Cows and Sheep are different, a tale of New Zealand (with photos!)

At the risk of reporting something that is already common knowlege, and even if it weren't, which you would already have gleaned from the title of this post, cows and sheep are different.

I will not get into the intricate analysis of which of these animals are tastier to eat, as I haven't eaten either since way before some of you were born, which is simultaneously upsetting and inspiring to me. Whippersnappers! they read it!

But that's not the point.

As you may have heard, I went on this crazy bikeride recently. So crazy that I am still sporting a handy calves-to-ankles tan, and still have thighs of steel. Worry not, they promise to become copper or some other softer metal in the near future. Basically, I rented a bike, rode a long time, and then returned it.

In the meantime, I spent a lot of time thinking. I talked to people sometimes, and sometimes not, drank a whole bunch of coffee and thought. One of my many observations was about cows and sheep. I went to college in New England, where we kind of had both, but there were certainly more sheep. I'm from Brooklyn, without a lot of livestock background. I noticed the following about sheep. They're docile, they smell earthy and worse, they grouse around on the ground and baaah. Cows have improbably skinny legs, never baah and sometimes sit down just because they feel like it. We used to say that sheep only sit down when it's going to rain. (Anyone know if this is true?)

But the main difference I found between sheep and cows (or cows and sheep, if you prefer) on this trip was the way they regard a moving vechicle (regardless of what kind of vehicle it is).

Cows do this:



or this:



Basically, they all act like they've seen this guy:



They stop. They stare. They check you out. Sometimes a whole train of them (do cows travel in trains? herds? flocks? I jest, partially) will not cross the road because you are too interesting and they want to check you out and see what you're up to.

Sheep, on the other hand, do a whole lot of this:



Sometimes, if you are far enough away and have a big enough zoom, they might stand still, like this:



Or munch on a field where they aren't supposed to be (but what do you do when you see sheep where they don't belong? Is there some kind of sheepbusters I should phone? Protocol? anyone?)



But for the most part, they act like they've seen this guy (and can't read the small print!):



Essentially, they flee. They often run in the same direction as you, but regardless, they will run. In a flat panic. Sheep often jump out of their enclosures, but seldom jump back in, they just get scared, and pound the earth with their hollow-sounding hooves.

I like to think I'm more like a cow. Soulful, pensive, curious, and stand my ground. But sometimes I worry that I'm more sheeplike. Skittish, jumpy.

I've never seen a cross between a cow and a sheep, but I like to think it would be thoughtful and have just enough smarts to get itself out of trouble. Maybe that's who I'll be, a coop. Or a show. Or maybe I'll be an entirely different animal. I can't speak to their personality, but they do look nice in this light.



Also, there's road improvement afoot in New Zealand, is probably good for people traversing the nation, top to bottom. I'm not sure the cows care, though they are curious. And the sheep? Well, they've already run away.

Charango serenade or: please let me practice my English

Last night a friend of mine and I decided to go out for a dinnertime whatsis. I say whatsis because she and I have a long history of never being hungry at the same time, and one often sits and has a snack while the other one eats dinner. And so was last night. And by the way, my electric lemonade? Neither electric nor lemonade. But at least it was on happy hour special.

On our way to Lastarria, a little cobblestoned strip near Bellas Artes that is trendy but not horribly cuico (yuppie, kinda) or annoying (to me), we were treated to a panoply of "I speak English" moments, most notably, when one of the police officers guarding La Moneda (presidential palace) whispered "Bye-bye" in a tone of voice of Marilyn Monroe's Santa Baby. It gave me the willies, but also made me laugh, because here are these guys charged with protecting some of the most important people in Chilean democracy, and they see a blonde in a skirt (my friend) and me (wearing a t-shirt I may no longer wear downtown) and all sense of decorum is lost, and he must immediately flirt with us using the only English words he has on hand. Which luckily, in this case, were not "I love you." A girl can only listen to so much of that.

So, we found our way to a café with nibbles and a happy hour special, Cafe Utopia. It's notable because it's the cheapest place on Lastarria and is fairly unpretentious, and also because we were actually able to get a table. There was much to-ing and fro-ing of buskers, in various stages of practice, volume and performance, and some of them were the kind of people I'd have liked to have paid to please go away. I also saw the tiny chinchinero (one-man-band) kid, but he (mercifully) was not up for giving a concert.

The night wore on, my drink grew more watery and the churrasco my friend was eating was probably growing cold. And up came a busker, a 60-something year old man with hands like a young pianist, fingers long and perfect, in a beige knit sweater with cables down the side and a charango (small 10-string guitar, traditionally made with an armadillo shell) inlaid with mother of pearl in his hands. (Go to this site to hear what a charango sounds like, and to read about it in Spanish or here to read about it in English.

He paced nervously from table to table and sang in what I believe was Aymara (an indigenous language spoken by small numbers of people in the north of Chile, and more commonly in parts of Peru and Bolivia. it could have also been Quechua, but it didn't have enough k and s sounds by my ear), songs we couldn't understand, because pretty much nobody down in Santiago speaks Aymara, and I definitely don't. And then he came up to us and he started singing, and between the lyrics, started muttering what seemed to be grammatical practice in English.

You were,
you are,
you will.

I thought these might be the only words he knew in English, and, like the police officer was merely showing off that he knew we were English speakers. And then I heard clearly:

You will go. And I will cry.

He was singing us a lovesong in Aymara, a man with his mother-of-pearl inlaid charango, his rounded fingernails running over the strings, at a night time job of singing from table to table in a language that nobody within 500 miles speaks. I gave him a tip, and asked him in Spanish how long he'd had the charango for. And he said, I've had it since Violeta Parra, since Victor Jara, with what I would guessed to be a Bolivian accent, but the cultural references were all Chilean.

And with his permission, I took a picture, which is flat and colorless, so unlike this experience. Before he left, he looked at the picture and said, if you put it on the internet, my name is Juan (or it might have been José, I always get these names confused) Humiri (with an H, he reminded me).

So here's Señor Humiri and his charango, whereever they're from.

On what ails you (NZ bike trip blabla)

When told that someone is planning on a long bike trip, the immediate reaction is to crouch as if in pain and mimic a painful posterior. Doesn't that, you know, hurt? People actually ask this. If you cycle a bunch, you get the feeling for what kind of saddle works for you, and if you have that, and at the right height, and some decent shorts and a good riding posture, you're fine. Really. My sitting portion was fine on this trip. Thank you for asking. I did have one minor chafe day but quickly figured out where I had gone wrong (saddle maybe .5 of a degree off of true) and fixed it, and was fine.

I had three main physical complaints on this trip (four if you include the part where I gauged myself in a some kind of masochist cyclist scarification ritual that involves rubbing filthy grease into your wounds, this on the biggest chainring after stopping pedalling on the Haast Pass.)

My complaints were (in order of appearance)

1. Left shoulder. I get tendinitis in my shoulder when I ride for a long time, especially if I ride downhill alot. It's the result of a bike injury I like to call, they bumped into me and I went splat. Oh, and then I had many months of physical therapy. Probably I actually have tendosynovitis, which means I get a build up of synovial fluid around the tendon. This I know from an MRI after which I was told "you're not claustrophobic." Which trust me, really helps the claustrophobia. Dries that sweat in an instant. Anyway, sometimes it's achy. Like can't sleep achy. I took some ketaprofen and paracetamol (tylenol) together, because that's what my nurse/roommate at the hostel in Haast told me to do.

2. Hands. Numbness. Like really alot of numbness. I have never been diagnosed with carpal tunnel, and don't think I have it. I think if you spend many hours leaning even a small portion of your weight on your hands, they will go numb. I had really great wide bike grips that helped me to change position alot, and some gel gloves, but still the numbness persisted. I did a lot of flailing and waving to get the feeling back in my fingers, and after about the 10th day of riding, no longer woke up with numb hands. This was pesky, but not horrible.

3. Across the ball of the foot pain. I ride clipless, which is to say that I ride with cleats in the bottom of my shoes that click onto the pedal (clipless refers to the fact that you don't use use toe cages/clips). The pedals are quite small, and all that pushing down on the one point of my foot caused pain, but pretty much only when I rode up very steep hills (on about 4 occasions), or for more than about 70 km and three or more consecutive bike days. I might have been able to wear more padded socks, or try to concentrate on pulling, rather than pushing, but I think maybe I should have taken more breaks or that this is just something I will have to deal with if I go on a long biketrip again. Hurtiness: substantial, but not debilitating.

I don't know what kind of physical complaints other cyclists had, though one person asked me how my wrists were. My wrists were fine. I was surprised by number three, but had experienced 1 and 2 before. Next time I would pack paracetamol, the hydrocortisone cream a pharmacist recommended to speed the healing on the gouging (and I may have used for some sand fly bites as well), and some antibiotic cream (borrowed from the pharmacist, not to be confused with the nurse), though I would prefer to avoid the gouging to begin with next time. Seriously. It's been weeks, and I'm still wounded. But about this time last year I was just getting the stitches out of my hand from a kitchen accident, so I figure that by someone's measure, I'm still coming out ahead.

Hope you're not hurting out there, but if you are, I hope you'll join in on the kvetchy fun! Happy cycling, hiking, walking or whatever floats your boat, and hopefully doesn't cause you any pain.

Argentine Reciprocity Fee, $131 I'll never see again

So you would think that when you see a sign that says, "Mercosur citizens and residents" at the international airport in Argentina, that if you hold definitive residency in Chile that that would be the line you would stand on. You would also think that the $131 dollars in your pocket might buy you several nights of lodging in a pretty alright hostel in Palermo not far from the green line subte with a questionable kitchen but a nice little rooftop deck that makes it all okay.



But you would be wrong. It turns out that being a United States citizen trumps being a Chilean resident, and that your $131 will not be safely ensconsed in your pocket, nor will it buy you pretty flowy skirts at Sanskrit or nights at a hostel you stayed at or even tons of books at the used book fair in Parque Centennario in Caballitos or a world of subte tickets (they cost about 35 cents). Not even if you say pretty please and explain the situation in darn fluent Spanish to several bemused border officials, who advise you "You should get a Chilean passport," and laugh when you shrug and say, I guess I'll pay, it's not like I'm going to live in the airport.



(incidentally, you would also think that they could use some of the $131 to fix the leak in the airport ceiling, but apparently this money is being channeled to more pressing issues, and yes, I know, "we" charge "them" and what's fair is fair and blablabla, I get it, and have even written about it a few times (see sidebar) or this Matadortrips article. It's still $131, and if that doesn't make you blink then feel free to lend that money to Kiva or send it to the charity of your choice, etc.

In this case, instead your $131 will make its way into Argentina's coffers, and in exchange you will be given a fairly uninspired sticker which takes up an entire page of your passport, as seen below:



And yes, I put those swirlies in myself. I don't want to run afoul of Argentina, now that I've paid my $131 to get in (only charged at the airports at this time), I'd like to be able to come and go with impunity. And no, my middle name is not Barbar, but it's not a bad name, kind of rough around the edges, like a dog that's learning to read English, and sounding out the sound we use for bark.

But the good news is, unlike Chile's reciprocity fee (also $131, also charged at the airport), this one lasts for 10 years, not the life of your passport. The other good news is that Argentina is on the same continent as Chile, despite recent shaking, and I not only missed the big event, but also missed some impressive aftershocks on previously mentioned rooftop deck. And that was certainly worth the money.

Edited to say on June 9th, 2010 that the reciprocity fee has been hiked to $140. That's another $9 worth of beef you won't be eating once you get into the country, I suppose!

On doing something for the first time (more NZ bike trip talk)

"So you've done this before, right?"

This from a woman I met at one of many rest stops on the side of the road on the South Island of New Zealand, on the second day, between Ross (home of the giant, water-filled hole in the ground as well as the town closest to where the largest gold nugget in NZ was found) and Franz Joseph, of accessible glacier fame.

The words snaked their way towards me and I thought about it.

Done.This.Before.

This what? Fail almost completely to plan a trip? Jump in with my eyes closed? Flown to the other side of the earth? Yeah, I guess.

Oh, she means the biking. Done this. This, being a multi-day, self-supported biketrip.

Well no.

I mean yes.

Well, actually, no.

I've biked long distances.
I've biked with gear.
I've biked on successive days.

But I've never biked longish distances on successive days with a bunch of gear.

So no. I hadn't done "this" before. By then I think she'd dozed off or rolled up her window or wandered away, but I sat there thinking about what I'd done to prepare for the trip, which was, essentially, nothing.

But how nothing was it? I divide my semiprep into three categories. Physical, informational-NZ and informational-fitness.

Physical

I like to ride a bike. Like really, really like it. If I can choose between cycling and pretty much any other thing to do on a nice day that involves being outside, I'll choose the bike. I enjoy spinning, and do a few classes a week. About two months before the trip I started also doing some legwork (weights n stuff), and one time took off with a whole bunch of gear to ride about 60 km mostly uphill to a friend's beach house. I thought that was training, but really, it was more like practice since I only did it once. I have a long history of lengthy-but-slow bikerides, and have definitively determined that though I plod, I can plod pretty much indefinitely.

Informational-NZ

I bought a guide book. Bought it. With money and everything. And then I failed to look at it. I asked Paul Sullivan (who I work with at Matador, and like many others I work with there, I have never met) about his experiences cycling the South Island's west coast about a year ago. I checked out a couple of message boards, like Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, and googled "New Zealand Cycling" more than once. I also tortured myself with maps generated at www.bikemap.net, looking at hills and dales and mostly hills on a pretty little map on which it never rained and nobody ever got a flat.

Informational-Fitness

I started to read Joe Friel's book on bicycle training which is aimed at racers and got mashed into the bottom of a pile of books during the earthquake, else I would dig it out and quote from it directly. I got as far as figuring out my glycemic threshold, beyond which I burn up more glycogen than my body can replace (mine's at about 167-172 beats per minute) (and this blabla means, if you keep below that threshold, you should not "hit the wall"), and also read this great quote that said, (paraphrasing), as an athlete, there is no stasis. You are always either training for an event, and getting into your best shape or steadily losing fitness.

And that was it. I tossed the book aside, closed my computer, ignored naysayers, strapped on the spandex and went. I could have been better informed (bring a sleepsheet and matches, even if you're staying in backpackers' etc), and possibly spent a tiny bit less money (join BBH or YHA and stay in their hostels and enjoy your discounts when you can), but I also would have had to be a different person than the person I am, and maybe that person (following me?) wouldn't have been goofy enough to think up this trip in the first place, and would instead be running from monkeys or enjoying tropical fruit or enjoying fabulous cuisine by moonlight.

So had I done this before? Nope.

And would I do it again? In 167-172 beats of my healthy, active heart.

And with any luck, I'd have the good fortune to occasionally meet real cyclists like these who would slow down to share stories and joke around with me all day long.

Ben:



Max:

What a girl needs: Cycling in New Zealand (gear report and blabla)

For the purposes of this entry, recent birthdays notwithstanding, I shall continue to refer to myself as a girl. And because sometime, somewhere, I’ll get the chance to take off and bike somewhere fabulous again, I’m listing both what I needed/brought on my trip and brought/didn’t need on the biking portion of my New Zealand trip. I pedalled a bit over a thousand kilometers on the South Island, some of them to get to the next stop, and some just because I thought it would be pretty. And it always was.



This is one of the many people who asked to pose with me for a picture, but one of the only pics I actually have a copy of. Ellie, from Taiwan. We walked in Franz Joseph (town/glacier) together. You can sort of make out most of the gear on the bike.

Back to gear, trip description to follow in a few days.

First, I left Chile with a backpack. It’s a very spiffy Arcteryx pack, certainly the most comfortable pack I’ve ever had, the most technical, the most perfect (the most expensive), etc. It also stayed in a locker in Christchurch for all of the bikeride days. I flew out of Santiago (and then into Buenos Aires, and then into Auckland and then into Christchurch) with my two waterproof Novara panniers tucked inside my backpack, and then spread all my stuff in the hallway of my hostel and made the final decisions about what would stay in Christchurch and what would stay behind. What came with me was the two panniers, a blue avocado grocery bag, two sea to summit extralight dry bags and a mountainsmith camerabag with waterproof cover.

Brought/needed + commentary

bottoms (cycle gear):
1 pair shebeest ¾ length capri riding tights with chamois still attached (pictured)
1 pair shebeest ¾ length capri riding tights with chamois removed by force after a blowout that caused me to write the customer service people and get nary a response
1 pair shortie cannondale cycling shorts to be worn under above

bottoms (off the bike)
1 pair soft loose brown capri pants, brand unknown, worn to death
1 pair REI zip-off convertible pants which I seldom wore
a few pairs of unmentionables
1 pair of running shorts with liner, used for hottubs/pools
1 pair fleece leggings for lounging and/or chill (probably excessive, but I loved them both times I wore them) Yoga pants would have been fine instead, but these dry faster and are warmer.

tops (cycle gear)
1 long-sleeve Columbia shirt with sun protection and a short turtleneck. I wore this nearly every day, because it was warmer than I’d anticipated and my other jersey was too warm for most days. It washes easily, dries quickly and doesn’t smell too bad. Plus it’s not bad looking. (pictured)
1 shebeest long sleeve S style jersey (with flowers!) Wore this just a couple of times. It’s very comfortable/flattering, but was too warm for most days
two different styles of sports bras

tops (non cycle gear)
2 t shirts
1 tank top
1 silk long underwear top
1 long sleeve merino wool shirt
1 quick-drying shelf bra tank.
1 swimsuit top
1 regular bra
1 thigh-length sleep thing

shoes n socks

1 pair specialized spd shoes with cleats (pictured)
1 pair merrell mesh hiking shoes
1 pair wright socks
1 pair defeet socks (pictured)
1 pair smartwool crew socks

jackets
1 Marmot goretex rain jacket
1 Northland jacket warm/water resistant

accessories:

1 cloth buff
1 scarf bought at an import store, with fringes and silvery threads
bike gloves

Cosmetiquero contents

Shampoo
Conditioner
90 SPF Neutrogena dry touch sunscreen
face lotion
2 kinds of lip balm (blistex and one from LUSH)
various antiinflammatories (almost completely untaken)
soap
face soap
nail brush
travel towel

bike-specific whatnot and tools (because Hal reminded me, thanks Hal!)

patch kit
2 tire plastics
1 replacement tube
1 multitool
1 emergency chain link
pump (all above supplied by bike rental company)
jackknife

etc
cellphone (bought 2 degrees SIM card for $2 in NZ)
cellphone wall charger
Nikon D40x camera
Nikkor 18-200 lens
Sigma 10-20 (wide angle) lens
camera accessories (torpedo thing to clean the camera, filters, lens cloth)
Camera battery charger
Extra camera battery
Notebook
pen
oakley M frame sunglasses with the second-darkest lenses available
penguin baseball hat
helmet (purchased in NZ)

Extra things that I brought and should have left in Christchurch or left home:

Laptop (what was I thinking!)
Point and shoot camera
2 Short sleeved shirts for cycling
Two additional pairs of wool socks
Arm warmers (cycling geekery)
Waterproof gloves
Fleece hat

Performer standouts:

Third place:
Novara waterproof panniers. No complaints. They click on the bike and don’t fall off, were waterproof, etc.

Second place:
Columbia SPF shirt. I think we became one. Loose enough in the armpits to not smell like death, quick drying, reasonably attractive

Far and away couldn’t be swayed mega super first place (and they are not paying me to say this, though if they would like to I would probably be amenable)
Mountainsmith Tour FX Lumbar Photo Bag

I loved this bag for many reasons. It can go from waist pack to shoulder in an instant, and I was also able to use it as a handlebar bag, which made me look like a dork but kept my camera available at all times (there was a front rack, not sure if this affected my ability to do this, used the shoulder strap (minus padding) to click it on). Enough pockets for everything, but not enough to make you crazy, and very convenient waterproof cover. Well constructed. The only sign of wear is a wacked out zipper pull, which could well be my fault. Oh, and a little callous on my hand from constant zipping and unzipping, which is definitely my fault. I have last year’s version, with a grey lining and no water bottle carry. Also looks like they changed the zipper pulls, maybe due to the callouses and wackedoutedness. I own a Lowe camera backpack and a 7-million-dollar-home shoulder bag and they’re both going to get dusty and lonely. This bag blows them both out of the water for comfort/convenience, though it makes me look like a gringo par excellence.

That’s it for gear. Tune in soon for less shop talk (though I'll talk about who rented me the bike etc) and more photos. Clever clickers will find more photos on flickr, while the rest of you will wait.

Earthquake in Chile, and I have nothing to complain about.

Before I left Chile I did a bangup job of cleaning my apartment. No furniture unmoved, no surface undusted. As I was in the Centropuerto bus ($2 to the airport from Los Heroes metro sortof) I remembered two things that I hadn't done that gave me pause. One of them was watering my cactus. I know, I know, cacti live for long periods without water. But it had been some six weeks, and since it's the only plant that can survive my crazy here-not-here-here-again schedule, I'd wanted to show it a little love before taking off.

The other thing was the espresso maker. I had left a half a pot full of espresso in the kitchen, and I thought to myself, what a horrible mess that will be! There could be mold! The house could smell like coffee!

Or there could be a giant, house-flattening earthquake (not mine, luckily), and the door to my bedroom could fall off its hinges, and every book I own could be all over the floor and a bottle of sparkly nailpolish could commit suicide and glue a bunch of stuff to the floor, the side of the toilet etc, and there would be piles of broken glass and things that would make me ask the question "what is that?" or more appropriately "what was that?" And the kitchen could look like this:



Which, all considered is not really a big deal, and some sweeping and tossing is all it will require, and I'm not that good of a housekeeper anyway.

Being back in Chile after a giant earthquake means that everyone has a story to tell. I think people (especially traumatized people) should tell their stories again and again. I don't have much to say about my experience, so I won't say much, but I hope everyone I see, old and new takes the time to tell me their story if it will help them to feel just a tiny bit better. Which, to clarify, is what I meant when I said I wished I could have been here. Not to experience it, not to feel the fear, but to listen to people who needed support and lend an ear, a shoulder or a hug.

Me? I need a new blender jug. No homemade frappucinos this week. No big deal.

checking out of Buenos Aires

Someone apologized to me today. It was incredible. I almost didn't know what to do. I was standing in line at the Jumbo on Guardia Vieja in Buenos Aires when I realized the price on the fresh ricotta I was buying was impossibly high. As in $40 for a tiny little container. So I went back to the cheese guy, told him I thought there was something wrong with the price, and he changed it, handed me the container back (actual price, about forty five cents) and then said "perdoname" (but not perdóname, because that's what the cheese guy in Chile would say if a) they sold fresh ricotta and b) he deigned to correct the situation and c) actually felt badly about it. Or maybe it was disculpame instead of discúlpame, embarassingly, I still do not really distinguish between these words.

So apologies. Imagine that. And fresh ricotta and cheap used books and "vegetable antipasto" in the supermarket and 600 ml diet coke and mosquitos and classic architecture and broken sidewalks and graffiti and a general noise level that's much higher than what you get in Santiago.

It's Buenos Aires. And it's been a jetlaggy good time, but it's time to go home. I'm curious to see the tent city airport I've heard about, and cautiously awaiting the opportunity to see for myself what's going on in my apartment. I had spent a few days deep cleaning and organizing before I left, which is probably a combination of bad and good planning. At least I´ll know that any dust present was raised by the earthquake and not by my poor household upkeeping skills. I'm sure it will be fine, and I will be happy to have a place to live, and all of my greedy greedy stuff, even if I have to sweep n mop n stuff a bit.

See you on the pacific side!

Wide awake in frog pajamas! (minus the frog pajamas)

It is commonly known among cyclists that you must never cockily sit back (or forward, if you're a road cyclist) and proclaim that you haven't had a flat recently. The reason for this is obvious, which is that whoever is in charge of handing out flats will ensure that you hear that worrisome hiss and feel that strange lack-of-bike-responsiveness at a most inopportune moment in the next several miles.

I don't beleive I made a similarly foolish comment about jetlag on my way into New Zealand, but I believe that whoever hands that out has a much stronger ability to read minds than I might have suspected, and I do recall thinking to myself, "hey, this jetlag thing, it doesn't apply to me!" and so I find myself wide awake and chipper at 2:30 in the morning local time, three hours of sleep under my grey matter and wondering what's for dinner. (it's dinner time in New Zealand of course)

After what was really three trips to New Zealand, prebike plus bike, post bike and bus, and two days of delicious food and fabulous conversation with new/old/internet/inperson friends (and which really had many subtrips within each of those categories), I flew back on a giant metal contraption designed to give the least possible sleeping positions known to man (I may have actually tucked my feet into the seatpocket in front of me a couple of times, but I'm not telling), and I now find myself in Buenos Aires. The Americas, even!

It's sloppy, and kinda dirty at times, but it's within driving distance of my home, and has a couple more friends in it, and food that is affordable on most budgets and a horizontal surface that is not too hard and not too soft and not too appealing in my current state of wide-awake, but eventually I'll get tired, and then I'll appreciate that, I think. It also isn't trying to shake us off at the moment, which I understand Chile is still quivering several (by which I mean a dozen or so) times a day. So here I am.

I know I have left you hanging about New Zealand. Short story: everything I wanted. Longer story: to be unfolded. Photos to choke a 1990s era laptop and many quippy observations.

And now? Now I ponder the truly astonishing number of small winged insects in the hanging lamp above me, think about how someone would have cleaned that in New Zealand and hope that whoever hands out sleepiness has me close to the top of the list.

Menjunge, (Chilean word for hodgepodge), a mix of stories

Today I met someone who was gifted a cow on his 50th birthday because there is a saying in Dutch where if someone asks you how your horses are, you say you'd rather have a cow. And upon having said this, he was taken at his word, and later received a cow. He is Dutch, which I believe is relevant to the story).

I am glad to say that there is a) no such saying in English b) no chance my friends would be foolish enough to purchase me a cow (though at some point it might be nice to have a share in a goat or a sheep for cheese purposes) and c) no reason that I am telling this story other than it is a linguistic curiosity, and one which I have been puzzling over, as I have been puzzling over many others for the past few weeks.

It's a delight to put English under the microscope, including the Irish tendency to talk about "some guy" or "a guy" as "your man." Apparently my man is very good at fixing things, as I have been coincidentally told by two Irish men on two separate occasions. This sounds delightful, and I am wondering if he would be willing to meet me at the door of my apartment when I get back to Santiago. You see, I fear that contents may have shifted during flight, and could cause passenger injury, or at least my inability to open the front door when I arrive.

I know that there are a million and one things to say about the earthquake, and the one I feel guiltiest about is that I wasn't there, didn't have to suffer through it. I feel somehow like I failed my Chilean friends who lived through the shaking, and on some small level I feel as if having been in it would have diminished their fear. I know it would not have, but my irrational and nurturing side wishes I could do that for people. I could be "their (wo)man" and be good at helping.

In other news, New Zealand continues to be spectacular, and has changed faces completely since I returned the bike, which I do promise to one day tell the story of. But whereas New Zealand used to unroll herself slowly, an endless ribbon of snaky asphalt and tar-sealed (good) and chip-sealed (not so good) and unsealed (the worst), and litter the way with red poppies and all kinds of other unexpected foliage, she now has blocks of apartments and stores and more falafel and noodle satay shops that you could ever place on a guidebook map, and a backpack and early morning wakeups (like tomorrow) to take a bus. A bus, which is propelled by someone other than me and didn't have muesli for breakfast and won't take a break two hours in to eat some of last night's left over lentils.

It's requiring some adjustment, but I still think it's pretty great. I have Te Papa-ed (national museum) myself to the point of saturation and have toured, snapped, walked, cable-carred and otherwise put bicycles to the back of my brain, in the category of things that shall be called good.

I'm off to a play in a few minutes during Wellington's Fringe Festival, and I hope that memory will soon migrate into the category of things that shall also be called good, but never as exciting and connected and fully there as pedalling around the South Island, which has a category all its own, and I shall give it the name of the decomposing squid in Te Papa, and I shall call that category colossal.

More soon, back in the saddle and all that.

Quick no-earthquake update from NZ

I was not in the 8.8 earthquake that recently hit Chile. Most of my friends are in the RM,or Santiago and thereabouts, and so far everyone is checking out well, including one that lives on the 17th floor downtown, and another that lives on the 14th floor near Cerro Sta. Lucia who reports that the quake was like "being in a cocktail shaker." People are scared and freaked out, but the RM is for the most part, ok.

As for the south, Talcahuano, Concepcion, Talca, Constitucion and the areas nearby, I am seeing what you are seeing on the news. I'm seeing buildings ripped apart, piles of splinters and cloth where houses used to be. It is totally otherworldly to see it from the other side of the globe. I am thankful for the internet and news agencies and twitter, facebook and other social networking sites that can give me even a glimpse of what is going on, and of course for all the friends and friends of friends who have called my mother and sister to find out how I am doing. I am worried about two contacts I have in Talca, one of whom I have been working quite closely with over recent months.

I have lots to say about my trip and how great it is and thanks to the two kiwis who texted me about the earthquake as soon as they found out (others might have done the same, but they don't have my NZ phone number). But all that great is misplaced right now. I'll talk about it some other, more appropriate time. Thanks to all for your concern and well wishes.

Hope and prayers and ánimo for the Chilean people. They'll need it.