I’m here now. And will be for a few weeks. Look out for stories on vagrant communities and a dwindling peacock population in an unexpected place…

Rumor has it that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid fought their last gunbattle about 40 kilometers north of this tiny tumbleweed of a Bolivian town. I think it’s one of the coolest places we visited. It just had this kind of mellow, ground down, rough around the edges sort of vibe going on.

A lot of the walls in town were painted with these old advertisements that had started to deteriorate from all the sand and the sun.

We happened to be there on the town’s birthday so there was a big celebration. People were firing these really primitive looking fireworks. They were hand held and made a really loud bang when they made loud bang. This little girl didn’t like the noise. I can’t say I did either.

This bike just looked kind of classic to me.

We rode some horses through the badlands. I think you kind of have to when you’re in such a wild west kind of place. It was fun but more bumpy than I thought it would be. Not a good activity if you have a camera bag and a camera around your neck.

Is a port town about 2 hours east of Santiago. A lot of people told me that it was really nice here, I think I still believe those people despite my personal experience. Let’s weigh it out.

Cons:
Its been cold. Its been grey. Its been rainy. We got robbed.

Pros:
The food has been pretty good. We met some nice people who helped us fumble through our bad Spanish. Our hostel is cheap and familial.

Hmm. I think if I had visited Valparaiso in the summertime my opinion would be completely different. In the cold gray weather the colorful houses and bright graffiti murals seem to clash with the grey sky and the cool air. I can imagine this place being a little tropical paradise when the sun is shining but for now I just kind of wanna curl up in my hostel bed.

Whine whine. We’re jumping on a bus tonight and taking a 27 hour ride north to San Pedro de Atacama where cooler climates and more appropriate vistas are supposed to prevail. We’ll see.

For now here are some boring pictures I took of the town today:

I dunno if that’s how you say it because if I’ve discovered anything about myself on this trip so far it’s that I should have paid more attention during Spanish class back in college. Mi espanol es muy mal…

But, despite the cold weather South America or Chile to be exact is pretty wonderful. I’ve been shooting a lot with the little Olympus SLR that I picked up in New York so I don’t have much to show in the way of photos but I can tell you that it’s been scenic and enriching and satisfying and all those other good things.

Here’s a few things to look at.

Delhi to Moscow to Istanbul. I made it without incident or inconvenience save for an hour and a half of urban hiking that I had to endure when I couldn’t get past the language barrier while I trudged around looking for my hostel.

The city is beautiful though. Sea breezes and sunshine. Water taxis and delicious street food. Fresh squeezed orange juice everywhere and it only costs a lira. If I could just speak Turkish this place would be pretty much ideal.

Here are some frames I grabbed yesterday while trying to get my bearings in this massive city.

Photos from a little walk I took to explore my neighborhood.

Here are some unrelated bits and pieces from that last few weeks that got lost in the digital tangle of my photo archive.

Last weekend a friend called me and asked if I wanted to go to the outskirts of Delhi and take photographs of some Kushti wrestling. I love this country for that, random calls on what was going to be a lazy Saturday afternoon that lead to something sort of incredible.

After about an hour drive through slow weekend traffic we arrived in an area of Delhi that was half urban and half rural. The scene was Fight Club with a twist of masala. A large dirt “ring” had been flattened out next to a rickety four story building that was still under construction. Random groups of Indian men crouched in the late afternoon heat waiting for the action to start.

When it did it was a lot like the freestyle tournaments that I used to go to in high school, except with more dirt and less spandex.

The ring was big enough to accommodate three, sometimes four matches at once. Two referees dressed completely in white circled the grapplers. Their job was to declare a winner and pay them a small amount of rupees. One man with a microphone called the matches through a tinny PA system as he walked around the ring.

The day started with wiry stickish children enthusiastically dragging each other through the dirt. As the the hours passed the wrestlers in the ring got older and bigger and the crowd grew as well.

The young men with anatomy chart physiques and crumpled cauliflower ears had a lot more energy and skill than the adolescents who proceeded them. Red clay flew about in a whirl of bodies and the crowd cheered for big throws and takedowns.

Unfortunately we had to leave before the biggest wrestlers got their chance to roll around. Even so it was a great afternoon and a unique opportunity to see something rare. I hope I get a chance to go back.

Lately I’ve found it difficult to take photographs. When I was home in Venice Florida everything was very still and very quiet.

Riding around town on my bike with the fading daylight slanting in sideways it was sort of easy to find little moments to capture. They just kind of stood out against the otherwise mundane facade.

India by contrast is loud, chaotic and a bit overwhelming at times. There’s just so much stimuli here that picking out frames becomes quite the challenge.

I’ve found myself putting the viewfinder against my eye and then setting down the camera without pushing the shutter because the image would either be too crowded or too typical or maybe it’s just gone in the speed of Delhi.

So the other day I took a walk in the park near Hauz Khas village. It was quiet and green and I actually couldn’t hear blaring car horns or salesmen wailing in tired Hindi. It was nice to be able to pick apart a scene without so much distraction.