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Below are the 6 most recent journal entries.

	2006.11.27  22.59 Greetings... It has been more than a year since I have written in this journal and throughout this time I have regretted not communicating enough with friends and family. My only excuse is that life has been so overwhelmingly amazing, challenging and full that I have not known when or where to start. Let me share the last 5 days... Wednesday morning Sarah and I got up early to prepare for our weekly meeting at FarmLab. FarmLab is essentially a think-tank and experimental laboratory which addresses many social and environmental problems in Los Angeles. I had to write a little progress report about the mycoremediation project I'm managing. Mycoremediation is all about using fungi (mushrooms) to cleanse soil from pollution such as petroleum or heavy metals. Besides organizing large public events such as the past Dia de los Muertos, Sarah is in charge of finding and contacting visionary people who will come to share their experience with the FarmLab team. After the meeting, which is a flood of fascinating topics, I tend the lab's indoor vegetable and mushroom garden, preparing it to survive a four day weekend. For it is Thanksgiving and we won't be around. At 4:00 PM we drive home and prepare our bags. At 8:30 PM we're anxiously waiting for the taxi... it comes and drives us full speed to the airport. There we meet Lauren, and her kids Maya and Dorian, three amazing souls who have adopted us into their family. Two weeks ago Lauren told me she was taking her Guatemalan house cleaner Lily, who had just received her American citizenship, back to her hometown. Knowing that I have family there, that I speak both English and Spanish and that Sarah and I would be good company, Lauren asked if we'd go with them on this trip. How could we say no to that! So at 11:00 PM we fly, first class, to Guatemala city. Arriving at 5:30 in the morning we have to wait forever for Lily to retrieve her seven humongous bags filled with gifts. She hasn't been back to Guatemala in ten years. Outside we are greeted by two fellows and a minivan that looks slightly too mini for our group. With some squeezing we all fit, Guatemalan-style, and the six hour journey to Lily's village can begin. As the road descends to the pacific coastal plane, volcanoes are erupting left and right. Pacaya and Fuego are the two hotheads spewing smoke, debris and lava high into the sky. It is slow going on the coastal roads because it is sugarcane harvest season and gigantic semi's filled to the brim with cane are inching their way to the milling factories. We see several of these "ingenios" along the way, spewing white smoke into the air so thick we often mistake them for another volcano. Around noon we are nearing the Mexican-Guatemalan border and... after 11 hours of travel from Los Angeles, CA... we arrive in... Los Angeles, Guatemala. Upon opening the car door we're welcomed by blasts of firecrackers and from then on there is no silence. Half the village has come out greet Lily, who came to the US 17 years ago while fleeing an abusive husband. With her work as a house cleaner she has been able to built a two story house and support nearly her entry family. We are served fish and crab soup while the steady beat of reaggeton blasts from the sound system. After lunch we convince people to take us on a walk in order to escape the monotonous beat. We walk through tobacco fields where children labor 9 hours for $3/day. We are told they choose to work however, to earn money for Christmas and firecrackers. There is apparrently little work in this border town. Few people own land and the only jobs are moving merchandise and people across the border. This is one of those places where Guatemalans and Latin Americans from further South cross into Mexico on their way to El Norte, the USA. Many don't make it through the heavily patrolled Chiapas and end up back on this side of the river. Our walk also ends at a river, all be it not the border river. Here we swim in the shadow of a tree, large as only tropical rainforest trees can get. Four-eyed fish inhabit this river we are told. They skim the surface of the water with two eyes under and two above. We spend about an hour at this river while Maya overcomes her fear of fish and Dorian skips his first rock. Back at the house we respectfully ask to pull the plug on the reaggeton and get a few hours of rest. As the sun sets across the green fields, the pigs, the distant trucks, Lily's house is lit in Christmas lights and a mariachi band arrives for a live performance. Tonight is the real party, with lots of food and distant relatives. We end up talking to the mayor who tries to sell us on the virtues of his town. An hour into the feast, with mariachi's trumpetting in our ears, we are spinning plans of escape. Dorian gets so far as to pack the bags... after getting attacked by flying ants and listening to disonant trumpets, he's ready to leave. But we don't. We're here to support Lily and thus decide to stay. The following morning we rise with the sun and are swiftly on our way to Lake Atitlan. This is where my family lives and our plan is to spend the following two nights at their house. The drive is faster this time and after two hours of travel along the coastal highway, we turn inland at Cocales and head for the forest covered slopes of the volcanoes that lie ahead. This is my backyard and soon I am at the edge of my seat pointing out places and plants, people and customs. We stop at the Parma dairy factory and induldge in their locally made ice cream and yogurt. As the road climbs the landscape changes from sugarcane and coastal corn to coffee and the distinct highland corn. The coffee bushes are laden with red berries as harvest season approaches. We rest in San Lucas Toliman and visit Ijatz, a farmers' cooperative I used to work with a few years back. They give us a tour of the Centro Agro-Ecologico, providing us with plenty of ideas for creating gardens with recycled materials such as tires.

	2005.04.25  08.10 Three weeks have passed since I returned to LA. With no steady job as of yet I have been free to explore this city, myself and my relationship with Sarah more deeply. Through trial and error I'm discovering how I feel about being here, what I like about myself and how I want to change, and what meaning, beauty and challenge lies in my union with Sarah. When first returning I felt as if this city could not offer me the lessons I want to learn in life, yet looking further I am discovering that there is much here in the form of creativity, underground culture, resistance, that I feel I can tap into and contribute. As for myself, I need to open up, share, be in the moment, and being among a great diversity of people can help me in that process. Over the last weeks I have taken up many of my passions. I fixed my bike and ride as much as possible. After a week of walking through it and ignoring the cries for help I have finally started tending the garden again. The garage I have remade into a music studio and Sarah, Autumn and I have decided to start a band. I have bought a digital camera and am experimenting every chance I get. Projects are arising. I have found a group of people who are working to map the fruit hanging over public property in Los Angeles. I have wanted to do something similar for a while and intend to collaborate with them in mapping out Echo Park. Check out their website: www.fallenfruit.org

	2005.04.21  12.09 Sespee River Trip Tar Creek Originally uploaded by Juantara. This has been a week full of adventure. On Sunday evening I start off for Oxnard, where Uncle Tom is to pick me up. I want to go by train but end up taking the Greyhound Bus. The station is busy and it is five minutes after my bus’ last call when I finally get my ticket. I scramble to the gate and get there just as a real friendly bus driver is closing the door. He’s cheerful and funny in a way that reminds me of some of Amsterdam’s tram conductors. After one stop in Hollywood we get on the freeway as darkness settles upon us. After two hours of reading my book we’re there and soon after Tom comes to pick me up. Tom is Sarah’s uncle and her mother’s brother. Their family lived in Fillmore, where his father bought a ranch and grew oranges and avocados. Sarah’s fondest childhood memories are of that ranch and the nature surrounding it. So the fact that we will be trekking into country that is very much a part of my girlfriend’s history makes the whole experience that much more exciting. We get to Tom’s newly acquired trailer at the end of a country road by the Sespee river. At that time I see nothing of the surroundings but the morning reveals an amazing view of the mountains we are about to climb, the beginnings of a garden and large piles of scrap metal as well as a burnt out car. It looks like a spaceship has landed in Tom’s front yard but he assures me they are remnants of the livestock barn that used to stand on that very spot but was burnt down in a wildfire that swept the farm only a year ago. Fire will be a recurring theme throughout our journey the following days. In the morning we go for a hearty Mexican breakfast and then pick up our fellow hiker, John. Tom and John are old friends who both grew up in Fillmore and they each have a history of wild adventures from their travels over land and oceans. They are experienced travelers and have been going up the Sespee river since they were kids. What also bonds them and what they see as the highlight of this trip is fishing... fly-fishing to be exact. As we load our packs into Tom’s car we all notice the profound difference between them. Their packs are both at least twice as heavy as mine and John’s appears three times the size. He attributes this to the fact that it’s a borrowed pack he hasn’t learned how to pack it, but he also mentions that he doesn’t really care since it will only take an hour and a half of hiking to get to our camp. Is he ever mistaken. We set off for the mountains and ride through orchard after orchard of trees hung heavy with oranges and lemons. After a while we find ourselves on a desolate road high above the river, winding up and over mountains it the wilderness. This area behind Fillmore has been proclaimed a wilderness area and more recently a condor sanctuary. They have started an American Condor breeding program and released many into the wild. Throughout the trip I hold the hope to see one of these majestic creatures. The landscape we walk through was ablaze during the massive fires that consumed Southern California two years ago. Little attention was paid to such a remote and unpopulated area and the fire was allowed to scar much of the land and change its appearance drastically. To add to the environmental havoc, this year Mother Nature sent down more rain than California has seen in over a hundred years, bringing down gigantic boulders and causing many landslides but also stimulating a the growth of fresh vegetation. Charred remnants of bushes stick out among a green blanket of sage and other herbs. Flowers in many colors and sticky vines dot the trail and grab at your feet. This look has my guides confused and after a while they admit we have completely lost the path. They know in what direction we should be headed but from where we are that means going pretty much straight down a cliff. Like drunken mountain goats we slide and tumble down until we connect with the path once more. A while later we finally hit the Sespee River. Grand boulders lay in groups or alone in the riverbed. The other side somehow escaped the fires and is densely forested with oak trees, eventually turning into a great vertical wall of rock where I imagine many condors would love to nest. Our camp is in a perfect spot right by the river and protected on three sides by gigantic boulders. Our first act is to strip naked and dive into the ice cold waters. Soon Tom and John have their fishing gear out and set off to find some trout. I on the other hand dedicated myself to sunbathing and reading my greatly absorbing fantasy novel “The Assassin’s Apprentice”. The boys come home but without fish. The evening is filled with stories of adventures in far off places, as well as much speculation about the absence of trout from the river. The next day we wake early and start making our way up the river. All I have with me is my camera, a bottle of water and a little food. While Tom and John hunt for fish, I hunt for images. I love this environment, rock hopping through a riverbed, drinking from little side streams, finding lizards. I literally want to climb every big rock that I find on my way. Once on top I simply sit or stand and peer at my surroundings from this new vantage point. Tom tells me about an old oil field atop of this certain hill and I go explore it. I find asphalt being slowly penetrated by shrubs and trees, and old machinery, tanks and caldrons. By mid-afternoon we rest in the shade of an old oak and John entertains us with wild sailor stories. I return to our camp to swim, read and sunbathe. Tom comes back a bit later and tells me he just saw four condors flying low through the canyon. I peer around but they are out of sight. I guess I’ll just have to come back again. After good night sleep we wake early, eat our leftover food for breakfast (for me that means top-ramen), and head out before the sun hits our camp. Our intention is to simply follow the path but within ten minutes Tom and I are scrambling up a wash because we think it’ll be faster and we both love a challenge. We make it to Tar Creek and reward ourselves by testing out a natural waterslide that just looks too fun not to try. Tom and I plunge into the ice cold river while John takes on the role of photographer. In total it takes us about four hours to hike back to our car. After that experience a hearty meal seems in it place and we go for giant burritos at Ay Chihuahua. Tom then takes me to the station and I take the train back to Los Angeles. Juantara

	2005.04.10  14.38 Treasure Map Party Saturday was a good day. Sarah and Autumn had organized a get-together at our house at which we could all make a treasure map of our intentions for the year. That day was a really good time to project one's intentions and many people came to participate. We started around noon and before long the entire living room was a sea of magazines and people, scissors and glue. There were many new faces and names, thoughts and experiences were shared though out the day. Good food and drink were plentiful. Each of us completed a collage of our desires and intentions and it seemed like the collaborative effort gave them more force. At some point I wandered off to the Scamp (our camper) and, feeling a sudden urge to rest, collapsed on the bed and woke to find that the night had come. Joining the crowd in the kitchen I walked into a heated discussion on religion, with one "atheist" trying to convince a whole group of spiritually active people of the futility of their beliefs. This topic came around at the end of the night once again and set bad feelings in us because of the intolerance and closed mindedness displayed. But that was at 3 AM and the good vibes far outweighed the bad. When I recovered from my catnap Sarah put on music and we could not resist dancing the night away in our living room. That was yesterday. Now the house is clean again, Sarah is in bed with a serious hangover and I'm getting ready to take the train up to Oxnard where Uncle Tom is picking me up to go hiking tomorrow. We are going on a two day trip into the mountains above Fillmore, Ventura.

	2005.04.08  16.47 Dwarsgracht in the snow Dwarsgracht in the snow Originally uploaded by Juantara. In order to understand what the possibilities of blogging are I am testing a bunch of features, such as posting pictures. These pictures I took in Holland when I was there in March. A snowstorm had just dropped 2 feet of snow.

	2005.04.08  15.33 A New Medium... Here we go... The first entry in my new online journal. I have been wanting to create something like this for quite a while. Up until now I have kept in touch with friends through simple group emails but it is time to expand my horizons. I want to be able to do more than simply write a story and send it off. And blogging seems to offer the interactivity I long for. So, along with a another internet site called www.flickr.com where I will be posting pictures on a regular basis, this will be my new way of communicating to the world at large. I hope you enjoy what is to come. Juantara Music: Miles Davis