i'm sharing some yerba mate tea with a german and an argentinian at the international hostel in flagstaff. they are having a nice conversation while i tap anti-socially on my computer keyboard.  i've just checked out of the hostel since you have to check out by 11am, but they are letting me keep my bag locked up here until 2pm, when my rental car is showing up.   (well, to be fair i am piping in once in awhile)

at that time i plan to drive over to a swimming hole in oak canyon featured in my recently purchased book of southwestern swimming holes.  unfortunately, the weather is cooler today than it has been, so i'm not sure i'll actually feel like swimming when i get there. i might just lay on the rocks and take in the scenery and read a book while soaking in the sun. and perhaps polish off a mini bottle of chardonay that my roommate left behind in the refrigerator.  

i should probably back up a second and explain why i'm here - to check out the mba program at northern arizona university. i had an interview with the program coordinators on friday, and based on that i'm pretty sure i'll be accepted and offered the peace corps fellowship, which includes a tuition waiver and a small stipend.  so i am probably in my future home right now.

yesterday i went to sedona, which is sort of the junior version of the grand canyon, with my hostel roommate carol and another hostel guest, sheegecko (i have no idea how you spell her name, actually, but that's how you pronounce it shee - gecko). sheegecko is from japan, and she's in the us doing the "longest walk"  www.longestwalk.org . she doesn't speak that much english, but she radiates compassion. she's a nurse, and appears to be in her 50's, and wears simple linen clothes and a well-worn sunhat.  she has been walking from san francisco but now has to go back to japan because her visa ran out. she plans to spend a month in japan before coming back to catch up with the group and walk the rest of the way to washington dc in solidarity with native americans. 

carol is originally from china, but has been living in the us since she was 16.  2 years out of college, carole recently quit her job as a sales analyst for an environmentally-friendly pet toy company in san francisco and is on a solo road trip across the country on route 66. ( www.gonefishingunitedstates.spaces.live.com )

carol has a freewheeling and liberal air, although i found her views on the subject of tibet to be surprisingly conservative.  during our dinner at a thai restaurant the night before last, she told me that the idea of tibet as an independent nation was naive, because tibet was too far behind the rest of the world and "needed so much help."  she feels that the tibetan people are being used for a political agenda by those who are fighting for independence.

on our way to sedona, we stopped at oak creek canyon for a short 3 mile hike.  the hike followed oak creek  and we hopped across it on rocks several times. in the background were some pretty nice views of grand canyon-esque sandstone formations.  the terrain was easy and gently rolling, so there were lots of families out, too, as well as a large group of school kids.  

to be honest, when we entered sedona my first reaction was revulsion.  the landscape was awe inspiring, but the commercialized tourist strip, complete with "pink jeep tours" and "the new age center" reminded me of the wisconsin dells injected with targeted new agey marketing.  sedona is the home to 4 "vortexes," supposed "energy centers"  where "the earth's energy is supposedly increased, leading to self-awareness and various kinds of healing." ( http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/travel/09sedona.html ) .  my skepticism of these vortexes does not come from a skepticism of spiritual energy, but of marketing, and of cultural appropriation.  according the sheegecko, who knows a lot about native american culture, the place used to be forbidden to visit for anyone except a shaman, back in the days before the american genocide.  to see it now pimped out to yuppy tourists in pink jeeps was sad to say the least.  i think sedona is a good example of what happens to a beautiful natural paradise when it's not protected.

sheegecko is buddhist and had read about the vortex energy center thing, so she really wanted to check them out.  we went to one called cathedral rock, and hiked up to a big flat rock from which one could see both cathedral rock and another vortex, bell rock.  on the big flat rock was a new age tour group of maybe 25 people, practicing pseudo tai chi.  sheegecko wanted to climb up to the top, but carole and i weren't groovin on it, so we told her we'd wait for her.  she ended up coming back down shortly saying the rock got too steep for her.  she asked me if i felt anything from the vortex, and i said no. she said she didn't either.

after sedona, we headed to jerome, a mountainside settlement of artists that used to be a ghost copper mining town but was revived by hippies who rebuilt it in the 70's.  it reminded carole and me of european mountain towns in the alps (except with american style houses).  there were probably 50 different art galleries to visit, but we just managed to see a few.  we saw the jerome museum and had pizza at bordelo pizzeria "the best slice in town."  it was, too.  there was a very artsy, hippy, yet unpretentious vibe in the town, and though there were hundreds of tourists, there were not many of the super cheesy tourist shops (we searched for a bumper sticker that said 'jerome' for carole's car, and came up empty-handed), and it didn't feel nearly as commercialized as sedona, even though it was very commercial in its own way.