Everything is the truth. Don't believe any of it.

Like life, travel has its peaks and valleys. My first real travel experience, with my friend Ross in SE Asia in 2001, certainly had its ups and downs. After two weeks according to plan - including monumental highs at Angkor Wat and in the Mekong Delta, we decided to split up for most of the next three weeks or so, an amicable change that benefitted the both of us, but a downer in most definitions of the term. Two weeks later, I was making major revisions to my travel plans, and eventually reuniting with Ross in the islands of Southern Thailand. There were some valleys, to be sure.

In 2003, with 5 months on the road, I was blessed with a constantly changing group of travel partners, evolving group dynamics, and energy spikes infused by new additions to our group just as others among us were waning in daily motivation. Even so, there was the valley of despair that followed the day Jeremy's money belt (passport, credit card, cash, wallet, etc.) went AWOL. And there was Nicaragua, of which most of us took home less-than-pleasant associations for reasons noone could quite put a finger on. It has simply been a low point.

Every trip I've ever taken has had lows and highs, and this month would be no exception. After losing my travel companions to the forces of fate, I forged ahead solo into territory that wasn't really suited for me (see "To the Shore"), and slogged my way along the Uruguayan coast in less-than-excited fashion, landing in Montevideo in a haze. In the city, I could at least hide my frustrations in the hustle of the streets, which I wandered indefinitely to indefinite amusement and entertainment. But leaving Montevideo thrust me into the nadir of this trip, a lonely stretch of ineffective and ineffecient days spent in places of dubious interest. Hopefully, you couldn't tell when I last wrote (Burritos!) from Colonia del Sacramento, that I was counting the days to the inevitable upswing and peak. It came, but required a few of the most exasperating travel experiences I've ever encountered.

Colonia del Sacramento itself is a quaint town with direct ferry service to Buenos Aires, and impressive colonial architecture. But alas, sometimes you're just sitting in front of something totally impressive while in a state of total unimpressability. And so I was.




Such was the state I was in, that I'm lucky my attention was taken by anything in particular. It was though, and there are two lasting images from my day and a half in Colonia del Sacramento. The first is the view of Buenos Aires. The city of 8+ million is directly across the Rio de la Plata



(which looks more like a sea than a river at this point, but they insist on calling it the river), far enough that you can't see land at all, but that with the right atmospheric conditions (and from the lighthouse balcony), you CAN see the city's skyline. It's a moment out of Waterworld, when floating on the horizon are a series of towering skyscrapers, unmistakable, and yet entirely without the support of land. Fata Morgana at its best - or at least 2nd best, as flying cruise ships in Glacier Bay are also pretty cool.

And the other image that will survive from this town, is one I managed to capture. Standing beneath a wall hundreds of years old with tourists passing me continuously, I spent at least half an hour waiting for the parents of the Gray-breasted Martins to return with goodies for their chicks. They hunt for 5-10 minutes, and return for just a few seconds to deliver the grub, so it takes some patience, but with luck, you get an image like this one:



But enough of this. I'm letting you think I was enjoying myself, when I was mired in one of the aforementioned valleys of travel. Unimpressed, unmotivated, and lethargic, I needed an anchor. When you're travelling over any extended period of time, an anchor is something you've seen in pictures; a specific destination with a specific motivation. At this point, the travel anchors I'd anticipated had largely fizzled, and I had no choice but to point myself in the direction of the next anchor: Esteros del Ibera, the world's 2nd largest wetland where, aside from the three or four hours in mid-afternoon when the only thing a person could do was lay naked in bed and sweat, I could watch birds and wildlife sunrise to sunset in a town with no paved roads or internet access. Easier said than done.

If you've ever spent meaningful time in Argentina, you probably already know what I just learned this week: that the country has a serious lack of beaches. Otherwise, consider yourself initiated. Thousands of miles of coastline to be sure, but apparently much of it is rocky, and/or at fairly southern latitudes, making them not much more hospitable than those of say, the Olympic Peninsula. Yes, we love our beaches at home, but we don't pretend that they can compete with Malibu. And neither do the Argentinians, particularly the 8 million or so from Buenos Aires who all seemed to be on the Uruguayan shore for the last two weeks.

In contrast to its bigger southerly neighbor, the Uruguayan coast is a virtually unbroken string of sandy beaches, and while none that I experienced were of the320 -grain variety, none were of the 40-grain type either. Pretty good stuff most of the way from Montevideo to Brazil. And so during the first two weeks of January, when Argentina and Uruguay are essentially closed for business, and everyone has two weeks off, Porteños (from Buenos Aires) and Montevideans head to the beach. I think the only people who don't get this time as vacation are those who live and work in the coastal towns. They apparently have vacation the other 50 weeks of the year. Once the high season passes, these towns must feel an awful lot like Seaside, Oregon - or Seaside (Heights), New Jersey for that matter - as fall fades into winter. All the trappings and potential of summer fun remain, like the Rotary welcome sign and the whale,


but not so much the cooler aspects of summer, like the hot rods of all sizes


and the indispensible inflatable places in which to lose your children, so dad can refill his maté thermos.


Yes, maté, probably the most important ingredient in any activity that occurs throughout Uruguay and/or Argentina. It's an herb that you stuff into a cup (traditionally a gourd), or more likely a metal-lined gourd created for the purpose, and follow with hot water. The water filters through the dry herb, just like steeping tea, and you use a filtered metal straw to suck the bitter liquid from the bottom. I've tried it. I hate it. They love it. In fact, locals are rarely seen without maté, a thermos tucked under one arm, and a gourd in the other hand, refilling it nearly continuously so that it works like an IV drip of your low-potentcy drug of choice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage) Maybe men down here are less squeamish about man-purses, but they've taken to carrying aborable hard-sided 'satchels' that are perfectly designed to hold a thermos, the gourd, and a package (.5kg) of maté. Long live el machisimo!



I think the only people not sipping maté since my arrival were a pair of teens in love, who clearly had their hands full with infatuation, another key ingredient in summer beach towns: (picture censored).

But I digress. Yes, I do that sometimes.

As I read about the various beach towns in Uruguay in my Lonely Planet guidebook, I realized that I'd better pick a base of operations carefully, as some serious red flag-type words started to jump out at me: ritzy, condominium, high-rise, elite, see-and-be-seen, for examples. Punta del Diablo seems to be the biggest of these beach towns, long ago having been built up from the highway right to the edge of the beach, not unlike Seaside, Oregon - or again, Seaside Heights, New Jersey. So I took a pass on Punta del Diablo, and focused in on La Paloma (the dove), which was described as more easy-going and less-expensive; on both counts, I approve. And La Paloma did not disappoint.


Note: Even Punta del Diablo pales in comparison to Punta del Este, a truly international jet-set destination whose inclusion in tour books can include the words 'cruise ship,' so you can see why I didn't even consider visiting or staying there. This is more on par with Miami Beach, Copacabana, or the high end of Australia's Gold Coast.

I did also consider La Pedrera, and by a stroke of hitchhiker's luck, I got a driving tour of the town my second day on the coast. My hosts preferred it for being a bit 'mas lente y mas bohemio' (slow and hippie). Each town then, as you might expect, has its own personality, and I'm fairly sure that I chose well in La Paloma. While La Pedrera might be the artist's colony (say, Cannon Beach?), and Punta del Diablo resort/condo central (the Seasides?), La Paloma was probably a bit more Astoria, an actual working town with a bit more going on behind the scenes than the others. Even so, it was rife with creatures of the (Jersey) shore, from families with ice cream on their faces and teens puffed up with Axe-inspired swagger (this doesn't mean they smelled good, just that they didn't smell bad) to hippies (mostly could use some Axe) and guidos (nearly as many Uruguayans claim Italian heritage as Spanish, after all!). These guidos can't compete with The Situation and J-Wow, and the analogy is imperfect, but clearly, this is how Uruguayans and Porteños go to the shore.

More than on any trip I've taken before, I was an outsider. More even than in places where I didn't speak the language (think: alone in Laos) - if I should be able to ingratiate myself with locals or other travelers anywhere, it should be here, in Spanish-speaking Latin America. But a backpacker from the United States with an odd interest in everything that flies is a bit out of place when 99% of the region's travelers are there for something completely different. Sun, drink, cow, and sleep. The schedule on the Uruguayan coast this time of year involves an optional breakfast sometime around 2 pm, a nap, some beers, a big community dinner, some more beers, and then an enormous helping of cow, possibly for the second, or even third, time that day, followed by sleep that begins between 4 am and sunrise. At least in the hostel scene. In addition, the Spanish spoken in this region is an abomination in my ears. I was familiar with the difficult Argentine accent, but didn't realize that it was at least as thick here in Uruguay, and that I'd struggle to understand virtually everything said to me here. It's as if the Argentines/Uruguayans are continuously in anaphalactic shock, because they speak with tongues that sound to me to be swollen to the size of bananas.

And so I found myself feeling the outcast, struggling to integrate (a problem I'd probably also have in Seaside Heights), especially with my tendency to get up at 6 or 7 and go look for birds before returning to my hostel just in time for the rest to be eating breakfast, me in search of anything but cow (invariably available in ungodly proportions by this time of day). I worried that as a solo traveler I was failing in my duty to be open and outgoing, until I finally met some other foreign travelers who consistently reported the exact same feeling. I can only imagine this is what a Polish traveler might feel if he or she arrived in one of our Seasides smack in the middle of spring break, or say, on the 3rd of July. A slight sense of awe and confusion at The Situation (or just at the situation). And then, like me, they'd probably just sit back and enjoy the show.


Shocked Uruguayan: My, what long arms you have!
Me: The better with which to take self-portraits, cariña!

Don´t know if anyone´s still listening, but I´m still traveling, and I´m still writing. You´ll notice that I write only when I´m away, which might short-shift to my other, more normal, life. Nonetheless, it´s the travel and the new experiences that I enjoy writing about, so here we are. Where we are is Uruguay, having arrived last Thursday after what will go down in history as (hopefully!) the least auspicious start to any bout of travel I ever experience. (Note: I never have, and never will, call this kind of travel 'vacation.' Hence, the 'bout of travel.')

I am here, most basically, because my mother is here. She and Jim made plans this past summer for a tour of Chile and Argentina, with a final extension to Iguazu Falls, on the Argentine border with Brazil. It's a destination I've always wanted to visit, and this seemed a can't-miss opportunity. I would develop a trip with friends that would coincide with meeting my mom and Jim at the Falls. That´s exactly what I did. Four of us, in fact, had tickets and committed ourselves to January and a bit of February in the sun, seeking wildlife and good times. And that's pretty much as good as it ever got. For reasons whose details are not worth recounting here, I'll leave you with the explanation that history will tell, one that is blameless and succinct. 1) The visa agency failed to get Jen's documents in time, 2) Emily got sick, and 3) Andrea got a job. No hard feelings, but the last two of these forced abdications came within the last three or four days before our scheduled departure, which made for one of the most stressful New Year's Eves that I can remember. Having just resolved our issues the day prior, I could hardly relax and enjoy myself. The resolution was simple. All tickets were cancelled, and mine were re-booked so that I wouldn´t riding solo for nearly an entire month, something I simply wasn't prepared for at the time. So I delayed departure long enough to see the Ducks lose the Big Game, and bought new tickets with frequent flyer miles.

And on the 11th, I departed. LAX is a sham, where nothing good has ever happened to me. My delay caused me to miss my Miami-Montevideo flight by 20 minutes. The next flight: 24 hours later. The time: midnight. After fighting the system and getting nothing in return (Not only do airlines not have to give you anything if your delay was caused by weather, their blocks of hotel discounts for Miami were full, meaning I was headed to Ft. Lauderdale - on my own taxi dime - for the only hotel they could offer me, still 80 bucks.), I did a little quick-thinking traveler-dance and called the only person I know in greater Miami, NIcki, who it turns out, no longer lives there. But bless you for answering my call at midnight:30, and bless your friend Tanya who put me up for the night. A rental car and decent sofa-sleep later, I had a day in Miami to kill, which was, well, a day that I killed. After leaving Portland on the morning of the 11th, I arrived, musty and tired, in Montevideo, mid-day on the 13th. Yuck.

As soon as I find a computer with the proper software to edit photos, I'll share my first experiences here, and while I won't recount for you the shower that ensued, rest assured, it was heavenly.

Yucatan.  Two weeks.  Why not?

Don't answer that.

See you in two weeks.

Anywhere you may travel, you'll here the above (the further you go, the more you'll hear it), or something similar, uttered countless times.  So, here are some things you truly won't see back home, if you were to make a journey to Ethiopia.

The animals below are all endemic to Ethiopia, meaning that it is the only place that any of their kind live.  In most of the world, this is a pretty special thing - how many animals can you think of offhand that are endemic to the state of Oregon?  Or even to just the Pacific states of the U.S.?  With no major climatic or geographic barriers in the region, if you can find it in Oregon, you can probably find it in Washington, and more than likely British Columbia as well.  If you can find it in Eastern Oregon, it probably ranges across the Great Basin, right back into Southern California, and then on into Sonoran Mexico, so that there aren't many endemics in our region.  Ethiopia is in a slightly different situation.  A good portion of the country is decidedly different from all the lands by which it is surrounded.  I am referring to the Ethiopian Highlands, which make up most of the Central and Northern parts of the country.  Go East and you fall off into the Danakil Depression, one of the driest places on Earth.  West, and you plunge, right alongside the Blue Nile down into the steamy tropics of Southern Sudan and Uganda.  South, and the mountains more gradually give way to the savannas of Kenya, Tanzania, and East Africa generally.  North is the only place where the geographic boundaries are less distinct than the political: portions of the Ethiopian Highlands are actually in inland Eritrea, though shortly after crossing the currently demilitarized and disputed border, the land precipitously drops down to the hot and dry Red Sea coast.  So there it is: The Ethiopian Highlands are an island in the sky, and they are home to quite a few endemic species. (Just a listing of the birds: http://kilnsey.tripod.com/birdwatching_in_eritrea/endemics.htm)

When things warmed after the last Ice Age, some animals adapted.  Others died out.  Still others migrated to places where the climate resembled that which they were already adapted to, and in a generally flat continent like Africa, keeping cool meant climbing up.  Animals that once thrived over much of Eastern Africa found themselves now inhabiting Ethiopia's islands in the sky (other sky islands: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_island).  Here are a few that opted to take the high road:

 
The Ethiopian Wolf is a bit scrawnier than our own, and so doesn't hunt the Mountain Nyala at right.  Actually, the nyala have settled in around the 10-12,000' level where forests remain, while the wolf was forced ever higher until you won't likely find them below 13,000' or so - at least not where cultivable land attracts man, his dogs, and their rabies, which is the biggest single threat to the wolf at present.(www.ethiopianwolf.org/People/EWCPsponsors.htm)  That said, they've only got another thousand or so feet to migrate upward, so as the climate warms, the 500 or so that remain today could be in for some stressful years, especially if their favored prey, a pika-like rodent, doesn't fare well.

The Blue-winged Goose could soon face a similar problem, as their range is fairly limited to the highest of the high,
but they're probably not charismatic enough to inspire much protection.  If they're lucky, they'll benefit from the soft spots in our hearts and pocketbooks for the wolf above and the Gelada Baboon (the vegetarian primates famously featured fleeing from the wolves - though their ranges hardly overlap at all and they seem far more concerned by farmers who would shoo them from their fields - in Episode 2 of the BBC's Planet Earth series: 'Mountains').  Our guide in Simien Mountain National Park informed us that due to their competition with local farmers, they behave nervously when blacks are around, but not whites - we carry cameras, not rocks; maybe Bego just wanted an excuse to lay for a while under an endemic Giant Lobelia.  Jen thought they were pretty cool, and will probably kill me for displaying this photo of her in company schwag!



You can tell from the photos the Gelaba Baboons were not shy around us - I might have reached out and touched a few, though nervous mother/infant pairs scrambled at 10-15m distance.  The only wild thing to get closer than the baboons was the endemic Thick-billed Raven, which prove to be every bit as intelligent as those of Native American lore, by settling in three to four feet away the first time Jen and I sat for a snack while trekking in the Simiens.  Their croak is a bit different from those at home, but is every bit the raven; as is their scavenging - we hadn't taken two paces from the rocks we snacked on and they were peering between the rocks looking for scraps and crumbs.


A few more things you may find isolated in the Ethiopian Highlands:
  Walia Ibex.www.bbc.co.uk/nature/species/Walia_Ibex
Menilek's Bushbuck - the warthog in the back is common to East Africa generally.
  White-winged Cliff Chat.
  Abyssinian Roller.
  In the Aster family.

I've thrown a lot of things away lately.  On returning from Ethiopia, Quinn and I more or less immediately commenced our move back to the Portland area, and moving is one of the best excuses ever to unload a bunch of crap.  In our case, this meant about 5 parts Salvation Army donations, 3 parts curbside recycling, and 2 parts off to a landfill somewhere on the outskirts of Ann Arbor.  Putting the cans by the curb is such a simple act that we don't often think about where garbage goes, much less when there's no municipal or government system.  And thus, we shall meet The Ethiopian Garbage Disposal.

It's fairly obvious that the lower you live on the relative scale of development, the less waste you produce, but the trash quotient of the poorest countries in the world is mitigated again by the lack of the services we so easily take for granted.  That's right, I said mitigated, not exacerbated.  Recycling is a no-brainer, but it's taken ages for Americans to figure this out.  In third-world nations, it's more than a no-brainer, it's an intuitive act, even though it almost never includes paper and certainly doesn't require the separation of plastics #1 and #3 - partly because there is easier recognition of the value of used things when there are not new things around to compete, and partly because without a system for garbage disposal, you've actually got to think (unlike us) about where to put your waste.  Yes, there's paper waste in the streets, and the roadside is occasionally a patchwork of brightly colored plastic bags, but there's  a lot of conservation that goes on way before these things become useless, and therefore, trash. 

To wit, the US government has for years been sending food aid to Ethiopia.  Before you start feeling patriotic and warm and fuzzy, please remember that this all began with the famines of the '60s and '70s which were as much or more products of price speculation, inadequate distribution, and negligent governance as they were due to a true lack of food, and add to that the fact that food aid is convenient (Farm Bill > subsidy > surplus > food aid = good PR).  Irrespective of the motives, logistics, and conveniences of food aid, it continues unabated, and Ethiopia is now awash in USAID paraphernalia.  In fact, I am now the proud owner of two grocery bags sewn custom in the recesses and warrens of Addis Ababa's Merkato, each labeled "USAID," "SORGHUM," and emblazoned with American flags.  It's a souvenir only an International Affairs major, or travel junkie, could love.  But before running across the bags, I was continuously aware of the waste associated with this aid, absolutely none of it going to waste.
These are just boxes, wrapped for sale and reuse, but the vegetable oil the US has long sent comes in large steel cans inside those boxes, not unlike bulk coffee cans would.  This steel is absolute gold, and I thought it was pretty genius the first time I saw one turned into essentially a Bunsen Burner for roasting coffee beans.
Pretty cool, right?  Coals (transported in the aforementioned bags) are inserted from below, and you can fan the flames through the window cut into the side.  I was pretty impressed to see one of these in use, but it was only weeks later that I realized this is not one person's clever way of re-using an old vegetable oil tin.  The re-fitting of just about anything is an industry in it's own right, leading to many local markets having areas known as "The Recycling Market," where you can find sandals made of discarded tires, and more USAID Bunsen Burners than you can shake a stick at:
    

All this is pretty cool, but not exactly illuminating.  Recycling tales and reuse anecdotes are common throughout the world - just ask the Cuban mechanic who has fixed the same '56 Chevy 25 times without ever importing a spare part.  But what about the trash?  Where does it all go?  Well, as you might expect, tons of it ends up in the street, and it's disconcerting to see it tossed randomly in any direction by Ethiopians with no regard for sanitation or cleanliness or respect for shared resources (or easily offended Westerners).  More than a few times, but once very memorably, I stood in a bus station awaiting departure while snacking on a few cookies.  As the crowd returned to the bus, I was left with a handful of plastic wrapper looking around dumbstruck as locals discarded plastic bags, empty cigarette packs, and used paper tissues all around me, right there in the dirt parking lot of the bus station, before boarding the bus.  And there I stand, paralyzed in the purgatory that fills the gap between the "When in Rome..." sentiment and my Western socialization i.e. hatred of litter.  Inevitably, I sheepishly put the plastic in my pocket as locals chuckle, awaiting my next run-in with a garbage can - not a piece of equipment that you'll be encountering in any public space any time soon.

But from day one, I never hesitated to join the masses in discarding biodegradables just about anywhere they might conceivably biodegrade.  Basically, this refers to the ease with which I tossed banana peels and orange and avocado skins out the window of our rented 4x4 (in the first, Southern, leg of my travels), the only important thing being that the waste reached the soil at the side of the road and didn't hit anyone on its flight there.  Admittedly, over time, the lines blur, and I found myself on the verge of what back home would be called littering, but in Ethiopia is just the way it's done.  So I watched with curiosity Jen's adaptation to local norms after she arrived - three weeks into my time in the country and well after my comfort level with gray-area littering had grown worrisome.

It didn't take long for the whole littering thing to come to a head.  On her second day in Addis Ababa, we went to wander the massive Merkato, and stopped for bananas.  We strolled and ate, and after a block or so, were each left with a banana peel in our hands.  A few steps later, I chucked mine unceremoniously under a parked truck.  I don't say this with pride per se - as it would have been entirely unacceptable at home, though at home, I could also have found a garbage can within a ten-mile radius - only to point to my level of When-in-Romeness.  And there stood Jen, with a banana peel in her hand, walking down possibly one of the dirtiest streets in Addis Ababa.  She may have thought poorly of my crime, but said nothing, and a few seconds later, fully comprehended the dilemma: Where the hell do I put this banana peel?  As if on cue, within seconds, a sanitary professional emerged as if from between the woodwork to demonstrate proper litter disposal etiquette.  Which is an accurate description only if by 'sanitary professional' you understand that I mean 'Ethiopian boy of 15 years,' and that by 'litter disposal etiquette' you understand that he walked up to us with purpose, reached out to Jen's hand with no hesitation whatsoever, tore the banana peel from it, said in better than passable English: "Like this," and tossed the peel into the gutter, to the delight and laughter of every Ethiopian in sight.  When in Rome...

No big deal, really.  Throughout the country, whether barley and sorghum grow as far as the eye can see, or you're in the center of the Merkato in the capital city, all trash goes through the same garbage disposal, which is the digestive dynamo known 'round the world as a goat. 

Please note the half-eaten banana peel, in the maw of The Ethiopian Garbage Disposal:
Now that's what I call composting.  Now, what do we do with all this goat-crap?

...one should dress sharply, drink red wine, and leer at every woman in sight. Right? But what should one do when in Addis Ababa?

World travelers are a bit obsessed with, well, themselves. This is evidenced by the number of conversations I had in recent months with other foreign travelers in which the main topic of conversation was our mode of travel, others' mode of travel, and the behavior of any foreigner in Ethiopia. I'm sure this sense is especially sharp because the color of your skin in Ethiopia paints you as either local or faranji, and there is little differentiation among Ethiopians between nationalities unless they're heavily involved in tourism.  All this means that if you're white, you're on the same team, which obviously is no big deal to this lady (merci beaucoups, les francais)



who obviously delights in making the rest of the white travelers in Ethiopia feel ashamed of ourselves, because unlike what was going through her mind when she decided on a local hairstyle, the vast majority seemed keenly aware that our actions reflected on all other travelers in country.  In fact, there's an entire sub-industry devoted to determining which nation's travelers are the worst tippers, worst dressed, worst linguists, etc., and our conversations were just the tip of the iceberg.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/rolf_potts/20061009/rolf_potts/rolf_potts10387
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/2138252.stm
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1909526,00.html

Most Americans know our reputation, but I've come to learn that our reputation for being loud, culturally ignorant, rude, and horrificly insulting linguists comes from the perception of Europeans in Europe.  That is to say that Americans in Europe tend to be making their best efforts to re-enact scenes from National Lampoon's European Vacation, and obviously, are having some success.

Over beers with Aussies, Brits, Germans, Dutch, Americans, and Estonians, I've come to learn that the view of American travelers is a bit more varied than the above surveys would have you think, though agreement is generally universal that Americans are the world's best tippers.  But in a survey with an embarrassingly small sample size, this American was voted the foreigner speaking the best Amharic (though we had to exclude the Estonian professor of Comparative Linguistics from the competition to gather this result), and this mostly because not a single traveler with whom I spent any significant time in two months in Ethiopia had so much as picked up an Amharic phrasebook (except you, Jen!).  In fact, an Aurstralian friend exclaimed that her best travel experiences had been had with American men, and not just one one occasion! -- At which point she felt it prudent to mention that none were 'travel flings.'  How is this possible?

The best answer we could come to over many conversations over many beers is the division between the perception of Americans traveling in Europe and American travelers that you might find in a place like Ethiopia.  We are somehow, a completely different kind of traveler, which explains why the first question that came to mind when you heard I was going to Ethiopia (right after, "Where is Ethiopia?") was so utterly simple: Why?  This is not a place that Americans end up on spring break or on a shopping vacation.  In fact, with few exceptions, it's not a place that Europeans or Australians, or anyone for that matter, ends up on spring break or on a shopping vacation.  Which means that travelers in Ethiopia are among the best-traveled, most culturally sensitive, and most interested in learning and participating in local culture of those anywhere in the world - Americans included.  In fact, I didn't meet a single American in Ethiopia of whose behavior I was ashamed (though there did seem to be disproportionate representation by missionaries).  However, on a black continent, a whitey is a whitey, and I can report a few airline-office outbursts, meals sent back in restaurants, arguments over 3-1/2 cents, and poor treatment of service staff that made me cringe as I looked at my forearms and wished they would tan just a little more so I didn't have to be on the same team with the aforementioned exceptions:


It's one thing to have pants and shirt clash, but to manage to clash the former with a fanny pack and one's own hair(!) is truly exceptional.  Thank you, Germany.


Oh, the French again.  She's clearly wearing pajamas (right), which Americans are more than capable of wearing in inappropriate places, but her companion has gone out of his way to buy pants locally with Afro-centric colors that might qualify as Saturday morning sweats.  Worn back at home as a comical representation of your prior travel experiences, they'd just be kooky.  Worn in country as throw-away hiking pants, they're a bit insulting.  Let's take a closer look (and I'll give a higher resolution so you can really feel the pain):


Come now, for shame.

All of this may begin to explain one of the stranger phenomena among travelers, which is our inability to talk to each other.  For each group of foreigners I managed to spend an afternoon or a few day's worth, there were dozens, scores, or even hundreds who nodded silently or looked down or away at the approach of another white traveler.  I'll admit to doing this on occasion, but can't quite sort out the motivation.  I know that I want my experiences to be truly mine, which keeps me from signing up for tours and large groups, but that can't explain avoiding pleasantries over breakfast with another traveler.  Maybe that's where the pajamas and corn rows come in: things I fear being associated with due (in the Ethiopian context) only to the color of my skin.  In any case, Jen and I spent two days in Simien Mountain National Park tweaking our departure times to avoid the squadron of French that included the above pants, and maybe without understanding the true motivations for this avoidance, we knew it was a good thing.  I'm happy to share the mountains with these guys,


but not with these guys.


At the end of the day, this avoidance of other travelers and assessment of others' behavior is just another part of travel.  I have learned an awful lot about the Dutch, Germans,and Aussies, but have never set foot in any of their countries (no, the Frankfurt airport does not count), and that comes only from sharing an afternoon or a few days of travel, or even just a beer, with their countrymen.  I took Great Britain 101 in Singapore, and Germany 102 in Ethiopia.  And so it seems fair to spend some time evaluating and documenting each other, though I'll admit that the photos I've taken for this post represent my own version of bad travel behavior - at least I didn't direct my transgressions at the Ethiopians.

But my shameless efforts at documenting Europeans Behaving Badly can't compare to to the worst that we observed, and this has to be in the realm of inappropriate dress.  As I said before, Ethiopia isn't a place one lands for spring break; it's also not a place where people dress like they're on spring break.  Yes, it's a  tropical nation, lying just a few degrees North of the Equator, but much of the country is above 7,500', making for cool evenings and cold nights (though less so in the South), and really just a few oppressively hot hours at the peak of most afternoons.  Besides being a cooler climate than you'd expect when packing your bags, Ethiopia is a relatively conservative (with the exception of the acceptance and openness of prostitution) culture, where I can count on two hands the number of locals I observed wearing shorts in my entire trip.  Even v-necks and tank tops on women were restricted to the younger ladies in bigger cites, especially Addis Ababa, but if there's one thing you shouldn't be doing in Ethiopia, it's dressing like you're on spring break.

And so, in the category Europeans Behaving Badly, the winner is:
Ireland!... (Where are her shorts???)

To be continued...

There are plenty of things left to say about my travels in Ethiopia, and many of the stories and experiences are still bouncing around in the brain. In the meantime, I'll be driving thousands of miles over the next two weeks or so, getting back to where I belong in the Portland area. Once my heart, soul, and head are all back in the same time zone, I'll get back to explaining the Ethiopian Garbage Disposal, Europeans on Parade, Endemic Ethiopia and More Plants You Can Eat (w/out FDA approval).