My first cover story!

My article made the cover of the San Francisco Bay Guardian today!

Here's the link to the web version, although you should check out a copy of the print edition if possible, with photos by my man, Erik Anderson (here's an awesome one of Adelfo Antonio, a Swanton Berry farmworker I profiled, below):

Out of Reach: How the sustainable food movement neglects poor workers and eaters - 12/2/09, SFBG

I was so stoked to be able to report on this topic- I grew up with labor issues in my blood and I've often been frustrated on "sustainability activists" inattention to class issues. Much thanks goes out to my editors at SFBG for giving me the word space. I hope this brings attention to the poorer members of our food system (believe me, as an intern who shops at Rainbow Grocery, I'm definitely one of them!).

On a personal note; yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Love,

CD

Been busy gettin' published and all

Hey gang! Wanted to update you with some of the pieces I've been working on. Here's a couple of the pieces I've had published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian's print edition:

THA ARTICLES

Public Screening: Three decades of posting the revolution with Mission Grafica - 11/11/09
On the history of a community silkscreen studio in the Mission District. Grafica has thirty years of Latino activism and social protest under its belt- some amazing stories.

Presents of mind: Gifts that give back - 11/19/09
My contribution to the Guardian's 2009 Holiday Guide. I researched and profiled some of the most socially conscious gift ideas in the Bay Area that year. My favorite was the cat rescue shelter that was bottling its own "Meow Merlot." Heartwarming, I tells ya.

THA BLOGS

The bulk of my time's been straight up bloggin' it tho. Internet journalism... wild stuff. Consider the following my greatest hits on the blog roll (photo by yours truly)...

Not for beginners: Goodwill As-Is gets put on notice- 10/29/09
The truth will out on subpar bulk thrift stores

Negrodamus knows: Paul Mooney, ringmaster of black comedy, returns to the Bay- 11/2/09
My interview with the controversial legend behind The Richard Pryor Show, In Living Color and The Chappelle Show. He's a peach.

Keeping up with the Waters': Berkeley's way ahead of SF on the school garden game- 11/19/09
Profile of Alice Waters' famous sustainable garden for Berkeley public school kids.

High fructose corn syrup ragin'- 11/24/09
This is what happens when I get editorial power over my posts... what can say, I got beef with corporate sugar water!

Squeeze boxes and sparkly boobs: SF's Accordion Babes equal the truth - 12/1/09

Event review of a burlesque/accordion git down at the Uptown Night Club in Oakland. Where do I get those sequined pasties?

There you have it. Onward and upward, my lovelies!

CD

So there's this girl...

(please note my transition to Guardian-style non capitalized headlines, I'm a total SFBG groupie)

... named Tavi Gevinson and as far as I can tell she's done not too much besides find mystical access to an endless closet (Lion, Witch and Wardrobe?) of grandma chic and written an addicting little blog about it.  Not so crazy, right?  Sure, the Huffington Post has started reporting on when she goes to fashion shows and now she's being called "the true star" of New York's Fashion Week? Weell... way to be a bloglebrity? (still working on that one.) What's that you say?  Ah. Yes. She's 13.

What were you doing when you were 13? Hanging with Yojhi Yamamoto?

Yes, I know that is probably spelt wrong.

Look at this girl.  How to market yourself, 101. Ridiculous.

I could totally wear that...

thinking, thinking,

CD

And Now Back To Your Normally Scheduled Programming...

Ahhh my little 'Pura Caitlin'... as I sit here eating chunks out of a sweet potato, typing up my article on Latino political agitation silk screens, I reflect on the days I would roll around in your html coding and frustratingly slow image uploads, spouting ad nauseum about... my day. We shall meet again. Someday I will update my blog as much as Strange Maps. In the meantime, how sick is the EU kicking Iceland like a soccer ball? I want most of these maps screen printed by Latino revolutionaries and tacked to my wall.

I luv the Internets...

My Spot on the Strip

Acme Coffee

1431 SE 40th

Portland

The crazy thing about coming back to Portland is how much the place is evolving. Every time I touch down at my beloved PDX (best airport in the world, I'm sayin') and sniff the sweetness of the air up there, I get this crazy feeling that I have to see everything. Now. Otherwise I could lose the Portland pulse and not be hip to the game anymore, and that would cause me to freak out.

Take for instance, Hawthorne. SE Hawthorne has always been the street you take your out-of-towner friends to in order to show them what makes Portland different. Crunchy hemp gift stores, used clothing purveyors and of course, the Arabian Nights style Baghdad Theater.

I was tooling down the strip yesterday morning waiting for Biasi to shake the hangover and be ready to bake surprise birthday cakes with me when I ran into the newest cat to make the scene, Ken Sellens.

Ken just moved down from Bainbridge Island, which is a lovely, closeknit community a ferry ride from Seattle. We drank our morning joe and chatted for awhile about staying in the same crazy woman's guest house in Lagos, Portugal, the one where the door never worked and she woke you up at six am to ask whether you'd want the room for another night.

This summer, him and a buddy decided they wanted to open up "a coffee cart" to supplement their artist's incomes and the very next day found an ad on Craig's List for a cafe for rent.

Enter Acme Coffee, which they've set up in an old house just north of Hawthorne on SE 40th. It kinda reminds me of some of the outdoor cafes they have in Austin, Texas where there's big gardens with all kinds of mismatched seating and the general sense that beautiful, artistically genius work is getting accomplished at the tables all around you.

The place is full of functional antiques, like a massive iron fan that they've only turned on once because "it gets pretty intense out here" when it's on. They have blueberry pie.

"We have barbeques out here once a week," Ken tells me. "We close up the cafe, and this just turns into a house. As you know, there's a lot of musicians in this neighborhood, so people come up and play on the porch. This place turns into party central. Well, not really party central."

I want to go to one of these parties. Bad. But I'm doing the SF thing now, and I know that though I'm giving up my spot in P-Town, I'm leaving a vacancy that cool kids like Ken can fill, get their swing at the bikey-coffee-front porch-guitar strumming glory of it all.

I'll always be back to Portland. Even when I can't tell you where the cool bars are anymore. Even when snotty-nosed hipsters tell me and Lauren to move our place at Colonel Sommers Park because "we have a kickball game here. Every Monday. Did you just move here?" I'll still have the wearwithall to turn on my coolkid sneer and ask "where are you from? Ohio?" (nothing against Ohio)

Tear. Growing up. Oh my City of Roses, don't forget your girl!

And I love,

CD

Sigh. In Love.

Who is Ariel Dovas? How can I blog-prentice to her? In San Francisco's hippest neighborhood, she is the hippest of them all. check out her latest blog-sterpiece. If only I had this knack for expressing the zeitgeists of our time.

My Triumphant Debut as a Stoner Film Critic!

I'll be like the Cheech & Chong of Siskel & Ebert!

But seriously folks, here's my very first interview for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, with my editor's photo captions. Be forewarned: it is rated PG-13 and we spend time talking about Mr. T. But it's the beginning of big things, and I knew all the folks at home who are wondering what the devil I'm doing down here in San Francisco will appreciate regardless.

Whoop whoop!
CD

In Which San Francisco Impresses Me With Free Things And I Shoot A Sea Urchin

It was kind of cruel if you ask me. My manager Christian had an invitation to an "Exposicion Exclusivo de Mezcales Artisanales" (Exclusive Exposition of Artisan Mezcals) and he had tacked it to the bulletin board at work to stare at us as we boxed wings and breasts and potato salad.

It was kind of like "look how cool I am, I go to exclusive booze fiestas. Don't you wish people wanted you to drink their artisan mezcal instead of just bag their french fries and wings?" I suppose he felt bad about it (after I affixed a Post-It note to invite that expressed my thoughts on the matter), so yesterday, the day of the fest, he commuted his exclusive invite to yours truly. "Better RSVP now," he cautioned.

So here's me RSVPing.
Voicemail message: "Hi, you've reached bla bla bla. Bla bla bla. If you're RSVPing for the mezcal party, leave your name and the name of the restaurant you represent."
Me: (professional voice) "Hello, this is Caitlin Donohue of _____ restaurant and I'd like to RSVP for two. If you don't call me back I'll assume we're on the list."

It's fair to say I do not make the liquor buying decisions for the restaurant I work for. But, as a hostess two nights a week, I do come into contact with lots of liquor buying guests. Surely, this is a position of influence that artisan mezcal makers cannot well overlook.

It didn't even matter, anyways. Erik and I rolled up on our bikes to a long line in front of the club wherein the party was being held, a line that terminated at two large men who merely sniffed at my Oregon driver's license (I'll admit, the card's seen better days) and waved us through.

Inside we were bombarded with a club stuffed with Mexicana. Everywhere. Necklaces with strobing Mary medallions flashing red and green. Small men wandering about with mariachi guitars. Mayan inspired animal masks I refused to put on (what was this, Eyes Wide Shut?), odd life sized wooden dolls of old men and sheep wearing dresses. Agave plants.

And refreshments! A table full of tamales and tortilla chips, and most importantly, a bar full of Los Danzantes mezcal. For those of you who don't know, mezcal, like tequila is an alcohol made from fermenting the agave plant. But where tequila purveyors remove the pulp and other solids from the agave before putting it all in the still, mezcal is fermenting pulp and all. This lends it a much richer flavor, smokier and spicier than tequila. Mezcal, contrary to popular belief, is the one that gets the worm in the bottle that is said to produce hallucinations.

Agave plant. Looks like an artichoke

Donkey making mezcal. Clever donkey.

I didn't take those two pictures by the way. I don't know who did, either.

This being San Francisco, we couldn't drink the liquor without some trendy gimmick, and true to form the mezcal shooters each had a small piece of sea urchin in the bottom of the glass. I wouldn't say it was the best entree to sea urchin, but whatever, I appreciate the gesture.

So anyways, we got drunk, fed and stocked up on all the Mexican souveniers we didn't buy while we were actually in Mexico. For free! Oh, and a leggy blonde took a photo of Erik and I with her 35mm that I'm sure will immortalize me on some crappy nightlife website as being drunk and awkward-looking.

A job well done. The moral? Pester your boss about anything and everything. This will get results.

Much love,
CD

Slow Food Eat-In

Not sit-in or walk-out or picket line, but eat-in. An eat-in is my kind of protest. This is how we change the world, people: free food.

Between my restaurant gig and a brief internship at Roots of Change, a local food sutainability organization, I've been spending a large chunk of my waking life immersed in the pleasures of a locally sourced diet.

It's easy to do here, San Francisco kicks ass at sustainable food. There are three weekly farmer's markets within a few blocks of our apartment and you can't throw a stick in this town without it landing in someone's beet gazpacho at a new organic restaurant. Michael Pollan is beginning to rival Barack as San Francisco's change-spouting favorite- although the Prez recently gained ground when the First Lady planted a vegetable garden on the White House's front lawn.

Have you seen this thing? More newsworthy than her latest shift dress.

I like this, because food is delicious. Eating has beaten out door-knocking as my favorite way to save the world (yes Mom, I know you have to do both).

This is why on Labor Day the boy and I cooked us a mess of rice and pinto beans, bungeed it to our bike rack and rolled out to the Slow Food Eat-In, a community potluck on a grand scale. It took place right in front of San Francisco's majestic City Hall to publicize the Child Nutrition Act, which is leglislation due to be reauthorized soon that can amp up our country's commitment to healthy food in public schools. Keep all the kiddies bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and diabetes-free!

Yesterday was a sunny indian summer kind of day and there were several long tables dotted with contributions from our fellow activists. This being San Francisco, home of the foodie fanatic, most offerings were a bit more sophisticated than the twenty-something standard we'd brought. I'm talking coconut quinoa with squash, massive wheels of sharp yellow artesan cheese, gorgonzola studded heirloom tomatos, cabbage salad with tangerines and crunchy japanese noodles... I could go on, but you get it. It was a nice spread.

You can't really blame the park's regular occupants for forgetting to bring a casserole of their own to contribute, and to be fair it did look somewhat like an outdoor soup kitchen. At one point a tall white guy in a soiled Giants hat walked up with his tablecloth bedecked lady friend and began addressing the Tupperware containers in a manner that suggested it had been a long time since their last roasted local lamb shish kabob. A Slow Food volunteer arrived to address the situation.

"So, sir, this is an event to publicize the Child Nutrition Act... It's for healthy food in schools? Did you bring a dish to share?" Her political teachings met a blank stare from the would-be activist. She tried a different tack. "So, like, I can't have you... taking 25 things and then there won't be any for- try to not take too much, okay?" She turned, and, satisfied with the exchange both resumed their duties, the volunteer returning to the seed-planting table and the hobo to making a large dent in the mushroom tabouli. Truly heartwarming to see individuals from distinct walks of life coming together to make a difference.

We left after listening to speeches from a kid from a recent San Francisco high school grad who had planted a kitchen garden on campus, a stoked politician and a doctor who'd written a book on the wisdom of the indigenous diet. We were up some oregano and spearmint seedlings, but down the Tupperware container that had housed our rice and beans, which seemed to have been appropriated by a fellow warrior for food justice who wanted to bring the good word to his buddies' bellies in the Tenderloin.

Anything for the cause,
Sister Caitlin

Paramount Theater

Erik scored some last minute tickets via Craig's List ("craigslist"? What is the proper grammerfication of that name? Ridiculous the amount of times I've had to use it in professional correspondence) to Mos Def and Erykah Badu's show at the Paramount Theater in downtown Oakland on Friday.

And we can talk about the show. What do you know about Erykah Badu live? If there is a diva of our day, it is Erykah. The lady rocks my world in dashiki-and-hair-wrap mode just as much as she did in her 50's belted dress, four inch heels and tight afro at the concert. She holds down. She opened for Mos Def, which I thought was a questionable order of operations until the Mighty Mos took the stage and killed it. In rolled up slacks, old penny loafers and pink striped socks. 'Ms. Fat Booty' and a moonwalking rendition of Billie Jean. I think hip hop artists are contractfully obligated to do one MJ cover at every public appearance these days.

So the concert was great. But what set the performances into the 'epic' stratosphere was their setting. The Paramount Theater. The most beautiful venue I've ever seen:

Photo by BWChicago

Art Deco porno. Excessive elegance. I was underdressed, which is a distressing occurance in the life of Caitlin. The above is the view of the stage from the nosebleeds, which is roughly where we were sitting until my enterprising boyfriend decided it wasn't good enough for up and coming A-Listers. Fast forward twenty minutes and we were in the third row, ground floor with ample room to get down for Mos Def. Thusly I am able to comment on the intricacies of his wardrobe for you, the reader at home.

You Are Very Welcome,

CD

P.S. Guess who is the newest intern at the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the defining independent alternative weekly in the United States? That'd be Caity D! Check out their culture blog , where I will ostensibly be posting to on a mega-regular basis in a few weeks.

Working Girl

And so it was that in the topsy-turvy mobius strip that is my life, I have arrived back at Frame #27: Working At A Cheesy Bar.

It was innocuous enough. Take the register job at an organic chicken and waffles counter, bank on the hostessing shifts at the owners' nicer restaurant to turn into serving tables, this being the real money that will get me through these days of the "reimagination of journalism" and unpaid internships.

And working at the shack is fine in the day, busy as all get-out from the Frisco foodies who groove to the cachet of grabbing tasty po' boy sandwiches from a hard to find alleyway in the ex-industrial area of town. Lines around the block, happy, greasy-fingered people hanging on the loading dock/eating area outside. But at night we close down the window facing the alley and open up to the dance club we share floorspace with, becoming the official supplier of chicken and waffles to the nightlife set. Therein our story takes place.

My first night training was great- it was hip hop/soul night and ?uestlove, the drummer from The Roots was DJing. I got paid to accept free beers from the owners, people watch the immensely chill crowd and bob my head to dope beats.

But my first solo shift fell on all ages night. I didn't even go to all ages night when I was all-aged. I exchanged pleasantries with Marcello, the taciturn Mexican cook who would be my culinary backup for the night, propped myself up on my elbows in our little pickup window and steeled myself for I knew not what.

You know who does go to all ages night? Painfully awkward groups of thirty-something women ("we just want to dance!"), jailbait, the creepers that love them, and greasy faced emo kids clad exclusively in clothes whose unbought cousins are making their inexorable decline towards the Forever 21 clearance rack:

-fedoras

-ill-fitting vests

-80's aerobic gear

-gladiator sandals

-white skinny jeans on men

-nerd glasses

-blazers. everyone in blazers.

Kind of like this, but less matching

But it wasn't just the emo/hipster thing that was offending my delicate sensibilities that night. There was a gleeful ignorance of traditional aesthetics in the club. It was as though the crowd had subscribed to a different rule book of what constituted attractive self-presentation. I had seen this before, but where? A woman twirled by in white Sketchers, black leggings and a pink flannel mini-dress, ruffled and Bedazzled with rhinestones about the shoulders. But of course! They were channeling my old friend, Euro trash!

These are not big chicken buying demographics.

So we make it to 11:35 and the awarkwardness is summiting glorious heights on the dancefloor. One young fellow proudly shuffles up to my window, the crotch of his grey skinny jeans inexplicably bagging down around his knees. Could this be a sale?

"Hey, um, you having fun yet?" he begins, tenatively. I flash him a tight lipped smile, willing patience. Marcello waits expectantly behind me, tongs in hand, a mountain of uncooked hot wings at the ready. Baggy crotch scans my carefully-lettered menu. His jaw drops slightly and he turns back to me.

"So, like, what kind of music do you listen to?"

We sold $21 of product and I rubber-necked a severe drought of social styling for a full four and a half hours. I know you guys here in the "real world" are all about it, but I'm not sure about this whole "job" thing...

In search of a patron,
CD

I Am Purple Nikes!

Just dropped a resume off at this place last week. Sorry, you'll have to copy and paste the link, my html literacy comes in jerks and spurts.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inmarin/detail?entry_id=45934&tsp=1#ixzz0Op6mSCMQ


Love the "I can just drop acid at Denny's for half the price" guy who commented.

But really, I dig on a restaurant who takes an interest in the soul of it's employees. Their website says Cafe Gratitude is a "celebration of aliveness," which I'd much rather eat than a bottom line.

Must be me hitting my month mark of living in San Francisco...


Totally drinking the Kool-Aid,
CD

Santa Cruz

You know it's a good weekend when you're still rocking and rolling on Tuesday. Really, there is no professional commitment we can't fill these days with a computer and mellow Wi-Fi spot, so Erik and I decided to take this show on the road.

We left town on Friday and drove to out to meet Molly and Andrew at a magic Marin County campsite beneath some friendly redwoods. Did you know in California state parks you're not supposed to collect kindling from off the ground? We didn't, but our ranger-buddy did, and let us know after we had ignited a mountain of nice wood in our fire pit. The redwoods need fire to reproduce, he told us. Apparently, the heat makes the pinecones explode and scatter seeds.

The Bay does festival posters right, am I right?

The next day we headed to the Good Festival in Fairfax. The Festival was held in the rich-hippie town's center park and we were fed bowl after bowl of free rice and beans while an intrepid Pakistani band encouraged us to break out the Bollywood spirit fingers. We drank the blackberry-plum sangria we'd made to share and Molly won an hour-long tarot session in the raffle while the curious brand of big-eyed, blonde Rainbow Gathering progeny so prevalent in Marin County frolicked around the picnic blankets.

Sunday we got hilariously lost in West Oakland on the way to making a boatload of new friend's at Camilo's birthday party. Oakland is nice because they have backyards there, and excellent Latin revolutionary-rockers like Camilo.

Here I am admiring the birthday boy's sunglasses. Check out the essential backyard refrigerator in the background. How sick is Allen's fish eye lens?

As the sun set over the grilled tilapia, broccolini and birthday cake, it was time for Erik and I to head home. Back to the foggy city, back to Craig's List, no more of this East Bay wandering woman, get to work! Kind of. See, Allen D., my dear friend from Santa Cruz needed a ride home. And I love Santa Cruz, and well heck, Erik hadn't been there yet. Was there a reason why we had to be home on Monday? Well no, no there wasn't.

So we rocked the accomplished Alero down to Santa Cruz, which is, for the uninitiated, one of my favorite places in California. I used to hang here on jailbreaks from Connecticut in my college days when Anna was at UC Santa Cruz (home of the Fighting Banana Slugs) and it's particular blend of foggy days, bitchin' party waves and organic groceries really floats my boat.

And here we be! Job hunting in Caffee Pergolesi by morn, crusing the boardwalk on local's night (every Monday 75 cent cotton candy and roller coaster rides!), taking in jazz at sleepy little clubs, utilizing all of Allen's VW van's river-tripping and bedroom-providing capabilities. Wearing the same two outfits in rotation, livin' the dream. You can take the backpacker out of the backpack, but not the other way around. (Does that work? I thought of that one myself)

Can't stop ramblin'- what would happen to my travel blog?

Sending you the 'Cruz vibes because I wish you were here,

CD

Yosemite National Forest

My bike seat got stolen today. This is disconcerting. I mean, I've had stuff get stolen off the green Kona before. One time, somebody with absolutely no regard for my personal safety took my front and back lights in Portland while I was inside Hungry Tiger on SE 12th during dollar beer night. Low visibility + probable inebriation = dirty, dirty thief. Still, my seat? That's the keeper of precious cargo. Congratulations, you've seriously impeded my ability to cruise.

San Francisco; it's a jungle out there. I'm by no means down and out, but in regards to the whole "job hunt" thing I will say that the only people thus far that are willing to pay me in monetary funds for my services is a chicken and waffle counter in SoMa. Apparently when it comes to organizations better suited to utilizing my wide-reaching, literacy-oriented skill set, the unpaid internship is the new entry level position.

Which is probably why our camping trip to Yosemite National Park this weekend felt so palate-cleansing. Totally worth the nominally interesting (almond farms! rural traffic jams!) five hour drive out there. Kudos to our crazy rock climbing buddies for suggesting the sojourn.

For those of you who haven't been out there hear me this: go now. Yosemite is the quintessential American Outdoors. It's breath-taking and huge- huge like you can explore it for 40 years and there still will be corners and peaks and glades you haven't seen.

There's a lot in Yosemite to gawk at, but it's rocks are pretty high up on the list. Our party engaged them in different ways. By day, the vertical diversion set was mounting 900 foot pitches while the rest of us entertained ourselves with hiking mountains more suitable for foot traffic.

Like this one. Made halfway up Mt. Dana in my slip-on Vans and a tank top, so extreme.

But by night, we all snuggled together at the totally bootleg campsite Marcello found. Now don't tell them who sent you, but here's directions: you drive through Tioga Pass and take a hard right at the sign for the "Senior Citizens' Summer Camp." Set your tent up by that post that says "No Camping." No one's gonna bother you. Seriously, have you heard about California's budget situation? You think Inyo County is paying rangers to patrol it's far nooks and crannies?

The answer's no. Here's a map. Go to the right of the little people.

So being the Smokey the Bear conscious children of the 80's we are, we totally were not going to have a fire. Dry brush? July in California? Not a good idea, no way... but then we chatted up some fly fishers from Southern Cali, who, charmed by our banter, thoughtfully donated a slew of trout to our cause. What to do? Couple hours later, Team Yosemite was assembled around a cheerful flame, passing nacho pots, fish nuggets and that ever-loving campsite accessory, Vitamin W (that's whiskey, for the non-medically inclined).

Two rules around the campfire:

1. You must take a little of whatever is passed to you.

2. You must pass everything.

Follow these guidelines and you will make fast friends. I met a bunch of fine souls around that flame, all San Franciscans, all transplants from different parts of the world. And none of them had a job on arrival to the big, bad city. Most were sleeping on their sister's friend's neighbor's couch, or some such place. I didn't ask them, but I'll wager at least one of them has had their bike seat stolen.

Come check me at the chicken shack! Limited time only... maybe.

love,
cd

The Mission District

So we're kind of cruising along, me and America. Everyone's out of work, everyone's living in their parents' bedrooms, everyone's going to happy hour and skipping Friday night. No idea when this whole 'recession' thing is going to end. Peter Donohue, economist extraordinaire, tells me it's getting worse before it gets any better. Things are a little... up in the air, you might say.

Erik and I spent today with Caleb, his eight-year old be-mohawked cousin, cruising the Mission District 'cuz we had nothin' better goin' on. So for those of you that don't live in San Francisco (I know you're out there), the Mission is where you want to be. And what I mean to say by that is, it's where Caitlin wants to be.

The neighborhood was first settled by Whitey back in 1776, when the Spainards came to town(they built San Francisco de Assi, after which the neighborhood was named). It morphed into a blue collar community with the gradual addition of the German and Irish who Gold Rushed over from the motherlands. It even benifited from Central Americans workers, who moved in after finishing out their terms with Californian companies building the Panama Canal down south. The 'hood has always had a card up it's sleeve because when the rest of the city is lost in fog, it will sometimes poke it's head through into a sunny spot.

Today, the Mission rocks. By the 1950's, Chicanos and other Latinos had become the area's predominant ethnic group, blessing us with a taqueria on every corner and organic mangos four for a buck up in the grocery stores, even the year of our lord 2009. And other, Caitlin-friendly species have become endemic as well, such as the urban hipster. You wouldn't believe the bike shops down here- oh, the colored frames, oh, the wheel walls.

I actually feel compelled to give you my top 5 Mission District hit parade.

1. Paxton Gate, 824 Valencia Street
a taxidermy/florist shop brought to you by the most florid, twisted, pretty fever dreams. Sample goods include a stuffed cat wearing a prom dress and caniverous plants, both ready to be taken home and become your best friend! They just opened up a kid's store down the block, heady.

2. 826 Valencia Street, 826 Valencia Street
author Dave Eggers (he of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the best titled book ever), has created this string of kid's writing workshops across the country. They all have business fronts to raise money for the childrens. 826 Valencia is a pirate shop. If you go, you must dig on the small theater whose screen has been filled by a big old fish tank. Original stories about the tank's inhabitants have been framed on the wall and I like them.

3. Amnesia Bar, 853 Valencia Street
lots of obscure beers, free bluegrass Mondays. Stand near the front so you can see the barefoot, hillbilly dancers get down.

4. the Precita Eyes Mural Project, here there and everywhere
around the Mission, you'll find narrow alleyways covered street to street with bursts of hot art that make late night bar cruisers stop and stare. Precita Eyes gives kids and other Missionites the power to make their neighborhood colorful, and the resulting wall coverings give us all reason to be proud.

5. Mariachi's, 508 Valencia Street
this taqueria on Valencia Street beat out Thrift Town, the mega-used clothing store not only on the basis of it's delicious Mazatlan fish burrito but also because all their bottled beer is the same price. Bud Light? $2.99. Pacifico? $2.99. Anchor Steam? $2.99. Only in San Francisco...

So... how did I get on that track? Oh yeah, being broke and stuff. Well, if I had a job, I wouldn't have had the time to bomb around down here and formulate a top 5 hit parade for you all. I wouldn't be in this awesome coffee shop with Erik and Caleb drinking beers in the middle of the day and enjoying the freaks and hippies wandering by the plate glass windows. I guess the main thing is the uncertainty involved in not having a gig to fill your time. A grid on which to plan your day.

But seriously when did I, she of the ever diminishing bank balance, get uncomfortable with unemployment? Since when was the freedom to wander a bad thing?

Silver lining not so hard to find here,

Love,

Cait

Pretending to Drink Illegally

Bourbon and Branch
501 Jones St, San Francisco, CA

So speaking of poor property retention skills, I've gone and lost my driver's license. Shocking.

Last night we were out on the town with the Anderson/Shea clan and I had to pull some fast ones not to slow up the show. You know, bat the eyelashes, talk real fast and swish through the bar door before the bouncer knows what hit him. Bonus points if I mention I'm from Oregon!

In light of my situation's illegalities, I suppose it was only right that we wound up at a speakeasy. Back in the 1920's, Prohibition San Francisco was a den of inequity, and one of the old haunts where the Bay came to play has been converted back to it's roots, into a swish downtown night spot on the corner of Jones and O'Farrell named Bourbon & Branch. "Speak-easy," for those of you keeping track, was bartenders' admonition to indiscreet boozers. Keep it under your hat bro, on the down low.

Us being new to town, we thought we were slick for finding out about the place. There was a odd swarm of police at the Jones Street entrance when we rocked up, but we were quietly informed that "the Library" was at the back.

We dropped the secret password (shhhh, it's "books") and stepped out into the coolest room ever. Bourbon and Branch looks like how I envision my life to be when I'm buying vintage clothes. There's red velvet patterned wallpaper, the ceilings are shiny stamped metal, all the bartenders (men) are wearing bowler hats and shaking drinks into highball glasses. The Library (which is just one of the bar's rooms, the most "selective" I guess) walls are lined with bookshelves that every once in awhile will swing open and become doors to other rooms, which have secret doors to other rooms themselves, each lovingly attended by an appropriately retro employee.

Cocktails were of the old-fashioned persuasion, gimlets and ginger beer. Looking lovely but at $11, you know I didn't try a single one, current financial situations being a bitch to launch a food and drink writing career on. But it's all good, because I had my first Anchor Steams since coming back to the Bay ($5). Also joining us was Delirium Tremens, a Belgium beer which is my all time favorite based purely on it's name and label ($10):

Pink elephants! Strutting crocs! Only in Ghent...

B & B rocks, in a totally hidden, underground way. Kind of. It's hard to suspend your belief in the conceit after viewing the bar's website, where the "secret" password is prominently displayed alongside hokey 'House Rules.' Aw, applesauce!

But gimmick though it may be, it's a gimmick done well. The Library was packed, but a cute redheaded bar runner took pity on our boothless state and escorted us through some secret passages to another, nearly empty room where we chilled on red velvet love seats and spied on Jones Street degenerates and millionaires and millionaire degenerates through peepholes in the thick wooden doors. The music is Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald style jams of the highest order and at a certain point when we were sitting there, Andrew pulled up suddenly on the latch of a hidden trap door that had probably been there since the heydays of our grandparents.

I'll be back. Next time I'm wearing a dress. And bringing my date a fedora. And maybe eleven dollars.

No Jive,

Caitlin

San Francisco

"Do you know San Francisco?" The crackhead had trapped Erik and I in our MUNI seats, forced by politeness and morbid curiousity to listen to a twenty minute monologue surrounding the topics of cocaine, adultery and how awful he found the music of Johnny Cash.

I'd say the answer is up for debate. Do I know San Francisco?

Well, I know a lot about Jefferson Elementary School in the Sunset neighborhood where I spent my days of innocence and kickball. I know a bunch about the playgrounds in Golden Gate Park and the famous wooden bridge at the Japanese Tea Gardens, it's arch so steep that steps and handholds are built into it so accident-prone tourists and small children don't tumble into the stream below. I know what it's like at Ocean Beach when it's foggy and cold (which is to say, always), but you want to feel the waves so bad you splash into them anyways, winter coat and parents' yelps and all.

the Sunset, at Sunset. You didn't really want to see what it

looks like, did you?

I know about the Cliff House and how it used to have the penny arcade where frightening mechanical gypsies will tell your fortune for a coin. I know about Louie's, the diner overlooking the Sutro Baths that has the best minestrone soup this side of anywhere. I know about which bookstores have sufficient kid's sections and I know about the Chinese New Year's parade and I know about dim sum and Ethiopian food and baklava.

People ask me where I'm from, and I guess this is one of the possible answers, I mean it's where I spent my childhood. But what about where I was born? (Austin) What about where I came of age? (holla, City of Roses!) It's a tough call.

Yesterday I was walking down Van Ness, just out of a successful meet and greet with some people in the know and I felt city and it felt good to be on my way to coffee shop on Polk Street and then off to North Beach for happy hour with friends. Like, now I'm getting somewhere. And I know this.

But I don't know some things and they're kind of a big deal. I don't know the cheapest bars. I don't know the good yoga studios. I don't know the bus routes. I don't know how to find a job. I don't know who's looking for a room mate. I have no idea how I'm gonna pay rent in this city, one of the most expensive places to live in the world. And nope, not a clue on how I'm gonna get my bike up all these friggin' hills.

So I didn't really know how to answer our fine, stimulated friend. Do I know San Francisco... like, have we met or are we intimate? I opened my mouth to start prattling on in navel-gazey kind of way.

Gotta be quick on the uptake with these guys.

"I mean, like, you know Pill Corner? Down by the Civic Center. Where you can buy all them pills. Man, they be getting shot out there, man! Man, the otherdayIwasoverthereandtherewasthisonedude..."

The show went on. And we got to see his prison tattoos, super sick.

So do I know San Francisco? Can I get back to you on that one? I'll have in answer for you in a couple months.

Respectfully Yours,

Ms. Caitlin Byrd Donohue (Big Shot of Tomorrow)

Oregon

And so it goes. A mad dash (or so it felt) through that Oregon, over and done. Certainly, it was not without it's memories. Surprising no one, I've lost my camera again, so the photos that follow are all borrowed shots and throwbacks. Highlights of the life in the green:

1. My 'welcome home' backyard barbeque- a week before I left again. A gentle outside, fed drunkeness with friends that begin to turn into family.

Similar happenings in 2007. Meghann Miller: she's got hot gams and the cutest blog ever

2. Monday night in Colonel Summers Park on 20th and Belmont drinking those new Session Blacks (watch out for them- and I mean that in every sense of the world) on short grass with Sunny and my lovely bearded boy. It was near enough to overwhelm a girl with the nouveau-Portland of it all. Phalanxs of double-decker art bikes, ironic grandma/hillbilly outfits and pet ferrets- a true hipster parade. Where do these people come from? (Answer: Iowa. And Beaverton.)

3. A rapturous, bittersweet road trip with Erik bound in a circuitous route to Cali, with stops at strange metal sculpture shops in McKenzie and at Sahalie Falls in the Willamette National Forest. If the United States has one thing to be bullishly, opaquely proud of, it can be it's national park system. Not only were we the first to designate national parks, with the incorporation of Yellowstone Park in 1872, but in no other country in the world can senior citizens pull their trailer into a parking lot right off the highway and stroll 100 meters to this. Bravo, leaders of the free world:

Clearly, I did not take this picture. But I'm thankful to those who don't have the same issue with property retention. Thanks, Michael Hatten!

4. We made another stop off in the crunchy enclave of Eugene, for my first "peer group" wedding. If it had to be somebody joining that crazy institution called marriage, at least it was Dain and Wakan. They rock. Since we are big on the solemnities of the ritual of love, we bought Mr. and Mrs. Alferes a race car pinata from Woodburn and filled it with plastic dollar store swag, Mexican candies, peanuts and "nips." Felicidades, D and W. Your party actually left me less terrified of matrimony. And I dug the poi dancer that had his "fire stick" on a yo-yo. Eugene, Oregon: if you are going to hippie, hippie here.

Wakan had to grab a Tanqueray nip from a youngster shortly after we bashed her race car to festive, boozey bits

5. Rounding out the grown up panorama was a stop off in Bend to see Gena's new(ly purchased!) home. My little homeowner has set herself up grand in the land of dramatic mountains and lazy day tubing. The house is fab, but her primary accomplishment is the purchase of a fat orange cat with one eye. His name is Captain Uno. After she reads this she will send me a picture of him, preferably with his bowtie on.

Arrrrr! Thanks, Gen. You are a prize peach.

Oregon. The Beaver State. Stumptown, Tracktown, Nutrias, Craft Beers, Big Trees, Bigger Ideas. Hicks, Hippies and Hipsters. Your daughter will be back someday soon. Save some rain for me.

Flopping about in wipeout waves of adoration,
Caitlin

Dave Chapelle Comes to Portland

Portland, Dave Chappelle and Twitter. What do the three have in common? Well besides being cornerstone "Things White People Like," they are also how I spent my Tuesday night.

I should clarify that I am not yet cool enough to Twitter. The texts started hitting my backyard barbeque around nine, their pattern of arrival arranging my friends and I along a hipness ranking system. (Katelyn got two, and got hers first, for those of you who are keeping score) Midnight free show? Sick. Pioneer Square, Portland's living room? Nice. Dave Chappelle? I'm listening...

So like all good scenesters, we go, and I'm not shocked to find the Square packed to the gills in skaters, stoners and the rest of Portland's wacky twenty-something rainbow. There's people sitting on top of Starbucks, wedged up in high places. But there's no Dave Chappelle. There's also no sound system set up. Curious...

He turns up an hour late and we're stoked. But for a rabid audience of about 3,000, this



is what we had to hear him through. An adorable little amp on it's lonesome.

So what I ended up hearing, on his occasional forays to my side of the stage, was this:

"...the police want us to disperse..."

"...I thought I'd come through Portland..."

"...just want to make sure everyone is safe. Get home SAFE..."

I laughed like a hyena at every line. White people love Dave Chappelle.

Eventually three brave, pasty souls started stripping on the roof of the Starbucks. It was the entertainment highlight of the night. Even Dave was staring. It was something the entire crowd could share in:



For the record, the motives behind the "event" were cool. I guess Dave just posted up in front of Chipotle and 24 Fitness (corporate much, Dave?) and started telling randoms to come watch him tell jokes at Pioneer Square at midnight. He was totally event permitless and was shocked at the response, which indicates to me that he's been living under a rock for the past ten years.

Cause let's face it Dave. White people love you. And Twitter. Let us celebrate the age of "social media networking," shall we?

Celebrating you and yours,
CD

The 'I'm Not Posting' Post

This is a travel blog, I repeat to myself as I morosely stare at Pura Caitlin's stagnant screen. No one wants to hear about your naval gazing. Unless you're doing it in a rainforest with your life's possessions strapped to your back. Running from mosquitoes the size of pterodactyls. Or malicious Mayan spirits.



But what I have been doing is stridently awesome, if not as blog-friendly as the gypsy life. Namely, enjoying the summer in the company of those I love the most. Gena, that enterprising little devil with whom I've been besties since Sellwood Middle, '95, even initiated a little cross-blog documentation:



http://www.hungoverportland.com/2009/07/reader-submission-from-our-holiday-weekend.html



The digital universe has confirmed my existence! I drink sugary alcoholic beverages at one in the morning on holidays!



Oh, and you know what's cool? Knit graffiti. Renegade crocheting.




Dang P-Town, I think I love you...



Kissing you all over your Benson Bubbler,

C. Donohue

Home

That title should be followed up by one thousand exclamation marks because Portland, Oregon... oh Portland, Oregon. There is nothing like home, which you forget mightily when you are touring the globe because everywhere seems incredible, each new place an adventure mountain. But when you get home, I'm talking about home home, where every street is tagged with a memory and you run into your people at every gallery show, boat dock and hot dog stand- man, it doesn't get any better.


So I'm talking about Portland, just like the New York Times likes to do.

We took Sean's boat on a spin down the Willamette River yesterday, the strip of blue in the middle of my fair city. We ducked under the (still standing!) Sellwood Bridge and the Ross Island Bridge and just when we hit the Burnside Bridge we caught the strums of the Waterfront Blues Festival, the biggest one of it's ilk west of the Mississippi, so we anchored in with the rest of the lucky waterbound and hung out. Sunscreen, beers, heckling of the other boats... becoming one with the panorama.

Portland is the hippest city ever, ya dig? Like, we're reinventing the cool kid wheel out here. I like how the scenesters here are scruffybeautiful, like really pretty 1950's style dresses you dig out of the Bins (oh, you don't know the bins? You haven't truly lived til you've been up to your elbows in unwashed piles of societal cast offs in the Goodwill donation center. You pay for your stuff by the pound, people! And there I go talking about the bins again...).


I croozed First Thursday last night, yuppie downtown's excuse to get arty with it on a monthly basis. Me and a couple of dear friends walked through a parking garage to get to a sweaty staircase that took us to a sweatier artist's co-op on the top floor of the Everyday Music building on West Burnside. Talked to a "sweet and salty art folk" lady guitarist (holler Mindy! hope you're grooving on the blog), caught some coulda-been-colder drinks and prostrated ourselves on the hardwood floor. And you know, we're laughing...

And sweating like hell (humidity not being all that common in the land of the Perfect Summer) and rolling around on the wood being poor-as-hell rockstars. And I realized I have friends who know me and belong to me and that I'm not getting rid of, no matter how many times I take out that passport.

Which rocks,

Peace and Love,

CD

Bethesda, Maryland

It feels good to be back. In the States, that is. Hung in San Fran for a few days, but was way too excited with flush toilets and feather mattresses to blog to you right away. And in short order, I was scooped up by Peter Donohue himself to go on a truly luxurious East Coast foray to visit Grandma and Aunt Sara.

We flew Virgin Airlines cross country, in the first class cabin. The sensuous pleasure of this experience is beyond my powers of articulation. Let it be known that there were free Bloody Mary’s consumed and extreme levels of reclination.

I woke up in my own hotel room in Bethesda, the embodiment of “New Urban,” a place where corporate America can walk from office to lunch hour jewelry shopping and after-work drinks. All the architecture is post 9/11- downtown is a little like a mall turned inside out. On my rambles through this be-suited, tastefully highlighted reimagination of a city, I get asked a lot if I’m on my way to the beach. Barely free of the load of my backpack, I have little in the way of “polished outfits.” I feel clumsily subversive.

Maryland, or at least the Maryland immediately adjacent to our nation’s capital, is a upper class suburban sprawl of the highest order. Towns like Bethesda run into Chevy Chase runs into Rockville runs into inappropriately clogged highways and monolithically remote office parks. We drive from Grandma’s senior home, where we witness odd series of conversational fragments between stroke victims to my Aunt Sara’s lovely three story house, where my seven year old triplet cousins rule the roost with their Bermese mountain dog. Kisses are exchanged in on intergenerational cheeks and there is much catching up to be done.

Every once in awhile I sneak out to hang with my peer group- Jess and Jay, dear friends from the college years that are making a go of it in Washington, DC proper. Jay works for Bill Clinton and Jess is a defense contractor. They both live in wonderful apartments, easily affording tickets to baseball games and rounds at the bar. I am a hobo. We booze heavily and reflect wisely on the different paths that life can take you. They pay, mostly, for the drinks. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them.

I’m back in the country, sure, but there’s still plenty of journey to be had. Planning on continuing ‘Pura Caitlin’ until that settles down a little so no worries, my pet, because at least for the next few weeks I am

Yours!

CD

Cancun

Cancun, Burning Man called and it wants it´s noise pollution back. Man, you should really let people know when they check into your overpriced hostel that their kickin´ air conditioning system will be augmented by a non-stop stream of ¨DOOF DOOF DOOF¨ into the wee and then the not-so wee hours of the morn.

But that´s neither here nor there.

So the last stop of the trip! I cannot believe that this is where seven months of mayhem has brought us... Cancun, the Señor Frogged, high-risen, underaged pina colada center ring of the ugly tourist universe. I suppose it serves as a kind of decompression chamber for us on our re-entry into the States, although this is nothing like any America I´d want to live in.

But I can´t say we haven´t had a blast. The last week has seen some serious budgetary concerns on the part of Team Erik and Caitlin- some haphazard math left us with about 189 pesos per day between the two of us. A little disconcerting when your tent spot alone runs you 125. But we lived lightly, discovered the utility of red dresses and blonde hair when hitch hiking the Yucatan, sold our loyal tent to an interested Mexico Cityite, and came up on a few extra bucks for celebration on our last night in Latin America, hell, even enough for the bus ride to the airport.

Cancun gets a whole lot more fun with a six-pack of Sol. My only regret is missing the Lucha Libre fight that went down across the street from our hostel. Big, burly men grappling in superhero masks? Si hombre, los mejicanos son locos.

Mark my words, I´ll be back in Mexico before long. I´ve fallen in love with Oaxacan cheese and the phrase puta madre, yelled at a shrill pitch and high volume.

Sigh. But onward and upward! Thus concludes my last missive from abroad.

Over and out,
La Catalina

Fish Tacos in Paradise

The laguna our buddy Pete took us to on our epic Yucatan road trip. Glory be...

Last camp of the trip. Please note our cinderblock table and improvised tree-shelf in the upper- right hand corner.

He´s a man of many talents...

If you´re going to quit eating all animals for a few months, a Mexican fish taco is a great way to break the fast. Eat them at your campsite´s thatched hut beach joint, where the staff is always sleeping and everything, but everything comes with a lime. Delicious little cubes of fried fish and corn tortilla and salsa and FOUR alternative condiments on the table to speed your way... now this, this is living. Thank you Tulum, your grub is awesome.

I wish I could say the same about the Yucatan Peninsula in general.

This being the bell lap of the Latin American adventure, I am more broke with more miles between me and gainful employment than ere before in the life of Caitlin. We had carefully crafted a budget a few weeks ago that would get us to that June 19th flight outta Cancun without resorting to illegal vending or straying too far south of that line between backpacker and hobo.

And then we got out here, to the ¨Maya Riviera.¨ And we realized our backpacking trip had ended earlier than we anticipated. Cuz there´s no ¨budget travel¨ here.

An old man who called himself ¨Tasso Picasso¨ and sold his dubious oil pastel portraits of jungle lesbians on the beach told me the saga of Tulum. How once, long, long ago, hippies ruled this land and there was free camping on the beach and ¨lots of grass and naked girls.¨ Oh, the glory. And then the landowners got wise to the scene, and realized that while hippies had very little disposable income, yuppies had bunches. So they razed the camp grounds, put in concrete cabanas at prices the poi set could not afford and generally deprioritized public transportation.

And Tulum is still considered ¨earthy¨ by Yucatan Peninsula standards. Venture north and you hit Playa del Carmen, where Lacoste stores and your overweight uncle from upstate New York have taken the place of taquerias and fishermen. The beach is parceled out into ownerships by massive, all inclusive resorts who seem to be in a competition for who can build the most monolithic security gate. Venture further north and you hit Cancun. ´Nuff said. ¿Donde estas, Mexico? Sooo a bit of an odd place to spend the last weeks of a trip characterized for the most part by places where the McDonalds´arches don´t shine.

But don´t feel too bad for me. We went swimming in one of the cenotes that dot the Peninsula other day, the natural sinkholes that one person told me were the result of a meteroid impact on the area. We´ve managed to snag a pay-to-camp spot under some mangrove trees a few meters from the beach, where on most days the most taxing activity is stringing my hammock between the right palm trees. Yesterday we went snorkeling off a reef in our front yard and I communed with purple, orange and green parrot fish.

Oh, and did I mention that the real Tulum is right down the beach? The Mayan city, built from white stone on a sea cliff where craaaazy happenings are rumored to go down at night? Did I mention we snuck in for a midnight commune with the cosmological ancestors themselves? How did it go you ask?

I mean, I have to save some stories to tell for when I get back, guys. Buy me a beer in a few weeks and I´ll weave you the tale. ´Cause God knows I won´t be able to afford my own.

Love,
CD

Palenque

Chiapas, once you descend from the mountains where San Cristobol sits in it´s chic urbane sachet, is hot. Very hot. And humidity that likes to melt ladies of Celtic-Euro ancestry like yours truly.

But it´s a pretty, if moist, descent into the jungles. Your colectivo passes you through the heart of tierra zapatista, past the community-run schools and the caracoles, the seats of pueblo power that strike fear into the heart of Mexico City bureaucrats. There are homemade signs that tell you not to litter and federal government erected signs that tell you not to make your own speed bumps (why haven´t US neighborhood activists just done and made their own speed bumps?). We changed vans in Ocosingo, a tiny town where bloody shoot-outs went down between campesinos and their government´s army, all over the right to use the land their ancestors are from as they saw fit. From the road, I saw nary a plaque in commemeration. I was silently impressed.

And then we swam through the heat waves to the ruins of the Mayan city Palenque.

Like the lands of the Zapatista struggle, I was struck surprised by how much awe Palenque generated in me. It was like standing and looking at the Parthenon, so epic were it´s proportions. There are some sites that strike a chord somewhere deep in your soul, like touching on a treasured human archetype. This is one.

I liked the Temples of the Cross the best, which were constructed by some long-ago Mayan king each to honor a god, the glyphs on the walls designed to bridge god-time and Maya-time, looping them into the same continuum with the temple at it´s focus. I stared at one elaborate stelae for a long time in the blessed shade of one of the smaller temples and suddenly it´s meaning of sun worship became clear to me, sans explicatory map, sans bi-lingual sign. These Mayans, man, masters of disseminating information.

Plus, it´s deep in the jungle. The buggy, sweaty jungle. We emerged after our day at the ruins exhausted and gratified and ready for our jungle cabana.

Oh yeah, those. So Mom says I think everywhere I stay is ´super great!´ and I guess up to this point that´s been true but El Panchan, the hostel-jungle path-campout where the backpackers hang, was by far the most depressing place I´ve hung my hat in awhile. There was this elaborate hippie camp, Rakshita, that we´d heard about all the way down in Guatemala and when we got there it was deserted and run down and under construction and rainy and unloved... a jungle palace gone from it´s glory days.

I think I see a theme here. On to the Yucatan!

Love,

CD

San Cristobol de las Casas

Hey, do you like lychees? They are spikey, but you don´t eat the spikes, and inside you find a taut little white fruit that measures up within an inch of it´s spectacular outwardly appearance.

Also, we are in San Cristobol de las Casas. It was here that the Zapatistas, the Chiapan-Mexican rebel group (popularily referred to as the ¨first postmodern revolutionaries¨) took over from the national government in the mid 1990´s. They took over the city in the name of democracy at all levels of Mexican government, land rights for the indigenous and social justice in general. They are awesome. Nowadays they sell little black-masked figurines affixed to earring posts and on silk-screened T- shirts, which I find infinitely preferable to the ¨I Heart Tacos¨ t-shirts and it´s souvenier market ilk.

I could live here.

Love,

Sub-Commandante Donohue

Semuc Champeyons

"Semuc! Semuc!" Not knowing how the hell we'd make it out to the Semuc Champey National Park, Erik, Carrie, Chris and I had wandered out to the driveway of our hostal looking for... something. And something we most certainly found. A camioneta, the small trucks that serve as mass transit for Guatemala's rural (are there any other kind?) regions, was revving it's motor right out in front. Like it was looking for us, like it was destined to take us to the park and it's famous crystal waters. We made ourselves comfortable on the bags of concrete in the truckbed and settled in for the "difficult" ten kilometer dirt roads out to paradise.

About five minutes later we rolled into "downtown" Lanquin during prime time on market day. We were joined by about twenty five men, women and children in our once roomy pickup bed. One child wrapped his arms around Chris' leg for stability against the more unrestful jars on the road and a tired man rested his cheek on the hand I was using to desperately grip the guardrail, possibly to feel closer in spirit to his fellow traveler that day. There is a different notion of "personal space" here, inasmuch as it relates to the daily commute.

But the vehicular sardine can did the job and got us to where we needed to go.

Now being from Oregon, and the rest of my gang from simarily blessed geographic regions, we were used to messing around with rivers and pools. But a collective release of breath we didn't know we held swept the group when we emerged from the jungle for our first glimpse of Semuc. It was like a vast, terraced network of small Carribean seas, so blue were it's happy waters. We stripped and joined the heady blue, slipping down chutes of water or jumping off limestone ledges into yet another level of water and green grasses and hidden caves.

I have absolutly no confirmation on this, but somewhere in the thousands of conversations that seep into your head backpacking I've heard that "Semuc Champey" is Q’eqchi’, the local Mayan dialect, for "land of the hidden waters." Which is wierd because I just told you all about waters and didn't really make them seem hard to find, because they weren't and those waters are hardly hidden. But after further exploration of the new coolest locale I've ever been turned up confirmation of the Mayas nomenclature. The whole chain of pools, it turns out, is one massive land bridge. We followed them up to their far end and found, to our surprise that a beast of a river beat it's way into the limestone underneath the pools, a massive churning network of semi underwater caves. We sat at the mouth of these and considered the import of hydro power in our modern age. Water, man.

And then we tramped up the sweatiest thirty minutes of my life to the mirador and gorged ourselves on a view that encapsulated it all into one cohesive picture, river and tree and pool and cave. And then we played with a hot pink and black butterfly that wanted nothing more than a friendship with an option to lead to more with my camera. And then we swam some more and I kept my eyes open underwater (a new, dearly beloved skill). And my giardia (I have giardia) barely bothered me because how can amoebas compete with a whole ecosystem for your attention?

They can't. And neither can much anything else, apparently, because we missed the last public camioneta and had to pay an exorbitant amount that very nearly approached the price of a two block taxi ride Stateside for somebody's buddy to drive out from Lanquin and save the silly, naturedrunk gringos. And we drank dark Moza, my Latin American pick for brew, in the dusk of a hostal bar with little electricity and zero phone service to it's name and basically felt very good about the whole situation indeed.

Guatemala rocks. I've bought a palm frond fan we use for our nightly bonfires for about 13 cents, two bowls made out of large seeds and a woven plant fiber bag that a couple of fetchingly old Mayan woman convinced Erik would be perfect for his market days. Thus outfitted, we can conquer the world.

Can't wait,
CD

Action! Adventure!

All too often on this trip I feel like I haven´t been ¨extreme¨ enough. When is my six day jungle trek? It´s been nearly seven months of backpacking (!), whaddayamean I haven´t rappeled down a waterfall yet or gotten a tattoo? I know I shouldn´t get down on myself but hell, you see these people´s Facebook albums... you start to question one´s commitment to ADVENTURE.

Well I got those nagging doubts covered this week. Cause I´ve been tectonically active, you could say.

Guatemala wins ´Country Most Likely To Explode´ in my book. In a country the size of Tennessee, there are no less than four active volcanos. Most entries on pueblos in my guide book include the phrase ¨due to the recent eruption¨ something something.


So we climbed up one. Check it, here´s the view at the top. Volcan Pacaya, 2,000 plus meters high and covered with live lava flows and a bunch of gringos toasting marshmallows on them. Adorable.

Right after the hike, on our shuttle to Lanquin, an English girl told us about her friends that had done the hike a few weeks prior and found themselves running back down the trail in flight from an actual eruption. File this one under excursions that US travel agencies would find disagreeably litigational.

And now we´re in Lanquin, an agricultural, hilly paradise in the country´s center. And we hung with bats in a bat cave! Las Grutas Lanquin, where there are rocks that look like curtains and mushrooms and every night when the last cadre of spelunkers leave, they turn out the lights and thousands of winged mammals flap out over your head like some silly girl´s nightmare. It was wicked.

So as you can see, I am totally extreme and there is no worry because here in Central America, the adventure train just don´t stop. Even in my stomach! See, Erik and I, having been on the road like I said earlier for nearly seven months now, were of the opinion that we had stomachs of steel. No water too contaminated, no street food too filthy. Well weren´t we in for a surprise when one evening shortly after our arrival in Guatemala we met Montezuma and his fabled revenge. My parasites have been with me for one heartwarming week now and are beginning to give me burps that taste like sulfer. Truly, these guys are my good friends now. We shared the volcano hike, we spelunked together... buena honda.

Here´s the site of my convalescence, the young adult summer camp that is El Retiro Hostal in Lanquin.
It could be worse...

Con amor,
CD (and the parasites)

Photos by Mr. Erik Anderson...