Eyes of Three - A Family Odyssey

Jigmi Y. Thinley, Prime Minister of Bhutan at World Leaders Forum

2010-09-21T04:51:00.000-07:00

HOME

2010-06-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

After almost two solid days of travel, on May 26 we land tired but smiling with two ripped bags at San Francisco’s international airport. We are home. My pulse is up and I experience each breath as we drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, up the highway 101 corridor to our home in Healdsburg. Over the years I’ve experienced culture shock when returning home from far-away peoples and lands, not going to them. Now is no exception. ‘The real voyage of discovery is to see with new eyes’ and all the experiences over the past year – people, places, cultures, languages, economies, foods and lives – are inviting me to consider my life at home anew.

First, there are the practical considerations. How are our family and friends doing? When is the right time to reengage with Blu Skye? Paloma, our dog was ill when we were away, will she remember us? How has our home on the hill and off the grid faired?

Then there are the less practical considerations. What are the lessons to be learned and applied from our trip? Will everything just be the same after a day or two? How am I different from when I left?

I’ve been home now for a month and understand the difficulty of putting all that has happened into a few words. Everyone asks a version of the ‘how was your trip’? A reasonable enough question to which there is no clear answer. So we all answer a version of ‘it was great.’ Something important did happen out there in the big wide world. But I suspect its lessons will reveal themselves at unsuspected moments over the years to come. In the meantime, a response to the question about the trip is warranted. What did I learn? What did I discover? What are the implications for work and life?

Personally, I’ve grown as a father, husband and hopefully, more generally as a person. Relationships feed on shared experiences and we’ve fed them well on this trip. Think about it. Almost 24 hours a day with your significant other and child for 300 plus days. From the endless games of gin rummy and banangrams; to hundreds of rooms, beds and bathrooms – some regal, many just this side of sketchy; to cold late night walks through dusty impenetrable neighborhoods searching for a train; to drives of hundreds of miles through empty desert without seeing other cars; to close encounters with wild animals in dozens of landscapes; to a nighttime border crossing from Zambia to Zimbabwe during a power outage; to reconnecting with old and new friends in four continents, we have done everything together. I’ve seen how adaptable we are, that curiosity keeps you humble, that calculated risk keeps you young, and that being together matters.

Professionally, I’m inspired. From the creation of national parks in Chile, to the creative reuse of coke bottles in Namibia, to rethinking commodity markets in Ethiopia to help small family farms, to the practical application of a ‘Gross National Happiness’ index in Bhutan, to aid used to finance a women’s coop bakery in Malawi, to the resilience of people to survive in a totally collapsed economy in Zimbabwe, to the bizarre dance of the Blue Footed Boobie in the Galapagos that lives on today because of innovative conservation policies. I’ve seen the principles underlying the sustainability movement applied in so many different ways, by so many different people, in so many different places. It is a movement. I’ve learned that morally and practically it doesn’t work to tell people who have little and want more that they can’t have it. I’ve observed that there are billions of people in the world who fall into this category. I’ve learned to question technological based solutions without a corresponding transformation of consciousness. I’ve experienced the results of horrible ecological damage, and the incredible ability for landscapes and life to resurrect under the right conditions. I’ve reinforced my belief that business and the capitalist system are the acupuncture points to encourage global transformation. Fundamentally, I’ve seen that leadership matters.

Spiritually, I’ve come to see the wisdom in the trees and that love matters. Fear-based, revolutionary change of one’s life, family, community or country doesn’t work to create anything really new. Change born of fear, anger and hate simply recreates what it overthrows. The oppressed become the new oppressors. The Buddhists got it right: change is the nature of everything; we try and create permanence; grasping for that is painful; freedom is found in release and acknowledgment of what’s so.

At the end of the day I’m humbled by the privilege I have had to experience this trip of a lifetime and only hope that I can model the awe and humility required to live, really live, in this mysterious, wild world.

Galapagos 2010

2010-05-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

Islas Galapagos

2010-05-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

We spent two amazing weeks in the Galapagos Islands, seeing the awesome wildlife, walking in all the very different and unique landscapes of each island, and snorkeling with the beautiful sea life! Apart from Africa the Galapagos Islands have been one of my favorite places on our trip because I really enjoy seeing animals in their natural environment.

Let me tell you about some of my favorite animals like the Blue footed boobies. As their name already indicates the boobies have amazing bright blue feet, which help the males attract the female bird in mating season. The male blue footed boobies do a funny dance for the females were they lift up their feet one by one, slowly so that the male can show the female that he has good feet for incubating the egg , than the male will lift up his wings, stick out his behind and make a funny whistling noise! It was really cool to watch!!!

Another one of my favorite animals were the Marine Iguanas! Marine iguanas are about three feet long including their tails and are black in color. These iguanas are special because they have adapted to the islands so that they can swim! Their only food is the algae that gross on the lava rocks in the ocean so they have to dive down to the rocks to get their food! To keep warm they pill on top of each other in the sun.
The White Tipped Reef Sharks were another one of my favorites! It was my very first time swimming with sharks and I was a little bit scared but actually the two times I saw a shark while swimming it was pretty uninterested in us in terms of like eating us or something! White tipped reef sharks only get about five feet long and are one of very few that give birth to their young instead of laying eggs.

We also saw a few different kinds of sting rays like the Golden Cow Ray, spotted eagle rays , and the diamond ray. The rays that we saw were really cool I thought because when they swam in the water they looked like birds in flight! Rays have developed teeth for eating the shells of the bottom dwelling crustaceans of the ocean. Rays are also related to sharks!!!
We started our trip in a place full of amazing land animals, Africa, and now we are ending our trip in a place full of amazing marine life, Galapagos Islands. I found out on this trip that I really enjoy watching animals live their lives in their natural habitat, not in captivity!!!
I really feel lucky!
Skye

galapagos reflections

2010-05-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

I'm in a thoughtful mood, standing on the bow of our little boat the Sagitta watching the sun set while running downwind along the rugged coast of Isla Isabel about to cross the equator one more time. Its been a year traveling the world, and the past week boating around the Galapagos visiting the volcanic islands filled with native species so specially evolved that they helped to inform Darwin's Evolutionary Theory. The Trip of Lifetime has been just that. Wandering the backwaters of Africa, Asia, North and South America has deepened my love for Marci and Skye and shown me how much life, diversity and creativity is still out there.

Bottled water and cell phones has made it easier to visit the world than when I was in my 20s. Now everywhere accessible by motorized vehicles, you will find tourists and facilities to serve them (including internet here in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island, Ecuador). This changes everything. For one thing, you can get a pizza practically anywhere. For another, the far away communities are becoming more mono-cultural, economically globalized and transparent. As people, ideas and stuff from far away places arrive, things that are truly local including language, food, dress, religion and culture are hybridizing, becoming tourist attractions or disappearing completely. Some of this makes sense, like when a Bolivian silver mine becomes safer, a sick or orphaned child gets help, or a far-away national park receives notoriety and visits. But it will be a shame when the women of the Peruvian Altiplano only wear their colorful hats and outfits for us when we visit.

Over the coming years, all communities and individuals will have to choose to save that which is unique and sacred to them. And this won't be easy. With all the information available, people have more choice which is good, but it can lead to more discontent with the old 'backward' ways of living. While slower, less efficient and uneconomic (in the current system) these old ways often include more direct knowledge of how to live in a beauty in a specific place, keep the peace and create a meaningful life from no thing.

When discussing climate change and sustainability (two of my favorite conversations) Alejandro, our naturalist guide on the Sagitta, pointed to the boobies in front of us and said, 'life, animals and nature will be fine; it's the human species that's most at risk. Our kids. That's what we have to focus on.' I agree completely.

Peru Slide Show

2010-05-23T19:35:00.001-07:00

Machu Picchu

2010-05-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

as i ran my hands along the cool square stones of perfection that were chiseled so perfectly, i thought what it would be like to live here in the Machu Picchu city 400 years ago. it must have been beautiful! With giant mountains surrounding you for miles around and you look up into the clear blue sky and you think you could fly as high as a condor! Spending most of your days out on the steep terraces, building new houses out of stone, preparing for ceremonies, and praying to the many gods. Life seemed so simple for them compared to our busy lives!
skye

dreaming

2010-05-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was 12 years old I wanted to to go to Machu Picchu. I had my favorite teacher ever in 6th grade by the name of Heather Drake. We studied the Incas, and did a dig with another class.

I have always been fascinated by architecture specially when it holds the beauty in detail of a unimaginable construction like Machu Picchu. When I was high up on those magical mountains, I closed my eyes and dreamed how it must of been 400 yrs ago. Gardens over flowing with food and flowers. Colorful festivals, and many hands working hard to make such a beautiful city.

Machu Picchu was as incredible as I always hoped it to be.

Marci

Ollantaytambo

2010-05-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

Gods mattered. You can tell by the stones. Walls constructed for housing, storage and workshops were incredibly detailed, but by Inca standards C class; walls built for princes and kings were B class, unbelievable in their smooth, flow and joinery; A class were temple walls, virtually impossible in their fit, size, complexity and beauty.

Standing in the shadow of the stone ruins of Ollantaytambo - a spiritual center that the Spanish leaders begrudgingly acknowledged as an outstanding fortress - I feel how hundreds of years ago political leadership, intellectuals, and regular citizens played their interconnected roles built around serving god. Right or wrong, everyone had a role; everyone had a job. Life had meaning, whether you chiseled rock; grew quinoa; studied the stars; fought against intruders; or lead society. The majority must have grown food and made temples.

What do we do now?

The Face of Bolivia

2010-05-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

Faces and tradition.

What will happen when country’s like Bolivia stop wearing their traditional dress, stop weaving their amazing cloth and give in to the mono-culture and dress of the first world?

The style will disappear and the colors will fade away. The beauty of what makes us all unique will become the same tapestry.

Why would you want to travel to exotic far off places? Not only just to see sites, another monument, a Church, a waterfall.

Where will the dance and music go? What about the yummy foods, flavors and tradition in the preparation? Who will pass on the stories? What about the great Shamans?

Who will pass these along when our young people aren't interested in the labor of it all? It is all such meaningful hard work if you believe in your true heritage.

On this trip it is the places that honor their culture and traditions that will stick with me the most and the lovely faces of the people.

marci

Getting the Bolivian Visa

2010-05-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

A number of countries throughout the world have decided that an eye for an eye is the best response to the USA’s visa tariff of $100+ for their citizens. In brief, here's what it took in Salta, Argentina to get our Bolivian visas:

1. Go to the Bolivian Consulate at 10am. Learn you need more than your passport and money - lots more actually: 3 photos, $ deposited into Banco National Argentina, copy of entry stamp into Argentina, copy of credit card, copy of yellow fever inoculation, copy of address in Bolivia… you’ve got to be kidding… how do you do this at the border? It takes 24 hours to process and the Consulate closes at 2pm. Its now 10am. Better get going.

2. Hop a cab to the hotel. Put three head shots on a memory stick. Proceed to bank to make the deposit - $135 per visa for Skye and Marci – because I am a delegate at the Climate Change Conference, I get a 30 day ‘courtesy’ visa for no charge.

3. Go to the Banco National, an ancient and byzantine structure, looking for stairs to up to the second floor foreign exchange desk. Wander aimlessly through hordes of people standing in lines everywhere. Find stairs and proceed into room filled with bank employees literally shuffling papers back and forth between 4 desks. No one is available to help.

4. Finally, The Bank Person Who Deals With People Like Me arrives and says, ‘we only accept dollars, not argentinian pesos.’ Again, I think, 'you've got to be kidding...' I have to go down the block to the ‘cambio’ place to re-exchange my Pesos for US Dollars - they don't do this at the Banco National.

5. Line at cambio place is out the door. Wait for 30 minutes. Exchange pesos for dollars. Return to other bank.

6. Wait some more.

7. Do the deal and get the receipt. Walk down street to the Kodak place. Install my memory stick with our head shots. Fiddle with the machine. Lady tells me it isn’t going to work. Wrong formatting.

8. Walk 4 more blocks to different photo store. Wait. Get photos. Continue to photocopy place.

9. Photocopy all the other stuff. Catch cab. Deliver stuff to Ricardo at consulate. He smiles and says come back tomorrow, which I do and everything is in order.

The process is the journey. Or something like that. In this case there is a destination and its Bolivia.

Vamos!

WOODSTOCK CLIMATICO IN COCHABAMBA

2010-04-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes reality doesn’t make a lot of sense. Like when Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, host of ‘the alternative to copenhagen’ climate change conference, says at the opening speech to 33,000 well-wishers from every continent on earth, ‘men shouldn’t eat chicken with hormones or they will become gay,’ and, ‘men shouldn’t eat GMO potatoes or they will lose their hair and given how many potatoes Bolivian men eat, we soon won’t need barbers,’ and ‘coca cola is best used for cleaning clogged drains’ (disclosure: I am both translating and paraphrasing, but this is directionally correct).

Somehow I ended up with a press pass, so I had good access to most of the key events. Because of the work I do with Blu Skye, I kept my profile low and slunk around in the back of the room wearing dark glasses (the dark glasses were only metaphorical as I lost my glasses kayaking on the Chacabuco River in Chile, but that’s another story). There were indigenous people from throughout Bolivia in the wildest local costumes, European activists running around with lamb head placards telling people not to eat meat, serious intellectual anti-globalists, mustached and loud pro-socialists, hippie journalists, and even two women from Soweto, South Africa who after traveling for three solid days were found lost and hungry at the registration desk, got saved by our hostess, Anna, and ended up running with our little ragtag entourage.

For all of this nuttiness, and the conference’s decidedly anti-capitalist, pro-socialist/communist agenda, the 3 day event had an amazing diversity of culture, language and orientation and produced some good principles and a few practical ideas for reducing the human-related gasses that contribute to our changing climate. In the end, the event itself was a gathering of climate concerned people with a vague yet passionate agenda, who participated in a packed agenda of working sessions, music, dance and singing. When the Coca Grower Union members started tossing bags of fresh coca leaves into the crowd during the music set just before the final document reading ceremony attended by Evo, Venezuela president Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, I knew that this was indeed the Woodstock of ‘climate change’. A grand fiesta, love fest, party. A turning point indeed, but from where to what exactly no one is sure.

ESTANCIA RICON DEL SOCORRO

2010-04-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

"If I had a farm in Africa...." But it is Argentina, so beautiful and full of life. Wildlife every where: grasses, flowers, bees, cayman alligators, capybaras, marsh deer, howler monkeys and tons of wild parrots. We rode horses through the wetlands, took a boat through Laguna Ibera, and we hopped on bikes to check out the landscape at sunset.

Rincón del Socorro is another conservation project of Doug and Kris Tompkins. The Estancia is a 12,000-hectare (29,700 acres) former cattle ranch on the edge of the Iberá wetlands in Northeastern Argentina that has been made into a nature reserve. It and other large properties are connected to the 13,000 square kilometer Ibera Natural Reserve, the second largest wetland in the world.

I realized when visiting this and other of Doug and Kris' projects that conservation and preservation of biodiversity is so important, but what struck me to my core is Beauty.

Beauty in wildness
Beauty in free animals
Beauty in restoration
Beauty in the sounds of nature
Beauty in architecture of place
Beauty in clean air and clean water

As I travel this crazy earth, beauty grounds me.

Marci

CRUSH WITH THE VAL'SEXY' FAMILY

2010-04-13T12:43:00.000-07:00

pick and crush. tannat grapes to become a big, tasty red mix with malbec. cafayate, argentina. 2010. altitude 1600 meters. grape growing, river running family of 6 brothers and 3 sisters. biodynamic. fun.

VOLCANOES

2010-04-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

MY STORY
We got into our friend, Doug’s, plane. The plane was a four-seater, the smallest plane I had ever been in. I was exited! We were going to Doug’s house which was only accessible by plane or boat! To get to his house we would have to fly over the Chaiten Volcano! This volcano had just gone off a short time ago, on May 2, 2007. We started up the little plane and took off down the runway and up, up into the air we went.

It was great to be in a little plane, up high looking down at the green mountains that surrounded us. It was different from the usual big planes that most people fly in. The plane would tip to one side as Doug flew the plane, navigating well through the mountains; it felt like the plane was falling in slow motion! Then again I have never felt that and I hope I never will!

We finally saw the volcano in sight. We were flying over a little town close by the volcano. The town had been very beaten up from the volcano a few years ago. A whole river of ash had gone through the town and had flooded everything in its path! I was told that when the volcano erupted there was sooo much ash that it clogged up the rivers. The ash acted like a dam but then the “dam” broke and the river came right through the town! Luckily the town had enough time to evacuate and no one was killed. The town still looked devastated from the volcano that had gone off.

Up ahead was the smoldering Chaiten Volcano. It was big and rocky and as we got closer it started to smell strongly of sulfur. We flew around it once then moved on. It was really cool to see a volcano that close! But all around the volcano, for miles around, there was burnt tree after burnt tree. The trees didn’t look like a fire went through them, though. It looked more like all the color had gone out of them completely and they were just the color of ash gray.

We started to descend and then we came down onto the ground with a VRRRRROOOOOOOOOMMMMMM. We were at Doug’s house!

INTRODUCTION
Why I chose to do my report on volcanoes is because I think they are one of the coolest parts of earth and because I had the great experience of flying over one!

VOLCANOES
Volcanoes are mountains that have an opening at the top that goes downward to a pool of molten lava below the surface of the earth. When the heat builds inside a volcano, eruption occurs. Fumes and rock shoot up through the opening in the top and spill over, or fill the air with ash. Volcanoes can also cause lateral blasts which is where it blows out of the side instead out the top; lava flows, hot ash flows, mudslides, avalanches, falling ash and floods.

Volcanoes are formed by two tectonic plates hitting one another or pulling apart. A tectonic plate (also called the crust of the earth) is like the shell around the earth. It is a thin layer of earth that is constantly moving around. When the plates are moving around they might hit each other or break apart, and both can make a volcano. But there is no place on earth that doesn’t have a plate. Imagine a mud flat that is dried up and cracked. Some are overlapping, some are making little ridges like upside down V’s. Then imagine wrapping that mud flat around the earth and there you have your world crust.

There are many different kinds of volcanoes. Most people usually think volcanoes are just lava spewing mountains. Some of the kinds are: ice volcanoes, mud volcanoes, volcanoes that spew lava, volcanoes that volcanic ash blows from the top (the Chaiten Volcano was the volcanic ash type), and lots more. No matter rock or ash, 80% of the earth’s surface is volcanic in origin.

Volcanoes are very dangerous and have caused many people to die. If you had to guess which volcanos are more dangerous, lava volcanoes or ash volcanoes, most of you would probably say the lava volcanoes. But actually the ash volcanoes are the most dangerous because they tend to unexpectedly explode like an atomic but a lot bigger!!! If you were to watch one explode it would probably look like a giant gray mushroom way up high in the sky! The blast is sooo powerful it is known to knock down entier forests! Eruptions can trigger tsunamis, flash floods, earth quakes, mud flows and rock falls. A long time ago when there wasn’t yet technology, people described the eruptions of volcanoes as many things. Some thought it was supernatural, others like the ancient Greeks thought it was all the doings of the gods. There were many explanations for why volcanoes erupted.

The same night we flew over the Chaiten volcano there was an earthquake and we thought maybe the volcano was going off!!! Unfortunately I wasn’t awake to feel the earthquake (I never am). But my parents said it felt like a boat rocking on a sea!

CONCLUSION
I use to think volcanoes were just mountains that lava poured out of, but when I decided to do my report on them and I started researching them I found out that they are very interesting forms and very complicated too.

I hope you all enjoyed my report on volcanoes! This was originally for my class because I send them letters from every place we go and some of the letters are reports about subjects that I chose to study. We are now in Bolivia and we are coming home sometime in June. Can’t wait!!!

Skye

RAFTING THE RIO AZUL

2010-03-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

I saw Kayja fall into the water in front of me and then I felt myself falling in too. I felt the freezing water as I splashed in and I caught my breath. The water was sooo cold I felt it would freeze me! I popped to the surface easily because of my life jacket and saw a raft falling towards me but just as I thought the boat was going to fall on me the current pulled me down stream. I saw Kayja in front of me being pulled in to another raft I soon got pulled in too.

This was one of our last days out on the river, in the Futaleufu valley. It was probably one of my favorite days too! The Rio Azul is one of the many tributaries of the Futaleufu. The Rio Azul’s rapids were mostly class 2 to 3 and it was a really fun river!!! Kayja, Sasha, me, and our guide Jorge, rafted the river in a mini-me which is a blow-up raft but a lot smaller. I have been rafting since I was little, but this was my first time in a mini-me so it was a real treat!!!
That was one of my all time favorite river trips that I have ever gone on.

Big thanks to the river guides and cooks who helped make the trip even more fun!!!

Totally, Stoodles (Skye)

THE FU FAMILY

2010-03-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Nestled on the banks of one of the greatest white water rivers in the world our friends have created a charming camp for rafting, kayaking, biking, horseback riding and beautiful walks through the valley. There we met friends from Skye’s class, Fairfax, Truckee, Coloma, and S.F.

We were delighted by Cookies’ cooking and Lorenzo’s party themes. Skye really loved the talent show, until her dad and Lyosha did a duet...

We slept by the river in a tent, where the sounds of the river put us right to sleep. “Good morning, Good Morning,” and in came Phil with our hot latte. Then when the sun was shining we headed up to the yoga platform for our class with Damara, which is a perfect way to start the day.

Somehow wherever we find ourselves in the world on a river, we find like-minded friends that love the great outdoors. It's an extended family. It’s Jib’s real love.

With gratitude to Marc, Lawrence and the whole Bio Bio crew for all their enthusiasm and love for the wild outdoors.

Marci

THE RIVER

2010-03-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

Relationships feed on time. Attachment, skill and yes, love, build as a direct outcome of time spent together. Between people it’s called limbic resonance. Between people and wildness it’s called home. As Marci, Skye and I have wandered across four continents together; I’ve come to better appreciate this. Our southern Chile experience – and especially Futaleufu – brought together three things most dear to me: rivers, sustainability (my vague, potent notion) and most of all family. The Futaleufu and its tributaries the Azul and Escalon, are all five star beauties – pristine, free-flowing, class big, fish-filled, and threatened 21st century anomalies. Major dams are proposed all over southern Chile as it is one of the few places left on earth with lots of water and very few people. The tension between the (clean) energy demands of our industrial growth model and places like Futaleufu and its indigenous inhabitants mounts with each passing day. This is a microcosm of the intellectual and moral challenge of our time. On this river I kayak, along with Marci and Skye, returning to the company of dear friends at the Bio Bio river camp where around the campfire we sing songs, debate, laugh, look deep into the fire’s dancing light and touch the experience of human being at its core.

Ode to the odd hotel

2010-03-15T05:52:00.001-07:00

Not talking about the sinister hotels and motels - the ones where the drug deals go down, in the seedy parts of town, where rooms are rented by the hour and the sheets never get changed. No, I'm talking about the odd, personalized, owner-run places; sometimes serving breakfasts, always with strange quirks. Wallpapers from the last century; framed pictures of children's Scottish kilts; sheets and covers of various colors and cotton counts; owners of interesting backgrounds that somehow have ended up in these funny little backwaters all over the world. They transcend their cultural locations. When you check in, you spend a night inside the mind of their creators. Never dull. Always interesting. Next time you're in Puyuhuapi, Chile be sure and stay with Ursula Flack at her Hosteria Alemana - and by the same token, next time you're in Springbok, South Africa don't go to the Scottish Nights Guesthouse. Oh, and also don't forget to stay at the Espacio y Tiempo (translation: Space and Time) in La Junta, Chile.

The End of the World as We Know It

2010-03-02T04:06:00.000-08:00

In case you were wondering, the spare tire from a Russian made 1987 Niva station wagon doesn’t work on an Argentinean made 1990’s Ford Ranger King cab truck. We learned this the hard way. After exploring the sendero bosque encantada (the enchanted forest), a lovely trail off the top of the pass through a wood, fern and moss grotto of elfish character that ended in an ice choked cirque lake surrounded by glaciers and their cascading waterfalls, we arrived back to our rented truck only to find a nail stuck deep into the flat left rear tire. It was late, we’d already driven 4 hours and had another 4 to go to Coyhaique. Now I’m not a mechanical engineer, but changing a tire on a rutted dirt road in the middle of a Patagonian forest is right up my alley. But this wasn’t to be. The tool that lowered the spare tire from under the truck bed to the ground snapped leaving it impossible lower our spare tire despite many ingenious and thuggish attempts to do so by me and the few passerbys that tried to help.

Skye said, ‘it isn’t an adventure until something goes wrong’ – referencing Yvon Choinard’s timeless quote that I love to repeat myself… usually cozy around a campfire telling stories with a glass wine in hand. Luck would have it, that just in our moment of darkness – almost now literally – Ingrid and Lorena, two women who work with Doug and Kris Tompkins’ Conservacion Land Trust drive up and proceed to help us. This is where the Niva spare tire comes in. We first drive an hour to Puerto Cisnes – a small village built around salmon farming, which is now in dire straits due to the collapse of the salmon farming industry in south Chile. There a friend of their friend Juanito, takes us all over town looking for a five lug spare. There are many dogs in Puerto Cisnes, but not many spare Ford tires. So we settle for the Niva, which the owner insists has been used on a Ford Ranger previously.

At 9:30pm we see the futility of the Niva fix – its far larger than the ford. So we take the still flat tire, throw it in the back and drive here to Coyhaique, arriving at almost 2am. Yesterday I spent the whole day fixing the tire, broken tool and the cemented spare tire lowering device.

In the backdrop to all this adventure, a tragic story of deep suffering continues to unfold north of us. Over two million people are without homes, almost 800 people have died, many more are missing. Every radio and television station is on full time moving cameras and microphones from city to city, village to village in sad story after sad story. Now supply chains are becoming stressed throughout Chile. Stuff isn’t flowing by road or boat like it normally does. Yesterday diesel was unavailable in Coyhaique. Many people are advising us to go to Argentina to get fuel and food. There is a clear feeling of the fragility of the human techno-industrial endeavor and that ultimately earth’s timeless systems dominate. When the ground you stand on isn’t so solid after all, it can almost turn you into a Buddhist.

The Day the Earth Shook

2010-02-28T05:51:00.000-08:00

We are safe and well – but somewhat shocked at what we’re just now seeing on the television – at the ‘Space and Time’ hotel the little roadside village of La Junta many hundreds of miles south of the terremoto’s epicenter. At the time of the earthquake we were sleeping deep inside Pumalin Park, at Doug and Kris Tompkin’s farm on the Renhue fiord. Asleep on the second floor of the hand hewn wooden building we felt a gentle, but significant, swaying and rocking of a boat at sea. There was no mistaking it was an earthquake.

The air in this normally blustery and cloudy part of southern Chile was perfectly calm and the full moon brilliantly highlighted the mountainous landscape surrounding the farm. A surreal moment in a remote place, we immediately thought of the Chaiten Volcano, which 3 years ago erupted in a Mount Saint Helen’s like explosion spilling over 6 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere and causing the permanent evacuation of the coastal town of Chaiten. Located inside the Park just 5 miles away from Doug’s farm, we had just spent the day before flying around the smoking Volcano in a small plane as we surveyed the park projects. Three years ago the ash plume went 100,000 feet into the sky. Last night, thank goodness, was clear and calm. It wasn’t until this morning that the full extent of what took place to the north has become clear. Earthquakes, volcanoes and their aftermaths are strong reminders of earth’s natural systems and the fragility of human endeavors.

Yesterday morning, all internet and mobile phone communications were cut off south of Concepcion. This is the first location where we are getting the full news of the devastation and suffering to the north. We have a truck and are continuing south to Coyhaique and then to Valle Chacabuco site of the future Patagonia National Park where we will reunite with Doug and Kris Tompkins.

21st Century Breakdown

2010-02-28T05:46:00.000-08:00

Repression? Expression? or just a dog bite?

MARCI ON BALI

2010-02-07T08:58:00.001-08:00

Here's what I've learned about myself more than ever in the last six months....

I Love Beauty
I love lush green landscapes
I love extraordinary sunsets
I love swimming in a warm blue ocean
I love riding a motor bike with Skye holding on behind me tight in the pouring warm rain
I love long time friends on the road
I love that beauty is important to the Balinese in all their daily offerings
I admire that they celebrate life and death equally
I love that the Balinese people smile all the time
I loved going to morning yoga with Jib at the yoga barn which looked over the rice fields
I love the exotic fruits and yummy veggie meals indoor outdoor living
I love the way they look in their traditional cloths
I respect so much their commitment to their culture and family values
I love that art and music is so alive and well in Ubud
I appreciated how the elders had a strong presence in the daily work life of their village
I loved how incredibly friendly the people are
I felt at home....
In the Bali spirit

SKYE ON GILI AIR

2010-02-07T08:54:00.000-08:00

I had an amazing time in Bali where we stayed for six weeks! A part that I really enjoyed was when we went to the Gili islands! These are three islands right off the coast of Bali. It took an hour and a half by boat to get to there.

My friends Sasha, Ruby, and I sat at the front of the boat where there was a little window out of which we stuck our heads. The thrill of the wind rushing through my hair was amazing. If you have ever skied and speeded down a really big hill, and felt like you could fly, then you sort of know how I felt!

We finally got to our destination, Gili Air! The island was really small, so small in fact that there were no cars, only horse and buggies, and you could walk all the way around it in a few hours. There wasn’t much to do besides play on the beach and hangout in the shade in the hot afternoons. But one day, we took what’s called an exploratory dive. We started in a pool and learned all the stuff we needed to know before we went into the ocean. Then once we were done with that we got all the equipment and piled it into the boat (ourselves included) and went out to sea! When we got to the right place, the captain stopped the engine and threw the anchor into the sea. We put on our equipment and in groups of three we sat on the edge of the boat and fell backwards into the water on the count of three! I popped my head back out of the water and gave a grin from ear to ear. I went back under the water with my two buddy partners (which you have to have) and we started to descend to the sandy ocean floor. We reached 50 feet! I was amazed at how deep we had gone and I loved it! At first there wasn’t much to see but then we swam around a big bulk of dead coral and came into a whole new world! It was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were sooo many different colors and shapes! There was also trillions of different kinds of fish like, Lion fish, Cuttle fish, Sea turtles, Parrot fish, and TONS more!!! I wanted to stay down there forever, but it was time for us to start heading back up.

It was an experience of a lifetime and I will never forget that trip to another world.

JIB UNPACKED

2010-02-07T08:16:00.000-08:00

First a bit of housekeeping. If you want to see the slideshows on the blog full screen, you can double click on the pictures and it should take you to our Picassa site.
Today we are in a rainy Buenos Aires, Argentina and Marci and Skye have written their first blog posts below. Since the last blog post, we spent almost 6 weeks in Bali and then a few days back in the USA before heading to South America. Soon we will travel south to the Futelafu River and then onto Valle Chacabuco and the site of a new Patagonia National Park.
Charles Dickens’ first sentence in a Tale of Two Cities included the phrase, ‘…it was the best of times; it was the worst of times…’ This sums up what I’ve experienced on the road so far.
We’re now about half way through our walkabout. Since the last blog entry we have roamed continents, crossed the equator twice, boated between equatorial islands, celebrated a new year with friends and family and flown across vast oceans in climate controlled metal birds.
I’ve seen how different and same people are; how happiness isn’t tied to wealth; how resilient local cultures have ritualized community service; and how technologies – like bottled water and cell phones – make it easy for people from far away places to visit, live and work (and thereby significantly influence local people and places). Above all I’ve seen the endurance, adaptability and possibility of people everywhere.
Capitalism has clearly become the dominant economic model globally. Increasingly human life on earth all hangs together. And the ability to be somewhere and transmit information far and wide instantly – like on this blog – changes everything.
In the coming years, winning business people and the companies they run will be guided by three simple principles…
They will:
• Seek Transparency – understand who is helped and who is harmed by your business, suppliers and industry
• Help Many – serve your customer, shareholder and employees and as many others as possible
• Harm None (but your competitors) – do the right thing, remove risk and sleep well at night
I believe that this holds as true for the woman selling boxes made out of recycled bottles on the Skeleton Coast of Southern Africa as it does for the $500 billion Walmart.

here today, gone to bali

2009-12-12T20:49:00.000-08:00

Much action since last posting; in chronological order:

• November 4 – 9: time at the TEDIndia conference in Mysore, India where Jib shared about the future of business, and we all connected with old friends, met new ones and began a temple and sacred-spot visiting regime that hasn’t begun to slow

• November 10 - 30: After a night in Calcutta, a wild flight into high mountain kingdom of Bhutan. Nestled between the economic powerhouses of China and India, the Himalayan country is the world’s youngest democracy and home to the only real political attempt to define an alternative development model, which they call Gross National Happiness. Here Jib met with the Prime Minister and rowed a boat on the first raft descent of the Drangme Chhu River, a 7 day class IV-V gem through the heart of pristine lowland forest all the way to the Assam, India border. If you look close at this short video from Bio Bio Expeditions you will see me tumble out ass over teakettle out of the cataraft. During this time, Marci and Skye braved wild, one-lane twisty mountain roads filled with Buddhist drivers, roadside water-driven prayer wheels and cliffs as tall as Half-Dome to visit the Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries, Temples, Zhongs, Festivals, Pray Wheels and Stupahs that make up the daily life of this country of 600,000. They also did a small rafting trip of their own and got to visit the reserve of the Black Necked Crane, considered one of the world’s most endangered species.

• December 1-7: from there we traveled to visit our friend Ajeet Bajaj and his family in Delhi, India. The ‘Sir Edmund Hillary of India’, Ajeet met Jib on the banks of Siberia’s frozen Chuya River in 1988 and they have remained friends ever since. Ajeet is founder and owner of the best adventure travel company in India, Snow Leopard Adventures and is one of the countries’ top explorers having been the first Indian to ski to both the North and South Poles (among many other accomplishments). During our short stay with the Bajaj’s we traveled to the holy city of Rishikesh on the banks of the upper Ganges River, where we rafted and stayed at the Snow Leopard camp. Here we saw Puma tracks on the beach and Sadhus galore in their orange robe ascetic wildness at and around the daily sunset Ganges worship session at the local ashram.
• December 8 - Now: we’re in Ubud, Bali and have unpacked our bags, done laundry and will settle in through the new year with our friends who live here. Skye will continue her home school routine and spend time at the innovative Green School, Jib will review and compile and share his notes on the amazing people and projects we’ve seen, Marci will do yoga and consider the merits of sourcing, and we will all reconnect with friends and family over the holiday season, while we begin to make plans for the next half of the trip.

Vietnam

2009-11-13T18:17:00.000-08:00

Vietnam. A cacophony of the senses. Old Town Hanoi, our first stop, is a maze of alleys all filled with food vendors, tiny $10 hotels, knock-off stores, and motorbikes, motorbikes, motorbikes. Gas powered two-wheeled vehicles moving every which way, everyone in a peripheral vision flow state, somehow avoiding the inevitable crash (most of the time) due to everyone using their horns all the time. It makes one wonder what it was like when it was only bicycles. It must have been very quiet.

From Hanoi, we visited the World Heritage Site of Halong Bay. Thousands of limestone cliff faced islands off the northern coast. Like everywhere we went in Vietnam - in fact all of asia - a clear day is one filled with a fog-like haze. The sun and stars are nowhere to be found. Nonetheless, our overnight ride on a Junk Boat entertains: kayaking, cave walking, and odd boat mates, all make this a worthy venture.

Then we meet our friends Melany and Duncan Berry and head to Thich Nhat Han's Root Temple (aka a nunnery and monastery) near Hue in the central part of the country. For 5 days we are their guests. Dharma talks, singing, meditating, silent meals, helping build a rickety robe rack, walking meditation fill our days. The nuns want to keep Skye - she is their size; taught a great english class (the highlight being a rousing round of 'twinkle twinkle little star'); and impressed them with her badminton skills. The mutual adoration between Skye and the nuns is heartwarming. Skye is very clear that as of today she's not becoming a buddhist nun. Just in case you were wondering. They sleep on desk tops, wake up at 4:30am for morning meditation and eat all vegetarian meals in silence.

Now we're in Bhutan after a week in Mysore, India. Tomorrow we head to the far east of this small country.

TEDIndia Conference

2009-11-07T05:09:00.000-08:00

We're in Mysore, India. Just finished the TEDindia conference where I had the privilege to speak on day 2 (yesterday).

Entering the TED world felt like landing on the moon after Africa and 2 weeks in Vietnam where we spent the majority of our time in and around a Buddhist Root Temple in Hue.

Photos and more coming soon.

Out of Africa

2009-10-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

We have arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam after a wonderful and enlightening road trip up the West Coast of South Africa, into Namibia; followed by a small plane flight into the Okovango Swamps, Botswana; onward to Victoria Falls and then to a remote village in Malawai; before time on the beach in Plettenberg Bay and a couple of days in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia en route to Asia...

along the way we've seen amazing wild animals, met with inspirational people, experienced inspirational examples of positive deviance, and reconnected with Africa the place where Marci and I met 24 years ago.

Its beauty, tragedy and uniqueness is astounding.

No Internet in the Bush

2009-10-06T00:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry to be out of touch.

We've been traveling extensively in the bush - as they say here - with no internet access. Now we're in Johannesburg, South Africa, but only briefly as we leave in 2 hours to fly to Blantyre, Malawi where we will spend the day with leaders from Millennium Promise and UNEP visiting one of their Millennium Village Clusters exploring how to create market-based economic inputs that will sustain the progress they have made in eradicating extreme poverty.

We just spent the last few days in Zimbabwe and Zambia on either side of The Smoke That Thunders, Victoria Falls. We stayed in Vic Falls with friends from 24 years ago. Zimbabwe is just emerging from a complete economic collapse - their currency, just after printing 10 Quadrillion (yes, quadrillion) Dollar bank notes, totally collapsed and now they use only US Dollars. Meanwhile, the funky, isolated Zambia of 1985 - where you couldn't enter the country if you had a South African stamp in your passport - has become one of the new economic darlings of the region, with a 5 star hotel sitting directly on top of the grass roofed huts where us Sobek guides lived at the Rainbow Lodge. We had the pleasure of hooking up with two Zambians with whom I worked - Rachel and Dominic - who took us on the grand tour of Livingstone to see Nanda's Mini Market, Dombwa street Market, the Boat Club and Nakatindi the ghetto where all the Africans who worked with Sobek lived. After dinner we crossed the border from Zambia to Zimbabwe the other night at immigration the lights were out (black out that had started the morning we left) so we entered the ramshackle immigration building in total darkness saying ‘hello? Hello?’ and then all of a sudden a cell phone LCD light come on and a polite voice says, ‘yes, can I help you?’ as if nothing was unusual… It was surreal, but classic - everyone was relating to that as if nothing was unusual in any way... those LCD lights in the cell phones are very popular in Zimbabwe.

There is so much more: lions, leopards, elephants and hundreds of other species in Namibia and Botswana; road trips through the coastal desert mountains where we didn't see another car for 5 hours; hiking to the top of the world's tallest dune and then skiing down the face skye burning the bottom of her bare feet; meeting with the leader of a most practical and innovative approach to land/biodiversity conservation in Africa; feeding running orphaned cheetah's 2 kg slabs of donkey meat from the back of a careening truck... After we return from Malawi I will put together a proper travel log and share it. I also, will encourage Marci and Skye to begin to post.

Now off to meet the executives from South Africa's largest retailer before getting on an Air Malawi flight to Blantyre.

POSITVE DEVIANCE I

2009-09-13T02:24:00.000-07:00

Patenoster, South Africa

August 28, 2009

It was in the market in Patenoster, South Africa that Skye called out, ‘hey, papa come look at this cool thing!’ Fully expecting a troll, trinket, or other tacky tourist item to maneuver my 11 year old away from, I was surprised to find colorful boxes made out of the bottoms of 1 liter coke bottles. Instead of recycling, or throwing them away, this woman had masterfully cut the the bottles in such a way that they would close. In order to make them pretty, she had taken napkins and glued them on in such a way as to make them sturdy and translucent so the light could shine through. And at 12 Rand – approximately $1.50 USD – they weren’t expensive.

She did a brisk business, so we were lucky to get one. She’ll make more tonight and be back tomorrow at 11am next to the dried fish, shell mobiles and other brickabrack.

Holding this thing, which I don’t know exactly what we’ll do with as we continue our road trip north into places wild and unknown, I started to think about principles. What are the common elements of projects that might make up an instance of positive deviance?

• Sustainable Value – it adds demonstrable value to multiple stakeholders – including the shareholder – and importantly, doesn’t take away value from other people, communities and nature. In simple terms, an instance of positive deviance should do no harm and bring value to many. In the case of the little box, she was making decent money on a ubiquitous item that was heading to a landfill, incinerator or energy intensive recycling plant.
• Cost Effective – the economics must make sense at scale within the communities in which they operate. In other words, it could work at scale and isn’t simply for the wealthy or extreme niche. If ‘sustainable’ cotton (or pick your commodity) can’t compete with ‘conventionally’ grown cotton, it won’t make a difference. At 12 Rand, these sturdy boxes were accessible even to the local fishermen, and were an absolute bargain to tourists. I could easily imagine thousands of these being made all over the world.
• Beauty – the direct outcomes and unintended impacts of the product or service should somehow enhance the richness and diversity of nature and society. If things add economic value and do no harm, but they detract systematically from diversity or beauty, then in the long run they won’t make the cut. My market entrepreneur didn’t need to add the napkins to the coke bottle boxes. They would work have worked without them just fine. But it was that extra move to thoughtfully bring beauty along with the practical innovation that make it appealing, and led to its being snapped up like hot cakes.

These may not be right, but it’s a good northstar to start.

WILD ECONOMY

2009-09-13T01:44:00.001-07:00

September 9, 2009
Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park
Ten lions, a dominant male, two females, five cubs and two young males nearby, rest in the afternoon heat. The male Kalahari Desert lions are known for their flowing, dark, beautiful manes, which grow fuller than most due to the lack of vegetation and underbrush. It’s hot, dry and primal out here in this bright African afternoon. The cubs rough-house, chew on sticks and nurse; the dominant male lazily sits up to survey his domain; the mamas nap only moving to stay in the shade; and the young males shift restlessly to survey the main pride to which they hope to have access someday. Mostly they all sleep.
They pay us no mind even though we’re but 20 feet away for two hours in the 35 degree heat. A few german tourists in self-drive 4x4’s toting massive cameras and lenses come and go. Still we sit, sweating yet mesmerized by the spectacle of wild lions in this wild place.
Like the Germans, we are on a self-safari in this remote game park on the border between Namibia and South Africa. We are in a rented Kia Sportage bound from Cape Town to the Angola/Namibia border and have our own small array of electronic recording devices (not too much: remember our carry-on provision), and are in the process of surveying two dry river valleys where the game collect from Twee Riverien to Nossob and over to Mata-Mata searching. Watching the King of Beasts playfully swat an frisky cub, it occurs to me that our ‘market economy’ means nothing to these wild creatures. They are affected by markets surely; but they know and care nothing of them. For them life just is.
In contrast, I live, observe lions in Africa, and am able to write this by virtue of my active participation in market economies. What’s especially interesting about Africa is that there are fair numbers of people who, like the Kalahari lions, are influenced by market forces, but as a practical matter they know and care little about them. For a good portion of humanity life is still pretty basic – living moment by moment hunt for food, shelter, sex, and harmonized social relations. And this is an economy of sorts – a wild economy. It’s older, more raw and as I gaze at the lions, realize isn’t going away anytime soon. Market economies are a structure of human interpretation with agreed to rules and norms; wild economies are somehow different.
In New York I met with folks from Millennium Promise, an NGO committed to eradicating extreme poverty consistent with the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. In early October Marci, Skye and I will visit one of their projects in Malawi to explore how to develop markets for agricultural goods in communities with no infrastructure and no investment capital. Theirs is a problem of transitioning people from a wild economy to a market economy. According to Millennium Promise there are one billion people living in extreme poverty world-wide. That’s a lot of people living close to wild economics. I’ve grown up in market economics – I know nothing else – and the last 5 years have looked deeply into the unintended impacts – good and bad – of markets. What I’ve learned is there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Participation in the global economy has clear benefits, but also its costs. And because it works on human-created rules, one has to choose to participate in order to make it work. Thus I suspect that this is why most ‘aid’ fails and why the WTO will continue to have challenges. Ultimately, people must choose to participate in markets; to let go of the wild, ancient and raw – with all its benefits and costs – and embrace the new.
And as I sit, sweat and commune with the Kalahari lions I can almost see a kind of picture into that wild human economy. But not quite.

2009-09-04T02:39:00.000-07:00

We are on our way to the Kalahari and then into Namibia. More posts coming soon when we get reconnected. Its a long road.

BORDER LAND

2009-09-04T02:31:00.000-07:00

BORDER LAND

August 22, 2009

Airport Transit Lounge, Frankfurt, Germany

The experience of leaving one country, but not yet fully arriving in another country is odd. It is a zone of no-country, a place between the known and unknown, a domain of uncertainty and anticipation, an experience of being and becoming. Its unsettling.

When I was 23 years old, I lived outside of Livingstone, Zambia in a one room thatched roofed hut at the Rainbow Lodge within view of the hippo and crocodile laden Zambezi River and Musi O Tunya – the smoke that thunders – Victoria Falls. After widening to over a mile and plunging almost 500 feet over the world famous Falls, the Zambezi then snakes its way 200 km down the remote and desolate Batoka Gorge home to the world’s rarest falcon, the world’s biggest navigable rapids, and one of the world’s most natural borders. In 1985 and 1986 I was one of seven whitewater river guides working for Sobek, the company that had done the first descent of the river two years before (it was on the seven day expedition where I met my sweet wife Marci, but that is another story). Just below the Falls, within walking distance from my hut, the top of the gorge is almost a ½ mile across and with the churning river 500 feet below, it forms the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. In 1985, Zambia was poor and Zimbabwe was not. Petrol, bread, cheese, meat - almost everything - needed to be purchased in Zimbabwe. To do this, we needed to cross a big bridge, checking out of Zambia on one side, driving across the bridge often getting out to admire the view, and then checking into Zimbabwe on the other side. In 1985 given what we were doing, it was not totally clear if once you checked out of one country, whether or not they would let you into the other one. I used to imagine living on that bridge between two African countries, stuck forever in the borderland where none of the old or new rules applied. A developing world version of that movie Tom Hanks starred in not too long ago where he was stuck for months inside JFK.

Of course, that never happened. There were unsettling incidents: normally placid guards made irritable by 120 degree heat and our sloppy misprints in paperwork pulling our bread, cheese and provision laden land rover apart, fines and threats to take passports because of undeclared wheels of cheese; subtle but firm pressure for bribes. But we always made it out the other side.

As we sit physically in Germany, legally nowhere, bound for Southern Africa, a country so far away it will take us 32 hours of travel to get there, where we will drive 2000km up the west coast of South Africa and Namibia to near the Angolan border, I see how we are in collective and individual borderlands in our lives – walking across a bridge between the known and unknown. Skye most obviously of all. She bravely walks in the border land between childhood and puberty, between fantasy and ‘reality’, between reliance on parents and self-reliance. She has so much trust and resolve. We have been on the road for over 4 weeks in Bug-Z and not once has she complained despite all manner of circumstance – breakdowns, boring dinners with adults, heat, rain, being lost, no friends, and hours and hours of loud diesel engine drone. Skye is pretty much content to be here with us come what may. Marci has wrapped up all of her design projects, closed her business bank account, and for the first time since we’ve been together is unencumbered by projects and the numerous details she masterfully manages everyday. She is free. As for me, the everyday routine followed faithfully for the last five has disappeared. Building Blu Skye, obsessively serving our clients, innovating to raise the game, being a small part of a growing movement to transform the way business is conducted on planet earth – all the structure and devices that have allowed me to do this are gone. And as I stare out the transit lounge window waiting for our flight to Cape Town, I realize that when we return home, it will all be different. For me and for all of us.

Now I know why people don’t choose to do a trip like this more often. Its unsettling, unclear and unnerving. Its also what creates the possibility for something new to emerge. We often tell our busy clients that once the analysis is done, strategy consists of only three tangible things. Those current actions which you will Stop; future actions that you will Start; and current actions that you will Continue. The hardest, by far, is stopping. But this is the only place where the opening for new action is created. We’ve all stopped a lot of actions and are engaged in a whole lot of new actions. It will be interesting to see what happens when we emerge from this border land.

Across the USA

2009-08-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

Today we leave New York City bound for Africa.

A good beginning.

More to come.

Jib, Marci and Skye

Maximum Legal Carry On

2009-08-18T05:14:00.000-07:00

Maximum Legal Carry On

When packing for a year long trip that includes latitudes of muggy dripping heat, altitudes of air thin and cold, and rain of all textures, what do you bring? A carry on.

There’s no way to prepare for all contingencies, so stay light and move fast. Maintain ability to catch a last-minute flight without checking bags in Malawi after getting stuck in traffic. Keep weight low to toss baggage onto slow moving trains in India. Stay compact to tie bags onto pack horses in southern Patagonia. When staying at a friend of a friend’s house in South Africa, one doesn’t want to show up with heavy, massive duffels filled with reams of unwashed cloths or unused gear (a friend once schlepped a full sized crab pot and accessories to eastern Siberia anticipating the mouth-watering king crab off the coast of Sovietskaya Gavan).

Packing the carry on for the year’s odyssey is good sustainability 101 practice: Take what you need. Need what you take. No more. No less. Let the constraint of the bag’s size force you to innovate.

Today we say goodbye to Bug-Z, our now-part-of-the-family Vanagon. Now the carry-on commitment becomes actualized. Although space constrained, Bug-Z had all the amenities: 2 double beds, cooler with iced drinks, food and snacks, music from the 70s and 80s that we played on the blaupunkt tape machine, I had my old stumpjumper mountain bike, marci and Skye had razor scooters, plates, cups, bowls, there was even a kitchen sink (although we didn’t use it). We had it all.

Letting Go

It’s been a year of heavy lifting to realize this point of minimalism. The Vanagon is but the middle stage of our rocket ship leaving orbit. Packing up the house, finding Mike and Marne, putting affairs in order with Blu Skye, saying goodbye to family and friends, this was stage one. Today like an apollo moon shot, in order to get out of orbit we have to jettison mass, goods, gear, stuff.

Bug-Z's Pit Crew

So goodbye Bug-Z for now. The carry ons are still full and we now have 3 nights in Manhattan, NY before flying to Cape Town, South Africa to see if further culling is necessary.

Saddest of the Pleasures

2009-08-07T19:50:00.000-07:00

Lewis and Clark ghost here
Bike ride aside Teton shadowed mighty Snake
Crowd adorned Major Sights in Yellowstone - 5 minutes off path nobody
Ascend and descend passes, past elk and bear
Jam with movie star under bright night big sky
Almost booted out of Roosevelt National Park in the Northern Bad Lands
Marci and skye experience Mare ultrasound - no baby - while papa logisticizes
Road weary to green mosquito lake in Minnesota called Leech after shopping local farm corn at park rapid walmart
Diesel overflow. again. And this aint bio. clean bugs off the window.
Sit up straight. keep breathing as the big trucks move on by.
World at 65mph used to be fast, not so anymore.
Still miles roll by
There's a lot of grass out there Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin
and hospitality
Not too many VW's in this part of the world. "nope. not here," says the woman in Duluth, MN, "we ship too much iron ore."
This is USA Car Country
As if on cue, on bridge to Wisconsin fussy german temperature gauge shorts - back to Minnesota, eat tacos at the brewpub and stay in the no-tell motel
Try again tomorrow
Tompkins once told me to read The Saddest Pleasure
Its a travel story
Just like this one
Still smiling

David Our Vanagon Liberator

2009-07-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

'Are you sure this is the way to go?' Marci asked a reasonable enough question. We had spend the night by the side of the Snake River just above Hells Canyon in the scorching heat swimming, and gorging on the abundant wild blackberries and apricots that flanked the desert river. In the cool morning we sailed across the bridge into Idaho and powered up and out of the river canyon with the vanagon running cool and strong. Replacing the radiator in Ashland, Oregon had worked (thank you Zac at www.theshopinashland.com).
Feeling confident, enjoying the wind in our hair and drone of the jetta diesel engine, I decided that the conditions were perfect for a short cut to our destination for the day: Ketchum, Idaho. Short cut is an euphemism for going off the beaten path, often with limited information and always involves mountains, stream crossings and dirt roads. Most of the time it is shorter by mileage, but longer in time. Sure enough we soon found ourselves deep in the mountains on a gravel road with many unmarked forks in the road. I was feeling great - mountain springs, tall pines, clean air, a van with a new coolant system. Marci was wondering what we would do in the event of a breakdown. It was true, we hadn't seen many other vehicles, and we were often miles from little towns like Indian Valley, Pioneerville, and Crouch. All day long we drove over the Seven Devil Mountains, through Payette Range and finally over the 9000 ft Galena Summit flanked by the Sawtooth Mountains into Ketchum, Idaho.
At 7pm after crossing 3 major passes and driving 9 hours, we turned off the main road and drifted into the quiet mountain town. Downshifting at the first corner we heard a clunk, heard metal on metal and then lost power - the axle had come loose from the wheel. We coasted into a parking space across from the Moss Garden Center and called Dick Dorworth, the fastest man on skiis in 1963 (108 miles per hour on 220cm metal Head skiis and leather boots) and father of our friend Richard, now a 70 year old, fit, Buddhist writer, climber and skiier who had made Ketchum his home for the last 40 years. He was driving back from a weekend of 5.10 climbing at City of Rocks. "Call David" was Dick's immediate response, "he'll know what to do." Within 5 minutes, David arrived on the scene. It was immediately clear that we were in the presence of a true Vanagon fanatic: his rig was a buffed-out '87 4x4 vanagon with self-inflating tires, solar panel run freezer, hydrolic lifters for the pop top, and enough gadgets and gauges to satisfy the gnarliest of motorheads. "I like to go to the middle of the Utah desert for three weeks at a time." He instantly diagnosed the problem and dug deep into his spare parts and pulled out a new cv joint and a plethora of factory bolts and washers. "Never travel without the spare parts."
As a result of our breakdown we spent two days wonderful days in Ketchum - hiking mountains, learning about a really innovative local food distribution system, meeting eccentric and interesting people - before driving onto Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where we are today.
It is interesting - some would say lucky - that we broke down where we did instead of miles from nowhere. That said, a breakdown is still a breakdown - it triggers an emotional reaction that one tries to avoid. But in any case, you still need to play the hand you're dealt. 'It isn't an adventure until something goes wrong' Yvon Chouinard says. This suggests that the unexpected slowdown, the random wrong turn, the thwarted intention are the gateway into adventure, and one might say living. None of us learned to walk without quite a number of falls. Less than two weeks into our world tour, we're definitely already well into adventure. When I asked Dick Dorworth, who has traveled the world extensively, his advice for for our year, he said simply, "compassion, courage and humor." Seems like a good set of principles and smart strategy for getting the most out of our Odyssey particularly in the face of breakdowns. One hopes that the results of future breakdowns are as positive as meeting David and Dick and hanging in Ketchum.

Footprints in the Sand

2009-07-25T07:03:00.000-07:00

We pulled off of route 84. “Mosier, isn’t this where Arlene Burns lives?” A phone call later and we were in Arlene’s house amid a pile of gear being compiled for an expedition to ANWR – the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve – to photograph an expedition of a man and his 12 year old daughter scaling a mountain peak. I’ve known Arlene since 1988 when she wrote me a letter from Nepal where she was living and then came as part of a team of 8 women to compete at the International Peace Rally on the banks of the still frozen Chuya River in central Siberia on May Day 1989. From then on, she became a fairly core part of a young team of idealists who guided a small non-profit cultural/sport exchange program called Project RAFT (Russians and Americans For Teamwork) kept it afloat for the next 5 years. It was an intense time, but suffice to say we haven’t spoken for years as both our lives – like so many old friendships – have drifted into different channels. I’m realizing that in addition to searching out pockets of positive deviance, adventure and new learning, that our year will also be a time for reflection, reconnection and refining relationships and experiences that like footprints in the sand have a way of washing away.

Star Thistle

2009-07-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

Siskiyou Summit pushed the van – now named Bug-Z – to the boiling point. Just 300 vertical feet from the 4200’ pass, we pulled over to let the engine cool before making the final push. We waited in a loud and hot void between the steady crawling semis and a wall of Star Thistle as far as the eye could see in both directions. Star Thistle is a particularly hardy and aggressive plant that dominates roadsides throughout the West. It has a beautiful yellow flower that turns into a spiked star sharp enough to go through a rubber soled shoe. As the green antifreeze (green in this case, doesn't mean eco-friendly) vaporized into the atmosphere, it struck me that we chose an interesting entrance into our global tour: the van issues are kind of like a blunt instrument forcing us to slow down, get out of routine, lessen our need for control and trust that it will all work out. Sure enough, we made it over the pass and drifted red-lined into Zac’s Auto Shop in Ashland, OR. There are a sea of Vanagon corpses and a few on life support in his parking lot. Hopefully, Bug-Z will prevail. A new cooling system is on the menu. Tomorrow is supposed to be hotter.

Mission Control We've Got a Problem

2009-07-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

109 degrees in Redding, CA. Its day one of the Ellison Odyssey and I watch the thermostat of our bio diesel converted ’84 Vanagon rise. Skye who has a ice water soaked bandana on her forehead, calls out from the back seat, ‘hey, I smell smoke!’ Sure enough the charcoaly smell of burning oil wafts from the vents. The semi trucks, including a well-driven, ultra-efficient Wal-Mart Always Low Prices Always trailer slide by shimmering in the heat. In the fracas, I’m distracted. When I glance at the dashboard again, the thermostat is suddenly pegged with lights blinking red. This isn’t good. We’re almost at the top of the pass. I know if I stop it will surely boil over, but if I keep going it will surely boil over. How lucky. One of life’s dilemmas presented on day one: darned if you do; darned if you don’t. Faced with this choice, we continue, pulling off at the Highway 89 exit making a short right into a shady spur. Throw ice water from the cooler on the radiator and then back on the road, gliding finally to rest at the serene home of our friends Richard and Erika, where I dunk in the crisp, spring fed tributary of the McCloud River that runs through their back yard, sharing stories, laughing and planning to meet them in Bali – where they now live – in December.
Beginning a year around the world with the family is one thing. Choosing to start by taking an old van, sans air conditioning, through California’s Central Valley on a hot July day as part of a cross-country road trip is another thing altogether. A shockingly appropriate start to our quest to experience our world – its people, its places – in all its glory. I can’t wait for today.