36 Hours in Cartagena for Backpackers: ¡Con Mucho Gusto!

Cartagena, Colombia--with its flowered balconies, sizzling street carts, and enticing fruit vendors lining narrow cobblestoned streets bursting with locals and tourists shuffling by each other past a kaleidoscope of carefully preserved colonial walls--immediately captures visitors with its charm.

One of Colombia's principal domestic tourist destinations, Cartagena's immaculately preserved colonial quarter--the Walled City--is among the oldest in the Americas and its main attraction. The neighborhood's upscale boutiques and array of international fine dining restaurants may not be an authentic representation of life outside the colonial walls, but it is a place too beautiful to begrudge.

Away from the throngs, under the cool shade of mature almond trees, is the Walled City's most enchanted and enchanting corner, Plaza Fernandez de Madrid, where Florentino Ariza sat pining for Fermina Daza.


A short walk up the street, the stunning Sofitel Santa Clara, set amid a beautifully restored former convent, is occasionally graced by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who is said to drop by for a drink. Although room rates fall outside most backpacker budgets, the courtyard--with its manicured gardens and colorful toucans--is open to the public.

Just beyond the Walled City lies Getsemani, a vibrant neighborhood with more local life, grit, and seediness than its carefully restored neighbor, whose affordable food and lodging options have made it the city's backpacker epicenter.

On Wednesday nights, the Media Luna Hostel plays host to a legendary party drawing a steady stream of locals in private cars, dressed to the nines, who come to mingle with backpackers from around the world dressed in shorts and flip flops.
Thursday through Saturday nights, taxi drivers stand outside Cafe Havana to drink in the intoxicating Cuban rhythms pulsating into the streets from one of the city's best and most authentic spots for live music.

After a day and a half in Cartagena, every street and corner in the Walled City had become familiar and it was time to move on. But it took even less time for the city's delicate mix of grime and fresh paint, of passion and heartbreak, to make us fall in love.

In every place we ate or drank or stayed, our thanks were always met with the same heartfelt response--"¡Con Gusto!"--a phrase that sums up the remarkable passion for life in Cartagena and, as we would later find, all over Colombia.

TO SLEEP: From among the dozen places we visited, Akel House Hostel (Calle San Andres #30-28, Getsemani; www.akelhouse.com) offered by far the best private rooms. A spotless and bright budget hotel centrally located just off of Calle Media Luna in Getsemani, the property is family-run and it shows. Ask for a room on the third floor, facing the large balcony that overlooks the city. Rooms start at about 70,000 pesos.

FOR A BREAK FROM THE HEAT: Head to Mila Cafe (Calle de la Iglesia 35-76), a beautifully decorated Mexican pastry shop with an unbelievably decadent quatros leches cake served, like the best homemade tiramisu, in a bowl.

Or try Gelateria Paradiso (Calle de Estanco del Tabaco 35-28), where the tarty and sweet maracuya sorbet is particularly refreshing.

FOR LUNCH: Step inside La Mulata (Calle Quero 9-58) and take a seat under the papier mache fish dangling from the ceiling, beside the peeling white washed walls decorated with native masks and photos of young Fidel and Che, to listen to the blaring salsa trumpets of San Barios and enjoy fantastic Colombian fare alongside the locals. In addition to the memorable food, La Mulata offers the best fruit juices we had in Colombia.

STREET FOOD BY DAY: Try the bevy of food carts along Avenida Venezuela just outside the Walled City, or head into Walled City itself.

STREET FOOD BY NIGHT: After sundown, the Plaza de la Trinidad in Getsemani fills with locals and tourists sitting around to talk, drink, and watch the kids play pickup soccer--and enough delicious street carts to feed them all.

FOR DINNER: The best and freshest ceviche we've ever had was at El Boliche Cibecheria (Calle Larga 9A-36). It was so good, we went twice in the same night. Try the tamarind ceviche.

A QUICK BREAKFAST: For a piping hot breakfast pastry fresh from the oven, stop by a bakery (panaderia) and ask for pan con pollo--a flaky, buttery puff pastry stuffed with chicken and cheese. To find the best one, follow the locals and your nose.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad


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Panama City To Cartagena By Sail Aboard the Gypsy Moth

Do not call me Ishmael, for I was not made to sail.

On July 5, 2012, Olga and I set out to travel through sun drenched deserted islands and across open seas. Our destination: Cartagena, Colombia. We had everything to make voyage, except El Colombiano, a mysterious personage of unknown whereabouts who held the key to our international ambitions.





Panama connects the world's two great oceans from east to west, but divides the Americas from north to south. The wild and dense jungles of the Darien create the last missing link in the Pan-American highway--the Darien Gap--and render the Panamanian-Colombian frontier impenetrable. Travelers who could otherwise move from Patagonia to Alaska by land must find other options at the gateway to South America.

Faced with high airfares between Panama City and Cartagena, expeditious travelers have for several years opted to make the crossing by boat. The typical journey lasts five days: three days of lazy meandering through the idyllic San Blas--a chain of hundreds of undeveloped and largely deserted islands floating atop clear azure waters--followed by a two day voyage in open waters to Cartagena. At roughly $500 per person, the trip offers those with the time and the stomach a far more memorable experience than air travel at about the same price.

I had long dreamed of sailing across the Pacific, so the opportunity to cross continents by sea was an unexpected and thrilling chance to dip my proverbial toes in the water. The key was to secure spots on the right boat, and we chopped down our time in Panama to sail with the Gyspy Moth, a 55-foot monohaul sailing yacht that was recommended by several sources as the best around.




A day and a half after our arrival and unimpressed with Panama City, Olga and I stuffed ourselves into the windowless back row of a rattling 4x4 to El Porvenir, where we would meet our vessel.

Once on board, we met the captain, Symian, a well-tanned Englishman with bright blue eyes, boyishly cut salt and pepper hair, and a surfer-style seashell necklace. We would make the journey with eight shipmates: a Danish couple, two fellow Americans, two Dutch traveling separately, and two women from Canada and South Africa traveling together.

Shortly after settling our things on board, Symian gave us the weather forecast: huge waves and storms loomed ahead in the open seas. On the horizon, we could see and hear powerful waves crashing against the maze of reefs that surround the San Blas and keep its waters unaffected by the turbulent seas without.




Then, we learned a second disquieting fact: three days earlier, Fritz the Cat, another well-known charter running the same route, had sunk in the middle of the ocean more than fifty miles from land. The details have come to me through many hands, and I relay them as such: Fritz did not have life jackets; its captain was unlicensed and had never made the trip before. Once the boat began to sink, no one received a call for help. The passengers were saved because another ship happened to be within sight, noticed that Fritz was not floating properly, and called the Colombian navy. All the passengers were rescued, but their luggage was lost.

Fortunately, Symian was a highly professional sailor and the Gypsy Moth had life jackets. But Fritz's sinking left Symian, and us, with a new problem: a desperate need for a Colombian.

To understand why, if that is even possible, requires some background. For years, Colombian captains sailing out of Cartagena had watched as an increasing number of foreign boats entered and left their harbor packed with backpacker charters. After trying to get into the business themselves with little success, the idle captains lobbied local officials for additional regulations and taxes on their foreign counterparts, causing trip prices to soar from roughly $300 to over $500. Still, demand remained high and for those boats in demand such annoyances became a tolerable cost of doing business.




But Fritz's sinking provided the catalyst for a new, incredible requirement: every boat making the journey between Cartagena and Panama must carry a Colombian on board. If the requirement appears vague, that is because it is. Apparently, any Colombian national will do. No special expertise, safety training, sailing experience, or other qualification is necessary. Boats without a Colombian would be denied clearance by Cartagena's immigration officials. Yet the same boat could dock, sans Colombian, in any other port in Colombia. Alternatively, the boat could clear immigration at another Colombian port and then continue on to Cartagena unimpeded. Hearing the poorly conceived details of the regulation set off flashbacks of Cass Sunstein explaining the phrase "arbitrary and capricious."

To satisfy the new requirement, Symian had arranged for precisely one Colombian to be delivered care of the Gypsy Moth, in time for the departure for Cartagena.

With part of our minds on the huge waves we would face in open seas and another on the perfunctory Colombian, we gave the rest of our attentions to the gorgeous deserted islands and stunning waters around us. Over the next two days, we chased tropical fish around a sunken shipwreck, enjoyed Symian's delicious cooking, drank, shared music, and worked on our tans.




On our second day in the San Blas, we "bought" an island for the day for $10, giving us free access to its modest but beautiful shores, palmed interior, and its volleyball court. Amid much trash talking, laughter, and a few vicious spikes, we enjoyed a highly competitive but scoreless game of beach volleyball on an island all to ourselves.




During the many idle hours, we learned about each other in a piecemeal, logically disoriented fashion.

Josh and Shiv, two former high school tennis teammates from Virginia, were making their first trip to South America. Josh, a sandy-haired blue-eyed first grade teacher full of southern gentility, was the only passenger not to get sick in open waters. He scarfed down meals with a healthy appetite as we looked on with pale sweating faces. Shiv, who had spent two years working with the Peace Corps in Panama and spoke fluent Spanish, helped us to communicate with the indigenous Kuna women who would paddle their canoes alongside the boat to offer their molas.

Dina, a Canadian who had opted to travel the world for a year instead of tying herself to a mortgage, had met Analisa, a mild mannered South African vegetarian with a knack for diffusing awkward moments with a smile and a tilt of the head, in Bocas del Toro, where they had decided to sail to Colombia together.

Wouter (pronounced Walther), a handsome young Dutchman with a penchant for tastefully colorful attire and liquor, slipped in and out of the center of attention as he pleased.

Our other Dutch companion, Merel, had learned Spanish during a six month stint in Costa Rica and was picking up photography with her characteristic enthusiasm.

Malte and Caroline were the only other couple on board and happened to be about the same age as us. They lived in Copenhagen, one of our favorite cities, and we quickly fell into talking about our experiences there.




The more I learned about the group, the more I was struck by the range of our similarities and differences. Our diverse nationalities and backgrounds showed in the subtle discrepancies of our hair and dress. Tastes in food and books varied as well, although I was pleased to see everyone reading on paper and to find Wouter carrying The Great Gatsby. But we all seemed to enjoy the same travel destinations: many had traveled to the same places around the world and most were looking forward to essentially visiting the same handful of places in Colombia.

More striking were the similarities in musical tastes. When one person put on an album, more than half of the group already knew it, had it on their iPod, and had even been to the concert. The National, Beirut, Beach House, and other de rigeur staples of the Morning Becomes Eclectic line up were particular favorites. And what new music each of us discovered was closely in line with what we already knew.




I realized that Olga and I had tapped into the backpacker social network, a loose collection of twenty-somethings from first world countries traveling over extended periods to world class tourist destinations in the developing world--traveling the beaten path in places "our parents would never go"--living frugally, eating locally, sleeping communally, smelling royally, always craving beer and fruit juice and meusli, with all our luggage on our backs, largely ignorant of the history, culture, and language of the places we visit, in search of others just like ourselves.

On the second night, bottles of rum and scotch crowded the boat's dining table as dance music blared across tranquil waters and moonlit islands, disturbing no one. Symian, the biggest party animal of us all, put on a strobe light show by theatrically clicking and unclicking the cockpit light.

After a few drinks, I went to lay on deck to gaze at the stars overhead and the lightning on the horizon, smoking an incredible Partagas Serie D No. 4--a favorite cigar from my Paris days--that I had picked up back in Panama City.

Further down the deck, Wouter also beheld the heavens. I joined him and, to pardon my intrusion on his thoughts, told him the old Persian tale of the dervish who sat in quiet poverty contemplating his existence and conversing with God. A man of the world joined the dervish and asked, "My brother, were you alone?" "No," the dervish replied, "but I am now."




Around midnight, Symian challenged us to a dive across the boat's keel. Dina went first, followed closely by Symian and me. Surprisingly, I could actually make out the hull's dark outline underwater and followed its contour so closely that my ankle touched the keel as I rounded the bottom. We floated in our glory and laughed at the thrill of doing something we had never thought to do. Then, joined by Josh, we swam to the nearest island and played American football with half a coconut shell, knee deep in the warm tropical waters, splashing and shouting under an overcast moonless sky.

Despite all the fun, the group was increasingly eager for Cartagena. Hamstrung by the lack of a Colombian, we listened with consternation as Symian's tempered calls to Delphin Solo, the boat that carried our precious cargo, went unanswered.

We spent the fourth day back in El Porvenir, the scheduled drop off point, sitting at anchor and waiting for the Colombian when we should have had been en route to Cartagena.




The fifth morning, Symian paced the cockpit in clear frustration. With no word from Delphin Solo, some of the passengers were growing restless and concerned about losing travel days in Colombia. We sat in the dense morning heat and came up with various schemes for securing a Colombian. Perhaps Shiv could pass as a Colombian, someone offered, or we could ask the indigenous tribes who owned the San Blas to fan out and find a Colombian to kidnap.

Before our imaginations could be put into action, we got word that the Colombian would arrive that afternoon. Symian quickly went to shore to sort out the paperwork.




When the call finally came over the radio--"Gypsy Moth, Gypsy Moth, Gyspy Moth, this is Delphin Solo"--I was closest to the receiver and Symian was still on shore. Unversed in the etiquettes of naval communication, I pressed the button and tersely replied, "Delphin Solo, this is Gypsy Moth."

"Gyspy Moth, we are en route to Porvenir now and have our sails up. Should be in sight shortly. We have your Colombian; over."

Taken aback to learn that the Delphin Solo's captain considered "the Colombian" as much a piece of cargo as we did, I clumsily answered, "That's great, we look forward to seeing him."

By noon, the Colombian was on board. Dark and svelte, with a short wiry frame like a boxer's, he wore his curly black hair closely cropped, accentuating his jutting ears. He introduced himself with a warm, unassuming smile as Felix, told us our boat was nice, complemented the good food, and fell asleep in the cockpit. As we finally set sail for Colombia, we watched Felix sleeping peacefully and our resentments quickly dissipated. He was, after all, just a pawn in a petty game of local politics playing out across international seas, trying to make a living.




The next 36 hours, for me, were passed in a supine position, with hours of sleep broken up by bouts of staring helplessly at the jerking ceiling. Waiting for Felix had helped us avoid the worst weather, but the waves were still big enough to put me prostrate.

Then, at some point in the middle of the sixth night, I felt completely better. The boat had stopped rocking and I came to the deck, thirsty and hungry, to find Cartagena sleeping in the quiet early morning. It was 4 AM and I sat up to watch the sun rise over a bowl of cereal as I reflected on the trip. I had not had access to internet, received a single email, text message, call, or voicemail for six days. I had also not worn shoes or even sandals once during that time, probably the longest I had gone without footwear since infancy. I was glad to have learned, in 36 hours rather than weeks in the Pacific, that I am not meant to sail.

Back on land, we decided to keep the band together for one more night and asked Symian to join us for dinner and drinks. Even though he had to head back to Panama the very next day with another group, Symian still made it out, partied harder than everyone, and left us with terrific memories. I could not imagine doing the trip with a better captain or a better boat than the Gypsy Moth.




Epilogue: Backpackers who meet in one place often part ways only to run into each other again. Olga and I first experienced this odd phenomenon in Vietnam, where we were surprised to see the same people over and over while moving across a country of 87 million people.

Days after leaving Cartagena, Olga and I ran into Merel in Tayrona Park. She had arrived with a family of 14 Colombians from Baranquilla, whom she had befriended on the bus to Tayrona.

Only hours after having a farewell lunch with Merel in Tayrona, as we walked out of the park, Olga and I met Analisa. She had just arrived and we caught up for a few minutes before parting again.

The next morning in Cartagena's airport, awaiting our flight to Medellin, we found Dina, also on her way to the City of Eternal Spring.

Once in Medellin, I met up with Caroline and Malte for dinner and drinks, who told me they had run into Josh and Shiv while looking for rooms in a hostel.

So we part ways, forging our own paths, only to find each other again in a future destination. This too is a hallmark of the backpacker social network. And as keen as I am to be sui generis, I am coming around to it.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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In Search of Panama City's Soul

Despite appearances, Panama City is a calm and quiet place. That was our impression when we landed on the modest airstrip surrounded by richly verdant tropical plants, when we drove through the empty roads into town, when we passed the massively vertical concrete skyscrapers densely packed along the coast, and even when we arrived at our hotel in Casco Viejo--Panama's historical district and a UNESCO heritage site--which is currently undergoing reconstruction from the ground up.

We chose to stay in Casco Viejo in search of Panama City's soul. From the photos, most of the city looked to be a rainforest of high rises only feet apart, pushing ever higher in search of light. Casco, by contrast, seemed full of Spanish colonial charm with a healthy dose of gentle dilapidation.





Our drive into town only reinforced that impression. After passing under the weight of the concrete rainforest canopy, we reached the undulating red shingle roofed skyline of Casco Viejo, beautifully pierced by the spires of an old church or two.







Inside Casco, we found artfully restored hotels, restaurants, and mansions painted in bright pastels, separated by derelict empty shells of buildings whose rear walls stared blankly back at us through the window arches of their crumbling facades. Every street was being torn apart and dozens of buildings were simultaneously under restoration, creating total gridlock throughout the narrow one way streets.

We arrived at our hotel, Los Cuatros Tulipanes, in the early afternoon under an overcast sky. Tulipanes rents beautifully restored apartments, fully furnished to feel like a home away from home. Our unit, a two story one bedroom with 14 foot ceilings, a formal dining room, well equipped kitchen, and outdoor patio, featured a washer and dryer, reading chairs, and two cold beers. The apartment was twice the size of our cramped space back in LA; Olga and I were blown away.

The rest of Casco Viejo, unfortunately, underwhelmed. The full scale simultaneous restorations certainly detract from the neighborhood's charm in the short term. But more worrisome is their apparent long term aspirations.



Once racially and economically diverse, Casco appears destined to become a fortress for the very fair and very rich. On our first day, every restaurant we found exclusively catered to tourists--we did not see a single place where actual working class Panamanians would (or could) eat. And although our two scoops of basil and raspberry ice cream from Granclement were first-rate delicious, at $4.20 we could have done just as well in LA.

And that seems to be what Casco intends to offer: come for the Canal, the bird watching, the rainforests, the restored colonial buildings, but eat like home, sleep like home, and pay like home (in dollars, of course).

In short, Casco is no bargain, and appears to be losing its soul.

Take for instance, Mama Chefa, who is by some accounts the neighborhood's honorary godmother. At a six seat dining table in her living room, under fluorescent lights and amid walls covered in the graduation photos of an improbable number of granddaughters, she serves home made Panamanian lunches to locals every day from noon to 1 PM for $3. Gringos are also welcome, but unbeknownst to us, at a 67% markup.

On the day we visited her, Mama sat outside on a plastic chair peering down the street in search of her first pilgrim, her face tense with anticipation. We greeted her with hugs, as we had been told to do, and sat at her table. She returned our greeting with two plates of chicken rice, an achingly sweet fried plantain, and a richly mayonnaised potato salad. Soon, three Panamanian regulars joined the table. One was particularly delighted by the day's offering. I asked another the price; she told us $3 per person. When we went to Mama with $6 in hand, she insisted that we owed $10.

"What about the others?" we asked, "They said they pay $3."

"They have credit with me," she icily replied, and grumbled to a local that "Los Ingles" pay five. So much for Casco's ambassador of soul. Even the unfriendliest street vendors in Hanoi didn't slap us with a schmuck tax.

Fortunately, the city redeemed itself in unlikely places.

On Avenida Central in El Chorrillo--Casco's impoverished northern neighbor--we walked past a fruit seller lovingly gazing at his green parrot, old friends debating on park benches, and broken faces tanned and creased with the misfortunes that the rich and fortunate call real life.










In the evening--beneath the towering skyscrapers we had once so summarily dismissed--we ate delicious chilli dogs, arripas, and barbecued chicken from street carts dominated by hungry locals. None of them had a gringo price.



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Day Zero: the quest for El Dorado

July 2, 2012

In our increasingly flat and connected world, has travel lost its magic? What is there to do that some frenemy on Facebook has not already plastered your newsfeed about? Why do we travel? And is it less meaningful when we walk in the footsteps of others?

There is nothing particularly unique about the human desire to go where others have not or do not dare, to find that perfect white sand beach on a deserted island amidst warm turquoise waters, or that pure cup of tea made from leaves carefully hand picked by a toothless master practicing his art in poverty and obscurity, to stumble upon an unknown civilization of peoples in some foreign land painted in a different color palate, rich in architecture and culture and the scent of strange exciting foods. These are the experiences that cannot be tour packaged or arrived upon aboard a cruise ship after days of shuffleboard. A horde of tourists in white socks and Crocs is their antithesis.




And therein lies the paradox: the very desire to find such places inevitably brings about their ruin. Each El Dorado, once discovered, is quickly lost forever, leaving in its wake every place we have ever been.

And so, ever since I saw those large white letters painted in an uneven scrawl across a mountain wall on the road to Sapa town warning each new visitor to "Be a Traveler, Not a Tourist," I have never considered a travel destination without asking: "Am I too late?"

Or more precisely, "How late am I?"

That latter question is what Olga and I hope to find out about Colombia, a country whose reputation for instability and violence had for several decades isolated it from heavy commercial tourism. Until a few years ago.
After a brief stay in Panama City's Casco Viejo neighborhood, we sail for Cartagena by way of the idyllic San Blas islands. Our path is tested. There will be no macheteing through the Darien or jaunts amidst the narco hold outs and guerrilla camps that canvas Colombia's borders. This is not that trip.

But we hope, without wading for days through waist-high mud or being kidnapped at gun point, to find a place that will show us something about ourselves that Los Angeles could not. For it is the fate of El Dorado that it can never be where we already are.


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With World Enough, And Time, Part I: Southeast by Southwest

On August 27, after months of anticipation, Olga and I left Houston for southeast Asia, by way of California and the American southwest. We had agreed to pack as little as possible, carry everything ourselves, and spend, on average, no more than $50 per day, for the two of us, including transport, meals, lodging, and activities. We would record every purchase, every day, no matter how trivial.

Our entire luggage fit into two modest backpacks. We had eliminated item after item until we each had four shirts, three pants, one ultra-thin waterproof jacket, five pairs of underwear, a bathing suit and one pair of Rainbow sandals. No shoes, no socks; two months, two people. I pleaded with Olga to leave her hairbrush, but she drew the line. One of the bags held all our clothing and toiletries. The other was half-full with six books and a new DSLR. We had carefully packed everything into Ziplock bags, a habit we kept for the entire journey. 

Our flight would depart from LAX shortly after midnight on Tuesday. We left early Friday morning with the sunrise in our rear view mirror. California was three days away.

We arrived in Marfa in the late afternoon and checked in at El Cosmico, the 18 acre slab of barren West Texas land dotted with yurts, tents, campgrounds, and restored vintage trailers, where we had reservations for a 1951 Royal Mansion. We walked along the winding dirt paths that formed cosmic patterns through the tall summer grass, pulling a yellow luggage cart with heavy duty off-road wheels behind us until we reached our trailer. It was painted half white and half sherbet green, with three big windows facing out over as much wide open desert, mountain, and sky as the eye could take in. We lay on the couch, stared out the windows, drank beers, and started reading our novels. The door was open and fresh washed white linens flapped from a clothes line in front of the neighboring trailer, a few dozen yards away. We rinsed off in the outdoor shower and laughed, buzzed from the beers, at the pleasure of being naked and wet in the middle of the endless desert. Back in the trailer, still wrapped in towels, we napped and let time drift till we woke hungry for dinner. 

The next morning, Olga and I set out to explore Marfa’s phenomenal food scene. The sun was already mercilessly high by the time we were seated for breakfast in the garden at Cochineal, where we took coffee and refuge beside the cool grey adobe wall, next to a tall, lean man in a high-sleeved white undershirt and skinny jeans, pushing the side bangs away from his tortoise shell sunglasses so he could read Truman Capote. We walked through the town’s two main intersections, paced the fabled halls of the Paisano, experimented with new photographic angles for the clichéd water tower, and flipped through art books in the bookstore until we could eat again. Back on the sidewalk, we hugged the storefronts in search of shade until we arrived at the Pizza Foundation, where we ate the best pizza either of us has had – New York, Chicago, L.A., Portland, France, Italy – anywhere, to this day, made in a converted old gas station by a Brooklyn transplant.

Afterwards, we packed up the car and drove west two blocks to the outskirts of town, past Dairy Queen and El Cheapo Liquor Store, to visit Tacos del Norte. We pulled aside the bright orange metal screen door and stepped into the cool, empty dining room furnished with bingo chairs, two murals of Speedy Gonzales, and candles adorning an icon of the Lady of Guadalupe. At the benches outside, beside the quiet highway, we ate in awe and silence the greatest tacos either of us has ever had, anywhere, to this day.

We left Marfa without filling the tank. As we passed by what obviously looked to be the last gas station in many miles, Olga begged me to stop. But I knew Valentine was only 35 miles away and knew we could make it. I did not know that Valentine was a town of two hundred people, in good times. These were not good times. The only gas station was boarded up, the pumps removed. We had rolled in on fumes and had no shot of making it out to the interstate on what we had left. I pulled over by the gas station hoping to eventually hail someone down and ask for help.

Across the street I heard sounds coming from a huge open-ended garage, where a thin man in overalls was washing down a beautifully painted electric green semi truck that was more of a hot rod than a tool of interstate commerce. I called to him twice, trying to get his attention over the noise of the high pressure water pump without frightening him. He shut the water off, and as he turned around and walked over to me I realized he had cerebral palsy. “We’re out of gas,” I said, “I didn’t know the station would be out of service.” He looked down, took his gloves off, shoved them in his back pocket, and grinned. “You’re not the first,” he said, as he turned and started to walk away. “There’s a woman with a tank a quarter of a mile away. I’ll take you to her place.” 

For the next two days, the American southwest rolled by as we sat still, gazing across flatlands and hillsides and ranchlands, until California came to us and we came back to the Pacific. I exited the 405 on Culver and in a single drive passed everything that had happened to me and that I had done from the age of nine to seventeen, until we arrived at what I now call my parents’ house.

They knew our plan: drop off the car, stay a couple of days, then fly out on Tuesday shortly after midnight. But they were still in disbelief over the finer details. “$50 a day? For two people? Where is the rest of your luggage? You aren’t taking any shoes?” It is petty to take pleasure in worrying your parents, to seek validation of their love by causing them concern, but their outrage was nonetheless deeply gratifying. Olga rolled her eyes and laughed as I told them that we planned to eat entirely on the streets, from vendors with no regard for basic sanitation, and that, to be honest, we were concerned for our health, “because there are a lot of unpleasant diseases over there.”

“You’re such a little shit!” Olga whispered in my ear, “Stop worrying your parents.” As a child, I was constantly afraid that my parents would find out I was doing something wrong. Now I could tell them in great detail all the wrong things I planned to do.

At ten minutes after midnight on Tuesday, August 31, 2010, Olga and I left for Vietnam.
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Nowruz, Tehran, 1988

I sat in the middle of the living room, undressing my newest Barbie, when the sirens erupted. The lights went out, everywhere. Tehran, the city of ten million, was extinguished like a candle. In a sudden rush I was hoisted into the air, into my father's arms, flown out the door, jolted down eleven flights of steps. My mother carried the kerosene lamp, whose flame flickered in time to my fluttering heart amid the tumult of passing playmates bobbing baffled downward in other parents' arms. The brown mosaic floor tiles shown murky beneath the basement's jaundiced lights, fueled by backup generators, caged in steel. Our neighbors inhaled the damp musty air amid a symphonic alternation of pants and gasps. I climbed out of my father's arms and listened in awe as he explained how Saddam Hussein, that monstrously mustached maniac, had used a scud missile to interrupt my search for what lay beneath Barbie's dress. Read more!

Papaya and Poetic Memories

A dense layer of dark clouds hovered over Tokyo when his plane finally came to rest on the perfectly clean tarmac, newly washed by the light but determined drizzle that floated down upon the brightly lit buildings of the Japanese capital. Twelve hours ago he had left Chicago aboard the Boeing 747 that would carry him north of even the northern most point of Alaska. From the window of his seat at the very back of the plane he had watched the northern lights shimmer like a cascading kaleidoscope across the desolate white landscape of the Arctic. Twelve hours later, the pieces of paper that he had pulled out of his backpack on takeoff still starred back at him blankly from his meal tray. He had planned to use the flight to write a speech for the wedding, but what could he say about the best friend he had hardly seen in the past four years?

In college he had spent hours upon hours learning about Japan, its language, and its culture, yet this was the first time he had set foot in the Land of the Rising Sun. A few years ago he would have been enamored with Japanese culture and Japanese women. He could have even used the Japanese he had picked up in college. Now he could hardly remember the alphabet, much less read the flashing signs all about him. In some ways, it felt like this trip had come too late. Still, he was thrilled to have finally made it to Japan. He had ultimately come here not for himself but for Taro. For the next week, he would be staying at Taro’s apartment with his fiancée Amy and her good friend Cindy. He faintly remembered Cindy from Berkeley but wasn't sure he would recognize her. He was sure she would not recognize him.

He was sitting in the living room of Taro’s parents’ house room checking his email and drinking green tea when the girls walked in. He was surprised when Cindy introduced herself. It seemed as though she had not changed at all in the four years since they had last had a class together. He had never known her very well in college, but he hoped that would change during the next week. He did not think of much else; the long flight to Tokyo and the bus ride to Yokohama had left him totally spent. The only thing he wanted in that moment was a hot shower and a good night’s sleep.

By the time he woke up the next morning, the others were already back from the bakery. As he walked out of his room into the hallway of this quintessentially Japanese apartment, with its sliding paper doors and mat covered floors, he squinted at the sunlight that poured into the cozy living room from the windows that looked out onto the oriental-shingle covered rooftops of this quaint and verdant suburb of Yokohama. Taro, Amy, and Cindy were already sitting on the floor cross legged around the little table. As he sat down, they began to talk about their plan for the day while they breakfasted on the various pastries they had bought. He had a paper to finish and wanted to go to a coffee shop so he could do some work. Cindy needed to do some work too and offered to join him. Amy and Taro, not wanting to stay home alone, offered to come along as well. The foursome set out for the local Jonathan’s, a Japanese rendition of Denny’s.

He had been working furiously and had pounded out four pages in less than an hour. The table was covered in empty mugs from the all-you-can-drink coffee bar. Amy and Cindy were taking caffeine-induced bathroom trips every ten minutes. He wanted a moment just to be alone with Cindy but how could he get them away from Taro and Amy for just a few minutes?

“Do you smoke?” he asked.
“Unfortunately, yeah I do.”
“Cigarette break?”
“Sure, give me two minutes.”

A few minutes later, they stole away to a booth in the smoking section. He felt strangely glad to be alone with her and to talk to her. They stayed and talked long after their cigarettes were done and each of them indulged in the delight of taking a break that is just a little too long from work that needs to be done immediately. From across the room, Amy would occasionally shoot them a puzzled look, wondering why they would rather be by themselves.

He found Cindy surprisingly easy to talk to, intelligent and charmingly dorky. She reminded him oddly of Margaret Chang from Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, but he knew the association did not fit because Margaret was the girl Max had always taken for granted. Cindy on the other hand was not easily taken for granted. The long list of men who lingered about her life hoping for a chance made her comfortable with the notion that she could choose her romantic destiny. She was not used to being a second choice. He would later find out that the worst mistake he could make was to treat her like one.

She was growing on him in a way he had never experienced. He wondered if it was possible that she truly understood him. Like him, she had grown up very conscious of the value of money. The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants who had met as graduate students at Utah State through Mormon friends, Cindy had worked very hard to achieve her impressive position in life. Her quiet, under-stated confidence did not impose itself on others but prevented others from imposing their will on her. And the more he thought about her, the more interested he became in the most inane details of her life. He looked forward with increasing anticipation to their cigarette breaks, which were slowly becoming their own private ritual.

As the wedding approached, Cindy and he grew closer. Normally he could not let a person say ten words without interrupting, completely ignoring the person’s point, and quickly turning the conversation to himself or something he found interesting. But for the first time in his life, he had found a girl he just wanted to listen to and all he could think about was how to keep her talking. She told him about her relationship with her father, which he could have guessed was not particularly good because of the way she innocently befriended many men but never truly let any of them into her life. She was adamant about her independence. As the manager of her company’s New York office at 25, she had gained confidence in her own abilities while losing faith in those of her peers. At nine, her father had moved away for work; he did not return until she was sixteen. His absence during the most critical years of her life must have critically wounded her ability to allow herself to rely on any man. During that time she had grown to deeply love her mother. Papaya reminded Cindy of her mother, and it reminded her mother of drinking papaya shakes as a child in Taiwan. He understood that this simple detail was meaningful to her, and so it became incredibly significant to him. When her father finally moved back into their home, his strict demeanor made a jarring contrast to her mother’s laid back parenting. For Cindy it was difficult to decide whether she was unhappier when her father was away or when he had returned. His absence had left a void in her life that his presence could never fill.

After dinner Amy was raging silently at Taro. She had spent the day meeting her parents at their hotel in Tokyo and greeting her uncle and his wife at the airport. When she finally met up with Taro and their friends for dinner, she became ecstatic at the sight of him. She lit up as soon as she spotted him through the tens of thousands of Japanese faces standing in front of Shibuya station. But her joy was doused by his aloof indifference. Taro gave her a hug and a kiss, but his face was serious and he barely acknowledged Amy. The light died out of her eyes and the fatigue of the day that had temporarily disappeared at the sight of her lover suddenly came rushing back upon her shoulders, in her feet, in that spot behind her knees that always gets the most tired of all places but that no one ever talks about. All throughout dinner and even afterwards Taro continued to give more attention to everyone but her. By the time they got back to the little station in Yamate, the quiet suburban neighborhood of Yokohama where they were all staying, Amy was too angry to fight with him and too tired to stand being near him. It had taken all her energy to avoid causing a scene in front of their friends. As soon as they exited the train station, Cindy and she walked across the street before Taro and he could decide whether they would walk or take a cab home. When Taro called to her she pretended not to hear him, even though he called her name loudly and repeatedly, and even though the street separating them was barely wide enough for two compact Japanese cars to safely pass each other. The women took a cab. The men walked.

When Taro and he got back to the apartment, Amy had already taken a shower and he could sense that she had lost her edge. After the chaos of anger comes a numbing silence of confusion and exhaustion, a rare moment where the mind is devoid of thought and full of a quiet resignation at its inability to bend the world to its desires. The only thing Amy wanted from Taro at that point was to be left alone in this ethereal state of total peace.

He was sitting in his room thinking about all the things that could have made Amy so upset with Taro when Cindy walked in. Her room was just across the narrow hallway but this was the first time she had come in to his. She stepped around his body laying on the futon on the floor and found herself an empty spot between the bed and the wall. She pulled her knees into her chest, clasped them with her hands hidden under her oversized Berkeley sweater, and jammed her naked toes between his blanket and the futon to protect them from the constant chill that drifted across the floor of the apartment. His eyes had tracked her movements in curiosity from the time she unexpectedly walked in. He could sense she wanted to talk and he got up and closed the door. They talked about their friends, about relationships, and their parents. When they ran out of things to say he suddenly worried that she would leave and quickly suggested they look at pictures from the past few days. He set up the computer and sat up. She moved closer to him. He wondered if this was his moment, if he should tell her with his eyes how much he wanted them to bridge the gap between their two rooms where each of them slept in the cold each night alone. He wanted to tell her with a single kiss that she should come curl her body next to his at night when everyone was asleep and no one would know. He believed he knew if a girl was right for him from the way they cuddled. Some girls knew how to wiggle themselves into every nook and cranny until the spoons fit just right. Other girls had been cumbersome and awkward when they had slept together, their limbs and edges stabbing and protruding in all the most uncomfortable places. He wondered, looking at her sitting on his bed, if Cindy and he would fit each other well.

Lost in these thoughts he had pulled himself away from her. Physically he was still only a few inches away, but suddenly each of them was alone, side by side. She could feel his absence now, she could feel that again he had left her and lost himself in his own head. “Always thinking, thinking, thinking!” she would chastise him later, almost with pity in her voice for him because she knew he could never just let himself go. The moment had passed. She was tired and they were out of pictures. She was going to bed.

He felt stunned. As she left, before she was even out the door, he fell back to thinking about what he had done wrong. He remembered his first date with the first girl he ever loved. He had let the entire movie go by thinking of when he should finally put his arm around her, his heart beating so loudly that he could hear his pulse in every part of his body. By the time he had worked up the courage to make his move, the movie had ended. A decade later he had found himself in the same position. In David Bowie’s “Always Crashing in the Same Car,” a man drives around and around the same empty hotel parking lot and manages to repeat the exact same accident over and over again, even though he knows each time of the danger ahead. He saw in that miserable modern Sisyphus his own fate. It was no wonder that Kafka once wrote, “Sisyphus was a bachelor.” His dad had always told him that not even a donkey falls into the same ditch twice.

When he met up with Cindy and Seth in Yokohama’s Chinatown she looked at his suitcase and asked where he was going.

“I’m spending the night at a friend’s in Tokyo. I figure I’ll be too drunk after the bachelor party to come back to Yamate.”
“So I’m going to be all by myself tonight?” she asked. He almost wanted to cancel his plans and find a way to get back to Yamate that night after the party.

“If I had known you weren’t using your room tonight I would have invited Seth to come stay with us. He had to get a hostel here because he has nowhere else to stay.”

He knew the last thing she wanted was for Seth to be across the hallway from her. She was using Seth to make him feel replaceable and generic. The only reason he had even met them in Chinatown was because she had called Amy five times in two hours from payphones all over the city asking when he would come. Still, he couldn’t help being annoyed with her.

Seth had traveled on an overnight bus from Kyoto to see Cindy and had put the entire week aside to see Tokyo with her. Instead, he would sit alone in his hostel in the middle of Chinatown for days without a word from her. Cindy was too busy with the wedding and anyways she had no obligation to see someone she had no interest in. When Cindy finally felt guilty about ignoring Seth, she asked him to write the message. He told Seth that Cindy would be meeting a friend at the Starbucks in Shibuya across from the Hachiko exit and that Seth could meet her there. He wrote the message as tersely and quickly as he could, not only because he was annoyed with himself for doing Cindy’s bidding (he always found it difficult to refuse to do favors for women) but more importantly because he hoped to convey to Seth the preposterousness of her gesture. He hoped that Seth would see from the message’s hasty style and ambiguous instructions that Cindy really had no interest in seeing him at all. He wanted to oblige her by helping her fulfill her formalistic desire to extend him an invitation, but he also wanted to warn Seth that the invitation was hollow and that he would do better to sit in his hostel alone in Chinatown than to trek to Shibuya in search of her at the busiest intersection in Japan, where her Asian face and short stature would make her impossible to find among the thousands of faces blending into one another and moving about like the tips of waves shinning, glimmering and sinking on the surface of a tempestuous ocean.

Seth was one of the many men lingering around Cindy’s life. Fred, her roommate and part time lover from New York, was another. Harry, a thirty-something Scottish multi-millionaire who had been one of the earliest employees at Google and cashed out his options at the peak of the market, was a third. They were not the only ones, just the ones who had followed her to Japan and were now hovering about the country, close enough to be there if she called but far enough not to seem desperate.

As they walked through the subway on the way to his friend’s apartment in Tokyo she constantly asked him if he needed help carrying his suitcase. He found it endearing that she was worried about him, but he also saw it as a sign of her lack of confidence in him and told her so. “Cindy, I can carry the suitcase. I know you don’t have any faith in me now, but that will change the more you know me. I’ll show you that you don’t have to worry about me, or about yourself when you’re with me. I’m strong.” He wanted her to know that he was capable of taking care of himself as well as others. He wanted her to know that he could take care of her.

Cindy was five foot three and very thin. She had fine, glimmering soft black hair that fell a third of the way down her back. Her small nose and disproportionately big smile made him want to make her laugh. When she smiled, her high cheekbones became more prominent and her clear brown eyes narrowed to a squint. She worried that her butt was too big, but it was the feature that added the most sensuality to her otherwise girlish figure. And while she was certainly very pretty, she could have easily been mistaken for someone ordinary.

“Love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory,” wrote Kundera. Cindy entered his poetic memory with the words “let’s race!” On their first visit to Tokyo, they were walking side by side through the subway station when they suddenly realized that he was about to get on the moving sidewalk and she could not. Before he could figure out what to do, she yelled “let’s race” and took off running. He took off after her and had to actually jog on the moving sidewalk to keep up with her. In high school, she ran hurdles. But because she was short, she had to jump every time. Watching her running and laughing, her hair swinging in its pony tail from one shoulder to the other, he lost track of what they were doing and almost didn’t notice that two people were blocking his way to the finish. She had assumed she would win because he would not be able to run through them. But he stepped to the left around the first person and back to the right around the second and took two quick steps to the finish, beating her by a shoulder. As they caught their breath, he could not take his eyes off her. Looking at her while they both panted he realized that she had created for them a moment of instant, fickle happiness that would endure long afterwards as a memory. In that little act of spontaneity she had shed everything ordinary about her and showed him why she was uniquely special.

It was the day of the wedding and the groomsmen still had not bought their ties. The ties were supposed to match the bridesmaids’ champagne colored dresses and this had turned out to be more difficult than anyone expected. He took responsibility for finding and buying them, but by the time he moved all his bags to the hotel where everyone was staying, it was already 2 PM. They were supposed to meet at the wedding venue in two hours. He ran down the hill from the hotel to the Shinagawa station, ran through the station to the train, ran from the train to a department store where the information desk circled a few affordable suit shops on a map of Shibuya, and ran, faster than ever, through the streets of Shibuya, weaving through crowds, sprinting and dodging people and jumping over obstacles on his way to the suit shop. He knew that if he did not make it back to his hotel by 3 he would never have time to shower, shave and dress in time for the wedding. If he did not arrive at the hotel with champagne colored ties exactly matching the very particular color of the bridesmaid dresses, the groomsmen would stand in front of the entire chapel with open collars. But what was more important to him than any of this was that if he failed, Cindy would lose faith in him.

When he arrived at her hotel room at 2:50 with the bag full of four champagne colored ties and matching handkerchiefs, her roommate opened the door. Cindy was sitting in front of the mirror putting on her make up. When she heard that he had found the ties, she jumped up and came over to see how they matched up to the dress. The colors were nearly perfect. The adrenaline from the mad dash through Shibuya now subsided. He fell into a deep calm. He felt confident and at peace, knowing he had managed to avoid a disaster at his best friend’s wedding but also that he had shown Cindy that he was trustworthy and capable. When they met downstairs in the lobby and he saw her in the bridesmaid dress that had been hanging in Taro’s living room for the past five days, he had to stop himself from staring. She looked gorgeous. Of course she must have looked beautiful to anyone who had never met her: her smile was radiant and the dress perfectly draped over her taught body. He wished they were in high school and she was his prom date. For the first time in years, the childishly romantic thoughts he used to have for women in college came rushing back. As they waited for the elevator up to the chapel, she looked at his tie and said, “I must say, I’m very impressed.”

Cindy was sitting at the next table when it was time for his speech. He told the story by Murakami of the boy who met the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning. A boy saw a girl in the street and suddenly his heart leaped in his chest and his mouth went dry; he knew that she was the 100% perfect girl for him. And she too immediately knew that he was the 100% perfect boy for her. But in their youth and uncertainty they doubted themselves and each other. As a test of their love, they agreed that they should part ways. If they were truly 100% perfect for one another then surely they would find each other again. But they never did. Taro and Amy avoided turning their love story into a sad one because they seized their moment. They had met less than a year before the wedding, but they knew not to let time or distance or anything stop them from being with each other. He told them how extremely happy he was for them. As he sat down, he looked at Cindy and she smiled at him with her eyes. She knew him well enough by now to know that his speech was sincere, not merely poetic, and this touched her perhaps more than it touched anyone else at the wedding, for no one else could be sure how heartfelt his words were.

When Cindy and he got away from the tables later to have a cigarette, he was so lost in the thought of her that he could not be with her even though they were right next to each other. He was not merely quiet, he was brooding, and again she felt alone with him. The feeling of being lonely in the company of another person is the most extreme form of loneliness because it deprives both people of even the small pleasure of solitude. Imagine a person living alone on an island far away from the world with no way of rejoining human society. That person will do everything he can to alleviate his extreme loneliness. He will befriend animals, create companions out of his surroundings, dedicate himself to decorating his abode and amuse himself by finding ways of constantly eating and sleeping better. Now imagine two people on the same island, except that neither can talk to the other even though they both speak the same language. Every word they say is a miscommunication, every game they start ends in failure, when one of them wants to eat, the other wants to sleep, when the other wants to hunt, the one wants to fish. Eventually those two people will move to opposite sides of their island, far away from each other. They will prefer the loneliness of solitude to loneliness spent in the company of another. And so it was that, while he was staring at the floor lost in thought, Cindy put out her half-smoked cigarette and said she wanted to go back inside. Hearing her voice and realizing what had just happened, his soul traveled through layers and layers of his body, escaping the deepest parts of his mind and coming back to the sensory world of his flesh. But it was already too late. He lost her when he left her alone in his company.

Every person in his mind has a limit for himself. There is a point at which, though he believes that he believes he can go on, his subconscious has decided that he cannot possibly. This is in fact what sets apart great people from ordinary ones. The discrepancies in intelligence in the world are not the reason some achieve greatness and others do not. There will always be more intelligent people than there will be great ones. As Emerson once said, “nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.” Great men truly believe in their subconscious that they are meant to be great, that greatness is their destiny, and that they can overcome any obstacle to achieve it. A noted professor at Carnegie Mellon was dying of cancer. The doctors had told him he had less than a month to live. He was at the peak of his career, had a loving wife and several young, beautiful children. Faced with the certainty of death in the near future but relative health for the moment, he decided to do what he loved best: teach one last time. His talk, entitled The Last Lecture, became a Youtube phenomenon. He spoke to the crowd about how to achieve one’s goals in life and how to reach the point of happiness. Again and again he told them that to succeed where others had failed, one has to view the walls that stand in one’s path as obstacles to keep other people out. The walls, he told us, are not there for you, they are there for everyone else. Moving past the impossible obstacles is heavy work; it is difficult, demoralizing, and grueling. But that is what makes the goal worth reaching. He knew that he could be happy with Cindy, but he could not bring down the walls that his mind had built between them.

Everything was wrong from the beginning. His plan was to have enough fun with other girls at the club that night until Cindy took notice and came to him, hoping to be a part of his world. He ordered everyone drinks, bought a bottle of vodka, handed shots to the twenty some people, danced while everyone cheered, drank shot after shot, lifted a girl in the air while everyone laughed; he took pictures and exchanged hugs and handshakes with everyone. They must have all thought he was having a great time, but she knew him and could sense that he was trying too hard. She could see how out of place this person was with the one she had spent time with the past five days and she knew that he was being untrue to himself. When a woman sees that a man is unfaithful to himself, she knows he will never be faithful to her. A man who tries to become someone else is unhappy with himself and therefore not strong enough to make her happy. A girl had once said to one of his friends, “the thing I love about you most is how unapologetically happy you are with yourself.”

When he finally went to look for her, he saw Cindy dancing with his friend. His hands were all over her, almost cupping her breasts and lifting her into the air. He was kissing her neck from behind. She seemed to be enjoying it.

Months later back in Chicago, an old friend asked him about Cindy over dinner.

“I thought you liked her a lot, what happened there?” she asked.
“Did I tell you that I was into her? I don’t think I ever told you that.”
“I just guessed from your photos. Not just the photos of the two of you together. I could even tell from the way you took pictures of her.”
“Well, it’s over now. She’s with another guy. I had my chance, I never took it.”
“Does it hurt you that she’s with someone else?”
“No. It hurt that she wasn’t into me, but I don’t care who she’s with. I hope she’s happy with him.”

He remembered her laughing and running down the subway as he chased after her. He remembered her eyes as they faced each other, doubled over and panting afterwards. He stared off into the corner of the restaurant as he took a sip of his beer. "Let's get the check," he said, pushing his glass away.

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