Madrid, Spain, 02.01.2007
somehow i like how the bodies of Sibe and Ivan look parallel or something like that. and, my dearest friends, for how sad it may sound, i guess that's it. each one of us is leaving for his/her winter holidays (very short), so we'll give us a pause for a few days. but, this very site is gonna be alive during the next months, so have fun yourselves as well and see you soon right here!
Madrid, Spain, 01.01.2007
we are now in madrid airport, and this is a tribute photo to all the computers that allowed me to keep the blog updated.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 01.01.2007
the last day was free day, and everyone did his own things. we had a goodbye dinner with Gonzalo and Alex, and we were ready to sleep our last night..
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 01.01.2007
in the night we had a parrilla, then we met with some friends and we finally went to a milonga! actually we visited two, this was the second one and it was packed of people who knew how to move their legs. lorenzo and paola couldn't resist and they danced, crashing into the other couples all the time but having a lot of fun.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 01.01.2007
even though i'm pretty sure he didn't unload his gun when we gently asked him to, we went with him to La Boca, and he annoyed EVERY damn person walking less than 5 meters from him. these are young and drunk post men to whom he told a story about being a hijo de puta. they were amused and wished us a happy new year.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 01.01.2007
while Blu and Sibe enjoyed the sun at the pool, we continued our process of discovering the city, and the afternoon was dedicated for a tour with Hugo, who we already introduced. this is how often he opens his house windows.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 01.01.2007
at the spot where Blu painted we met quite a few people, and amongst them was Ronaldo, who actually is called Ronald, but when he arrived here from Ireland the officials had his name changed. he's an endless pit of knowledge about anything, and he offered us to make a tour around the city.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 29.12.2006
here's a very dynamic picture of alex, our favourite journalist from new york (but working in buenos aires right now), talking to sibe while Blu add the last touches to the giant piece. hey, by the way, do you know our trip's almost over? just two days more. the clock is ticking and we feel a little sad.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 28.12.2006
i promised you we would get back to work, and so we did. Leave space for probably one the biggest piece Blu's ever done!
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 26.12.2006
the day after we had lunch with Paola's family, who were very nice and we felt at home. then a visit the delta of the nearby river allowed us to rest a little bit and recover from the hangover by drawing and being killed by mosquitoes. ok, we promise today we go back to work!
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 26.12.2006
..but Paola and her sister Agus saved our night and took me and ivan around quite a few parties, and while going to bed at 9 in the morning we could call it the craziest christmas night we ever had (well, at least me).
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 26.12.2006
..that's why ivan doesn't seem too happy to be forced to buy incredibly cheap wine and snacks in the only kiosk left open..
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 26.12.2006
we were wondering how our christmas would have been different from what we are used to back in italy, but finding ourselves searching for a cheap restaurant at midnight in the empty streets excedeed what we had in mind..
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 24.12.2006
we went dancing, at last! and we really respected these two djs who played Ace of Base and The Ramones in the same set.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 24.12.2006
we painted the wall opposite to the Blu's one, and a magical light blessed the last pictures of the day.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 24.12.2006
a walking man, a dog on a leash, some yellow paint, some black paint, a blue brain to create the piece, a building to paint it on, a camera to take the picture, a person to snap the photo, a tree, maybe some cockroaches on the ground, and your wasted time to read this.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 24.12.2006
now Alan has an an alterego that plays number 10 in the River Plate and kick all his friends' asses.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 23.12.2006
we had local artist Maria join the session, and i couldn't resist and joined them too. we had to finish the piece today and then go paint with a monton of other local artists, but it's raining like it's the last day the sky can pour down water so he's doing it all now, don't know if you know what i mean? sometimes i should bite my nails instead of wasting letters.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 23.12.2006
a visit to the Japanese garden produces some sketchbook drawings and inspired shape compositions in photos.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 23.12.2006
Gonzalo, the one in the picture with the devilish face on his shirt, invited us for dinner. we had the pleasure to take a look at a series of sketchbooks from an exhibition he organized a while ago with a few artists. a few other people came, we had some wine and his cat constantly scratched our arms and legs until he saw blood.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 21.12.2006
painting in the same neighborhood for many days inevitably makes you bump into the most unique people around. This is Ugo, for instance. he told us some strains of his life story, including the time when he killed two paramilitaries for trying to kidnap him (he carries a knife and a 30 years old gun around, just in case..)
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 21.12.2006
the experiment was a success! this is what remains of it..
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 20.12.2006
between various tours around the city, we managed to finally try this experiment we wanted to do since we left italy.. and we're quite happy with the result. more work on this tomorrow!
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 18.12.2006
at the end of the day, Lorenzo felt the need to go conceptual. if you look deep, you can also find a slice of Blu's piece.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 18.12.2006
but we're not the types that a tattoed cop easily puts down, so we headed back to our favourite yard and while the others painted their colorful muniecos Blu had the chance to finally go big.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 18.12.2006
do you remember i told you things would get interesting? well, they did, or at least they almost did, because just right when the others started doing their pieces, the port police came and gently but firmly broke our dreams of hugeness. the lines you see was Blu painting from the windows. damn, we loved that building!
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 17.12.2006
i could choose between a night picture of an old italian car with long exposure car lights in the back, or a picture of a t-shirt we saw yesterday. i decided we need some poetry for this rainy sunday morning!
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 17.12.2006
we went to see an electronic music festival called Mutek. It started very soon to pour tons of rain, so we found refuge at the bar where Blu showed us all the type of dances he knows, including "The English Dance" and the famous "Constructor Dance". It was weird to be in such a place after having been in all the places we've been.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 17.12.2006
before going out at night young people from buenos aires cover their bodies with flour and drink entire bottles of champagne.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 17.12.2006
today we woke up late and devoted all day to tour around town. we ended up in the Palermo Soho area, which seems to be one the "cool" areas of the city, and infact it was pretty cool, in these days there's this festival called "Buen Dia" where young people sell the stuff they make on the streets. we did some shopping and watched the beautiful local girls passing by. speaking of coolness, this guy had for sure the coolest outfit.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 16.12.2006
and surprise! while Blu was painting Lorenzo painted as well the very first wall of his life. by doing this he understood two things about Blu's work: one, that he uses white because it's the color you can see best at night. two, that painting totally wears you off. and an optional third, that looking at your finished wall is pretty satisfying..
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 16.12.2006
sbam sbam sbam a wall after the other! this one is HUGE and is located in a neighborhood whose walls just crave to be painted.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 15.12.2006
if this is the average afternoon of the guys at Doma collective, i want to come live here. we got some food (too bad for vegetarian Blu, the meat was super good, as expected), chilled out at their office while they did some stuff and before dinner we went for a relaxed session of painting.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 14.12.2006
we are in a 12 millions people city, so it's mandatory that we put a picture of a very large road and a tall and well lit building, all shown in a very horizontal and symmetric fashion. behind this view it was us and Gonzalo and his girlfriend Deborah, whom we just had dinner with. he's the owner of "Hollywood in Cambodia" gallery, a very nice space that just opened. more on this in the next days!
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 14.12.2006
we are back in italy and this is our editing room. ha! just joking. this one belongs to Cuatro Cabezas Films, which is one of the most important argentinian production companies (they created the "Caiga Quien Caiga" format, which for our italian friends may be better recognized as "Le Iene"). they were kind enough to give us the chance to look at our footage on a big screen for the first time since we left italy, and it was quite an emotional moment, all meanwhile the Estudiantes team were winning the soccer league over the Boca one.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 14.12.2006
Julian is part of the Doma collective (www.doma.tv), they do all the same things we love to do as well. he then took us out for a ride to check out some empty walls and some others he and other people painted (you may recognize The London Police up there).
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 14.12.2006
aahh, it feels very good to have our own place where you can wake up and go take a coffee in the kitchen still in your underwear. for the first night, Ivan and Sibe (pictured here slicing some vegetable) cooked for us and for Julian, who we had over for for dinner.
and finally, Buenos Aires!! Argentina, 12.12.2006
yes! we got here! the weather is great, our apartment looks great, the city looks great and Blu looks like a young Sean Penn in his newly shaped face without his beard. As for the picture, those were some of the monsters who were chasing us on the plane while getting here.
one the plane to Lima, Peru, 12.12.2006
when you can't find a wall to do your art on, you create "plane art"! ahah! oh well.. sorry, the pen exploded, it's not my fault!
San Jose, Costa Rica, 11.12.2006
whoever else feels a unexplicable actraction to abandoned factories raise your arm! this one didn't even have a roof, that's why you see Blu with that stylish sweater to cover his head from rain while trying to forget about the details he couldn't paint over the piece (wow, such a long period, i need a rest now). by the way, today we're leaving costa rica and flying to Buenos Aires! if you're there and like to paint give us a call!
San Jose, Costa Rica, 10.12.2006
Blu did his "little" part as well, too, while Ivan organized an international soccer match with the kids (by the way, there's quite some talent with feet down here!).
San Jose, Costa Rica, 10.12.2006
could i find a better picture to explain what today was all about? yes! but everyone deserves a little stuntness once in a while. actually the murales behind were painted by the kids of the barrio, and i can assure you they had a GREAT time.
San Jose, Costa Rica, 09.12.2006
today we took our time, eating drawing watching silly tv programs, untill we met with the kids from Rossiter Carballo barrio, to whom Blu taught how to draw letters. this is Cristina, Ivan's new assistant.
San Jose, Costa Rica, 08.12.2006
giving Blu empty walls and some paint is like throwing fuel on a burning fire. not satisfied with one, he painted another, and it is not very common that you get to see him paint a woman.
San Jose, Costa Rica, 08.12.2006
a day dedicated to painting a huge wall is always a healthy day. this one was very close to a local hall of fame, and Blu took the chance to finally use a stick to paint somewhere higher than his arm can reach.
San Jose, Costa Rica, 06.12.2006
Nziga took us to this barrio were the festival will pass for one day in February. She talked to the group of kids belonging to this program, and she did it by singing, rapping and using the spoken word method.. the kids sure were hooked! She then introduced Blu to them and he gave a little speech himself about graffiti, and then we went to check out the walls he's gonna paint. Don't ask me what was burning right next to us.
San Jose, Costa Rica, 06.12.2006
the person Blu was on the phone with actually just wrote him out of the blue (is this a pun?), so we met her this afternoon. Turns out her name is Nziga and she's an amazing woman that does too many things to list here, but the most important is that she's organizing a festival here called "Arte de la Calle" that will showcase talents ranging from graffiti to djing to rap to street performers and much more. While waiting for a car to come she sang us a few of her song she wrote herself. And before meeting her we were thinking the day was wasted.
San Jose, Costa Rica, 06.12.2006
We have the pleasure to announce that our team has finally perfected its patent-pending "Cover your friend speaking on the public telephone right next to the street so he may hear something from the other side"�� method, and we feel proud to show you a picture of them performing it.
Baja Majagual, Nicaragua, 05.12.2006
sorry about repeating, but have you ever thought that when you do long exposure pictures at night the light you're using to impress the photo is still coming all the way from the sun through the moon? thanks sun, we owe you a beer.
Baja Majagual, Nicaragua, 05.12.2006
actually we didn't go directly to Costa Rica, but we stopped in Baja Majagual, a place that resembles more a piece of paradise than planet earth.. we took our time to fall asleep to the ocean waves, to play with long exposure shots, tried to catch some waves with a board, and relaxed before the second half of the trip (keep following us, things are going to get interesting).
Managua, Nicaragua, 02.12.2006
a lazy morning for our last day in Managua. we said hello to Glauco and Sara (thanks for the great time, but most important for the Shakira shirts), Blu finished the piece he was doing in these last days and now we're warming up for the even lazier life of Costa Rica. goodbye Nicaragua!
Managua, Nicaragua, 02.12.2006
just a small reminder to let you know that Blu's diary of the trip is alive and kicking.
Managua, Nicaragua, 02.12.2006
Dear Sibe, we really like you, you don't need to attract attention on you by, first thing in the morning, slipping and falling in front of the house and smashing your hip and elbow and wrist on the sidewalk.. am i right? here you can see Blu taking care of her just moments after the crash.
Leon, Nicaragua, 30.11.2006
depeche mode are playing and brushes gently caressing the wall.. the hostel whose wall he's painting is called Lazy Bones and i feel it's gonna be a pretty sweet hostel (this piece is my favourite of all, if i'm allowed to say that).
Leon, Nicaragua, 30.11.2006
all you need to feel good about life is a wall to paint and a pool to dip your body into when it's too sore from too much painting.
Managua, Nicaragua, 29.11.2006
..and the second one was Felipe's house, who was (or still is) a member of a local pandilla, who asked us to do a piece on request. All the kids from the barrio came to see this strange people in their territory, we took a thousand pictures of them and we finished right when rain was starting to pour down. For sure was Lorenzo's craziest birthday of his life!
Managua, Nicaragua, 29.11.2006
you remember i told you about this barrio where you couldn't bring anything with you because you would get robbed? actually things aren't always as people paint them, since the people were the nicest and we found not one but two families who let us paint their "houses". The first one's theme was dedicated to the nueva vida barrio, while some girls inside where dancing like we seldom see in Europe..
Managua, Nicaragua, 29.11.2006
a new day in Nueva Vida! Blu had his second day of workshop made, the kids painted a wall, for most of them was the first time painting and some of them where even better than us at it, damn. we had some arroz y fricoles and the artist finished his piece for the centre, Redes de Solidariedad (Net of Solidariety, for you folks who still don't know spanish).
Managua, Nicaragua, 28.11.2006
it was just a matter of time before the member of the team who keeps us tied to reality also showcased her ability to cook. while the males were talking about international politics, a wonderful italian dinner made of gnocchi di patate with tomato sauce was made by Sibe herself with the help of Sara (god knows what they were talking about actually). the males you see in the pic are bodyguards, actually. a few slices of cocco and more rum led us straight to bed, were i should go now by the way as well..
Managua, Nicaragua, 28.11.2006
a quick visit in the barrio with Rosa, the head of the project, showed us the ground where the real "action" goes on.. we discussed later tonight that the impression it left us was of being somehow useless. it just became stronger when it started to pour kilograms of rain, and even though we didn't have electric power for all afternoon in our house, our thoutghs went to the people we met in the afternoon, with their houses built with just a few pieces of wood or cheap iron or even just a small tissue.
Managua, Nicaragua, 28.11.2006
Our italian friends work in this centre in this barrio called Nueva Vida, which was created after hurricane Mitch stroke over Managua in 1998, leaving thousands of people homeless. They all came here and now live in these "houses" which resemble pretty much a favela. Together with the heads of the place we organized a workshop for Blu to teach these kids from the barrio how to make stencils, and tomorrow he will be painting a wall with them.
Managua, Nicaragua, 27.11.2006
can you believe this is the artist whose walls you all love? we neither. ok, enough with the silly pictures, actually tomorrow it's gonna be a pretty intense day.. i will just tell you Glauco and Sara, our friends we're staying at who works in this centre to help people from the poorest barrio in Managua, told us that while going there we should not carry ANYTHING with us, and that means really NOTHING. the stories about this place are not your average stories about a city neighborhood..
Managua, Nicaragua, 27.11.2006
and finally, after a month of travelling, actually after 26 years of life, i got to see the mouth of a real vulcano! my travel friends will take a piss on me for this, but i felt like earth was giving us the privilege to look at her inside for a moment.. oh well, just enjoy the picture.
Managua, Nicaragua, 27.11.2006
...stumbling upon a backyard with seemingly abandoned buses and fawns.
Managua, Nicaragua, 27.11.2006
going to meet Blu's friend Alicia, attending her father's candles fair in front of their house, walking to go eat something, meeting these kids who play drums and dance with crazy costumes and declare sentences about social problems and whatever you ask them to shout about, eating something, meeting Alicia again, going to have beers with her and her friends, trying to understand drunk people talking very fast spanish, and...
Managua, Nicaragua, 26.11.2006
just a small reminder: Managua was totally destroyed in 1972 by a tragic earthquake. Almost all of the 4-5 stories colonic houses crumbled down, leaving the city and population on its knees. when it was built again, it looks like the people kept the height of the houses to a minimum, which is why when you look at the city from a hill you almost just see trees all over the place. By the way, it's a sunny afternoon and this picture is dedicated to all the lovers in the world!
Managua, Nicaragua, 26.11.2006
Scaring the hell out of a harmless dog has never been so much fun! Actually it was funny just for that dollar-changing man at the Honduras-Nicaragua frontier. By the way, we're in Nicaragua! See the stamp? It changed! After a 16 hours drive across Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua where the others watched movies about killing the president and Lorenzo explored the wonderful world of acetate animation on bus-windshield, we reached Managua and got a nice hostel where we fell asleep watching The Dreamers and therefore we dreamed tits all night long.
Atitlan, Guatemala, 24.11.2006
ah, uh.. well... don't even know where to start. this "river" last year destroyed dozens and dozens of houses, and killed many people. we found this house, who is one of the fallen houses, and we thought a little decoration would have been a nice touch to it, you know. so, Blu starts painting, and at some point this guy comes out and he asks what we're doing. another one comes out, and he's way more pissed than the other, saying that we crossed that barbedwire and we invaded private proprierty. we suggest that maybe we could go buy white paint and cover it, but when we went to buy it we realized it was better not to go back and leave.. sorry guys but we still got a month left!
Atitlan, Guatemala, 23.11.2006
we are very serious about taking ourselves not too seriously.
Guatemala City, Guatemala, 22.11.2006
to top the absurd situation, we then literally walked 5 meters and got into the house of Flaco and Kunti, who showed us the spot where to paint, and there we intervied them and Zame and Woser, who today represented Guatemala city for our camera for the graffiti scene here. during the interview an almost naked and very beatiful woman gets into the house, says hello, quickly rolls a joint and get out.. turns out he's a man and sells his body in front of the street.
Guatemala City, Guatemala, 22.11.2006
finally, it had to happen sooner or later, but no one expected that the first illegal piece of the trip would have been done in the most central zone of the city and in complete daylight.
Guatemala City, Guatemala, 21.11.2006
we bought a few handmade sketchbooks and we left, headed for the house of Carlos and Eluvia, which Sibe knew a few years ago here in Guate. Carlos is Rigoberta Menchu husband's brother, and he's currently working for United Nations doing a research about Maya culture, going around the small towns with mayan spiritual guides to collect knowledge from original local maya people for an official report. we were expecting some interesting stories, but what they told us and the simplicity, humbleness and wisdom they conveyed left us speechless.
Guatemala City, Guatemala, 21.11.2006
lately i've found myself waking up in the morning with this feeling of cannot waiting to see what will happen during the day. Today was one of those days that went beyond expectations, actually. we went to the place where Jose works and co-founded, Caja Ludica, which is a cultural building where they give kids the opportunity to learn to express themselves and get organized doing it. Any art craft has a space where they can exercise themselves. we really felt a great vibe all around. Here are a few young girls taken from the streets practicing a ballet.
Guatemala City, Guatemala, 20.11.2006
we left the seaside and we're back at 1800 meters over it. we're staying at Jose and Violeta's place, a nice house in Guatemala City. Jose is an artist and has a studio bigger than my house full of interesting things. we had a pizza delivered and he offered us the very best Ron in the world!
Livingston, Guatemala, 20.11.2006
Collaboration between Blu and Carlos, the 12 years old kid brother of our hostel bartender.
Livingston, Guatemala, 19.11.2006
then we went with Dario, a local guy who knew his way around and said "ya man" to everyone he met, for a tour in the city. He took us to the cemetery, whose pink and light blue and violet tombs suggested that life is more like a piece of candy than a sour block of cement. here is a few members of his family playing in their house garden.
Livingston, Guatemala, 19.11.2006
we're currently in Livingston, a small town on the carribean sea that is mostly inhabitated by Garifuna people, sons of the sons of the slaves deported from africa by the spanish, mainly. We got permission to paint a small wooden house, and since painting a wall can get a little boring, here it's me passing the time by encouraging some kids to use their sling on some innocent bottle of water.
Rio Dulce, Guatemala, 18.11.2006
tonight we slept in a nice hostel, but it rained, and a lot, and the roof was leaking, and guess over what was the roof leaking?
El Remate, Guatemala, 16.11.2006
halfway through a corn-inspired wall for this humid morning in central america.
El Remate, Guatemala, 16.11.2006
Umberto has a few things to say about striving for a better life. For instance telling about trying to illegally (and unsuccessfully) crossing the mexican-U.S. border for four times.
El Remate, Guatemala, 16.11.2006
if you're wondering why we're updating so many pics, it's because we're both addicted to our travel diary and because Blu is painting this internet cafe wall. The owners are super sweet and they gave us lemonade and invited us for dinner tonight. Did i tell you there's a beautiful lake in front of our hostel? Blu and Sibe took an afternoon swim while Lorenzo and Ivan were trying to interview our hostel chief Umberto but can you believe they couldn't make it because there were too many birds singing in his garden?!
Tikal, Guatemala, 15.11.2006
The Tikal Archelogical site is actually in a huge natural park with many square kms of jungle. You get pumas, jaguars, ant eaters, and so on. With a little help of a seed in front of the lens, here is how we managed to get a face shot of that illegally cute animal (damn, i can't keep in mind how it's called). National Geographic talent scouts, please form an orderly queue.
Tikal, Guatemala, 15.11.2006
gettin so lucky to catch another view like yesterday's would have been too much.. even though we woke up at 3:30 am to see dawn from the tallest pyramid in Tikal and we just got complete fog in front of us, it was still worth it for the jungle sounds and the out-of-this-world atmosphere, which is emphasized by seeing so many pyramids covered by earth (sorry but this trips me out).
El Remate, Guatemala, 14.11.2006
after having our passport signed in this military post on the shore, we reach a small port. Signs on walls like "please we told you not to shit here" and smiling people everywhere greet us. We take a bus to Flores, that stops every 20 meters and allows people to jump off, piss and get back onboard. An old woman pukes right behind us and her nephew does the same. We reach Flores, choose between 20 taxi offers and drive off to El Remate. We take a room and we go eat. We're happy and excited, so much that Ivan feels free to put his foot on the table, Blu feels free to draw, and we feel all free to talk about horror movies. I guess that's enough for a megunica day!
still no man's land, or well, no man's water, 14.11.2006
and after some dirty off-roading, where we were unsure if we were really crossing the border or ending up being beaten up or robbed, we reached the shore of Rio San Pedro, which would have been our way to reach Guatemala. This other kid puts us in the boat and takes us into this beautiful bruuuumm across the river. in the middle of the trip, he stops the boat and asks us if we needed to cross the border illegally, but we gently turned down the proposal and told him to head to the Guatemalean frontier.
mexico-guatemala border, no man's land, 14.11.2006
after having our passport signed, we walk into this open air "market" where people where selling stuff. then this kid, i think he wasn't thirteen, asks us if we need a lift to the boat we would use to cross the border. Well, yes, we need it if you say so.. and so we found in the back of this "market", jumping on this van while pigs where searching for some food near our feet.
travelling to the border of Mexico, 14.11.2006
so we found ourselves driving in this roads where tourists don't usually go. Particular moments of this part where Ivan almost killing himself by stepping into the void of an abandoned rail track on a 20 meters tall bridge, seeing people being held in prison for trying to cross the border, and reaching the border and wondering if it was an official place or just a group of decaying cabanas.
a hour outside Palenque, Chiapas, mexico, 14.11.2006
these days we're travelling like a small group of migratory birds. bruce chatwin would be proud of us! but let me narrate the latest chapter of our wandering. Our adventure starts more or less in this road, where some people selling stuff on the street told us the way was blocked, since some groups of people with weapons had occupied a piece of land and would not allow people in. So we had to quickly search for another route. Our taxi driver was willing to bring us anywhere, so we turned our car 180 degrees and we were back on the road again.
Palenque, Chiapas, mexico, 13.11.2006
Matteo, our guide, showing us this reproduction of a low-relief found in one of the tombs. If you look at it vertically, it's the figure of a deity, with a lot of adorning symbols. If you look at it orizontally, all the space-travel junkies like us will be happy to know that some experts say it's a man driving a spaceship. Rock on!
Palenque, Chiapas, mexico, 13.11.2006
With more than a thousand buildings, half of which has not been uncovered from the ever-growing vegetation (which just add to the overall feeling of mistery, if you ask me), Palenque archeological site has been for sure the most magical of all the places we visited. The sudden rain just eerified the situation, while owling monkeys were for sure perpetuating some kind of human sacrifices in the nearby jungle.
Tulum, Yucatan, mexico, 11.11.2006
we could show you the beautiful natural pools in the caves, the iguanas relaxing on the mayan ruins, but the overwhelming presence of tourists in these places force us to introduce you to a sample of that race, seen very rarely at home but so much abroad.
Tulum, Yucatan, mexico, 11.11.2006
with the greatest pleasure from our boss, today we donated all day to swimming, snorkeling on the barrier reef, eating and getting roasted under the sun. To be fair, though, we dedicated half of the day to do an animation on sand.
Tulum, mexico, 10.11.2006
today we pretty much travelled all day, and we don't have much to show. oh well, maybe you'd like to know we took a swim at sunset in the warmest sea of our life..
Merida, mexico, 09.11.2006
when we arrived at the hostel, we found Blu had done his homework: a few A4 papers for something we'd like to try, and a few drawings. here is our hostel-singer that dresses like an office worker and never sings new songs, but we love him all the same.
Merida, mexico, 09.11.2006
today Gustavo, one of the guys from yesterday's crew, took us around Merida and its outskirts. we filmed some kids playing basketball barefooted, almost ran over a hundred dogs, went to see an incredible "cenota" (a hole in the ground with water where you can swim), threw some rocks in it, stopped by Gustavo's grandfather, interviewed his drunk neighbor (here is Ivan filming him up close and personal telling a Maya tale), went to see some murals by Yucatan's best painter, got home, ate a pasta cooked by Sibe, took our malary pills, chatted for a while, went to bed.
Merida, Mexico, 08.11.2006
hey MasterCard creatives, check this out: - flying out four people all the way to central america, 4000 $ - making a 16 hour bus trip to end it puking with high fever, 130 $ - spending the day with local merida graffiti writers and painting with them and hearing their stories of gangs and filming them singing mexican rap, FUCKING PRICELESS -
Merida, Mexico, 08.11.2006
finally we kind of recovered! we called this writer "Boogy", and he arrived with a few friends at our hostel with their car boasting mexican rap pretty loud. sibe and ivan stayed to rest a little more, and lorenzo and blublublu(blu) took off with the new friends. little did they know. this is the piece Blu did in, uhm, 20 minutes, since the sun was already down.
Merida, mexico, 07.11.2006
Therefore, this is basically what we did all day long today.
Villa Hermosa, mexico, 06.11.2006
when the bus stops at villa hermosa, where we had to change the bus for Merida, lorenzo says: "i feel fever" and ivan says: "i feel fever too". in a few minutes our heads explode, and ivan even pukes. i guess coming down 2200 metres to 0 and finding such a humid weather can fuck you up.. here you can see Sibe trying to use pranotherapy over Ivan to bring him back to life. right now we're in Merida at this hostel just sleeping for all day, trying to see if we recover (Blu is a little ill as well). aahh, the excitement of backpacking!
between Puebla and Villa Hermosa, mexico, 06.11.2006
being hypnotized by looking outside of the bus window. here are some kids playing soccer just besides the highway.
Puebla, mexico, 06.11.2006
lorenzo and ivan went with Pilar and her sister to watch a movie. when they were coming back, right in front of her house, this taxi just drives off and slams into this sidewalk. turns out the driver was drunk out of his mind. we tried to help him move the car but as you can see it was worthless.. the funny thing is that when we told him the wheel was destroyed he didn't give a damn and he lit a cigarette, without even looking. then he went to get some local kids to push the car, by offering them cigarettes. the morning after he fixed it in the street.
Puebla, mexico, 06.11.2006
finally! after a relaxing weekend where we recovered (well, not really.. more later) and our friends at Soolid.it managed to put the site back again, we are back on the road. so during saturday Blu took his time to finish properly his piece for Pilar's house.
Puebla, 04.11.2006
we were here at the school, and this lady with his nephew came and they wanted to show us the boy's murales. Lorenzo y Ivan went to their house and they found out Gerardo is a very good painter! remember this name, Gerardo from Puebla!
Puebla, 03.11.2006
while we're downstairs here at the photography school (Centro Integral de Fotografia, coordinated by Lilia Martinez y Torres) messing around with mannequins and emails, blublublublu is upstairs breathing fresh air, thinking about beans and painting in the meanwhile. A journalist from the local newspaper came before and interviewed him.
Puebla, 03.11.2006
just in case you didn't notice, you never see Blu's face. that's not by chance.. this is a test for one of the ways to cover it while filming. you can rate our level of professionalism from 1 to 10 in the comment space.
Cholula near Puebla, 03.11.2006
lorenzo ate that cricket. and yes, he's growing a mustache.
Cholula, near Puebla, 03.11.2006
finally, los dias de los muertos! we went into this cemetery. I expected people not to be "sad", but seeing them laughing their heart out in front of their relatives tombs was quite strange to see for death-fearing person like us.
Puebla, 02.11.2006
Pilar not only allows us to paint her front house wall, but she found us a great wall at her sister's photography school. this is our beloved artist reharsing some moves before the show.
Cholula, near Puebla, 02.11.2006
kids go around and you put a few pesos in their orange pumpkins. sorry, i finished them! no mas dinero!
Cholula, near Puebla, 02.11.2006
here we are in puebla! we're staying at Pilar's house. She is Guillermo Rivero's mom, who is a super good writer that is currently in Fabrica, italy. Lorenzo met him there and now he proposed to meet his mom, and so here we are! she's super nice and she teaches popular art history. by the way, mexico = colors.
The church you see is actually built over the biggest pyramid in the world, Piramide Tepanapa, but when hispanic arrived it was already covered by the forest, and they built over it.
mexico city, 01.11.2006
the mosquitoes were KILLING us, so we run away, went to see a series of crazy murals made by our new friends and some other people, took a cab to the centre (a 40 minutes ride), had some food and then we interviewed our local artists. From left to right: SKETCH, DIABLO, VENUS. thanks so much for everything!! (this is a picture of us actually "working", so our boss hopefully stops for a while complaining about how much we're enjoying our paid vacation)
gelatao barrio, south of mexico city, 01.11.2006
while painting, Diablo tells me that right next to us was the biggest skatepark in central america. i mean, wow! we went there and i carved a few lines. aaaahhh, what more can you ask for?!
mexico city, 01.11.2006
ok, here's the story: we are being contacted by a lot of people, and one of this was this guy from mexico city, VENUS. we tried to call him and he proposed to go paint together. we met in front of Bella Artes and he turns out to be a super down to earth and cool guy. we bought some paint and we headed south of mexico city.
mexico city, 01.11.2006
no matter where you are in the world, your average breakfast pastries don't get any cooler than this dias de los muertos inspired thing.
teotihuacan, 31.10.2006
does this picture show how much we're dwelving into mexican culture? it doesn't, but sometimes you need to be just plain dumb.
teotihuacan, 31.10.2006
we aknowledge Blu is eveywhere over this blog, but i can't find a better picture of beautiful pyramid site Teotihuacan, which we went visit today. it was very relaxing, we did a little of sightseeing, draw on our sketchbooks, played with a wild dog and generally felt plain tourists. We got burned from the sun so much our bones ache, though..
mexico city, 30.10.2006
this morning we tried to go to this building in front of our hotel, to ask the people living there if we could paint the wall facing our rooftop. They couldn't give permission, so no wall no party. So, while Blu and Sibe were at the anthropological museum, we bought some acetate paper and had him paint over it on the window with a live real wall on the back. Not the same thing, but sure it looks pretty nice.
mexico city, 30.10.2006
people protesting against fox and ruiz. it loos like mexican people know how to make their voice heard!
mexico city, 30.10.2006
Blu said that this drawing could be the inspiration for his first wall here. let's see what happens.
Mexico City, 30.10.2006
Something is rotten in the state of Mexico. Well, it looks like. Bad confrontations between paramilitary forces and locals from Oxaca has been going on two days ago, and today all mexico city was in the streets to protest against Oxaca governor Ruiz and, more generally, the fraud of the latest elections. We're still thinking to go to oxaca, though. let's see.
Mexico City, 30.10.2006
and here we have Ivan fullfilling to life one of his lifelong dreams: owning a badass mexican wrestler mask.
Mexico City, 28.10.2006
Blu already started filling up his sketchbook.. here is a small but very effective introduction about us. Hey, by the way, now that we're in mexico we can start using this very cool feature that allows us to put the right stamp here in the upper corner corresponding to the country we're in.. so now we're in mexico and you get the mexican stamp.. get it? yeah, we know, it's useless. Please go on reading..
Mexico City, 28.10.2006
Straight out of the hotel and into the Fine Arts Museum. There we stared with open mouths at Diego Rivera's murals, which are nothing short of breathtaking.
Mexico City, 28.10.2006
finally, we're in Mexico! a real gentleman would describe us as being "fucking excited". NOTE: THANKS SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO'S WRITING US, WE'LL TRY TO GET BACK TO EACH ONE OF YOU PERSONALLY AS SOON AS WE HAVE A FEW MINUTES TO BREATHE! now let us go faint in bed.. :) -- and: as you may have seen, the photos are not in chronological order yet, we're workin on it! and we'll put comments too, so you can say hello or worse things.
over the atlantic, 28.10.2006
instructions on how to gain a free business class trip: 1. go to the airport late 2. have the italian agency create some problems with the flight tickets 3. smile to the woman at the checkin 4. enjoy your flight!
Madrid, Espana, 26.10.2006
We went to the Prado Museum and personally i was amazed by several pieces by Goya and Bosch, but we all agreed that this "Triumph of Death" by Pieter Brueghel was outstanding. Google it (keep in mind it was done around 1525 a.c.)!
Madrid, Espana, 26.10.2006
Later they took us to this very spanish place where people drink and eat tapas and stuff. This sandwhich, the almighty "Zapatillo", reminded more of a giant spaceship rather than something you eat. Me and Ivan had crazy dreams because of that, i dreamed of my Mercurio boss being stinged by a tarantula in a house full of ghosts and designer toys.
Madrid, Espana, 26.10.2006
We met with local street artists El Tono, Nuria and Nano. This is a piece Tono and Nuria did which is actually not a proper piece, but just a reflection of a street lamp post against a properly cut mirror.
Bologna, Italia, 26.10.2006
Compulsory Blu haircut before leaving for the Army serv... ehm, for our trip.
Bologna, 24.10.2006
this is how we're gonna walk tomorrow through the airport check-in.
