History Pin

Found this sweet little website courtesy of Gapersblock:

History Pin is a website devoted to collecting historical photography from around the world and placing the location of the photograph on the map. I know that Google World and Flickr have attempted to do the similar things with their geo-tagging features, but this places an emphasis on photography from its advent circa 1840 - 2001. While it is pretty difficult to navigate and is not entirely intuitive there have proven to be some awesome photos available.

I used to live in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood for several years, not entirely a neighborhood with a reputation for being lively or exciting - however I was able to find these gems taken in 1932:

 

 

 

 

 I don't know about you, but I want to live the shit out of this neighborhood!

Explore the site, it has some damn awesome stuff

North Korea next!?

Now I want to go to North Korea. A reputable, finely bearded stamp-collecting Dutch man named Wim van der Bijl, the 'director of the art building material company of the Netherlands" recently paid a visit to North Korea in pursuit of his stamp-collecting hobby (Really? North Korea to get some stamps?) and wrote an editorial for Pyongyang's alternative weekly "Naenara" upon his visit's, presumably as part of his exit-visa conditions.

Van Der Bijl writes, "This is my 24th visit to the DPRK, but it is the first time I have ever visited a polling station here. Looking round the poll, I have been greatly impressed by the free and democratic elections and I have had a better understanding of the DPRK's reality. In the DPRK every citizen is eligible to vote and to be elected. Those who have worked a lot for the people are elected as deputies. The popular election system of the DPRK is really excellent. What I'd like to say more is that whenever I visit the country I can see more and more modern structures rising here and there. And I realize the developing reality of the country. I will come to the DPRK in 2012 to join the Korean people commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung"

First of all Van Der Bijl's grasp of the English language is surprisingly awkward for a Dutch person; everybody knows that they have a firmer grasp on the English language than most native speakers . Also, 24 times to North Korea? Thats a lot of stamps for Mr. Van Der Bijl, I would very much like to see his stamp collection. 

If Mr Kim Jong-Il would hook me up with a free flight to North Korea I would very gladly heck out his country's polling places. I might also pick up a stamp collection habit or two.

Also, this newspapers pretty great, check out these articles:

-99.97 Percent of Voters Participated in Local Election  -  the .03 who didn't vote were "on foreign tour or working in oceans"

 -Drama Enjoyed  - A play that the great leader went to go so: "The drama depicts the indomitable mental power and ardent love of the native land displayed by the people of a mountainous county in their efforts to implement the policy of the WPK on building medium- and small-size power stations in the period of the arduous march." Also, best headline.

-If you click around to the "History" section of the Newspaper's website you'll see this wonderful description of life in North Korea - Completely devoid of any Historical importance - "Traditional Korean clothes, graceful and gorgeous, are geared particularly to female beauty and children’s cuteness." 

Hell yeah, North Korea. I'm in! It was only in 2010 that North Korea issued Visa's to American Tourists. I've also learned that there is already an American based company that books tours to North Korea. 

26 Meter Kim Il-Sung statue? I'm in.

Past Travels

While I'm twiddling my thumbs at my meaningless job(s), making the money that will hopefully fund my travels, I will live vicariously through my past self. I'm going to post photos from awesome places I've seen, for the whole world to enjoy.

   What we got here is a cat overlooking the ruins of what today is known as "Ciudad Perdida" .
This place, while in the past couple of years rapidly becoming a major Colombian tourist destination, was until recently virtually off-limits to tourists. The Colombian drug cartels had a stranglehold on the area and the FARC was known for kidnapping hikers/civilians as recently as 2003 . In recent years the Colombian military has taken extraordinary care to eliminate paramilitary presence and capitalize on a national treasure.
       The only way to get to this destination is by 5 or 6 day hike (there and back) across the strenuous, steep and incredibly humid Santa Marta National Park, 2 hours drive south of the Caribbean coastal city of Santa Marta. After having our pick from the various travel companies offering different tours at the same price we settled on Expotur Eco, mostly because they offered the brand-new "loop tour" (where you travelled in a large semi-circle instead of retracing your steps on the last days) and were one of the few with available tours.
      After a relaxed night in the seaside town of Taganga, we headed to be picked up by our jeep for the two hour drive to the park.

   We were exhausted, having been up the past night afterone and being picked up in the morning at around 6. The humidity and heat was taking a toll on our bodies and we were in for a real treat once we got to the jungle. And I thought it got humid in American midwest.

We packed the jeep, made our way for about an hour on nice maintained highway, until we made an abrupt turn towards the mountains in the distance. The road turned to dirt, but in actuality mud. Fortunately, we were equipped with 4-wheel drive. This got us through the vast majority of hairpin turns overlooking looming cliffs but toward the end of the drive we were confronted with a pool of mud and dirt.

 Unfortunately I don't have a photo of a few minutes prior when everyone in our hiking group was pulling that very rope attempting in a futile effort to pull the jeep out from its stuck position. Fortunately, a nice man in another car did us the favor of helping us with a tow.

We arrived at the literal end of the road and we were sat down to a nice lunch of inexplicable bologna sandwiches with a 'gulf sauce' or Mayo and Ketchup mixed together. It was weird, but oddly delightful. I kind of hate bologna too. After this we went for a 14 minute hike to a natural pool, nestled between a few short cliffs convenient for diving and went for a swim.

Continuing our hike strictly up hill for over 2 hours, I quickly realized how incredibly out of shape I am. Fortunately, fellow hiker Anna hooked me up with a handful of coca leaves which if not being actually beneficial created a very excellent placebo effect. Within hours we were treated with this first of many incredible vistas:

Hell, while I'm at it here are a couple of incredible views I was treated to that day:

Above: Our guide Archie walking silently, stoically.


Exhausted, and several hours later we made it to our first camp. We were treated with a surprisingly delicious, impossible dinner of meat and plantains and rice along with coffee and a watered down kool-aid like quasi fruit juice some of us who went to camp as children might remember as "bug juice". There was even friggin' coffee or tea if you wanted it. The 'bug juice', might I add, went together quite nicely with the "Medellin Ron" or Rum from Medellin that I toted two bottles of for some reason. My new Czech friends loved it and we downed more shots than one should in the middle of nowhere jungle.

The next day, many of us at the campsite were asked if we were interested in attending a 'Cocaine tour'. for a mere 30,000 Colombian Pesos (or $20 or so) we were allowed to see the cocaine manufacturing process. It ended up not being the tour of a cocaine processing plant that we expected it to be, but, it was worth it (I guess?) in the end. Nonetheless, were brought 20 minutes away from our campsite, in a canyon, to a little shack with a bunch of chemicals and coca leaves laying around. I suppose it was sufficiently shady/awesome.

The rest of the trek went like this: Wake up super early (5:30am or so). Eat breakfast, drink coffee, fill water bottles, hike for extremely strenuous 3-4 hours up and down mountains in extraordinary heat and humidity, eat lunch/ take cold shower (they had showers hooked up to mountain streams in the middle of the jungle!). When hiking, Archie, forever stoic as guide extraordinaire would patiently wait for the last person (usually me) when I smoked a cigarette or struggled to catch my breath. Yes, I realize I probably shouldn't smoke and do difficult jungle hikes, but its a nasty habit I have yet to kick! There were delicious pineapple or banana or orange breaks every hour or so at beautiful vistas so that ended up being unfathomably awesome. Here is a selection of pictures from my days in the jungle:

An Indigenous village, home to the Kogi Indians

Archie and a map of "Ciudad Perdida"

Ancient staircase in "Ciudad Perdida"

At the very top of "Ciudad Perdida"

New friends in the Colombian military

At the top and the proof that I made it. And yes, there was a guy selling Coca-Cola from a cooler, despite being 3 full days hike from the nearest store.

Impromptu birthday cake for my friend Zach, made from popcorn and cookies by our guide Archie

       Incredible view from hut we spent the 4th night in on our trek   

          A not atypical meal prepared for us gringos IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING JUNGLE

                            The jungle is a magical place

    I pretty badly fucked up my leg

Somehow this is a real place.

I did it, almost at the end.

First signs of modern Colombian civilization after 6 days (ok, ignore the prepared food, Coca-cola, cigarettes, etc.)

Our Group

All in all the most difficult feat of physical endurance that I have ever dealt with, but hands down one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The only thing I really could have done better was BROUGHT SOME BUG SPRAY WITH DEAT. My legs were incredibly fucked up for weeks. Thought I had measles or worse, parasites.

The beginnings

       I was on the phone with a friend of mine a couple weeks ago explaining my completely unreasonable plan to travel to Patagonia, Argentina by land from Chicago. I was reminded of our 'plans' for a slick little road-trip up to Pruedoe Bay, Alaska that was supposed to happen before the ending of the Mayan Calender on December 21, 2012. We have been talking about driving to Pruedoe bay for 6-7 years now, but not much progress has been made on the planning front. It occurred to me then that I need to go to Pruedoe Bay. And I need to go to Patagonia. And I shouldn't allow myself to fly. He pointed out that 'the end of the world' happens on the Southern Hemisphere's Summer Solstice, a completely reasonable time to be miles from Antarctica.
     
       It occurred to me then that I need to see two summer solstices: June 21, 2012 on the Arctic ocean and December 21, 2012 at the southern tip of South America. I will (and at this point I am confident that I can make this happen!) need to travel continuously over the period of that six months to reach my goal of reaching both solstices within the allotted time-frame. Given that there are 184 days between June 21 and December 21 and there are 29,800 miles of road on the Pan-American highway I will need to travel an average of 156.521739 miles a day. A very possible amount distance.
     If I were more out of my mind, I would do all in my power to travel that distance and no more, stopping where ever I am in the world at that point and setting up camp. And, I'm not ruling this out. I'll do it. I can imagine the 400+ miles between Pruedoe Bay and Fairbanks being a rather lonely, dangerous place to camp for a matter of days with very little outdoor knowledge being especially prone to bear attacks and having a general fear of tundra. But, if I want to have more fun and actually see more of the world I'd simply have to maintain that as an average.

         Now, I don't want to limit myself to the Pan-American Highway. I would love to go back to Colombia, and spend some quality time revisiting my favorite places, seeing the friends I made there. The Pan-American highway has only very limited amount of length in that Country. I would also like to check out Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Actually, I'm beginning now to realize that I might just say 'fuck the Pan-American highway' and do my own thing. Venezuela's supposed to be nice.

     I've decided that starting now, I am going to make this my ultimate goal/life plan. I need to start saving up and finding rich, generous donors. I can do this for a good pet cause. If you want to live vicariously through me I'll keep you up to date with videos/photos/written blogs. Hell, you can come with me. Just someone, anyone, fund me?