The day we got mugged...

Since leaving France in 2011, we've traveled and worked and traveled again for a total of three years. We crossed four continents and visited 15 countries. And in that whole time we never had any trouble until the last month of our trip and in the last country, when we were mugged ! Not with guns or machetes and whatnot, but we were threatened and robbed. Can you believe that ? We were in Malaysia, visiting the botanical garden on Penang island, the last place you'd expect to encounter ruffians.

You looking' at me ?

There we were, sitting on the curb, eating some fruit, when some thugs started walking in our direction, throwing us dirty looks. We were told they were called Macaques. Mac, eh ? Sounds Irish. And they could barely walk upright. Yup, a bunch of Irish alright, drunk in the morning, and heading home. Then they started veering our way with menacing grins.

Staggering home on all fours.

Fast as lightning, this Mac-what'shisname rushed Pauline in a threatening manner. Pauline knew better than to mess with drunk Mac-whatevers in the morning. She dropped her bag and ran before they could take anything else. Luckily, they just got some mangoes, bananas, and apples.

That's what she said...

Sitting at a café in Northern Laos, I was reading my e-mail when the young Englishman next to me says without a trace of humor to his girlfriend, "I really need to get my hands on some Vietnamese dong." And all of a sudden, all of my friends from childhood to adulthood who still have this joke in their repertoire were there sitting with me, and we were laughing our asses off.

Dong is the currency of Vietnam

Priceless.

Magical Moment in Laos

Today, on our first day in Laos, we ate lunch at a brightly colored eatery that announced indelibly on a wooden sign that, yes, they had Nutella. We didn't want nutella at the moment, but it felt good to know that it was close at hand. The shop was called Magical Moments with Mr. Man. I saw no man there, just a few women of various ages. There was a half-nude boy, however, sleeping on the floor under a green lacey cover the same shape as the glass cover I used to protect sweaty cheese on hot days in Sweden. But this was Si Phan Don, Lao for "Four Thousand Islands", at the bottom of Laos, where the dolphin-filled Mekong pours into Cambodia.

We sat and looked around. Two cats with crooked tails ran past along the path. We later found out that almost all Indochinese cats have crooked tails, genetically produced. But at this moment, we were considering the cruelty of the sweet-natured Lao. "Do you think they slam their tails in special drawer ?" I asked. We glanced at the menu, usually a good source of laughs. Only some "sweat n sour" dishes stuck out, so Mr. Man clearly has better-than-average English. An ancient woman lay sprawled next to the half-nude boy. She was furiously rubbing something, presumably betel nut, across her reddened teeth and gums.

Finally, a younger woman took our order, and as we waited for our omelette and pumpkin curry soup to arrive, I had another look around. On the wall, there was an intriguing photo of an aging woman, perhaps the mother of the owner, or even the owner herself absent for the day. She had an expression that asked, "why are you doing this to me." Her hand stretched toward the camera lens, becoming about the size and shape of a dragon's claw. Squeezed between her forefinger and thumb was the largest grub I have ever seen, one that would make Pumba from the Lion King squeal with glee. The grub was 95% enormous abdomen, with a tiny head and beady glowing red eyes. I counted only four legs, two on each side, but I'm sure another two were hiding somewhere. "Why are you making do this ?" repeats grandma's sad eyes, as if the photographer just barked, " Eat it !".

What do you think that woman's doing? I ask to Pauline, who's still hypnotized by the photograph. "I don't know, maybe just grossing out tourists. But feeling guilty about it."

Crooked cats, sweat n sour, naked baby under green lace that suddenly throws off his cover and runs down the path, creepy photo on the wall featuring a grub, an old mouth stained with betel juice, and, when it finally came, great food : they all added up to this perfectly Lao moment that transformed the everyday into the dreamlike.

Flashback : The Magic Cave

There I was in Laos, a karstic country studded with breathtaking caves, hoping to visit some. I love caves. It's one of the things I search for on the internet when I know I'm going to see a new country, the others being Earth Sandwich-ableness, coordinates of gravity hills, and mountains and highpoints to climb.

With the exception of a few caves I visited with my brothers and dad back in Florida, this new-found love of caves started in France on a hitchhiking, hiking, and camping trip on the Mediterranean coast. That trip led us to the Magic Cave.

La Ciotat

One morning, a group of Montpellierans hitchhiked east to the town of La Ciotat, which in Provencal colorfully means "the city." It's known as the birthplace of petanque, a Southern French version of boules and bocci balls. "The city" also lies along the calanques, which are, superficially speaking, French fjords. Junko, my hitchhiking partner, and I caught a truck going all the way from Montpellier to La Ciotat, known in my hitchhiking world as a hole in one. In town, we and the other groups of hitchhikers couchsurfed, swam, and Tai-chi'ed with an older Danish-French couple living there. The following day we started hiking back west in the direction of Cassis and Marseille across the calanques. Upon leaving, Jorgen, the Danish half of the couple, mentioned that there may be a cave in the calanques where we could spend the night, but he wasn't sure exactly where it was. So our group sent Sofia, the circus student, to climb down the various cliffs looking for a cavern. By dusk, we were losing hope of finding the cave and started looking for camping spots. Within moments, we spied a narrow steep trail heading down the cliff toward the sea. So down we went, too. And there it was, an opaque entrance looking out onto the Med. Heck yeah !

On the cliffs looking down.

The cave consisted of one large rectangularish room with a long table and a chimney. We were not the first visitors. In the middle of our joy, our true situation dawned on us. This was one of our first hiking trips and one of the most hastily-planned : we had three or four small headlamps, a few matches, a bottle of wine and a bottle of water. I don't really remember if we had any food to speak of. And it was cold in the cave, nearly freezing. We played some card games by headlamplight, but we were all dreaming of a fire and some food.

Mouth of the cave.

That's when we heard a rustling. And a swishing. From outside. Then the rustling became a bustling, and the swishing a stirring. Then came the whispering. Oh shit, who are these guys ? We started to get worried. Then we saw lights flickering at the mouth of the cave, and then two young - obviously French - men burst into the cave, carrying...firewood and potatoes. Welcome to our dark abode !

Our bottle of wine disappeared before our visitors arrived, and while we were introducing ourselves, the collective mind of the Montpellierans was now dreaming and hoping that Dionysus might just drop in. We got the next best thing : more French people entered the cave carrying backpacks full of wine bottles. The fire raging, the potatoes steaming, the wine flowing, the cave party had begun. All we were missing was a bit of musi---and here come two more francais carrying guitars. Someone else must have been thinking of some pot because that showed up a few minutes later. Within an hour, our motley group of Canadians, a Moroccan, a Japanese, a Spaniard, a Swede, an American, and a howling dog went from hungry and bored to well-satiated and raucous. Thanks to the Magic Cave.

From then on, we sought out all the caves we could in southern France...and they were all mostly amazing, but not quite as magical as that first cave. Not sure why. Did I mention that we found a monkey's paw on the route to the magic cave ?

Slices of Cambodia

It's the end of April, and we'll be leaving Asia soon, so I figure it's a good idea to start writing about our early adventures and experiences and observations. Our first stop was in Cambodia, a diverse place with nice beaches and islands, the mega ruins of the fallen Angkor civilization, a long winding stretch of the Mekong River with jumping Irrawaddy dolphins, and, sadly,a tragic period of social upheaval and genocide.

1) In less than hour
We arrived in Phnom Penh in the late morning. After a very long New Year's Day that lasted more than 30 hours, we were famished. We took a tuk-tuk straight to the hostel. I have no idea about any of the meals I've eaten since then, but I am sure that for that brunch, I had a coriander pumpkin soup. It cost $2.50. And in within an hour of arrival, my meal surpassed anything that we ingested in South America. No disrespect to the good cooks (90% of the great dishes came from about five people) in South America and lots of culinary disrespect for everyone else, this soup was on another level.

2) Crossing Traffic
Phnom Penh seems like a big city at first glance for those unaccustomed to Asian mega-cities. In retrospect, the city's rather tame. But it was our first time in Southeast Asia, and the six lanes of cars and motos and bicycles whizzing around the roundabouts and down the streets were downright scary. After ten minutes waiting at the curb for an opening, we saw another more-experienced traveler reach the same curb as us. We waited ten seconds then waded out into the sea of traffic. Like a goddamn Moses, that sea went around him. He walked in a straight line, never altering his pace. So like the Jews, we followed Moses across the sea. Motos, cars, and bikes Bernoulli'ed around us, creating a small envelope, until we reached the opposite curb of safety. Then Moses turned left and left us.

3) Ewwwww ! How beautiful !
During the Khmer Rouge regime, more than 95% of the population were farmers. Today, that percentage is much smaller but still a majority. In many cultures, beauty is often defined as an opposing physical response to the masses : In the West, chubby was beautiful at a time when people were hungry; Today it's the opposite. In Cambodia, the "beautiful" people set themselves apart from the lowly farmers by bleaching their skin and, bizarrely, by growing some of their fingernails to appalling lengths. We were glad to learn that handshaking is not part of the culture, a short bow helps you to keep your distance from all of those Khmer Edward Scissorhands. Taking odd to new heights, these same beauties will allow, nay !, encourage their mole hairs to extend several inches from the point of origin (usually the face) as a sort of wispy, off-center, three-haired beard. Sexy.

4) Cure for Myopia
In our month in Cambodia, we saw no more than three people were eyeglasses, far fewer than anywhere else that I've visited in the world. Within a week or so of our trip, we made that eyewearlessness realization and immediately, we made another realization : almost every eyeglass-wearer was murdered during the Khmer Rouge's regime in the late 70's because glasses were a symbol of education and learning. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.


5) iMonk

Sa Rith

The town of Battambang is known for two things : French buildings (shutters everywhere) and the bamboo train (literally a bamboo raft, big enough for five people, laying on two train axles with a small motor). But one of the more memorable events was at a monastery, where we met Sa Rith, a Buddhist monk. One of the first questions he asked was, "Are you a student or a teacher ?" For me, it was seemingly easy to answer, but I detected a trick. I imagined that all monks carried a few thought-provoking questions written on index cards somewhere in a secret pocket in their robes, such as "What is the sound of one-hand clapping ?" and "Which is better : real heaven or pie heaven ?"

Sa Rith asked to take a photo with us, and we were astonished when he grabbed an iPad from his room. But it just didn't jibe with my vague notions of monkhood. Shaved head, dressed in robes, barefoot or sandaled, eat only food given freely, play Angry Birds....hmmm. We had learned earlier that monks (always male) can never touch a woman. Because they have cooties, of course. But they can Cut the Rope, no problem.

Tuk-tuk ride between Kampot and Kep

6) Pepperland
We spent one of our last, and certainly most absurd, evenings in Cambodia in Kep, a seaside town spread around a small peninsula. The region, near Vietnam, is famous for its peppercorns, red, green, black, and white. So it was while watching the sun set, that we were invited by five drunk men with an air of authority to come join them. Four of the five spoke no English. The fifth translated as best he could the commands of the others, "drink this Black panther beer" as one of the others poured glasses for us, "he's a general" pointing at the biggest drunk, and he mumbled something about them being "bodyguards of the prime minister".

The crab of Kep

The general gave us his take on the state of the world using his best Khmerglish while his companions each took turns to pee in the sea. "Russia !" he exclaimed. "No ! Syria ! No !" The general and wordsmith was sitting cross-legged and kept his hand flat in the air at the level of his knee. Then he raised his voice even further, "Cambodia ! Sabai, sabai !" as he raised his hand above his head. for the next 30 minutes we learned that China, Afghanistan, and Ukraine each deserved a resounding, "no !" But each time, Cambodia was "sabai, sabai !" with a hand high in the air.

Then the general wanted some photos with us. The general, political scientist, bodyguard to the prime minister, and drunk then wanted to get even closer with us : he started sniffing my hand and cupping Justin's butt during the photo shoot. Like Borat, though, he wouldn't touch the girls. Time to leave Pepperland.

January 2nd : Dear Diary

On New Year's Day, Pauline and I left South America after three years of backpacking, working, and backpacking some more. By the evening, we had left LAX, our first stopover, on our way to Asia, a continental first for Pauline, and my first time back since my ignominious crawl through Beijing's airport ten years earlier.

While not as exciting an entrance as my previous exit, our trip did have a short moment of interest in the middle. Right in the middle. Right around midnight, we crossed over that quiet, oft-forgotten, crooked little line called the International Date Line. And so, the 1st of January in a blink became the 3rd. The 2nd vanished, never to be reclaimed.

I was never really partial to the 2nd of January as a day. No holidays or birthdays come to mind. It's generally a lazy day falling between the holidays and the beginning of work or school. But like the newly robbed, blind, or amputated, you appreciate those things much more after they're taken from you. Granted, my yearning for the 2nd of January was never as strong nor as long-lasted as the limbless'. It lingered about a week into January and faded. Come on, who really cares about the 2nd of January, even if it is excised from your year by the cold and Pacific date line ?

Hey...! You ?

We're spoiled in English. Whether you are my friend or enemy, a man or a woman, young or old, you're always going to be, well, you to me.  Even if you are part of a group, you are still you, except in the South where you might be y'all, or in pirates' caves in Oregon, where you would be hey you guuuyyyssss. Grammatically, I don't even have to try, really. Subject or object, still you. Too easy.

But it wasn't always that way, you know. We, the English-speakers of the past (including William Shakespeare and Guy Fawkes, God and Charleton Heston), used to have thou and thee and ye and you, and some special pronouns for the nobility and royalty such as your grace, your highness, your majesty, or perhaps even your sumptuousness. It's this latter group of Early Modern English second person pronouns that I think of when hearing Spanish in South America

Iberian Spanish has just three you's, according to Edu, the Spanish guy sitting in front of me, in the objective form : tu, usted, and vosotros, which anyone who's studied the language can probably recall, vaguely. In Latin America, it's slightly different : tu, usted, and ustedes. And vos, which is like vosotros but for one person only. And su merced. That's right, they say your mercy. Or your grace. Su merced ! It's the year 2014, we've gone to the moon, eradicated smallpox, elected a black man president of America, decided that the year's best book title is "How to Poo on a Date", yet some sad saps in Boyaca or Bogota are still calling their "betters", your grace ! WTF ?

In the Colca with Macho and Stinky

In the last month of our big one-year South American journey that lasted three, we discovered one of the nicest little hiking spots : up and down Peru's Colca Canyon. It's erroneously labeled and marketed at the deepest canyon in the world. Even a Google search of "deepest canyon in the world" comes up with Colca Canyon as the top choice. While the real deepest canyons are all in the Himalayas, Colca's still pretty damn deep. And by the way, Colca and those Himalayan canyons are more than twice as deep as our beloved Grand Canyon.

Anyway, we set out in the wee hours one morning from beautiful Arequipa and arrived mid-morning at the edge of the canyon, where condors often surf the thermals. Without signs to guide us and with a crude hand-drawn map in hand, we set out for the canyon's lip, looking for the trail down. We immediately took the wrong path to an amazing viewpoint over a sheer cliff. Not that way.

A pair of black dogs found us at this point and led us away toward what turned out to be the real trail, where we found two Americans and a Czech. Thus the Fellowship of the Colca was formed. The dogs we named Whitey (he had dabs of white on his chest, paws, and tail) and Macho because we verified his sex first. The Americans farmers we named Anne and Caleb, the Czech microbiologist Katerina. And so down down we walked, seven hours that first day, until reaching Yahuar Lodge at the confluence of two rivers (and thus two canyons) and in between the geysers and hot springs. Pretty sweet.

From the bottom, we climbed deeper and upwards into the canyon on the second morning. On the way up, we discovered that Whitey and Macho could sense evil. During a snack break, an elderly indigenous woman weighing about 25 kilos hobbled with her cane toward us. Her eyes met the dogs'. She froze, the dogs snarled and had to be restrained. After she had passed and was a bit down the road, we released the dogs, and they proceeded immediately to attack that little old lady. That little old evil lady. And so it was, the dogs were as friendly as can be towards tourists, recognized by their large backpacks, pale skin, and abundance of teeth. And the dogs viciously attacked and tried to bite every Peruvian they could.

At the other edge of the canyon, we found some pretty impressive waterfalls, but nowhere to sleep for the night. And that whole village stunk like shit. Really. As our fellowship tossed around various theories why a tiny farming village on the far edge of the Colca Canyon would smell like toxic waste, fecal matter, and papaya, someone remarked that the stink was always strongest behind us, no matter which direction we were walking. Even the locals started holding their noses. Whitey, just moments before, had discovered a substance of mythical status among dogs : a mixed-up pile of rotting flesh and caca. And Whitey bathed in it. Within a few short minutes he was able to impregnate his new-found odor into the rocks, the walls, the doors, the clothes of the people. As far as we were concerned, Whitey died that very minute and was replaced by a much less likable dog named Stinky. We were exhausted from the morning's hike but hoping to put some distance between us and Stinky, so we made the decision to walk back down the canyon a bit and then hike another five hours to reach the nearest village.  

In the morning, Caleb, Anne, Pauline and the dogs were beat. They all decided to walk down to the Oasis for an easy last day. Katerina and I were feeling better and so walked up to another charming canyon village, then back down toward the Oasis. The Canyon is dry; it makes you parched and sweaty just looking at it. And from above, the Oasis looks as good as any mirage in any desert. So Katerina and I stumbled down the canyon to the bottom, crossed the bridge, where we saw some springs pouring out of the cliff face. The Oasis was a slice of Ireland in the Southern Peru desert, verdant and inviting. When we arrived, we saw bulging and shady palm trees, grass as soft as carpet with two dogs in a coma, and our friends swimming in a spring-filled pool. Oh yes, welcome to the Oasis.

We gave what food we could spare to those two blacks dogs, but they were really suffering. The hike up especially taxed Stinky, now slightly less stinky. And after an hour and a half of uphill-climbing, Stinky was nowhere to be seen. I waited for him for twenty minutes, calling his name. The other hikers who I met helped me in the search, "Stinky !, Stiinnnnkyyyyy !!!!" But still no Stinky. I left a bowl of water for him on the trail and hoped he could make it that far. The Fellowship with Macho regrouped on top and waited. Just when we were prepared to give up on him and leave, someone caught a whiff. Stiiinnkyyyy !!!

Autobus Olympics

Over the past four months, we've traveled from Peru to Uruguay and back, passing through Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Chile on the way. There are quite a few differences between these countries, but the differences become more pronounced when comparing the three above the belt (Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay) with those below (Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay). The latter would probably unfairly call it "civilization," thinking that genetics and history (they killed off all of their indigenous) have set them not only apart but above.

Whether it's related to genetics, the indigenous, or history, I don't know, but there is one domain in which I might agree with the Southerners : public transport. That is one part of Latin America I certainly won't miss. Getting on or off a bus is a competition of Olympic proportions from Paraguay all the way up to Venezuela. Elbows up, chin forward, eye on the door. No elderly man, pregnant woman, or crippled child will get in the way of a Latino's exit-from-bus victory. Someone must be keeping score and handing out award money or prizes or medals because those speedsters surely weren't rushing off to work.

Dolph, come back !

Most long-distance bus rides in South America have some kind of entertainment. Usually, it comes in the form of a dubbed Dolph Lundgren straight-to-video action flic. Considering the alternative, this is not a bad option. The alternative is Latin American music videos. Aaaaaahhhhh !

There are only two premises for Latin American songs : Love or broken hearts. That's it. The genre doesn't matter, salsa, merengue, cumbia, tango, vallenato, whatever, it doesn't matter.

The videos, by attempting originality, are all the same. Man is on a yacht with a half-naked woman on his shoulder, or man is next to a pool with half-naked woman, or man is riding a horse with a half-naked woman. The male singer - there is always a male singer - is pained because he's in love : the model on his yacht has just
bared her soul and most of her breasts. To demonstrate this, the videographer catches him and her in 14 different outfits, sometimes in color, sometimes black and white. Nauseating and mesmerizing at the same time.

But it does give you the opportunity to say something you never ever thought you'd say, "I hope this bus will be showing a Dolph Lundgren movie."

A Swede in Bolivia ? Oh la la...

French miners at Potosi

Most people, excepting some Bush-era Republicans, do actually like the French. Non, really, they adore the French. They may be reluctant to admit it, but they let it slip with every self-admiring use of rendez-vous, déjà vu, and oh la la. "Honey, there are some French doors on sale at IKEA this month." "Ooh la la." "Sweetie, where's the Pert Plus ? And what's this Garneer Fructis ?" "I switched brands. It's French - you should try it." "Ooh la la." and "Actually in some circles they refer to my syphilis as the 'French disease.'" "Ooh la la. I never realized it was so sexy. Voolay voo cooshay aveck moi say soi ?"

French hitchhikers near Sucre

By the way, the French actually write and pronounce that famous interjection "oh la la". The double-o vowel combo is considered uncouth and unsightly by the French and their language. Low-class words such as boob, booger, poop, ooze, and Oompa Loompa cause the French to wince.

French people making dinosaur tracks

Yes, we like the French, and we can't help it. Meeting a French person gives that same type of joy as seeing a toucan or a waterfall. " Ahhh, will you look at that ? A real French person." The people are ambassadors of their culture : the food, the style, the sexiness, the class, you know, that ol' Frenchiness. The French are a cultural Santa Claus for us. To the educational elite, they gave existentialism. To the humble poor, mayonnaise. They gave roulette to the hopeless gambler and romance to the hopeless romantic. Braille to the blind. Cinema for the sighted. Bras and bikinis for women. Etch a Sketch for kids. Loppers for the fellas.

Their history reads like the Game of Thrones. War, betrayal, check. Wedding massacres, double check. Beheadings, triple check. And those White Walkers in the North just seem like a particularly disgruntled and pasty group of Belgians. All they need now for their histories/stories to align is for a savior figure, Joan of Arc-like if you will, to be caught, sold, and burned at the stake. HBO would have made a killing if they showed French history as a reality show. Just don't you dare kill Arya.

French speakers in a cave

But in Bolivia, French tourists currently make up an estimated 12% of the population (By whom?, asks Wikipedia. By me.). Whenever we met light-skinned backpackers, we immediately spoke to them in French, not even wasting our time with English or Spanish. I wonder if the Plurinational Bolivian Government is considering adding French as a national language. There are so many French that the Bolivians have gotten a wee bit blasé about these people.  Up on the salt flats...des français. In the Potosi silver mine, encore des français. At Copacabana...putain, ils sont partout !

Esuidis ?

So when Pauline states proudly that she's French, the Bolivians tell her to get in line. Afterwards, I sheepishly add that I might be Swedish. Esuidis ? They have no clue where I'm from, or if I just ordered some raw meat, but they know I'm no French. Esuidis ! Welcome to Bolivia ! 

Paraguay The Hell Not ?

Paraguay is the heart of South America. Or perhaps the less-understood spleen of South America. It's surrounded and quite overshadowed by its larger and more visited neighbors Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia. We spent three weeks in this wonderfully unknown land and met exactly two other travelers, a German and a Hungarian. This is most certainly because Paraguay lacks the big tourists draws of the other South American nations. No Iguazu falls, no Machu Picchu, no Rio de Janiero, no Salar de Uyuni, no Roraima.

Someone once asked me, about ten years ago or more, why I was going to visit South Korea. "I mean, um, France has the Eiffel Tower, Italy has the Coliseum. What does South Korea have ?" Later on, I heard she finally did get to go to Italy on her honeymoon and see lots of buildings that she'd already seen pictures of. Good for her.

Laguna Blanca at sunset

Termites, like Jesuits, can build, too

But if you do ask that question, "What does Paraguay have ?", I can definitively say, "one and a half places of touristic and photogenic merit." The first, in the southern town of Encarnacion, is the Jesuit-built and -abandoned cluster of missions. Nearly as beautiful as the Inca cities, but slightly diminished by their smallness and lack of altitude. The half is a very pretty lake in central Paraguay called Laguna Blanca. If this lake were in any other country, it'd just be a very pretty lake. But here in flat landlocked Paraguay, it's their only lake and their only beach.

Everything else in Paraguay - the landscapes, the people, the culture, the history - was so charming and naive that we quickly fell under their spell. A few descriptions and anecdotes might be in order to get a sense of this place.

• The vast majority of the country, in the countryside that is, looks the same. In Paraguay's case, that's not a bad thing. Everywhere you look, you see the same scene : clear blue skies, Irish-green vegetation, and more importantly, a bold burnt red dirt road. Over and over and over again, you confront this scene. After a while, it becomes like a harmonious visual soundtrack for the country. 

• Paraguay's most famous dish is called sopa paraguaya, or Paraguayan soup. Are you picturing a stew with big chunks of potato, tomato, beans, and corn ? Sounds delicious, but in reality, it's just a solid chunk of corn bread. Presumably to dip into real soup. And speaking of soup, Paraguayans might casually ask a young bachelor one day, "When are we going to eat soup?", soup evidently being an important dish at weddings. Whether that soup is liquid or solid I never discovered. 

• The dictator Alfredo Stroessner ruled the country with an iron fist for 35 years until a coup finally exiled him to Brazil. How did the people react to this vacuum ? They kept voting for the same party ! In fact, the Colorado party stayed in power for more than 60 years : before, during, and after the Stroessner regime. I think they just wanted to be on the winning side. The only reason the Colorados lost the election in the late 90's, I'm sure, was because they ran a woman for president. Only in Paraguay do they speak so reverently of their past strongmen dictators.

• Their favorite holiday is the Hallmark-created but Paraguay-championed International Friendship Day, a day in which you're expected to send friendly texts to your friends. Just don't expect one back unless you have the same phone company.

• Paraguayans don't drink mate as the Argentines do. In hot and humid Paraguay, the last thing you want to drink is a lip-burning mate. So instead, they pour ice-cold water over their mate, which they mix with various herbs, such as mint. This they call terere and drink in abundance all day long. While they gossip about the neighbors.

• Germans are everywhere in Paraguay. They're not tourists. They came as socialist anti-semitic utopians more than a century ago and set up settlements with names such as Nueva Germania. Those settlements failed, but the many of the Germans stayed. Then came the Mennonites from the USSR and Canada (both with German roots) who landed in the deserted region of the Chaco. A few nazis, such as Mengele, came by later, but from what I've read, they changed location every couple of years to evade the Israelis. In some parts, you can see as many signs advertising Zu Verkaufen as Se Vende (For Sale). But these Germans, like those in the Fatherland, generally worked hard and created thriving communities in hostile environments. This is a quality known to the Paraguayans as guapo, which means "hard-working", not "beautiful" like you learned in high school.

• Paraguayans are lovably naive and direct. Since every one of the very few tourists speaks Spanish, they assume (there is a logic there) that Spanish is the national language of France, Germany, and countless other countries. Most of us have a filter that tells us to shut up whenever ideas like "You're fat" or "You're so rich" come up. Paraguayans lack this filter. A Colombian might tell Pauline, "Your Spanish is really good." But a Paraguayan will tell me, "Her Spanish is so much better than yours." See the difference ?

• Paraguay has capybaras.

So if anyone asks you why you're going to Paraguay, just answer, Paraguay the hell not ?!

How to Travel for One Year (in South America or elsewhere)

Most local South Americans, and even many North Americans and Europeans in fact, think we're filthy rich if we can afford to travel for several months at a time. During our ten days volunteering in the Orinoco Delta, we met probably 75 European tourists, all of whom were astonished when we told them of our plans of traveling for a year.  Even more so when we told them our budget.  Because in a place like Venezuela, money has a habit of disappearing.  No, I'm not talking about pickpocketing or scams.  It's just that most of the National Parks require that you hire a guide.  Sometimes it's an actual written rule, otherwise it's the de facto case since almost none of the parks have infrastructure of any kind.  No signs, no maps, no marked trails, not even a park ranger.  And of course, there's the fear.  When you mention traveling in Venezuela to friends and family, most people turn white and begin delivering your last rites.  Upon arrival, you brace yourself for the warzone.  And thus travelers flock to the agencies and the guides and pay for private armored cars with chauffeurs slash bodyguards or take expensive flights from touristic site to touristic site.  One Spanish family we met bragged to us how they were going to take 13 domestic flights in less than three weeks in the country !  I think that same family spent as much in three weeks as we will for the year...

So back to all of those tourists in the Delta (Outside of the Delta, we never met more than a handful of tourists). Many of them asked us what are tricks were to stretch our pesos and bolivares. So here are a few tips on how to spend less money and see more of the country and its people and culture.  But nearly all of them require patience, flexibility, common sense, and a portion -no !-, all of your cunning.

The biggest expenditures on any trips are transportation, lodging, and food.

Lodging
The biggest cost of all, for a long trip, is generally for your bed.  Even staying in hostels for a year would set you back at least $4,000.  We expect to spend less than $10,000 for the whole year.  The biggest reason : CouchSurfing.  Nearly every night of our trip, we stay with the locals.  With singles, couples, families, with students, with senior citizens...And we never pay to stay.  It's an intercultural exchange, so we get to know each other, we cook for them, and sometimes they introduce the city or their friends and family to us.  And there are other similar sites such as BeWelcome, WarmShowers for cyclists, Hospitality Club, and Pasporta Servo for Esperanto-speakers ("Bonvenon !")...

Another way to save money is to bring a tent.  We sewed our own tent, it's the size of a head of lettuce when packed, and weighs as much as a potato.  We've already used it a dozen times, sleeping in the Andes, in front of a cave, and on isolated beaches.

Volunteering
Like I briefly mentioned above, we spent ten days cooking, cleaning, washing, translating, gardening in the mosquito-ridden Orinoco Delta and never earned a cent.  But we ate well, made all of the excursions, and slept in a palm-frond hut that would have cost us $100 a night if we were paying. We saw dolphins, monkeys, caiman, and a host of exotic jungle birds to boot.

There are opportunities for volunteering in every country in the world.  The easiest way to find a spot is with WWOOFing (Organic farming) or with HelpExchange (Unlimited), but there are others. These are all excellent ways of lowering your sleeping and eating costs while getting to know the region and culture a bit more in depth.

Travel
Planes, buses, taxis, boats....they all cost money, even in a country like Venezuela where you can fill your gas tank for four bits.  There are a few ways of reducing the cost of crossing a country (or sea). The obvious choice is hitchhiking, which works well at the bottom of South America.  Farther North, thumbing it works better between smaller villages, less so near big cities. And the driver will often ask for a contribution, which usually ends up being equal to or cheaper than a comparable bus. Otherwise, you can avoid paying for hostels by taking the night busses, which usually cost from $1 (Bolivia) to $5 (Uruguay) per hour in the bus. You miss some scenery, but save a bit of money.

Another option that we've explored is BoatHitching or using the FindACrew website.  With FindACrew, you can find a boat traveling from Brazil to Bali or from France to Fiji. Sometimes you cook, sometimes you clean, but you get a free ride.

Food
This is an easy one. Cook. If you're Couchsurfing, cook for and with your hosts.  If you're hosteling, stay where you can use the kitchen. When you don't feel like cooking, eat what the locals are eating. They can't afford a filet mignon either. Save the restaurants for nice occasions.

Choices
Salto Angel, the highest waterfall in the world, is a destination most visitors to Venezuela couldn't miss. I'd prefer to swim and jump in a 5m waterfall than just look at a 1000m cascade.

The Galapagos archipelago would probably blow my biologist's mind.  And certainly my wallet.  For the price of a few days there, we can spend several weeks elsewhere. Sorry, Charles Darwin, I'll visit when I win the lottery.

----------------------------------------

I started writing this article more than two years ago, before we found jobs in Colombia. Here's our rough budget : In the six months before becoming employed, we spent about $600 per month. And that was by traveling slowly through Venezuela and Colombia.

After finishing our contract in June, we spent four more months in South America, traveling much faster (Peru to Uruguay and back), using much less CouchSurfing, saw some of the great (and sometimes pricey) sites and sights of South America (Machu Picchu, Salar de Uyuni, Iguazu falls) and spent about $1000 - $1200 per month. So for those ten months, we dispensed around $8000. Since then, we crossed the ocean and landed in Southeast Asia. So after a year of traveling, we might be slightly over our target of 10 grand (but you can see how $7000 or $8000 could be achievable). And there aren't a lot of people who can survive in North America or Europe on $10,000 a year. A Floridian needs to earn more than $20,000 to have what's considered a living wage. It's $32,000 for two adults. With just over ten grand, we visited more than a dozen countries and learned Spanish. We visited the Inca ruins, the Jesuit reducciones, and Angkor Wat. We crossed the Orinoco, the Rio de la Plata, and the Mekong. We've encountered monkeys, river dolphins, sea lions, sloths, iguanas, elephants, rheas, vicunas, and toucans. And had one hell of a time.

Atrocity Exhibition; or, Monet at school

Colombian school children look very typical. Plaid skirts for the girls, khaki pants for the boys, and a polo shirt for everyone. I figured that all uniformed children around the world looked that way. You might change the color combinations, but that's the look, right ? Then we got to Uruguay.

First, let's take a lookee at Uruguayan children of yesteryear. Knee-high stockings : check. Identical white lab coats with flaring hips : check. "Surely," you say, "these uniforms are clearly from the 12th century and look nothing like today's styles." Surely, indeed.

I can't even imagine why on Earth they would want to model their styles on, what looks to me like, lame painter's garb from another century. Probably someone like Monet or Manet.

I did find a couple of images of painters wearing these horrible Uruguayan hourglass coats :

Exhibit A : Lilla Cabot Perry

Exhibit B : Pablo Picasso

So at least two painters have worn similar atrocities. But they each obviously took it up a notch and added montruous bowties...and seemingly and deviously inspired the school fashions of the latest generation of children in Uruguay. Oh, the monsters !

Bittersweet in South America

Other than bleeding steaks, Argentina and Uruguay are known for their extremely high consumption of two things : mate and dulce de leche. Mate, or yerba mate, is an extremely bitter caffeinated plant that is ground and drunk as an infusion. Most of the world, led by Finland and other northern European countries, get their caffeine from coffee, whereas several Arab countries and British Commonwealth nations get theirs from tea. Argentina and Uruguay, however, are the only ones that get their dose from mate.

The drinking of mate is a ritual. The ritual and the drink can not be separated. It can happen at your home, at a park, or at a party. One person holds the gourd with the mate and a thermos of scalding water. I shall call him the Gourdmaster. The Gourdmaster fills the gourd with water, sips from the sieve-straw until all the water's gone. Backwash is just as disgusting in Argentina. He then refills the gourd, passes it to the person beside him. They must not say "thank you", but just accept it, drink the water, and pass it back. The Gourdmaster refills it again and delivers the gourd to the next person in the circle. Only when the gourd has gone around the circle several times and your belly starts to distend with bitter water may you finally say "thank you," which translates to "My stomach hath spruck, Gourdmaster."

Dulce de leche, the opposite and equal to mate, is a caramel-like spread made from sugar and milk. Argentinians eat more dulce de leche per year than the Americans eat peanut butter, the French nutella, or the Australians vegemite. "Dulce de leche goes on everything," repeated our friend Lisandro. He stressed every syllable of every word and was deadly serious. In the three days we spent with Lisandro and Yessi, he proceeded to show us that his catchphrase, or rather, rallying cry, was sincere and heartfelt. Anything in his home remotely solid got a coat of dulce de leche. "Everything" the walls softly echoed. Pancakes, bread, ice cream, yoghurt, crackers, fruit, wallpaper, you name it. I smeared some on my finger but had to yank it away lest Lisandro see and chomp it.

Bitter and sweet. Sweet and bitter. You add those bloody steaks back in, and you got bloody, bitter, and sweet. And those, kids, make up the three vertices of the Argentinian Food Pyramid.

Where No Doorbells Ring

We were in Resistencia in the North of Argentina, in Gustavo and Andres' home, making breakfast. Clap Clap Clap !, someone clapped outside. Pauline continued making coffee. Laurent was setting the table. Cecile checked her email. And I was helping Laurent. Three successive hand claps outside in the road do not need to be explained. In fact, I'm sure we didn't even consciously hear it at the time. Clap Clap Clap ! again. Again the foreigners ignored it. Why shouldn't they ? We don't generally go investigating every sound of unknown origin. We're not cats.

But Gustavo stuck his head out the window. "Yes ? I'll be right down." Apparently Gustavo and his unknown friend had created some private doorless knock.

Later that month, we were in nearby Paraguay, staying with our friend Tim and visiting his Paraguayan friends in the neighborhood. We reached the property, which had a gate enclosing the front yard. The house was set back 15 meters. Clap Clap Clap ! clapped Tim. "Tim, what are you clapping for ?" And he explained this very efficient messaging system which translates roughly as "Hey, I'm here. Are you here ?" to anyone within a small range all within a second. No electricity needed. No need to walk all the way to the door to knock, I can knock from here.

While still in Paraguay, we found ourselves quickly adopting this wonderful clap-knock. We'd walk into a shop whose owner was out of sight. No need to raise my voice and holler, "Anybody in here ?" I just Clap Clap Clap !, and out she comes.  "What can I do for you ?"

Sho Me Shamo ? Is this Casteshano ?

Something funny happens when you cross the Tropic of Capricorn, heading deeper South in South America. The people start talking funny. It's still the Spanish language, but not quite that same recognizable version found in the rest of the Hispanophone world. Is it some rare regional lisp ? Nah. An epidemic of Foreign Accent Syndrome seems even more unlikely. But there's definitely something odd going on here.

To make this speech impediment, or rather, understanding impediment more understandable for Anglophone readers, I'll have to graft it onto some somewhat-forced, somewhat-phonetic English speech.

"It was Shuletide in Wyshoming in the shear 2013. The shung shankee with a black and white shin-shang on his t-shirt looked at the canshun and shearned to go climbing up the shellow walls. Another shouth, a classmate from Shale, was finishing his dish of shucca and shellow shokes. He stood and shelled, 'This food is shucky !' The first shungster responded, 'Shou're crazy, I thought it was was shummy. If shou'd rather some shoghurt, I have some in my shellow bag.'"

You'd be forgiven if you were imaging Southern South America populated by legions of mischievous short-tempered ducks in sailor suits. But unlike Pato Donald's famous buccal speech, the Spanish of Argentina and Uruguay is characterized phonologically by yeismo (known locally as sheismo). Like the gibberish languages Pig Latin, Ub, and Snoop Dogg's "-Izzle" slang, Argentine Spanish can be at times unintelligible until the listener becomes accustomed to the new phonetic system.

Resolutions : A month without...

Inspired by two Peace Corps volunteers we met in Paraguay (Thanks Nalena and Jon !), Pauline and I have decided to make a New Year's resolution, or rather several, that will hopefully last all year long. The idea is to slightly change our diets each month of the year, usually by eliminating one element. In that way, we can see how that particular food affects us, if at all. And for less-healthy "foods" such as sugar, salt, and alcohol, this temporary diet should help us to bring our consumption down to appropriate levels. One other goal is to experience what other people go through due to their allergies (gluten), intolerance (lactose), and certain chosen diets (raw, vegan).

Too much cheese here for January.

So for this month, Pauline and I will be eschewing cheeses. Normally this would be near impossible for us if we were in Europe or North America. In Cambodia, however, it should make for an easy beginning to our Resolution.

Too much caffeine here for February.

During the short month of February, we shall consume no caffeine. So no coffee, no green or black tea, no mate. No Swedish negerbollar. No Italian tiramisu.

No lemon tarts in March.

March : Added sugars and sweeteners are out. Fruit is okay, but sugar, molasses, honey, maple syrup, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and any processed food with any added sweeteners are to be excluded.

April is alcohol-free.

Dairy, sugar, eggs, gluten... I won't
get many pancakes this year.

May : After surviving January's cheeseless month, we'll go up a notch to no dairy at all. A whole month without ice cream, yoghurt, cheese, milk, and butter...

Eggs are out in June. No omelettes, quiches, most baked goods...

July : No white flour or derived products (pancakes, bread, cakes).

During the month of August, we'll be developing a temporary celiac disease and be avoiding all gluten. It should be a good time to learn some quinoa recipes.

September : salt, soy sauce, and sodium are out.

Fried plantains ? Not in October.

October will involve more of a judgement call. We're saying no fried foods, but the idea is generally no deep-fried or oil-fried / pan-fried foods. Uncooked oils (olive oil on salad) and butter will probably be okay.

November should prove to be the toughest month of the year. We shan't be eating anything cooked. Raw fruits and raw veggies.

And to finish out the year, we're going to spend a month vegan. We're already vegetarians, so that final step won't be too much of a jump. The changes we'll have to make include excluding honey, dairy, and eggs...a bit like months March, May, and June put together.






So you may ask how we'll manage with the holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. And what about all of those must-try local specialities in Asia ? Well, we're always going to be free to try something forbidden for that month or take a day off for a holiday... but we'll have to add on three more days at the beginning of the following month to make up.

Anyone want to join us ?

Raggedy Bill

In South America, generally speaking, the people don't seem to have much confidence in their money. Any minor tear or scribble is enough for a bill to be rejected. Any travelers who have tried to exchange dollars for pesos or soles or bolivianos has probably, frustratingly, had their less-than-crispy dollars refused and returned. This seemingly means that locals are losing money all the time. Any unintentional rip when pulling a bill out your wallet could cost you money - 'Cause nobody's gonna accept it. I've read that it's possible to exchange tattered bills for crispy ones in some banks, but it this were so, people would be more likely to accept those mangled bills.

Then we came to Argentina, where I saw the most deplorable notes in this hemisphere. They didn't even care what they looked like. Shopworn. Shabby. Rugged. Ripped. Tattered. Taped. Notched and neglected. No problem. Now that was some real faith in currency. But this was nothing compared to the neighboring Paraguayans. Those crazy jokers would rip their money, any money, in half, and never lose their faith.