the backwards caministas

OBEY

these people are looking for the pirate ship from "The Goonies". Chunk is in the middle.

here is "the riddle of steel" pondering the riddle of where the hell is the campground. crom's beard!

We are back to the hellhole vampire city after two fabulous weeks of vacation. And the best part is that we still have two weeks of vacation in Italy coming up next month. The northwest is my new favorite part of Spain, although the cities are underwhelming (hard to beat Barcelona), the general attitude of people and the rural surroundings really take the cake.

I am sort of running a half-assed cycling blog here, with the hopes that it will one day be useful to touring cyclists. So far none have ever left a comment....but just in case they are out there I should go into a little advice about getting around with your bike on the train. This ain't Amsterdam, ace. Spain is lagging behind Europe in making its trains bike-compatible

Do to outlandish luck, and a successful hapless dumb foreigner act (we are good at this because we are in fact hapless dumb foreigners) we arrived in Santiago de Compostela from Madrid with our bikes, on an overnight sleeper train. I really made an effort to find out under which circumstances you can bring a bike, and under which you cannot. The information is not made available easily and when you get the information it is totally ambiguous. so its a crap shoot. Generally speaking you cannot bring a bike on a national train (meaning a long distance train usually with only a few stops). The exception seems to be if you have paid the high price for a family sleeper cabin. Even then you are limited to 4 bikes per cabin, though even as a bike enthusiast i have trouble seeing where the bikes would be stowed. They are supposed to be dismanteled, although really they only require removal of wheels and pedals, and supposed to be bagged but apparently wrapping in plastic is sufficient. We had bought tourist class beds which are 4 to a cabin, unisex and with strangers. So at the platform with 10 minutes to spare we had to rip the bikes and gear apart, squeeze through cavernous hallways to our separate cabins and appease our roomies about our bikes taking up the whole cabin. We had only 10 minutes to spare because despite arriving 45 minutes early, we had to wait for the platform number to come up onto the board only 15 minutes before departure. Then a horde of people who had actually arrived later than us beat us to the line to the escalator, then we got turned away from the escalator and told to use the very slow and busy elevator. I had it easier than becky, because her cabin was full of old women who brought such large bags that they could not lift them into the overhead storage and thus consumed the only logical place for a bike frame (on end, fork stuffed into the closet), So we actually put the bike frame precariously overhead. Most of the ladies were satisfied, but one kept bitching that it was dangerous. it was really her fault that there was no place else for the bike to go....but we were totally bending the rules to the breaking point, so we had to try and make everyone happy. My cabin had one guy, so i had time to help becky, and stow my stuff without creating a major ruckus although i felt like i was creating a major ruckus. However, even after finishing I was so stressed I couldn't sleep for hours.THIS IS THE WRONG WAY. HERE'S WHAT TO DO INSTEAD: If you want to travel on a nice efficient national train you must do so on one with sleeper cars like ours, these are called trenhotel. But shell out the bucks to buy the cama familial. Otherwise you need to string together multiple regional trains or media distancia trains which are much better able to accommodate bikes. When you search the RENFE (spanish national train company) website, many regional trains will not come up. So you have to be clever, and chop your trip into segments, and search based on these until some regional train options pop up. On our way home yesterday we took a regional train from Oviedo to Leon. This was exactly like the commuter trains in the cities. With a little bungee magic I was able to secure my bike vertically to some rails so that it did not block any exits and i could be free to take a comfortable seat and read. The stretch from Leon to Madrid was a regional express, which had an entire care empty in the back with d-rings for securing bikes and wheelchairs. We also saw a media-distancia train with a specila handicap/bicycle car. it took 9 hours mind you, but it was so much better than the stress from the trip to Galicia, and it only cost 35 euros each, and no bike disassembly.

Ok, heres what we did: We stayed a night in Santiago de Compostela. So heres the deal about this town. A long long time ago, someone found some bones in the future site of the cathedral. Due to some miracle revelation and the stamp of approval by some bishop, these bones were somehow pronounced the remains of St. James the apostle of Jesus, a man who was excuted in Jerusalem. How did he get to Galicia, well that link involves a holy unmanned boat, and the miraculous enclosing of the remains in stone. No flying spaghetti monster, however. Why noone questions the obvious truth...that someone elses bones were found...is a matter of religion. My god has meatballs and thousands of noodley tentacles. Why James? I don't know, there were 11 other apostles after all. I guess you've got to rule out Judas, and Peter was already taken in Rome, and Thomas was a doubter of Jesus's zombie skills, and John was kind of an asskisser. Whos left...Sneezy, Dopey, and oh yeah St. James. So anyway, since the pope bought all this it became truth, and for centuries religious pilgrims have poured to the cathedral site from all over Europe.There are numerous pilgrimage routes culminating on the cathedral. Anyways, its a nice city and a nice cathedral well worth visiting. It is third in importance only to Jerusalem and Rome for catholics, though I reckon most American catholics don't know much about this.

We rode out of there on a hilly inland route towards a Coruna. It was really confusing because 70% of the towns are so small they don't appear on the map, towns have multiple names (Spanish and Gallego, yep Galicia has its own language) and the road numbering system appeared to be different from our map. But we made it. The really small roads are nice for their lack of traffic, but if you tend to worry about where the hell you are I'd suggest sticking to the secondary highways. A Coruna really pissed us off because it turned out to be a a big city we could not escape. Our escape route spontaneosly turned into a full-bore freeway, and we decided to get the F out on the train to Ferrol. I will say that the beaches at A Coruna were very nice, otherwise we didn't give this place a second look.

The short train ride went around the bay through awesome little houses and farms. In Ferrol, we stayed with John, an affable former roomate of Becky's. He is some form of naval engineer who works at the ship yard, and gets a monthly stipend (in addition ot his salary) for living expenses. His stipend is 50% more than my salary. He gave us a bar tour of Ferrol and showed us a couple absolutely perfect and almost empty beaches. All of the Medditerranean is currently writhing with human flesh, but these far superior beaches are empty! Somehow, despite barely speaking Spanish, he knows how to get every barman to bring out a secret stash of liquor concoction for free. One guy had replicated Bailey's perfectly, and another guy had found a way to recreate the gummy coke bottle candies as a drink. I also managed to learn what a kite suit is and actually witness kite surfing, and get shitfaced which is one of John's specialties.

Aftre this break, we started our ride for real, taking the western coastal highway, then an overland route to the north coast. Up to this point we were having trouble finding places to camp. But as of the town of Viveiro the character of our tour changed a bit. Here is is possible to go on a beach bum bike tour. You can ride in the morning, early afternoon, and arrive to ste up camp with plenty of time to go to the beach and have a swim. The water is cold usually, but it only takes a few minutes to get used to. My favorite was in between Foz and Ribideo, where awesome waves were crashing into a tiny beautiful beach around sunset. Although I previously had an aversion to developed campgrounds, a hot shower is key in this circumstance. If you had warm weather you could repeat this cycle for at least a week...ride a bit, hang out at the beach, ride a bit, hang out at the beach. Shortly to the south was As Catedrais, which at low tide features all sorts of water sculpted arches, passage ways in the rocks. As with a lot of places that are cool, its popular, so you have to put up with hordes of humanity. But definitely worth a stop.

Shortly after Ribideo, we entered Asturias, and the first thing we saw was an Asturian bagpipe and drum band. This is also where we started following the northernmost pilgrimage route backwards. it was funny watching the look on pilgrim faces wondering who was going the wrong way, us or them? Luarca is a notable town along here, a it sits in a canyon with a small harbor with a light house. The view from the light house featured the distant green hills so typical of Asturias (and the labels of Asturian dairy products, this is happy cow country), a nice beach, and efficiently stacked town built on the canyon walls which reminded me of an old world Bisbee, except for the aforementioned oceanic business. We camped on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, unfortunately there was no super easy beach access that night, but it was awesome. Finally we made our way to Cudillero, a foggy harbor town, also incredibly steeply built on cliffs. Then we spent one night in Oviedo. We decided we wanted to finally go get shithoused at a sidreria on our last night in Asturias. We passed up an expensive looking one in the tourist district, and then literally the next 5 or so were closed. Considering that we were in the biggest town of Asturias which is famous for its cider throwing bars, this is absurd.... and I guess I already said how we got home. Luckily it won't be long before I get out of this city again.

random darts

1. Next teusday, we are off to galicia/asturias for 2 weeks of cycling. I will be really happy to be somewhat cool again and see some green somewhere in my field of vision. I love deserts, but when the summer rolls around I am really craving wet greenness.

In Spain EVERYBODY is on vacation for the month of August. You can't count on anything getting done, be it burrocrat papers, or simply keeping a shop open. Its a ghost town at our work. It the only time of the year in Madrid that it doesn't feel like someone is following you around all day pushing you because you are not moving fast enough. So, the city heat blows but you might think that some people would be stoked to hang around and enjoy a more relaxed madrid.

But heres the curious antropological fact: Instead of taking the opportunity to be rid of their fellow humanity, everybody does the same thing. They go to the beach all at the same time. I've seen it on the news, it looks like every beach on the meditteranean is hosting Woodstock. Except theres no concert to watch, its just the beach. That is a strange contrast, Americans tend to want their space but Spanish people love to be surrounded by hoardes. You couldn't pay me to go to one of those beaches right now. I like going to the beach, having a swim, reading a book in the sand, throwing sticks to dogs, whatever....but what do you do for a month at the beach. I don't understand, at all. Isn't that exceptionally boring?

2. I was thinking of Roll this morning. Haven't seen the guy in over 10 years. I think he's a hot shit tattoo artist in portland now.
"You dont learn from books, college boy, you learn with your fists!"

3. When I was a kid we went to church every sunday at the church that was associated with my catholic school. It was boring. So boring that I read the bible to pass the time. Granted it was an illustrated bible for kids, but it was big and I read the damned thing front to back. I tended to like the monsignor (this is above a normal priest, below a bishop), I don't know why, I barely ever listened to what he said because I was so enthralled by Leviticus. I puzzled quite a bit over the organ. There was a person near the alter on the ground floor, sitting at and playing the organ. The wierd thing is there was a large almost bedroom sized wooden box with pipes coming out at the ceiling. I was told these were the organ pipes. I couldn't get my head around how pushing the keys on the organ caused air to come out of the pipes, thus making the sound. The best I could come up with is that there was a team of people inside the wooden box at the ceiling. They would have to be kneeling because the ceiling would be low in there. Clearly, when one pressed the keys on an organ it would send a signal to the person manning the corresponding pipe, and they would give it a lungful. I figured the signal would be something like a stoplight.

Later my fascination with the box of pipes morphed a bit. I would fantasize about how I could get into it, or at least up there. I could swing on a rope form the giant crucified jesus, to the angel sculpture midway up. Then with a few deft moves i could just grab a curve of one of those pipes which might allow me enough leverage to get up there.

One day, I started to visualize something that the monsignor said. He said the church was God's house and Jesus's house. I'm sure I understood this figuratively, but I had a daydreaming problem. Sometimes still to this day, what is in my head is just more intriguing than the actual world and i get lost for a little while. So I thought about where in the church Jesus lived. The priests always emerged from behind the alter, and I always wanted to go back there and see what was there. I think this is part of their theatre that grabs you imagination when you're a kid, and perhaps keeps you somewhat in their thrall in adulthood. I figured they lived back there, but i guess people probably don't live in the back of churches. Anyway, it didn't seem like Jesus just lived with the priests, what would he be doing back there when they came out for mass? Just having a cup of joe and reading the newspaper? It had to be somewhere else, and the only possible explanantion was that the organ pipe box, was Jesus's bungalow apartment in the church. Another thing the monsignor said was that the church was a house of love. This of course, would influence the decor of the Jesus apartment. I imagined all white walls, except for a big red valentine-esque heart shape painted on one wall.

France pants

What the shit is this? Gondola jousting thats what. So things have settled down enough that we don't have to think about our recent roomate suicide so much, and i can write a little about our trip to france 2 weeks ago. The family came by and picked up the rest of his stuff, and told ana that he had been depressed since he was eight years old. He had never lived away from home, which is common in Spain where a ton of people stay with their family until they are about 30. Him getting his own place was the psychiatrists idea to help him fell better. But thats enough of that, we went to southern France to visit Chris and Bre, and Miles the dog.



They are doing well and have alot of the same problems we do in Spain (except one: chris makes more money than me and becky combined, oh the humanity). Also they are enjoying the opportunity to travel as much as possible. But it was good to just speak to people effortlessly in our own first language without thinking alot. Plus who the fuck can understand French, the pronunciation of Montpellier was something like Mo-Pe-Yay. Overrall i found France pretty pleasant and green. And I did not personally witness any of the famous rudeness. Just like I didn't find germans to be cold, robotic, and controlling. At first the atmosphere was reminiscent of a hot bowl of soup when we landed in Lyon. But the humidity toned down a bit for the next few days in Montepellier and although warm enough it was at least cooler than Madrid.

Most of the pics are form Saint Giulhem le Desert, aka St. Bill. This turned out to be a great little medieval town in the mountains. The biggest difference between this and several medieval Spanish towns we've been to is that this one had loads of flowers and other greenery incorporated into its twisty alleyways. I don't recall Saint Bill having that urine smell of old cities. It was also overlooked by a ruined fortress. We ended the day with an awesome swimming hole in the river, of the EXACT perfect coolness that you desire at the end of a hot day, and a BBQ at one of C&B's friend's houses. I was incredibly jealous of his garden, I can't tell you how much I miss having a garden. Ok, i'll tell you.....alot.

The following day we had the stellar idea of going to the beach. The wind just was not on the same game plan and kept pelting us with stinging sand until we finally gave up and left. Eventually we made our way back to a sheltered cove with an entourage of Canadian and French people, friends and friends of friends of chris and bre. The thing that sticks in my mind from this outing was a conversation about words that people hate. Becky really hates the word "panties". I just thought it was the word for female underwear. But this other guy also hated "panties", in fact this word was almost as cringeworthy as "lover" to him. Personally I really hate "precious", and "darling", but I kept this information to myself, lest we start down a slippery slope of erasing half of the English language. It occurs to me that all four of these words could be used in a single sentence that would have offended all of us. What words really bother you?

Oh, lest I forget...the beach town Sete has canals. And In the canals, gondola jousting. This was not quite as cool as a demolition derby with cold PBR in hand (because they don't have PBR and nothign ever catches fire or explodes), but I wished we had a couple idle hours to watch. They even have shaded bleachers. Next time. Sand fell out of my pockets for days afterward.

My new roomate jumped out of the 7th floor window

Oh hi, how was your Saturday morning...well let me tell you about ours. Wednesday, after months we finally got a new guy moved in here. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but we were a little annoyed that our roommate hadn't really spoken to us about him before telling him he could move in. She left us a note Teusday night, saying she found someone and he was coming the next morning. Sure enough he was already moving in the next morning. He brought a new TV and parked in front of it most of the day. He chatted with us while we ate dinner and he was watching soccer. The usual stuff...why are you eating so early (8:00pm), do you like futbol? I didn't see him at all thursday, and fugured he went on a trip or was hanging out with his family who live pretty close. Thursday night i got up to piss in the middle of the night, and i thought i saw him sitting in the dark in the living room. But i didn't have on my glasses, it was dark, i was half asleep, and if a person is really sitting in the dark alone they want to be left alone probably. Again friday I didn't see him despite that I worked at home all day. This morning, saturday i got up and made coffee, and Becky slept a little more. We heard him get up and leave and return from the grocery store while i was drinking the coffee. A little later Becky got up to pee, and then told me she saw him standing in his underwear in his room, apparently changing, but didn't say anything because she didn't want to embarrass him. We were feeling lazy so we started watching "Lost" on my computer. Then the doorbell and the buzzer rang a million times so we went out to the door. There was 2 cops asking if there was an older person who lived with us. They were asking the next door neighbors too, so it seemed like they were unclear about where they were looking for this person. Cops just kept coming very 5 minutes, and wanting to come in our house look at the layout, were asking about window orientation and stuff like that. Since they were asking about an old person, and becky thought she heard something about a cardiac arrest...I thought perhaps there was a person who had a heart attack in an apartment. Maybe they managed to call for help, but were locked inside, and the cops were looking for a way to get in. But it appeared that the victim was down in the parking lot from our balcony. We even joked with our next door neighboors about how confused the cops seemed to be. Finally the cops came back and they wanted to go in the new roomates bedroom. We knocked to no answer, and it was locked. The cops broke in and nobody was inside and the window was open. At this moment, I asked the cop: Is the person down there young or old? -he was young. So I asked if he had dark hair-he did. i asked if he was taller than me-he was. At almost this exact moment, our old roomate Raul called on the phone. He told becky that our roomate had jumped from the window. The cops had gotten Raul's number because his girlfriend's folks live in our building. So Raul across town knew what happened before we did. So long story not so short- or new roomate of 3 days killed himself this morning after going to the store for orange juice. He is essentially a complete stranger, but this happened while we were in the next room watching TV and just waking up. Ana, our other current roomate called on the phone from work. She said he had been acting wierd and he had told her he hadn't been around because he had to go to the hospital. But I guess he said nothing else about that. Very 10 minutes there was a new group of inbestigators going to do whatever in the room. We basically begged the cops to let us leave after a few hours so we could think of something else. I'm realy glad the door was locked, otherwise we could have been murder suspects. The cops were pretty civil though, although quite confused and confusing. We ended up going to a bar. We left a key for the family. They have already picked up most of his things. I can't believe this day.

Riding the midget bike in the rain

Some folks at work put together a plan for a group overnight bike ride in Parque Alto Tajo in Guadalahara. It really reminded me of Walnut Canyon in Arizona. Its the coldest and least densely populated part of Spain, or so they said. We were on a field trip in Jaen when we got the invite, so we didn't hear about it until we returned, so there was very little time to get ready. What was there to prepare? 1) we don't have mountain bikes and this was an off-road tour, 2) for some reason i brought my newer nicer tent for one person to spain instead of the older danker one for two, 3) i have a set of panniers but becky has none. So at the last minute all this crap was rounded up and we were off just in the nick of time. I had borrowed Andrea's bike for Becky, and was hoping to find some time to work it over. It had both brakes rubbing and needed a tune up. One guy showed up, a friend of some of the guys on the trip, who just seemed so familiar. i realized he looked kind of 50% Jimmy Stewart, and 50% Sean Penn. Then I realized, no, its Cmaeron form Ferris Bueller. When we got to the trail head, I found that "my" bike, borrowed from Luis's girlfriend was actually smaller than Andrea's. I remembered this person as a tall slender woman, so i thought the bike would only be a little small. I had to ride Andea's with the seat post dangerously maxed out, my lungs compressed from hunching over, and my heels hitting the panniers. To top it off, despite that it had already been hot as balls there was cold rainy weather coming in. Its funny, few people want to ride with me because they think i like rides that are way too long, but under this set up I was the one sucking wind, weak and timid. Becky reconfirned that she totally hates mountain biking right out of the gate. The guy who "knew" the route sent us on a ridiculous side trip and took a wrong turn at the most straightforward intersection in the whole route. This delayed us long enough to keep us out as the rain started coming pretty hard. The gloves I bought Becky weeks ago were too small, consequently she had no gloves, and her hands got really cold. So I gave her mine, and guess what...my hands got really cold. Luckily there was a shelter where we could sleep inside with a fire, so i never used the tent we borrowed (apparently made of bricks and lead). I have gotten cold while camping out in wet weather before and I know if I hunker down in my sleeping bag I'll eventually get warm again. But I was really glad we could have a fire indoors. The problem was it was like the snoring olympics that night, so there wasn't much sleep to be had. Every man on the trip was sawing logs. And then theres eating. Do you gas up the car before or after the trip? Before, right? Bodies are like cars, you put in fuel and it goes. That shit doesn't fly in this country. Food can be summarized as "too little, too late". And everything always has to be a big fucking group activity, so you can't just say "sorry we're wierd foreigners and we eat early. we're just going to eat something quickly right now." Instead EVERYONE other than us has to begrudgingly eat earlier than they wanted to. They don't make you feel like a dick about it or anything, I just don't get why everyone always does everyhting at the same time here.

Sorry about the bitchfest. All in all this was a beautiful place, and the people were nice...but I'm never doing this shit last minute again and I'm never going to borrow someone elses bike for more than 10 minutes. Either I am prepared or I don't go. Next time I'm outfitting my surly with nobby tires.

post backlog #2

If you look in Google Earth, Almeria is surrounded by mysterious seas of white rectangles. These are structures built of white shade cloth for pseudo-indoor crops. I guess the white protects them from the sun. They look kind of like something to keep E.T. in quarantine. Becky thought they looked like refugee camps. Adding to the wierdness is that the countryside is full of ruins abandoned during the 20th century when people just picked up and went to the cities. Often you can't even see the ruin from a distance, but you can see the amazing growth of cacti that were apparently planted as ornamentals long ago. Most hillslopes are terraced, another vestige of recently abandoned agriculture.

A local researcher showed us around his various study sites. We were closing to turning cannibal when our hosts finally decided it was about lunch time at 4:00. This followed a hearty breakfast of toast with tomato and olive oil seven and a half hours earlier. After all that all i got was gaszpacho, and some pisto with a gross egg i didn't eat for lunch. So this long awaited meal amounted to tomatoes more or less. Later, i lobbied for pizza for dinner, and the spaniards thought two app. 12-inch pizzas was sufficient food for 4 people and figured i just didnlt know what i was asking for when I ordered two larges. Spanish people eat like children. The Mediterranean diet is just a clever way of saying starving. I wonder if its like this in Greece, Italy, or other Mediterranean nations. We insisted we were getting more food and if there was extra, well, we could eat it the next day. We ate it all, no problem. I know porky americans are in a poor position to tell other people about nutrition....but shit, these people eat nothing. Over here they don't eat the pizza directly with their hands. They put each slice on a little cardboard triangle. i don't know if they are afraid of getting their hands dirty, or the pizza dirty. i think its related to the fact that they use throwaway plastic gloves for selecting produce, and for pumping gas.

I was happy to get to see the Tabernas badlands, which I've been reading about in geeky science papers for years. This is also one of the main sites for western movies of the 60's. I hate westerns, but I like to see the sets. I used to work near similar sets near Kanab, Utah, like the Bonanza ranch for example. Many of the so-called spaghetti westerns were not shot in Italy but in Spain (Paella westerns). There is actually a place there called "Texas Hollywood", which seems to be some sort of movie set/ tourist trap. It has a typical old west main street with the saloon, etc., in addition to a Mexican pueblo, in addition to various arabesque structures. I think the nonsensical name "Texas hollywood" is indicative of something: if you asked a typical small town Almerian to tell you what they know about the United states, Texas and Hollywood are certain to be mentioned right after New York. When I move back to the states I'm going to open up a place called Paris Alps Rome, it will have all kinds of Europy shit like cathedrals and escargot. One of the study sites was a set from the young Indiana Jones television show. Literally, there's all this erosion and runoff monitoring equipment right next to a deteriorating and fake (styrofoam) mine entrance that was made for the show. I think the last crusade has some shots from here as well, maybe the high speed tank chase part with those zany Nazis up to their typical shenannigans.


When we got back to Madrid some friends invited us to an anarchist squat bar. I was skeptical, most "anarchist squats" in the states are junkie hives. This one was a derelict building that has been taken over as a community center where noone actually lives. They have a community garden (apparently on the roof), FREE spanish classes and legal assistance for immigrants (the poor kind not the united statesians, woe is me), a bike workshop, and various art projects and workshops. Again in the states, for this to work there would have to be strict no drug, no booze rules, but this place has a bar. And its cheap, and they have reggae shows there. They sell beer in "minis" which despite the diminutive name are the largest beers you can find (0.75 L, i mean this is approaching Bavaria proportions) for 3 euros. Of course one would be shared among like 5 spanish people passing it around spreading herpes and swine flu, but I like having my own big boy beer in hand and i'll just catch my own diseases thanks (in recent months i have been totally ravaged by almost every cold to come down the pike, so i'm a bit sensitive on this spit and disease sharing issue). I wish I had the insider information to know about places like this a year ago.

may is over, post backlog #1

A couple of becky's random shots from el Escorial. the monastery-palace of felipe 2 (one of those inbred Hapsburgs form Austria with their f-ed up noses and hairlips), and the dehesa landscape of the nearby mountains. It's worth going to Escorial only for calzones.


Still wonder why i don't like Spanish food?? Well, let me serve you up some tripe and eggs. This was from the Fiesta de San Isidrio, the patron saint of madrid. People put on their special costumes and go over to the park for drinking and traditional foods, such as tripe. Have you ever cleaned your stove with a sponge soon after cooking, and the sponge touches hot metal and emits really rank steam probably containing botulinum at the least or maybe ebola. That is what tripe smells like. The cuchinillo (roasted suckling pig) is not nearly as disgusting, but it really reminds me of dissecting a fetal pig for 3 weeks in a biology lab. We met an ecuadorian friend and a colombian firend over there at the festival, in addition to a spanish guy and had a fine old drunk in the sun sort of day. Its really funny when we can't totally speak spanish (we are getting better though) and they can't totally speak english, the conversation has a way of drifting in and out of the two languages, and sometimes just combines them in the same phrase. This is why some clever sod coined the term "Spanglish". Despite that this city of millions sponsored a festival in one park, apparently nobody thought it might be a good idea to provide a toilet anywhere. The gutters ranneth with urine.


Now playing at the palacio de cristal...rat and bear. This is bear. This is art.