Calculus, Nuclear Fission, War, and the Magic of Heart

Post date: Mar 26, 2011 1:00:35 AM

Foz do Iguacu, Brazil/Ciudad del Este, Paraguay: Border of Argentina

March 22, 2011

What sadness and what relief I felt diving 220 miles through the gray, cold, drizzle, and wind away from my one month home of Yara and Curitiba. Some memories will never make these journals. Some stories will never be shared. Sometimes experiences don’t translate into words. Sometimes I just don’t have the art to condense myself into such formats. The contradictory nature of my emotions, leaving the city, on my own again, onward with the adventure, is not the kind of adventure I wish to be having. In fact, the adventure is almost gone in me. I have little desire for wild parties, for beautiful scenery, for unusual cultural experiences, for new foods, and the rest of the stuff that comes with travel. I have even less desire for the challenges motorcycle travel in particular poses.

The bike continued to refuse to start when cold unless I push/run started it all the way to Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, 400 miles from Curitiba, on the tri-border with Paraguay and Argentina. The bike’s poor condition, in addition to my surpassed self-imposed financial limit, in addition to my simplicity-yearning heart, in addition to my general burnout on excitement had me seriously considering the prospect of shopping for bike buyers in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, a city I needed to visit anyways because my research identified it as possessing my greatly needed oil filter. Paraguay and Bolivia, all agree, are the best places to sell an imported, used bike. The reason is that they are the wildest of all the South American countries. Documentation and traceability are still challenges for the two nations, making them hotbeds for black market goods. So, for reasons already stated, juxtaposed to the fact that I have 6000 miles, roundtrip, much of which is through mountainous territory, before I finish in an area likely to buy my bike, and considering the great probability that the bike would need significant repairs in the near future (the sounds and feelings and patterns the bike was expressing to me), I ended up breaking down to the point of LOOKING for what interest might be out there.

Camped at a nice little gas station on night 1 out of Curitiba, and by midday on day 2 I was in Foz do Iguacu, but the world famous waterfalls were near the least of my concerns. The first hostel I went to was full, but luckily another was around the corner and had a bed available for a good price. I slept well that night.

Next day, I visited Kawasaki and changed my oil with a new filter. I was all smiles. It was very well priced, too, considering what I’d been paying for oil in Brazil. Paraguay is notoriously cheaper. Many Brazilian stores go to Paraguay for wholesale purchases. The Kawasaki shop was being run by what seemed like the owner’s daughter and son; I was back in 3^rd world country. Just crossing the border gave me that old, loving feeling for the chaos of developing (aka messed up) countries. Trash is everywhere. Traffic is uncontrolled and cars zip around within inches of one another. There is no stop going into or coming out of Paraguay via Brazil. I am told that the cars and trucks are stopped, but not the bikes. Good for business, I suppose.

The Kawasaki mechanic was out. I, perhaps prejudicedly, assumed it was because he just didn’t feel like coming in since there was no work there. The girl/daughter/receptionist/sole employee referred me to another shop to help me diagnose the starting problem. A guy showed up 1.5 hours later and lead me to his shop, but the mechanic was out there also! The guy helped me anyways, and he showed me that the charger on the bike was bad. Guys on the internet were telling me that the battery was probably bad also. Ehhh…. The plan was to return the next day.

And I got there before noon. I hung out with all the matte-drinking guys with apparently nothing better to do since only a couple actually had bikes awaiting repairs there. I answered all their questions about my trip. Paraguayans speak Castellano, which is a blend of Spanish and Portuguese, although it sounds mostly like Spanish with some Portuguese-ish accents. Spoken slowly, I can make out the ideas they are expressing. The manager showed interest in me and my bike, and he said the problem was not the battery. He thinks it’s the gasoline quality, but maybe the carburetor has an issue. He offered to buy it though. Everyone I’ve met has been wide eyed when I told them the price I was looking for. My bike, new, costs $10,000 here. In the U.S., it’s $6,000. That’s 75% more. The manager agreed to $2000, all equipment included. When I returned at the agreed time of 5pm, after I did some shopping in the city (great prices), he was not there, but some other guys were. Apparently they were the ones actually wanting to buy. At the time of this writing, the interested shopper wants to meet me at the shop tomorrow so that the owner can check out the carburetor with us there. The guy’s eyes give himself away, though. He looks like a drooling dog. I wonder if I looked that way when I saw my bike for the first time. I doubt it. I thought it was ugly and uncomfortable looking. I’d love to have that bike back now.

March 25, 2011

I was 15 minutes late to Paraguay. The guy wasn’t there, but the shop immediately set to disassembling my bike. The carb was cleaned and proven in good order. Next, the spark plug. They said the bike has been running hard. Duh. Then they pulled the head cap off and found a piston pushing too high, the interference of which was inhibiting the starter motor. So, they ground the valve shim down a few .001s, but that didn’t do it either. I do not understand people who think the bike will suddenly start if they hold the starter button down for 15 seconds. Well, all that dry heaving knocked loose the balancer spring, which then got crunched up in the gears. So, the lower unit was partially dissected and a new spring installed. By the end of the day, the only thing done to help the bike start better was a lengthening of the choke so that it actually worked. This did not fix my swollen valves, my weak battery, my failing charger, or any of the other known problems, but it did mask the issues and make the bike startable without having to push it.

I went for a walk. I found a park down the street. I watched an ant carry a leaf so big it tipped the ant over on its back, and yet the ant continued to push the leaf, and it even carried the thing up a concrete wall. The most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. And then a homeless kitten found me and meowed. I was reminded of Yara’s story of how she rescued some baby birds the day prior, so I made friends with the kitten. I carried it up the street and asked 3 people if they wanted to keep it, but they all smiled and declined. I set it down before entering the shop, and it ran to the bushes. When I lured it out, it found water in a leaf. It drank. Then we entered the shop, but none of the guys wanted the kitten either, so I set it back down outside.

After thinking over the bike’s problems, my price lowered. I was sick at that point. I simply lack the art to go into detail of how abysmal I felt sitting all day in that shop, thinking it would not be fixed for another week and would surely fail a week down the road. The owner, Derlis, sounded confident that the bike would function, but he assured me that the bike was not near new. So I dropped the price to $1500 and told him so. He readily accepted the offer. I was relieved. Shocked and relieved. And shocked and falling apart. And relieved. And depressed. The fight was leaving my body. I showed him the registration, title, certificate of purchase, etc. He showed me his Paraguayan license as well. I don’t know if that’s because he thought I was curious or because he wanted to prove his identity. Whatever the reason, I agreed to the price.

I drove home screaming. I shouted obscenities to every bump in the road and questions to God and the sky. I ripped up the asphalt. Every car was angry at me, I’m sure. I had to remind myself that the bike was worth 0 if I wrecked.

When I arrived back at the hostel, right at dark, I threw my stuff down and threw myself into the chair at the receptionist’s desk, across from the receptionist. “My world is upside down!” I exclaimed. She said, “I feel like that every day! “ She advised me to swim. But, before I got the sense to stand back up, someone ran into the common area where I was and said, “We need a fire blanket! There’s a fire!” So of course I ran to the fire. It was a pot erupting with flames and filling the hostel in noxious black smoke. Everyone just stood there, so I grabbed the potholder on the floor by the pot and very conscientiously grabbed the pot and carried it down the stairs and outside. How the world came together at that moment for me. I set it down and let out a fat belly laughs. Whoo! I needed that! Jumped in the pool, but the concussion I received from the thought of selling my bike was still pounding me. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t shut up though. Just letting it out. Went online and chatted with Yara, which helped cool me down. Against her recommendations to give it time, I reiterated that the bike was going. It was financially intelligent, health-promoting, and stress-reducing to get rid of the bike. But, the problem was that the bike is my last significant material possession, the vehicle to my freedom, the thing that has been my primary love and target of energy for 10 months. How could I say goodbye? I took it as the next lesson on adaptation for me to learn.

I wallowed all the way to a churrasco, an all-you-can-eat buffet with roasted meats, 10 main dishes, 20 vegetable/salad options, and 9 desserts. I ate every one of the 9 desserts. I was so pigged out by the end of that binge, I was roaring the whole walk home, singing the national anthem, my favorite opera song “Por Ti Volare,” and all manner of nonsense.

I awoke early the morning of the sale to go for my last ride. The bike started immediately with the now-functioning choke. It felt back to normal. I felt somewhat rested in spite of the fact that I woke myself up that night because of talking in my sleep. I think I was still shouting obscenities in my sleep!

Yes, the bike felt good. I had the road to myself. I thought about everything I’d been through since I broke up with Jaclyn, the event that set this trip into motion. All the planning, all the struggles though Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. Not at the end. I played the devil and I played the angel, one being “Sell Now!” and the other being “Don’t Sell Yet!” What would I tell my children? “I almost finished my trip, but I didn’t want to lose more money, and I was tired of travelling, especially on a very damaged motorcycle.” I could not stomach the “almost.” This sliver of light crept into me. I remembered Grandma telling me that the last thing I will want when I am older is regret. How could I live with myself knowing that it was POSSIBLE to finish but I CHOSE to take the easier route?

By the time I had returned to the hostel, I had made up my mind, but I did the math over breakfast, checked myself over and over again, and 1 hour later I was on my bike, headed for the shop in Paraguay.

Comedy is all in the timing, and the timing found me just right. The bridge connecting Brazil to Paraguay was blocked with parked traffic, but motorcyclists have the advantage that they can weave and skip to the front of the line. There I found a slew of guys in blue collared shirts, like those you’d find at Best Buy or something, and the shirt labels did happen to reveal that they were employees of some electronics store. A guy with a megaphone was announcing something. Policemen with clear shields and helmets and guns were standing ready but casual. A van did a U-Turn right there on the parked bridge, inching forward and backward again and again and again until he finally got righted to head back into Brazil. I let out a roar of laughter, and he returned a hilarious smile in return. This is wild country! If you can get away with it, do it! Heck, these guys just walked up on the bridge and stopped all traffic between the two countries, and the police did NOTHING about it. Just watched to ensure the peace. Over an hour later, the Paraguayan side was still backed up, even though the protest faded 2 minutes after I arrived at the bridge apex, where the announcements were given. It was televised. I remembered the security warnings I’d spent hours reading over on the US Travel website urging Americans to avoid all protests in Latin America. Eh, ending up in the hospital from a stray bullet or bomb shard would only add some flavor to this trip, I thought. The spectacle was mild, all in all.

Arriving at the shop, I sentimentally informed Derlis of what had transpired in me since the last night. He understood. Our communication from the beginning had been Spanish, and although that made things difficult, it was far easier than Portuguese. I spent over half an hour there, chatting with him and the guys. They consider me a friend. I paid Derlis what I could afford, which wasn’t much, and he kept only half of what I handed him. I gave him also my new helmet bag, some helmet lens cleaners, and a Camelbak. These pleased him. He hoped to visit me in California, but I told him I wasn’t going back there, but I invited all of them to visit me some day. He invited me to a motocross even he and his son were attending that day, and the party at their shop later that night. I politely declined, and we discussed my amor living in Rosario, Argentina, whom they all knew well by that point. Then they brought out the kitten I’d brought to their shop the night before. It never left the premises! It just wandered around their shop, meowing all night and morning. So now they’re keeping it and naming it Gary! I now have a cat and a cow named in my honor. What an honor, truly.

I departed on my motorcycle in the drizzling gray morning. I had gained more than necessary from Paraguay, a country I had never even planned to visit: my oil filter, a bike that starts, motorcycle repair knowledge, new friends, and a rescued cat that will forever bear my name.

Back in Brazil, I loaded my things and left Supernova Hostel, a hostel I hadn’t planned to stay at but that had treated me better than I could have expected. An employee there guided me through the malls at Ciudad del Este, where she works, and I walked out of there with several gifts for my amor.

Since Curitiba, I have disintegrated, reached the limits of emotional highs and lows, calculated all the pros and cons of women, travel, and various careers, debated myself into the corner, from which I came out swinging, and ended up at the border of Argentina with a glowing heart confident in its fate and grateful for the gifts bestowed upon its bearer during the most hellacious 5 days of the last month. I had had moments of profound understanding in Curitiba that had reminded and taught me of the self-persecution I repeatedly endure in spite of the immense love that is forever reaching into me, but which cannot connect with me because of my calculus, nuclear fission, and inner war. But a spark is all it takes to start a fire, and with the right flow of breath, perhaps I can feed my heart’s magic without blowing it out in a steam of fury or stifling it by self-strangulating over-analyzation. I touched THE ONE RING, and I survived the test. I’d never felt so broken and ready to give in. I dreamed of lazy, linen-wrapped, sunshiny days on the river beach with my amor, free from the dangers and costs of the road. But, I cannot rest now. I’m on the straightaway of the track. It will take the loss of my life or my bike’s life to stop me from reaching Ushuaia now. Safety has never been such a priority as it is now.

I’m such a dramatist. But, maybe that’s how one summons motivation.