bad. I was thus obliged to pay a visit to a “Boite” or night club. They resemble American-style strip clubs with one marked difference; let’s just say what’s on the menu is either eat-in or carry out.

Find a garota (girl) you like, pay a small fee to the club to leave with her and she’s yours for the evening. You can take her to your hotel, or better still a motel.

Motels in Brazil are strictly of the “no tell” variety. They have names like; “Alibi”, “Amour Inn” and “Love Shack” and they let rooms only in hourly increments and signage is strictly regulation flashing neon.

Prostitution is legal in Brazil as most people know. It’s less stigmatized and more safe because it is legal and regulated. As a result, prostitutes received government sponsored pensions plans as other workers would and pimping is illegal.

One thing I am lost on is why prostitutes are so prevalent with the aforementioned ratio and the sheer deliciousness (as would be said in Portuguese) of the women. I found the average bus stop a better show than the Miss America pageant.

Take Four: A Gift From The Heavens

One day in the office, I decided to show off my Photo Ipod. Surprisingly, no one in the office had ever heard of, let a lone seen one. They’re as popular in Mexico as they are in the states.

It was as though I had brought an alien object with magical properties from outer space. This futuristic technology had yet to be invented on earth or at least in Belo Horizonte. Brazil’s sheer distance from the States serves as kind of a nice cultural buffer. It’s harder for goods to get lobbed over the fence.

Here in Mexico, the rich just hop a flight to Miami or Houston to go shopping if they don’t want to pay double or trip for any Mac – or consumer electronic product.

They were astonished to learn that in addition to having more drive space than any of the office computers, it could display color photographs. Everyone quickly requested that I bring them each Ipods back with my on the next flying saucer until they looked up the price on apple.com.

I’ve already alluded to the musicality of the language here so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Brazilians are on average almost as crazy about music as I am. It’s in their dna. Sergio, a coworker I became friends with, even challenged me to find a Brazilian that didn’t like music concluding emphatically, “you can’t”

It’s no wonder the office loved the Ipod and was totally open to hearing not only my Bossa Nova, Brazilian Drum –n- Bass and my favorite, Ive Mendes, but also some of my faves from Mexico like Sussie 4 and Belanova.

I played DJ, while I hacked Brazil’s largest energy concern’s production UNIX server.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that I don’t pay my company instead of the other way around.

Because of this love of music, the overall quality of music here is better. Even pop music, or MPB (Brazilian Popular Music) is much better than pop music from the States.

When thinking of Brazil and music, it’s best to think of it as an entirely separate, yet parallel universe equal in size to that of English language music. There are genres and instruments that I had never heard of such as the fabulous Berimbau, a one string guitar-like gord out of which its players finesse amazing sounds.

There are many home-grown genres; Samba, Axe, Chorro, Forro, Favel Funk, Pagode, Tropicalismo and of course, my personal favorite, Bossa Nova.

Many of these genres take root in foreign forms of music. Samba in European march music and Bossa Nova in American Jazz. There are the underlying African rythms that make all of the genres fabulously percussive in nature.

There’s also Acustico, which I will hasten to say is a unique genre, but it does have a charm all of its own. Think MTV Unplugged meets cover music. My favorite acustico tunes are only guitar and vocals and are sung in Portuguese. They manage to successfully resuscitate the played-out and long-since left for dead songs of American and Brittish culture.

And they do so in a way that makes even a cynical music snob like myself tap his feet to Cidade Negra’s ska rendition of “Johnny B Good” or Fernanda Abreu’s downtempo cover of Michael Jackson’s “Rock with You”.

Best of all, there’s Ive Mendes’ cover of Chicago’s “If you leave Me Now”. I didn’t meet a single Brazilian that had heard of her (which kind made me feel cool), but her record, although not solely acustico, is fabulous and it’s out on Mr. Bongo records from the UK.

Yet again, the Brazilians have taken sometime foreign, made it their own, and in doing so, made it better.

Take Five: Saudade

In the last year of my life, I’ve had some of the most romantic moments of my life.

By myself.

There is a lonely side to the jet-set lifestyle, the onset of which came to me in spades just a week into my trip.

I unusually missed my most recent ex-girlfriend, something that hasn’t really happened since we split some 3 months ago. Stranger still, I missed an ex ex ex girlfriend.

I even went as far as mailing the later an “out of the blue” email which was anything but. I received her terse response from New York City; “Brian, I am in a serious relationship now and I don’t feel comfortable writing you. Don’t take it personally”.

Ouch.

The response begged the question, “If it’s so serious, then why would you be so uncomfortable?”. And for that matter, how could I take it anything but personally?

I held my tongue and wrote back that if that changed and she wanted to be in touch in the future then the door would be open.

Though now I am starting to think that it’s closed and closed for good. I guess I just had to go through that little exercise to figure that one out. I started to feel better remembering why I had broken up with her in the first place.

Portuguese has a word that there is no equivalent to in either English or Spanish; Saudade. Roughly, it’s a melancholic longing for a past state that can no longer be. There is a sad aspect to it but it’s not entirely sad because there is a longing characteristic.

I was looking for a word to describe how I felt about my ex ex ex and I found it in another language, culture and country.

Take Six: Rio

Being single may be lonely, but it isn’t so bad in the land of lovely ladies.

I spent each of my weekends in the lovely-lady and thong capital of the world; Rio De Janiero. The first time I went in November it was sort of tainted by the experience of getting beaten by three thugs.

But I decided to give it a second go and a third and a forth. I know it sounds crazy, but I was on a such a positive vibe, I don’t think anything could have happened to me.

On my way from Belo Horizonte, they lost my plane and hotel reservations and I was pretty pissed that I had to pay for them myself. I only recently got reimbursed. But how much can you complain about multiple business junkets to Rio?

I fully admit to often having spoiled tendencies. It’s part of my beauty and charm.

I wound up a dirty a hotel that was trying to be boutique-y. It would have pulled it off if it weren’t the black couch with white stains. But I didn’t spend much time there and the girl at the front desk was so nice I just couldn’t complain. (No, she wasn’t hot).

The first night was very romantic. I went to a lovely restaurant, Za-Za Bistro Tropical all by myself.

http://www.pickarestaurant.com/rio/toppick/top_romance.htm in Ipanema. Ipanema is a Tupi Guarani word meaning "bad waters" it is notorious for dangerous currents and few fish. Kind of appropriate given the last time I was here I got attacked. But really, it’s quite lovely and quite the antithesis of neighboring Copacabana with its sex tourist seediness.

Zaza is candle lit and has the best, most delicious fusion cuisine to be found in Rio. Drinking two of anything usually isn’t a problem for me, but I was nearly under the table after two of the most potent Caipirinhas I’ve ingested to date.

Alone and drinking by myself! I promise not to make a habit of it.

Take Seven: Record Shopping in the Rain

Saturday, I had big plans for renting a bike and seeing Rio on two wheels, but it rained most of the day. It was the universe’s intent that I go record shopping.

Just a block away from where Tom Jobim authored the Girl From Ipanema lies a fabulous record story called “Toca de Vinicius” http://www.tocadovinicius.com.br/ for Vinicius de Moraes the famed Brazilian writer and poet. The rain poured down as I unfurled my umbrella and sought refuse within the store.

It was like I was Catholic visiting the Sistine chapel. Half the store was Bossa Nova CD’s, there was a Bossa Nova Museum upstairs and the sole employee, Leila was the sweetest, most helpful guide I could possibly have. I didn’t pay her a “real” (Brazilian currency), unless you count the thirty or so CD’s I bought.

She played CD after CD and introduced me to some of the best music I have ever hear; Tom, Elis, Joao, Astrud, Nara, Walter and even more recent accolades to the genre such as Lisa Ono.

At several points I was moved nearly to tears on the first listen. I listened and bought all after noon. Leila was also instrumental in hooking me up with what to do in out on the town. One night I saw a live Bossa Nova act.

She gave me several venues to hit and together with a fabulous article from the NYT by Seth Kugel, I triangulated my plans for the evening.

First stop, was Pao de Azucar, or Sugar Loaf. On the cable car up I stood next to a gorgeous Braziliera that occasionally glanced my way (See photo on left). Yeah, I should have talked to her, but I ended up talking to another women who turned out to be French and who spoke perfect English. Not only did I guess that she learned English in England, but I guessed correctly, that she learned it in the north in Manchester. I was pretty proud of myself.

We watched the sunset of the city. Copacabana looked like the buildings were poured into the sides of the mountain and kept at bay only by the sand and the sea.

Francina had just arrived that day and was taking one of those fabulous 5-week vacations, a luxury us Americans must only envy when we put down “old Europe” or refer to their “welfare states”. If this is welfare, I want in on the action! I wonder how our foreign policy would change if Americans had the time to take vacations abroad or took the time to learn other languages. Maybe people would hate us less. I made plans to meet her at her Hostel, Rio Backpackers, at 8. We went to dinner at the Vegetarian social club in Leblon and then hopped in a cab to Lapa.

Take Eight: Laps Around Lapa

I had stumbled upon Lapa the day before and I was scared for my life.

There is an old trolley in a quaint, hillside neighborhood called Santa Teresa that no one seems to know about. It wends its way down the mountain to Lapa. The trolleys are almost identical to those in San Francisco but they are about half-scale and un-restored and have been left to all but rot for the better part of the last century. They’re quite charming nonetheless. Picture, if you will, an SF cable car left out in the elements for say, 80 years in a tropical environment.

The favellas have metastasized up the hillsides since the time this formerly wealthy mansion district was home to the elite of Rio. Back in the day they’d just cruise downtown to the center on the cable car from their perch above the masses and now the masses come to them. As a result, each cable car comes with it’s own machine-gun wielding cop.

There is something about machine guns that just doesn’t reassure me.

I decided to walk down the hill following the tracks and my curiosity to Lapa. Down the mountain, the tracks led me to the famous white aqueduct which looks just great in the tourist photos, but is actually pretty sketchy up close and personal.

There are tons of people hanging out beneath its arches and I just felt a very uncomfortable vibe akin to my days as urban pioneer. Sort of like being the only white dude on Georgia Ave. NW back in the pre-gentrification days of my adopted hometown, Washington, DC. Only here not only was I a white dude, but also a foreigner (and hence rich), a tourist and a non-Portuguese speaker.

A day later, two women I met at “New Natural”, a fabulous vegetarian buffet in Ipanema, told me how they had been robbed at knife point by a suit wearing thug on the stairs I had walked near the aqueduct.

Back to the cab ride.

For the record, cabbies are among the most maligned workers in Latin America. In Mexico, taking a green street taxi is verboten.

I took my first green, street cab in DF by mistake and I now continue to take them if convenience dictates. I have never been ripped off, felt threaten or unsafe. It’s a different story with hotel taxis here, that are impolite and over priced. I do try to keep my “exposures” limited, but I take them when I need to. Luckily, these days my primary mechanism of transit has two wheels and is free. Well, back to Rio.

I already knew the layout of Rio fairly well and knew it was common practice for the taxis to take tourists along the longer beach route which is more scenic and more expensive. This didn’t bother me.

I knew the fastest way to Lapa was past the Lagoa (lagoon) yet we went through Copacabana, then to the airport, past it, and then back, toward the center and we did a lap around Lapa until we finally landed at Democraticos, the fabulous club recommended by Leila.

The price of the taxi was three times what it should have been and not surprisingly three times as expensive. Francina had no clue and even though part of my inner gringo was about to stick up for our rights, I really didn’t sweat this $8 and just decided to let it go.

We were in Rio but it looked like we were in Bosnia or say Camden. Lapa is full of some of the most gorgeous, but totally run down and decrepit turn of the century architecture. I thought Francina was crazy when she said it reminded her of parts of Paris.

We walked in the door and were transported back in time. Democraticos was a perfectly preserved and unchanged dance hall dating back a hundred or more years.

Take Eight: Last Night in Brazil

I dropped by the hostel to see if Francina was there, but she wasn’t. I met a wonderful girl, Maggie, who ran the hostel, but seemed more like the ringleader of fun. A group of the people at the hostel were going to attend a favela funk dance party in the very same favela City of God was filmed. It started at midnight, did I want to go?

I thought the better of it because I had to fly out at 6am. But without much persuasion, I decided, what the hell, how many times am I in Rio?

A group of us boarded a bus and amongst other things we were warned not to leave the dance hall under any circumstances. We arrived at Castelo Das Pedras http://www.castelodaspedras.com/ and were absconded to a VIP area above the team and sweaty dance floor. What struck me most was that much of what I admired about Brazilians applied equally to Rio’s poorest and least fortunate denizens. Other than the fact they seem significantly shorter than the other Brazilians I had seen, they were equally as polite and non-judgmental. I immediately left the VIP area to dance among the people in the hot sweaty dance floor.

I felt no discomfort talking to girls or jealousy emanating from men. I met a cute girl named Diana and professed my love to her after the umpteenth capirinha. I even violated the rule of leaving the dance hall and went across the street to a bar with her. We must have talked for hours even though neither of us share a common language. I am pretty sure I entertained the hell out of her and a couple of guys in the bar. One of them stuffed a dollar bill in my pocket as good luck that I found the next day not quite remembering how it got there. One of the best things about being a foreigner is how curious people are about you and your culture and what you think of theirs. I felt like I was holding court in the favela bar.

I had no idea what time it was until a frantic Maggie found me and ushered me on to the bus. Apparently I had held the whole bus up and caused a minor panic. By the time I got back to my hotel in Copacabana, my alarm had been going off for an hour and it was daylight.

I missed my plane, but caught another to Sao Paulo and barely made my connection to Mexico. I had the pleasure of going through the full stages of drunkenness, hangover and recover, all in the span of one 10 hour flight.

M19 Readers Respond

2005-03-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

More than any post, “Yet Again” has engendered some interesting responses. Names have been redacted to protect the innocent.

"I had a very similar experience last weekend at Wal-Mart. I was cornered by 3 determined girlscouts with Mom's standing ready demanding a large purchase of girlscout cookies. I was frightened, much like you, but I held my own, and escaped without harm by distracting them with a fictitious statement that Britney Spears was around the corner signing her new CD, at which point they darted away in search of their false God. I'll never forget the encounter, but life goes on, and just like you (you "will walk the streets again"), I "will shop Wal-Mart again" - girl scouts or no girl scouts. And, yes, I did enjoy a beer (several) after my traumatic experience (and the stolen girl scout cookie weren't bad either). Seriously, though, glad you made it out of your situation unharmed, and with the iPOD."
--Washington, DC
Hilarious

"Compelling. Man, I'm glad you're capturing all this." --Washington, DC

"Can you please be more careful!!!" --Cary, NC
Si, yo puedo.

"What happens if next time, at a whim, the assailant decides to cut off part of a finger or something? --Washington, DC
I am reminded of a certain scene in “Man On Fire” where Denzel Washington cuts the fingers off a bad guy. It was set here in Mexico City.

"Are they giving you hazardous job pay?"
--Washington, DC

"I think I need to teach you some judo/boxing for self defense. NOT that you want to fight back in a case like this, but just in case in some situation where you have NO choice. I would recommend looking into some classes down there. Namely, judo (throws & ground fighting), boxing, muay thai boxing (strong kicks, knees, elbows along with punches) or Brazilian jujitsu (submissions, ground fighting i.e., chokes & arm bars)." --Washington, DC

"How awful, I am so sorry to hear that. You shouldn't be quite so matter of fact about it. They held a knife to you, it doesn't matter if the knife was not good enough to cut 'your tofu'. Next time it could be a gun. All I am saying is be careful. You stick out like a sore thumb in Mexico and cannot act like locals. Next time you leave the office late, just take a cab. This time you were lucky, someone up there was looking out for you. Next time may be a different scenario (God forbid)" --Washington, DC

"Good thing you weren't listening to the pod..." --Washington, DC

"What a great story! All these crazy things happen to you. I am very grateful that nothing of the sort ever happened to me when I was there” –Minnesota

“(Next time) I suggest you use military drill sergeant tactics through overwhelming fire power. In case you are having difficulties harnessing your anger, think of you ex roommate in DC. Next, you need not stand tall cause they are at nipple level, think in Spanish and you spit out in a deep, forceful tone all the bad words you can think of and act crazy your fire power is your words. ‘LOS VOY A MATAAARRR HIJOS DE PUTAS!!! RECONCHA SU MADRE!!! COME MIERDA!!! PENDEJOS, CABRONES, CULEROS!!!! LESBIANA CON PELOTAS!!! ELEFANTE MARICON!!! Pene de chino!!!! GANDUL MALCAGADO!!! CHAPARITO SIN DIENTES!’” – San Jose, California

M18 Yet Again

2005-03-10T20:15:00.000-08:00

Yet again.

Tonight, I left the office slightly later than I usually do at 8pm. I’ve become very comfortable in Mexico and it feels very safe.

Reminder; feel and real are not the same.

I walk through a “peatones” (this word reminds me so much of the word “peon” and is apropos given the relationship of pedestrians to cars here) or pedestrian tunnel underneath Reforma, Mexico’s version of 5th Avenue. This leads to the subway entrance of Chapultepec station that allows me to make an exit at the far side of the station thus avoiding crossing a highway.

The whole trip, office to home, is no more than a 25 minute stroll.

I usually don’t like walking around when I am dressed in my Burberry’s or Hugo Boss suits but tonight, I make an exception. And I am learning that in Latin America when you make an exception to safety that it’s the rule that you will get in trouble.

Tonight - like all nights - it's well lit and crowded, but not overly so.

But that doesn't stop three guys from cornering me.

I drop my Northface backpack as one knife-wielding wannabee thug advances, yielding a crude yet sharp blade about 6 inches long and an inch and a half wide. He holds it to my belly as his buddies rummage through my pockets. I feel violated, as I am being felt up by three short, poor Mexican men while I have a knife I wouldn’t cut tofu with being held to my belly.

They get my cash, keys, id and cell phone.

Too bad for them my boss and I went to the most expensive restaurant in Mexico today and I paid my share in cash, leaving me with a whopping 20 pesos in my pants pocket.

My assailants have gotten away with the equivalent $1.80USD for their efforts. I wonder how they'll spend it?

Perhaps they can all buy themselves round trip subway fares (and still have three trips left over) so they can make the trip back here tomorrow to rob someone else. Perhaps even me. Because I am not going to stop walking. (But yes, I will be more careful!)

Too bad I never carry my ATM card or any credit cards for that matter. Too bad they forgot to take my backpack with my $500 60 gig Photo Ipod. They might have enjoyed the pictures of the Butterfly Reserve or perhaps those of my trip to Rio – the last time I came face to face with trouble.

They might really get into 30 gigs of house music. Now that I think about it, they would have been better off stealing my Hugo Boss shoes or even the $80 tie. (Yes, I will dress down!)

As all of this is happening, I am impressed that the people in the subway are actually catcalling and cursing my assailants aloud and hailing the police. “Pendejos!”

Scene of the Crime - Underneath that Big Circle

The robbers make off up the stairs with a $1.80, my ID card to the Torre Mayor and my beloved Sony Ericsson T616. I try to lead the police in a futile attempt at pursuit but I am the only one with any heart in it. They are content that, “they’ve gotten away”. Oh well, we won’t have to chase them or confront them. The relief was patently visible in their bodies.

I turn around, shrug it all off and start walking. An older working class man tries to help me. He opens his wallet, proffers a subway card. First, I thank him, “Gracias, muy amable” and then I tell him, “Pero, voy a caminar a mi casa“ or “But I am going to walk home”.

I get home but have no keys. My landlord’s not home (I live in a small house at the back of her big house). I can wait outside for who knows how long and I have no one to call because I don’t have my phone and I don’t have any phone numbers.

I decide to climb our 15 foot wall in my pointy tipped shoes and navy Burberry’s suit. I hop to the inside court yard and climb through a window in my house. I am home. I am safe. I am fine. And I still have my Ipod.

M17 Reserva de las Mariposas Monarcas

2005-02-26T19:52:00.000-08:00

I am heading out on my latest adventure but I can’t find a published bus schedule, so I just go to the bus station and try my luck. Terminal Poiniente services the western part of Mexico. It’s main hall is bigger than Grand Central’s. It’s surrounded by slums on a hill packed with tiny houses built one on top of the other on top of the next. It’s just three subway stops away from my house, but I never knew it existed.

I arrive at the station and quickly do a walk-through finding the one bus line servicing my destination in Michocan State.

Who needs “Google” when you can just show up?

I am on my way to Angangueo, a remote, former mining town crammed into a box canyon in the mountains of Michocan State. Its current claim to fame is its proximity to the Reserva de las Mariposas Monarchas, or Monarch Butterfly reserve.

When I arrive at the town, there are only a couple of hotels, hostels and restaurants. It barely caters to tourists but in doing so (or rather in not doing so), it maintains its unique character to a greater extent than most towns in the guide book.

It has a tiny town square where couples kiss, kids play and folks gather. There is no café (argh!), but there are two huge churches. I would have thought everyone would be here Sunday morning but alas, it’s a market day and they are to be found in the one giant market in town. There I spy the mango-sized avocados, skinned chickens hanging upside down, legs of beef being stored without refrigeration, vegetables and spices galore. Everything in town is within walking distance and life here seems no different than what it must have been like 100 years ago.

They’ve preserved it perfectly and they weren’t even trying.

I wish the same could be said for the Monarch Butterflies. In fact, it seems like the opposite is happening. They are trying to preserve them, but this year marked the appearance of the fewest butterflies on record since they’ve been keeping records.

See “Chain Saw Thins Flocks of Migrants on Gold Wings”, New York Times (March 14, 2005):
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/science/earth/ (registration required)

At the hostel, I meet two nice German women, Anne and Anna. We speak in Spanish, though I suspect they speak English. Along with some Brit expats, we hire a 70’s vintage Suburban to takes us up an additional thousand meters to the El Rosario Reserve.

Michoacan is the monarch butterfly mother ship. Monarchs hailing from the US and Canada, concentrate in the Oyamel fir forests here to ride out the winter mating. Their offspring will travel north the US and Canada, mate, die and the subsequent offspring will somehow find their way back here a generation or two since their fore-butterflies left. This migration is unique in the world is consider “an endangered phenomenon”.

And endangered it is. Monarchs are being pinned down in a two front war and are dying in droves both due to climatic conditions and due to the interference of man.

Here in Mexico, they are threatened by deforestation due to illegal logging. I actually shuttered to think when I saw trucks hauling fallen tree trunks leaving Angangueo. Despite the efforts of conservationists, economic pressures on the local population are such that it is almost impossible to enforce laws against logging or provide an economically viable alternative such as tourism. In deed, none of my Mexican colleagues had even been to the reserve and fewer still Americans and other tourists make the trip here.

Satellite imagery shows the shrinking Monarch habitat over the past 30 years:
http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/earthshots/slow/Angangueo/Angangueocovermapanimated

The picture is tragic.

States-side and in Canada, butterflies are threatened by greater use of herbicides due to the increased usage of genetically modified corn. This allows farmers to kill bad weeds, but in turn kills good weeds like milkweed that the butterflies feed on.

Progress yet again solves one problem and creates another.

What you can do?

Actually, a lot. First, consider that in a market economy a dollar is the equivalent to a vote in a democracy. Be aware of what types of wood you purchase when you buy furniture. Don’t buy anything if you don’t know where it came from. Where possible, choose organic foods over those grown chemically or through genetically modified processes. I firmly believe a dollar is an economic vote signaling support for sustainable alternatives.

You can also donate to the World Wildlife Fund: http://www.wwf.org.mx/all_about_monarch.php

But better still, you could consider planting flowers and milkweed to attract and provide a much needed monarch habitat. And when you garden, chose native plant species over those that simply look pretty.

If you’re interested in reading more, there’s a lot out there including much reprinted online from the New York Times:
http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=32279
http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=12948
http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=12945

Other links:
http://www.environmentalaction.net/monarch/
http://www.monarchwatch.org/conserve/index.htm

Our Suburban deposits us near the top of a 3,000 meter mountain and we hike 20 minutes to the top to view the butterflies. It’s a cold morning, and they’re clustered on the trunks of the massive and beautiful Oyamel trees. They look like something akin to giant heaps of moss, not insects. We try to wait them out hoping they’ll take flight and blanket the skies as we’ve been told. But alas, it stays cloudy and only a few brave butterflies take flight. The English bloke lets me look through his telephoto lens and it’s amazing to see the butterflies up close.

They never come out in full effect, but it’s nice just to see them on this leg of their journey.

More pictures here: http://homepage.mac.com/briankemler/PhotoAlbum39.html

M16 Bahia Brazil

2005-01-25T19:39:00.000-08:00

I thought culture shock was what I was supposed to experience as soon as I got to a strange land. More often it’s what I experience when I come back home to the US. Most recently, I experienced it twice, within the same trip to Bahia State Brazil.

I am heading to a 2-year-old complex of resorts clustered around a faux colonial village called Costa Do Suipe just north of Salvador, Brazil. The main entrance looks like a toll booth and no one but the paying guests and the hired help are getting through.

At dinner I found out that Brazilian food is fabulous for vegetarians. There is plenty of variety and lots of healthy veggies. The food is served buffet style which might explain why I saw so many fat people by the pool stuffing themselves with food and drowning themselves with alcohol. The next day, I read in the New York Times that Brazilians are starting to face the same mass (no pun intended) epidemic rates of obesity that we are in the United States.

I ate well, I drank well too. I may have been jet-lagged due to the 3-hour time difference and the overnight flight on which I did not sleep but that was nothing a dose of the ubiquitous Brazilian coffee couldn’t cure. Even the coffee in the hotel conference rooms was delicious and strong.

When I wasn’t downing coffee, I absorbed more culture by discovering a new alcoholic beverage, the capriniha. Made from a local alcohol, cacacha, it’s mixed with lime and sugar. The first day I was there one nearly made me fall off the back of my seat. By my final day I was proud - or should I be ashamed? - to report I was able siphon down 5 and still stand on two feet.

I didn’t see much during the week except the hotel conference rooms and the faux village. I did manage to sneak off twice. Once on a bike ride through the resort’s white sand dunes that could be mistaken for snow. The other time, I took a cab the real town on which the faux one was modeled; Praiya do Forte home of the TOMAR Project, an environmental organization dedicated to preserving local ocean turtles.

It was getting dark, but I managed to check out some Volkswagen-sized leather back turtles at the preserve and their nests on the beach. The town was a mixture of tourist shops and old decaying stores and houses.

Back a the resort, there is a disco filled with co-workers where I discovered MPB, Brazilian Pop Music and Brazilian drum ‘n’ bass. I was surprised to learn of the latter’s popularity here. But I guess given the percussive nature of the indigenous music (samba, bossa nova, axe, African rhythms), it should be no surprise at all. Later I would pick up some inspiring CD’s in Salvador. I am exclusively listening to Brazilian music these days and am totally inspired but what I’ve found: DJ Patif, Jota Quest, Fernanda Porto and the new love of my life Ive Mendes who is visually more gorgeous than her voice.

The second night I was there they imported some Capoiera dancers. Capoiera was developed as a martial art by slaves to fight their masters (right-on!). Maybe we could come up with something like this for the office?! It was banned but the slaves disguised it as a form of dance which still is practiced today. It is performed by two dancers and if one makes a wrong move, then let’s just say it becomes a fight.

By Friday the country club was starting to feel like a country club prison. I was itching to get out.

Salvador, the original capital of Brazil, was in its heyday the second city of the Portuguese Empire after Lisbon. It seems changing capitals for the Brazilians is something of a national pastime. Salvador was the first capital, then Rio and then in the 1950’s the capital was moved to its present day location, Brasilia. The former is most modern city to be named a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its stunning (and somewhat frightening) modern architecture and urban planning.

The people of Salvador are almost entirely of African descent. Their forefathers, brought as slaves from Africa, were allowed to retain their tribal customs to a degree greater than any where else in the new world. Thus visible today is the evolution of the culture the African slaves brought with them to the new world. Salvador is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its stunning architecture, most of which is completely dilapidated but is in the process of being preserved.

Saturday, I took the bus to the airport, dropped off my extra baggage in a locker and took a local bus into downtown Salvador. I decided to get off one stop early and walk to the center city. It looked pretty close on the map.

Unfortunately, I walked and walked and walked. It was getting dark, I hadn’t found the old city and I didn’t have a hotel or hostel. I almost gave up, but I kept going and I finally found the antique city.

It was filled with throngs of most Brazilian tourists and I made my way to my hotel, a pousada. That’s a European style hotel with a communal area. A notch above a hostel but it’s roughly the same idea.

I was totally stunned by the architecture. The only thing I could think of is: this is Rome by the sea but it’s in this hemisphere. I’ve never seen anything like it and I will let my pictures speak to the grandeur of the city. It’s hard to believe I had barely heard of this place.

The scene was a little sketchy at times. It was hard to just try to absorb it all by just taking it and without getting hassled by people trying to sell me things. Of course I was excited when people spoke to me in Spanish, but by the second day there, I learned to ignore anyone approaching me in an unsolicited fashion.

At night, I found a delicious middle eastern restaurant where I met two gorgeous, cool and intelligent Canadian women and a British couple. I went dancing with the former at one of the many impromptu samba concerts. The guys were all over the girls and even triple-teamed us. Even though I wasn’t technically “with” either of these girls, it was assumed such and a guy came over to “teach” my white ass to dance while his two buddies danced with the girls.

It was all innocent enough until they wouldn’t leave the girls alone. Until the waitress whom I had tipped (but didn’t have to) whispered in my ear “no es seguro” or it’s not safe to hang with these dudes. Then while I walked the women back to their hotel one of the guys wouldn’t stop following us back. On my return to my hotel just a few minutes later, he spotted me and was visibly upset that I had foiled his designs for the evening whilst not even having designs of my own.

That’s a buzz kill if there ever was one.

The architecture and views were fabulous, but it did seem like trouble was just around the corner. I would have like to have spent more than two days there. Music was literally everywhere; in the streets in the buildings in concert halls. It was like being in Carnival but it wasn’t carnival yet.

Next stops: tbd. I am chilling in Mexico for a few weeks and hopefully will just get to enjoy things here for a spell.

M14 Vista De Venezuela

2004-11-04T19:31:00.000-08:00

This week I had my first trip to Venezuela. The most I got to see of the country was my hotel room, the mall and the bank where I worked 16-hour days. I feared wouldn't get to know the country at all while cocooned within the trappings of business travel-land.

The week started off with my worst fears coming to fruition. Everything that was supposed to happen didn’t happen. Everything that wasn’t supposed to happen happened. And while it was happening, I had no idea of how it would happen to end up.

Imagine installing, configuring, testing and building applications in complicated enterprise software. Your client is equally complicated and even more demanding. You’ve never looked at the software on a server - only on a laptop. Now imagine doing it in a language you're just learning on a keyboard that doesn't contain such computer necessities as semicolons, colons, pipes and "@'s". In fact, without a semi-colon, your company’s software won’t even run.

Your primary technical point of contact doesn't speak the same language as you do and he won't let you lay your fingers on the computer where you're supposed to install the software. You have the pleasure of "backseat-driving" the install in a language you've never formally studied. The software you use to access the server uses some ancient form of terminal emulation invented before you were born requiring you to do manual screen refreshes adding half a minute to every mouse click.

When you arrive at the client site, Venezuela's second largest bank, the software CD’s your own company's local subsidiary are supposed to have brought, are not what the client asked for. But even if they were, it wouldn't matter; your company’s local technical consultant forgot to bring the special code to unlock the software.

Bienvenido a mi mundo! (Welcome to my world). It’s 9:30 Monday morning.

I start to forget about making a good impression with my new management. Instead, I try to focus my energy on keeping my job.

I am relieved to find out the local consultant my company has sent along to help with the installation has 10 year’s experience and had lived in the States for three. Great. He can help out both technically and linguistically.

Too bad he speaks less English than I speak Spanish and I quickly conclude he would need detailed instructions, a training class and hand-holding for installing AOL Instant Messenger.

Is he here to help or narc?

Our Venezuela office hired a driver for me who will not only meet me at the airport, but also drive me around on demand. He’s supposed to meet me with an envelope containing 100,000bs, Bolivars, the local currency, and a cell phone. I am picturing myself lounging in the plush leather seat of my very own black Lincoln Towncar – like the ones that used to ferry me back and forth to Dulles Airport. And rolling with 100,000 of anything has to be pimped! I could feel the wad of cash in my hand! I was starting to feel more like a drug lord than a software consultant!

I giddily Google “bolivar-dollar exchange rate” to see just how much I will have!

It turns out my bank roll will consist of coins. It’s a whopping $7.14US per day. I am pretty sure that won’t pay for my daily coffee fix. At least I’ll have the black Towncar and, the cell phone.

I arrive at the Caracas International Airport and my driver, Eduardo, is there holding the placard “Brian Kemler” as planned. Right-on. We walk through the parking lot and I am scoping out the cars. I don’t see any black Lincolns, but Eduardo is homing in on a beautiful new Volvo. Nice! I see the parking lights flash and hear the doors unlock on a beat-up Nissan subcompact, a street taxi, as Eduardo’s thumb presses his key chain. I am crestfallen.

The next day he takes me to the bank in rush hour traffic. Caracas makes Mexico City look like Bel Air. At night it looked like it got hit with a neutron bomb; no sign of human life.

Where did they get these beaters, er, cars? A junkyard circa 1978? The streets of Caracas are a giant demolition derby and every single car a battle-worn contestant. The word hooptie may have originated in the States, but I am sure the Oxford English Dictionary would tell you it was inspired here.

There are jacked up ‘70’s muscle cars, the kinds motor heads in my high school used as spare parts donor, prowling the streets. A broken taillight is easily replaced with hand-painted red Saran Wrap. Have a flat? Why there’s no need to either change it or to stop driving. I saw “micros” (think public transit meets the short bus) making their regular rounds with flat tires.

Back at the bank, I’ve learned they don’t have the same computers they said they would have nullifying hours of my work the previous week and necessitating more work this week. This delays the project by hours even though the boss can’t understand this.

While I am in the midst of recreating the software “plan”, El Jefe or the boss, Ivan, comes down to pester me. “Is it ready yet? No, when?”. It’s 11am Monday.

I fix the plan then I am onto the next, in what was a week of problems. I brought my own disks to install the software and my own special key to unlock it foreseeing this issue. The disks malfunction and won’t install.

I am screwed.

I realize we can hook my computer up to the network and copy my employee software to the bank’s computers. I am not supposed to do this. But technically, it will work; it’s my only option. Done.

As soon as I fix one problem, the Bank creates another by tampering with the computer by using the ID they purloined from me. Then they come down and complain that the software “no esta trabajando” – is not working. No shit. Why are you using it behind my back? And oh, how did those files get in that directory if you’re not screwing with my computer? Last time I checked, computers didn’t develop the ability to think on their own. Oh, and thanks for changing the name of that one directory, now I get to redo everything I already did.

I am communication in Spanish to such a degree that I astonish myself. In doing so, I’ve developed a rapport with the protective systems administrator and by the third day he’s relinquished control of the server. Yo estoy manejando ahora. I am driving now. He doesn’t speak a lick of English and doesn’t try, but he’s as friendly as can be and is a remarkably good sport about letting me commandeer his workstation for an entire week.

One of the developers, Frewuill is an avid mountain biker and had learned English from films. We have an instant rapport. The other two guys, the admin Miguel and Alfredo treat me like old buddies.

Frank, our consultant is doing nothing, but literally getting in the way. I guess 5:45pm is too late to work. He shuts my laptop off with out asking. I have a better rapport with the customers and I barely speak Spanish! The phone they gave me runs out of minutes on the first day. The new phone they give me a day later is nice till I turn it off. When I turn it back on, it requires a password which they didn’t provide.

So much for calling tech support.

These guys are hilarious. They teach me more Spanish than I’ve learned to date. They clue me in on the colorful Venezuelan modismos or slang words. Some have near equivalents in English, but all are more colorful and interesting. Coming back from lunch on day one we cross under a run-down highway overpass which doubles as the “DVD Mall”.

Here the DVD’s are actually DVD’s e.g. they are not filmed with hand-helds like the DVD’s sold in certain North American nations... There’s a section of porn which they laugh and tell me is called “carne con pappas” or meat with potatoes. I buy four films (no, none porn!); Simpsons, Maria Full of Grace, Big Fish and Daredevil mainly because these are the only films that have Spanish sound with English subtitles and vice-versa.

They laugh, I laugh. When I wasn’t stressing out, the guys had me cracking up. I ask where to buy coffee and rather than tell me Alfredo brought me a half-kilo of local coffee the next day.

One of the other co-workers came into to our cube area. They started making fun of him because of his fatness - gordo. Everyone was laughing though I felt awkward.

Elsewhere, we’re supposed to deny reality and pretend like everyone is the same. We’re not. Here, there’s sense of honesty and I don’t think it was done in a mean way or that he was particularly hurt. He didn’t seem hurt when he joined us for the lunch they served us every day on the top floor of the building in a special room reserved for guests (me).

Frewuill jokingly referred to the boss as “Ivan, el terrible” behind his back. I can’t imagine even joking about that behind my bosses’ back to a client or a customer. But it was hilarious. Elsewhere, everyone thinks these things yet no one says it. Here everyone thinks it and says it. Refreshing.

The installation was like a feeding frenzy for free information. I’d be trying to resolve a complex problem to be interrupted with yet another.

I’d literally have to say: “I can do *this* or I can do *that*; you tell me what you want me to work on and I will work on it; but I can’t do *both*”. Then I’d go back to doing what I was doing.

Every night I’d come to the Embassy Suites Hotel, study up and find solutions to the next day’s foreseen problems. Thursday afternoon, El Jefe was visibly annoyed that things weren’t running on his time table and working the way he wanted them – even though he had absolutely zero experience with the new version our software and thus no basis for any expectations. I thought he was going to blow a gasket like one from one of the old muscle cars on the streets.

“Esta no trabajando, esos no estan trabajando”. “This isn’t working these aren’t working.”

Okay, El Jefe, if you’re so smart, let’s see you go to a country you’ve never been and install software on a computer that’s in a language you don’t know with a keyboard made by Satan on a system that’s as fast molasses rolling uphill with a client that is constantly breathing down your neck, while 5 people sit behind you as you work, interrupt you constantly and change the operating environment without informing you.

Esta es tu tarea, El Jefe. That is your homework, El Jefe. Come back and talk shit to me then.

What the hell is he doing on the server with my id anyway? I though I was going to lose my {%$} at one point. I am busting arse, working till twelve and getting no appreciation. My boss is leaning on me to stay the weekend and I need to get out to catch a flight back to the states Tuesday.

I decide to take a stroll upstairs to silence Ivan the Terrible for once and for all.

“This script worked perfectly before you were here.”

“Ivan, what port are you using?”

“2323”

“Try 7551”. Boom. Works, first try.

I sit down, he shows me more things that “don’t work”.

I’ve learned that “doesn’t work” translates poorly. It actually means, “I don’t know what the hell I am doing”. I fixed a slew of his other problems in succession, each on my first attempt. Within in an hour, he is laughing and smiling. The funny thing about this dude is you can read it all in his body language.

By the last day, El Jefe was eating out of my hands but I still had to fix two small problems. People don’t realize software implementations are complex and debugging is a normal part of the process. I love it when people ask me “do you know what’s wrong with it”? That has to be the stupidest question on the planet. If I knew that it wouldn’t be broken in the first place! I don't know, but I do know how to go through a process to figure it out.

I decide to call in the cavalry.

Steve, my buddy and colleague from SAS in Rockville is one of the cleverest technical people I know (in addition to being an all around a good guy). Even though his help is always in high demand, he always avails himself when colleagues are in need – a rare attribute in people with his level of technical expertise. Knowing this, I try to limit my help calls to him. But I am desperate now and I know he’ll come through. We swap emails and get on the telephone and get everything working at precisely 4:10pm on Friday.

Ivan was so excited he was going to pee himself. Truth be told, I was too.

The other guys are still regaling me with technical questions, but I jokingly say in Spanish I need mental vacation. Sometimes I think I don’t get paid for what I know but rather for the fact that I can think on my feet. Believe me it’s not all up in my head and more often than not, I don’t know the answer. But I guaranty you, I can figure it out or get help.

I don’t know how I pulled it off, but somehow, I did. Nothing went as planned, but everything worked out.

M13 Once Upon a Time in the Favellas, Yo

2004-11-02T19:22:00.000-08:00

A Report From Rio

My first reaction to the idea of Favella (slum) tours in Rio was a mixture surprise, humor and offense. Imagine someone doing that in Detroit or Camden. (Hey – maybe that’s my million dollar idea?) It sort of smacked of the idea that people in ghettos are like zoo animals in cages to be gawked at.

The more I read, however, the more interested I was. The New York Times wrote the tour up favorably as highly educational and interesting. Part of the tour’s proceeds is the principal source of funds for an after school program that has sent 130 kids a year to college for the last decade.

So I decided to check it out.

Marina, my guide, picked me up at my hotel with a van full of Brits. Everyone wants to know what I think about Kerry vs. Bush. I tell them it’s going to be close and it’s going to be like the 2000 election only I think Kerry is going to win. (Yes, I was wrong).

Marcelo Amstrong’s guide company started the tours which are popular with all but two groups; Brazilians and their government. It seems they would rather deny the existence of the favellas. The media in Brazil has fanned the stereotypes of the favellas as crime-ridden slums.

In reality, most actually leave their houses unlocked. The favella dwellers welcome the tours because they allow people to see for themselves the reality. In the 12 years Marcelo has been operating, he has not had a single incident. It seems all the crime takes place in the nice part of town. But I wonder if I am going to run into my shirtless 20-year old assailant with my Canon G5 digital camera.

Marina explains that slums are a parallel universe where people empower themselves building homes on public land where the market and the government have failed them. Brazilian law allows anyone to gain title to land if they have been on it for five years or longer. Many people actually hold title to their properties.

We drive through Imanema, go through a tunnel and then into a posh neighborhood with million plus dollar homes. I thought this was a slum tour?

The filthy rich and filthy poor are literally next door to one another. We park the van and go into the alleyway that leads to the favella. There are no streets, but the alleys have names and to the people there they are considered streets. They are so narrow it is impossible to fully open an umbrella here.

House is built on house defying any logical scheme. Some of the dwellings are no larger than my childhood tree fort. Some doors are barely chest high. There is electricity, cable and running water. Some people even have appliances they buy on credit from local department stores. Even though the have no collateral, their names are so valuable to them, they are typically lower credit risks than the rich people living below them. We walk down stairs in what looks like painting by M.C. Escher with palsy.

Small brick houses stacked haphazardly on one on top of the other on top of the next. Rats nests of cable wiring. Stairs leading up, down and sideways to doors. Friendly people who say hi and who are as curious about us as we are of them. A guy holds a puppy through a window for me to pet.

Damn. I wish I had my camera. I’ve recruited a Brit to take pictures from me. She is actually from Zimbabwe and I ask her and her mother what it’s like living under such a ruthless dictatorship. Since they hold British citizenship, they feel they can always leave.

Marina was fascinating and the tour was enlightening. I ask a question; who consumes all the drugs, the rich of Rio? Apparently, not. According to Marina, the drugs are just “passing through” on their way to the states. This was the only thing she said I found hard to believe. While I don’t doubt some of the drugs do pass through on their way up north, I am sure there is a local market as well.

In the favela, an unwritten code of order is enforced by drug gangs just as in, “City of God”. In the film, a car runs into a crowded restaurant, the police come and ask what’s happened. No one admits to seeing a car even though it’s right there in the middle of the restaurant. Criminals want no trouble and when there is any, they brutally repress it.

We drive to Rio’s largest favela. It actually has a street with a bank that was robbed by the police. It seems this is a parallel universe where the criminals keep order and the police break it. For a moment, I fantasize about being an anthropologist, immersing myself in and integrating into the community. One day they will accept me as their own. Then I wonder what it would be like to once again leave. I know it’s some thing I could make the most of. Though the thought is entirely momentary and fleeting.

We walk by a chicken shack where you pick your own live chicken to be butchered on demand. On display are freshly killed chickens, eggs still in tact dangling from their halved bodies. How even the most hardcore meat eater could not be disgusted is beyond me. I wonder if this is lost on everyone on the tour but me. Probably.

Needless to say, it reaffirmed my vegetarianism but also made me wonder if more people would be vegetarian if their food came in the gory form of dismembered carcasses instead of in “nuggets”, “wings” and “breasts”.

“City of God” draws the parallel between violence against animals and violence toward humankind in its opening and closing scenes which are quite hard to watch. I definitely think there is a connection.

Nearby, a hearty street cat is patrolling for scraps. No doubt this guys eats better than most house cats. He is on a perfect Atkins diet in this part of town. The place is a bustle with people. This is the first time I feel like I really stand out in Brazil. Till now, as long as I keep my mouth closed, I fit in.

We finish the tour on the roof a house that has the best view of Rio. A panaroma spanning the Christ Statue, Sugarloaf and Impanema beach and beyond is visible. The other members of the tour look at paintings and handicrafts (it wouldn’t be a tour with out a stop at the “gift shop”) while I gaze out over the wonder that is Rio from above.

It’s a view that the poorest people of Rio get to enjoy every day.

M12 Sin Camara

2004-11-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

Another Report From Rio

One of the goals I set for myself a few years ago was to do more writing and photography. I’ve been prodigious beyond what I set out to do. My Powerbook’s hard drive is stuffed and I now have to delete old photos just to make way for new ones.

On a typical extended weekend, I may take as many 300 photographs. Only a fraction make it to my website and fewer still get the attention they deserve in Photo Shop with my limited time (and more limited photo-doctoring skills).

I draw inspiration from contrasting settings, but the enthusiasm is the same regardless of the setting. The grittiness and urbanity of Mexico City inspire me as much as the sharp colors and archeological wonder of Tulum.

Photography is my way of connecting to place.

My third day in Rio, I took my camera, carefully hidden in my messenger bag out on my daily excursion. I shot the beach. I shot the hot honeys, the fat dudes, the foot-volley ball games and the Christ statue. I shot the unique and stylish pattern of the promenade that looks like a record cover put out by 18th Street Lounge Records.

I had just come from eating lunch in Impanema with a girl (not the girl) and was taking a stroll on a posh side street when inspiration hit. A wrought iron mailbox engraved with a humming bird. I checked the street, took out my camera and snapped two shots.

I enjoy finding beauty in small objects and was caught up in a moment with my back toward the street and my concentration stolen by my subject.

Suddenly, I am on ground, fingertips are pressing my eyeballs back into the recesses of my skull. I am being hit on the back and there is one human being on my back and another one in front of me. I didn’t know what was happening until I found myself in a tug-of-war with one of these guys with my camera as one end and the strap as the other end of the rope. I don’t know how I got up, but I did.

For a moment, I continue to hold on to the camera. My thoughts shift to my cash, ATM card (which I almost never carry) and more importantly, my safety.

I realized the camera is my sole bargaining chip. I set my mind, release it and bolt the other way. Then I turn, while running, to see if they are in pursuit. One of them was standing protecting the other two in a rear-guard action while the pair nonchalantly walked down the street in the opposite direction. I walk the other way with my head turned backwards. I think about going after them, but I am helpless.

My camera is gone.

The girl going into the house in front of me with her bike, watched the whole thing. She said and did nothing, even though she was safely behind her locked fence from where she could have yelled or called the police (or both).

I learn that the Rio of the film “City of God” and the Rio of today are quite similar. When crime occurs, bystanders are silent and after it happens, the police are useless.

“City of God”, set in the ‘60’s, is an incredible film based on the true story of a boy growing up in the Rio favellas (slums) who makes his escape from a world a violence and official corruption by becoming, of all things, a photographer. His friends grow up get into drugs and violence and mostly ended up getting killed. His ticket out is his camera and love of photography. Eventually he defies the odds to become a famous photographer.

Twenty minutes later the girl with the bike found me on the next street corner, one lined with cafes and restaurants where the “Girl From Impanema” was written. She helped me find the police and we communicated in a mixture of English and Spanish.

There were three, all plain clothes, but we end up driving around in regular, marked police car, sirens blaring, as if to tip off the perpetrators. The trigger-happy trio, drew their nickel-plated pistols with glee while toying with the safeties as we drive around Impanema looking for my assailants.

Any black person was instantly suspect even though I barely emphasized the fact the three guys were black. “Is that him?” “How about him?” No, no, no. I was shocked as they stopped the car and then suddenly made a black guy empty out his backpack on the sidewalk.

How many times did I have to describe these were shirtless 20-somethings without bags? This seemed to be a show for the tourist. But instead of impressing me, it offended me. I made them take me to the station to fill out a police report so I can eventually file an insurance claim. I knew it was an exercise in futility as they typed it up on an old typewriter using carbon duplicate paper. The only other crime victim at the station was another tourist who had also forgone his camera to this “tourist tax”.

I will get a new camera and at the rate at which digital photography is advancing, I will even get a better one for less than I paid for the original.

I would like to think the thieves are putting the camera to use as their ticket out of the slum like the protagonist in “City of God”. I would feel slightly better. Unfortunately, both for them and for me, my money is they’ve pawned it.

Good luck finding a power cord for it, boys.

I leave the police station and I walk around the beach with fondling the lens cap which was still in my pocket. I toss it in the trash. They took my camera and my pictures, but I still have the memories and I still had a good time.

M11 Her Name Is Rio

2004-10-30T19:10:00.000-07:00

A Report from Rio...

I arrived in Rio on a Friday night after a week trapped in meetings in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I was thrilled to be going to Brazil for work but SP reminded me more of a Mexico City-sized Arlington, Virginia than the Brazil of my imagination.

The closest I ever got to Brazil before last night was the Grille From Impanema Restaurant on Columbia Road NW in Washington, DC. I was so excited on the 12-hour overnight flight from Mexico City down here I couldn’t sleep until I got to my meetings.

When I arrived, I decided to take a stroll along the beach in the Copacabana section of Rio. When I was a kid, I thought Copacabana was “Cocacabana” (for the coconuts) and that it was in Havana, not Rio. I expected Lola, beauty and glamour.

On the beach, the sounds of the waves are drowned out by sounds of automobile traffic. As I made my way down the boardwalk, I decided to stop at a club, “Help” which was listed in my Lonely Planet Guide as the largest discothèque in Latin America. Cool.

Any time I see or hear that word by itself, I automatically think of the following lines in the Beatles song “…I need somebody”.

Just outside it was teaming with beautiful women outnumbering men 7 to 1. The club appeared to be a factory for couples: only singles went in and only couples came out.

I decided to go in to help myself to the music. If you believe that you believe I read playboy for its literary value. I was curious in a prurient kind of way.

Inside, the women all seemed to be checking me out. Now, I’d like to say that I can’t blame them, but there was something strange about this particular sort of attention. Inside, most of the men were dead-ringers for my mind’s image of sex tourists; north of middle aged, fat, gray and balding. The kind of dudes that would be roaming about in trench coats and shorts if we weren’t in the tropics.

Then, I had a sudden realization; these were not ordinary everyday club going Brazilian women and men.

I was surrounded by a club-full of hookers and their prospective Johns. Blonde hookers. Brunette hookers. Redheaded hookers. Slutty looking hookers. Innocent looking hookers. Fat hookers. Thin hookers. Black hookers. White hookers. Beautiful hookers. Ugly hookers. Hooker-looking hookers. Non-hooker looking hookers.

Truth be told, they were probably not all hookers. Or maybe there were. It was hard to tell. The club artfully blurred that line. What a concept. Instead baring the stigma of going to a brothel or strip bar, a John simply goes to this “disco” where it just so happens that there are 7 women for every man. Then a he “meets” a woman and takes it from there. I decided to leave and steer clear of discothèques.

“Help” is a place where you need no help if you need somebody.

M10 Un dia en mi Vida

2004-10-29T19:03:00.000-07:00

I love my daily life in Mexico City. In some respects it’s more convenient than my life was in Washington. DC.

Every morning I cook myself a meal with fresh veggies. I purchase all my produce at the local market. It is on the way to and from the subway. Within walking distance, there is a Gigante (pronounce Higante) supermarket and a health food store. Though the health food stores here tend to deal more in the latest magic sex portions than in say, soy. But at least I can buy tofu there.

After the culinary experience with the family I first stayed with, I thought I was going to be poisoned at worst and starved at best. As usual, my fears have come to naught.

I am eating better than ever even though Whole Foods has not (yet) opened here. Un/fortunately, US chains like Starbucks, Target, Costco and every fast food joint you could imagine are slowly and steadily chipping away at the uniqueness of Mexico promising a homogenized, sanitized future as generic as a strip mall in Anytown, USA. A lot of Mexicans, like the family I lived with, are eating it up like a super-sized package of “freedom” fries from McDonalds.

Walmart is opening it’s latest edifice to sprawl on the sacred grounds near Teotihuacán so you can enjoy the 2000 year old temple of the Sun and the Moon and jet in for some cheapie souvenirs, food and detergent in quantities that will let you wait out the apocalypse.

The store sits within the actual grounds of the United Nations World Heritage Site for Teotihuacán. Do you think even Walmart would attempt to put one of its stores in the Grand Canyon or on the National Mall? What must they think about Mexico and Mexicans to do the same here? Such arrogance is astounding.

Walmart construction workers have testified that the company ordered them to hide any archeological artifacts they may find. Isn’t that special?

Read more:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1015-28.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1022-06.htm

If you’re mad you can sign the online petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/chicano1/petition.html
It only takes a second.

Fortunately, what I love the most about Mexico is it has not been overwhelmed by chains. Rather, the entire Ciudad de Mexico (Mexico City) is one big market consisting of fresh produce markets, stands with bootleg/pirata CD’s and DVD stands, antiques beyond anything I’ve seen in the best flee market or thrift stores back home.

At the produce market, blocks from my house, I buy things in small quantities so my food is always fresh. I now make a mean guacamole! The first time I went, I thought I was getting a bargain when one of the produce sellers told me the price was 70 pesos ($7US). I misheard him, it was 7 pesos or roughly 7 cents for fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic, mangos, bananas and oranges.

I revel in the irony that when I was staying with a Mexican family I ate the food they cooked me from Costco while now that I am on my own I eat my own homemade Guacamole and Salsas that are fresh and fabulous and locally grown!

I was down to my last cup of Peet’s Coffee and I thought I might have to resort to getting my fix at Starbucks in Polanco or Condesa. One night I was walking to the Zocalo and I smelled coffee.

There was a small corner shop on Calle Lopez with a giant ancient roasting machine. I stopped in. It was straight out of 1910. It even had a wooden and brass phone (still in use). I wish I had had my camera. Hell, I wish I had a camera! They were roasting coffee as I purchased a half-kilo (just over a pound) for about $5US.

That night I went to sleep dreaming about the coffee I would drink the next morning.

When I woke, I went straight to my grinder and coffee maker to made my coffee. It was as almost as good as Peet’s and definitely better than Starbucks.

My commute is 20 minutes round-trip door to door. That includes two stops on the efficient, but crowded Mexico City Subway. One day I had to wait for four cars before feeling comfortable enough to enter one. That being said, the subway feels safe. I get interesting looks when I wear a suit, though I don’t ever feel threatened. Mexico is homogenous enough that it’s impossible not to stand out if you are not from here. I have become accustomed to it and quite enjoy the fact that it seems to throw locals off that I live here.

My new house and landlord are fabulous. Thus far, she has bought me a new radiator, comforter, corkscrew, coffee table and has offered to get me a DVD player. And I never asked for anything. My house is equipped with every appliance, hi-speed internet, 1000-channel cable and twice weekly maid service which includes washing, drying and, best of all, folding of my laundry. It’s a huge improvement over my last situation and one that has allowed me to relax, enjoy and savor my time here in the world’s largest city.

M9 Viva La Nacion

2004-10-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted something to happen your entire life that you thought would never happen?

I have. My family has. My hometown has. So many lived there entire lives without seeing it happen. Like my grandfather who died three and a half years shy of it happening.

Once it finally happened it was a bit anti-climatic. Don’t get me wrong, I was psyched, but the most incredible moments actually took place just prior to it happening.

After 86 years (the last time they won the world series) of bad news, those of us in Red Sox Nation are used to disappointments. They have come so close, so many times only to let us let Boston and the entire Red Sox Diaspora down.

Like in ’67 against the Reds.

While I wasn’t alive yet, Massachusetts school children like myself begin the process of life-long Red Sox conditioning early by being shown films of past Sox debacles starting in kindergarten.

I can vividly remember the ’75 World Series as a 6-year old. I can still see in my mind’s eye the cafeteria in the elementary school with its white tiled ceiling, brown faux-wood tables and the green 16mm projector where we watched it. I can hear the clicking noise of the projector.

Then there was ’78 American League Championships (ALSC) against the Yankees. In ’86, I watched raptly sharing telephone commentary with my high school girlfriend, Karen as the Sox were one strike away from winning only to miss a ball on an easy play allowing the Mets to come back and win the series.

Then there was last year’s ALCS also against the Yankees. I traded text urgent messages with the girl I was interested in at the time, Sarah, a fellow New Englander, echoing my phone calls with Karen back in ’86.

It was obvious to any good Boston sports fan that coach Grady Little should have pulled pitcher Pedro Martinez out after the 7th inning. Instead, he left him in allowing the Yankees to score against a fatigued Pedro. Everyone knows Pedro goes downhill after the 100th pitch, right?

But just as the Sox lost then and things went sour with Karen thereafter, the Sox lost in last and things went sour with Sarah shortly thereafter.

Fate doesn’t change unless you believe.

All this year I followed intently as the Sox took an early season lead in their division only to let it whither then plunge to a 10 1/2 game deficit against the Yankees as recently as August 16th.

Miraculous, they staged stunning comeback to be within 2 1/2 games of the Yankees at the end of the post season. Kevin Brown, the Yankees star $40m pitcher threw a hissy fit after losing in a 3-game shut out to the Sox at Yankee Stadium, slamming his hand into the clubhouse wall and breaking it into pieces.

I guess at $40m a year you buy a pitcher smart enough to punch a wall with his non-pitching hand.

I watched the Sox crush the Anaheim Angels three games to none to clinch the post-season wildcard slot as I watched the Yankees flounder.

Just as it appeared the Yanks were done-for, I wondered, as many did, would it be the same matter if the Red Sox got to the World Series without vanquishing their long time foe on their way there?

I wouldn’t have to wonder at all. The Yankees pulled yet another come-from-behind victory for which they are famous.

But I still believed this was the year.

The only problem was, I wouldn’t get to watch much of the most important series of all, the ALCS. I was vacationing in a thatched roof hut with candles doubling for light bulbs on in Tulum on the Caribbean coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Do I have to write that we didn’t have ESPN? The night we came back was the night of the 6th game.

As soon as we arrived at the airport in Mexico City, I scoured the newsstands looking for a New York Times like a junky looking for a fix.

I found mine, but it didn’t contain the news I wanted.

The Boston Red Sox appeared to be dead in their face-off against the Yanquis (what they’re called in Mexico). The pictures showed it all; the faces of Boston fans looking like the rain-drenched Fenway Park.

Katy asked “what happened” after seeing the look of distress on my face as I read the sports page. In a tone of utter resignation that I’ve had thirty-five years to practice, I said, “Don’t ask slaughter”.

I caught glimpses of results but couldn’t bring myself to read the entire story; lost game one10-7 with Schilling pitching. Lost game two 3-1 with Martinez pitching.

How could that happen?

The weather was appropriately rainy as I drove home in a cab having seen Katy off for her return flight to London.

The next day, assuming the Sox were dead, I read the Mexican daily La Reforma in disbelief. Perhaps the Mexican papers are a day behind. Better check the Miami Herald’s English language paper. The Sox are still alive? Huh?

Was this a dream?

One game had been postponed and the series had been moved out a day due to rain; the Sox were still clinging to life down 3 to 0 in a best of 7 series. No team in the history of baseball had ever come back from losing the first three in a series of seven to go on to win. Never. Ever.

Almost no one believed, except the Red Sox themselves. After game 3, Johnny Damon the Sox’ center fielder told New York Times sports writer George Vecsey without the slightest bit of bravado “that as far as I can recollect the Sox had won four straight games plenty of times”. They had done so 8 times this season alone.

They were staging a slow, but incredible resurrection that still to this moment is giving me goose bumps.

Game 5 was actually underway in Boston as I sat in the cab. The Yanks took an early lead but the Sox managed to hold on driving the game into the 14th inning (that’s 5 extra innings) forcing a Game 6 in New York.

The Sox had teammates such as Curt Shilling who pitched perfectly with a bleeding ankle even though he should have been in the hospital. The team doctor sutured his torn tendon after practicing the delicate procedure on a cadaver in a Boston morgue.

Meanwhile the Yanquis had A-Rod, Alex Rodriguez. He’s an overpaid shortstop and bully the Sox had tried to acquire only to be outdone by their archrivals (and their $200 million payroll - $60 million greater than the Sox’).

It’s helpful to think of the Yankees like spoiled rich kids. They have all the money, the clean-cut looks and they are as accustomed to winning as their fans (parents) are accustomed to having them win.

But when the grungy kids from the other side of the tracks start beating them on their own turf, they start playing like brats they are.

In Game 6 with the Sox ahead A-Rod got on first base driving a run home and tying the game as the Sox dropped the ball. Or so it looked.

It was a classic moment like so many others in the tragic history of the Sox and I thought it would end the same way it always does. But actually, A-Rod had slapped the ball out of Sox pitcher Bronso Arroyo’s hands as he had tried to tag him out – a definite foul.

What’s next, scratching and hair-pulling?

The umpires convened, sent Jeter back to second and called A-Rod out. YES! In an instant, the bad karma had been totally reversed and things were going the way of Red Sox nation again.

They went on to win game six and utterly silence Yankees Stadium as Schilling predicted. They vanquished their foe and advanced for the first time in 18 years to the World Series!

Something was changed. Shifted. Karmically altered.

I could feel it all the way down here in Mexico and now even in Brazil as I write. The karma of the universe is changed and the fate of the Sox had been reversed. And I am not even kidding.

I was so giddy the morning after the triumph; I caught myself pacing up and down the subway platform electrified with glee. The Sox moved on to play St. Louis in the World Series.

Imagine how the Cardinals felt waking up the morning of Game 4. “Okay, we’re down three to none in a best of 7 series. It’s win or be eliminated. Until last week no team in the history of baseball has come back from such a deficit. The team to do it is the team to play it’s the team we’re playing”.

The Sox swept the Cardinals who played honorably last night four games to none setting another post-season record; eight consecutive wins.

The Boston Red Sox have won the World Series. Repeat. The Boston Red Sox have won the World Series. As the Boston Globe put it on their cover: “Pigs Fly”, “Hell Freezes Over” and the Red Sox Win the World Series. I never thought I’d see it in my lifetime.

M8 Una Situacion Nueva

2004-09-23T18:49:00.000-07:00

My new neighborhood and house are “padre”, Mexico slang for “cool”.

Firstly, there are actually people here. People. People walking. People walking dogs. People interesting enough that I might want to talk to them. They’re literally teaming about the streets especially when compared with the ghost town I formerly called home.

A Single Bed to Impress the Ladies in My First Pad

My first night here I saw four cute girls. Four more than I had seen in five weeks in the deserted mansion district known as Colonia Anzures. There are stores. Stores other than chains. Stores with Mexican, not US, prices. Stores where for 90 cents, I can purchase a fresh croissant the size of a football, a loaf of bread and a mole empanada at bakery that makes them fresh daily.

When I go down stairs in the morning, I can be eating instead of fleeing. As I open the refrigerator, I won’t have to hold my breath because the stench is so bad it’s like opening one of those cadaver refrigerators on TV. I won’t have to look at or smell the geriatric soup with the bone in the middle left out to soak over night on the counter.

And I won’t have to think thoughts like it might be better to get my meals at the local jail.

I won’t have to pay $15USD to get my laundry done because I now have a washer/dryer and better still a maid who comes twice weekly to do it for me… and by-the-way, it’s included in the rent.

Here I am right in the middle of three subway stops for separate but, equally convenient lines instead of being nowhere near a metro stop. I am one block from a big park and a couple more from the President’s mansion, Los Pinos. I am a ten minute walk from what I think is one of the coolest neighborhoods in the world; La Condesa. I can go there for dinner to one of scores of cool restaurants instead of not eating or eating what’s usually for dinner; pancakes a la cardboard or if I am lucky, something packaged like cereal.

When I come home at night the courtyard doesn’t smell like dog shit from the two dogs incarcerated in a cement cell the size of a walk-in closet. I won’t have to wait for the one day each week when it doesn’t smell. The day the guy comes to come to clean up the dog crap. I won’t have to feel badly that the dogs only get walked once a week by yet another hired hand. I won’t have to have debates with myself about clandestinely setting their caged bird free.

I won’t have to wonder whether I will be without threadbare towels in the bathroom because the cleaning man remembered to take the dirty ones out but forgot to replace them with clean ones.

I won’t have to lock my computer in my luggage because the lock to my room doesn’t work and isn’t going to get fixed any time soon.

I won’t have to sleep in the twin bed in the blanket woven with pubic hairs and tiny spiders. When I get up in the morning, I will actually feel clean showering in a modern bathroom that contains none of my former bathroom’s accoutrements; glaring yellow and white tiles a la 1971 pock mocked with mildew, a shower door that is strangely sticky to the touch and broken faucets that sometimes gurgle forth brown water.

When I walk up the stairs to my new room, I don’t have to worry about the creaking noise from the steps waking up the rest of the house and I won’t have to worry about stubbing my toe on the water pipe at the top of the stairs.

My new stairs are marble and there’s no one to wake up. I won’t have to worry about checking in or checking out with anyone or feeling badly because I am not feeling social. I won’t have to wake up at 7am every day when the car leaves the garage billowing exhaust and noise into my sole window.

I have a new place and I am psyched.

M7 Mordidas - Bribes That Don’t Bite

2004-09-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

I’ve been looking for apartments with Florian and Carolin the German couple I met in Cuernavaca.

One night after a fruitless seach, they were driving me back to my house in Anzures, my dull neighborhood consisting of run down mansions.

Like mine; which looks like an Italian funeral home that hasn’t been renovated since the 1970’s. We have four refrigerators, but no dishwasher.

But that’s another story.

Calle Bradley, my street, runs one way and I instructed Carolin to drop me off at the corner. She started down the street the wrong way. Who said Germans were law-abiding? Security trumps the rule of law; she was intent on seeing me to my door safety.

Blue lights.

You hear all sorts of things about the Mexican police. How they’ll pull you over for sh^ts and giggles. How they’re paid $200/month. How they supplement their meager income with “mordidas” literally “bites”, but translating to “bribes”.

Funny, just today, I had been thinking that I would never have a run in with the law here. I planned on limiting my driving time.

But what do you know? Is this karmic payback for my hubris?

We’re now surrounded by three Mexico City police cars, lights flashing and are undergoing a roadside interrogation.

In the states, a shot of adrenalin hits me if there police car in back of me and I am doing the speed limit. I should have been way more scared here – especially with all the tall tales and especially because we were breaking the law.

After the requisite small talk, one cop explains we can pay a “service fee” of $100 pesos (Yes, they use the same sign for the peso as we do for the dollar).

This is a little like a prostitute asking you for a “date”.

We’re eager to get out of this situation as fast as we possibly can. And for $10USD, our DF policeman morphs into a lenient judge granting us vehicular scofflaws road-side clemency.

It’s all good, till we realize we have only $50 pesos between us.

Everyone here goes out of his or her way to scare the hell out of you. It’s amazing there’s anyone on the street at all. Don’t take more than you want to spend. Never take your ATM card.

I don’t use a wallet or carry an ID and I only take a couple hundred pesos with me. After a couple of drinks, you end up broke, like we are now.

Then, I remember I have US dollars back in my room.

Carolin explains to the officer in Spanish that we’ll give him $10USD plus the $50 pesos or 50% more than what he asked for. He knew the exchange rate, but couldn’t do the math.

Unfortunately, all I had was a twenty so that wasn’t going to work anyway. We gave it to him and he graciously pardoned us without so much as a ticket or a trip to the local precinct.

M6 There's Something About (Bribing) Maria

2004-09-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

Moving to another country is supposed to be all about experiencing new things. How fabulous! I am happy to report on the newest thing I’ve experienced this week; bribery.

Yes, that word is synonymous with graft, corruption and things that we think don’t generally happen in the USA. A couple weeks ago I would have told you that I would never even consider giving a bribe - let alone two – and certainly not within the span of one week.

Yes, I agree, they corrupt both the giver and the recipient. Bribes are bad, terrible even. Sometimes, their alternatives are worse.

While trying to learn another language ten hours a day, move to another country and close down my affairs in the USA, my tenant of a year and a half, Maria (name changed to shield the guilty), decided that collecting unemployment was more fun than working and that not paying rent was more fun than paying.

Maria had taken care of my house and my cats lovingly for a year and a half. She promised to do so when I was gone when I accepted my new job in June.

How wonderful, everything was in her hands!

Knowing how much responsibility this would entail, I decided to treat Maria to a week’s vacation. I purchased her a $600 airline ticket and when she came back, she said she was moving out at the end of August. I even let her have the month for free since she was in really dire straights.

But when August 30th was rolling around Maria was rolling anywhere but out.

She suddenly started lashing out at me leaving me vicious voicemails and accusing me of “only caring about money”. When confronting her, she said she was staying in the house, that I had no “right” to kick her out of my own house. She was going to stay as long as she liked. We traded voicemails as I consulted lawyers and real estate agents.

My real estate agent advised, “This is why I never recommend renting to my clients. I would get a lawyer - especially if she’s the kind of tenant who knows her rights. I’ve seen cases where squatters have had the right to stay in a house”.

Maria most definitely knew her rights.

Not only was her portion of the mortgage in jeopardy, but my ability to rent to any one else was also in jeopardy and I feared that my friend Vanessa who was also living there might move out if Maria began tormenting her as she was doing with me.

I could barely focus on work or Spanish. And the fabulous times and experiences were dulled with the anxiety of unresolved affairs.

I booked a ticket back to DC and then to North Carolina for business meetings. I had to leave because my tourist card was about to expire anyway and the meeting were necessary regardless or so I told my management.

The plan was to move Maria’s stuff out on the street when she wasn’t there. Legally, she had no lease, though at one point in time she had been paying rent. She still owed me $300, though she claimed it was $250 as though I was trying to bilk her out of 50 bucks.

Tuesday night I was entreated to a voice mail from Maria stating that it was illegal to kick her out and that she would call the police if necessary. I called the police myself and it turns out that they will kick out an “unwanted guest”, but not a tenant.

Those disputes go to a very special place called landlord-tenant court. That place requires landlords to hire lawyers to sue, take international flights just to go to court and costs us greedy slumlords thousands taking perhaps many months to resolve.

And, when all is said and done, there are no guarantees. Moreover, it would be doubtful that even if I had won if I ever would have recouped a dime from Maria let alone recouped the emotional energy she would exact from me in the process.

Was she a tenant or an unwanted guest? Was I willing to press that and risk letting DC’s finest decide my fate?

By Tuesday, I was in a bind and I was freaking out.

I couldn’t handle dealing with mi familia Mexicano and the pancakes or cereal they typically serve me for dinner so I went to a sushi place on La Reforma, Mexico’s equivalent to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Over sushi I relaxed a little and talked over my limited options with Katy. The phone clicked and I had a hunch it was Vanessa. I took the call.

Maria was tripping out on Vanessa and I could hear it all over the cell phone. Yelling. Screaming. Taunting. Tormenting. Swearing. Repeat. I knew what it was like to hear one of Maria’s voicemail messages. I could only imagine how bad this must have been in person.

Vanessa took it like a champ and she never let this situation jeopardize our friendship or our lease agreement which would have been well within reason.

She had been nothing but nice and helpful to Maria.

It was one thing when she was lashing out on me, but another when she was taking it out on Vanessa. I was circling the backstreets near the US Embassy, (later learned you’re not supposed to walk there) literally shaking with rage.

I needed to put an end to this. I told Vanessa I was going to call Maria.

I dialed, and to my surprise Maria answered. She unleashed her verbal vomit on me again. I am selfish, money-grubbing, etc. I couldn’t get a word in. Repeat.

I wasn’t angry at this point and I just listened.

Then I spoke.

“Maria, I just want you out of my house. What’s it going to take?” “You tell me, what do you want?”

Then, as I circled the rainy streets in the dark, I was entreated with yet another harangue detailing my many shortcomings as a human being.

“Real friendship can’t be bought”
“You don’t know the value of people, all you care about is money”

Actually, all cared about was getting her the F%^& out of my house and out of my life!

Brian: “Maria, $500 and a week at a hotel and we can be done with this”
Maria: “$500 won’t buy a week at a hotel, all you care about is money…”
Brian: “Maria, you’re not listening, I said, $500 AND a week at a hotel”
Maria: “HOW ARE YOU, BRIAN KEMLER, GOING TO GET ME, MARIA $500 WHEN YOU ARE IN MEXICO AND I AM IN WASHINGTON, DC???”
Brian: “Katy’s on the way to the ATM machine now. She’ll put the money in your hand as soon as you and your belongings are out of the house and my key’s in her posesion”
Maria: crying
Brian: “We can wash our hands clean of all this, be done, once and for all – forgive and get past this if you just agree…”
Maria: crying
Brian: “Or, I can have Vanessa call the police. Your call, but you need to decide.”
Maria: cries “You don’t know what Vanessa has been doing to me, I didn’t want to bother you while you were in Mexico {Is that why you left me so many nasty voicemails?} she has been horrible”

The funny thing was everything she said about Vanessa, she had said about me just a week before.

As psychologist friend said to me she was engaging in “projective identification” – essentially ascribing her view of herself to either Vanessa or me.
Maria: “That money would really help out”
Brian: “So we have a deal?”
Maria: “Yes, you’ve done so much for me, I don’t want to lose your friendship, you are like a brother to me.”

Who says money can’t buy happiness or in Maria’s words, “friendship”?

The money was conditioned upon three things; 1) she had to move the next day, 2) she had to sign documents stating she made no additional claims on the house and 3) that the deal would expire immediately if she did not agree or failed to abide by the terms and conditions.

I managed to negotiate this while Katy was serving as an intermediary handing her cell phone between Maria and Vanessa so I could make sure they both agreed to what I was negotiating.

Katy did an amazing job at calming Maria down. Without her, there would have been no deal. I felt like we were conducting peace talks between North and South Korea and Kim Il Jung had his finger on the nuclear trigger the whole time.

Hapless and helpless Maria was unable to even pack or move her own belongings herself the next day. I don’t know what I would have done without Katy or Vanessa. They moved Maria out while she was still erupting and spewing verbal bile on Vanessa. They did all the legwork, while I did the (tele) sales job. After that, I felt like I could coax a suicide jumper off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Even though it cost me, it surely cost me a lot less than it would have in money, time and emotional anguish had I pursued it through the courts.

I came back for the weekend and instead of evicting Maria, I chilled and spent time with friends.

Little did I know I would get another opportunity to use bribery effectively as soon as I got back to Mexico City.

M5 El Marcardo Negro: Why Rent when You Can Buy?

2004-08-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

It’s our next to last night in town and Florian, my new German friend, and I have some shopping to do before we meet up with his wife at Las Mananitas (the little hands), one of Mexico’s finest restaurants located here in Cuernavaca.

It’s famous because the food is fabulous and it has lush gardens that are patrolled by colorful giant peacocks that will take a bite of your food if you give them the opportunity.

Sounds a little bit like the Mexican Police – but that’s another story.

I had learned about “el Marcado Negro” at dinnertime over hushed voices the first night I was in town. Bill, a fellow house guest made the Black Market seem like it was some forbidden place that was difficult to find unless you were in the know as he apparently was. Apparently, he couldn’t recall the intricate directions to the market.

I would just have to find it on my own.

The truth of the matter, I was to find out, is it’s hard not to find the black market. Markets are everywhere and they resemble “flea markets” in the USA except they sell new bootleg stuff known as “piratas”.

Stuff like CD’s for a dollar and DVD’s for half what you would pay to rent them at Blockbuster (which is here as well). Would you go to Blockbuster if you lived near the black market?

Why rent, when you can buy?

If you like Diesel jeans, like I do, they’re yours for $11. Next time I decide to blow upwards of $200 on jeans from Diesel’s unadvertised Denim Lab in SOHO, I’ll think twice, save my money for a plane ticket and then I’ll come back with a suit case of Diesel clothing.

Now, if you’ve just moved to Mexico and are worried that you are going be without “American” culture for a year, fret not, the black market is your kind of place. You won’t miss any movies – not even ones that are just hitting stateside cinemas right now.

Want to see Will Smith in “I, Robot” – it’s here but it’s called “Yo, Robot”. YO ROBOT!!! But don’t worry, it’s still in English because the film is so new, they haven’t even had time to dub it. Most of the films are in English with Spanish subtitles. We were hoping the DVD technology would allow us to listen in Spanish with English subtitles, but alas the DVD’s are not quite what they are back home.

What do you expect for the price of a grande frappucino?

In fact, most of the DVD’s are actually “VCD’s”. Other than knowing that stands for “Video CD”, I don’t know what the hell one of these things is. All I know is it doesn’t play on my computer, but I witnessed it being played on the vendadora’s (seller’s) DVD test station.

Yes, you may test drive before you buy here. If, for some absurd reason, you thought for a moment that you were about to purchase an inferior quality product, you may test the DVD/VCD of your choice in the vendor’s DVD player to prove such spurious assumptions false.

Florian had a whole list of films he wanted to buy. I had a general idea, knowing that I wanted mostly films with a Mexican or Spanish theme. We decided to go in together and purchase a whole slew and then share, but not first without making sure we were getting the best possible quality for our $4.00USD.

We ask for a screening of a Mexican film I haven’t heard of. She slides it into the DVD player which swallows the disk whole. She presses play and when we inquire in Spanish as to whether we can listen in Spanish and read subtitles in English. She absolves herself of all responsibility for such technical questions and in a symbolic gesture, she hands me the remote control.

I mess around with the menu settings and Florian and I have a conversation as I fumble with the controls that went something like this:

Florian “It looks kind of blurry, is this a ‘50’s porn flick?”
Brian “No dude, that’s a special effect, yes, it’s grainy and blue, that’s the idea”
Florian “Why is it flickering?”
Brian in a moment of realization “Oh, it’s been filmed on a camcorder inside a theatre”.
Florian “You’re right”
Brian and Florian - laughter

We toss that one back and she hands us “7 Mujeres (women), un Homosexual y (and) Carlos”. We decline to screen that one.

But we did manage to get good copies of “Farenheit 911”, “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and “Frida”.

Interestingly, while most Mexican-themed films were featured prominently in the stalls, Frida was nowhere to be found. Well, she could be found everywhere on postcards, handbags, balloons and just about anything else, but not on DVD. Maybe they have a conscience and feel badly about bootlegging their national heroine.

Or maybe not. On our last and final attempt we finally found her.

The disks themselves are obviously unique, one of-a-kind creations. They’re hand-labeled with sharpies “Disk 1” and “Disk 2”.

During a screening of the new Tom Cruise flick, the bottom half of the screen was emblazoned with the text “If you are watching this film and have not received the DVD from an authorized source, please contact 1-800-555-1234. Your call will remain strictly anonymous”.

Do you think they’ll pick up the international cellular roaming fees? My guess is no. The warning disappears shortly thereafter.

DVD’s are not under any system of organization. I had to laugh when next to Disney’s “Mulan” I saw a film entitled “XXX: Tons of Tits”.

Some times I wonder; where is the sense of irony? But that what is nice about Mexico. Completely unselfconscious. Completely devoid of irony.

Completely fabulous.

M4 Butterflies In the Stomach

2004-08-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

This morning while I was brushing my teeth there was a sudden and furious flapping in the bathroom startling me out of my standing slumber.

Duck, BAT!

When I looked, it was a friendly mariposa (butterfly), a cousin, no doubt, of the one I encountered last week. He was completely frightened and I thought he would die bouncing off the walls like a pinball in his panic to escape.

There was something to his panic that was a natural reaction.

There was also something more in deadly in his panic than in the actual danger.

In my own life, I can only liken it to one thing. Mountain biking. I have been in situations where, speed and technical conditions suddenly overtook my riding ability and I was caught riding way outside my comfort zone and my self-presumed ability.

In this situation, I have never panicked. I have also never crashed. (Knock wood!) I was comfortable with my extreme discomfort and that’s what saved me. Had I reacted, even slightly, I would have gone down and the results would have been terrible.

I also learned that I had more ability than I imagined. When the occasion arose, I was able to operate outside my self-imposed limitations.

Fear is as real as you want it to be.

Fear may be an alarm, but usually it’s a false one.

If you always react as if the alarm is real, the fear becomes reality. If you acknowledge fear as fear and not reality, fear does not have to become fate.

My immediate concern is quelling the fear of a terrified mariposa. He wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to catch him, but I was determined to save him.

Think. Quickly.

I turn off the lights. He stops fluttering, calms down and perches himself on the side of the mirror.

I capture him with a cup by covering the top with a towel. Then, I carefully transfer my live cargo to the balcony where I set him free!

It felt great that this one would be able to fly about the garden and spread the happiness that seems to go along with these most fabulous creatures.

This morning, fear did not become fate.

This mariposa was brown like wood and had wings about as big as my hand. He’s cleverly disguised, not that this guy stood still long enough for me to tell, but I have seen his type before. If you view him from the side, he looks like he has eyes on his wings to discourage would-be predators fearful of a large mammal. I guess in his own way he’s playing off the fear of potential predators to protect himself. I can’t say I blame him.

It’s hard to think of mariposas (I like the Spanish word better than the English) as insects. These creatures are among natures’ most colorful, free and symbolic. When I was in Costa Rica I went to a “Jardin Mariposa” (Butterfly Garden) and learned about their life cycle.

They start life as lowly caterpillars and seemingly dead, wind up as ugly, boring, cocoons. I wonder if cocoons know they will be transformed into some of natures’ most beautiful, inspiring and transformative creatures?

I wonder if they would feel better knowing their destiny as fabulous Mariposas?

I had always heard that the Monarch Butterflies flew to Mexico from the United States. It’s great to be here with them.

The animals are following me. After my first night here, I hoped to get a closer look at the cat on the archway.

My wish has come true.

The other night I returned home and sat outside writing as I am now. I had just left my wallet on the bed and I thought I saw it falling off the bed. Then I thought I saw something move.

Couldn’t be. Could it? El gato?

I was just in there – there could be nothing in that room. Then I saw it again and it looked strangely as though a cat were pawing the comforter from underneath the bed. Surely, this is some hallucination, a delusion or dream because I miss my cats.

Sure enough it was moving and I decided to go in and investigate. It could be an iguana or something terrible. I already found a big spider and the school warns us about scorpions. I stood atop the bed and gently lifted the comforter. I slowly peered from above under the bed and there was a small black and white cat.

She has a novio (boyfriend) who comes to the balcony to serenade her at times. He is shy like she is. Not quite feral, not quite your average house cats.

M3 Espanol

2004-08-22T17:49:00.000-07:00

Every night I look forward to coming home and spending an hour or two by myself on the balcony. I sit and enjoy the "eternal spring" weather for which Cuernavca is renown. I listen to and write on my computer. That's a sentence I would never have thought could be written when I was growing up. Now I make my living and am seeing the world thanks to computers.

Tonight, I went into town and had dinner with a colleague from SAS. Bill, a guest in mi casa, recommended Marco Polo to us because it's cheap. He's on a budget. I am on an expense account. I was therefore slightly skeptical, but the place proved to be good and cheap and sports one of the best views I've seen at a restaurant. We ate on a veranda overlooking the cathedral which looks more like a castle than a cathedral. It has a vast verdant garden and is straight out of the 17th century. As the waiter seated us I was awed.

I felt a shot of relaxation and tranquility hit me like I just popped a couple of valiums. I found out my first business trip is going to be to Brazil next month. I am so thrilled I might need to pinch myself.

My Spanish classes are intense. I meet with three teachers throughout the day in one-on-one sessions. I both know a lot more and a lot less Spanish than I thought. It's daunting, for a talker like me, to barely be able to express myself in simple situations. Classes go from 8am to 5:30pm with brief ten minute breaks and an hour for lunch which I must eat at mi casa con mi famlia. If you haven't gotten a long email reply from me you now know why.

My last teacher, Marilu, is my favorite. We actually had a two-hour conversation yesterday in Spanish which I didn't think I was capable of. She is patience, relaxed and en espanol "simpatico". It makes me realize the gifts that teachers, good ones that is, have. They literally have the ability to open or close the minds of students. I had to ask for another instructor to replace the one I have in the morning. My current teacher, Rocio, is slightly overbearing and impatient. She makes me nervous, talks down to me and makes me forget simple verbs like the one for "to speak", hablar. The school is really cool about stuff like this since my company is throwing down to have me in the executive program.

Tuesday night there was a social that I almost didn't attend. I am desperately in need of time to myself but Bill was going and I though I would go too. I was glad I did. I met a German couple who, like me, is moving to Mexico City (aka DF, Mexico) after our classes end. They were really cool to talk to and I am psyched to have potential friends in my new home.

I am glad it is the weekend. My brain can't handle any more information. I haven't decided what my plan is for the weekend. The pacific's only a short hop from here. Cuernavaca is surrounded by mountains and if I can find a mountain bike and someone to take me on a ride, I will be there. Stay tuned.

M2 Mariposa

2004-08-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

I am sitting on my balcony with a view of the archway that the neighborhood cats like to crawl over. I've gotten a closer glimpse of the cats and so did a butterfly I found yesterday.

When I was trying to get near the small black and white cat, I came upon him. He didn't fly and I picked him up and placed him on my index finger. His wings were sliced though in such a manner that I though that was the way he was born.

I took some pictures him in my hand (that I will post to my website when I find a get to the nearby wireless internet connection). He was enormous by butterfly standards with wide black wings punctuated by long yellow stripes. Not your typical monarch. He didn't seem to want to get off my finger, but I gently placed him on a nearby flower far from the clutches of el gato.

When I went to class this morning, I looked to see if he was still there. I had hoped he would have flown off or perhaps reversed the course of butterfly life turning into a caterpillar.

When I looked, he was being consumed by hungry ants.

I was struck with more sadness than I thought I could feel for an insect and those feelings were with me most of the day.

I guess there was nothing I could do. But I wish it could have been otherwise,

M1 Musing Numero Uno

2004-08-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

Musings on Mexico
Musing Numero Uno
Dia 2

I am sitting on the balcony outside my room in a casa grande in Cuernvaca Mexico. The neighborhood doesn't look like much, but behind the foreboding stonewalls and iron clad archway is a beautiful, albeit private, world that the best-to-do Mexicans enjoy. Homes here conceal wealth rather than advertise it. I am a guest here privy to this world as part of my two-week language immersion program sponsored by my company's year abroad program of which I am creator and sole enrollee.

I thought the difficult part of moving to another country was supposed to be acclimating to a new language, culture and home. Thus far the most trying part of my move has been extracting myself from the place I've called home since I was a teenager; Washington, DC.

Everything from my own doubts, to my girlfriend's, to last minute house renting snafus have made the process of leaving more stressful than I could possibly anticipate. Sometimes I was excited when I wasn't worried about renting my house, which is still half vacant, or rented depending upon my mood of optimism. When I was worried, sometimes it would be a low-level of anxiety whilst at other times it would come in a deeply manifested physical pang of fear and regret.

I worried that I would either be totally psyched and then come down from the initial high and be depressed or even worse, just be regretful as soon as I got to Mexico. Truth be told, it's still too early to tell, but at least I am not anticipating anything anymore.

I am here and it feels good.

Yesterday, my driver picked me up at the airport with a placard that said "Brian Kemler" making me feel more important than I actually consider myself to be. We lugged my year's worth of stuff to the garage and waded through rush hour Mexico City traffic for countless hours. Think L.A. with smaller roads and three times the cars. I long ago concluded that not bringing my car was the most fabulous decision I've ever made. The urban planners here are pushing for a "segundo piso" (double decker) highway while they still have yet to invent the concept of HOV lanes here.

We dropped the belongings I won't need for the next two weeks with the familia I will call my own for the next year and then headed toward Cuernavaca in what still seemed to be rush hour though it was approaching 9pm.

Edgar, the driver pulled the car over entirely unfazed as he indicated that there was something wrong with the tire. What could be wrong with a tire other than a flat and wouldn't that be cause for alarm?! Well, he took it in stride and I did too perhaps feeding off his calm, laid back Mexican demeanor.

Rather than change tire with the spare, we pulled into a roadside tire repair joint a quarter the size of the average DC efficiency apartment. How convenient. With haste, the Tire Doctor pulled the tire off the car, filled it with air anew (what's he doing?), and placed it in a giant sink filled with water to determine where the punctures were. With the skill of a surgeon, the Tire Whisperer marked the critical leaks with chalk - there were four. He muttered Spanish to Edgar and then proceeded to repair the tire as though it were a bicycle tire.

But it's a car tire.

He affixed massive tire levers between the tire and the rim just like I do on my bicycle and then pried it off the rim while applying force with his entire body. Once half of the tire was off the rim, he felt up the inside of the tire oh so gently. With his pliers he plucked the offending nails carefully like a dentist removing a rotted tooth and then added it to his collection jar as though the nail fairy was going to come and leave him a peso under his pillow tonight.

Then - most surprisingly of all - he pulled out a tube - yes - an inner tube - for a freaking car tire! He carefully laced it within the tire, put the tire back on the rim, filled it with air, refastened the rim on the car and we were ready to go again! All this, in less than15 minutes for less than $10USD.

Contrast this to my most recent tire repair experience at Costco with the new Michelin tires I bought for my car when I was taking care of all of the fun errands I had to run before I left the country. Of course I only had one flat, but I had to buy four tires due to the intricacies of tread wear on four-wheel drive vehicles. This cost me nearly $600.

After catching some delicious sleep in Edgar's car, I arrived at my home for the next two weeks. The house is massive, has a lush garden filled with songbirds and mariposas (butterflies). The balcony outside my room sports a view of trees and the thick wall that surrounds my house and the archway that is the entrance to this place. Before I went to sleep last night, the silhouette of a cat walked silently over the arch and into the trees…

Coming and Going with the Cicadas

2004-07-15T17:33:00.000-07:00

I knew this year I would be moving, however, I thought that move would be the one I’d been carefully orchestrating over the past year to San Francisco. When that fell through in January due to a variety of reasons beyond my control, I started following up on leads with my company's Latin America division. It was never my intent to move south, just travel there and live here.

In sales and marketing they’re constantly imploring us to “take it to the c-level” which translates in English to mean selling to the CEO, CIO and CFO’s of companies – the decision makers, not the peons. I decided that would be a good strategy for my own internal job hunt. At our annual meeting in January, I ran into the VP of our Americas group with whom I had already built something of a rapport.

I asked her pointedly if there were positions for which I would qualify in Latin America and she instructed me to email her the following week. I followed up and she put me in touch with a hiring manager. He and I had an informational interview and then I didn’t hear from him for a while until he called me asked me if I was interested in a particular position. I asked him where it would be based; he replied “any country you want in Latin America”.

After a slew of calls, a zillion questions and some initial skepticism, I decided I was leaning on taking the position and that I was interested in going to Mexico City to check it out.

Now you may ask why I would choose Mexico City when I could have chosen Buenos Aires, Santiago or even San Juan, PR. Well, I felt like the former were too far while the latter was too close and too American. I wanted an authentic in-country experience, but I still wanted to be close to the states to do some races and visit my girlfriend Katy.

Plus, half of my job responsibility is to support that office while the other half is to support the rest of Latin America. Since most of my work will be there, that means I will have to run around less and I will have more time on weekends to travel on my own. How would I enjoy Argentina or Chile if I were always traveling elsewhere?

I had never been to Mexico City, but I had heard all the news-fed, fear-based accounts; pollution, crime, traffic; repeat. Wait, were they describing Washington, DC? It’s the murder capital after. I wanted to check it out, so the other week I went under the guise of a business trip. I now happily report that I’ve located some nice, tree-filled neighborhoods close to the office so I will be able to walk or bike and I won’t have to get near a car unless I want to. The city is quite beautiful in places and I am going to be living next to its version of central park as well as a lengthy bike trail.

I accepted the position and am moving to Mexico for a year! My current job ends June 30th. This summer I will be traveling back and forth to Mexico before I actually start August 23rd. I am doing a language school immersion program the last week of July and first week of August in Cuernavaca, Mexico and plan to live with a family in Mexico City at least when I first arrive. I am completely psyched and excited but am also a little nervous too. I plan to rent one of the other rooms in my house to cover the mortgage and am planning a big yard sale to get rid of all the excess stuff I've accumulated over the years.

I will miss DC and all my friends and I hope everyone will come and visit. Please consider this your open invitation to visit the Mayan Temples at Tulum, to practice yoga on the "Mayan Rivera", to go mountain biking in San Miguel, to visit the national anthropology museum in Mexico City and well, much more...

Musing Defined

2004-06-01T18:36:00.000-07:00

Main Entry: muse
Pronunciation: 'myüz
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): mused; mus·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French muser to gape, idle, muse, from muse mouth of an animal, from Medieval Latin musus intransitive senses
1 : to become absorbed in thought; especially : to turn something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively
2 archaic : WONDER, MARVEL
transitive senses : to think or say reflectively

My pictures

2004-05-28T22:02:00.001-07:00

La Ruta de Los Conquistadores

2003-11-19T19:11:00.000-08:00

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Kemler
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 3:54 PM
To: Brian Kemler
Subject: Pre-Race Report: La Ruta De Los Conquistadores

Friday, I am competing in La Ruta De Los Conquistadores, a three hundred mile mountain bike race that traverses the Costa Rica. The route was created as a way for the Spanish to bring their plundered booty (back when booty had a different meaning) back to Spain and it took 20 years to build. I'll be crossing it in three days, on two wheels.

La Ruta starts in Jaco on the Pacific, goes through rainforests and jungles, into the capital city, San Jose, up to the 13,000 foot Volcan Irazu and down again through the blisteringly hot Caribbean coastal plain to its terminus in Puerto Limon. There will be 30,000 feet of elevation gain (and loss) over the course of the race. Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on the planet by comparison, is just over 29,000.

Billed as the most difficult mountain bike race on earth, it will be a formidable test of the 370 modern-day conquistadores. The race is a race of extremes; hot and cold, rain and sun. The weather will be vastly different in each of the 12 microclimates the race we’ll go through. It will span everything from rainy and 40 degrees to 100 degrees, 100% humidity that would make a stagnant August day in DC seem like a spring day in Boston.

I've been kicking around the idea of competing in La Ruta for five years. Until now, that never translated into anything more than a standing threat.

Finally, back in July, I set the course of events into motion that would force me to put my words into action; I sent in the $650 race entrance fee. The fee covers transportation, accommodations and food for the three days. After doing that, I figured everything else would take care of itself.

And for the most part, I am happy to report, it has. The race had me worried about a lot of things. I worried that it would be difficult to keep my training up through November, when I usually start to fade in September. I worried that my work travel schedule, the weather and the shorter days would overcome my ability to train as intensively as this race requires.

Fortunately, the weather and my travel schedule have been unusually obliging. I managed to get past my usual September burnout phase and get in many long training rides. I've been gearing up by doing doubling my daily commute to over 60 miles and doing back-to-back centuries (hundred mile rides) Saturdays and Sundays. Last Saturday, I did the longest ride of my life; 141 miles to Harpers Ferry, WV and back from my house in northwest Washington, DC.

Since then, I've been resting, eating well, sleeping, practicing Bikram Yoga and pumping enough cash into local bikes stores, outdoor stores and Patagonia to keep them going till New Year's. Two weeks ago, I flew to Oracle, Arizona and competed in the 100-mile Soul ride placing in the top 20. Well, 20th.

My good friend John "Rocco" Calgiano will be accompanying me as my own 1-man pit crew. I am looking forward to his company and, as importantly, having my bike in his good hands at the end of the day so I can replenish myself with food, water and rest.

Having raced mountain bikes for the last 10 years, I am painfully aware of what can go wrong in a 28-mile expert level mountain bike race. If I extend those thoughts out to the weather and distance extremes of La Ruta; I shutter to think. While I feel confident about my preparation, I can honestly say that this race presents me with a true test. While I've never quit a bike race in hundreds of races raced, due to physical reasons; it weighs on my mind that this race may be the first.

My friend Steve Hartell had an assuring comment about my training. He said “you haven't just been training this year; but rather your entire "career" as a mountain bike racer”. That rang true. And this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I will be putting over a decade's worth of racing to use crossing the continent on my bike.

In truth, I really still don't know how to train for a 3-day, 300-mile mountain bike race. What I can tell you, however, is that I have never been more fit, more confident, more determined or more psyched than I am right now.

I will do my best to keep you updated via email on my progress daily, though I will be limited by internet café access and more likely, exhaustion.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Brian Kemler" < brian.kemler@sas.com >
Date: Fri Nov 14, 2003 9:23 pm
Subject: La Ruta: Day 1 – Jaco to San Jose

Last night at the racers' meeting the race promoter Roman Urban gave us admonitions about alligators, poisonous snakes, monkey that hurl coconuts and bridge-crossings over rivers that we should think twice about if we’re scared of heights.

And I was already feeling apprehensive.

My roommate, Doutschan, coincidently one of two people I corresponded with prior to the race, arrived in San Jose the day I did. His bike, however, did not.

Until 10pm he could be seen running around Jaco frantically begging strangers en Espanol to borrow a bike. He finally located a local who would lend him a race-worthy, albeit too large, rig. The local told him "I am lending you this bike because I love mountain biking and I want to help you".

The promoters woke us up promptly at 3am to give us enough (or if you ask me, too much) time to eat breakfast and take care of last minute preparations.
Just after 5am, we left the gates of the Jaco Best Western situated on the beach.

La Ruta is a big deal here - everyone from our airport cab driver to the plumber at the hotel knows about it. It gets above-the-fold coverage in the national dailies like La Nacion (a race sponsor) and Al Dia. I’ve never had so many cameras shooting me during a race.

They staged the racers in the dark just outside the hotel’s gate and we waited for the sun to ride and them to set us off. Just after 5am the sun began to rise and they loosed us onto the route of the conquerors.

I went out at a blistering rate. My heart rate shot up higher according to my heart rate monitor than I've seen it in any race I've ever done. I actually felt like my breathing was measured and I wasn't blowing up. I couldn’t really back off this pace; I was just too amped up. I just kept it up but I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to hold it up and I might risk bonking.

We hit a gradual and already muddy climb that led to a series of unrideable walls we would have to carry our bikes up like stairs. Through the second checkpoint (of five for the day), the course was like this. Even though I felt great, I knew at some point I would have to back down from the pace I was leading.

Along the way I saw panoramic vistas of the Pacific, monkeys (none armed with coconuts), and brilliant Blue Morpho butterflies with wingspans the size of a robin’s.

After the second checkpoint, a series of continually unrelenting climbs commenced. By this time it was approaching noon and 90 degrees. The humidity left my sunscreen and deet-coated body with a disgusting film. I was dripping salty sweat so profusely that it began to drip into my eyes and making them sting as though they had been doused with Tabasco sauce.

Suddenly, the road shifted from a reasonably rideable 10% grade to a much steeper pitch approaching 20%. I had to get off my bike and begin hike-a-biking (biker parlance for walking a bike). The heat and frenetic pace were taking a toll. It was all I could do to walk this climb.

Numerous riders were sidelined resting in the shade even as the steep pitch relented. I hopped back on my bike but I was overheating like the steaming Datsun pickup truck broken down next to me. I saw an increasing number of widowed bikes placed in the beds of race support pickups. Their riders had already quit and we weren’t even a third of the way through the first of three days.

I passed a metal shack, actually a house, and the owner was standing outside spraying us with her hose. I've never felt more refreshed or thankful in my life. Humanely, checkpoint 3 was just up at that top of this climb.

John, my pit crew, a cartographer by trade, was supposed to meet me there and replenish my supply of Gatorade, Cliff Bars and Hammer Gel. John, however, was apparently unable to home in on this checkpoint. He was nowhere in sight.

I actually assumed that this might be the case (maps here aren’t exactly accurate), and I ate at the checkpoints accordingly. However, I have a finicky stomach while racing and I wanted to eat only food I had tested under race conditions. I would be more reliant on the promoters’ food and its potentially mysterious side-affects than I cared to. Food is my fuel so I had to eat – enjoy it or not.

Back at checkpoint 2, I had a consumed so much mango that I had a bloated feeling in my stomach as though one of the seeds I ate had germinated and grown into a whole mango in my belly. At this point, I wasn't worried about sickness (having been to Central America a half dozens times managing to skirt the Montezuma’s Revenge). Though would this have been the case, I was prepared with Imodium AD as well as enough of the prescription antibiotic, Cipro to knock out a dual case of anthrax and the ‘revenge.

When I stopped at checkpoint 3, I felt bloated and immediately wanted to get back on my bike. As soon as I did, I felt better and commenced the last 63K segment of the race. I thought to myself, I could deal with 63K. What I didn't know was all but the last 10k of this section was uphill. I began the climb feeling strong and sure.

Eating was actually harder than climbing. So I resorted to self-administering force-feedings. I wanted to eat about as much as I wanted it to get hotter. This is to say, not very much.

The human body usually does an amazing job at self-regulating how much food we need to consume under normal circumstances. However, during these races I have to use my mind to regulate my caloric intake because my appetite will fall short of the mark.

I lost my appetite and it was showing. My body signaled this with a slight twinge in my left leg that I recognized as the onset of a cramp. A full-blown cramp is excruciatingly painful and potentially debilitating. During a race years ago, my left leg actually seized; locking out it straight for 5 torturous minutes as though had a case of rigor mortis. It caused me to fall off my bike and lay on the ground stunned and lame. Fortunately, I’ve learned they can be thwarted by acting quickly through a combination of ratcheting down my pace and getting additional food and water into my system.

Immediately, I practiced on-bike triage; I decided to sacrifice my stomach for the sake of my legs and I sucked down an entire liter of Powerade (hereafter referred to as Poisonade) that I kept in reserve since I didn’t have my Gatorade. As I did that, the road leveled and I thought I was at the summit. Unfortunately, it was a false flat.

I let my legs recover by soft-pedaling rest of way to the summit. The twinges subsided and I averted the crippling cramps. I could completely recover on the decent.

A sign read “40KPH” on a road that in the US would be corralled by guardrails (here, there are none) and marked with little yellow signs saying "15MPH". I passed cars on turns, and played chicken with chicken buses, water trucks and farm animals. I was pushing fifty *miles* per hour.

After the descent, they threw in several more climbs for good measure and one of the guys at checkpoint 5 stated we had “only” 20K remaining. As much as I wanted to believe that, I have learned to never believe what anyone tells me about distances at the end of a race.

Thus it is now my official policy to ignore anything but actual mileage signs as distance indicators – and even then I am skeptical. After some more climbs, I decided to ratchet my pace down a couple of notches to leave something in the tank for tomorrow and the next day.

I finished strongly racing through the streets of Cuidad Colon. I passed under the finished line and hit the Alpina Agua tent that was staffed with two honeys that make the babes on the Telemundo network look like chopped liver.

Across from the lovely ladies a DJ was spinning some ill Latin house music. He even mashed up Nirvana's "Come as You Are" to banging 4-4 beats. You would never hear house at a mountain bike race in the US (unless I was putting it on). I felt more at home than at home. I officially finished Day 1; I felt okay and I was psyched!

130 racers, or 1/3 of the field, dropped out of the race due to heat and exhaustion. I survived, finishing in 9:29 minutes placing me in the top 25% in place 100 overall and better still in my age category.

I didn't know that the biggest ordeal of the day had yet to start.

Rocco picked up my bike; though somehow it eluded both of us to pick up my baggage here instead of at the hotel where we both assumed it to be. I paid the DJ my compliments and then went to chill in our rented Toyota RAV4.

Suddenly, the mango was expanding in my stomach again. I felt nauseous, hot and I had a case of cold sweats - something I associate more with all night benders than mountain bike races.

I might have been in denial, but I told myself I felt little better and boarded the RAV4 departing for the hotel and a good night’s rest. The twitchy drive on the twisted, pothole-ridden roads to the Best Western Irazu only aggravated my sickness. I felt a volcano of illness welling up inside my abdomen, but, still in denial, refused to tell John to pull over. By the time I finally commanded John to pull the car over, it was already too late.

At 80KPH, I slung my head out the window and unleashed a slipstream of mango-laced vomit for the windscreens of the cars behind us. We pulled over in the parking lot of a drive-thru KFC and I sat on a curb with my head between my legs releasing the last of the mango seeds. It was not a good advertisement for the restaurant.

I felt somewhat better, but still so bloated I thought I was to give birth to a mango. But by the time I got back to the hotel I couldn't eat or drink - not to mention get up out of bed. I feared the worst, a bad case of the Montezuma’s revenge.

I took a shower and learned from John that my luggage, with my fresh clothing, was lost. Unfazed, I wrapped the hotel’s skimpy white towel around my waist and attempted to go to sleep, writhing in pain for nearly an hour. I went to sleep knowing that but for a miraculous recovery, there’d be no way I’d be on the start line in the morning.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Kemler
Sent: Mon 11/17/2003 2:54 PM
To: Brian Kemler
Subject: La Ruta: Day 2 San Jose to Turrialba

Five hours later, I had roused-to from what I feared might have been a race-ending illness. Miraculously, thanks to my new honorary sponsor, Gas-X, I mustered enough energy to eat dinner, write day 1’s race report and be reasonably confident I would be on the start line in the morning.

I knew I was feeling better because I was starting to feel angered that my luggage had been left in Jaco, a fact that took John an entire five hours to determine. Despite having more than enough time to drive there and back, John managed to somehow otherwise engage himself and it was looking like I wouldn’t have any dry or cold weather clothing for the coldest and rainiest day of the race.

When I asked him if he had made the other preparations on my bike I had requested, he told me “I don’t think they need to be done”. I told him “I didn’t ask you what you thought” and what ensued was a tiff culminating in a come-to-Jesus (please pronounce with H) meeting in which I put on a rare display of my inner asshole for my unsuspecting friend and pit crew.

The next morning I woke up at 4am, on four hours sleep and was still sin (without) luggage. Today, the wettest and coldest day of the race, my new Patagonia rain gear, neatly packaged in zip lock bags wasn’t going to do me any good. I faced the prospect of racing with yesterday’s wet and rank gear on a day when I would need extra layers to keep me warm and dry at altitude.

I would have to deal. There was no other option.

John and I tacitly kissed and made up (well, just made up) and I hopped on the bus for Hotel Don Fadrique, the race start and more importantly, the place where my luggage was supposed to meet me just in time for the race start.

We arrived at Don Fadrique and to my relief; my luggage was there, as promised. I got dressed in the lobby in clean, dry bike gear and packed my rain gear to shield me from the elements at 12,000 feet above sea level. Each year many riders are pulled off the course here due to hypothermia.

The race kicked off about an hour later than the designated 6am start time. We left a busy San Jose street as if we were going off on the start of the Tour De France. People lined the streets and we were massed in a big, sketchy peloton (pack of cyclists).

Mountain bikers are not necessarily accustomed to the nuisances of riding in dense packs and I’ve found the most treacherous and crash-prone times during a race is not on a sheer, wet, rock-strewn descent (like the one we’ll be doing today), but in such a pack at the race start when everyone is hyped up and vying for position.

As we raced through the streets I was riding at the back of the first 50 racers. I heard rubber tires skidding on pavement - the harbinger of an immanent wreck. I was on guard as a racer went down just in front of me. I managed to skirt the ensuing pile-up and I kept on riding for the 45-mile assault on the summit of Volcan Irazu.

The beginning of the climb was mostly paved we then hit some steep, rocky double track. By this time, we were above a cloud system and the weather was sunny as we looked down at the clouds below as if we were glancing out the window of an airplane. Nearing the top, we transitioned to some single track through lush green fincas (farms). The fertile soil looked as though it was made of coffee grinds from the beans growing here.

After going out so hard yesterday and still not feeling 100% after getting ill, I decided I would sit in on the climb, take it easy, recover (if you can really a 45 mile, 5-hour climb recovering) and make up time where my strengths would be the greatest; on the blistering, 45-mile descent into the town of Turrialba. Finally, I made it to the summit, strong, though slowed from my pace of yesterday.

It would literally be all down hill from here. On the descent, I made up a ridiculous amount of time. I passed racers as though they were still going uphill. Humanely, it wasn’t raining (though it did later on other racers) and while cool, I only had to add one layer, my favorite cozy black Patagonia cycling jersey, to keep me warm.

The downhill was extremely rocky, technical and wet - I was eating it up like dessert. Coming around a switch back, I heard my front tire leaking air and I couldn’t hold my line as my tire bled air. Unable to turn, I was hurtling straight toward a barbed-wire fence that might prevent me from going over the edge of the mountain but might also cut me in half in the process. I managed stop just in the knick of time, change my flat and get back to the business of killing it on the downhill.

The race ended in Turrialba, I finished in just under 7 hours, again hovering around 100th place. According to the newspaper La Nacion, of the 400 racers who started on day 2, only 240 had lined up today. Fewer will be lined up tomorrow and fewer still will be on the finish line on the beach at Playa Bonita.

I was psyched to make it this far. Thus far, I had survived the worst of the climbing, the psychological trauma of the lost luggage, a hapless pit crew and a painful and mysterious illness.

Tomorrow, there will be no Day 4 to worry about. There will be no reason to hold anything in reserve. I am feeling well, not too exhausted, and beginning to think that tomorrow is going to be the ride of my life.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Kemler
Sent: Tue 11/18/2003 1:19 PM
To: Brian Kemler
Subject: La Ruta: Day 3 Part 1 - Get On The Bus

La Ruta De Los Conquistadores is a race of attrition. We started with nearly 400 racers on the Pacific in Jaco Friday. Today, we’ll finish at the Playa Bonita on the Caribbean with slightly more than 200.

Compared with our 3am and 4am wake up calls of days 1 and 2 respectively, today, our last day, we’ll be sleeping till the leisurely time of 5am. Doutschan and are housed 3/4 the way back up Irazu at a lovely bed and breakfast sporting one of the best views in Costa Rica; Guayabo Lodge. It’s new, quaint and romantic (If I were here with that Special Girl instead of Johnny and Doutschan, that is).

Tonight they’re having a group dinner and I don’t feel like explaining my (vegan) diet or hassling them to make me something special. Plus I feel like I need a little BK solo time, so I head back down to Turrialba in the Rav4 to get some eats by myself.

I eat a massive espaguetti vegetariano at a local restaurant. Then, I gobble down some really bad Pan con Ajo (garlic bread) that comes con queso (with cheese) instead of sin queso (without) as I ordered. I had to manually remove the queso revealing a small, still living, ant. The service is taking a while - even by notoriously slow Costa Rican standards - 40 minutes to get my bread cum ant farm.

I am still so famished; I decide to have a second dinner at restaurant I had been to with my friend Brian from Colorado when we were here back in April.

There, I inhale an even larger (and better) espaguetti vegetariano. My appetite is back, and back with a vengeance. I know this is a good portent. I drive back to the B and B vibing to the warms sounds of Mark Riva’s “Sungrooves” Mix from Kristal Records, my new favorite label from Miami. I am in bed asleep by 10pm on track for a dreamy 7 hours of sleep this evening.

Before I crash out, I suck down a dose of my daily vitamin regime consisting of upwards of 15 pills. I take three Advil for good measure and give my legs a massage with Tiger Balm. I sleep like a rock.

Doutschsan and I wake up – there’s an extra bed in our room and so John gets to stay with us tonight, saving him from having to look for separate accommodations and critically having him closer to the racer he’s ostensibly supporting.

I’m psyched today.

Yesterday, I wasn’t hearing any music in my head. Today deep house is banging away like it’s Saturday night at my favorite Washington, DC club, Red, and my favorite DJ, Farid, is manning the decks. My energy level is surging above its usual level of hyperactivity.

For breakfast we’re served the best Gallo Pinto (the national dish, rice and beans) I’ve had to date in Costa Rica. I am chowing-down like it’s Thanksgiving day. We break for the bus that’s to drive us to the start and everyone is in jovial spirits exchanging La Ruta stories about; IV´s, ambulances, bike crashes, mechanicals and the secrets of survival.

Maybe we’re all so happy because we’re all still in the race and we are buoyed with the confidence of the accomplishment just for having gotten this far (and for only having one more day of torture to endure).

A Canadian woman, Tania, and I, regale each other with tales of the miraculous healing powers of Gas-X. In a sporting show of camaraderie, she breaks me off three to take with me in the race today. I obligingly accept, though I am certain they will be unnecessarily as fate has already dealt me my illness for the race.

Simone, a German woman who lives in Idaho, and I discuss the powerful properties of Body Glide (which happens to be her sponsor), a natural lubricant not found at your local sex shop, but rather in running stores near you.
When you’re riding or running in wet weather the motion causes moisture and sweat to grate under your armpits, or, in my case, in places not suited for polite conversation.

It’s as though someone is repeatedly rubbing your sweaty, salty skin with sandpaper. Before I left I wanted to make sure this wasn’t going to be an issue (as it had been in a couple of races I had done this year). The clerk at the local bike shop recommended it - even though I had to go the runner’s store next door to purchase it. My crotch is forever thankful to her.

Simone and I ended up riding a lot together on the first day, but I hadn’t seen her at all the second. Before we leave the bus we have tentative plans to race next year together in the Trans-Alps mountain bike race. All this is before we’re introduced by name.

Last summer Simone was riding in France. There she rode the famed Alp D´Huez, the “beyond category” climb of the Tour De France that helped Lance Armstrong make his mark on the tour. Compared with Day 1 of La Ruta, Alp D´Huez, “wasn’t so hard”.

The bus hauls us to the start area and I retrieve my bike from the Bici Ciclo shop that John has paid $50 to tune my ride each day after the race, thereby relieving himself of his duties (unbeknownst to me until our spat the other evening). I am thinking that $50 was a better deal than the $500 plane ticket I purchased for him to be my pit crew. Worse still, I am thinking I might get what I pay for.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Kemler
Sent: Wed 11/19/2003 3:25 PM
To: Brian Kemler
Subject: La Ruta - Day 3 - Part Dos - Sol y Humedad

The bus deposits us near the start line just outside of Turrialba, the western terminus of the now defunct banana railway. By the end of the day, if we survive, we’ll be at the eastern terminus of the railroad on the Caribbean Sea. We will be riding in between the tracks on large sections of the course.

They loose us on the last series of the climbs we’ll have to endure. Today is the easiest day in terms of climbing. We’ll be doing about half what we’ve done both of the prior days, a mere 6,000 feet - an elevation higher than the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi, North Carolina’s Mt. Mitchell. That’s over a mile, straight up.

John takes a photograph of Doutschan and me as we leave the start. He’s given standing orders to be at the finish line con camara (with camera) to shoot me as I cross the line on the beach at Playa Bonita.

I hit the climb and immediately something strange happens - I start passing most of the other riders. I am usually not a strong climber, but I feel so awesome and psyched today and so stoked to have gotten this far, that I am on fire.

I don’t care what happens to me today or what they put in my way. Nothing is getting between me and the finish line. I don’t care how I feel at the end of the race, there is no day 4 and I am pulling out all the stops - mental and physical.

The race is the only thing that matters in my existence.

I’ve been hovering around 100th place and my goal today is to finish above 80th to get my overall result close to the top 20-25% for the entire race. The effect of this race, as difficult and challenging as it’s been, has been to build in me a heretofore, unknown confidence.

As the race has progressed, so have my resolve, my strength and my determination. If I rode 45 miles up Irazu and climbed 12,000 feet yesterday, its foothills and 6,000 feet of climbing don’t seem so menacing.

I am still reeling in racers on the climb and I know I am above 50th place, a race high watermark. We start hitting some down hills and I am catching other riders like they’re the adorable Costa Rican kids riding next to us on bikes across the continent.

I am on.

I catch up to a fast descender and think I may have found the person who can actually hand me my ass on a downhill. I am having trouble getting past him. The pavement abruptly turns into a rock-strewn dirt descent through tiny villages. Suddenly, I pass him as though I am riding pavement and he's on the dirt.

The descent turns ugly with a muddy section reminiscent of the mud year at 24 Hours of Canaan - a comparison I’ve had until now (8 years hence) to make. I am not letting it stop me. Still on my bike, I am skating over the mud. I must have weighted my front wheel too heavily, as I eject from my bike, and I plant my helmet in the mud. It’s one of two times I will fall off my bike during the entire race. I get up, hoist my bike up on my shoulder and start sprinting past the other racers who are mired in knee-high sludge.

There are little pools of water in some places that would receive the word “brackish” as a compliment. If I am going to get some kind of funky disease in this race, it will be here. But I don’t care what I get – as long as I finish.

On this stretch, I pass a dozen racers. We hit a stream crossing and the other side is a muddy slope and we’re queuing to get up on the one sane line. The mud is so thick it’s suctioning racers' shoes right off their feet.

The dude in front of me plants his leg to jump on to the ledge above us and his leg is caught in the mud like an animal's in a leg-hold trap. He can’t move. I hurl my bike onto the ledge instead of waiting for him to retrieve his leg. I dive up on to the ledge and take a moment to pick up the bike of a professional Colombian racer in back of me. I then pull him up onto the ledge by his arm.

The terrain is rideable again, for me, and I am skating down another mudslide that leads to a river crossing. I am one of the few riders to take the line right up on to the swinging bridge and ride the slick, wet, muddy wood slats and make the 90 degree turn on the opposite side to a smooth transition onto the dirt road climb. As I pass my fellow riders flailing at the other side, I am feeling as close as I’ve ever felt to being an international rock star.

At this moment, I am feeling a strong sense of camaraderie with the other racers and sense of pride to be ripping it up in such an amazing event. We hit another climb and my legs are still on and I am still passing other riders.

It may be 90 degrees but as I mentally cue the song ¨Make My Heart¨ off of Kaskade´s new San Francisco Sessions Mix, a wave goose bumps hits my entire body to the lyric "Do you remember baby, the song playing the night we met"? Of course with house it's more about the vibe than the lyrics. I picked this up before I left at Warehouse Music in Georgetown.

I have never felt better or more alive in my life. I am taking the inside line on blind corners with the concomitant risk that when I get around the corner I will playing chicken with (choose one from below):

a) a car
b) a horse (sin o con rider)
c) a cow

I am living beyond the realm of fear or risk - though I know they both served a vital purpose in preparing me for this race. I don’t think if I hadn’t been nervous about the race that I would have as well prepared as I am and I wouldn’t be feeling as amazing as I do now.

As I approach checkpoint 1, I’ve passed a staggering number of riders and I am now confident that now matter what happens today, this has already been the ride of my life.

At checkpoint 1, I refill my already depleted camelbak, grab a banana (I’ve laid off the mangos) and jet out. The cameraman from the Tico Times (Costa Rica’s English language weekly) tells me I am in 40th place. Not so bad considering the national teams are here from all over Latin America. I actually have passed national team members from Costa Rica and Columbia. I am nipping at the wheels of the pros.

The question I ask myself is; how long can I keep it up? I don’t know the answer, but I am going to enjoy it as long as I can.

After a few more climbs we crest the last hill and the Caribbean coastal plain is visible for the first time. The flatness is like an oasis in the desert to eyes that have only seen mountains for the last two days. Though I know I am going to have to contend with the thermonuclear heat and I humble myself knowing that I still have a staggering number of miles to cover as even at this vantage point, the sea is not yet visible.

This part of the race favors my skills it will be downhill for a while. I pass a couple more riders until the road flattens out and I become part of an ad hoc and tacitly assembled international pace line with three other competitors now operating flawlessly as a team. La Ruta is now road race.

In road racing, riders take turns at the front of the peloton pulling, this is called a pace line. It’s called pulling because the rider in the first position in the pack is doing 20 to 40% more work than those drafting behind him or her. By taking turns at the front, the pack is able to go significantly faster than individual riders would be able to go on their own.

We suck in more riders as the tenor of the nation changes like the tone arm of a record player scratching over the surface of a hastily changed and poorly segued record.

Everything from the music to the people, to the terrain changes so hastily that you could mistake the Caribbean side of the county for an entirely different nation. The music segues to the vibes of dub and reggae, the people are of African descent, the terrain is flat and more ominously, it’s hot and humid as hell.

Our pace line hits the first of the dreaded sections of banana railway. It’s dreaded because we’ll have to ride over the ties in the middle of the track in 100+ degree heat for miles on end.

They route the course into the middle of the tracks and we’re riding atop jarring cement ties. It’s like riding on curbstones spaced neatly 24 inches apart. It’s so hot it feels as though we’re now drafting behind the steam engine of one of the trains that used to travel here.

We hit the first of a series of trestles spanning a wide river. The trestle bridges get progressively higher and sketchier as we go on. Our pace line, still intact, sucks in the first place American female racer who has now joined us rather than go it on her own. She will go on to finish in 42nd place overall. Checkpoint 3 comes up and I decide not to stop - regardless of what the pace line does.

It's now flat and we're blowing through villages and getting doused in a sort of mean spirited way with water by local kids. On the other side of the county the kids who hosed us down did it in a gentle and helpful fashion. Here we're the targets of bike hunting season. I have to cover my ears as I pass the kids they are hitting me so hard with water.

Our pace line has expanded and we hit the highway that has supplanted the railroad and I am now having trouble keeping up with the peloton.

I am feeling really hot and I drop off the back and make two failed attempts to latch back on. I am passed by another pace line and then another. I've dropped back a significant number of places and it's all I can do to suck the wheel of another individual rider.

I am blowing up. Without the pace line, I am like a helpless baby animal without its mother in the wild.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Kemler
Sent: Wed 11/19/2003 5:11 PM
To: Brian Kemler
Subject: La Ruta – Day 3 - Part Tres - No More Suspense Sol y Mar

I’ve hit the highway sin (without) peloton and have approximately 60k left to go to be able to claim to have ridden across the continent in the world’s most difficult mountain bike race.

The temperature is homing in on three digits. The 18-wheelers that replaced the trains are blowing past me at 100kph though it seems like 100 mph as I am being alternately sucked into their draft or blown back as though in a wind tunnel depending upon their direction traveled.

I desperately need to stop and get an agua refill and I spy a Soda (small store) where I stop and demand “dos aguas muy grande por favor”. The locals look in astonishment as I pour one over my head and take the other with me on the bike alternately drinking from it and cradling it as though its coldness is the wellspring of life itself.

Thankfully, the course diverts off the highway and through some villages onto a dirt road. Locals are riding along side me and I am having difficulty keeping up to them on their beach cruisers. I am surrounded by banana plantations which humanely provide some much needed shade. One Tico and I have a little conversation en Espanol, though we both barely understand one another. I am so dazed at this point I am not sure I would have understood him if he were speaking the Queen’s English.

My legs feel okay, but I am totally overheated and am hoping checkpoint 4 will arrive soon. I have no appetite and am beginning to feel that special bloated-feeling that led to me vomiting on San Jose’s rush hour traffic.

A mile down the road I spy the blue Alpina Agua (and am hoping the girls with be there) flags adorning the checkpoints and I know relief is within my sights. Right about now I am feeling as though I may have to quit the race a couple dozen kilometers shy of the mark. As far as I am concerned, I’ve still had the ride of my life, but I know I need to chill and recover somehow at this, the second to last checkpoint.

This mile takes an eternity. I start to hallucinate. The thought of being tethered to an air conditioned ambulance by an IV is starting to sound more appealing than being flanked by the Alpina chicas beach-side as they alternate spoon feeding me strawberry daquiris and pina coladas.

I make it to the checkpoint, 4 and stop slung over my bike. I make a failed attempt to force feed myself what I usually consider to be a race course delicacy; a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

A gringo spectator comes over to me and tries to offer me encouraging advice that’s going down about as well as the aforementioned sandwich. ¨Get back on that pace line, hang in there, etc¨.

It’s all I can do to rally to get back my rig. I coast five meters. I know I am going to throw up again – though this time don’t even have the energy to fight it. It’s all I can do to go another 10 meters to avoid hurling in front of a group of elementary school-aged children watching the racers on with admiration.

I come to a stop underneath the shade and relative privacy of a tree and begin to fertilize it with several streams of clear bile. I remember that I have the three Gas-X pills Tanya gave me that I thought I wouldn’t need. I suck down all three with a blend of agua and poisonade.

I suddenly feel fine. Ah, the amazingly cathartic effect of regurgitation. Now I understand why my cats Yuki and Domino are so friendly after a bad batch of PetGuard´s Premium Feast Dinner. I wish I could resolve all my problems like this, particularly the relationship ones. I am back on and back on my bike and pedaling again. I feel okay and no longer fear not finishing.

We hit another section of rail and I catch back up to some of the riders who passed me while I was doubled over watering the flora with vomit.

The trestle bridges are starting to get sketchier and more harrowing. Earlier I was so confident on them that I would walk past other riders on the outside of the rails with the river 100 feet below. Now the rail ties are so worn each one requires an individual visual inspection before planting a foot.

All of a sudden, another racer’s right leg disappears through the gap - as though a trap door. He clings to his bike and hauls himself up and keeps going like a champ.

To span some of the ties, a full four-foot goose step is required. There’s plenty of room for both bike and rider to fall through to what we are told are alligator infested waters.

In places it’s not that hard to ride the ties because there is enough crushed rock in between them to make the ride relatively smooth. In other places, however, it’s like being grabbed by the scruff of the neck by a giant and being bashed up and down pedal stroke after pedal stroke after pedal stroke. At one point my right hand falls asleep due to the unrelenting jarring. I remove my gloves and get the feeling back.

I try to drop my gearing to something easier though strangely, it’s still difficult to pedal. I am worried that I am bonking until I realize something’s wrong with my bike’s rear derailleur. I have the choice of stopping and fixing it and losing more time or going on with only the front derailleur, which instead of 27 gears to choose from only gives me three - easy/medium/hard. I choose to ride it out for a spell until my chain falls off. I get off the bike and notice the cable has unfastened itself not because it’s broken or frayed, but because it’s been over lubricated.

I should have been suspicious each day when my bike arrived back to me from the people John paid to tune it cleaner than the day I built it. The only way to get a bike that clean is to douse it with too much oil. That, in addition the oil received from the well-intentioned, but overzealous race-side support crews led to the cable slipping off its mount. I take a minute, refasten it and the bike is back in commission. Next year, the only hands that will grace my bike will be my own.

I hang a right off the tracks and either the wind is really gusty or -- I am hearing and now seeing for the first time the crashing waves of the Caribbean Sea! I’ve made it to the other side of the continent and the guys at checkpoint 5 are telling me I have 15k to go.

I jettison all my excess food and leave with one full water bottle. I am still catching riders and getting passed here and there. Rather than focus on killing myself for one or two positions, I meditate on the rest of the race and try to savor this last half hour. This is the fulfillment of a five-year dream and the ride of a lifetime - I want to remember it.

I am as psyched as I was the day I learned to ride a bike.

I leave the dirt road that parallels the ocean and hit the pavement. I am on the outskirts of Puerto Limon and have less than 2k to go. I ride no handed down the last descent to the beach and make my only wrong turn of the race as the race marshals momentarily steer me incorrectly down the wrong road before they correct themselves and me.

I right myself, and head down the last 100-meter stretch, cross underneath the mammoth blue inflated finish line arch with no hands. I continue to ride straight into the beach and let my bike come to a halt and drop it beneath me l in the sand. I strip myself of everything but my bike shorts and sprint past bikini-clad Latin honeys and dive head first into the Caribbean Sea.

I made it.

Not only did I make it, but I feel fine and don’t have a single cut or bruise. Today
I finished under 7 hours in 73rd place. The next day my name is listed in the national daily “Al Dia” as having finished 92nd overall. I haven’t even gotten any food but I am already thinking about next year.

I meet up with John after my swim and wait around for some of my newly minted friends like Doutschan, my roommate and now friend to finish. Doutschan, if you recall, had his bike lost by Taca Airlines and was lent a bike by a Tico mountain biker. The approximate value of the bike he was lent is equivalent to the per capita income of the average Costa Rican.

After he finishes, Brett Wolfe finishes. Brent has one leg. I wait around for Simone to finish. When we meet again she’s not particularly in the mood to discuss racing the Trans-Alps. Though we exchange contact information.

It is not until later when I look at her card, which is a humorous Photoshop mock-up of an Idaho driver’s license that I notice the quote on it that best sums up the spirit of the 222 La Ruta finishers:

“We all have the extraordinary coded within us waiting to be released” --Jean
Houston

SoulRide Arizona 2003

2003-10-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the fun of mountain bike racing is not just racing. It’s the process of getting to the race; the trip, the destination and then of course, the race itself. This was true for this weekend. I redeemed some frequent flyer miles and hopped on a plane for Phoenix, Arizona to compete in the Soulride in Oracle, Arizona, a two-hour drive from Phoenix.

Two-weeks hence, I will be competing in the 3-day, 300 mile La Ruta de Los Conquistadors in Costa Rica. I am trying to get in all the preparation I can. Most of my riding has been on the road and the weather this time of year in Washington is making me less than motivated. I figured the Souldride was a good excuse to get some race-level training in - in the sun!

If you can picture the set to an epic Hollywood Western; old ghost towns, house-high cacti, abandoned rail trestles, old mines, cattle, and panoramic views of stone outcroppings - that pretty much describes this course. Epic.

The 100-mile event jumped off at 6am; there were also 60- and 30-mille loops. It was still dark and cold. I remembered the sunscreen, but had forgotten that the desert actually gets cold at night and didn’t bring anything more than the most minimal cycling attire. I shivered as I waited in the dark for the race to start. The 6am start time wasn’t so bad given that I was coming to the race with Eastern Time programmed into my body.

The race promoter set 120 of us off with both barrels of a double-barreled shotgun. We set off on a road and split into two groups. I fell off the back of the first, took the led on the second, then dropped back till we hit a gnarly single track climb. It was rocky, narrow and laden with cacti. While the other folks were walking, I took off on top of the rocks putting a nice gap between the second group and myself. I was riding solidly since I am used to riding technical terrain when it’s wet. This year I have had plenty of practice -having done every single race I’ve competed in in the rain. Well, in Arizona, it may be technical, but it’s dry and that made it seem easy.

I had some difficulty on the sandy sections of the course till I figured out the technique for riding ‘em. The sand was taking riders out left and right. I went down once and got a bad Charlie-horse on my inner thigh - which subsequently ended up hurting every time I tensed that muscle – that is to stay, every other pedal stroke.

Then, I found that if I maintained my lateral balance and weighted my body toward my back wheel, I could literally surf over the sand. After the initial single-track section, most of the race consisted of fire road until the last 10 miles. There, they threw in another single-track section along the Arizona trail presumably to either torture tired souls or make people who came 3/4 of the way across the country remember that it was single track that that they came all that way for.

At the beginning of the race, I rode with my friend Nicole, a displayed Virginian whom I met a few years back at the Shenandoah Mountain 100. Nicole is now living in Arizona and racing professionally for a Mexican mountain bike team. How cool is that?

I managed to keep up with her for a while, but we both ended up lost; once together, then separately. Then she ended up ahead of me and I didn’t see her again till the end of the race. The course was rather poorly marked into the first 30 miles. Whether that was the promoter’s fault or the fault of people pulling down the markings, I wasn’t going to let it get in my way of having a good time. Though it did cost me nearly a half hour and I must say I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of getting interdicted by the US Border Patrol. After I split off from Nicole, I rode most of the rest of 70 miles by myself.

I passed through an abandoned town that looked something more out of my travels to Guatemala than say, Arizona. There was a small store painted in bright blue with signs in Spanish. At that point a grueling 13-mile climb commenced. I felt solid, passed a couple of riders and made it to the top where there was an abandoned mine. The entrance had been cemented shut and a Buddha had been painted on the wall. I doubled back to rub his tummy as I passed for luck.

I passed through the succession of aid stations; three, four (at this point I was still on target for a solid, 9:30 pace). When I hit the fifth aid station, I had 17 miles to go, again still well below a 10 hour finish time. I kept going and going and expecting the race to end, but they must have been wrong about the 17 miles. It took me nearly an hour to get to the last ten miles of single track and then another 45 minutes or so to get through that.

I was getting really bored on the fire road and hitting the single track totally energized me. This section of the course should have been named the “cactus gauntlet”. The trail was not more than 18 inches wide and as I wending through it, I feared one wrong move and my shins would be impaled with hundred of needles. I managed to get stuck a couple of times and my legs and arms are superficially scrapped. Luckily, I didn’t go down and land my ass on one of the chair-size round cacti.

I hit the last section of road and finished in just over 10 hours, still with plenty of daylight to spare. The top time was 8:08, I finished in 10:40 in 20th place of 120 racers.

After the race I could only think of one thing: hot food. I rode two more painful miles back to the casita where I was staying on a ranch with horses and teams of humming birds. I went (in my rented “Chevy Classic”) for a “burro” at one of the only three restaurants in a town where there is not a chain store in sight.

There, I met an 83-year old waitress and Oracle native who regaled me with stories about her medical issues and her love of the New York Yankees. I didn’t have the heart to tell her where my baseball loyalties lie. She was a riot – when a man ordering carry out forgot his bag, she made a pun about “old bags” and then feigned being offended. Another man left the restaurant and when he went to pay, I caught a glimpse of his concealed handgun.

The night before the race there was a pre-race diner at the Oracle community center. There the locals, mostly old timers, stuffed us with food as if we were turkeys getting ready for Thanksgiving. I sat at a table with complete strangers and we started talking about, what else, mountain bike racing as we listened to the sounds of a two-man band. Nicole joined us and we all reveled at the sounds of the band. The singer belted out our favorite Elvis, Johnny Cash and other county tunes. The keyboardist also played trumpet – sometimes at the same time. Everything was charmingly off-key and tempo. The backdrop of the bingo board completed what was a perfect atmosphere. For the night this place had more charm than the 18th Street Lounge.

It’s funny because in all the years I’ve been racing I have thoroughly enjoyed the places that racing has brought me, but it’s taken me this long to realize that the journey and the destination are often just as much fun as the race itself.