calculate that - compared to madagascar - sydney might be a thousand miles further, but don't measure by crude distance. everyone's furthest from home (digging straight down) measures about 12,500 miles - mine would dunk me in the southern indian ocean, eight hundred miles off the coast of western australia.
abstained from computer use for 168 hours. not too impressive, though. pre-historic man used to do it for thirty, even thirty-five years. oh and six weeks sans razor makes for a decent steve jobs impersonation.
met emma at the airport (inbound from nairobi), bought the only tickets leaving antananarivo. toliara it was.
waited out our monsoon-delayed flight in the first place we found shelter.
landed at 4:30a, slept till noon.
hired a taxi north.
didn't sweat him smoking over the engine. after all, the gas tank is here on the inside.
drove formerly-paved roads.
broke down..
..in the wildest of places.
walked through spiny forests..
my first baobabs, insanitrees.
sorry, my photo isn't coming out. can you hold this 8.5x11 paper so i can see better?
mating season - romance in the air
headed back to town..
ooh free movie
..then hit the rn7.
read gabriel garcia marquez's news of a kidnapping. clumsy translation..
her health improved so much that she ignored the rules and spoke in her natural voice, which was beautiful and well modulated
..and pablo escobar felt too much like grendel..
to confront escobar and negotiate, santanderean to antioquian, in a hard and equal contest
i know everything will work out, and that you will bear me no
grudge, because your battle to defend your family has the same
objectives as the one i am waging to defend mine.
a letter from pablo escobar threatening to set off fifty tons of dynamite in the historic district of cartagena
..otherwise terrible & terribly exciting.
we prefer a grave in colombia to a cell in the united states
journalism-which is, fortunately, power without the throne
this is a negotiation, not a game to find out who is clever and who is stupid
watching that program in captivity was like being dead and watching life from the next world without taking part
"who knows, maybe they're going to release me!" she said.
without
arranging it ahead of time, maruja and beatriz each decided that,
regardless of marina's fate, the most christian thing was to deceive
her.
"of course they are," said beatriz.
"that's right," said maruja with her first radiant smile.
one, through malice or stupidity, said goodbye one night with words
whose double meaning almost scared them to death: "don't worry, ladies,
it'll be very quick."
the unbreakable antioquian custom of discussing nothing but the food
the autopsy showed earth in his lungs, and this was interpreted to mean that he had been buried alive
12/27