T O D A Y Esther Dyson, road warrior By Don George The Net's most frequent flyer shares her travel secrets wanderlust Eating around in Boston By Larry Smith The way to the heart of Boston is through its stomach The Surreal Gourmet By Bob Blumer Don't let El Niño come between you and a good meal Mondo Weirdo Old McDonald had a farm -- in Ecuador - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Your virtual travel agency - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LA S T+W E E K Tuesday, Oct. 28, 1997 Your money's no good here By Tim Cahill Travels in a cashless culture Browse the Wanderlust archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		This week's Mondo Weirdo takes us to a wild, end-of-the-road commune in Ecuador, the creepy-crawlie-infested jungles of Malaysia and an ice-fishing outpost in northern Canada -- by way of Colombia. The world is full of wonders, as wanderlusters well know! Do you have an amazing travel tale to tell? Send your story to wanderlust@salonmagazine.com. when my fiancée and I spent our honeymoon in Ecuador, one of the things we wanted to see was a dry tropical forest. The guidebooks pointed us to Parque Nacional Machalilla, an out-of-the-way preserve on the hot and muggy Pacific coast. The cramped bus ride to reach the park's border featured a movie on videotape, a sort of "Dirty Dozen" meets Shonen Knife story, in which seven Japanese biker girls take on a leering Nazi scientist and his Uzi-toting minions -- and win, probably because nobody in the film could understand the plot or the dubbed-into-English-with-Spanish-subtitles Japanese. Machalilla turned out to be even more peculiar. The ranger directed us to hike "for an hour" down a dirt road, to a place called Agua Blanca. Agua Blanca turned out to be a working commune, possibly Ecuador's only one (the residents themselves weren't sure), and, park or no park, the locals there grazed their livestock in classic Western open-range style. The wildlife count for the two days spent in Agua Blanca: seven cows, 38 goats, four burros, innumerable chickens and six hefty pigs. Sure, up high in the spectacular cloud forest lorikeets sang and falcons laughed, but the dry forest was strictly Old McDonald. The sleeping quarters at the park museum were equally as entertaining. Outside, the 38 goats spent most of the night bleating and the roosters crowed at least once per bleat. Inside, a family of bats chirped and fluttered overhead; their droppings littering the floor, our packs and even our sleeping bags. Why they didn't go outside and eat some insects like normal bats, I'll never know. Perhaps they were afraid of the roosters. The best wildlife of all sat splayed on the porch: an honest-to-goodness lesser anteater, a rare beastie -- and quite dead. The desiccated anteater kept watch from on top of a wooden crate, his tail to the door and his long nose aimed at the hills, wondering, no doubt, where all his fellow anteaters had gone. Zoos, I think -- or maybe a Japanese western. -- Mark Rigney - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Snuggling up with creepy crawlies A few weeks ago, I went into the jungles of Malaysia for a four-day practical jungle survival skills camp. The leader of our tour -- affectionately called "Bandit Leader" -- kept reminding us that the jungle is neutral territory, that it's a very safe and interesting environment. With all those stories that you hear about the jungle, I was afraid of being bitten by snakes, scorpions, centipedes, you name it. Every time we set up camp, we used wild palms to make our shelters. Bandit Leader would always assure us that if the creepy crawlies did come toward us, it would be only to seek shelter from us. This reassurance did nothing to assuage my fears. Nothing happened for the next four days except that we learned a great deal about the jungle: how to identify edible, medicinal and poisonous plants, how to trek without using any navigational equipment, how to predict weather the primitive way, how to make your own water containers, and so on and so forth. But when I arrived back in Belgium, I had two stowaways in my rucksack -- a giant black scorpion and an eight-inch millipede! And I was lugging this rucksack for almost three weeks after the survival camp! Yep, the jungle is indeed an interesting environment, you never know what to expect. -- Anne C. Samson - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Iguana eggs -- on the rocks On a trip to a Colombian rain forest, I saw children shooting cat-sized iguanas out of the trees. They would cut open the females with razor blades and remove their eggs. With a little bit of sewing and some wood ash rubbed into the wound to prevent infection, the iguana was sent back on its way. It's kind of the Colombian answer to catch-and-release fishing. The eggs were tied on a string like grapes and sold as fast food on city streets. It doesn't taste like chicken -- otherwise, I would never eat chicken again. The fun part of this story is that I bought some of these eggs on the day I flew from Colombia to northern Canada for an ice-fishing excursion. It was quite a culture shift -- one day in the Colombian jungle, the next sitting in a 6-by-6-foot shack on four feet of lake ice with some friends, watching them eat iguana eggs. By the way, the eggs do not make good bait. -- Rick Millette SALON | Nov. 4, 1997 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - How about you? Do you have a weird travel tale to share? Send it to wanderlust@salonmagazine.com. 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