no excuses

It's winter, but I'm pushing the line that there are few excuses for choosing to hop in a warm car instead of onto a bicycle. Check out my piece about commuting by bike during these dark days in the current Women's Adventure magazine. Ignore my reference to rising gas prices. At deadline time, the idea of a gallon of gas for less than $2 seemed insane, yet here we are.

it's election day somewhere

moving mud

Having trouble getting the debate to stream live on this computer in...where am I right now?...seriously, I can not remember. Mendez to Limon. I am in Limon, tiny mellow jungle town with an internet cafe packed with teenagers on a...what day is it?..Tuesday night.

I am in a non touristy part of the jungle right now, which means few hotels, zero pizza and plenty of attention for the gringa. Sometimes when I start talking to people (slowly, carefully and clearly), they just stare at me in seeming disbelief that I can talk and that I am talking to them. The men like to ask each other if I am their wife..ha ha. They find it hilarious when I enter that conversation.

Today I must have seen 800 huge trucks and tractors. The whole southern Oriente seems to be crawling with them as they push huge boulders and piles of mud into more piles that promise a future of better roads and bridges. There is nothing delicate about their work. Today my bus broke down in the mud just a few minutes before we had to stop for an hour to watch said trucks grunt and crawl across the hillside. Adding hours to all transit plans for the next few days.

At this point, I am quite accustomed to seeing pigs in bus stations, chickens in town squares, people boarding buses with machetes and toddlers wearing rubber boots. My own rubber boots have been nicely broken in, worth every penny of the 7 dollars I spent in Coca.

on the move again

I am in love with the little town I must leave today. I´ve been camped out in Tena for most of the week, taking little day trips down the Rio Napo to visit out of the way lodges and an animal rescue center.

Yesterday I did a rafting trip on a chilly river that stems from the distant and imposing Cotapaxi itself. After passing a few small warm tributaries, we were dumped into the Rio Napo, which flows all the way to Peru to meet the Amazon River. It felt good to float outside the boat in my life jacket, knowing I was bobbing in a connecting point between two parts of the country I know well.

But I must drag myself away from Tena today. Onto Puyo and the southern Oriente, a less visited region that I´m sure will offer plenty of surprises.

good morning

I like mornings the most when I am on the road. Kids make their way to school in bright, fresh uniforms and you can smell wood burning fires heating breakfasts. In the jungle, mornings mean high activity both for humans and animals, a time to be as active as possible before the heat sucks the day away (that begins at oh, 8 a.m.). On most days at a jungle lodge, you get a wakeup knock on the door at 5 a.m. Hey, you want to see the birds or what?

I am back in Coca after a whirlwind week in the jungle. I must have taken over 30 different boats, all of them canoes. I am sending out much gratitude to all the men and women who helped me this week. So many kind people paddled me around lagoons and up small blackwater rivers, cooked me delicious food and slowly explained the flora and fauna of the Amazon basin. They carried my backpack, put big green leaves on the ground so I could sit without getting muddy, pointed out butterflies, monkeys, toucans and caiman, and patiently answered all my questions and asked about my life.

My jungle days are far from over, but it´s crunch time. Hitting a few more lodges then heading to whitewater mecca Tena.

Sunday is the big election here: si o no on the new constitution. Seems as though si will take it. The country is totally dry for three whole days...no cerveza for me at dinner last night. It´s okay. I will take the opportunity for clarity and will myself ponder: Si o No? By the way, voting is mandatory here for every single citizen. They all must migrate home (so many people here work far from home) to be present at a voting booth on Sunday. I wonder how that policy would go over in the states?

jungle survial

Today I´m heading to a place without electricity, roads, internet or phone, and I can`t wait. Going downstream (toward the Amazon River) on the Rio Napo to check out a multitude of lodges. I am looking forward to seeing plenty of wildlife, although I´ve already discovered some new strange mammals here in Coca living outside my hotel. One looks like a hairy armadillo and the other is some sort of monkey relative. Who knows! But they certainly are interesting. I watched one eat a mouse yesterday.

I am giving into the sweat and the stink that will define my life for the next few weeks. I swear none of the locals sweat at all. It´s just me. But I am learning to stop and drink fresh fruit juices, sit near fans, and swim in the afternoons if possible. Pure survival technqiues, I tell you.

a way post

I’m in Quito now, staying in the endlessly entertaining Mariscal district. It's an ugly place in many ways, with cafes that “make foreigners feel at home” with brightly painted walls, Bob Marley remixes and overpriced pizzas and Pilsners. You want Thai, Mexican, a hit off a hooka between bites of falafel or a glass of fine Spanish wine? Or maybe you crave organic, shade-grown, fair trade coffee and dusty granola?

Somehow, I can't tear myself away.

Tonight I sat street side watching. Ecuadorian children whined at gringos for money, So many young couples wearing hiking boots and active wear held hands and gripped shopping bags. On the other hand, young, sleek Quitenos meet for post-work cocktails and kiss each other on the cheeks. The swirling abyss of faux international fusion feels forced and yet unlike four years ago, the hood　seems to have taken on its own life. Were the touristas just an initial fire starter?

Tomorrow, I begin an entirely new trip in the sweltering Oriente.

language skills

Hablo mucho. Every day. And it hurts my brain. But after ten (?) days on the road, I can feel the cobwebs lifting. I can speak some Spanish. Today while driving to these strange towns between Mindo and the coast, my driver Jairon helped me figure out a few past tense verbs. I`m tired of talking in the present tense all the time. It makes me feel tongue tied.

I bought a silly Spanish phrase book that was published in 1958. No internet terms there, but I do know how to be demanding and non-gracious in a restaurant. There´s a serious lack of politeness in this book, but I liked the type and some of the phrases still seem to apply.

Between hanging out with British Sophie and speaking Spanish all day, my English is getting strange. Vale la pena?

on the move

Today Sophie and I caught a bus out of the ever-celebrating Otavalo and landed ourselves in a gorgeous hacienda to the north. We´ve been seeing a lot of pretty, crumbling Spanish architecture, much of which has been turned into nice hideouts for tourists.

We took a standing room only bus with the locals to this little town...me squatting on my backpack while Sophie helped a little girl tie her bracelet.

Heading back into the weaving villages this afternoon, and I´m wishing I had time to shop for some piece of cloth. Alas, I´ll just keep shopping for food...I may turn into a giant empanada by the time I got home. Tried chica yesterday straight from huge roiling cauldrons heated by wood fires. Still digesting like a normal person, but you always wonder when eating what will put you over the edge. It´s a weird hypochondria that plagues travelers...never ending attention to the gut.

i´m working!

I´m in Otavalo during what must be one of the craziest weekends of the year. It´s the fiesta del yamor, a celebration of a local beverage made of corn. No, I haven´t tried any yet, but it´s on my to do list, don´t worry. Tonight there´s a parade, the crowning of a yamor queen and other celebrations.

I´ve been running around town like mad today, learning the ropes as a new author. I´m getting it down, from the hotel visit to plying other tourists for info. I can see that I´m going to have little time for lounging around.

It´s lovely to be here. You can see three volcanos from town and the people are friendly and used to dealing with tourists. I took a break from research and perused the local food market...chicken feet, more kinds of beans and grains than I´ve ever seen. Some vats of spices and plenty of legumes. I coffeed inside the market with a traveler named Don, who is retired and doesn´t have a home. He arrived yesterday after a harrowing bus ride through Colombia. I´m happy I don´t have to make any border crossings on this trip.

Anyway, must get back to it. Looking forward to seeing Sophie tonight at our cute hotel.

ｓｏｍｅｐｌａｃｅ ｆｏｒｅｉｇｎ

I'm finally in Ecuador. After much planning and a growing packing pile in the corner of my office, I arrived last night on a late flight. Once we touched down, I realized, hey, this is Quito. I know this place.

It's so invigorating to be someplace foreign, to be a strange looking, tall white/pink person with puffy blond hair. I love knowing that my little daily reality is not the only reality, and with some time in a plane seat, you can suddenly become an outsider.

I spent the morning visiting a few tour companies. Of course, they're excited to learn I'm with LP. I discovered a new jungle lodge not listed in my territory, and am wishing I had more time to escape into the jungle and see strange floating plants and dolphins.

For now I'm happy with things like my lunch, a huge plate of delicately spiced lentils, rice and pieces of fried fish for $3. Of course, I doused the food with aji, the tart/spicy side sauce that you see on most Ecuadorian tables. The altitude has been making me quite winded, especially while hiking up the huge hills in Old Town. Tomorrow, as I feel normal, I may move on. Time to hit my territory．

cycling misfits

Last weekend Tony and I packed up a rented mini van and headed to Napa for the Single Speed World Championships. Haven't heard of the international event? It was my first time attending (as a spectator...have yet to try single speeding except on my 1968 Schwinn with coaster brakes), which put me in prime position to record the details for The New York Times.

Here's the story, complete with a fantastic slideshow by photographer Peter DaSilva.

whetting my appetite

People keep asking: "What kind of food will you eat in Ecuador?" I never know exactly what to say. Over a dozen varieties of corn? Brothy stews made with mysterious meats? Tripe in peanut sauce? Lo mein from chifas? The famous cuy, or guinea pig, roasted on a spit? Fruit fruit and more fruit? Ecuadorian food is a delicious hodgepodge.

This recent piece in The New York Times reminded me of what will soon hit my palate, and that Ecuadorian buses are comfortable-bordering-on-luxurious. AC and reclining seats? Bring on the overnight rides.

I remember one lovely overnight from Quito to the coast. The driver steered through fog for hours and I slept deeply. I woke to a hazy sunrise and fishermen delivering their morning catches by bicycle.

hitting the road

I'm happy to announce that I'm heading to Ecuador this fall for six weeks. The trip feels official today because 1) I've signed a contract with Lonely Planet guidebooks to write two chapters of the country's guidebook and 2) I just booked my plane ticket.

As my first foreign assignment for Lonely Planet, I've been noticing telling reactions from the people I tell about the adventure. They range from, "I'll start saving the ransom money for the Colombian drug runners," to "I hate you. How can I get that kind of job?"

I'm sure I'll experience an equal range of emotions while I'm there, but of course, I consider the trip an amazing opportunity. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. Right now, I'm diving into my two regions, both of which I visited four years ago, as much as one can do from a desk.

I was particularly taken with this impressive piece of reportage in Vanity Fair about Texaco's sordid history in Ecuador (think about the publication's legal department picking over the text). When I spent a few days in the cloud forests outside of Quito, I saw the famous pipeline that pumps crude through the rain forest, across many mountains and to the ocean. It's still pumping, and for a good portion of my trip, I'll be in the jungle, where oil has ruled the local landscape since 1972.

On a lighter note, I'm already thinking about the food. Ecuador is not a country known for its cuisine, but it does have regional impressive specialties, as Calvin Trillin remembers in The New Yorker.

aging gracefully

Awhile back, someone told me he'd recently cracked open a bottle of beer from 1999. It was a special occasion; he'd had the bottle stashed away since its release. I was curious. Was it good? Why? I started digging and discovered a subculture of passionate collectors who excel at the art of aging beers.

Read about their elaborate cellaring systems Beer Lovers Make Room for Brews Worth a Wait, my first piece for The New York Times.

will i hurt myself?

My inner runner dragged herself out of the house today for a decent hamster cage-like visit to Laurelhurst Park. I haven't been running much this month and I have a million excuses, most of which are based in a general feeling of sluggishness. Yeah, I should be doing some sort of Oprah cleanse, but it's not happening. Not now.

Today I felt back in good form, but only somewhere in mile 2-3. I think I've been failing to mentally push through this strange, extended warm-up phase. Seems long, no?

Anyway, my feet seemed lighter toward the end of the run, which made me feel like maybe, just maybe, I could do the Sauvie Island 1/2 marathon two weeks from today.

But will I hurt myself hitting it with so little training? Advice welcomed.

a new batch

Finally, summer has arrived here in Portland after a long, cold spring. It's nice to see a new batch of my pieces in print, the ones I wrote on colder, darker days. Check them out if you get a chance. Most aren't online, so you'll have to find the glossy versions.

When I wasn't on the hunt for truffle material in Croatia, I spent some time in Zagreb, and had the chance to learn about the city's hot spots from a local. See what I discovered in Outside's GO magazine.

After hitting the Indie Wine Festival for the first time, I've vowed not to miss the event again. Read my tasting notes from both Saturday and Sunday's pours on Saveur's web site.

Check out my take on Portland's Mississippi Avenue, which I consider one of my adopted neighborhoods, in this month's Sunset.

For Oregon Home's Green Living issue, I visited a cool, modern home in Bend. The house had many impressive green features, but I the solar design made me appreciate the state's tax credits for going solar. It would be so satisfying to be putting energy back into the grid.

i've been in a car with joni...i felt safe

Vanity Fair spills Bob's brain onto the page. It's kind of cool, no?

I raided the library for all my missing Dylan and am spending the evening rediscovering Infidels. You've got to admit Mark Knopfler did a hell of a job. I like this album, including all the strange political references and polished production. Hey, at least man's done naming all the animals.

I've also discovered that I missed celebrating International Talk Like Bob Dylan Day, but there's always next year.

in print

I love rediscovering my pieces when they come out in print. Often, months go by between the completion of a piece and its actual publication. And in most cases, I'm not involved in the layout and photos that accompany my text; the package comes as a nice surprise.

Last week, I made my FOODday (the Oregonian's Wednesday food section) debut with the front page feature story about white asparagus. The photos are so wonderfully eerie, like a scene out of a haunting sci-fi film. And when I arrived home on Saturday after running some errands, I was delighted to find two pounds of green asparagus, one pound of white and a few pints of fresh strawberries sitting on the porch, a kind thank you from farmers Manuel and Leslie.

Instead of using one of the recipes from my piece, I took a different route, braising the white spears in chicken broth and butter and serving with a citrus reduction. Yum.

I made another debut this month in Northwest Palate magazine, where I gave wine lovers some advice on how to both respect beer and enjoy it. Not only was "Beer Demystified" my first piece for NW Palate, but it happened to be the publication's first-ever story about beer (they've been around for 20 years). Always happy to break new ground when it comes to beer education.

voting by drop box

While voting by mail guarantees certain benefits (like filling out a ballot in your pjs with the Google on hand), it means missing the chance to visit a voting booth. Call me old-fashioned, but there's something great about pulling aside the little curtain and stepping into a protected little space designed for just one thing: participation in a functioning democratic system. (Forgive me. I tend to get highly patriotic on election days.)

This morning I filled out my ballot at the kitchen table, post espresso of course, but a few hours later I ended up at the library, an official ballot drop spot. Because the library didn't open until 10 a.m., people were instructed to drop ballots at the neighboring McDonald's.

Even so, at 9:45, people started to appear holding their little voting envelopes, anxiously waiting to shove the ballots into the blue tupperware box, secured shut with padlocks, inside the library. Somehow I got the voting booth feeling by just watching the crowd gather.

Maybe I'll hand out "I voted" stickers at the drop box in November?

imbibing

Last fall I had the chance to visit Croatia for two weeks. I was on assignment for a few publications and in search of the white Italian truffle. (A note to other travelers: do not attempt to call this delicacy "Italian" while in Croatia. You will offend many. Trust me.)

I did find truffle after truffle, not in the dirt but in pastas, cream sauces, cheeses, soups and one insanely memorable semifreddo. During the course of my truffle research, a few people have said that truffles can get to you. Somehow, they start to alter your perception of reality. You begin to smell them when they're not there.

Now I understand. I smelled truffles at the airport as I was leaving the country. I smelled them at home while walking down the street, buying groceries, ordering coffee, picking up the mail. The truffles got to me. I will never be the same.

But I digress. The trip was fantastic, especially because I had the chance to travel with photographer Leah Nash for the first time. The first piece from our adventure has just hit the newsstands. Check out Imbibe's May/June issue to see all of Leah's photos, or find the text version here.

unembedded

The other day I was lunching at the Dog House (kosher beef Chicago style/Coke in a can) with my friend Brian, when a swarm of middle schoolers holding notebooks descended on the place. Their teacher told us that she'd seen Amy Goodman speak the night before and was inspired to create the next wave of unembedded journalists. And what better way to do that than head to the Dog House for a hot news story?

Well, these kids were in luck, because they'd just come across two experienced journalists enjoying the absolute freedom of their jobs by sitting outside in freezing weather in order to eat hot dogs mere feet from where they were warmed. We agreed to be interviewed about our jobs.

We told them the hard truth: we would ask tough questions if we had to and bust down doors to get the facts. I tried to make the profession sound noble, but the dab of mustard on my face may have diminished my credibility. No matter, I'm happy to know I helped shape the next generation of unembedded journalists, who, if they're smart, will choose the glamorous lifestyle of the freelance writer.

Don't hold the onions, kids. Don't hold the onions.

perfect pairings

In the most recent issue of Beer Northwest magazine, I write about one of my favorite pairings: running and beer. Read about my first encounter with the drinking club with a running problem, one professor's proof that beer hydrates more effectively than water, and the clever calculations that disprove the notion of the beer gut.

The piece isn't online, but it's worth checking out this new Portland-based publication when you get a chance.

sunday soundtrack

Visiting David Byrne's streaming radio feed is like showing up at the airport and getting on the next available flight to wherever. Today I've been dropped in Turkey, a country I had the chance to visit with my dad and two little brothers way back when.

Byrne's collection would have made a good soundtrack for our trip, although most of these tracks lack the disco sound that makes me so fond of Bollywood/Bhangra mixes. But right now I'm feeling satisfied by this dreamy Turkish pop. Of course the music makes me think of food...juicy lamb kebabs, breakfasts of feta slices and olives, and sweet, thick coffee.

I wish I could post a good photo from our trip. Alas, we traveled in the pre-digital-camera era, so I have no idea where my stack of prints went. Just picture a family of skinny white Americans carrying backpacks filled with iodine pills and Nalgene bottles, grinning in front of mosques, ferries and plates of whole fried fish with cloudy eyes.

mental games

I decided to challenge my mind's capacity to handle pain by running in yesterday's Shamrock Run sans iPod. While it may sound minor, doing the race without music was a big change for me. The last time I ran without music in my ears was last summer, during a 10-mile run with my friend Sophie, who, as I discovered that day, likes to tell long interesting stories as a distraction, a welcome deviation from my static playlist.

But yesterday I ran solo, and as I started up the almost immediate set of hill climbs, I was surprised to hear how the quality of my breathing changed depending on the terrain. At one point, as the pack plodded up a hill in total silence, I looked around and realized just how many people were wearing headphones. I felt like I was surrounded by zombies, lucky zombies who were focused on Justin Timberlake lyrics instead of any searing pains in their left sides.

Alas, my friendless, music-free self crossed the finish line in good time. But I'm already looking forward to my next run (okay, not for a few days at least), when without a doubt, I'll be moving my body to the beat.

redefining vacation

I realize that I've become one of those people who never takes a
vacation, and I like to complain about the fact. But I love my job
because no matter where I go, I'm looking for stories. Put me on a
desert island and I'll start contemplating various ways to pitch
stories about sand.

I'm not the only one with this problem, although my inability to unplug comes in a unique form. Take for example Mark Bittman's story in The New York Times about trying to take a "virtual break." I can just imagine Bittman going through his tech-free week, taking notes (by hand?) and crafting the lead to the story in his head over and over again. So while he did unplug in terms of gadgets, he was still able to stay mentally connected to his work. Let's just say I can relate.

So I was curious...does anyone really unplug anymore? The answer is yes, but the process can be uncomfortable. Check out what I discovered about real unplugging in the March/April issue of Women's Adventure magazine (the piece itself isn't online, so you'll have to find a real paper copy to get the details).

in defense of nitrates

Last fall I had the opportunity to meet Armandino Batali at an event here in Portland. He was teaching a class on how to make cooked salami at home and offering tastes of his delicious creations (go out of your way to get your hands on Salumi's mole salami).

I loved listening to Armandino talk about how in Italy, no one would dream of steralizing things like well-worn butcher blocks with bleach, which I was I was surprised when he started discussing the importance of nitrates. If you go to any upscale market these days, you're bound to see some "nitrate free" meats, which has led me, and many consumers, to believe that nitrates should be avoided.

But Armandino thinks consumers have been mislead. Read about his perspective on nitrates and meat curing in this piece I wrote for Culinate.

minor obsessions

It's springtime here in Portland. I know this because I've been obsessing over numbers throughout the winter: average temperatures, minutes of daylight, amounts of precipitation. It started out as a curiosity, but became a minor obsession, and I can tell you that on February 11, the average daily temperature here registers above 50 degrees. And here we are, five whole balmy days later.

In typical Portland style, the high temperature doesn't usually happen until 3 or 4 p.m., which means that this morning, when I left the house for a run, I wore my winter wear to brave 34 degree F. But there was something fantastically unoffensive about today's 34 degrees--I knew it was temporary, a fleeting chill that couldn't stop the crocuses or the hot pink teacup flowers that like to be the first bloomers on every block (I'm forgetting their name) from pushing through soil and shivering open.

In case you're wondering, tomorrow comes with a bit over 3 minutes more of daylight than today did, just one more number that makes me feel hope.

public announcements

When I went to sit down at the coffeeshop at Powell's Books today, the guy next to me was thrilled to see that I'd grabbed the illustrated Strunk & White (which is beautifully executed, by the way). He said he'd been carrying around the nonillustrated version for the past month, meditating on the ultimate goal of any piece of writing: to have the reader understand exactly what you meant.

Anyway, this guy really wanted to chat, and I really wanted to read an essay in the new Tin House about following poet Richard Hugo's footsteps (good fodder for Montana nostalgia), so I politely withdrew from conversation. But a bit later he persisted.

"Look around," he said. "Don't you want to know what everyone here is reading?" I scanned the room and understood exactly what he meant. Like a NYC subway car, the coffeeshop at Powell's always has an amazing number of people who are completely engrossed in printed materials. If I'm in the right mood, I do wonder.

"I'm gonna find out," he said. He stood on his chair and cleared his throat. "I've never done anything like this before," he announced, "but I'm reading a really good book, and I want to tell all of you about it. And I'm wondering what you're reading. I'm going to sit right here at this table and if you want to come find out what I'm reading, and tell me about what you're reading, I'll be right here."

I was instantly transported to Ecuador, to the public buses, platforms for salespeople (who many times were under the age of 10) who would give speeches about amazing new products--juices for energy, candy that captured the flavors of jungle fruit, hair loss solutions--and everyone would ignore them. But the guy in Powell's had better luck than those salespeople in Ecuador. When I left, he was discussing a book about teaching writing with a curious stranger.