Category: travel

Geek tour of the San Francisco Bay Area

Posted on by Liz

People come to San Francisco, still, in pursuit of the technoutopian dream, but also they like to pay homage to an idea of “Silicon Valley”. Now that the Mozilla monument has gone to storage, there aren’t a lot of public monuments out there to visit. We really need enormous, beautiful public monumental art to celebrate Internet and computer history!!

But we don’t have that. So, where to go on your nerd pilgrimage? I have a list of recommendations for the computer nerds with a romantic soul!

The Computer History Museum heads the geek tour list of course! It is in Mountainview and the public transit options aren’t ideal, but are doable. You can take Caltrain to Mountainview and look for a city bus or a shuttle bus, or just take a cab/rideshare for the last leg of your trip.

The MADE – The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment – is a hands-on video game history museum where the retro games are all playable, often on incredible and well maintained old hardware! It’s in downtown Oakland, a few easily walkable blocks from the 12th Street BART station.

The Exploratorium, while a broad tech and science museum, is gorgeously hands on and participatory. There are actual experiments you can do (not like so many science museums where interactivity means pushing a button or watching a video). And the techy things are elevated to really beautiful art in many cases (look for the creations of Ned Kahn, for example!)

Noisebridge hacker and maker space is open daily in the afternoons and evenings, and it’s basically a long running, large, donation supported and volunteer run, workshop. It is free, but cash or online donations are very much appreciated and needed! It’s a bit like going into a giant, messy, anarchic, collaborative garage. People are generally friendly, you can show up any time, and someone will give you a tour. If you feel like soldering something, or using the 3D printers, or learning a new skill, or just want a co-working space for an afternoon, this is a great spot to meet new people and hang out. Check the meetup page for classes and workshops!

San Francisco Railway Museum – this is a tiny but fabulous museum near the Ferry Building along the Embarcadero in SF. It tends to appeal to computer geeks!

Historic Ships at Hyde Street Pier – Now, this has nothing to do with computers but if you are the sort of nerd who like me, enjoys transit and infrastructure and history, you might like this very quiet park on the waterfront at Aquatic Park (avoid the Fisherman’s Wharf maelstrom). Seriously you will be the only person on some of these ships. Giant pulleys and block and tackle arrangements! Lie down in an actual ship’s bunk! You can walk onto the sailing ship Balaclutha and onto a huge paddlewheel steamship and a couple more interesting ships. Notably — the Balaclutha is wheelchair accessible, with a (very steep) ramp onto the ship, and a scary-fun lift down into the cargo hold!!!

The US Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model in Sausalito. Nerd heaven if you like this sort of thing. It’s a giant relief map of the entire Bay Area with its waterways, the size of two football fields, and you can walk around it to learn geography and history. Sadly there is no longer water flowing in it because it is now cheaper to run computer simulations of the water flow in the Bay. You can take the ferry there and walk (a fairly long walk but doable) to the Model!

Google! If you’re walking along the Embarcadero in San Francisco, the Hills Brothers Building plaza is a nice place to sit, and you can take a picture with the Google sign if that appeals to you. Coming up soon in October 2023, the Google Visitor Center will be opening up in Mountainview – maybe good to combine with a visit to the Computer History Museum!

Apple Park Visitor Center in Cupertino is an hour or so away from San Francisco by car. If you’re already down there or in San Jose and you’re a huge Apple fan then maybe it’s worth going to see. I’ve never been to it, but I see people asking about it often in the bay area subreddits.

The Intel museum in Santa Clara! If you want to read some corporate stuff about how chips are made, this is for you, but I am not sure if I actually recommend it since I’ve never been there and it seems to be mostly for school kids.

Hiller Museum of Aviation in San Carlos. If you love planes, or you kind of like them and you’re already on the Peninsula south of SF, this is a fun and cool little museum. Also great for little kids as they can run around very freely, and there’s entire sections of planes they can go into and climb around in.

More transit! Historic aircraft! Moffett Field (ie, the Bay’s own little part of NASA!) offers tours led by a docent and they have a small visitor center.

If the Mare Island shipyard museum ever opens up again, i highly recommend it because it is HUGE and super old fashioned and sort of clearly beloved by the people who used to work there and created a lot of the exhibits. They used to build nuclear submarines ! There’s a little periscope in the cockpit of an old nuclear submarine (or whatever you call the spot in a sub where there’s a periscope) that you can look up into Vallejo from!

There must be more. And there should be more! Add suggestions to the comments and I’ll add them to the post!

Pet peeve about local tourist advice

Posted on by Liz

When I am skimming through the various San Francisco related subreddits, there’s one kind of post guaranteed to get me commenting. It’s when someone asks for tips on where to bring their relatives who are elderly and frail and coming for a visit. The responses are almost uniformly ridiculous. Someone is wrong on the internet! I have to intervene!

The kind answers mean well but have no concept of what disability or frailty actually mean. Someone can even specify, my grandma is 95 and can only walk maybe 100 feet, and has a broken knee.

Inevitably there will be advice to take great-grandma on a day long trip around the entire Bay Area.

Sure, just drive 2 hours and then have a 1/4 mile walk at Henry Cowell park! Go the Palace of the Legion of Honor (not horrible advice, but just getting into the building even from the disabled parking spots (and there are only 2 spots) is way more than 100 feet. Blithe advice to rent a wheelchair or use the museum chairs!

I know people want their relative’s visit to be special and I totally respect that.

I guess there are a lot of assumptions to break down:

– An elderly and frail person who may be in some amount of pain, will enjoy a day long outing where they have to sit up in a car
– They even give a hoot about seeing the sights. They are probably there to see you. They have seen a bridge before! Maybe even they’ve seen a lot of oceans! Take them to tea and let them have a nap! Order take out! Jeez!!!
– They just flew here (difficult enough) to SF. Don’t then expect to drive them to Monterey or Pescadero or whatever. That is a lot of traveling time!
– An 85 year old with a limp and has a bunch of health problems is able to do the same things as a 25 year old who has their ankle in a cast for a month and zooms about with a knee scooter. No! Very unlikely!
– Taking the ferry. Always gets suggested since it sounds nice and sedentary and you see the sights. I adore the ferry, but it means a lot of walking and standing in line. It is not a short or trivial distance. I would not be able to do it at all without a power wheelchair. Kind of a bad idea depending on the location (ie, SF, no – bad idea. Richmond, actually, there is parking super close to the ferry terminal but it is still a hike from the car, then up and down those ramps onto the boat.)
– Wildly underestimating distances, because they are trivial to you and you don’t notice them
– Going somewhere loud, overwhelming, and crowded where you have to walk a lot and there is not anywhere to sit (for example, the ferry building – it’s great but be sure you know the walking capacity of your relative)
– Doing all of the above but also adding in some small children. Sure, do all that with some toddlers, sounds like a blast????? Think of the little kids as people with completely different access needs.

Now obviously there must be super energetic adventurous 90 year olds who are game to hop on the cable cars and hike around Muir Woods and so on. If you have one of those as your visiting relative you probably know it!


Fun outings for visitors with limited mobility

So what would I suggest in the cases where someone is visiting and has limited mobility, but no assistive device other than our friend, the automobile? I suggest the following, because these are things that I like to do, and can do, when I’m not walking well but also not using my wheelchair (usually because I don’t feel like loading a giant power chair in and out of the car trunk).

– Pick up or make nice picnic food. Drive somewhere close by, and scenic, where you can either sit in the car, or there is a park bench like 10 steps from the car. Then, and I cannot stress this enough, go home and chill out.

– Land’s End/Sutro baths overlook. You can get out of the car at the Sutro overlook parking lot and it is like, less than 10 steps to sit there on the wall or on a nice bench. Bring a thermos and some cups and have a little mini picnic. Take photos. Very scenic. Bring a bird identification guide (i like the small laminated ones with the most common birds) or a nice map.

– Drive through San Bruno mountain, end up in McLaren Park and have a picnic anywhere you spot a nice bench walkable from the car.

– Fort Funston if the idea of watching people hangglide is interesting to your visitor. The wooden overlook/boardwalk is actually a bit far of a walk for our 100-foot-limit person. Instead – you can either sit in the car right by where the hang gliders take off, or bring folding chairs and set up where you can see them. No need to really walk down there!

– Pacifica Pier Chit Chat cafe. It is tiny but kind of exciting if you like piers and fishing and all that.

– Pillar Point harbor, a little more of a drive but not too far. Barbara’s fish shack is my favorite, and has picnic tables and indoor seating but if there is a line just go to sam’s chowder house. Lovely harbor views, working fishing harbor.

– Consider cab directly to where you want to go if it is a restaurant and then don’t assume you are doing another thing. Do one thing! Then go home! Rest! Relax!

– If you are doing something where you plan to drop off your relative and pick them up think about whether there is anywhere for them to sit while they wait for you. Make sure there is and make the walking distance super minimal. Scout in advance if you don’t know. Also think about where the bathrooms are (like if you walk into a restaurant and it’s minimal distance, that still may be difficult, if they have to walk across the length of a giant building and down some stairs to get to the bathroom – and back!)

– Tea at Lovejoy’s is nice but I also think just going to your own neighborhood cafe or lunch spot if it’s close enough, is great.

– Wheelchairs you rent or borrow in a museum can be great, but make sure your relative is actually willing to sit in one! Will they have fun or will they feel helpless, self conscious, and have to confront all their fears and ableism? Is this the time for processing that?

Other ideas, for not going out:

Ask what shows they like and watch some of that with them.

Do some tech support for them on their phone or device. Like ask what they use it for and what are things that bug them. Fix that shit ! You can do it!

Look at photo albums and talk about the times they show and what you all were doing

Ask for help mending or fixing small stuff

Cook something together that they like to cook

Why does this bug me so much?

I think it bugs me so much because of the entire adult lifetime I have of people assuming I can do things, and them being optimistic, and my own ambitions and pride and enthusiasm on top, getting me into bad situations. “Oh yeah it’s really close” …. only to find that it absolutely isn’t.

As I get older as a wheelchair user and sometimes-short-distance-walker, I’m not even that old, but I certainly have a closer view, I now have more insight about how to slow down and enjoy things in a different way.

So, anyway, I jump into those threads, point out some of the too-ambitious things people have suggested, and mention some easier options.

The slowest nice vacation

Posted on by Liz

I am back to walking a little and we went ahead with our planned vacation. We tried to plan it so that even if I wasn’t doing too well it would still be enjoyable and relaxing. So for me that means as close to right on a beach with warm water as possible and we are in Honolulu. I have never been before! Also, we have not very often gone on a “real vacation” that is not just traveling to speak at a conference. Last one was Akumal which was like, 10 years ago. I was not sure what to expect from Waikiki Beach but wanted to be in Honolulu so that if I felt like I wanted to explore I could take the bus around town or even around the island.

We thought we would try 2 hotels right on the beach. It is expensive but nice. Read on if you want my absolutely snobby west coast bitch hotel reviews!

First hotel was Outrigger Waikiki and I have to say I am not impressed. Good: Room was nice enough and we were high up on the 12th floor. Lovely view of ocean, beach, sunrise, Diamond Head. So nice to be right on the beach and be able to go out there several times a day and then back to rest in hotel room or have food. Beach itself lovely. But!!! Bad: the hotel was kind of yuckily like being inside a mall and the way to the beach was extra gross going through a smoking area and a sort of loud air conditioning venting alleyway; then the closest I could get to the beach was by wending my way through a lot of pool chairs (nearly impossible) to some steps and then through a lot of hotel umbrella and chair rows to park myself on the sand.

The other way to the beach which they tried valiantly to explain and demonstrate when I asked for beach access was as follows: Find a manager (hahhaahha) Who then took me in a locked elevator to the parking garage where I went through the entire garage to a door which locks when you go through it so you can’t get back, then a locked mini lift which takes you UP slightly to a small walkway that goes about 20 feet (not the actual lower terrace of seating and patio but a path to nowhere) Needless to say I did not take this option to get onto and off the beach!

The Outrigger restaurant (Duke’s) was extremely loud and tacky and a bit horrible (not possible to get food that isn’t like bland mall food infused with mayonnaise or something ). Then all night till I think 11 or midnight very loud amplified music and cheering and etc. Partly from the restaurant live music and partly from street performers echoing down a sort of canyon.

The main drag along the hotel strip is tolerable during the morning but afternoon and evening are kind of horrible between the maskless crowds (I felt I had to mask even on the sidewalk in this context!), the upscale mall feeling, and the loud PA systems of street performers. Once you get to the beach and park section of the sidewalk it is nicer and prettier.

AND if I never hear another ukelele cover of Somewhere over the rainbow, it will be a fucking mercy.

OK that is enough bitching. I am luxuriating in paradise!!!!! Fuck me!!!! Just trying to be real here.

On the bright and amazing side, as I mentioned the room was nice enough and view lovely so I sat on the balcony a lot and laid on a little couch. And the beach is also great. It’s crowded but I don’t mind that, it just feels like I am less likely to be eaten by sharks, who have their choice of succulent small children with boogie boards in the water with me!

I have swum a couple of times a day, working my way up from bobbing around in waist high water to some real swimming! No real waves good enough to bodysurf on but having the water be not flat is fabulous enough!

NO REGRETS.

Our 2nd hotel is Moana Surfrider which is light years better than Outrigger. Bar and restaurant MUCH nicer. Food better. Beach access is good, easy, and pleasant. The outside terrace and bar is great, very beautiful, not claustrophobic and loud like Duke’s. I can be on the terrace or the restaurant without a mask as the tables are nicely distant from each other (also great for wheelchair navigation). There is live music at night, but not super loud, not horrible classic rock and shouting (just kind of croony and background), and not going very late so that meant I am able to enjoy both sitting on the balcony at night and also slept with the balcony door open to hear the waves.

There is room to sit and work outside both right next to the beach and water, and also in a sheltered porch (where I am right now, because it’s raining, tail end of the bomb cyclone!) The giant banyan tree is beautiful – full of birds, and they light it up at night. Best of all there are ramps all the way down the terrace around the giant tree, to the beach bar, which is quiet and uncrowded, and the pool, which is laid out in a nice way and has more room for a wheelchair user. There are also rocking chairs at the top of the terrace overlooking the tree, the bar, and the ocean.

I am going to sit out here a lot and write in the next few days when not swimming!

As for my explorations on the bus, so far so good. I tried one day to go (with Danny ) towards Diamond Head and Hanauma Bay but we were decanted from the bus onto an inauspicious road shoulder and the beach was not nice and then more scary road shoulder and then we ended up in a strip mall by a lagoon. And also the beach and the botanical garden we tried to aim at turned out to be shut for New Year’s Day. Then Danny pulled his back putting my chair into the Uber we took back to the hotel. Argh. New Year’s moral of the story is, there is no one nicer to be in a chain of very minor mishaps on an attempted adventure than my partner. (Not so sure about his experience of me though).

My other bus adventure was to downtown Honolulu and Chinatown. Bus stops and the front of the bus are equal to San Francisco, good and bad. Good: accessible public transit; drivers mostly nice; people mostly nice; lots of older people want to ask me questions about my snazzy powerchair as they are on their last legs, with wheels starting to look good. We passed through several neighborhoods and there seems to be abundant apartment housing that looks pretty cheap, unlike San Francisco. Passed Iolani Palace which is pretty but looked deserted. It is listed as a thing to do in downtown but powerchair users have to transfer to a push chair and have someone to push them, so no.

I was heading to “the arts district” and Chinatown thinking to visit some bookstores. Downtown also had some nice civic buildings but was utterly deserted and most businesses were shuttered. My target bookstores were out of business. The cafes I thought to visit from the map were also dead and gone. Everything smelled like pee. Even the gay bars seemed to only be open later on the weekends so I concluded that the pandemic hit downtown Honolulu very hard. Chinatown got sketchier and sketchier as I cruised past some grocery and butcher shops (the only viable busines aside from some kind of sketchy bars)

I enjoyed Maunakea Market where I got some nice dim sum and a beautful fresh fruit smoothie with boba. It is very small but has a tiny food court with filipino, korean food, dim sum, etc. Sat there with my boba chatting with some ex convicts with a lot of face tattoos (they called me sis and we discussed our tattoos; I called them brah figuring it was the correct response to sis, and exchanging names would be overly familiar or inquisitive) (I am not assuming the ex con status, they told me all about it.) They were telling me about a talk radio station called coast to coast which they encouraged me to call as they just let you talk as much as you want to! You also can learn a lot there about how satellites spy on us and control your mind maybe! (that was the 2nd guy; the first who had the nicer face and skull tattoos looked askance at him, tolerantly.) We were joined by another lady (who called me mama, not sis, which maybe is the right way for somewhat blowsy middle aged ladies, or in my case non binary read-as-lady, to address each other with respect) and after a bit I left with my half drunk smoothie and dim sum in a bag, wandered around some more, chatted with more of the friendly, loafing derelicts at bus stops who welcomed me into their circles; did not find anywhere open that had a bathroom, which maybe explains why downtown smelled so strongly of pee, and took the bus back to Waikiki, meekly returning to my tourist zoo life.

My goals for the remaining trip are:

Go back to Heyday bar/restaurant at the White Sands hotel, which was really fun, small, quiet, amazing, and had swings around a little bar in a palapa (or whatever a beachy thatched hut is called here if not palapa) I would like to sit on a swing and have another of their delicious cocktails.

Go to the Bishop Museum which I imagine may be a weird cross between Te Papa (elegant, honoring the local culture) and the Pitt Rivers (scary yet fascinating jumbled up miscellany of loot and appropriation with last minute unsuccessful attempt to ameliorate the situation) – we will see.

Swim twice a day even if it is the bobbing around “swim” rather than 20-30 min of actual swimming that I would love to work up to.

Write a lot. (Family history zine/book project, and Wheels zine which I intend to do every winter holiday for the past umpty million years and don’t)

Danny suggested the Dole plantation tour (again I imagine something a bit colonial and hideous maybe with a Pitt Riversian apology something like a glass case with a sign that says “sorry about your sovreignity” and maybe “P.S. Oh yeah also, sorry Honduras, yay pineapples?”

Stretch goal: I would like to check out Kailua to see staying there at a beach side b&b might be an option for another trip. It promises better bodysurfing and (maybe) kayaking would be possible, but beach access might be harder (like, I may have to park my wheelchair and hoof it across a very wide beach) This may not happen because my ankles are not really good enough for me to drive around the island. Though I could take a complex 2 hour bus ride. If I felt stronger I would totally do it.

Imagination and reality

Posted on by Liz

You already know what I’m about to say: imagination is part of reality! One thing I love about road trips is poring over the Roadside Geology books for the area I’m visiting and at this point 30 years in I’m pretty familiar with Roadside Geology of Northern California. On this visit to Calistoga I swore to finally go look at “Glass Mountain” roadcut with obsidian bits coming out of it and a bunch of baked rock and ash where the obsidian hit a layer of ash and tuff from volcanic eruptions millions of years ago.

My sister and I got into my car. As we drove down Old Silverado Trail past beautiful wineries and terrifying burnt hillsides I described how I had to unsubscribe from the arrowheads group on reddit because they are often such horrible looters. But then there will be a video of someone looking at the bottom of a stream bed to a jumble of rocks and then bending – zooming in – moving a couple of little rocks and BANG giant clovis point. Dammit! I could just SEE an arrowhead and admire it and NOT LOOT IT, someday, as a treat? But in any case I’d like a little chip of obsidian to bring home and put into a flowerpot as decoration.

The location was described pretty well in the book and in some articles online as north of St. Helena near Glass Mountain Road, showing (color!) photo of the roadcut. The sun was in my eyes but the red baked dirt and rock was super obvious in a small roadcut and there was a spot to pull out pretty close by! Close enough for me to walk to. (We actually stopped at a different cut than the one in this article very close by)

The problem was giant trucks barrelling by and a very narrow shoulder so we scrabbled up a few pieces of obsidian from the roadside gravel and dirt sliding down the face of the cut. Really beautiful conchoidal fracturing and fresh glassy surfaces in the tiny pebbles we picked up! And then fled in about 5 minutes because the trucks were terrifying.

A side jaunt up to Deer Park and back on Glass Mountain road did have some streambeds we could have picked over if we had better long sleeve shirt protection from poison oak, but all really not looking like public property. Then we saw a bunch of signs for Elmhaven, famous house of someone famous, and turned off for it while reading Wikipedia articles about 7th day adventists and Ellen G. White (whose house it was). Apparently she was hit in the face by a rock at age 9 and then had lifelong Visions of angels on other planets (sometimes planets with rings and several moons!) Apparently Satan is just on Earth and other planets are much nicer (I guess; not having read her 40+ books and journals of 2000+ Vision sessions) I love how she gazes ethereally and makes graceful motions as if traveling through space (WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE EXACTLY) and always exclaims “Joy! Joy! Joy!” during, with an echo/receding effect like a song outro)

“‘One evening at the conference above mentioned [Topsham, Maine, 1846], in the house of Mr. Curtis, and in the presence of Elder (Captain) Bates, who was yet undecided in regard to the manifestations, Mrs. White, while in vision, began to talk about the stars, giving a glowing description of the rosy-tinted belts which she saw across the surface of some planet, and added, “I see four moons.” “Oh,” said Elder Bates, “she is viewing Jupiter.” Then, having made motions as though traveling through space, she began giving descriptions of belts and rings in their ever-varying beauty, and said, “I see eight moons.” “She is describing Saturn.” Next came a description of Uranus with his six moons, then a wonderful description of the “opening heavens.”’

So maybe we did not have time to soul-bond and time travel with the red bank of lava contact at the roadcut, but we did get another imaginary journey, even if also not consumnated since visiting hours at the victorian house and gardens started at 10am and it only opened at 11 and I was not gonna sit in the parking lot for an hour when I had to pee.

Building up strength

Posted on by Liz

I am able to walk much further these days, mostly managing OK in the house and able to go out every day with some interludes of using my manual chair in the house (and powerchair for most outings). My new foot and ankle PT exercises are much harder and I’m venturing out of the house on foot (to visit next door or 2 houses down- a very steep hill) Today I figured I’d try to get to the bottom of the hill and back. I have a new cane with 3 legs that unfolds to become a seat so I used that on one side and my normal cane on the other. Down was OK, I sat for a bit on Mission and listened to the music coming out of the club on the corner, thought about whether I could make it across the street to Walgreens and buy something and not suffer too much from it now or tomorrow. On reflection I was somewhat weepy feeling from the intensity (physical and emotional both) of my half block journey so maybe better to take this more slowly.

Uphill was way harder and I stopped to rest twice (the cane with the fold out seat was a good idea.)

I’ll try icing my ankles and doing gentle stretches now – maybe an Advil and a tylenol – I hate the feeling of the entire arch of both feet spasming – so many separate weird little muscles. It also gets just a little bit of the “snake squeeze” feeling that is so scary (because it can get really bad)

Maybe going down just 3 houses, stopping, and coming back and doing that for the next week. It would be neat to have a small challenge like that, daily.

I need to install my pull up / toe stand bar somewhere under the deck – it doesn’t fit in any door frame upstairs but i’d like to start the combination toe-stands and pull ups again.

And maybe learn to do a push-up properly now that I have stronger toes! Ambition!

What will it be like if I can walk more? It was very strange seeing Mission as a vertical person. I felt so tall and unshelled.

I have been trying to imagine as I ride the bus, whether I could get to the bus stop, and then take the bus somewhere, and then I’d need to get across a street and probably a block or at least half a block the other direction to catch the bus home. Then another half block + up the hill again and then half a flight of stairs. Fucking yikes! I’m not there yet.

Keeping firmly in mind that I was in more or less this state in 2011 and then was felled for an entire year by bilateral achilles problems which have lasted a DECADE and which i’ve only just improved in the last 2 years to the point where I can walk flat footed and stand on my toes for a few seconds. So. Must not fuck this up ! NO MOON BOOTS!!

If you see me walking around, please know I’m struggling and having my own kind of private journey over here and just keep your comments and assumptions to yourself!!!!

Mixed trashy and nifty reading, lately

Posted on by Liz

Sometime in mid-December I paused on the J.D. Robb “In Death” binge read and moved on to cozier fields: detective novels by M.C. Beaton (aka Marion Chesney), who died in December 2019. I read the complete Agatha Raisin series, easily plowing through 2 in an evening, and am now up to book 25 in the Hamish Mcbeth series. Hamish has a Scottish wildcat, a dog with oddly blue eyes, a once-per-book longing for a cigarette even though he quit, and about 5 ex-girlfriends who all happen to show up at once for him to feel conflicted about as he discovers dead bodies. As a nice touch, he sometimes reads an amazingly exotic U.S. detective novel where everyone has guns and there are lots of high speed car chases.

In between ridiculous mystery novels, I read The Story of the Mongols Whom We Call Tartars by Giovanni Caprini, which was excellent and all too short. It’s an Italian ambassador’s account of his 13th century visit to Mongolia. He met Batu Khan and Güyük Khan, describing the journey and customs of the people he met, and rounded off the book with strategic advice on how to fight the Mongols. (Right at one of those turning points dear to writers of alternate histories as, if Ogedei Khan hadn’t died just about then, Batu would likely have overrun Europe.)

As a chaser I’m reading Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North. It’s a collection of travel narratives by Muslim writers from the 9th century to about the 14th and it’s also pretty great. There’s no way for this not to be interesting and I love a primary source SO MUCH no matter what.

Ibn Fadlan‘s story describes his 9th century journey through Kazakhstan and then up the Volga to the far north where he meets the Rus, at least writes about the Samoyedi, and describes a Viking (Varangian) ship burial.

The next section of the book promises to be good as it’s an excerpt from Abu Hamid al-Garnati’s Wonders of the World where he goes to the land of the Bulgurs and writes enthusiastically about how cool beaver dams are. I look forward to his complaints about the food, the cold, the 20 hours of darkness per day, and how gross it is when people eat their own lice.

I also have William Cobbett’s Rural Rides going in the background, as it’s perfect for when I wake up at 3am and don’t want something with a compelling plot, so I can fall back asleep in the middle. It’s just Cobbett riding around Sussex or somewhere describing the scenery (which when I look it up, no matter how dramatically he describes it, it just looks like gentle, boring hills; Hawkley Hangar, I’m looking at you) and enthusing about the soil quality, how early you can harvest the corn (ie barley/wheat) or the turnips and swedes and also continuing his obsession with anyone who plaits straw for hats. Notable in recent middle of the night hallucinatory Cobbett memories, he had whooping cough and to cure it, rode all day and most of the night in the freezing rain with his shirt off, somewhere in the South Downs. Best sort of book as you can congratulate yourself on being in a warm, dry bed, totally not riding around England with whooping cough.

Press conference and small adventure

Posted on by Liz

Friday was the press conference EFF held to talk about their findings about Ola Bini’s situation. Here’s a blog post about it, In Ecuador, Political Actors Must Step Away From Ola Bini’s case, and video (English), EFF Press Conference On Arrested Security Researcher and Open Source Developer Ola Bini and Spanish.

After the conference we walked a while through La Mariscal but Danny was too tired to do much after his intense week of long work days, so after lunch we took a taxi back to our hotel.

I ended up letting some children in the tiny courtyard of our hotel play with my wheelchair. There were 4 in the family from the oldest 11 year old to their 3 year old sister. The parents came downstairs to a ridiculous scene as the kids took turns going round and round the courtyard. They invited me to go with them to a chocolate museum in the Centro Historico so I happily went along (leaving Danny still asleep). They were from Tennessee (well, NY and Boston but recently moved to Memphis) and named Danielle and Shu (Shoe?) but I cannot remember their last name (sadly since I would love to stay in touch with these nice people) and they travel with their 4 young children very intrepidly. They had just been on some kind of Amazon tour which they went to by small plane.

We went down Guayaquil merrily and once we got near Plaza Grande and the streets were closed off I let the kids stand on the back of my chair and on the footplate (if small enough for that) for some clown car hijinks.

The “chocolate museum” was pretty cheesy but fun with fake cacao trees, pods, info on growing and harvesting cacao, and so on, with plenty of things for small children to touch and mess with. For 5 bucks each we all sat around a table nicely set up with water and napkins and our museum guide Pamela led us to “experience” three small pieces of chocolate from different regions. We had to use all 5 senses – look at the glossiness, feel how smooth it is, listen to the crisp snap as we break the chocolate slab apart, smell it, and finally taste it and talk about what we taste. We also felt some cocoa butter and pounded cacao beans with a mortar and pestle, and each got a “free” large chocolate bar to take with us. Definitely fun to do with the chaos of a group of children (but then, I like chaos). I suggested they do this again at Halloween with their candy, making a fancy table setting and compare all the kinds of candy formally. Danielle was so into chocolate and apparently they go to a chocolate factory in every country they visit. Fun! We had hot chocolate and pastries afterwards in the museum/store/cafe where you could buy a small box of chocolate bars for 80 bucks (!!) or a panama hat for several hundred.

Note that if you mention a “panama hat” to anyone in Ecuador they will clue you in to the fact that they are REALLY Ecuadorean hats and have been designated an intangible cultural heritage of the world by the United Nations.

We had a look at the plaza grande and then headed back instead of going down Guayaquil we kept going down Chile which is a broad street closed off to cars with many vendors wandering around. As we went downhill towards Pichincha the atmosphere also went downhill. The oldest child informed his mother that the person who just bumped into her had also slid their hand into her jacket pocket! (She had nothing in the pocket.) The vendors were more aggressive as well and things felt quite rowdy. There were also hookers.

At the bottom of the hill I suggested we go back up to Guayaquil (endorsed by everyone as we the grownups all realized we were in over our heads). A kinda drunk guy came up and got right in the little three year old girl’s face (muñequita! que linda! que hermosa! etc) (The family did not speak Spanish btw) scaring her a bit. To get his attention off her I got back in his face and said laughing what about my hair, it’s pretty too, i’m not so bad! making him laugh and then we shook hands and my group swiftly crossed the street to get away from him. The oldest kid (who caught the pickpocket) seemed scared and asked if he was trying to kidnap his sister (!!) and what was he saying? I explained to the kids that the guy was admiring their sister’s blond hair and giving her compliments because blond hair is rare here, so I defused it a little by telling him my hair was prettier.

We were approached again by some guys smoking weed on a stoop who were yelling at me to spin around and just sort of generally giving us shit (in a jolly way though) I spun as suggested and invited him to come dance with me, which made all the other guys laugh. We then had some more witty exchanges after which we high fived each other. (My Tennessee friends wondering WTF). Well anyway we high tailed it back to Guayaquil where it is quiet and peaceful for tourists and everyone strolls eating their ice cream!! I felt ok that I can defuse mild street hijinks just as well here as at home. You can take it as threatening (usually unnecessary) or you can join it in camaraderie (can actually be fun).

On the way back I let the 2nd youngest kid ride on the back of my chair as he was tired but too big to be carried by his dad who was sporting the 3 year old on his shoulders. On the ice cream gauntlet part of Guayaquil, Danielle pointed out that “helado” must be the same as “gelato” which I had never realized! Like, congelar…. it makes perfect sense.

I had a great time hanging out with this family and was happy to be social after my week of mostly adventuring by myself!

Cotopaxi Cabalgazo

Posted on by Liz

On Friday I learned the word “cabalgazo” which means a trail ride on horseback. I had looked at a few websites for “day trips” from Quito and contacted a few of them to see if they were open to transporting me and my wheelchair. Bus tours: no. Private tours with a driver: yes! I went with one from Rebecca’s Adventure Tours because the information on the site seemed very clear and there was an agent to chat with via the website so I could ask wheelchair related questions. Turns out there was no problem, their driver was cool with packing my disassembled powerchair into the back of his SUV.

So, for around 200 bucks I got picked up from my hotel by a lovely tour guide (Thank you Eduardo!). We went on a 2 hour drive south of Quito to Cotopaxi, a national park around the Cotopaxi Volcano (20,000 feet!). We saw Chimborazo in the distance which was pretty exciting if you’ve read about it all your life and then see it for the first time in person.

Then, past the visitors’ center down a long gravel road to a small ranch and lodge within the park which I think climbers use for acclimatization, Tambopaxi. We stopped along the way for coffee and a bite to eat, then had another cafecito at the lodge while waiting for our vaquero guide, Edison. The view from the lodge was great – we sat there having our coffee with a view of wild horses and the Cotopaxi volcano itself lightly wreathed in mist. While I think I could have gotten into the lodge with my wheelchair (a somewhat rugged path, but ramped ) I opted to walk in because it was very close to the parking lot and I wouldn’t have to walk around very much. Note, also, the bathroom in the restaurant was very accessible!

Eduardo drove me down to the corral where I was fitted out with chaps, a helmet, and a poncho and Edison helped me get up on my horse Francés.

Before the ride (admire my amazing chaps!!!)

liz and horse

Francés the horse could tell I had no idea what I was doing but he seemed like the perfect sort of wise trail riding horse for beginners. I would describe him as phlegmatic, even as a philosopher, wisely following the other horses on the way outwards from the ranch, then eager to trot and get ahead on the way back towards his lunch. While he didn’t take any directions from me in the first part of the ride, by the second hour we had reached an understanding where I could get him to walk, trot, and go where I wanted, within reason, though to canter required some extra effort (whacking him on the ass)!!

Edison on the other hand was mounted on a more spirited and responsive horse clearly used to working with cattle, prancing around, turned on a dime, a super great horse. Eduardo was on a nice black horse; he is a much better rider than me but maybe not very fond of trotting. I am not used to riding “Western” or Spanish style very much as when I was a teenager I had riding lessons english style, with short stirrups, a different kind of saddle, and notably, the posting trot… which you can’t really do in a saddle with a giant pommel and your legs dangling in low stirrups. But, the saddle was very comfortable!

So, that’s the company and the horses — I’ll talk a bit about the ride! We started out across a very bare plain, an alpine meadow or páramo, scattered with pumice and clearly made of volcanic ash, not very many plants but a few wildflowers, mostly asters (yellow and other colors) and some purple flowers whose name was something like gentian (as in gentian violet). We saw tons of Andean Lapwings and some Plumbeous Tyrants (Eduardo had a bird book and binoculars and knows a lot about birding, geology, and history, really a pleasure to talk with!) and so many wild horses. Apparently the wild horses of Cotopaxi are famous for being an isolated population that are largely descended from horses of the original Spanish invaders. They would watch us carefully but didn’t seem spooked by our approach.

panorama of a plain with a rider ahead

The landscape was incredibly beautiful and peaceful. I imagined being a traveler in past times walking or riding over these meadows.

As we went over and around some rolling hills the land got greener, the vegetation more various, more like chaparral. We saw a bull standing by a low hill, and Edison galloped at it waving his hat and shouting to chase it off. Whew! I wish I had a video of this, but I was too focused on being ready to stay on my horse Francés in case the bull came at us and he took off running, so I didn’t even think of my cameraphone!

I asked Edison for help lengthening my stirrups because my knees were killing me. This was a helpful tip from my mom who is an experienced rider and owns a horse! It did help.

After that we got into some stony meadows with little streams flowing through (which we forded) and then came to a deep canyon. Our trail went right along the edge of the canyon so my very tame trail ride had some moments of tension (for me anyway!) looking down and thinking how Danny told me to please not die while on my trail ride. I was glad of my chaps because we went through some prickly, tall plants. The canyon was beautiful, you could see the river rushing at the bottom, and layers of volcanic ash, pumice, and what I think you might call “ejecta”, boulders that came flying out of the stratovolcano like bombs! To the north, Rumiñahui, a smaller volcano, to the west, this river canyon, and to the south, Cotopaxi towering above us topped with snow.

cotopaxi volcano with snow on top

Crossing some of the streams was also a little exciting as Francés, with a mind of his own, would give a little hop to get out of the stream when he could have easily just walked over it – but no. Then later when Edison and Eduardo on their horses did a little dramatic jump over a narrow gully, Francés refused it, I brought him around again hoping my leaning slightly forward would encourage him to jump, and then he deflated my ego completely by stepping calmly over the 1.5 foot gully at a walk. I felt like a dumbass — it was hilarious.

view of meadow from horseback

Coming back around in a wide circle through this beautiful valley, the path was more rocky and rugged in places, but by this time I was more confident at sticking on the back of my horse as he scrambled up hillside trails and did his weird little top of the hill hop, as if he wanted to get the hard parts over with as fast as possible. We passed a big hill and cliff face that looked like granite. Eduardo and I competed lightly to show off our enjoyably dilettantish geologic knowledge. Luckily for me when you say geology related words like “magma” or “stratovolcano” or “basalt” in a spanish accent it mostly works.

By this time I was so sore! Wow! it was OK but I was aware of the difficulties of going at a trot. I ventured a joke…. “Que gran aventura…. Ay que gran aventura, PARA MIS NALGAS” which finally got a laugh from my companions.

We cantered a bit and it was really fun! But also exhausting! I was feeling the altitude, not like a headache or anything but just, my heart was pounding and I felt very tired after just a little trot or canter.

Humorously, when I got back to the hotel, I realized my Fitbit thought I had walked and run up 98 flights of stairs over the 2 hours of our trail ride! I got a lot of little congratulatory notifications and virtual awards for climbing, which by rights should belong to Francés.

Dismounting, I definitely needed help, because my legs just wouldn’t move! They felt like cooked noodles! Who cares, right, I can barely walk anyway! After a few minutes hugging MOTHER EARTH ***** OMG HURRAH I AM NO LONGER ON A HORSE ***** ¡¡¡¡¡AY, GRACIAS PACHAMAMA!!!!! GRACIAS AL DIOS Y AL VIRGEN DEL APOCA-FUCKING-LIPSIS!! I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS!

liz smiling hugely

OK so finally I manage to get up, take off the chaps (I wish I had those amazing chaps – so comfortable, and with a pocket big enough to hold my coffee mug) and get into Eduardo’s SUV and then back to the lodge for delicious potato soup (Locro de Papa) and some more coffee. Eduardo and I showed each other pictures of our families and looked at his bird book and then drove back to Quito. Oh he also nicely got out my chair and helped me assemble it for a stop at the Visitor Center on the way home, so I could buy some alpaca scarves and a sweater and poncho for gifts for my family, which I appreciated – while I am getting around Quito just fine, I can’t go into most of the shops so I really wanted help with souvenir buying in a place with an accessible entrance! (I can’t even buy postcards – I’m waiting for Danny to help with that!)

Well, that was my adventure. Parts of me are STILL FEELING THE ADVENTURE, let me tell you. MOSTLY MY BUTT.

An enormous blast of things from museums

Posted on by Liz

On Wednesday I had a tour of the Presidential Museum in the Palacio Carondelet. To go on this tour you need to schedule a day in advance, providing your name and passport number over phone or email. Not difficult, but you can’t just drop in to take the tour. It’s well worth it – the museum was great, especially if you like old religious paintings.

When I got to the entrance where my 9:30am group was gathering, the tour guide and the guard stationed at the entrance had to call someone to find the key to a lift that went up a long flight of stairs to the front porch of the Palacio. After they got the key and figured out how to turn on the lift, they spent some time figuring out how to make it work. They finally got the lift to come almost all the way down to where I was, but then the last stage of making a small lip of the platform extend about 6 inches down proved to be impossible. So, for maybe 15 or 20 minutes we all watched the flustered guide and the man with the key to the lift push the same few buttons over and over, in vain. Finally I asked where the President enters the building and asked if they could take me there. The guard took me to the other side of the porch where — amazing— there was a long, smooth, perfect, gently sloping stone ramp. Why they have the lift in the first place, I don’t know! It’s a little silly! The ramp is much better.

Once we were inside everything went smoothly – the first part of the museum has some information about the history of Quito alongside gifts from heads of state to the Presidents of Ecuador. Things like a gold clock that shows the time in every other OPEC(OPEP) nation. The rest of the exhibits were religious paintings with particular focus on various incarnations of the Virgin Mary. Virgen de las Flores, del Terremoto, del Volcán, and especially del Apocalípsis, which seems to be Quito’s favorite — the Virgin floating or stepping on the dragon of the Apocalypse along with a lot of other fascinating symbolism in each painting. I took so many pictures!

While we were on the tour we could hear drums, chants, and someone speaking through a megaphone from the plaza. It was amazing how well the sound carried all through the Palace. ON the way out, I listened and watched for a while. The protestors’ hashtag was #VaPorTiTrabajadorPetrolero. It’s always good to see protests happening and then look up what their issues are later!

I was reminded of a story I was told about some protestors in the same Plaza, before my trip, by my friend Kevin,

Re: President in Bathrobe. This was about 2002?

Beck and I were in Equador and we were staying for a few days in a monastery that had been converted to a hotel. It was around the corner from the presidential palace.

Beck and I were coming home late one night and were walking through the courtyard in front of the palace. There were three old guys with a bullhorn yelling something over and over again. The lights turn on at the front of the palace and the president and two guards come walking over to the guys with the bullhorn. We also walk over because interesting.

Someone else who walked over spoke english and gave us the rundown of the conversation:

the protestors were retired military and were annoyed they hadn’t gotten a benefit they were supposed to get. The president explained, okay we can work on this but it is 2am and I need to sleep. Here’s my card, call this number tomorrow and someone will book time on my schedule so we can talk during the daytime. The three old guys thought this was reasonable. Everyone shook hands and the president said to Beck and I “I hope you like Equador”.

Then he turned around, the guards followed him into his building and the lights turned off.

Good story.

After that I wandered towards the Museo de la Ciudad. This was very accessible, with a somewhat steep but not impossible ramp to a separate entrance next to the main entrance just beyond the Arco de la Reina. A big yellow arch, you can’t miss it if you’re heading down Venezuela towards the hill with the huge statue. The museum is free if you’re disabled.

This museum is just great! Its exhibits lead you through the history of Quito over time. It’s also super accessible with an elevator to the 2nd floor exhibits and then another small (unlocked, working) lift to a second wing of the museum. There were especially great dioramas including one of a battle between the Spanish and the indigenous people with little figurines of conquistadores making shocked faces as they are speared through the heart. It doesn’t get much better than this.

tiny detailed figurine of conquistador speared by an indian

The wall of beautiful dolls all dressed in different traditional costume was incredible with information I couldn’t find on the internet anywhere and this was followed up by dolls for hippies, skaters, and punks to represent new cultures from city life of the 20th century.

dolls showing traditional costumes of various people

Here’s my favorite painting from the Presidential Museum, called Triunfo del Rosario en el Mundo, by Manuel de Samaniego y Jaramillo. I’ll just link to my Flickr photo of it so you can zoom in and follow along. I first had a good look at the guy holding the planet on his back surrounded by a dragon who I guess is like the devil or the serpent of the apocalypse or something. Laser beams are shooting into the serpent’s head and into the earth. Following them upwards…. the laser beams are actually the blood of Jesus which he is actively squirting out of his side through a rosary and a crown. Wow! Wild! There are also representatives of various peoples of the world looking prayerful and a nun with the most smug facial expression ever, as if she was thinking “You were gonna leave me out but NO… here I am! Holding a bloody, glowing heart!” There is also a healthy smattering of floating heads. There is a LOT going on in this painting!

When it sounds super casual that I’m getting around town, please keep in mind that the pavement is cobblestones or bricks, curb cuts are either non existent or tenuous and may lead directly into traffic coming in the wrong direction (You have to just hand signal and make an unspoken agreement with the drivers!) You might go down a sidewalk only to have to turn around and go back another way because light posts are blocking your way, and there are also hills. So, if you are a fellow wheelchair user, either be a great athlete and very robust, or a very intrepid powerchair user with as narrow of a chair as possible.

I had a rest in the afternoon to prepare for Friday’s adventure — horseback riding on a volcano.

A gold church and a quiet library

Posted on by Liz

My adventures today were very mild, as I am going out to dinner later and didn’t want to exhaust myself. So, I stuck to the Old Town area near the Plaza Grande.

Hot chocolate and a plate of tiny cheese empanadas on the Plaza – I had planned to write but instead ended up sitting with some tourists from Paris who didn’t want me to eat my breakfast alone. They were spending 5 weeks in Ecuador, must be nice! Then, I went to check out the tour of the Presidential Palace but found that I have to make a reservation (giving my passport number!) a day beforehand. This was easy to do over email and now I’m planning my visit to be tomorrow morning. It seems that the tour is accessible (more or less) and at one point if you are a wheelchair user you get ushered into the President’s private elevator. If I bump into President Moreno in his private elevator, I will tell him about Whirlwind Wheelchair International, an org that teams up to help create sustainable local wheelchair factories and maintenance (with disabled people at the helm).

Everywhere I go in Quito I get stopped by people politely asking me for information about my powerchair! My ability to discuss the chair in Spanish is slowly improving. The guards outside the Astronomical Observatory finally reaped the benefits of my practice as they told me about their family members who could really use a powerchair. I don’t think there are even powerchairs sold anywhere in Ecuador. I described the light weight cheap ones that can fold ( se puede plegar!) but the prices upset them (the cheapest I know about is around $1000). I wish it were not so hard – putting a motor on a wheelchair! It doesn’t have to be hellishly expensive!

Right next to the Plaza I found an accessible entrance to the Centro Cultural Metropolitano. The ground floor didn’t have a lot going on, and I couldn’t get into the library or its reading room, or the bathrooms, but there was an elevator to the 1st floor. Some great art exhibits there (and you can get the staff to unlock the actually accessible bathrooms which are for employees only, in theory). The building is pretty & there are historical plaques everywhere about the history of independence & a bit more about the French geodectic survey expedition.

My favorite art exhibit was called De vuelta centro del mundo by Antonio Bermúdez, with a lot of postcards of Chimborazo which he bought online exhibited next to the eBay order forms, packaging, and mail envelopes. I love that sort of thing!!! Of course, as a tourist myself I felt right at home in the display of 100 year old postcard kitsch and the strange diaspora of the Chimborazo postcards going all over the world and then getting bought & mailed around the world right back to Ecuador. Excuse me while I put a stamp on myself and jump into a mailbox! But seriously I thought of the long poem “Carta de viaje” by Elvira Hernández (that I translated, with footnotes longer than the poem almost) and felt very happy looking at the exhibit.

I could also get into some of the smaller sections of the library (though not the bigger, juicier looking main reading room + stacks) so I camped out in the social sciences, looking through an armload of books on the history of the petroleum industry in Ecuador. “ecuatoriano, defiende tu PETROLEO!” had the best title but “En la lucha por el crudo” had the best cover design. I then found some folklore books, which were great, and I’d like to go back another day to sit & read them. This also looks like a good place for me to sit and write and work on some things, since Quito doesn’t have much of a laptop using cafe sitting culture and I don’t want to be a complete boor.

Just one building down from the Centro Cultural, there is a side gate which guards will open for you and your wheels, into the giant golden baroque cathedral, or church, whatever it is, called Compañía de Jesus. Holy shit, it’s beautiful! It is covered in gold! Scary!!!!!! There is also a sort of… coffin monument thing with a statue of Quito’s first saint.

Lunch by myself in a super fancy restaurant, well, outside in its sidewalk seating anyway (I picked it for this feature since EVERY restaurant has steps — maybe the President will let me know the best places for lunch… hahahhaah… Surely he must know?!) It is called Purísima & the food was great, for the price of a sandwich and a coffee in San Francisco I had 3 courses and a fancy soda (seltzer + blackberry syrup, if mora = blackberry, anyway, it was good) I like the herb that was in this, it wasn’t celantro I don’t think but had a more funky flavor. The waiter said it was called something like aniyuyu though I cannot figure out what it really is. My soup had tiny potatoes, crunchy fried corn bits, quinoa, at least 3 kinds of lumps of tasty cheese of different textures, and a quail egg. Also served on super amazing china (from an enormous china soup tureen with gilt handles) and the tortillas were wrapped in silk. It was a little OVER THE TOP for my seat on the sidewalk! Wow!!

Wandered home again – Old men seem particularly amused when I grimly face a steep curb and then surmount it, bumping slowly like a tiny, purple haired tank. They get a twisted grin of disbelief on their faces and occasionally laugh outright if I go “beep beep.” (I have also been beeped at by them.) Young men on the other hand just rush to try to push me up the curb (which doesn’t work – i have to come at it a certain way – and then they observe the resulting tank action and we exchange polite compliments and thanks.)

I have skipped the ice cream today since lunch was AMAZING.