Travelogues

Big Fear At Low Altitude: Zip-lining in Caldas Novas, Goias, Brazil

This post is Track 16 of Travelogue Soundtrack.

The harness operator had lost patience. “Ou voce pula ou voce se caga” ("you either jump or you shit yourself"). Failing to take the hint, failing to launch and failing to escape my terror, I remain perched, ridiculously immobile, at the top of the zipline.

I first discovered my fear of heights as a seven year old child when on a school trip to the Isle of Man’s Laxey Wheel. My classmates scampered happily upwards to enjoy views from the top of the biggest waterwheel in the British Isles. Yet I remained welded eye-level to the axle, transfixed with terror. The rotation of the bright red 11m long spokes hypnotically churned my stomach. I only surrendered my iron grip on the guide-rail when I rejoined my class as it snaked its way to the safety of firm ground.

26 years later, I was in Hot Park - Brazil’s largest water park in Caldas Novas, Goais - and was again similarly frozen. I was unable to jump.

Such irrational fears are said to be “all in our head” or more specifically to reside in the amygdala, the tiny fear and anger centre of our brain. But for me, vertigo is a terror of the body not the mind - a rebellion of my physical form against my conscious self. When approaching a precipice, all the cells in my body tighten. Calm whispers of my rational being are overwhelmed by the strident choruses of body molecules screaming “STOP! DON’T! YOU CAN’T! YOU’LL HAVE A HEART ATTACK!!!”

At Presidente Figueiro in Amazonas, my body again froze on the cusp of leaping into the murky brown waters near the foot of the beautiful Santuario Falls. It wasn’t enough for my mind to issue re-assuring thoughts that the piranhas, caimans and other local hazards were safely located a few kilometres away. My body needed proofs of sense rather than of thought. But my eyes could not see beneath the surface.

My mind and my body simply did not trust each other. Apparently my body possessed a greater appetite for self-preservation than my mind. The decision to quit my job in Ireland and move to Latin America was a much more consequential leap into the unknown than that at Presidente Figueiro. I had many fears about doing so - am I wrecking my career?, am I being irresponsible?, will my relationships suffer? is this exactly the wrong thing to do with my life? Yet, I neither hesitated about making the decision, nor equivocated about it once it was made. By contrast jumping from even relatively modest heights produced paralysis.

Of course fear is not a purely negative sensation - it has the excellent side effect of keeping us alive. Although we diminish as people as our fear increases, such self-shrinkage is a reasonable strategy when surrounded by danger. However, life as a small target is a kind of blasphemy - a failure to experience and celebrate the full extent of ourselves. Thus, the paradoxical expansions and contractions of hope and fear create the heartbeat of our lives - supplying the impulses with which we venture into uncertainty.

The week that was ending with absurd paralysis at Hot Park had started more promisingly in Rio De Janeiro. On midnight on New Year’s Eve, I had joined 2 million Cariocas on Copacabana beach. Nearly all of us dressed in white as we arrived at the edge of the Atlantic. We were here to greet Iemanjá, the Goddess of the Water, and to ask her to bless our New Year. Such a peaceful and optimistic mass communal exercise represents humanity at its best - embracing the unknown in hope, rather than retreating from it in fear. Spectacular fireworks announced we had made it safely into the new territory of 2008.

Perhaps I absorbed some of the hope and optimism of Rio’s Reveillon festival at a cellular level. My body relaxed and I jumped. I jumped on the zipline in Hot Park, into the murky Amazonian waters in Presidente Figueiro and the river rapids in Brotas. In mid-air, suspended between fear and hope, my mind and body made their peace with each other. Both only felt complete when leaping into the unknown.

Chaos Of Movement On The Dancefloor - Salsa In Casa De La Musica, Havana, Cuba

This Article Is Track 05 Of Travel Soundtrack

A man, a woman and music. A simple compound that, like gunpowder, has an explosive power for creativity and catastrophe alike.

A personal goal on arriving in Latin America was to progress beyond the inexpert fumblings in Salsa, Merengue, Bachata and Cha Cha Cha that I had previously managed in Dublin and Melbourne. I nursed an optimistic belief in the improbable theory of mojo osmosis. Living on this continent would surely imbue me with more body rhythm than is natural for a pure-bred Celt to possess....

While still in Ireland, I had developed a number of ready-made excuses as to why, despite two years of dance lessons, my dance-floor performances still oscillated between the ponderously robotic and wildly epileptic with no suave middle-ground. The real reasons for my inability to look smooth and to keep time were a lack of both confidence and real world practice outside of the security of a dance class. Yet, on arriving in Latin America, I also began to suspect another subtler reason for my lack of success - I had lost any sense of real connection or understanding of my own body. Career energy had been supplied by intellectual rather than physical reserves and I had largely forgotten myself as a biological being. It was high time to re-learn that a body is more than a vehicle for transporting one's brain.

On my fifth week in Guatemala, I began lessons in Salsa. Despite the fact that none of Salsa's numerous styles and influences - amongst them, Columbian, Cuban, Puerto-Rican, New Yorican and Los Angelina - owe any real debt to Guatemala, there is a large choice of Salsa schools in Antigua. Accepting the recommendation of a number of friends I began lessons with Gloria.

Gloria is a wonderful and striking presence both on and off the dancefloor. In a country of relatively short people, Gloria's tall and elegant frame is easy to spot, even from a distance. A personality that combines strength, fun and intelligence, Gloria is an excellent teacher. And when she dances, she is visual poetry embodied.

Despite her talent as a teacher, Gloria had her work cut out with me. Her advice that I needed to "feel it" with my body was alien to my tendency to "process it" with my mind. It took a number of weeks of daily one on one lessons with Gloria before my body felt liberated enough to find its own rhythm, without first asking permission from my frontal lobe.

Gloria's greatest gift to me during the 20 or more lessons we had together was to bitch-slap me into acting like a man - "con decision". Dancing with such a talented partner can give one a totally deluded sense of one's own level of skill. To bring me back to earth, Gloria would occasionally switch mode to the wayward and physically inept - invoking memories of many of my dance partners in Dublin - to test my ability to give a firm, clear and accurate lead.

Mid-way through my lessons with Gloria, I test-drove my new moves with Helene, a French journalist with an Irish accent who I had met at my Spanish school. We went to salsa night in Sin Ventura, near Antigua's Parque Central. Though charming company, Helene made a poor job at concealing her gleeful mirth at the rictus of panic and concentration she read on my face as my lips jabbered the mantra "quick, quick, slow, quick, quick, slow." Evidently, not the cool, calm and collected vibe I was going for - I still had plenty of work to do.

However, over the next few weeks, I absorbed Gloria's instruction and my movements became stronger, more confident and expressive. This was more than just a lot of fun. I felt I was beginning to articulate something important, that my body had previously lacked the vocabulary for. Dancing is a particularly profound form of communication between a man and a woman - enabling one to discover a mutual resonance that makes words superfluous.

Despite its evident sensuality, latin dancing can in some ways be a sex-free zone. "If he's doing it right the guy doesn't have time to think about sex" as Gloria informed me. Of course, that is not to say dance is without sexual politics. When still in Ireland, I noted that Irish women had real difficulty accepting a lead from a man. Perhaps that was just because Irish woman were as genetically unsuited to latin dancing as their male compatriots like me. But I also suspected it sprung from a deep philosophical objection to yielding dominance to any man who lacks the expertise to earn the privilege. Almost to confirm this thesis, Gloria noted that the western women she teaches appear much more free when dancing with a Lain male (who probably knows what he is doing) than with their gringo male counterparts.

Something else Gloria taught me was that the politics of latin dancing are more subtle than most give credit for. "To do it well, it is really 50/50 leading. The more the woman knows, the more comfortable the guy will be. The woman will be able to improvise and to cover up the guy's mistakes." In other words, women allow men the illusion that they are making the decisions. True on and off the dance-floor.

Play Music:
Hips Don`t Lie (Shakira feat. Wycleaf Jean)

This Weeks Places:
Antigua
Guatemala

This Weeks Sleeps:
Renting A Home

This Weeks Doings:
Coffee Farms
Dance
Learning Spanish

This Article Is Track 03 Of Travel Soundtrack

In my third week in Guatemala, I began to learn more about the powerful religious currents that flow through Latin America. Religion is a contentious theme and I was therefore glad that I was not left to explore it alone. Trish, Gina, Beth and Grace - all fellow students at my Spanish School - became companion guides that helped me to new insight and understanding about the contemporary and historic impact of faith in Guatemala.

The unlikely setting for the first of these insights was Nim Pot - Centro De Textiles Traditionales. Nim Pot is a warehouse-sized arts and crafts store on Antigua's Calle Del Arco - the street that is spanned by the city's famous arch. Catering principally to the passing tourist trade, Nim Pot sells everything from hand woven huipils (traditional Maya dress) to brightly coloured monederos (wallets) and allegedly unique playeras (t-shirts).

Towards the back of the incense-enveloped shop is the wood-carving section. It was to here that Trish had brought me and where I now stood, transfixed by the awfulness of the store's most expensive chair. Noting my reaction Trish, beamed proudly in triumph. "Wow," I eventually mustered, "that really is quite something."

Retailing at 5,300Q (about 530 Euro or just under $700), this chair's price probably reflected its pretensions to divinity. In revering Christ the Carpenter, the chair is Christ as Carpentry - constructed as a Jesus you could sit on. The chair's front two legs end in pink naked feet, arms and hands provide the arm rests, a brown torso acts as back support and the chair is crowned with a familiar bearded face.

It is impossible to know what the artist responsible for this piece was thinking when he began carving this chair. Perhaps the original plan was to evoke the gentle embrace of sitting in the lap of Our Lord. Yet the effect of the finished product is anything but comforting - the severe, unsmiling face has a joyless, terrifying quality. In this regard, the chair is in keeping with Christian iconography in general, which often seems designed with the express purpose of scaring young children. Why anyone would want this in their living room is a riddle as impenetrable as the deepest mysteries of religion itself.

By showing me this unsettling chair Trish had, although she did not know it, discovered a perfect motif for my travels in Latin America. Arriving on this continent as a 33 year old male, I have often thought of this journey as my Age of Christ Tour. For men brought up in the Christian tradition, 33 is often a potent life marker. The symbolic power of this age is not confined to the religiously observant. Reaching the age of Christ may in fact mean more for men, like myself, who have long since loosed their moorings to the faith of their childhood.

Thinking of Jesus as a mere man rather than a God invites cripplingly deflating comparisons for men my age. By 33 Jesus had completed his life's work, was worshiped by women and men and had proven himself as the inspiring founder and leader of a movement that would change the world. He then died a hero in a courageous act of self-sacrifice. All in all, this is a tough gig to follow.

There is also no escaping the fact that 33 years is the outer-limit of time for a man to live up to the role model society has chosen for him. At 33 a man's adolescence is definitively over (though many women can cite extensive evidence to the contrary). The connections in our brain are now hardwired - the time for trading on our promise or potential has ended. So this is a time to take stock of who we've become and what we've done, rather than who we'd like to be and what we plan to do. Am I a leader? Am I courageous? Is the world different because I am here? Do I inspire people? Will I be remembered?

The answers to these questions can be discouraging. Grappling with one's own failings and traumas, increasingly evident mortality and loss of faith all at once can be a kind of crucifixion. Whether one has a resurrection to look forward to afterwards depends on the success and honesty with which one engages with these issues.

So Nim Pot's Jesus Chair - unsettling and overpowering - captured many of my private thoughts. However, its existence is also a social commentary on the highly visibile and enduring potency of religion in Guatemala.

The vitality of religion and religious organisations in Guatemala - best expressed in exuberant festivals such as Semana Santa and Day of the Dead - is in part the legacy of successful evangelical work by mostly US based Protestant churches. A number of my fellow students were foreign missionaries and thanks to meeting two of them - Beth and Gina, I gained a little more understanding of what they did.

Both women are about 30, intelligent and engaging and from the United States. Beth and Gina came to Guatemala to work in volunteer projects that aim to tackle some of the consequences of the poverty that is prevalent throughout this country. Additionally they sometimes engage in direct ministry - talking to strangers on the street about faith issues. Like many Antigua-based missionaries they also attend services and prayer meetings in the Higher Grounds Cafe. The Higher Grounds is a cafe where you can order coffee that comes with a free shot of salvation ("paid for by Jesus" as the cafe's slogan says).

The social impact of the volunteer army of missionaries over the last few decades has been significant. Due to the success of US based Protestant churches in gaining adherents, Guatemala is now Latin America's least Catholic country (the continent's premiere religion accounting for just 63% of the Guatemalan population according to my Rough Guide). Non-Catholic religions have had been successful in part because they established locally based health, social and education programmes to serve families who changed their faith. Having visited a fabulous Mormon outdoor centre near Antigua, I can understand why people might pick their faith not on the basis of promises of life after death, but on practical temporal benefits in the here and now.

The activity of the US Protestant churches is a relatively recent phenomenon that follows the precedent established almost 500 years ago by the invading Spanish forces. The Spanish brought Catholicism with them, a religion that either replaced or was incorporated into the traditional Maya belief systems of this land. I explored some of the Catholic heritage of Guatemala with Grace, a New Yorker and fellow student at my school, who I had met earlier that week.

As part of a walking tour organised by our Spanish School, Grace and I climbed the short distance to Cerra De La Cruz, a clearing on a nearby hill that has the most beautiful views of Antigua. Cerra De La Cruz (Hill Of The Cross) is named after the large cross that has been erected here and which is visible from most parts of the city. The cross is said to form the northern point of a triangle of crosses that provides divine protection for the city - much needed in light of Antigua's history of violent destruction.

After the trip to Cerra De La Cruz, we visited the Las Capucines - the beautiful ruins of a convent once populated by a particularly ascetic group of nuns. Apparently living all of their convent lives without any visual contact with the outside world, these nuns must have had a grim existence. This impression of austerity of their lives only deepened when we walked past the ruins of the tiny cells that the nuns formerly inhabited. Two of these cells have been reconstructed, complete with mannequins in nun's habits. Downstairs another mannequin was also dressed in a nun's habit, but for the rather ghoulish purposes of recreating a death scene.

A striking impression of visiting Las Capucines is just how remarkable it has been for Catholicism to establish and maintain a position of dominance in popular adherence whilst promoting such self-denial and self-abegnation. Evidence of the continued potency of religion in the popular imagination is everywhere to see in Antigua.

Las Capucines is one of just 49 notable religious structures contained within Antigua's compact confines. Just a few yards from its famous Jesus Chair, the Nim Pot exhibits paintings representing prayers of thanks from people who have endured great pain - including an especially graphic representation of a rape that gives thanks for the victim not getting pregnant or contracting AIDS. And throughout Antigua's cobbled streets trundle Chicken Buses and other vehicles bedecked with slogans such as Dios es mi luz (God is my light), Guiame Senor (guide me Lord) and Siempre in mi mente (always in my mind).

However, on my own path to meaning I have found the most spiritually resonant slogan I have encountered to come not from a church but from an adventure tour company. Outdoor Excursions' creed "The mountains are my church" avows allegiance not to a God created in our own image but to the natural world we inhabit.

Journeying through the natural wonders of Latin America, I often feel a spiritual, or at the very least existential, resonance to my travels. A private search for meaning is common amongst travelers - it is almost a cliche that people leave their regular lives to either find themselves or lose themselves. Strategies these travelers employ vary from drug consumption or meditation (popular options around Lago De Atitlan, which I visited in my first week in Guatemala) to promiscuity or religion (relatively easy options in Antigua, a city of gringo-parties and colonial churches).

The contours of my own spiritual quest is being shaped by volcanoes, lakes and waterfalls. I feel at my most alive when confronting the natural energies that have carved the arteries of our world and which transport our planet's red and white blood cells of fire and water. My instinctive reaction when experience nature at its most powerful and beautiful is to feel a kind of transcendence. At these times, I feel that the faith of my childhood may have gotten something profoundly wrong in conceiving of God as a conscious being. The pulse of creation seems to me to be all the more spiritually powerful for it being unthinking energy. For me, despite the splendor evident in many of Antigua's 49 religious structures, it is nature not man that has created this region's most potent places to worship.

Play Music:
Neon Bible (Arcade Fire)

This Weeks Dates:
1-7 Oct 2007

This Weeks Places:
Antigua, & Guatemala City in Guatemala

This Weeks Doings:
Learning Spanish

This Weeks Sleeps:
Renting An Apartment

This Weeks Eats:

My first 20 weeks in Latin America were a sweet escape from working life - with a distinctive soundtrack:

	Week 1 / Track 1: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (The Animals) - I arrive in Guatemala speaking almost no Spanish, visit "the most beautiful lake in the world" - Lago De Atitlan - and meet the boozing, nictotine fiend and totally bribable ¨saint¨ Maximon. Full article
	Week 2 / Track 2: Ring Of Fire (Johnny Cash) - A week spent playing with with fire - climbing the erupting Pacaya volcano, riding the Chicken Bus to Guatemala city and discovering that Hell is a shopping mall. I mix with the young and the beautiful at Fly Party (a fiesta at the airport) and find myself flirting with (near) disaster. Full article.
	Week 3 / Track 3: Neon Bible (Arcade Fire) - I discover some of the religious flavour of Guatemala - foreign missionaries, Jesus chairs and salvation in a cup of coffee Full article.
	Week 4 / Track 4: Black Coffee (Ella Fitzgerald) - Visiting the Bella Vista and Azoteca Coffee farms near Antigua I learn about both production of some of the world´s best coffee and the appalling poverty of much of the local population. Guatemala´s rich musical heritage is explained to me and I buy an an obscene piece of candy.
	Week 5 / Track 5: Hips Don't Lie (Shakira feat. Wyclyffe Jean) - I recover my my long lost hips when beginning salsa lessons, meet my new flatmate Xela and uncover some of the painful drama of Maya history at the Museo Anthropologia.
	Week 6 / Track 6: Exodus (Bob Marley & The Wailers) - Leaving Guatemala for Honduras, I exploring the amazing Maya Ruins at Copan. Learning to Scuba Dive in the Bay Islands gives me a passport to see the glories of the underwater world of the Caribbean. I meet some of the many itinerant Israelis traveling the region - normally young people just liberated from national service as ¨Warriors.¨
	Week 7 / Track 7: You're Missing (Bruce Springsteen) - Crossing back to Guatemala on foot, I see dancing kites send messages to lost loved ones on The Day of the Dead. Smoking a hooka pipe in Antigua results in me hosting dinner for a mystery guest on an alcohol free election day.
	Week 8 / Track 8: All I Need (Radiohead) - Living in Antigua, I have to adjust to maintaining largely transient relationships in this city of drifters. I get nostalgic for Australia when visiting the Valhalla Macademia farm and partake in a casual chat that turns into a job interview.
	Week 9 / Track 9: The Ground Beneath Her Feat (U2) - I experience my first earthquake and find some peace and love with The Firedancer. In a no doubt doomed attempt to become bad-ass, I start motorbike lessons. Full article.
	Week 10 / Track 10: A Day In The Life (The Beatles) - Feeling at home in the Gringo theme-park that is Antigua - my day to day life has found its own rhythm and routine: morning Spanish lessons, afternoon shopping in the market and walking the cobbled streets in this beautiful city of ruins.
	Week 11 / Track 11: Flame (Bell X1) - I camp overnight on Volcan De Pacaya, toasting marshmallows (and nearly my fingers) in the lava. Finishing my last salsa and Spanish lessons I get ready to leave for Brazil.
	Week 12 / Track 12: The Girl From Ipanema (Astrud Gilberto) - Touching down in Sao Paulo, almost the first thing I see is a TV replay of a soccer game: I am in Brazil! I quickly move to Rio De Janeiro to experience Ipanema Beach, the Sugar Loaf and Christ The Redeemer beachtowels.
	Week 13 / Track 13: Waterfall (Stone Roses) - I swap green and canary for blue and white - I cross the border to Argentina for multi-sensory overload at Iguacu Falls. Full article
	Week 14 / Track 14: Boa Sorte (Vanessa Da Mata feat Ben Harper) - Take showers in more waterfalls - this time in Brotas in Sao Paulo State. River rafting, horse-riding and river rock sliding - not to mention listening to the singing sand.
	Week 15 / Track 15: Shut Up And Drive (Rhianna) - 10pm on Christmas Day in Sao Paulo - a 5 hour driving odyssey begins to discover how diverse Paulistas - policemen, homeless, street kids, prostitutes, NGO volunteers and families - spend their christmas night. The tour includes some soccer stadia - temples of the game Brazil made beautiful.
	Week 16 / Track 16: Hope And Fear (Geronimo) - I return to Rio De Janeiro to take part in Reveillon, the world´s greatest new year party: 2 million cariocas dressed in white with music and fireworks on Copacabana beach. I then confront some of my fears in Hot Park in Goias - Brazil's biggest waterpark.
	Week 17 / Track 17: Bonito (Jarabe De Palo) - I visit the Eco-Capitalist wonderland that is Bonito in Brazil's Mato Grosso Do Sul - snorkeling downstream in pristine waters, rafting and caving whilst simultaneously striving to protect my distressed wallet from the town's beauty cartel.
	Week 18 / Track 18: Whirlwind (Architecture in Helsinki) - Travelling on bus, foot and by pane, I celebrate my birthday in three Brazilian states - Goias, Brasilia (DF) and Amazonas.
	Week 19 / Track 19: Find The River (REM) - My last week in Brazil is spend on the Amazon - experiencing nature's pharmacy, up-close hydro-power, waterfalls, jungle lodges, giant fish, river dolphins and a love motel.
	Week 20 / Track 20: Black Sand (The Space Cossacks) - Returning to Guatemala, my last weekend before returning to working life is spent on the black sand beaches of Monterrico. I swim in the Pacific, watch a dis-comforting turtle race, experience dawn break over the mangrove swamp and see the four volcanoes of Pacaya, Acatenango, Fuego and Agua lined up in a row, fiery sentries to the home to which I have returned.

This Article Is Track 01 Of Travel Soundtrack