Great hair Sam!
Valparaiso, Chile. My new favorite city. It´s a cultural center of Chile, port town, steep hills covered with colorful houses–many with no street access– connected a network of stairways and paths. The commercial center is down in the flats near the water. Markets are overflowing with abundance. Avacados are a 30-40 cents a pound. I love avacados.
We (Zack, Lebn, and I) are staying in a workshop where Tio Willy makes circus bikes and aerial rigs and his wife sews costumes and everyone eats together and cooks over a wood fire.
It´s a lot like the juggle farm we had in Bellingham, except urban and small and all in spanish, but it really makes me excited about creating a community space for circus, music, and gardens.We´ve been hanging out often at a squat house in town–amazingly large building, over 20 people are staying there and there is plenty of space left, they have silks and a trapeze set up, lots of space for juggling, a big basement, water and electricity…
Last friday we performed at a circus show there, our first performance together (not counting stoplights, of course–our main source of income). It went really well, we got lots of laughs and applause and we were one of the first acts so then had the luxury of relaxing and enjoying the rest of it–amazingly talented crowd–chileans, argentinians, venezuelans—GREAT juggling, ball spining, silks, pole, trapeze, diablo, fire spining, devil sticks, amazing mime, clowning….Yeah!
Lebn took some photos and will be posting them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lebnjay/
I have some photos of our trip at http://www.flickr.com/photos/samalabares/
and Zack has a well written blog with more details of our travels at http://www.raggedyman.blogspot.com whew! Oh, one more link…there is a GREAT radio station we have been listening to here in Valparaiso and you can listen to them live athttp://www.radioplaceres.cl , check it out!It looks like the squat house may be getting shut down, they have been expecting the police to show up in the middle of the night and kick everyone out, they have welded the lower doors shut and are planning to make a big outcry for publicity and put on their clown noses and costumes and make a circus of the whole ordeal. Wow. Everyone is stressed out about it, it´s crazy not knowing when they will come but having to be constantly prepared…
It´s hard to leave Valparaiso, I must say, lots to learn, acrobatics workshops, (which should be really good for our act… Our human platform of death has been a little wobbly… Yikes).
We are able to make about 10 dollars an hour working at stoplights here, juggling when the light turns red and collecting coins from amused and entertained commuters. 10 dollars is enought to eat well and save a bit for further travels. Lots of people travel and live this way, it´s pretty amazing. I´d like to see it start up in the states.
We are going back to Santiago tomorrow, and then heading to Northern Argentina and beyond, following the pull north towards the tropics and home. I´ll miss Chile, I really enjoy it here and have many thoughts about coming back for a longer period of time. I´d love to get involved in some community gardening efforts here.
Love to you all, send me an email and let me know what you´ve been up to,
Sam
and today he wrote:
Hey Gabi,
Of course you can post whatever you like….Yeah, I´ve never quite had hair like this before, it´s kind of fun, I usually where it as a topnot sticking straight up from the top of my head, I get a lot of second looks and giggles from people here in Mendoza…
I decided to do some solo traveling and break off from my friends, they are going up the Andes and I´m going to go to Brazil…..I´m excited to learn Portuguese!
It´s fall here, getting chilly at night–must be time to head north to the tropics!
Lots of love,
SAm