Mexico City

Mexico City. Wow. Living in the largest city in the world - 15 million people, my Mexican friends laugh hard when I tell them the capital of my country has 500 000. The colonial part of it is absolutely beautiful, the museums, the mighty architecture, the Basilicas and cathedrals. It is placed 2000 meters above sea level, which makes me yawn a lot (Galdhøpiggen gå og legg deg, liksom) and it creates a special atmosphere that I like a lot. A little bit disturbing, though, to admire a beautiful cathedral in the Zuccalo knowing that the Spanish conquistadors coldly demolished ancient, mighty Aztec Pyramids to build their "House of God".

I have a strange love-hate relationship to this city" says David Lecona, a melancholic writer and poet living in the City. We meet through CS and make friends. He is writing poetry and also working on a book about The Shining Path, a latin American socialist terrorist group. We talk politics a lot, both with leftist sympathies. David has the saddest eyes, big, innocent and still expressing the knowledge of a lifetime. We go out for Sol, Corona and tequila with sangrita, lime and salt. Why did we leave out the Sangrita back home? Anyway, tequila is dangerous stuff for a gringa who hasn't been drinking much for two months, and I almost dance on the table.

On of the other nights I go out with David and his good looking cousins Rodrigo and Suri, also CS people. We go to a small, local outdoors coffee bar where Mexicans of all ages eat donuts and have coffee. We laugh and laugh trying to teach each other uglyeties in Spanish and Norwegian - I love couch surfing! The night is lovely, but then I have a Bad Burrito Experience reinforced by severe caffeine poisoning from those killer Mexican double espressos. This results in high fever, vomiting, a racing heart and lots of other unpleasant symptoms, but before it gets that bad David takes me home, covers my shivering body in five Indian wool blankets and helps me out big time. An awful experience, but I have luck in my bad luck; David and his cousin Rodrigo stays awake to take care of me the whole night, being the sweetest friends a traveler can ever have. Thank you so much guys, that meant the world to me. Please come to Oslo and vomit in my trashbin any time.

Mamma and I mainly stay with a beautiful Italian/Mexican couple, Alma and Gian Mauro. They are the sweetest hosts. Alma is doing a doctor's degree in Mexican literature and is in her holidays at the moment, so she spends a day with us, guiding us through the mucho complicado transport system of metros and buses. Sitting and being stared at by curious Mexicans not used to blonde girls on the Metro, I ask Alma how she and Gian Mauro met. They are one of those couples to get future inspiration from. She smiles like she has a secret and says "No, that story is for dessert". We see the city and do two extensive museums, the first one is the Anthropology Museum with proud Astec and Maya culture, the second is the Bellas Artes Museum. To my joy there is a Frida Kahlo exhibition at the moment. Very inspiring! What a woman, what a life story.

In the night Alma and Mauro take us to the wonderful area called Coyoacan with stunning colonial architecture, bright colours, art galleries and cafés. We are conveniently guided out of the worst tourist jam and go to an all Mexican place with lots of big families and great atmosphere. Here we are introduced to a broad variety of tacos, salsas and drinks like horchata, jamaica and atole, my favourite, a thick warm milk drink with maize meal and vanilla or chocolate. Alma does a great job explaining us about the Mexican culture - from the very small things like how to hold the tortilla to the bigger picture, like the mass fleeing to the United States. In some villages, 80% of people's incomes is dollars from their hard working, low wage family members in the Estados Unidos. Several times I hear people say "We hate the United States". Can you imagine what a different story we would have if the U.S hadn't stolen the oil rich land of Texas?

After some days we decide to go to the small village of Huasca. We take the bus fo two hours and it is lovely. Every long distance bus we've experienced in this country has live music - bands and single musicians jumping on and blessing us with a couple of songs before they collect money from the passengers and hop on another bus. A band with three male virtouoso guitar players, a lonely woman with her guitar and her intense, heartfelt voice. Sad, but very very beautiful.

Huasca meens the city of joy and happiness, and indeed it is. In the small hotel we meet Elizbeth, an out-of-this world beautiful girl and her mother, we spend the day with them to see vulcanic grounds, castles and spectacular montain views. We buy some of the district's liqour of many flavours, rompope.

Next morning, the woman who owns the hotel wakes me up at five thirty in the morning. We have a sunrise date. We walk up to the hills talking in a broken way; she speaks only Spanish and I only English. We improvise. We have blankets. We get along. I even make a joke that makes her laugh. The sunrise is priceless.

Returning to the City Monster and Alma & Mauro's place, we drink Manzanilla tea and listen to great music the whole night. We get our long awaited dessert in the form of their captivating love story, but I'm sorry - you'll have to go to Mexico City to hear it.

Pictures from India & Fiji - more to come (Mari)

Our veranda on the luxury resort in Fiji - chiller'n, as we would say in Norwegian...

Having a round of Kava in the Oceania Arts Center in the University of Suva. Kava is a drink made from water and dried kava root, it is mildly sedative and makes you wonderfully numb all over the body. Fijians drink it all the time.

On the bus - groovin with the reggae music

Seventh Day Adventist bread, lemon leaf tea and children's songs for breakfast

Mamma after getting severely caught in the security check. Holding her handbag, the officer makes the unforgettable comment: Mem, you have a knife inside.

15: Suva, Leleuvia and a women's meeting - (Ruth)

I am in Tim's house. Tim is our Australian couch surfer host, living in the capitol Suva, working here for some years. Even if this is a rather large town life is kind of lazy, there seem to be no stress, happy, easy-going pop music is heard on the buses and a lot of other public spaces. Fijians walk around slowly, enjoying their walking. They are friendly and one is often greeted with "Bula", the word for hello. Many men wear skirts, or sulus, even here in town. I am now sitting in Tim's home office writing, he kindly let us use his PC. From the Methodist church across the road the quire is heard, singing nicely in three voices again. every day in the afternoon they beat the wooden LALI instrument to call people in for a service. Tim just bought himself a new bicycle and is outside for his first ride. The office room is rather dark. There are purple curtains and behind them the iron grids in front of every window. People here protect themselves from crime this way. I guess it is necessary, but do not feel quite comfortable with the atmosphere created by it. Tim has generously offered us to stay in his house for a week, and we are happy about this. It gives Mari and myself the possibility to use the house as a base and do small trips on our own. Even if the tone between us most of the time is remarkably good we need some time apart when travelling together for such a long time.

All the couch surfers in Suva stay in contact with each other and use to met each other in a cafe. Through this we have met many nice people. Mari makes plans with some young people and seems to have a good time. I am happy to talk to Losana, is one of the couchsurfer hosts, a warmhearted woman married to a Scottish man with two boys from a previous marriage. Losana is just the right "mother" figure for these boys, and they get on well. Losana works in the University here and is engaged in women's liberation movement.

After some days in Tim's rather closed up house I need to find some other atmosphere and take off for a two days island trip to get some sun, bathing and boat riding. To get there one has to take a local bus, and then go by private boat transport. I was thinking I would find some sort of regular ferryboat, but this is not the case, I found out. Luckily a private family is waiting to go to one of the nearby islands, and I am invited to join their private boat, the last boat for the direction of the islands this day. What luck!!

First the boat goes in huge swings on a jungle flood with tight rain forest trees with the branches and leaves coming all the way down to the water surface, hanging out over it. The colours are immensely green. Suddenly the flood merges with the sea and the landscape opens up. I enjoy riding boats very much and this is the first time during our entire travel. The weather is good and everybody seems to be happy. The family I am with is very nice and friendly like most Fijians. They are heading for a birthday party and bring beautiful cakes. It is a speed boat. We are 12 people and quite a lot of luggage. No life belts are available in the boat I notice. (Later Tim tells me that drowning is the second biggest cause of death in Fiji. Most Fijians never learn to swim). Twenty minutes later I arrive safely on Leleuvia. The family waves goodbye and proceeds to the other island.

I am warmly received by Lena, the woman who runs the small and relatively cheap guest houses here. For 50 Fiji dollars I have a cottage and three nice meals a day. The island is immensely beautiful and very quiet. I meet some other travellers from different parts of the world, not ordinary tourists. During the evening the men working on the island sing beautiful Fijian songs in three voices, accompanying themselves on guitars and ukulele. They really love the songs and put their whole souls into them. It sounds very nice and the fact that some of the instruments are poorly tuned do not matter at all. I join them on two spoons for rhythms and some improvised voices. I am very welcome in the music All the guests gradually turn into one group. The New Zealand woman Lois sings passionately with a lot of vibrato a honeymoon song for a newly married couple. I sing some Norwegian songs. It is a spontaneous, happy event.

I stay here for two days, and on the second evening they arrange an international crab race. CRAB RACE????? All the guests are given torches and are instructed to look for their crabs to represent their nationality. With a touch of fear I imagine we are going to use the sort of big crabs used for eating in Norway. However it turns out to be small hermit crabs (eremittkreps) that we shall be looking for. I have some trouble to find them, but after I while I find a white one, several metres from the beach, under some leaves. This is supposed to be the Norwegian crab. All the guests gather with their crabs, and then the race start. They have arranged a wooden thing with three separate paths. Three crabs compete without knowing it, but follows the paths as they are supposed to. Amazing! Everyone shouts to encourage their crabs!!! The atmosphere is dense and, oh no!! The Norwegian crab comes to the goal as number 2 in the first round. I am beaten. There are several rounds and in the final round only Fiji and England is left, and England wins clearly. All the losers (Check Republic, New Zealand, Scotland Norway and Fiji however seem to be good losers).

The prize (not unexpected) another bowl of KAWA, the local drink we have tasted here. It is made from water and some herbs and tastes dreadfully bitter. No alcohol. Your mouth is getting numb and it is a mildly sedative herb. The ritual is to send around a coconut shell with kawa. To refuse the kawa bowl going round I am told is rather impolite and everyone has to clap their hands after each drink and say a ritual word I have forgotten already. After a few bowls I still decide to stop drinking the awful drink and I refuse the kawa bowl as politely as possible. No one seems to bother after all. The guests at Leleuvia meet for the meals. They joke with each other "What are you gonna do today? "Lie down" , "take a swim", "go snorkeling", "read a book", "walk around the island on low tide". The answers are obvious. There is not much to do on this island, but everybody among the guests seem to like the very quiet life in this place. I definitely enjoy my time here on Leleuvia. It is enough just to be and sense and think. If I need contact it is available.

The next night I am exited to meet Losanas women's group. She has told me that she was involved in the political work on influencing the process of making a new women and family law a few years ago. The present group first has started as part of the local crisis center, but they chose to break out after a conflict with the leaders of the center, where they felt they were not empowered.

Losana generously picks me up in a taxi and we arrive at the house of one of the women, where she lives with her mother and younger brother. We arrive and I expect to talk with these women and hear about their lives and the groups work, about the political situation for women here. They all great me nicely when I arrive. The women are aged from 25 to around 35 I would estimate. The mother is 63 and keeps us company. The women are all survivors from some kind of bad experience that brought them to the crisis center. What actually happens in the meeting is something entirely different from my expectations, something that surprises me a lot. They all turn out to be eager supporters of RUGBY. The TV is put on. This is the first time I ever see rugby. I watch these male Australian and New Zealand rugby players showing a lot of brute force, coming together in the one SCRAM after the other (crawling and lying in a big bunch). Most of the time it seems that the ball is under the men. It looks very strange and funny to me. All the women are really digging this game. Each time the New Zealand team is scoring some of them would go in the middle of the floor, shaking their hips as part of the celebration. It is really stunning. No one is commenting on the paradox of the situation, that in fact they use their meeting to adore the behaviour of these men on TV. Very weird!! After the rugby game the stereo is turned on. ABBA music streams out, they dance happily and let their bodies loose together. This part is very nice and the women are empowering each other in movement, challenging each other in the dancing. A few of them tell me they are very surprised that I am 52 years old. How is this possible, they ask me? Women here in Fiji do not look like this when they are 50. I am flattered.

Now, I expect we will really start talking and sharing stories. I am really curious to talk learn more about them this evening, but no! One of the women tells a few stories making fun of her husband and they are all laughing. Suddenly Losana tells me that this is a "vorspiel" and that they all will be leaving the house in a few minutes to go for a night club. A taxi is ordered. I choose to go to our lodging. This was the story of the meeting in women's group. The next day I am told that during the night they had been acting out a lot of energy, trying out borders, dancing on the tables, shouting and singing to the hip-hop-music.