Beth Kohn is a San Francisco-based writer and photographer who specializes in outdoor recreation, social justice issues and Latin America.
life with public transit
21 September 2009
Some days I space out over dinner and can't remember where I am or what the hell I did all day. Here's an example from a few days ago:
Reforma Agraria to highway junction (5 minutes)
From the village of Reforma Agraria, a rickety lodge truck drops us back on the border highway. I stand up in the back next to the luggage, watching the ground through holes in the wooden floorboards. The van we're trying to catch passes 15 minutes earlier than usual, but our driver can't get the horn to work and signal for it to stop. We sit down in a cement shelter with a piece of lumber propped up as a makeshift bench, and notice a small cemetery behind us. Waiting across the street is a weathered man wearing tall rubber boots and holding a machete, and we exchange pleasantries. Your van just went past, he says, why didn't you stop it?
death by soy
11 September 2009
After witnessing a mere two specimens walking the streets of DF in face masks, the whole flu thing seems like a relic. At least until you notice the free hand sanitizer sitting on every front desk and building entrance, and oversize street posters with step-by-step instructions on how to wash your hands.
from the zócalo to zinacantán
3 September 2009
Ladies and gentlemen! Dust off that Spanish dictionary and charge up your currency converters! I'm on the road again in Latin America, this time to update the Chiapas and Tabasco chapter of Lonely Planet's Mexico guidebook. Against the backdrop of a well-publicized flu pandemic, intermittent feudal drug war shootouts and the pressure of entertaining my teenage traveling companion, your intrepid scribe will be oohing and ahhing over some of the Mexico's best green places and giving a shout out to all the compas, down south.
high sierra happiness
2 September 2009
I recently finished my first sola backpacking trip, a six day test-drive of the John Muir Trail. But until midway, when I jettisoned an excess five pounds of trail mix and dehydrated vegetarian protein, it was truly a hip-busting trial. In times of high altitude semi-delirium, I kept my feet in motion by humming Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper and the theme song from the Flintstones. Over and over and over again. I plastered the welts under my waist belt with chunks of moleskin and did my best to look jaunty when I crossed paths with fellow hikers. And I swore not to remember just the phenomenal alpine scenery, but also the times when I wanted to shirk my pack and slink away.
attack of the testy seagulls
13 July 2009
Alfred Hitchcock must have spent time on Anacapa while researching for The Birds. A chain of three almost-connected scrubby islands just off the coast north of Los Angeles, I'd been warned that Anacapa's resident seagulls weren't exactly kiss-kiss sociable. A friend had even recommended that I bring a helmet, but for some reason I hadn't paid heed. Can't countenance the idea of vicious attack birds? Imagine the reaction you'd get strolling through a parents' meeting at a nursery school wearing a sign that reads "child molester."
During nesting season, fuzzy gray gull babies plod the treeless ground like the wide-eyed infants they are, while screeching adults menace any and all humans (and try to eat each other's offspring). A quarter mile exploratory walk from my campsite evolved into a shooter game where I was the bonus target. Eerily surrounded and outnumbered by beach-variety seagulls, I'd hear a screech of avian rage and then the dreaded flapping sound. Hovering just overhead, a bloodthirsty beak would unleash a high pitched warrior cry, lunging at my ears. The really angry ones unloaded copious barrages of liquid bird poop, which thankfully missed me as I ran zigzagging back to the tent.
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