El hermanito perdido
Juan Pablo is a Chilean artisan who now lived this kind of life – travelling, creating and selling handicraft (mainly jewelry), for 13 years. He has long wavy hair, wears this typical kind of simple clothing and is a very calm, open and curious person. I met him in Bocas del Toro and was really happy to have found someone amongst the travellers there with whom I could (and must) communicate in Spanish. :-) Otherwise, English is very predominant here, but only in locations on the so-called Gringo-path.
Anyway. Normally, I don’t write about personal things in my blog and this includes people I have met on my travels. (So don’t expect to brag about personal things here as the whole world can read this, mail me instead.) However, perhaps you guys might be able to help in this case as most of you who read this are probably from Hamburg, too:
When I told him that I am from Hamburg, he got really excited and said that he actually has a brother that lives or at least grew up in Hamburg. After some more talking it came out that he has never seen the said brother before: His father apparently lived in Hamburg for some time and became acquainted with another woman during his stay. Only on his deathbed, his father confessed to him that he has another brother. And the only thing that Juan has of his brother is a photo (as a child) and his name, nothing more. (What I understood.)
After he told me that, we went to a computer and together searched through the internet for any occurances of his brother’s name in telephone books, facebook, websites and this one people search engine. There were some that fitted the name, but nothing even close from Germany or in the right age (he should be 20 now).
I told him that perhaps when I am back in Germany, I will have more possibilites to find him as I can be there personally but of course couldn’t guarantee anything as it is the question with German bureaucracy whether the registration office would give such data away to strangers or if they even keep record of this kind of data (keyword: Datenschutz). What do you think? How can I help him to find his brother when I am back in Hamburg or even from here?
Also, here are some impressions of Bocas del Toro. I left it quite fast, also because of the weather. After all, the raining season has begun now.
Bathroom graffitti in the hostel. I like the above one.
More artwork in the hostel
Despite the bad weather, we went to an isleta that was about 30min boat ride away from the main island. The beaches on these protected islands are the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen :-)
It was raining the whole day, so some travellers got together to watch some movies on the sheltered patio.
Intendando a olvidar
y dirigir
In Panama I was travelling alone again. Besides of that, Montezuma’s revenge messed me up. Luckily enough, the medicine I bought at a pharmacy took effect already after a few hours.
Here are some impressions from Boquete, a mountain village near David:
A shot in a local flower garden
Cafe Ruiz
Cool advertisement for a dental clinic in Boquete (on the backside of a STOP sign) :-)
Farmlands near Caldera
The hostel I stayed in was pretty… interesting :-)
Viajando a Panamá
con el autobus
“Tracopa” doesn’t come from “traer una copa” (bringing a cup) but from “Transportes Costaricensis Panamenos LTDA” and is the name of the bus company in which I wrote this story into my notebook (yes, it´s a book!). As you can probably derive from the name, I was on my way to Panamá to meet up with Senana.
My travel started in Montezuma at 6 o’clock in the morning in a minibus. After a few hours on only partly paved roads and changing the bus, we took the ferry to Puntaarenas.
Waiting for the next bus in Cobanó
Ferry to Puntaarenas
From Puntaarenas, the bus went on to San José. My original plan was to catch the bus to the border in San José at 1 o´clock but well, that didn’t work. Not really because the bus was late – the busses here are surprisingly punctual (so far), sometimes they even leave earlier than scheduled – but because the whole bus station was gone! You must know that the busses here are all run by individual companies and most of them have their own bus stations, leading to that the stations to the different cities are scattered all over town. Or well, actually most of the bus stations are somewhere around the Coca-Cola bus stand so after all, San Jose doesn’t have a bus station bus a bus station district.
As the taxi driver who drove me to the new bus station explained, Tracopa’s bus station was moved two years ago to Calle 5, Avenida 20. This is about 15 minutes away from the Coca Cola bus stand by taxi.
So yeah, I missed the bus to Paso Canoas (border crossing to Panamá) by 15 minutes and instead went on the bus to Palmar, a city that is halfway to the border so that I can get to Panamá early the next morning. The Interamericana to Palmar leads through the mountains where the temperature suddenly dropped below 20ºC only to change into a suffocating heat once we were out of the mountains.
Rest stop on the way to Palmar
Palmar is also called the “heart of the South” by my travel guide, which is absolutely true temperature-wise. Fortunately it began to rain heavy that night so it was halfway possible to sleep a bit in the dosshouse (by Western standards) I stayed that night.
Palmar at dawn.
From Palmar, I went to Ciudad Neily and from there to the border in “local” busses. The funny thing is that they really stop for everyone. I mean, not just at the bus stops. People who got their house or whatever directly at the Interamericana will just be picked up and dropped directly in front of their house. This goes so far that some people will just take the bus to get a short lift for a few blocks. And these were busses which drove from city to city, not local busses :-). Reminds me of India.
There is always a second person on the bus apart from the driver who remembers exactly where you got on the bus and where you want to get off, sees to that you are dropped at that point and collects the appropriate amount of money from you before you get off. Man, I like that … I already see myself trying to jump out of the local bus right in front of my house when I am back in Germany :-).
The procedure to cross the border to Panamá was… more disorganized and complicated then I expected. To make is short, I spent about two hours to run from A to B and back to A and actually back to B again (I omitted the C, actually) plus well, waiting in lines. And on each way I was asked by taxi drivers where I want to go, grr. Below impressions of half the way from A to B ;-).
Pedro el buceador
…y el pescador a la playa
On the 28th I went to Montezuma. This lovely little tourist village stretches along several long beaches along the pacific coast . It is a very popular location for backpackers and other travellers who try to escape the “tourist beaches”. Of course, this doesn´t make this beach less touristy, but in a more pleasant way.
And apparently, also local people live there ;-): For example Pedro, the diver/hunter. On sunrise of my first morning in Montezuma, me and a Swiss girl, Miriam went to a nearby waterfall to take a good bath after the hot and humid night before. A little bit later, a local with a harpoon, a plastic bag and diving goggles came to the waterfall. We talked a bit and it turned out that he is hunting for freshwater shrimps in this stream. He showed me some shrimps that he already caught further down and explained that actually it is currently not the season for freshwater shrimps, so the chance to catch one in the pond around the waterfall (which he said is 12(!) meters deep) is not big; during the season, he said, the shrimps can even reach the length of a forearm and there would be so many that he can fill his bag of hunted shrimps (the size of a forearm).
A shot of the waterfall…. look, rainbow :-)
Pedro shows that the pond around the waterfall really is deeper than expected ;-)
The other encounter I had at the same day was with a fisherman who was fishing at the beach right next to my hostel. I was just swimming near him (he stood in the water until his breast) when something big bit on the bait. And it was really big (he yelled something like “whoa, es un monstruo!”), so big that he could actually not hold ground was dragged further into the water until the water reached to his neck. I helped him to gain a few feet out of the water and when he reached the beach and thus had proper ground under his feet, he walked away from the water, pulled the string in while walking to the water, walked away from the water etc… to pull the fish in. At that point, he already got the attention of the whole beach. When the fish he caught finally came to surface onto the beach after five minutes or so of pulling in, the whole beach applauded and local and travellers alike rushed to the fisherman to have a look at and photograph the catch and congratulate the fisherman. I got the following pictures from a Chinese couple that is currently travelling the world, thank you Liu!
The fish. A Gallo.
The fisherman and his catch
According to some locals I asked, the fish is a “Gallo” (Spanish for rooster) because it has also a comb on it´s head like the rooster.
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Monte Verde
Yeah, much is happening during currently during my travel so I got a bit behind the writing. After San Jose, my next station was Santa Elena, a village in the mountains surrounded by several National Parks. Even though it is currently (almost the end of) the dry season, this valley somehow magically kept it´s green color.
The beauty of a rain forest, or in this case a cloud forest (a forest that is in the clouds and thus has a humidity of about 100%) is really stunning. The vivid green colors, the moss that grows all over the place and also on trees, the many vines and flowerlike plants hanging from the trees are really something special. The bright daylight that shines through at some spots and creates such big contrasts that it is really hard to capture this beauty with a camera.
And finally, here is a little riddle: What is this? (I don´t mean the guy)
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Los primeros impresiones
Here are some photos from San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica and the city where I arrived.
Near the hostel, in the “old town”.
Street-seller (like a German “Kiosk”, only directly on the sidewalk and “open”) in the central avenue.
Place I stayed in the first night. Nice hostel! Tranquilo
It’s odd. I thought that after India and Marruecos, I’ll immediately find my way around Costa Rica. Especially because I heard (and it is true), that CR is more of a vacation-country and also relatively rich as opposed to other central american countries. So I was suprised to see myself being afraid to go out alone of the hostel in the dark on my first day and even through the area near the bus station. The scenery changes really fast in San Jose. I also first missed out a lot of things and probably still am. I noticed the hookers near the hostel, the NATO-barbwire on almost each balcony, the a little bit broken streets and that distinctive smell in the poorer part of the town (near the bus stations) but for example not that right on the other side of the road from the hostel, there was a college.
But of course, the deal about less developed countries (or, say: less westernized countries) is I guess that they are pretty different from Europe/North America but each in a distinct way. So, one needs to get used to the culture, rules and society anew. And a little more caution at the start of the travel can not be wrong.
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Muro del Don Quixote
This is for my brother. On the first day in San Jose, I walked by a wall of an old house near parque Morazan. On this wall, there were several paintings on tiles, showing scenes from the Don Quixote novel. I tried my best to translate the captions beneath the paintings :-)
Caption: Absorbing the fantasy of all which he read in his books…
Can’t translate the caption. It’s something like… They marched on so [far] that at dawn, they thought with the security of a bird that they would not find them even though they were were searching for them.
Caption: Come here, my compadre and my friend, carrier of my work and misery
Caption: Where are you, my beloved lady, does my pain not hurt you?
Caption: Eat, Sancho my friend, hold to your life and leave me dying on myself at the hands of my thoughts and the strength of my misery
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Moved out moved in
Last Monday I moved to my new flat share – in Albayzín. Albayzín is a cramped neighborhood with narrow winding cobblestone lanes in which one is bound of getting lost. Most of the streets here are too small to accommodate cars. As this was historically the Moorish quarter of Granada, it still retains a lot of it’s medieval character.
The people who live here come from very different backgrounds. Many gitanos (gipsies) and Arabic immigrants from Morocco, as well as upper class citizens and (ERASMUS) students live here. Also, especially the main streets like calle Elvira features tourists, hippies (who sell their artisanry), punks and bums. So yeah, it is a bit dangerous here. Everybody of my flatmates can tell a story of about how someone he or she knows has been robbed or something has been stolen from him/her while being in Albayzín.
As for my house, it is filled almost exclusively with ERASMUS students who will all leave in a week or so.
It is a nice and idyllic place here, even though it is a bit far-off from the rest of the city. Not in distance but because the streets are steep and too small for a good public transportation. To get to the next supermarket, I actually have to go (almost) out of this quarter. Deep inside of Albayzín, like for example at the mirador, it really feels like a laid-back mountain village rather than a university city with more than 200.000 inhabitants.
View from my terrace with a view of the Alhambra, some part of Albayzín and center of of Granada
One of our gardens (after a party). I am sitting there while I am writing this :-)
Our courtyard with the salon and kitchen in the background
View from the courtyard and my German flatmate Wolfgang
Consumer society
Well as you all know, I started to study sociology in Granada. Some of the books I am reading are really inspiring to think further about society and more specific things in society because they create a framework to take a viewpoint from outside the society to look on society. To not take stuff as granted but to be astonished about the culture (and society) over and over.
Now, to take this viewpoint is a bit easier for me now as the culture here is a bit different, so it’s easier to gaze and wonder. I am not integrated into Spanish society.
Intentionally or not, I think that the mass media – and I mean especially advertising – botches up society1. In the sense that they procure a world with objective meanings to the masses that didn’t come from a “natural” development of society but orientate itself solely towards business interests. Mass media is extremely powerful to inject ideas, values, habits, desires and interaction patterns into society, even from the outside. That it works and that it is done you can see with how for example Coca Cola expands in new countries – they must deliberately change their desires and habits but even their values: let them associate Coca Cola with good values like freedom, creativity, the Western world, some movie or whatever values are valued in that society2. Take a look at advertising in TV nowadays – apart from sex they always try you to associate other good things with their product to create the desire to buy it. Mass media can change society and advertising does it through it. The creation of the consumer society is in that fatal because individuals conceive (this) society as almost as real as the physical world:
“…Society is commonly apprehended by man as virtually equivalent to the physical universe in its objective presence – a ‘second nature’, indeed. Society is experienced as given ‘out there’, extraneous to subjective consciousness and not controllable by the latter.” (Peter L. Berger, The sacred canopy, p.11, 2)
Advertising, or say, the culture of consumption (“advertising” sounds so puny and harmless) does not just “stand there”. Successful advertising creates values, habits, desires and patterns of interactions and structures on how-things-work in general. The human world is not only heavily influenced by the culture of consumption, propagated by the media, it is formed by it!
We live in this society were the dream world of the mass media and the values that they procure are conceived as given reality, in fact without noticing it or finding it weird:
But it’s not just advertising. I saw this with all this Bollywood business in India and with soap operas, they tell you how to feel, what to value and when it is proper to act how. Actually the same thing happens in normal socialisation but that is not devised and injected from the outside but comes from natural interaction. In many aspects, consumption has replaced religion (and we are proud of it).
And as I said, the fatal thing is that it’s really hard to notice all that because it is part of our society in which we are in. It is normal and objectively real by our standards and actually we even stand and propagate these values by being a socialised member of that society. But it’s enough to watch a really old Hollywood movie to find the values that are tried to be procured there really weird and antiquated. (Because it’s not your culture you see on the screen) Mind you, you think your culture is superior and the only normal one? Time to change your point of view.
To bring it to the point: It bothers me very much that the powerful instrument of mass media to form society is used not by identifiable people and not even by a power-seeking conspiracy society but by certain human-created phenomena (global capitalism and consumption) that long lost any controllability by (democratic) organs. The society is running into a volitional dictatorship of the global market without noticing it as this seems to be a completely normal part of our society. And while a human dictator might still show some benevolence for his people, this one does not. It is not created to be. That capitalism is not about welfare of man is nothing new.
1 Now, there will always be society and it’s difficult to judge if a society is good or bad objectively. But I am not trying to be objectively here: It just bugs me that society goes into this direction.
2 On that note:
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Clonk is dead! Long live Clonk
Matthes Bender, the creator of Clonk, announced in the German Forum that his days as an indie-game developer are numbered, he works now as a senior developer in a game company. So, he won’t have time for Clonk anymore.
(What is Clonk? Clonk is a very original 2D indie-game series. Clonk Rage runs natively on Mac and Linux, too. I’ve been developing quite a few add-ons for that game now and been part of the official development team.)
Clonk Xtreme, the 3D-action melee title, regrettably will be frozen for unknown time. Clonk Rage is already released, so there will be just no further development on that.
However, Matthes agreed to release the source for Clonk under the ISC license as soon as some preconditions are fulfilled such as replacement for some basic graphics and source changes which ensure incompatibility with Clonk Rage which will continue to be distributed as a shareware game.
Development of OpenClonk has already started: A Clonk title which will start from Clonk Rage but will break with the traditions and will surely bring even bigger changes and continuous development than the GWE-era.
OpenClonk will be free – and everybody can contribute!
I set up a forum and website for OpenClonk development about 2 weeks ago – a public repository will hopefully follow in a few weeks.
www.openclonk.org
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