I´ve decided that my Speedo is like God in a blue spandex sort of a manifestation: powerful yet flexible, all encompasing. I don´t know why they can´t make women´s bikini bottoms like this.
Also, I am a huge fan of Joe´s idea of cladding zombies in bikinis. The Incan Zombie Commune will wear Speedos when they give their educational talks to world leaders. Why? Because they can. And because nothing says F the man like wearing a neon colored Speedo, especially if your flesh is undead.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Pah Pah Paradise
Other than having to deal with one particularly pushy hotel owner, my week on Providence was wonderful. The island is tiny and populated with people who speak a very strange mix of Spanish and Jamacain style English. It is surrounded by coral reefs and the warm, calm water of the Caribbean. The buildings are brightly painted wooden structures covered with hammocks and disgarded nets and floats once used by fishermen. Some of the trees are covered with old anchor markers and styrofoam floaties which look like giant nautical christmas tree balls (one could envision the Dr. Seuss fish gathering around a christmas tree of this sort). There are mangrove swamps and lime trees abound. You catch giant land crabs at night which look disapprovingly at you with raised purple claws when you shine your flashlight at them. You can climb the mountain in the middle of the island, which is gaurded by hundreds of lizards, and when you sit on the top, looking out over the island and the sea, you feel like the Swiss Family Robinson in the scene where the family is sitting on their mountain lookout, quietly surveying the pirates invading their island, right before they start chucking coconut explosives everywhere. There are horse races on the beach on the weekends, and rope swings tied to coconut trees that dangle temptingly over the waves.
So yeah, it was pretty fucking fantastic. I spent my time getting my dive licence, zipping around the island on a moped, fending off men (detraction from general experience), working on my tan, watching alot of HBO at night, and eating as much fresh fish as possible. I saw manta rays, eels, giant lobsters, and tiny crabs with gangly legs that looked like spiders or like those weird wire head massagers. It was a great week.
Oh ps!! I´ve decided that the next time I want to freak out and run away, I am going to go adventure diving off of Malpelo island, another UNESCO world heritage site whose waters are home to schools of over 500 hammerhead sharks. Anyone want to get their dive licence and come with???
You might smell like vanilla, but you´re still a gorilla
Ways Not To "Get the Girl":
(yes, this is a mini vent session)
1. Propose to come visit her in her hotel while your wife and 8 year old child are in the room next door. If she points out the fact that you are married and have a child, DO NOT proceed to give her the speech about "living in the moment."
2. If you are a hotel owner, do not personally come into a woman´s room (unasked) at 3 in the morning to wake her up for her 4 am bus ride.
3. Do not lunge at a woman while having a conversation with her.
4. If a girl leaves the door to her room unlocked when she goes down the hall to the bathroom, do not enter her room univited expecting her to find you a pleasant surprise upon her return.
5. No hissing. Or whistling.
After a particularly difficult week of being the only single and only white female on a 2 mile stretch of island, I thought I should create some guidlines for the men of South America as to what is appropriate behavior when talking to western women. Or any women for that matter. I would also like to dedicate the song King Kong (Attack of the Egomanic) by Kudu to the egomaniacs of the world, and point out that while you might smell like vanilla, you can still be a gorilla.
(yes, this is a mini vent session)
1. Propose to come visit her in her hotel while your wife and 8 year old child are in the room next door. If she points out the fact that you are married and have a child, DO NOT proceed to give her the speech about "living in the moment."
2. If you are a hotel owner, do not personally come into a woman´s room (unasked) at 3 in the morning to wake her up for her 4 am bus ride.
3. Do not lunge at a woman while having a conversation with her.
4. If a girl leaves the door to her room unlocked when she goes down the hall to the bathroom, do not enter her room univited expecting her to find you a pleasant surprise upon her return.
5. No hissing. Or whistling.
After a particularly difficult week of being the only single and only white female on a 2 mile stretch of island, I thought I should create some guidlines for the men of South America as to what is appropriate behavior when talking to western women. Or any women for that matter. I would also like to dedicate the song King Kong (Attack of the Egomanic) by Kudu to the egomaniacs of the world, and point out that while you might smell like vanilla, you can still be a gorilla.
Friday, November 03, 2006
She wore an itsy bitsy, teeny.....WEENIE BIKINI!!
Ahhhh!!!
So somehow I managed to loose my bathing suit bottoms. And as I have a ticket for a plane that leaves for island paradise tomorrow morning, I figured I needed to remedy this situation. After 5 hours of maniacal shopping for a bathing suit in a 3 story mall (scariness) and finding nothing but thongs, and grannie bottoms, I got desperate. There was a Speedo shop in said mall, and although that was the first place I went, I found nothing I would vaguely consider clading my body with there. But I was thinking inside the box. Four hours after my original attempt, I returned. And I went directly to the children´s section...specifically, the boy´s section. You see in Latin America the girls all wear thongs and the boys all wear speedos, otherwise known as weenie bikinis. But the weenie bikinis are exactly like the bikini bottoms that say a girl from the United States would be looking for. I plunged in, much to the distress of the salespeople. They tried explaining, in a very polite and perhaps slightly patronizing tone, that those bottoms were for children, male children. I just smiled, nodded, told them that, yes I was aware of that, and continued pulling lycra bottoms for the wall. They began to look seriously worried at this point. ANd started searching through the women´s section trying, in vain, to find something that was not a thong for me.
Sort of long story short, I triumphed and found the perfect weenie bikini. It´s just my size. The sales people were horrified and I was greatly pleased with my purchase. I also learned that ambiguity is not quite as cool here in Latin America as it is up north and even things like bathing suits have clear gender demarcations. Ah well. Just another day well spent as the crazy gringo. But now off to the beach!! Fishes beware!!
So somehow I managed to loose my bathing suit bottoms. And as I have a ticket for a plane that leaves for island paradise tomorrow morning, I figured I needed to remedy this situation. After 5 hours of maniacal shopping for a bathing suit in a 3 story mall (scariness) and finding nothing but thongs, and grannie bottoms, I got desperate. There was a Speedo shop in said mall, and although that was the first place I went, I found nothing I would vaguely consider clading my body with there. But I was thinking inside the box. Four hours after my original attempt, I returned. And I went directly to the children´s section...specifically, the boy´s section. You see in Latin America the girls all wear thongs and the boys all wear speedos, otherwise known as weenie bikinis. But the weenie bikinis are exactly like the bikini bottoms that say a girl from the United States would be looking for. I plunged in, much to the distress of the salespeople. They tried explaining, in a very polite and perhaps slightly patronizing tone, that those bottoms were for children, male children. I just smiled, nodded, told them that, yes I was aware of that, and continued pulling lycra bottoms for the wall. They began to look seriously worried at this point. ANd started searching through the women´s section trying, in vain, to find something that was not a thong for me.
Sort of long story short, I triumphed and found the perfect weenie bikini. It´s just my size. The sales people were horrified and I was greatly pleased with my purchase. I also learned that ambiguity is not quite as cool here in Latin America as it is up north and even things like bathing suits have clear gender demarcations. Ah well. Just another day well spent as the crazy gringo. But now off to the beach!! Fishes beware!!
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Zombies, Pineapple Explosion
Hmm so where was I? Oh yeah, I was sandboarding in Peru. Well since then I went to visit the national museum in Ica, home of several completely intact mummies. Ica´s dry desert climate had managed to preserve both their hair and skin. There was also a rehydrated hand from about 1100 A.D. (pictured) and a headress of dreadlocks that measured about 4 feet long. I arrived at the museum at about 6pm, an hour before closing, in hopes to avoid large groups of people. I suceeded, for about 10 min. After having the entire place to myself for said 10 minutes, a school group of about 40 twelve-year-olds invaded the museum. They were loud, they giggled, they took pictures with the flash on, they flirted with each other, they made me feel like a tight-lipped librarian that wore glasses on a chain. I wanted them to stop flirting, shut up, and show some respect. I started feeling really sorry for the mummies. I mean, these guys had been promised eternal life, power, and splendor. They were going to become gods. Instead they had been unearthed from their tombs of gold and silver and placed in a museum where they were housed in cheap glass cases, labeled with laminated index cards, and displayed before giggling kids with Mickey Mouse cameras. I started hoping that the mummies would become zombies, break out of their cases, and chase off the 12-year-olds. It would have been pretty awesome. Then I started fantasizing about the life of these zombie mummies. Highlights included:
1. Zombies setting up a zombie commune in the desert, which would subsequently become named a UNESCO World Heritage Site (as all the cool stuff in South America is). They would do things like make free zombie love with each other, perfect their children scaring techniques (to be used for child-correction purposes only), talk about the old days, and other stuff that zombies do when living in a zombie commune.
2. The zombies hosting a series of educational talks with the world´s most renown professors, archaeologists, historians, etc, in which they would clarify the cultural customs, mythologies, and everyday practises of the ancient Peruvians.
3. Zombies eating the brains of all corrupt leaders of the world. I think that could keep them satisfied for a while.
Anyway, after Ica, I headed back up to Lima so I could fly to COLOMBIA!!! which is where I am currently. This place is awesome. I am currently in the capital, Bogota. The streets here are filled with graffiti, posters for shows, life. There is a huge blackmarket of books, which takes up about 3 blocks, and everything is cheap. If you ignore the fact that everyone is slightly paranoid about getting mugged, it is pretty fucking awesome. I am investigating various places where I can get certified to dive, and I am looking forward to finally basking in sweet, sweet warmth. Fuck yeah. Viva Colombia.
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