my new buddy.

These two solemn little boys watching a blimp hover over the track and field event today were very serious about watching pole vaulting. They didn't smile very much. I felt old and uncool next to them until Daniel asked me sweetly "Como te llamas?" after looking over curiously at my camera.

Daniel and I would be good friends, I think. He asked me lots of questions like, "What's it like in New York?" and "Why is the Peruvian runner so slow?" and "Do you know how to speak English?" ("Big. Loud. Fun." "No one can beat the Colombian runner today." "I'm getting there.")

He told me he had been in love last year, when he was eight, but his girlfriend moved away. He asked about what it was like to live in Seattle and why I was in Colombia. And finally, he scampered off, but not before leaving us with a bright break in his serious demeanor.

south american games.

We're lucky to be in Medellin when Pablo Escobar is NOT here and when the South American Games ARE here. We stayed extra time with new friends because the lure of every summer sport ever invented was too much to resist. Plus, the Brazilians and Colombians are specimens of creation and we're not even mad about being in the one South American city that's filled with the continent's best athletes.

Horseback police, military men, and RoboCop riot patrol. All in an average Medellin protest.

almost famous.

Ok, before I begin this blog entry, I want to announce that I no longer sit down on my surf board, and am now able to catch entire waves by myself. By noon, my arms and shoulders feel like "fallopian tubes" (thank you, Graham Snead) and I'm starving. So we were relaxing (ie. feeling like I could eat a horse) and having some coffee at Cafe Z today when two guys invited themselves over to our couch to chat.



I'm going to make this story brief: these two hilarious gentlemen were the Peruvian hosts of Lima's version of SportsCenter. "We're on channel 5! Sundays at 7 pm!"


"Ooh... about that. We don't have tv," we announced disappointedly.


And this is how we got invited to come to the filming of Spanish SportsCenter in the studio on Sunday night. We're trying to figure out a way to get some kind of "speaking role" so we can practice our Spanish on national television. I don't think they were really into that idea. However, they are taking us to Barranco tomorrow to go surfing, so we are feeling pretty happy with the adult field trips coming up this week.


And now for the bizarre closer: as we walked home, a lady who looked suspiciously like a heavily plastic-surgeried tranny slowed her car down, leaned out the window and called us "Goddesses of Olympus" as she rolled by. Now that's just good clean fun.

hello, miraflores!

Since we are grownups who do what we want, Marlo and I made the executive decision to spend the next three weeks on the beach. Being a grownup is the coolest thing ever, how come no one told me?! So here we are in Miraflores, Lima in a situation that might commonly be known as living the dream. Here's why:

We are sharing a beautiful townhouse with two Peruvian med students. This townhouse involves a maid and a doorman, but more importantly, it involves TWO MONKEYS IN THE KITCHEN. Saved from a lab experiment only to live a cramped life in a cage, these two little guys spend their time leaping around the cage and releasing pent-up aggression in sexual ways (well, the boy monkey tries; the girl monkey appears to have a headache tonight). Here's a good diet trick: put a sexually charged male monkey (who isn't even wearing a dignified diaper like the street performer monkeys) next to your fridge. Making repeated eye contact with simian penises (peni?) is profoundly disturbing/unappetizing. Don't look at this picture too closely. Fair warning.

The huge, airy cafe with leather couches at the end of our street has a playlist that consists solely of Tupac, Fugees and UB40. That's not a joke, someone at that cafe divined precisely what we want to listen to and plays "Red Red Wine" followed by "Shorty Wanna Be a Thug" and follows it up with remixes of "Family Business." After six weeks of listening to horrid Bolivian pop, Tupac is like water to my thirsty ears. Here's a fancy old lady doing some important work at the cafe. That's right, our creepy documentation of the elderly in public hasn't ceased since we left Buenos Aires.

Our proximity to the beach is absurd (this sunset is a couple blocks from our door), and we have no excuse not to be on the water everyday. When in Rome, people! This has also led to the long-awaited surfing phase of our adventure. Side note: the first and only time I have been surfing was in high school, when a 400 pound security guard named Kaz taught me on Waikiki and my upper body strength was roughly equal to Stephen Hawking's. After a couple days of getting my butt kicked by the Pacific Ocean and wanting to die from paddling so much, I'm currently at the phase where I catch a wave, stand up, get nervous and sit down, realize I'm still on the wave and stand back up, almost hit someone and sit back down, and eventually topple over. Watch out Kelly Slater.

rafting through arequipa

GREAT SUCCESS: Peru let us in. We headed straight for Arequipa, the city surrounded by volcanoes and built of ash, mostly because we heard there were Andean condors all over the place, and we're into birds the size of humans.

Plans for the Colca Canyon were thwarted, however, when we accidentally stayed out dancing with some Brazilians until 3 am and our 3:30 am departure for the canyon just was not. going. to happen. We rerouted and decided to go whitewater rafting instead.

You know what's a fun idea? Trying to kick a hangover and stay alive on a river at the same time. I can't believe how inept I can be sometimes. Here we are in the most saggy-butt wetsuits ever created, getting ready to hit the class 4 rapids with little to no clue of what was going on. The highlight of the day was when peer pressure forced us to leap off a cliff into the raging rapids and swim for safety. I AM NOT A STRONG SWIMMER, PEOPLE. Luckily, I didn't get swept away and emerged from the river missing one sunglass lens and my hangover. Not a bad way to spend our last morning in town, overall, and we left Arequipa to head to the coast with stomachs sore from laughing at ourselves.

Check out our traseros. Unisex wetsuits: wassup.

death road; or, how i almost fell off a cliff

La Paz began on a rocky note, but after I got over the fact that I was entirely without my winter wear, I decided that I was in heaven (ie. finally back in civilization) and spent the rest of the week sitting in a hot tub with hilarious Israelis, continuing the attempts to breathe normally at 3600 meters, and eating quinoa soup. Once I regained my emotional capacities after the vomit chorus on the way into town, I made the executive decision to mountain bike the most dangerous road in the world in the spirit of pretending to train for a triathlon. I find this quite impressive considering the only biking I've done since middle school was to and from yoga class this year (a straight shot on Latona, and sometimes I cheated and rode on the sidewalks even then).
Death Road takes you through waterfalls, through overflowing rivers, nearly careening off cliffs when you get too cocky and start going really fast, and descends 3000 meters from freezing, foggy La Paz into balmy, jungly Coroico. I had a couple of Aussie friends with me on the trip, and the rest of our group was either Brazilian or deaf, but almost dying together really brings people together and I left the mountain with a new arsenal of ASL signals and Portuguese phrases. Additionally, I somehow got the entire relationship history of a sweet guy from Rio who spoke English like I speak Hebrew and discovered a butterfly the size of my bike wheel.

The day ended with a buffet lunch and a pool overlooking the mountains, which I'm not sure is normal for triathlon training, but something I'd like to incorporate into my normal routine either way. Death Road conquered, check please.

oh manu.

One final thought on what I have in common with the average Argentine: being a Spurs fan. I love driving through the tiniest towns and seeing little kids playing stickball in the streets with San Antonio jerseys on.

Our reasons are really different, however. Manu Ginobili is the national hero and no one seems to listen to me when I explain that he's a whiner and no one likes him because the Latino drama doesn't fly in the NBA.

Sometimes I just really miss The Admiral.