Brasil y Argentina...the photos!

Indulging in the delicious delicacies of Buenos Aires

The beautiful colored houses of La Boca

So for those of you who have been following along you might have thought Laurie and I went AWOL here in South American. Not to worry...I just had to take a short hiatus from blogging in order to squeeze in being a genocide scholar by day and enjoying the amazing city of BA by night. It was not easy but with a zealous team of colleagues at the helm we took this city on in every way possible.

An average day included back to back sessions on Holocaust history and genocide prevention from about 10am-8pm (we might have missed a session here and there). The paper I presented went over great. I was joined on my panel by a Scottish academic who trains teachers at Auschwitz and an Armenian Argentinean speaking about identity in their schools. Led to some great discussion and overall a success. Ok enough about work...

Reunion!

When the dismissal bell rang Tomas and Emanuel (you might recall hearing about my travels with these Argentinian boys circa Bosnia and Croatia 2007) would always have a genius plan in place. Taxi rides to amazing eateries throughout the city would include the fabulous history of the city discussing everything from Jewish sites to current politics. I think only once did I actually order for myself....but in just a matter of minutes of sitting down, the table would be filled with gorgeous cheeses, sausages, and salads. And of course followed almost each night by grilled lomo (seak) so tender you could nearly cut it with a spoon. Our table was always full of laughing and debating in a mix of Spanish, English and Hebrew and more Malbec flowing than Iguazu Falls. We had a range of tastes and personalities that although different: Laurie at one end of he spectrum who hit her meat quota pretty early on in the week and even did the unthinkable (ordering chicken) to Tibi who could eat meat in every from for every meal of the day (even I could not bring myself to try the blood sausage he raved about).

However, by the end of the night we would all meet on common ground for outrageously rich desserts! While Tomas could always seem to find us a restaurant that could somehow seat a party of 10... Emanuel had an amazing art of ordering the perfect combinations of flan, chocolate tortes, cheeses, ice creams...each with the magic ingredient of dulce de leche! Eating is a way of life here...you sit at the table with your friends around 10 (any earlier than 9pm would be considered an early bird special) till the wee hours of the morning. Great stories were shared from Tibi and Kerry's recent wedding in Venice, to Laurie's afternoon tango class, to the state of transitional justice. Such an amazing culture and way of life. I was surrounded by old and new friends I didn't want to be anywhere else!

When not in seminar or drinking Malbec you might have found us enjoying a coffee in one of Palermo's amazing boutique hotels we called home or the other guilty pleasure of Buenos Aires...shopping.

In our best effort to support the growing Argentinian economy since the terrible crash in 2002...Laurie and I shopped till we dropped. Gorgeous leather bags, boots, clothes, jewelry....you name it we tried it on. I see now why BA is the Paris of South America, but with a currency much in our favor.

Alas this journey is coming to an end. I type this last entry somewhere over Texas. Reality awaits, but at least we arrive home tanned, rejuvenated, with dozens of new friends from around the world and in my case an extra suitcase.

Stay tuned for more photos in the near future.

Bahia: the land of sun, sand and the samba!

There are many ways in which one can get from here to there in Brasil. In our time on the ground here in Bahia I think we tapped into almost all of them!


When one arrives onto the gorgeous island of Morro de Sao Paulo you will be greeted not by a line up of cars, but boys and men of all ages sporting a bright yellow shirt painted with "taxi" and their trusty wheelbarrow. Ready to load up your luggage, mangos or the latest delivery of toilet paper...whatever comes off the boat.

If you want to go further and a little bit faster I suggest the collectivo (AKA the minibus). Now I've rode my fair share of these in countries all over the world, you know the type....they properly seat about 12 people, but in no time you have nearly 25 people squished into every sq inch of space. Sitting on strangers laps, holding onto hand rails they installed, and the kid tasked with marketing is still hanging out the open door singing the names of where we are heading to recruit more passengers. We frequented the collectivo on our most recent venture from Imbassai the beautiful remote beach town that consists of a few cafes and bars (including one gay bar that loves american country music) and Praya de Forte where we learned about the local approach to save the sea turtles (Jo saved three on her own with her t-shirts) and take care of important business like hitting up the ATM getting new bikinis.


En route I started to think about our next leg back to Salvador which would include a mile walk through town with our packs in the blazing sun to the highway, to flag down the bus followed by a two hour ride, followed by a taxi to our hostel. Not cheap and about a days worth of traveling. So the business savvy personality in me came out and in no time we were proposing to our new friend the collectivo driver that he should be interested in picking us up at our remote hostel by the beach and drive us not only to salvador but to our neighborhood of pelarino. I guaranteed to fill up his mini bus with 6 gringas for a total of 100r and we were in (which was a total bargain for us a great deal for him...win win all around)!


The ride was smooth (although squished and sweaty at times) but we arrived door to door in less than 2hrs!
Now this was a key move as the night before we truly danced ourselves into the sand and our crew was suffering from lack of sleep and drinking nearly all the beer in town.

The night began with a full moon party on the beach complete with two types of meat on a stick, a bonfire and our third method of transportation of the story...the cavalo.
We were marveling about how much we could see with the moonlight on the beach a how great it was that the mozzies were actually scared off by the ocean breeze (you could play a pretty good game of connect the dots with all the bites I have) when all of a sudden a heard about 10 horses come galloping down the beach through the darkness. An impressive sight for sure, especially because who would be crazy enough to horseback ride through the crashing waves at midnight. In comes Shona, our fearless Kiwi friend...in no time she is up on a horse (in a dress mind you) and riding off into the moonlight. She of course eventually retuned and joined us at the bar later on. However even after a washing she still complains that her purse smells of wet horse.


Now that we are back in the big city (Salvador) we are spending our days skipping (and often slipping) down the cobblestone 18th century streets and learning to samba in the nightclubs. I'm telling you these women are amazing and no matter how many caparinas we drinks we still can't seem to swing our hips the way that they can. However it was just the other night that we found ourselves not only listening to an amazing live Samba Mesa band, but out on the dancefloor. It was only a few minutes before I found myself in the hands of a gorgeous chocolate brown bahian who was doing his best to teach me the rhythm and motion...I turned around to see all my girls in a similar situation and enjoying themselves around the dance floor when...whack! Apparently Bahian ladies can swing there arms as well as their hips and this particular woman had given her boyfriend (who also happened to be my dance partner) a good smack. I quickly slipped off the dancefloor and my professor got a good talking to about introducing gringas to the world of samba. Oh well...


So by the time the sunsets this evening Laurie and I will be saying goodbye to Brasil and on our way to Buenos Aires. For a few days I'll be putting on my work hat and joining in at a genocide conference, which should be an interesting shift. But for those who know me, know the hat never really comes off. Over the past few weeks conversations on aboriginal policy could be heard on bus rides and somehow Alex (one of our kiwi girls) has been become fascinated with the post Holocaust era and is avidly reading my book about the Eichmann Trial. Wish me luck on my presentation!

The Ladies of Lencois

What happens when your flip-flops turn into jandals and your mid day snack consist of chips and beer...you know your are traveling with kiwis. A few days ago our travel posse grew and Laurie and I began trekking through the Bahaian mountains with some great girls from New Zealand. Our latest adventure took us inland a few hundred km to the Chapada Dimanitina, a stunning national park spanning an area larger than the Netherlands.

Our home base was the picturesque little town of Lencois And within 24 hrs it was like cheers (everyone knew our name). Be it Juan the Argentinian hostel owner who sorted us with everything from a packed lunch to love advice; our
capoeira professor who is apparently a local movie star and one of the most talented capoeristas I've ever seen; David the Spanish Socilogist who is teaching English and Music in the favelas of Salvador; or Anderson and Eric the 4 year old twin boys we played paper airplanes with outside their grandmother's resteraunt that was more amazing each time. I don't event think she had a menu. You chose between chicken or beef and some 30 min later (remember everything runs at the speed of molases here) a fabulous 3 course meal arrives for the whoping price of $2.50.
Each day in the chapatada was better than the next! Long walks out of town led us to delicious natural swimming pools with waterfalls that double as watersides to hiking up over 1500 feet to the top of cachoeira da fumaca the tallest waterfall in Brasil!

Our capoeira professor

As many of you know I tend to be a bit accident prone...and after three days of sliding down rocks (both intentionally and unintentionally) alternating my ankle brace on both ankles, and band-aids on random scrapes from hiking and capoeira we figured it was time to quit while we are ahead and head back to the beach.

So Laurie, myself, the three Kiwis, Ryan from Trinidad and Lars from Germany self medicated with caparianas and jumped on a 9 hour overnight bus to Imbasee a sleepy beach town in the north.
To be continued....

From streets made of sand to shabbat Salvador style.

Well I'm officially on the road again. It's that of year again, and you all know the story by now. Summertime.....
This time it's Brazil and my friend Laurie is my partner in crime.
We both have a love for warm weather and all things latin. So to catch you up on our first few days...we arrived to Salvador, Bahia and it only took us 30 hrs... 3 planes and four taxi rides (via a short stop in Rio with just enough time to sing
'the girls from Ipanema' while walking the cold rainy streets to realize our afternoon flight heading north towards the equator was in fact a really good idea).

So we arrived in Salvador after 30 hours of traveling and wasted no time in joining the city wide street party with a live salsa or samba band on each corner we turned. Since then the dancing has not stopped. Day 2 included joining a capoeria class at mestre Bimba's school. Now for those of you who may not recall I did once play capoeira (in Australia) which may I remind you was over 5 years ago! However, apparently it's just like riding a bike and the energy of playing in the land where capoeira was born is amazing.

My lessons have continued each day, but often in a less formal setting. This morning for example I found myself joining the local boys on the beach for a headstand lesson after they gave quite a performance while periodically jumping into the ocean to cool off. The hearts of Brazillian are as warm as the ocean and it already feels like we have been here for ages!

This particular beach excursion took us to Morro de Sao Paulo, a spectacular little island off the coast of Salvador where the taxis are boys with wheelbarrows and the streets are made of sand (literally).

The island was only a few hundred km away, which is all good except it took us a minibus ride, followed by a ferry, followed by another minibus ride followed by a small boat to get there. Totally worth the trouble and the whole trip took no more then a few hours.

An important lesson we have learned is that whenever something runs in Brasil those involved are anything but in a hurry. Chillen on dock for over an hour waiting for your boat to arrive is pretty much the norm.

We rushed to catch our last connection which was apparently a commuter ferry back to Salvador. Only once we pulled away from the dock did we realize we were the only two women on a boat full of about 200 Brazillian men. They were nothing but sweet to us and in no time buying us drinks and we were singing dave matthews together. In most cases we wouldn't have been in any kind of a rush. However, today being Friday we were doing our best to beat sundown and return to Salvador for shabbat.

How is it that we had shabbat plans in a city we had spent a total of 48 hours in, and has a Jewish population that could barely make a minyan you ask? Well... while I was busy doing cartwheels with boys in dreadlocks at capoeria school, Laurie went shopping a found herself not a new dress, but one of the few Jews in town. Who mind you also happened to be a Calvin Klein underware model (but that is a story for another time). Khaleb, traces his heritage to Etheopia, Turkey and the Sudan is one of the few active members of the community here. He was gracious enough to invite us for Kabbalah shabbat at his very multi-chorizo synagogue.

ok that is all for now... we miss you all and promise the next post will hopefully include some photos. This afternoon we are heading into the jungle to search for Brasil's tallest waterfall.

ciao ciao

Morgana

email me

Paddling into the wild

It was another morning that began at 6am with Rubin making coffee and us cruising down another Alaskan highway.  We were relishing in the memories of our horseback ride through the swampland of Resurrection Bay..thinking there was no way we could top that. Little did we know the best was yet to come...

It would be different than anything we all had ever done... and not just in Alaska, but anywhere! And we are talking about  pretty well traveled group... most of you know the Morgan who has gone from Sydney to Sarajevo, and then we have Kerry who has tested many African waters, Cheryl who will spend next month in Spain and Rubin who survived several years living in Buffalo. We met Eric at the mouth of the tunnel (the only way into Whittier is through a one way tunnel that cuts through a huge mountain). You'd think we would be pretty prepared to venture out into these elements as one might even mistake Maggie and Eric's garage as a REI stockroom. We soon learned that our quick-dry pants and gortex would only do if layered under huge rubber overall galoshes. So dressed as the newest 5 fishermen in town we boarded a water taxi and headed out into the fjords. We still thought we knew what we we doing until the boat needed to slow down so it wouldn't hit an iceberg. Suddenly visions of Leo DiCaprio going down with the Titanic flashed before my eyes. The boat then took a sudden turn not to miss an iceberg, but to slowdown and drop us and our kayaks into the water. Next thing we knew we were paddling off towards the glaciers in an environment that I only thought existed on the Discovery Channel.

We knew the guide who traveled with us was pretty cool when he let us bring the outrageous amount of food we had packed (wine and spices for mulled wine included). However, we didn't truly begin to appreciate Nick AKA MacGyver until he jimmy rigged this tent like shelter in the cold rain from a tarp, paddle and some string. Now when you think cold rain, imagine yourself attacked from all sides from a combo of seawater, rain and fresh wind right off the glacier. How water got through my pray skirt, rubber outfit and three layers of clothes we still don't know? However, it was just about  20 min after arriving into camp that night that Nick really won his way into our hearts... I was digging through my dry bag in hopes to find the dry coat I had been dreaming about for the past few hrs when he called us into the dining tent for hot chocolate with baileys. This kid barely drinking age himself continued to wine and dine us for the next two days.

Eric who perhaps is looking into his second career as kayak guide himself earned his status when he spotted not only seals and sea lions as we paddled along, but a humpback whale! Now many of you might have seen a whale or two with binoculars from a boat, but nothing compares to having one swim so close you nearly get sprayed by their blow hole. We enjoyed watching him feed for about half hour in this little cove wondering with each dive under which side of our kayaks he would appear. We thought that was end of our visit with these amazing creatures, but our luck continued through the afternoon as this calf and his mother danced alongside our kayaks all the way to beach where our new friends with the dry boat and cooler of beer waited for us.

Alas our time is Alaska is coming to an end.... our last day in Anchorage was spent hiking on the outskirts of the city on a beautiful "bluebird" day. Denali even came out for us as she stood against the clear blue sky almost 300 miles away. We'll be so sad to say goodbye to our pals here. If anyone is looking for an amazing bed and breakfast with fabulous laundry service I highly recommend a stay at Chateau Feinstein- Lantzman. The owners are pretty much the best friends a traveler could have.


Enjoy the pics! If I were you I click on the link to see more...

Wolves, moose and bears oh my!

So we made it back alive and well after three days in the beautiful Denali park. If the start of our day in the park was a prediction of anything we could have been in for some trouble. It was just shy of 6am when a good size porcupine came running towards us in the parking lot full speed ahead... lucky we had our hiking poles ready in hand for protection:) But alas that was petty much our closest encounter of the day.

Apparently many of the tourists who visit Denali don't make it off the "safari" as we call it... and wouldn't even consider putting down their big cameras and binoculars to run with the game as we chose to do. Our luck did help us stay clear of any of the blond grizzly bears, wolves or moose  while on foot (we also sang our hearts out to lets those guys know we coming around a bend). The mountain however, still didn't want to come out and show us her full beauty. Hopefully the postcard I got will just encourage me to come back again some time soon.

On our last morning we decided to get one more quick hike in before we hit the road. We could barely check moose off our list as we had only seen one from far away (further then our dinky backpacking binoculars could get us). On our way down to horseshoe lake we spotted a big ol' moose from the ridge we were standing on. We scampered down the hill and Kerry who apparently moonlights as a moose trackers led us through the brush and sure enough there she was chillen in the water in all her glory. We snapped away like true tourists and heading back up the trail thrilled we had our close encounter with the moose. In was just about 5 min later when the mother of the moose we had spotted came face to face with us on the trail. She was beautiful and apparently I didn't seem to be frightened by this Denali giant... as I not only got great pictures, but a video as well. 

The park itself was amazing, and our recommendation is run don't walk yourselves up here... this place is stunning!

The late sunsets and pleasant weather has allowed us to really get the most of our days... hiking, safari-ing, cooking salmon for nearly every meal and driving back into Anchorage to hang out with Maggie, Eric and Tanner in their amazing garden hot tub.  We have several more pics... check them out!

We hope everyone out there is enjoying the 4th... we are heading south today... first to a music festival with Maggie and then to the Kenai to kayak with the glaciers.