Random Descriptions of My Travel Adventures

Last week I went out to San Juan Copala, a small (very small) town in the Triqui region of western Oaxaca. I caught a suburban out of Oaxaca around 6am on Wednesday morning and took a 3 hour ride (mas o menos) to Tlaxiaco a town in the Mixteca region of western Oaxaca. Once there I met a fellow researcher and after a quick breakfast in the market we hopped on another van for a ride on some very twisty mountain roads. After about an hour we jumped off of this van and hopped in a small truck for the ride to San Juan Copala. On the drive there we passed this sign advertising their annual fiesta. After some confusion about where we might stay that night we finally dropped our things off in the municipal president's office and began wandering around the small town. San Juan Copala recently declared itself an autonomous municipality (they are still figuring out what this means to them apparently) and since this declaration, according to the researcher I was with, the violence in the t...

A 6.4 magnitude hit Oaxaca this morning! Of course I was still in Colombia so I didn't feel anything. To those of you who emailed me asking if I was okay, thanks, I'm okay. To those of you who didn't, where is the love!?! Click here for the USGS information about the quake.

I wandered into the Hotel Sofitel Cartagena Santa Clara for a beer today. Lonely Planet recommended at least stopping in at the bar for a drink if you can't afford the outrageous room price so I followed their advice! This hotel is absolutely amazing and also incredibly expensive. The picture below is one of the hallways (probably a better word for that) surrounding the central courtyard. Apparently the Lonely Planet author and I are not the only ones impressed with the hotel, the oil and gas industry also seems to like it, see the photo below. Speaking of money, power and influence, I bumped into a former Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania in the Hotel Caribe bar the night before my conference began. I was sitting having a beer with a fellow conference attendee when he approached us and began talking. He was in Cartagena for a conference, I can't remember if it was the oil and gas event but I think it was, as a consultant. This slime ball asked my friend and I if we wer...

Happened upon an amazing dance performance in one of the plazas here. I tried to upload a short video but it is taking too long with my slow hotel internet connection so I will attempt that later. This dancing was amazing and clearly influences the " crunk " dancing style among African Americans. The music makers... In the picture below they have incorporated a fishermen's theme to the story. Fast, physical and furious, I felt like I was getting a workout just watching.

Below are some pictures I took today of the Centro Historico in Cartagena de Indias. The old city is really beautiful and surrounded by a wall built by the colonizers. This part of the city contains some of the best preserved examples of colonial architecture I have encountered. As always click on the photos to see them full size. Some street scenes.. When I told people I was coming to Cartagena I think almost everyone said something about the movie Romancing the Stone as their only reference point for the city. Well apparently some savvy business owner realized that gringos might have this association and decided to capitalize on it...very cleverly I might add. A little car (don't know what it is called), very similar to the one in the movie Romancing the Stone. More street scenes... Some Colombianos eating street food. A picture of the wall surrounding the historic center. Wherever there are portals in the wall, those openings that were perhaps used for cannons (?), people ar...

I have been in Cartagena, Colombia (with an O not a U by the way) since last Tuesday. I flew here to participate in a mid-year conference for those recipients of the Inter-American Foundation Fellowship. While I have had some good times here and bad times (conference and hotel issues, long story)the scenery is amazing and the beer is cold. Oh yeah, there is a lot of rich culture too, and cold beer. On Friday afternoon the conference attendees were given a tour of some of the projects the Inter American Foundation services here and the following pictures represent my only pictures of non-touristy places in Cartagena. The racial mixture here is interesting as this was a major destination for the slave trade. Needless to say the most impoverished here usually have the darkest skin. The coast is also much poorer than Bogota for example where the population is more European and mestizo. We went to two local markets that the Inter-American Foundation along with their local partners helped t...