What I learned about photography from my dead father
In the slow and sometimes fast shift that is life, the remaining people in my family have moved, or are moving. I say remaining, because we at Smith family central have, at this point, buried more of us than there are still alive. I learned about death very young, and...
Dried frogs, edible babies and easily a million olives, the Arequipa market report.
One of the hours-or-so I liked best in Arequipa was going to the market. It was a bit of a goofy outing, since I didn't have a kitchen, and was somewhat concerned about getting some travelers' ick (which I got in spades, that very night, but it had nothing to do with...
The feria report, October means spring in Santiago, Chile
Seasonal produce at excellent prices brings me to the feria most weekends. I've been missing it since being back from first Argentina, and then Peru. But the stars aligned just right, and after a solid 48 hours of social time, beer, wine, whiskey (?!, just a taste,...
The best souvenir, Arequipa, Peru
I don't know about you, but I don't need little ceramic busses cram-packed with figurines and chickens on the roof. And I've seen them in Ecuador, in Guatemala, in Bolivia. Certainly I don't need one that says Arequipa, Peru. I'm also all squared away on weavings,...
Woes from the road, clinic review from Arequipa, Peru
In which our intrepid traveler, Bearshapedsphere, admits that it is not all rainbows and butterflies while on the road. This is where my mother and I spent a couple of hours this morning. Well, not specifically in this ambulance, as we were able to make it there by...
The Prettiest Road (Santiago to Mendoza + back)
There are people who like the transit part of traveling. The bus, the plane, the boat ride. They say getting there is half the fun. I do not understand these people. For me, hyper (or amped, as I like to say) to a fault, sitting still in an enclosed space for a long...
I am not kidding when I say sometimes I hula hoop on the street
Photo courtesy of Ignacio Pérez Pérez. There's no way to put this delicately. Sometimes I stand on the street with a bunch of friends and strangers, and then, with a giant plastic hoop around my middle (and occasionally a leg or an arm, but never my neck, because that...
This is not the dog that bit me. More public clinic tales from Santiago.
Today's great adventure in the public health system ended well for me. I did not limp in on a bandaged leg all the way from the street, nor did I have to have the nurse bribe me with a little set of pre-reading books packaged in a plastic bag in order for me to get my...
Thrice-bitten, what to do if you’re bitten by a dog in Santiago
As you may guess from the title of this blog post, yesterday's second foray into the big city on roller blades did not go exactly as planned. Which is how I find myself the proud owner of a multiply-punctured and torn pair of pants, a well-defined tooth-scratch/bite...
Celebrating la chilenidad, bearshapedsphere style.
It is September 18th, tikitiki ti, and I should be out drowning in chicha and heaving under a giant plate (or strangely, handfulls) of meat, but instead I am tidying the house, hanging laundry on the line (more decently dressed than in the past, as I have recently...
