Wednesday, December 30, 2009

A Room with a View

Day One: Buenos Aires



As can be expected, we have already consumed a massive steak, convinced flirtatious locals to show us around the hood and drank cheap red wine. The trajectory for the trip is looking good...

Monday, December 28, 2009

Here we go!

I'm off to Argentina.


check out that chic backpacker style: not one, but TWO packs!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Public Announcement

So, I'm moving to Argentina for three months-ish in January. I haven't decided if i will keep this blog for my next WWOOFing adventure--you know, "Dirty Toes: Hola From Argentina!" or if I'll start another. Stay tuned.

CMC

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite New Ohana

I leave for the airport in an hour and my feelings are bittersweet, leaning towards bitter. I love this place, I love this group and I feel like I have a family here. I've cried a few tears this morning.


photo courtesy of Jared Brick :)

Top Ten Count-Down: Craziest Balls to the Walls Dare-Devil Moves I've Seen in Person

JAWS has been breaking with what people are calling the biggest waves in 100 years. Watching dudes tow in to 60 foot waves is an awe-inspiring, if not uncomfortable, sort of voyeurism. See what I mean:


More Surfing >>

Monday, December 7, 2009

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite After-School Snack

Without a doubt, the juice of a fresh coconut sipped from a papaya stem.

This is good news as it is not only delicious but also really good for you. It's super hydrating due to its isotonic properties (balanced concentration of salts and minerals: specially formulated to supply the body's chemical needs in situations in which minerals and fluids are used up by the body, e.g. during vigorous exercise), and electrolytic properties--yes i copied and pasted that from another website. It reduces fever, it cleans your liver, gets rid of kidney stones and can be used as an emergency I.V. instead of saline glucose. In short, it's pretty cool stuff.

Most of the time the water tastes like sweet cucumber and coconut but sometimes the coconut juice ferments a little bit and becomes effervescent. This we call a "champagne coconut." It's a fully onokine grind brah.

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite New Maui Lingo

Salty: annoyed, irritable etc. It was described to me as the feeling that comes alongside having been in the ocean, then having sweated in the sun for a couple of hours, than having put your clothes back on and finally being forced to marinate in them for the rest of the day. An example of proper usage would be, "She was so salty this morning. I thought she might bite my head off."

Runners up in the favorite Island Lingo category include: grind (to eat), eggy (shitty) and ohana (family). example sentence: It was a really eggy situation that I couldn't grind with my ohana last night. Another fun vernacular is the use of "kine." example: "Ho brah! what kine chips you want?" "Onokine chips" (ono = delicious).

puu (hill) is also a fun word--you pronounce it "pu-u."

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite Tropical-ish Mixed Drink.

The Bailey's Banana Colada or the BBC. Think about it. mmmm.

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite Hale Akua Garden Farms' Feline.

There are cats everywhere on this island and the farm is no exception. As far as I can tell, we have four resident cats and many more visitors. The list of characters include: Princess (the overfed, attention whore), a crazy looking white cat with blood shot eyes that hisses at you every time you pass, an orange tabby that keeps to himself and Krishna. Krishna is, by far, my favorite among them. He's a young thing who's just coming in to his own and can be seen darting across the farm in constant pursuit of birds, mice and ladies. Recently, my feline friend has become the topic of much farm gossip when it was observed that he's not fixed, which is a problem because Maui does not need another feral cat. When I took a picture of him this morning, for instance, he was courting a pretty little neighbor (hopefully his appointment at the vet tomorrow will come before anyone gets knocked up...).

As you can see, Krishna is a beautiful and lithe creature with piercing blue eyes. I think I like him so much because he looks at you like he obviously doesn't give a s*^$. We'll see what happens to his character after he gets his nuts chopped off. Poor guy.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Top Ten Count-Down: Least Favorite Garden Smell

There are many types of fertilizers out there: chicken poop, cow poop, worm poop, human poop, compost... As far as truly repulsive smells are concerned, however, blood meal is in a league of it's own.

Blood meal is exactly what it sounds like: blood. It's a bovine product and, when turned into a tea and sprinkled on plants, smells like haggis. It is extremely high in nitrogen and fast-acting. I'm a little confused as to why we use it here as I just read that it should be avoided in warm, moist climates as it will create too much ammonia when broken down by soil bacteria (which, you will remember, we have a lot of) and damage roots. I'm pretty sure that it's just there to make me gag. Not to mention that the concept of dried blood from slaughter houses isn't too appealing.

When I think about organic farming methods in a case like this, I always wonder what vegans think about it.

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite Maui Brew Co. Beer


This is a tough one and I'm a little bit ashamed to say that I'm going to go with the most basic and most girliest of choices by voting for the Bikini Blonde. Yes, the other brews are interesting and at times overwhelmingly hoppy (which seems to elicit a thumbs up from many a beer connoisseur) but The Bikini Blonde is just so damn refreshing!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite Departed WWOOFer

I dropped my home-girl, Lulu, off at the airport today. It was sad but we high-fived it out. Our room feels rather empty.