Off the Rock

I am officially unemployed and happily feeling like a total bum for the moment. I just took a solid week off from Orcas to visit peeps in Seattle and take a trip to Southern Oregon. Highlights: The drive to Seattle with Kate who is a walking encyclopedia of Middle East history (U.S.-Iran relations 1955-1995 was an 50 minute explanation); massive amounts of canning at my mom's house (BBQ sauce, chutneys, plum sauce, 3-pepper jelly); urban foraging in Columbia City and eating Ethiopian food with Elizabeth; catching up over margaritas with Lindsey; Capitol Hill with Will including fish tacos and a yummy Elysian winter beer aged in oak; seeing my niece who is the cutest baby ever; a night in an old Portland house where it was too hot to sleep but I didn't care because it felt like summer; and an epic roadtrip with Kimberlyn and Justin. They are a couple who are getting married next year, and I went to the Rogue River in Oregon with them to check out a lodge as a possible wedding location. It is an incredibly remote lodge as there is no road access and you either have to hike in along the river, raft in from near Grant's Pass, or take a jet boat hours up the river from the coast. Crazy! It was a beautiful spot and quite an adventure to get down there and back in a weekend.

Visitor Central

Summer marches onward and downward as these warm days get cooler and days get shorter. It's been a busy but mellow summer (if that doesn't seem too oxymoronic) between working, taking mini-trips, trying to play outside, and...having visitors come! Now that I've lived on Orcas for a year, friends have really made an effort to come up, which has been a highlight of my summer. I want to give a shout out to all my friends who drove up, braved the ferry, were enthusiastic about the yurt homestead, brought provisions from the mainland, shared wonderful food and adventures, and were all-around amazing guests.

Thanks to!: Tonya, Kalianna, Aunt Kelly, Kimberlyn (Obee too), Jon, Angela, Will, Ian, Lindsey, Melissa, Samm, Katie, Alan, Norma, Angie, Kerri, Justin, Merilee, Jodie, and Elizabeth. It warmed my little heart to see all of them up here. Elizabeth was my most recent visitor, and you can read all about it on her blog, La Vida Desconocida, probably in more eloquent words than I could muster. And Monday my dear Kate arrives, old college friend who has been living in DC for the last 2 years. She had to go to a wedding in Spokane and I jokingly suggested she swing by the San Juans on her way home... and lo and behold she's coming!




Glad people made it up while the weather was nice and while I still live out here. I should have a solid month left in the yurt if anyone else is thinking about making the trip...

Ho Hum

It seems that not a lot of hugely exciting happenings have been happening lately for me, yet I feel like I should write something anyway. Maybe it's because my blog is called AmberAnda, and I haven't been Anda-ing (going) anywhere lately. I feel a bit stuck on the rock. On the upside, I have had a handful of great visitors come here, and it's always fun to show friends around and be tour guide. It even prompts me to do things on the island I haven't done yet, like hike up Mt. Constitution from Mountain Lake.

But if I had to create news from the slim pickin's, I would be hugely happy to report that I just paid off my student loans! About 2 years after graduating college, I am officially debt-free. No credit card bill either. Yeahhhhh, whoooo!

This past weekend I also saw one of the most amazing lightning storms of my life. Granted, I am from the PNW, and we don't get crazy lightning like in the Southwest or other parts of the country, but still, constant jagged forked lightning layered on bright pink sheet lightning was pretty impressive.

In the Thick of It

As Pacific Northwesterners, it seems like we spend most of the year waiting for summer. Then suddenly it's here, and it's the middle of July before you know it! The farmer's market is bustling, unripe fruit hangs on trees and bushes, and swims are necessary almost daily.

Wonders of Nature

Spending so much time outside lately, I have been noticing odd and wonderful tidbits of the natural world. We found a ground nest on the farm of these baby baby birds... who knows what kind they are? Unfortunately, a week later they were gone, and surely too small to fly they probably became part of the food chain. Then the other day on top of my mint plant I saw this black grasshopper beetle looking thing with crazy long anteneas- I've never seen anything like it here. I wish Google had a reverse google image tool where you could input a picture and it would tell you what it was. I guess that's sort of what a field guide is, just a little more work. Then the weirdest thing I found lately was in the field at the farm, while digging furrows to plant potatoes. I hacked something in half that I thought was an animal part, because it looked like blood or bone marrow. But upon closer inspection, I thought it must be a rock, sort of shale or fossilized looking. But it was so red, it must be blood. But it looked more like rock than bone. Then a friend LICKED it (which admittedly was my first impulse too) to see what it tasted like, and reported that it had NO FLAVOR. Clearly, the only explanation is that it is a blood rock, left from a nightime landing from alien visitors.

Running running

I did my first half marathon last weekend! It was the scenic San Juan island marathon and half, and an early one for the running season. My lovely lady friends Katie of Bellingham and Tegan of Seattle trained separately, and then we all rendezvoused morning of the race. It was a perfect race morning- cool and dry turning into warm and sunny toward the end. I had no aches and pains, no problems at all, except that it was a really hilly course! There was one section with a sign "Flat section starts here". I got excited, thinking I would try to pick up my pace a little, until the sign, "Flat section ends here" only 50 feet ahead. Also, I couldn't help but notice the lack of portapotties along the way, even at support stations. Turns out the portapotties had been ordered and delivered... only a day early, and they had already been accidently picked up! Anyway, it was really fun and the fish and chips afterward felt well-earned.

Spring to Summer Frenzy

Tomorrow marks my one-year anniversary of living on Orcas! It's been a fun, full, past year of island life and there is nowhere else I'd rather be again this summer. So I've been back in the yurt for almost 2 months now... which I can't believe. What have I done? Well, the first month was pretty mellow as I moved in, picked up work, and tried to stay warm and dry in the cool spring.

The last few weeks though, have been the opposite- a frenzy of work and movement in these long warm days approaching solstice. Between working on a farm, volunteering in a community garden, having my own garden bed, and doing a container garden, it seems that plants have been determining my every day. Their needs don't wait and so neither does my work, and at this point it is still the big push to get everything in the ground. And it's almost to that point.

Here's a rundown of the recent accomplishments: at the farm, we've planted hundreds and hundreds of corn, beans, squash (winter and summer), cucumbers, tomatillos, onions, lettuces, melons, flowers, and peppers; in my garden, I've planted herbs, hot peppers, sauce and heirloom tomatoes; at the yurt I've been doing yardwork and trying to build kitchen cabinets (my first carpentry project since middle school wood shop); and in my free time I've been playing on boats, training for a half-marathon, making rose bud jewelry, and practicing the ukulele.

Another Season on the Island

I made it back from Mexico feeling grateful and settled, happy to have gone and happy to be home. Things I will miss: the body wrapping heat, delicious food, friends I see too rarely, old pre-Hispanic ruins scattered everywhere, and practicing Spanish. Things I won't miss: the constant noise in cities large and small, always being on my guard, buying drinking water, and taking cold showers.

And now it's back to Orcas Island, where I will live in the same yurt as last year for another summer. I love the quiet of the woods, the dark sky with bright stars, the deer everywhere, the small community of familiar faces, the flowers blooming, and being near the water all the time.

Making Tortillas and Running Up Pyramids

The last couple days with Josa were my favorite. We took an overnight trip to a few more communities, this time Nahua instead of Mixteco. In the first village we went to, they were already in their second year of the program, so their gardens were more established and thriving. They grow vegetables to supplement their beans-squash-corn diet, as well as herbs or flowers as small cash crops. I helped one señora clean cilantro to sell at their local market.

Then the family invited us to stay for dinner, and I tried to help make tortillas. They make it look so easy, but really it takes practice! I was clumsy, and tore a tortilla, and I think the lady was genuinely shocked. "My 8 year old daughter is proficient at it," she marveled. (Well, c'mon, we all have the skills we need for our own culture. At 8 I could make mac 'n cheese, vacuum, and record movies off the TV.)

It was a delicious meal of hot tortillas (tlaxcali in Nahuatl), beans, cheese homemade by the señor's mother, and fresh red salsa ("We could use a blender for the salsa, but it gives it a funny taste, so I prefer to do it by hand", the señora said). In the midst of all home-grown, home-made food, the kids are eating Frito's potato chips. The mother sighed and said she tries to get the kids to eat what the adults do, but they just want hot dogs, chips, and candy. A challenge for parents across cultures.

They next day we stopped in another village where they were having a community corn de-graining. After the corn is harvested, it's dried on the cob, and then rubbed off to be stored as grain to make masa for tortillas for the rest of the year. It takes 2-3 days of constant work to de-grain it all, and everyone pitches in with each other's corn.

Josafat and I stopped to help for awhile, and they were a jolly bunch of men and women of all ages. They brought us blended watermelon juice and joked around. (They call Josa Ingeniero, which means "Engineer", as a title of respect).

"Hey, Inge, where'd you pick up this guerra [white girl]? You guys look good together. Gosh, we sure like weddings in this town... and we haven't had one for a long time! Man, a wedding would be great. Oh, and there's this great plot of land at the end of town, could really use a young couple to work it. Just keep it in mind, Inge..."

They were cracking up. "Sounds great... but I don't know how to make tortillas!" I protested. "That's okay, we'll teach you!" One of the older women, probably in her 70's, was puzzled. I told her you can buy tortillas in the US, but not everyone eats them, and that we eat more bread. "Bread!? But, how do you sustain yourselves?" she asked.

Then it was time to leave Guerrero, say goodbye to Josa, and be on my way traveling back north. I went to the new-agey town of Tepoztlan, which has a prehispanic pyramid up on a cliffside overlooking the valley. I've been there before, and it's a steep climb to the top on a stone staircase. I did my best to jog up, but the incline and the heat and the high altitude kicked my butt. It was a great workout though, and a stunning view from the top.

From there I went to Cholula, which is a small city right next to Puebla in central Mexico where I lived with Josa for a month, two years ago. I forgot how freaking awesome Cholula is. It's the perfect size, big enough that there are things to do, but small enough that you can walk most places, and feel safe. It is also home to the largest pyramid IN THE WORLD, by volume.

The pyramid is super overgrown and looks like a big grassy hill, and when the Spaniards arrived they built a church on top of it. There are great running trails all around the base of it, and it's a sizeable jog to the top, especially here at 8,000 feet. When I lived here before, Josa and I would go running there every day, and it's fun to be back and do it again.

Back to the Beach

Josafat's girlfriend came down for the weekend, and along with another friend Wilbur, we decided to go to the coast. I was sooo glad for a break from Tlapa de Comonfort. It would be a decent working-class town, but 7 months without rain, a few tons of dust, intense heat, and 50,000 honking cars makes this Pacific Northwest girl crave water. The closest beach is a mere 80 miles away- but it took 4 hours to get there on horrible roads. I never get motion sick, but the constant jostle in the truck almost made me nauseous.

It was all worth it though when I saw the sparkling expanse of the Pacific, almost a Carribean turquoise. It's a beautiful coast- Guerrero is the same state that boasts Alcapulco and Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo. Those places have been heavily developed for foreign tourism, but there are still a handful of spots here that are for national tourism. Nothing fancy, just lots of seafood palapas along the beach, and a few Mexican families. Next week for Semana Santa (holy week) these places will be packed when city folks make their mass vacation exodus. Here you can still sleep on the beach, or in the restaurant hammocks as long as you buy food there at some point. The next day, although they weren't officially open yet, our restaurant made us coffee, and then set to work grilling a big red fish- a hauchilango- in adobo chiles, cloves, garlic, a little bit of mayonnaise, and who knows what else. With fresh tortillas and beans it was heavenly.

From there we went farther down to an estuary where Josa said they rented kayaks. It was so stunning, a river running alongside the ocean with only a small strip of beach separating them until they merged together in big waves. Behind that was a jumble of jungle plants before giving way to the distant mountains.

It turned out they no longer rented kayaks. They had skiffs, but they were sort of big for 4 of us, and we didn't want to disturb the serenity with a motor. There was one decrepit fiberglass canoe designed for 1-3 people. We decided to try it, carefully balancing our weight and praying we wouldn't tip over. The boat was about as thick as tagboard and I thought for sure something would happen, but the afternoon passed without incident as we paddled around the maze of sandbars and up the river to small beach embankments. We saw a bunch of fish, and a kazillion birds. Wow, I have never wanted a bird field guide so badly. There were lots of colored crane-egret types, sandpipers, maybe grebes, bright zippy little birds, one that looked like a wood duck-cardinal cross, just so so many.