To the Ends of the Earth.....

Poised

My material living is condensed and stowed, affairs are settled, and my round of goodbyes are complete. Tomorrow mid-day, a few of mine own will gather in Hidden Falls Park in Saint Paul to send me on my way, with solemnity, festivity, and anti-climax. We will augment the river with a libation to the gods, anoint Ophelia's bows, and otherwise pass the flask. And so, I slip into the stream of fate.....

Minneapolis, 8/21/11

Well Begun

Now we're gonna take the beginning of this song

and do it nice

and easy

but then we're gonna do the finish

rough.....

♫.... left a good job in the city...... ♫

Monday, Aug. 22

Afloat, midafternoon. I put a bend between my people, places, and things. Familiar scenes from an unfamiliar angle. At Raspberry Island in downtown Saint Paul, I take the first of many pauses, and have a little lunch among the fisherfolk. Adrift again, my hat blows comically into the drink. Fishing it out, I reflect that this is the First Mishap, and I steel myself humbly for more to come. Through the industrial busyness of South Saint Paul. At length, I slip under 494, and encamp within sight of the bridge, with a refinery downstream, and domiciles across. Dusk settles. I feel that I'm in the deepest heart of Africa, though this is in fact Inver Grove Heights. Bread and butter, and I lay out my bed in the open for the night. Barge traffic pushes through the night, with sweeping beams. Slumber....splatters....I hadn't set myself up for rain, unfortch, and though it never amounted to much, it cut my night's sleep way down with all the necessary fussing. Spectacular lightening, and the sirens blew.

Tuesday, Aug 23

The upside of all this was an early start. Clear weather. Lots of paddle strokes and river scenes. I went through Lock and Dam #2 above Hastings, where the lock people handled my novice ineptitudes very well. A notable high point was a cold Mountain Dew at a marina, as I had had enough of sunbaked water. I encamp below Diamond Bluff, and have the first long, thorough sleep I've had in weeks, hanging in the hammock in an open forest full of little screaming creatures.

Wednesday, Aug 24

I embark soon after sunrise. Through Lock and Dam #3 above Red Wing, with a little more verve this time. Drifting with the current, I call Greg to solidify our plans to gather in Frontenac at Jamie and Jane's house. In Red Wing, I sidle up to a marina dock, thinking of something cold to drink, when the proprietress emerges to serve me dockside. When she heard of my destination, the coke came free. The people on the river are happy to give. [ ...my hour up, I'm abruptly cut off by the stern librarian, Miss Thistlebottom....

Wabasha, MN 8/26

Cast Ashore, Succor, and More

....easier terms here at the Prairie du Chien public library, under the beneficent regime of Miss Goodly. To resume....] Downriver, to where the channel emerges from islands into Lake Pepin. Nowhere solid to land, I tuck Ophelia into a flooded alder forest, sit on a log with my feet in the water, have a picnic, and call Jamie to announce my approach. Break over, I paddle into the Jaws of Death. There'd been a stiff NW wind, more or less at my back, and I knew that the open water on Lake Pepin would be bad. Quite bad, as it turned out. I found that I couldn't vector over to the left to follow my course around Point No Point without losing control of my stern. Once I got out into the big swells, I had about ten degrees of navigation to work with, and took the course that was least likely to pitch me into a watery grave (actually, I would have just bobbed ashore in my life vest like an empty bottle of Joy, but I would have catastrophically lost my stuff). I was pivoting like a surfer dude atop the larger rollers, and my bow was within four inches of taking in water in the troughs. At length, my fate casts me ashore at Wacouta Beach, a string of sleepy lakeshore houses, alive, intact, and chagrined. Though flummoxed, I was on a civilized shore, and things were destined to work out. I call Jamie to arrange a rescue. I leave him to scrounge up a canoe-able vehicle, while I explore the preferable option, which was to see if there was a citizen around here who would let me chain up Ophelia to their tree for the night. I quickly found a nice lady who was delighted at the prospect, and called Jamie to forestall any other arrangements. Meanwhile, I start moving my stuff further up the beach, for the lady had warned me that the property owner was a curmudgeon, and defensive of his domains. But he was there when I stepped back, and turned out to be an affable old fellow, hale and frail, chaw in lip, and full of local lore and a raft of health problems, let me tell you, don't get me started. My stuff ends up conveniently at the end of his driveway. Jamie arrives, picks me up with my luggage, and we secure Ophelia. Disaster finessed nicely. Four-some miles to his place in Frontenac, shower and laundry, and dinner with Greg, who'd shown up, but not Jane, unfortch, as she was to arrive later. Then, the local horde of dart players arrive, and the garage doors are shut against mosquitos. Darts are flung like so many harpoons, and the air was heavy with drinkin'. At length, I am a guest in a bed.

Thursday, Aug 25

A loquacious breakfast with my genial hosts. Jane to work, and Jamie conveys me with my impedimenta back to my canoe at Wacouta Beach and sends me heartily off, the last familiar face I' ll see in a long while. The seas are easy today, with a bit of a helpful tailwind. I round Point No Point, pass Frontenac, and ply the length of vast Lake Pepin, keeping mostly to the middle, with the great bluffs all around. Seven hours to its end, not bad, I suppose, without a current. I encamp at the lake's outlet, on a rounded point of sand and small cobbles, on the Wisconsin side. I sling the leisure hammock (for I have two hammocks, one enclosed against bugs and rain for sleeping, and one for simple repose), and put together some linguine with the leftover chicken from last night and pesto from the basil in Jamie and Jane's garden. I had a shallot on hand also for this dish. The sun sank into Lake Pepin without a cloud. My bed smoothed out in the cobbles. A fisherman hooked a big catfish off my point and let him go. Another alien abduction.

Prairie du Chien, WI 8/31

Good Luck, Snake

(Please pardon me for being so poky about getting up-to-date with this blog. There are time limits in libraries, and I've got lots to cram in. And Wednesday in Prairie du Chien, I lost half an hour's typing with some deadly left pinky PC keystroke. Note to Self: Save!)

Friday, Aug 26

Afloat. I pause in Wabasha and poke around the marina and city park wondering where I might lock up the canoe and put everything on my back, so I could walk into town and do some errands. But Ron and Audrey, seasonal toaster dwellers with a spot on the waterfront, spare me this inconvenience by offering to watch my stuff, which they very kindly do from their lawn chairs. Thus unburdened, I walk into town, get some rope at the hardware store, load up on groceries, and make a quick (and foreshortened) blog post at the library. My thanks to my benefactors, and into the flow, through Lock and Dam #4, through languid and lovely backwaters, to a peaceful bivouac high up an a sand island. My headlight beam intrudes upon the giant catfish as he patrols the shore, and illumines the eye-pairs of the possums as they scrutinize me from the grass. Late in the night, they awaken me as they exult over my chicken bones.

Saturday, Aug 27

A dewy morn. I dry things out and start a little late. I've seen surprisingly little traffic so far, but the weekend has brought the pleasure boats out. Through lock and dam #5 quickly, with only one other vessel (so far I've not shared a lock), but a big wait with other pleasure boaters at #5A, as a barge somehow gets itself through in two stages. Winona slips by. In the eve, I tuck myself around the backwater side of an island just above #6. A little inconvenient, with a steep, sandy step-up into the woods, but with the sleeping hammock slung, the stool deployed, and a nice stump for a table, perfectly homey.

Sunday, Aug 28

Through #6. I have breakfast on the shore below the dam and listen to its dull roar. #7. The boat people of La Crosse are out in numbers, thoroughly enjoying themselves. The city slips by, and I notice a fine example of Brutalist architecture. Through a few backwater shortcuts, eventually settling on an island across from Brownsville, MN.

Monday, Aug 29

I slept in a bit, waiting for a little drippy rain to stop. Pretty foggy when I got up, and it really got thick before it cleared off. Through #8. Weekend over, I seemingly have the river to myself. I pause and tie up at an Army Corps of Engineers Recreation Site, full of boats and toasters, but seemingly no humans. Perhaps the summer languor has made them invisible. The store was closed, but I got a Dr Pepper at the machine and filled my jugs at the tap. (Hot water on a hot day has converted me into a pop drinker on this trip.) Afloat again between the big green bluffs. I pause at the Iowa line for a baby carrot break and to bid adieu to my native province. I pause for the evening just upstream from Lansing IA, on an island where the channel swings from the Wisconsin side across the broad river bottoms to the Iowa side. I cook on the beach and watch the river slide by in flat sheet. Crickets and frogs and whatnot, and the hum of traffic on yonder steel bridge.

Tuesday, Aug 30

A stretch on the Iowa side, then a long angling of the channel over to the Wisconsin side. I had a headwind, and a light drizzle started up. Through #9, and I swing away from an approaching barge. The rain picked up as I approached Prairie du Chien, the wind was everywhere and nowhere, and I knew it wouldn't be letting up anytime soon. I wanted to spend most of the next day in town, and now lodging was becoming a problem. I checked out the city marina, hoping for facilities, or camping, or permission to sling the hammock between two trees, but no one was around. I took a moment to unload the canoe and flip out a lot of sloshing rain water. Back out along the city's main waterfront. I steeled myself for setting up the hammock across the local channel on an island. In soggy woods, under a steady rain, this would be a doable, though miserable prospect. But as luck would have it, as I paddled downstream a bit trying to figure out where the city center was, I came across an inviting little dry patch on the shore, under an observation platform jutting out from the side of an historic building that was part of an old stone-block flood wall. Sloping sand and rubble, but pure bliss compared to what I had been in for. Anyone wishing to molest me would have to rappel down the wall. A little hobo-like, given that it obviously was a park up there, but out of sight, out of mind. Thus, I was able to get comfortable comfortably, and even cook a hot meal. I slept soundly in the rain.

Wednesday, Aug 31

An early rise, of course. The rain had turned to mist in the night, and now was done. With a day in town planned, I arranged to fit everything personally or monetarily valuable, or that would be difficult to replace ( which is to say, almost all it), on my back, leaving only the food cache and a few unappealing items for the thieves that one never expects, but that one must fear. I paddle upstream a little, and opt to stow the canoe and few items under a walkway leading to a dock, where an old fisherman plies me with questions and useful information, and who offers to keep his eye on my stuff as long as he's there. So I lock up Ophelia, and schlep the backpack ( and paddle) into town, which was quite a ways away, through parkland. I reconnoiter. No old diner, but real coffee and breakfast sandwiches at a coffeehouse. I ply the staff with questions relevant to my errand- mongering, and at my query about the Greyhound station, where I might lock up my backpack, they kindly offer to keep it for me till they close at 4:00. That's a load off. So then, shower and grooming at the athletic club, laundry, hardware store for two-sided tape and the sewing store for some fabric (for I have to deal with a breakdown of the waterproof floor of my bug net, which is gumming everything up). Also the library, but not unfortch the grocery store, which is literally two miles out of town. I made do with a fluff loaf and a few cans from Walgreens. Anyway, a pleasant and restorative day in Prairie du Chien. I retrieve my backpack from the coffeehouse, return to Ophelia, and get back into traveling trim. And so, I swing out of town, in the late afternoon sun. A few bends, and I settle again in the woods. A little backwater separates me from the railroad embankment on the Wisconsin side, and trains roar through throughout the night. I heat the beans in the light of the barge's spotlight. Coyotes howling.

Thursday, Sept 1

I loafed a bit, and by the time I got on the water I had a pretty good headwind. I grind my way into it. At one point a see a snake about a third of the way across the broad river, making for Iowa. Lock and Dam #10 at Guttenberg. The barge that had passed me way back was just getting started going through. (It was a 3x5 arrangement, which I think is somehow a two-stage operation.) I'd intended to go through the lock and leave my boat just below at the city marina, and walk into town, but this spot would do as well, given the long wait impending. So, stuff on back, Ophelia bound to a bent pipe behind the lock, I walk up into Guttenberg. All very German, as one would expect. The old buildings have that voluminous Germanic feel, and the streets are named for the national poets. A bust of the great press-man himself presides in the library. I don't quite finish my web tasks by closing time. Schlepping my backpack and load of groceries through this cool old river town of 2000, I thought, hey, slow down, hang around till tomorrow. I wouldn't get very far anyway given the time. And as I finish getting myself and Ophelia back into travel mode, here comes yonder barge, slowing me down further, bless him. I leave Ophelia tied up and step up to the lock to observe the bargemen's operations. In due course, it's my turn, and I go through and settle on an island across from town. A hot south wind...

Friday, Sept 2

....shifting to the NW, gusting, in the first light. Big thunder. I am buffeted in the hammock, but the rain never comes. I pack up and paddle across the river, hide my stuff in the woods, lock up Ophelia at the marina, and walk off to the RV park for a shower. I emerge to a light rain, more impending. A classic breakfast at the Rose Cafe.... [caught up with journal - future entries are going to have to be briefer]

Guttenberg, IA 9/2

Windbound

.....I retrieve my stuff and slip back into the flow. Landfall above Cassville WI. A light rain starts up. Under the hammock tarp, I crouch like a gargoyle and conjure a quinoa dish, with asparagus, tomato, and a can of tuna. Big storms throughout the night and morn. Heavy rain, very electrical.

Saturday, Sept 3

.....making it easy to lie abed till nine. I made breakfast and got underway during the dry spells, but paddled the whole afternoon under a medium rain. It lets up, making me hopeful for a comfortable encampment, but my stars were misaligned. More rain, in a broad, inhospitable section of river, darkness encroaching. I had one option left, near the dike of # 11 (probably marsh), but espying a railroad trestle on the Wisconsin side, I thought I'd check that first. I slip under, and find myself in a still, muddy creek. Up a few bends. I gaze into a drenched, darkening forest, rain pelting. O joy! But there were hammock spaces among the trees, and the understory was manageable, though my legs were going to get the full itchweed treatment. (That, or put on my pants and soak them through.) I throw my stuff up into the tall grass on the bank as I sink into a real sucking mud. The hammock goes up in a hurry, signaling the rain to stop. Is this good luck or bad, O philosophers? I rub the noxious plant toxins off my legs, and otherwise ensure my comfort. And so to bed, damp, fasting, and I dare say comfortable. This is the life.

Sunday, Sept 4

Back out under the railroad trestle, and on to the river and further travails. A cold front had gone through, and I had a big NW wind and waves. I headed into them (away from lock and dam #11, my actual destination) and angled my way across most of the river, before making my turn and running with the waves. A bit harrowing. As I approached the lock, I realized that grabbing the ladder and signal rope in those swells was not going to happen, nor would I be able to turn around and get clear of the lock if I failed. So I duck into the little backwater behind the lock wall. I tied up to a rock in the relative calm and stepped up to the lock to look over the approach I'd just avoided. No whitecaps, but the wind was blasting straight in, and with the echo waves , it looked like a boiling cauldron of doom. So I sit down and mope. I'm on vacation, so I really stretched this out. Then I dithered. Over what to do. I was really itching for a travel day, after all this hanging around towns, but this wind was blowing me toward a day in Dubuque (...a town I'd like see anyway). At some point, I figured I'd acknowledge my trespassing to the lock people (who surely had their eye on me anyway), and ask them perhaps to open the lock for me and let me scoot around without using the signal cord, or maybe just let me portage through their chain-link gate. But the world is full of beautiful people. The lockman offered to truck my canoe and luggage over to the other side as soon as they were done passing the approaching barge. So I drag everything up the steep rubble embankment and am soon conveyed to the downriver end. A few strokes out of the wind shadow, and I knew I'd have swells at my back pushing me awry all day, and so I opt to be windbound in Dubuque. I got lucky in making this happen, practically. There was a city-run RV park, full of labor day weekenders, toasters, pickups, coolers, lawn chairs, wind-driven ornaments, flags, kids on bikes, grills, smoke..... And at one end, the "primitive" area, for the hippies and other marginals, to which I naturally gravitated. The host was OK with Ophelia locked to a tree, me hanging from the trees, and he kindly locks up my stuff in the maintenance building to boot. A shower and a long walk through gray spaces, casino land, residential streets, and urbanscapes to get to downtown. A fine town, great old buildings, faded grandeur, people on porches, kids in the street, well-inhabited, humane. I dine German, and pick up a few groceries, of which I scarf a carrot cake and milk at the laundromat. Mom of the Year Award goes to the tattooed lady of Vend-o-Wash, looking a little worn out for thirty, speaking in a kind of curse-pidgin, who had thought it was a good idea to have her scrawny eleven-year-old stamped on the leg and on her emergent baby-boob, pushed up for all the world to see. That'll look great in a couple of years. I call Protective Services. Not really. Damage done. I'm sure they're in the loop anyway. To the bar for a beer, where Kayla and Brittany screamingly and imaginatively relate all the ambient pop-song lyrics to sex acts (not hard, actually), while managing to stay mounted to their bar stools at the same time. Through the streets to my haven of gentility, the RV park.

Monday, Sept 5

Down at the beach, getting organized with the morning sun in my face, I become aware that I need surgery. I'd vaguely thought I'd jammed my big toe a little back at that rainy creek, and it had been a little tender. Now I see the butt end of the Mother of All Slivers, embedded to the hilt. I apply my instruments, and pull out a 7/16th inch spike, straight out of the meat. Very nice, worthy of Aesop's lion. I give the toe the squeeze treatment and delay my departure a little to let the wound seal up before I dunk my foot again into the sewer of North America. And so I take leave of the various friendly, helpful people I'd met, and slide past Dubuque, bow to Wisconsin, and hail Illinois. A nice, long travel day, fair, light winds, half cloudy, cool. Very pretty country. Through #12. I pause at a public campground, $4 to the Army Corps, because it was convenient, and offered a picnic table on which I could finally do a B-fix on the bug net. I didn't need it this night, though. Too cold for the bugs.

Tuesday, Sept 6

[ No sign of infection. I humbly thank my immune system. All I have from the thorn incident is a Sore Toe, very Tom Sawyer-like, and perfectly fitting. ] Into the flow. A stroll through somnolent Subola, an actual island town, for water and junk food. Wind mostly helpful, a little cool when the sun went behind a cloud. A big, broad river today, hardly a soul on it. At one point, I had a mile and a half of water on either hand. I retire at a little boat landing in a marsh adjacent to #13. Just a turn-around with a $3 fee post, obviously not in use. A quiet dead-end, and no one's around. I make a cup of coffee and look over the lock at the twilight. Further cookery, and I lay out my bed in the grass. An eye-pair shines back in my beam. Ears erect, it is the triangular face of the fisher.

Wednesday, Sept 7

Alarm set for six, but the human fishers arouse me earlier as they launch their boats. I have a dawn cup as I watch a barge pass through the lock. Then through the marsh, around the breakwater, and I lock through myself. A deer labors across the channel, making for Iowa. A juvenile eagle makes a floppy attempt to follow his parents after I startled them from their morning carrion. I tie up in Albany IL, and have a classic breakfast at Julie's Cafe. Then following her tip, across the river to Comanche IA's very convenient riverside library..........

Comanche, IA 9/7

Nice Catfish

.....more strokes. I retire on an island between two straight, fully settled shores. I'd thought I'd lay out in the sand, but someone had built a little love shack at the end (actually, I believe it had some waterfowl killing function), five feet tall, with a plywood floor. Can't say no to that. Crickets mingle with the highway noise on the Iowa side. I can follow the flickers on the big screen TV through my neighbor’s window across the channel.

Thursday, Sept 8

Suburbia continues on either hand as I approach the Quad cities. I paddle along the river road with the traffic, and feel quite a part of the commute. Through #15, in downtown Davenport. Urbanity slipping away, I belatedly espy through the riverbank trees, a logo on a pole, which subliminally triggered my junk food response (something that hardly operates at home), for my cupboard was bare but for tonight's canned dinner. I fight wind, wave, and current to backtrack. But when I pulled ashore, scrambled over the railway embankment, and located this sign of civilization, I discovered to my chagrin that the Gas-n-Glut was out of business. But later, in Buffalo, a Kwicky-Mart showed its face over the embankment, and so I was relieved. These are the exigencies of travel, which make revolving pizza slices and gloppy pastries particularly delicious. Onward, through big, mysterious riverside industries, all chutes and hoses and conveyors and blocky buildings and giant piles of matter and barge apparatus, humming and serene in the evening sun. It all seems so purposeful, though there's not a human being in sight. My day's journey comes to rest at a well-appointed Army Corps campground, expensive, but the shower was to die for, and I always appreciate a picnic table.

Friday, Sept 9

I chat with the toaster-folk and hit the watery road. Cloudy, the calm giving way to a stiff wind. Very bouncy, getting through #16. I tie up in Muscatine's harbor, trustingly leave my stuff, and have a look at this pleasant town. I fail to get my photos uploaded at the library (galling), make a not entirely successful grocery run, and scarf a sub and a giant baked potato (for this town has a shop vending such) at the dock. Muscatine, I hardly knew ye. A pleasant evening paddle, again through industry. I pick my riverside bivouac for the night, where I unload on an exposed wing dam, relieving me of having to deal with knee-sucking mud to get to the open, sandy forest beyond. The beavers around here do not like me one bit, but they'll just have to put up with me for the night. Light rain sends me to bed.

Saturday, Sept 10

A traveling day, mostly cloudy and calm. #17 opens up, takes me in, and sends me on, all without me signaling or seeing a human being. Spooky. A stroll through Keithsburg IL. It's pretty much dead. I share some fascination with the citizens over the mint orange '70s Pinto and the giant praying mantis. No store, but there is a vending machine at the car wash, so I contributed to the town's meagre coffers and came away with a root beer, which went well with the heat and the cicadas. This evening I have a broad sandy beach on a broad stretch of river, a full moon, and the usual resounding forest creatures.

Sunday, Sept 11

The river is a flat, placid sheet on this calm morning, and I can easily see the variations in the current across its breadth from the flecks of things floating along with me. A sojourn in Oquaka IL, a nice little, only half dead town whose city park has seen speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. I drop forty bucks at the grocery store and have a picnic at the docks, where I satisfy the curiosity of the locals and admire the kid's catfish. Through #18, past Burlington. Weekenders are out in their boats. I go late, till sunset, to get downstream of a noisy nitrogen/ammonia operation. Potatoes, steamed broccoli, and deli chicken with a hot afternoon's worth of extra bacteria.

Monday, Sept 12

I arise and attend to the setting of the full moon over the Iowa shore, as the rising sun lights up the woods at my back. The day's travels started out easily enough, but the wind picked up from the SW, and soon I had a real faceful, with big waves. I kept toward shore and pulled like a galley slave, often maintaining only a half-walking pace. It was a big ordeal to finally get to the lee of an island, where I have a bite and consider my prospects. I'd done a day's work in half a day, and not gotten very far. Time to face the wind and declare defeat. So, one more grinding mile to Fort Madison's harbor, where I tie up and look to improve the time. The marina had a bar, where I had a nice chat with the houseboaters who had lumbered past me yesterday. Also a shower, free, in a broom closet, with brooms. No camping in town, unsurprisingly, so I let the wind blow, and walk off to see the town. Nowhere to get my sleeping bag zipper fixed (an irksome and necessary task). A very long walk to the library, where I spend 45 minutes failing to get the maps updated on this blog (time well spent if successful - if not, not). Back to the marina, where I quaff a Corona and hit the waves, come what may. An hour till sundown. The wind had let up a little, so I felt I was moving, but the swells were still big and my bow was slapping down hard in the troughs. But this too relented as I made my way to my port, the long, sandy, trailing end of an island with some kind of causeway to the shore at its head. I think I'm squatting on some barge company's domains, but I do so according to the laws of Nature. And so I lay down among the drift logs and moonbeams.

Tuesday, Sept 13

The river rose during the night, a good five inches. My flat, sandy point now has less sand and broader puddles. I embark, and the wind picks up on cue, this time from behind, less taxing to the body, but more so to the mind, for danger impends and one must concentrate. I position myself to make a dramatic run with the waves to Nauvoo, a mile and a half off, a town on a point on the Illinois side at a big bend in the river. At length, I round this bend, and things calm down. I pause at a park (the town is all above) and discover that Nauvoo was the starting point for the Mormons' westward exodus to their Zion. There is a memorial to their dead, written in the same clumsy, fake-archaic style as their scripture. They were great pioneers and high-character people, inspired to sacrifice and achievement by utter nonsense. The wind at my back is now modest and helpful. To #19, an extra long lock with a sliding gate and a 32 foot drop. I lash to the lock people's pontoon boat, sit on its deck with my feet in the canoe to keep it from being bashed into the pontoon by the waves, and eat peanuts while they fill up the lock for me. One holds on to a floating drum in a wall recess as the lock drains. All that water for little old me. The river is truly bounteous. The gate opens to Keokuk, which I thought I might visit, for zipper and blog errands, but the city ramp is nothing but that, in a huffing, puffing industrial area, with the town way above, and the people below, my brothers, looking a little transient. So I float past. The industries emit a cream-of-wheaty smell, and yet they seem vaguely menacing. Leaving Iowa in my wake, I enter Missourian waters. I now have a placid, sunny river for the day's last stretch. I settle at the head of an island with a broad sandy point, and a fine, elevated, open forest. It was early and sunny enough that I finally go for a swim, something that I somehow hadn't done yet. I wade way out on the sandy bottom, Calhoun-quality water, and arc like a salmon into the river. I am thus renewed in body and spirit.

Wednesday, Sept 14

A day of tailwind wrestling. I negotiated, vectored, snuck into sloughs and chutes when I could, and did a lot of hard-cranking ruddering. Chilly, cloudy, several hours of light rain. I paced the grounds of #20 for a hour and twenty waiting for a big barge to disassemble, pass through, reassemble, etc. Canton's ramp seemed like a defensive fortification, so a visit to their library didn't seem feasible. But I strolled La Grange for water, the highlight of the day. A couple of miles downstream to sleep on the beach, for the forest was too thick and viney for the hammock. The sky now clear, I expect no rain, but do expect to be.....

Thursday, Sept 15

.....well bedewed. In fact, quite soaked and freezing. I conjure a beach fire, to see how quick I could do it, which was pretty quick. A few hours to Quincy, IL, a town of forty thousand, where I planned to spend the night somehow, and do a load of errands. I check out a campground (ramp in a mud flat), the marina ($35 , but the marina man kindly pointed me toward the shower for free), and the woods (always my default), where I ultimately stash my stuff and paddle off to a private boat club, where they kindly let me tie up at their dock. All this, and I'm finally afoot in the streets of Quincy at 3:45, a lot of walking around impending. Ah, the library, with an afternoon and a morning to catch up on web tasks, this blog chief among them....closed for the week while they move the children's section. I was inclined to explode, but my inner Buddhist emerged and reminded me that nothing matters. But I did figure out that I would be able to get my sleeping bag zipper fixed in the morning. So now, laundry, the ribeye, and a stout at a brew pub with an Irish band playing. Then back to the dock to retrieve my canoe, and to paddle the backwater back to my stash in the woods. It is dark but for a bit of moon behind the clouds and a few points of civilized light. I dip my blade into the still, heavy, liquid blackness and well imagined myself as Charon, ferrying the souls of the dead. All very eery, except when a fish just about jumped into my face. That was startling. I pull ashore at the washed up blue barrel and creep into the woods. And whose little eye-pair is this? A baby raccoon, a furry little sphere, all alone on the open forest floor.

Friday, Sept 16

Back into Quincy to finish my tasks. The boat club people welcome me again, and one of them even kindly drives me out to the further mall-reaches of the town, where of course all my necessities lay. I got my zipper fixed, had breakfast ( not so classic - a soulless chain), found myself a cheap fleece vest ( I'd misjudged the season - me! - an old sourdough! ), for I needed another layer for these forty degree, windy nights, and loaded my back with groceries. I waited a long time for a bus back downtown, and got rained on too. The Mormon boy-pair made a typical mistake. The tried to pet the animal. They shouldn't have done that. Back to Ophelia, and thence to my stuff in the woods, where I pack up, pass along Quincy's waterfront again, and hit the open water. A cloudy, post-rain sky. #21. The swifts are out, streaking along the surface of the river, and lofting into billowing, shape-shifting clouds. Their numbers are huge, like a swarm of gnats, though they are a lot more pleasant. I settle at the foot of one Goode Island, with a big sandy porch, and big trees above in a dried mud flat.

Saturday, Sept 17

Dribbly rain on and off and a pushy headwind. At present, I'm in the public library of the literary capitol of the Mississippi River. This town is pretty touristy. One wonders if Mark Twain would like a latte along with his cigar. I know I'll be having one before I leave (a latte, not a cigar).

Hannibal, MO 9/17

The Ineffability of Pelicans

.....I slip downstream a few miles, to an island, to live wild and free for a while, a character in a true fiction.

Sunday, Sept 18

The promised wee hour storm never showed up, nor the rainy day. Just a few spatters as I decamped and drove hard into wind to #22. Four miles at a walking pace. The big, pretty hills on the Missouri side continue. The rest of the cloudy day was calmish, with odd gusty bouts. A water stroll in Louisiana (named for the Purchase). The highlight of the day were the great flocks of pelicans, my favorite bird, going about their motions in the grey evening. It is my fondest dream to someday express their ineffabilities in soaring verse. Later, setting up the hammock, I hear the belated shower sweeping across the river in my direction. Cookery proceeds beneath the hammock's canopy.

Monday, Sept 19

The rain didn't last, but it did make for a wet sand mess of a campsite. Driven into #24 by a tailwind. (No #23, by the way - weird). Grabbing the signal rope, hanging on to the ladder against the wall, and getting into the lock in those percolating waves was a real balancing act. Clarksville, a little town given over to closed tourist shops, (but an open coffee house), did not have a loaf of bread, but did have the flashlight I needed due to the latest equipment failure. (My expensive headlamp - seven years of high-tech service - bad connection - poof!). So for $3.50, I have a D-cell monster that I can't hold in my teeth. It will do for now, but I'll need to acquire another headlamp or grow a third hand. A beautiful cloudy day, the wind slackened, slow clearing, a long stretch.....and a sandy point on an island, with hammock trees deep in the woods, inhabited by very strange sounding creatures.

Tuesday, Sept 20

Thick, thick fog, lifting, a little wind early on, but mostly a fine, sunny paddling day. #25 didn't have their signal rope hanging, so I had to tie up, step knee-deep through a lot of rotting fish, and climb the rocks to alert them. Leg-rinsing proceeded as I bobbed around waiting for them to open the gate. I've discovered the source of the momentary, fountain-like, whooshing splash noise that sometimes breaks the evening silence: it is a mass, coordinated fish jump. I caught it out of the corner of my eye as I approached my berth for the night, under the power lines. After a lot of unpopulated river, there are now villas and pleasure boats. I sense a metropolis near.

Wednesday, Sept 21

The pelicans are swirling around up there, obviously not feeding, nor going anywhere. I imagine they are just enjoying their lives and each other's company. Pelicans swirling right showed white in the morning sun, and those swirling left, accents of black, making for an entrancing kaleidoscope effect. Another fine traveling day in the offing. Bread, water, etc. in Grafton IL. I've now clearly witnessed the whooshing-splash fish jump phenomenon: right in front of my face, as I approached a sandy shore, a few dozen fishes propelled themselves vertically, and in utter unison, out of the water, and, inevitably, right back in. Carp-like, silvery, a schooling fish....pretty clearly the notorious silver carp, who is reported to occasionally collide with boaters, knocking them senseless. The whitish bluffs I've had on the Illinois side for a few days continue, but the Missouri side is becoming eerily flat, and one senses that another mighty river is there to pay tribute. I slide past Alton, IL, and approach #26. The lockman tells me over the intercom to move aside for the moment and call him on the phone in five minutes to coordinate. He slipped me through between two upriver barges. I settle a ways below the dam on the sandy end of a little island, next to the sunken wreck of a barge. The Illinois side is thick with industry, which lights up my campsite like the moon. I somehow get sand into the potatoes this night. It will go towards my peck of dirt. I lay out to sleep on the bosom of the earth, behind the drift logs, where an overly familiar raccoon lurks, wondering what I've got to eat. .....(little drops of water in the wee hours tap my face awake....and the awful realization that I lost the rain bet......the hammock goes up in a hurry......lasted ten minutes......)

Thursday, Sept 22

I set off under cloud, and am soon standing momentously at one of the great nodes of the continent, viz., the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. My languid little stream is being joined by a torrent. The Missouri was moving like a freight train, fast and massive. I marvel at this for a while from the little spit of land at the junction. Then I nose Ophelia's bow into the new flow, and we are wrenched away into a miasma of swirling eddies, very stimulating. But making use of this power will have to wait a little longer. The canal that bypasses the overflow dam downstream (in natural times, a rapid called the Chain of Rocks) opens up just across from the confluence. So in I go, seven or so miles of dead water between two rubble embankments. I grind this out, barges passing, and rain starting up. There is a lock at the end, #27. This is the last of them. From now on, Man the Giant Beaver will control the river with levees. (Which means for me more of a channel-like river, with less in the way of backwaters and elbow-room, far fewer islands, and more current, confined, and augmented by the Missouri). Past the lock and a long breakwater, the canal merges with the river proper and picks up the current, which is now a much more powerful thing. So I take a swift riverfront tour of Saint Louis in the rain. A very interesting unfolding of functionality, old and new. I missed a few worthy photos of Dark Satanic Mill old industrial architecture, not wanting to handle the camera in that wind, rain, and current. I pass by the encampments of my more urbane brethren. I stood for a while in the mud under a bridge, shaking with wind and wet, and enjoying a peanut butter sandwich. Thus, my visit to Saint Louis. A very lengthy stretch of barge-land below the city. The rain mercifully stops. I pull up in front of a big, exposed wing dam, in a mud-flat strewn with river-borne trash, and I can scarcely unload and get some clothes on, I'm so shivery and stupid. Good old stage one hypothermia. I've been wet from the waist down in a headwind for half the day, and this does drain one's vital forces, exertions notwithstanding. But I gain comfort and ease. There is a nice industrial operation over on the Missouri side to look at over coffee and dinner. (This new current will really be pushing me along....)

Friday, Sept 23

I set off in fog, and keep close to the Illinois bank till it lifts. A visit to Crystal City is in the offing, where a package containing a new headlamp should be waiting for me at the post office, kindly sent by brother Mark. Many other tasks too, if the situation is convenient. Of which, let me tell you of the kindness of strangers......

Crystal City, MO 9/23

The Kindness of Strangers

.....there was no sign from the river that there was a town up there in the bluffs. Only the ramp and buildings of the boat club. I tied up and looked around, hoping there'd be someone around to permit me to leave my stuff there. In short order, Bill appears and informs me that the town is two or more miles up the hill (a problem), and that I was welcome to stay in their outbuilding (problem solved - I could spend the day in town). Another member helped me schlep my luggage from the dock to the building. Then Dave shows up and offers to run me up into town and show me around to my errand points, which was a huge help, as the town was kind of a sprawl and not laid out in the usual way. He dropped me off at the library, and then came back just as I was about to leave and get to the post office before it closed. He drove me there, and then back to the library, where I was then able to get in a second bout of web tasks before it closed. He would have helped me further, but he had other engagements. Blessings on this man. I was able to get things done, efficiently and enjoyably. After the library, I walked the streets a while (a bit menacingly, as I had a backpack on my back - for upcoming groceries - and I was not exactly groomed), have a bar-burger in neighboring Festus (a twin city), fail to get cash, and do the laundry. Having declined the Y's ten dollar shower fee, I performed sufficient ablutions in the laundromat's restroom, with the utmost hobo delicacy. My back becomes heavily laden with groceries. Then Dave's shortcut through dark streets, and darker roads below the town to the boat club on the riverbank. Groceries and everything get a good reorg and repacking, and I sleep soundly on the concrete floor of the outbuilding, as the mouse ravages the club's leftover donuts, and a late shower rattles the tin roof.

Saturday, Sept 24

I leave a note of thanks on the hearth, chat with club members as they begin to arrive for their weekend fishing tournament, and get out of their way at 8:15. A pleasant , straightforward traveling day, ten hours with a few little breaks. In Chester for water, I see that the Mennonites are enjoying an outing. I chat with them a while and admire their textiles. A lot of landscape destruction underway on the river, as the Corps of Engineers contracts bluffs to be gnawed into quarries, the rubble from which is then barged around and dumped against riverbanks, in a commerce-friendly relandscaping operation, all for the benefit of humanity. After I settle in, late, on a sandy beach for the night, I was a little astonished to see that I'd gone 54 miles, blasting Thursday's record, which was a record itself. I owe it all to the forces of Nature, with a assist from the hand of man. The beach had nice drift log furniture, but a dearth of hammock trees in the woods, so I pitched the hammock tarp over my bed in the sand, as there was cloud in the west, and the dew was up heavily, as soon as the sun was down. The cattle are lowing.

Sunday, Sept 25

A day-plus of light to medium misery commences at two in the morning, in the form of an eighteen hour light to medium rain. My tarp-pitch in the sand was not a good defense to this, and I rued my not bothering to get a forecast in town, nor picking a spot with hammock trees. In the hammock, I could have spent the day comfortably reading. As it was, I spent the wee hours, morning , and afternoon prone under that flapping tarp, dozing, and recalling and comparing past episodes of misery in my camping life (this one not bad, as I never got soaked -Lake One, '09- nor brushed with death -Mount Washington, '87). I'd watch water pool up in the tarp fabric over my face, till it gathered enough mass to slide down and spill another pint in the sand, which would then wash down in a rivulet over the groundsheet to add to the soggy dune banked up against my air mattress. I contracted myself as well as I could on that air mattress, but of course, over the course of the day, I just got damper and sandier. There was no good reason to get up till about three, when the rain slacked enough that I could make a cup of coffee. The droplets didn't stop till about eight. This was my first non-traveling day so far. Even if I'd been in the hammock, I would have taken the day off. I made phone calls in the evening, and retired to a clammy, gritty bed. Wasn't very cold, fortch.

Monday, Sept 26

I actually slept pretty well. I shove tarp, groundsheet, rain smock, air mattress, and sleeping bag in one wet, sandy mass into a garbage bag, and put on some miles, till the sun got up high. Then a lengthy break on a sunny, breezy riverbank to get everything dry and brushed off. More miles, to pull up in a little harbor behind a wing dam. There's a huge sandbar here, with a mudflat, and the tracks of coyotes. As I imbibed the evening coffee, three packs got to howling, one across the river, one upstream, and one down the beach not a hundred yards away.

Tuesday, Sept 27

Very windy in the pre-dawn, rocking the hammock like a cradle. I examine the landscape removal operation across the river with the monocular as I have coffee. What a mess. Adrift again. I look over Cape Girardeau's riverfront and decide that a visit was not practical. Slipping past the town, I go for a shortcut behind a big island. I thought I was risking a grounding in low water, but it turned out to be a rapids that made this a mistake. I wasn't willing to run it, nor paddle back around, so I made a cumbersome portage. Ah, the travails one would avoid in life by sticking to the channel.... A little further on, I get tossed through a stretch of turbulence (had one of these yesterday, too) where the river evidently gets shallow and goes over rocks, setting up big, boiling, standing waves. It really rocked me, baby, like my back ain't got no bone. This right in the shipping channel, too, so it has to be at least nine feet deep. For the eve, I have the river to myself. Cloud, calm, the forest abuzz. I pull over on the Missouri side, for morning sun, should it clear. I stir up a lot of huffing whitetails in the dried up slough. I've got toads here, too. And coyotes. Lots of critters.

Wednesday, Sept 28

I did get a nice sunrise. Hot day. I paddle all the points of the compass as I round the crazy oxbows to Cairo. I intended to stay in the town, and kept an eye out on the Mississippi (back) side for a secret nook, but the banks were steep. So I round another great node of North America, have some fishin' words with the southernmost man in Illinois as I slip the canoe under his line, and go up the Ohio a little ways, protected from the current by an anchored mass of barges. I pause at the ramp to the state park, which was mess of flood debris. Confident of solitude, I expose my glorious flesh for a stand-up bath in the Ohio. Fresh and rosy! I step up to have a look at the park. I'd passed through here in '04 and'07, and the neglect I'd seen then had progressed to true abandonment. I speak further with the fisherman as he stows his stuff in his truck. The park was under high water this year, he explains, and I'm reminded that it was an actual question for the Corps of Engineers whether to flood Cairo or some farmers' fields. He goes on about the decline of Cairo, which is famously and forever in decline. He drives off, there's not a soul around, and I feel utterly at ease about spending the night there and leaving my stuff while I go into town. So I pull Ophelia up out of sight, hide my stuff in the riverbank bushes, look over the derelict park and pick out a spot to sleep. Feeling a fine travel moment, I am wafted on the feet of gladness to Cairo, along the narrow, scruffy, deserted park road, in the twilight, and along the not so pastoral highway to the town. Cairo really is sinking into oblivion. On my previous visits, what was so weird and ghostly and unique were the three or so blocks of grand old nineteenth century commercial architecture, utterly vacant and abandoned, but more or less intact. A ghost town on a large scale. This area is now mostly open lots, with only one side of one block partly retaining the old look. As if to drive the point home, as I approach in the dusk, I smell smoke and see flames flickering in one of the old buildings. A few spot fires smolder in the floor of a burnt out shell. A hose is propped up and hooked to a hydrant, and spraying an indifferent stream toward the corner of what's left of the building. There's some police tape and a few barricades set up in this desolate streetscape. No one in sight. I continue, looking for signs of life. The old commercial street is buckled with car-sized sinkholes. Up on the highway through-street, I find a Dollar General and pick up a few items. (What commercial life remains is up toward the interstate. As for the people, 3000 survivors are spread around a city built for ten times that number.) Back to the one place I saw where I might get something to eat, a bar and grill a few voids from the fire. I sit at the bar with the genuinely crude and amiable locals, had a burger and fries, and talked over the fire (they were pretty indifferent), and the decline of Cairo, and satisfied their curiosity. And so, back through the skeletal town, along the highway, and the empty park road, to lay out my bed under a tree, and dream of comings and goings and rises and falls.

Thursday, Sept 29

The southernmost man in Illinois steps up to the observation platform above the confluence, to break fast and partake of the sunrise. A classic diner breakfast in town was very tempting (Cairo astonishingly had a diner), but I declined the hour-long round trip walk. Instead, I scarfed the eight-pack of hamburger buns which was the only item on the bread shelf at the Dollar General. This may seem like a lot, but they were such wispy little things. A fog settled in. I let this lift some before I ventured forth into the expanded river. Current about the same. A day of motion. I paddle till way past sunset, as I had a clear west, and pick out of the gloom a sandy shore, on the Kentucky side, with a forest of dead, broken-off tree trunks. Two of these support my leisure hammock, and the sand shall be my bed. A warm breeze, and the stars are reeling.

New Madrid, MO 10/1

Southern Hospitality

Friday, Sept 30

The breeze picked up and provided the theme for the day. Today's route was to be the most serpentine on the whole Mississippi, including a nineteen mile oxbow that a one mile portage could cut off. I do a tailwind section with the usual difficulty. But rounding a big bend and pushing into it, it got to be too much. Choppy, futile, and dangerous. I worked my way over to the only approachable shore in sight, a little beach between two sections of flood fortifications, and cast myself thereon, windbound, forlorn, but alive. I pass a few hours, reading, sewing (field repair on a shirt) and rethinking my agenda. Whitecaps on the wane, I venture forth again, but I still have a fight on my hands. Nevertheless, I crawl my way into view of New Madrid, at the north bend of the oxbow. The wind goes into its late afternoon slacking, mercifully. There's a huge gravel bar, where I park and collect myself. The new, time adjusted agenda is to visit the town and make some use of it. I peer across to the town's wild shore with the monocular, seeking a discreet squat. Ahoy. Again, a bit of beach between the flood revetments, next to some empty, moored barges. I make my way over. Everything's commodious and private, and I tuck everything away. Ophelia's in sight of the fishermen, should any come this way, though I doubt any would, nor molest her if they did. Setting sun in my face, I walk the eroded bank next to the barges, up on the levee, and down into a cool and quiet little town, for purposes both sacred (walking streets) and profane (finding an ATM). I make inquiries, people are fulsomely helpful, and I end up way out on highway 61, cotton fields on my left hand, an evening crescent moon on my right. The pork chops at Rosie's Bar. I am definitely in Dixie. Back through town, no one out but a few prowling pick ups, to creep unobserved over the levee and along the riverbank to my squat in the woods.

Saturday, Oct 1

Back into town for the breakfast buffet. There were grits, and biscuits and gravy, and lots of meat and the fat of the land. All you can eat, and looking around, I was culturally inspired to keep on eatin'. Easy, as it was really good food. Except, I have to say, the pork rind, which was more of an experience than a pleasure. It didn't occur to me what it was till I got it chewed up and swallered. I assume they are supposed to be kind of a jawbreaker. Web tasks at the library. (Forecast clear and dry as far as the eye can see). Back into the woods and on to the water, to complete the giant loop and enter into other turnings. Two fishermen invite me on to their beached pontoon for a beer. More miles, and I come to a north-facing sandy beach, with an ATV track back in the woods. Clear, dry air, so I forego the hammock, and sleep in the bosom of our mother, the earth.

Sunday, Oct 2

Clear, hot days, clear, cold nights. Today's agenda is to visit Caruthersville. Besides the usual errands, this town should have the critical mass (that is, a Walmart) to supply me with a gallon of white gas for the stove, an immediate and vital need. I survey the town's bivouac prospects from the opposite bank. Just upstream from the grain elevator, I see a bit of beach where a canoe might be pulled up. I investigate for hiding places and amenities. The only sign of current use is a folding chair and a fishing pole prop. Soon enough, Ophelia is in the woods, luggage is under the bushes, and I am traipsing through the grounds of the grain elevator, over the levee, and into town. Downtown is about half dead commercially, and utterly uninhabited on a late Sunday afternoon. One should never approach the shower building of the casino's RV park with hope, grasshopper. It was closed from this year's flood damage. I stand agape, a ghastly fume rising from body and soul. I'd really been looking forward to being civilized in this town. The nearest alternative is a truck stop five miles out on the highway. Without really thinking it through, I idly walk into the adjacent hotel, vaguely thinking that a casino-affiliated hotel with the name rubbed out might offer a super-cheap room, as they do in Vegas. It was the usual $58. But by the time that polite, steely subcontinental lady got through with me, I'd bought a $25 shower. A loaf before a starving man. Yes/no I do/don't regret it one bit. Face scraped, beard tidied, and fragrant (except for my clothes - and this town of 6000 does not have a laundromat), I advance up Ward Street, observing, and delighting people with my inquiries. Imagine this: There I am, standing at a grey-space intersection puzzling over my next move, a guy with a beard and a backpack, and a middle-aged couple in an old car approach to see what I might need. Directions would have been enough, but they waited for me while I was in the grocery store, and then drove me to the Walmart. They insisted that I call them when I was ready for a ride back to where I duck into the woods. Which I did, after my errand and an outdoor Sonic burger. More kindness, saving me a lot of walking with a heavy load. God these people are hospitable. I would not have done any of this. And so to the woods, where I lay out and let the dew drench me, knowing I'd have time and sun in the morning to dry out.

Monday, Oct 3

A classic southern breakfast at The Roundhouse, and I put two more gallons of water on my back. (I'll be needing to travel with a lengthier supply). I drop this off at my squat, tidy things up, and go back into town for ATM travails, a second load of groceries (fresh stuff), and the public library, from where I hail y'all.

Caruthersville, MO 10/3

People on the River

.....back to the beach with my groceries. Three men are down there fishing with their kids. They were all a little surprised when I pulled a canoe out of the woods and a lot of kit and caboodle out of the bushes. We all bid each other luck, and I slip out of town and a few miles down, to settle and stow all this provision in my holds. Ready for an ocean crossing.

Tuesday, Oct 4

Many pulls of the paddle under the sun. I pass into Arkansas, and celebrate with a banana. That's about it for a day of pleasant tedium. Oh, also, I poked my paddle at a big, belly-up catfish, and was startled to see him swim away. I felt a little abashed that I'd disturbed a fellow creature on his deathbed, because I don't think it was yoga or tanning. I paddle late, and settle in a sandy forest. A well spent day, large and full of emptiness.

Wednesday, Oct 5

Adrift again. An hour underway, I espy paddles, way up ahead, emerging from a wing dam harbor. I've been wondering when I might cross paths with fellow travelers. I slowly overtake (and surprise) them. They are brothers Christian and Jonathan, of Eau Claire, in a canoe and kayak, respectively. They remember me passing their camp and waving in Burlington, Iowa. I am only now vaguely recalling this. We paddle a smooth and friendly stretch, comparing notes and experiences. At length, I peel away for a break, figuring I'd leapfrog them later. A long paddling day, under a seemingly endless summer sun. (Though today, there were finally some high clouds). I never caught up with them, or thought I might have missed them in the evening sun's glare, and was feeling a little neglectful for not suggesting that we meet up in New Orleans for a beer, as our sojourns there would likely overlap. (Though I would have hailed them from the website). I let the day get a little late, having swung between the shores a few times, hampered by barge traffic, and not really finding a suitable place to camp. At last, I see through the dusk with the monocular, a stretch of sand on the Arkansas side, sheltered by a wing dam. I'm staying there, no matter what, I resolve. I hadn't been thinking then of my fellow travelers, but of course, as I rounded the wing dam, there they were, having gone through the same campsite shopping process I had. I invite myself in. We put together a meal, Jonathan cooking, and Christian tending the fire of amity. Lore of the river flowed into the night.

Thursday, Oct 6

My fellows were inclined to take their ease in the morn. I intended an early start, wanting as much time as I could have in Memphis, if a visit was practical, which I doubted. I embarked with them still sleeping, leaving them a little bread and butter and fruit, as they didn't travel with much fresh stuff. (I had had a little gift from them also). On to Memphis. I check out the marina, hoping at most that the place would be staffed, secure, and that I'd be allowed to tie up for the day. But Chuck, the manager, practically hands me the keys to the city. He shows me where to tie up, points to the free shower and laundry, invites me to sleep on the pontoon (the dock will be fine), and fills out a guest pass for me to show to the guard. Blessings on him and the Memphis Yacht Club unto the seventh generation. I refresh, and venture into the city. A short session at the small downtown library, a ride down Main on the ancient electric trolley (comically loud and rough), and then the bus way out to the main library. Then the bus back downtown, to look over this fabled town, and dine on shrimp, scallops, and linguine, sitting outside on Main, in an edge-of-warm autumn breeze. The Beale Street of legend is indeed the Beale Street of truth, a highly concentrated mass of food, drink, music, and people having a good time. I lingered through a set by a power trio of white guys, heavy, driving, striving blues, blissing me out, at the open window of a bar, declining the cover, the crowd, and the chance to get a beer. The beer came later, at a quieter place. Then a long walk over the harbor bridge, past the guard, and down to the marina, where I find a dark place behind the floating office, to tuck in amongst the winches and buckets and compressors and coils and old marine batteries and whatnot.

Friday, Oct 7

They let me through the locked pedestrian walkway over the harbor early, saving me a long walk around over the bridge. Abroad in the town. I say good morning to the woman I'd seen hanging around the square yesterday, and who had obviously spent the night there. She rolled her eyes a little, but dutifully assented that it was a good morning. I thought so. Great town too.

Memphis, TN 10/7

Delta Towns

.....The big task of the day was getting the photos up (laborious, successful), and a craigslist ad placed in New Orleans, for the passing on of Ophelia (laborious, failure). I did all this at a fedex/kinko's, expensively, because the computers at the libraries of Memphis were slow and made non-residents log out every fifteen minutes. Otherwise, I had a good breakfast at an arty, homey place, made use of the trolley and bus to get out to a grocery store, and just soaked up this interesting, likable southern city. Back to the marina in the late afternoon. No one around to hear my repeated thanks. I untie Ophelia, nose her out of the harbor, and catch the flow. Nine miles down, a broad, sandy beach under a power line.

Saturday, Oct 8

My efforts met resistance today, in the form of a pushy SE wind, mainly in my face, but sometimes getting obliquely behind me and shoving me around. I pass into the state of Mississippi, 50th in everything, which makes it number one in my book. Scattered clouds, the first I've seen in a long time. What is yonder giant box, towering above the trackless forest? I deploy the monocular. "Gold Strike" is emblazoned across the top. Evidently a casino hotel, where people are stored as they undergo a money extraction process, by way of entertainment. As I pass, there's also a big, turreted fairyland castle thing, which covers the family fun angle, and a fake riverboat chugging by, for romance. I pause at the riverboat's dock, and step up to the complex. And here's the museum, disposing of culture. Everything in place for a complete experience. I fill a gallon jug, to keep my water supply flush when I can, and continue downriver, leaving unexplored the question of what Tunica the town is, or was before it became fun city. Bends and barges. I occupy Arkansas, high up on a sandy bank, with a bright moon coming through the trees, and a sunrise exposure.

Sunday, Oct 9

I raise a steaming cup to the rising sun. Another wind in my face day. I pass by Helena, Arkansas, sadly acknowledging that I can't explore every metropolis. But Friars Point, a small place, lay at my day's journey's end, and could be conveniently visited in the evening. So I float past the town's riverbank industries and keep an eye peeled for a bivouac. I pull up in a vast Sahara, well away from the woods, but near a little hillock with some small trees. Sitting on my stool, I raise a steaming cup to the setting sun. Dusky west on one hand, rising harvest moon on the other, I walk shoreline and woods, a little rough in spots, with eroded banks and thickets, back to the industrial area, where I'd seen when I passed an open area up to the levee. Atop the levee, I look around and figure that the town is to my right, and make my way up a moonlit road and over another levee, and down into a quiet street. Widely space streetlights, a few lit windows, nobody out. The houses were a mixed assortment of the grand and the humble. I notice that some of the ornamental trees had those heavy, stiff, waxy, deep green leaves, another sign that I'm in southerly climes. I was expecting to set off the dogs, which I did, a whole block's worth of them. The town was not on the highway, and I had no idea what kind of center it might have. I came to what looked like an old downtown block. Empty storefronts, with two second hand/antique kind of places, one functioning, one in decay. City hall and a closed gas station. My hopes faded for a bar and grill. But around the corner is a sign of life. It signed itself a grocery, and after those empty streets, the handful of people coming and going and hanging around made it seem a focal point. I entered, looked over the spare shelves of mostly convenience stuff and a few sundries, and saw with delight that in the back they also do some cooking. The whole atmosphere of this place could not be more country. A guy comes in cursing a blue streak, and when he sees a twelve year old girl at the register counting out her pennies, shuts himself up and gives her a hug by way of apology. Everybody's black except the Chinese couple running the place. (What's their story?) I grab a Corona out of the fridge and sit at the greasy table back by the chips, and ask the employee who does the cookery what's available. She rustled me up the roast beef plate, four slices with fries, and an iceberg salad with American cheese, all served up in styrofoam. I get to talking to one fellow, who fills me in on the local agriculture, the flood, days gone by, etc. I caught what I could through his dialect and the effects of his "mild stroke". When he heard of my doings, he would repeat them with wonderment at the top of his voice back to the cook, drawing her in. She, for one, would never sleep in the woods, fearing mosquitos and alligators. When they locked up at nine, I started walking back, and set off the dogs again. I approach a couple of young white guys leaning on a truck, one of whom marked me as a foreigner before I came into view, and in his astonishment began peppering me with questions. It took him about thirty seconds to hear what I was up to, conclude that I must be broke and starving, and offer me everything that he had. I exaggerate only slightly. This from someone of whom I had the impression had never heard of Minneapolis. They were barge men, and I peppered them back with some questions. We concluded that it was indeed me that had waved at one of their vessels as I passed by in the river in the late afternoon. I thank them for their kind offers, assure them of my well-being, and walk back over the levee, through the woods, along the riverbank, and across the vast sahara, to lay out my bed, all in the light of the silvery moon.

Monday, Oct 10

I finally got my flying fish encounter. He didn't end up in my boat, but he certainly did a ten-point long jump over my knees. He was too quick for me to see his face, but he was certainly no small fish. Thus begins my day, as I pull out of the shallows and into the current. The wind mostly light, clouds coming in throughout the day. I take a mid-day dew-drying break. Towards evening, I see a canoe ahead, and eventually catch up with them where they had settled. (I had seen them yesterday at Helena, and had falsely concluded they were local). They are Ben and John, and are making their way from their native Ohio all the way to the Gulf. We talk a while. I would have placed myself near them, for sociability's sake, but the area was treeless, and with cloud and heavy air, I was wanting to sling the hammock. (Not that I'll actually believe in rain again till I re-experience it, but I wanted no repeat of my night in the wet sand). So I continued a few miles, into the last light, but ended up sleeping out on the beach anyway, as the forests were all set way back. I locate a couple of hammock trees back there should the rain tap me awake, but I stayed put where I'd landed, and did my cookery with my back leaned up against the overturned canoe.

Tuesday, Oct 11

I do believe in dew, the downside of sleeping out under the sky. So I pack up a wet bed as the setting harvest moon ducks in and out of a low cloud bank, and the sun portends in the east. A mid-day drying stop will be called for. I know where I'm going today. Downriver. To Rosedale, to look the place over and pay my respects to the Devil, if not offer him my soul, for Robert Johnson's famous crossroads is hereabouts. The best approach turned out to be near the first wing dam, where an out of use ramp came down through a dune to an indent in the bank, with barge wreckage all around. I know from my map that the town is well away from the river, and that I'd have a long walk through the country. I leave Ophelia loaded up and locked her to a piece of the wrecked barge. She was nestled in quicksand, which would discomfit thieves, and in sight of a bourgeois house. I felt the whole area was nicely isolated. A fifty minute walk on a gravel road, through woods and fields, mostly overgrown. Not a soul passed. As I approach the levee, I see something of an explanation: a locked gate, posted against trespassers. Seemed strange, locking up a whole section of earth like that. I make myself skinny, no difficult task, and get myself through the gate. Over the levee, past the elevator and the full gospel church, and on to main street Rosedale. I accost a teenager who's walking home from school and inquire about the library. He escorts me the five or so blocks, perfectly at ease, though he's only half-talkative. Everyone on the street knows him, though the ungainly, elderly white guy with him gets some quizzical glances. The library's door is locked. My escort peers through the glass and sees the librarian going out the back and locking that door too. An hour and a half before closing time, who know why. So no blog post. I thank the young man, and make my walk around the town. The downtown business space is about three quarters dead. "Are you that man on TV?" asks an elderly woman. "I've never been on TV, unless they snuck up on me". She cackles. I see a group of prisoners on some sort of work detail. White shirts, green and white horizontal striped pajama pants. I wander, looking over the maintained and the decayed, and reading the plaques about the blues greats. "Where you from?" abruptly inquires a woman. "Rosedale," I reply. "You are not from Rosedale," she objects. "Rosedale, Minnesota," I explain. "Well, all right, then." And the porch men rib her for reasons I didn't quite get. I got a loaf of wonder bread at the Chinese grocery and made the long walk through the country back to the canoe. Had the librarian not been dashing off to her tryst, I would have ended up hanging around Rosedale and sleeping somewhere near my canoe. But I had an hour or so of light, so I made a few miles downstream. An exact coincidence of sunset and moonrise, so I have the fullest harvest moon, which laves me in the leisure hammock as I read and write, high up on the the edge of a cut-away bank on the Arkansas side.

Wednesday, Oct 12

Body and soul in motion. I hail the contribution of the Arkansas River, and my thoughts ascend its course to the Colorado Rockies and lovely US 50. Coming across a vast tribe of pelicans, my thoughts ascend with them also. The sky beclouded, with a uniform grey backdrop up high, and weirdly misshapen dark monsters stalking underneath. Some big thunder way off in the west. The sky didn't look particularly wet, and I only got a few flecks of rain. But the wind got stormy, and at one point I felt it wise to pull over to a beach rather than round a bend into the full force of it. I thought I'd wait and see if it might settle, but when I saw it was already four o'clock, I knew I was home for the night. I didn't get the big miles I was intending for an early approach to Greenville, but no matter. The world had pushed me back and slowed me down. I saw on the map that I was adjacent to a little road, so I stepped up though the sand and trees and vines to a sandy track, and followed it towards the bend. There were open spaces, meadows in fall color, shrubs, and patches that had been recently graded, who knows why, as the soil was pretty much sand. The ways of the country are inscrutable to the city boy. The tallest deer stand I've ever seen was at the margin of one of these patches (is it a field of fire?) A real labor of love, to look at it, with its welding and carpentry. I go up the steps to inspect it further and look over the country. The bees have made their hive there. There's a satellite dish screwed to the thing, and it's festooned with the stenciled, cro-magnon images of the hunted prey. The weird clouds are still blowing through, but the wind has quieted, and I can hear all the many creatures. I'm feeling pretty satisfied with this world and my passage through it. Back to the hammock for an evening cup of coffee. This is the life.

Thursday, Oct 13

Wind up in the morning. Mostly a tailwind for me, strong enough to be unnerving. I approach Greenville for a visit, blowing past its harbor opening because....oh, never mind. Back in the harbor entrance, I come across Jonathan and Christian again, on their way out. They have useful info, which saved me a lot of running around and uncertainty. I wish them well again, and with adjusted plans, turn up the harbor for the yacht club adjacent to downtown. This is a six mile jaunt, up a side channel lined with industry. No one around at the yacht club but a fellow boater, who hands me a beer and regales me with the adventures of his youth, which were impressive. I call the manager to get permission to tie up, and yes, spend the night on the dock. The main building is emptied and open and airing out from the flood, repairs underway. When people point out where the water was, it's incredible, and one understands where all the myths come from. Downtown is right over the levee. Tomorrow's errand points fixed, I inquire after a laundromat, where my bath in the restroom would provide a fit subject for an Impressionist painter. Fresh and laundered, I present myself at a little BBQ place for a real debauchery of meat. Back to the yacht club, where I manage, barely, to worm my way under the gate. (I had thought it was to remain open). I unplug the coke machine to charge my phone, move a table under a light to write, arc my water into the harbor, lay out my bed on the dock amongst the pleasure craft, and otherwise make myself at home.

Friday, Oct 14

I talk to the gate man a bit, and step into town, for the Platonic Form of the Breakfast at Jim's (same family and location for 75 years - ate here in '04). Everything homey, everyone friendly. To the library, where I waste a good portion of my allotted hour and a half failing again to get the canoe up on the New Orleans Craigslist. The librarians were not going to ease their rule for me, in spite of excess capacity, so I got some rough typing in, but no blog post. I walk around town some, and marvel at the weird, tropical trees and the general southernness of the place. I walk my groceries back through the half-dead downtown. There are old buildings, but also a lot of ever-contemporary post-war commercial architecture, now sadly empty. This place would have been full of vitality in 1960. To the yacht club, again slithering under the gate. I wash and stow my produce, and again have a long chat with one of the members. I shove off, a little late, for the six mile paddle through the harbor to the river. (Calm, but only twenty minutes came off my two hour, into the wind, inbound time.) Into the river, and I swing wide to the Arkansas side, where the map promised an unfortified stretch, but alas, improvements have been made, and the shore was inhospitable. The sun was now down, and the dusk was hurrying me to settle while I could still see. The map showed the only good option to be a big island in a broad bend, which I figured had to be a sand flat. There was certainly nothing to be seen in silhouette. I had to wait for a barge to pass, while trying not to slip too far downstream, and pulled out in its wake to aim myself in the direction of where this landform had to be. Many strokes into the gloom, knowing I'd see nothing of this flat until I was almost upon it. At length, I sense land, and my paddle touches sand. I grope around, avoid a little muddy cove, step out to penetrate the interior a little to see where I might have some elevation, and not be lying in the damp eight inches above the river level. I do discover a height of land, maybe two feet above the river, where the sand was packed and dry. So I walk Ophelia around a point, sloshing through the shallows, to pull up in reach of the favored spot. I'm way out in the middle of the river here, on this big, flat desert. Very expansive, in the light of the rising moon. What will the daylight reveal of this place?

Saturday, Oct 15

A clarified world. I sit on the stool with a sunrise cup of coffee, the most significant feature on this great plain. The day to be clear, calm, and hot. Underway a few hours, I grappled to a fishing boat with three good old boys for a long float and conversation. Arkansas abruptly, if imperceptibly, gives way to Louisiana. What is that butterfly? It's a, it's a ..... buckeye! That's a neuron that hasn't fired in 35 years. I wavered over whether to have a look at Mayersville. The ATV traffic at the ramp and elephant gun blasting in the woods decided me against it. Late afternoon rays. I sweep by the high, wooded bank of a sand island that was evidently ripped up by the flood, banks torn away, and the first rank of trees uprooted and toppled over. The forest came to an end in open sand, and there I pause for the evening, with the edge of the forest at hand, and with trees for the hammocks. When I took off my shirt to bathe, I unexpectedly and quickly diagnose in myself a herniated navel. Double plus ungood! Fortunately, I have duct tape, and Dr Internet is only a few days away. I think I might also have something going on with the crown I had installed last spring, and a strange and not really healing lesion on the top of my big toe. High, middle, and low, I got problems. But the swallows, who were massing in huge numbers on the sand flat and absolutely screaming, have no sympathy for me. They are true friends.

Sunday, Oct 16

Light winds to start, but a relentless headwind for most of the day. Pretty tedious. I brought all of my philosophy to bear in the face of it. It did ease a little in the last stretch. I pull up on a broad and deep beach for the eve, unload the canoe, and discover belatedly that the mounded up sand had a moat of stagnant water and mud hidden behind it, cutting me off from the forest. The sun now a red rubber ball, I declined to move, and made it a beach camp, with my back against the canoe. I managed to keep my guts sucked in today. Yesterday's outburst was provoked by a particularly heavy lift. (Flushing out Ophelia with a big load of water). There will be no more of that, and I'll be contemplating my navel with even more than my usual ardor.

Monday, Oct 17

Onwards to Vicksburg, where a stay is planned. I turn up the malodorous Yazoo River, which the downtown fronts. It's an industrial ditch, inhabited by buzzards, hideous, staring fish cadavers, and a lengthy alligator with a very dull-witted expression on his face. It's only a little over a mile to the downtown, and the current is slight. My travails came in finding a place across from the town where I could pull up and stash my stuff. The banks were all mud and quicksand. Eventually, I decide on a spot a little upstream from downtown and around a bend. I churn up a lot of mid-calf mud getting everything up into the woods. Then a paddle over to the city-side bank, and into more mud. I sit on a log and use drinking water to get it off me. Up the road, along the tracks, and into the city. Vicksburg is nothing like Greenville. It's got tourism, gift shops, dining, some tall architecture, and a lot more wealth. I check out the library, but not wanting to inflict myself on the patrons as I was, my first priority was a shower and a shave. The Y is out in the asteroid belt, of course, there's no truck stop or athletic club, so I inquire about a homeless shelter, and am directed thither by the kindly librarian. A bit of a walk, but I was motivated. It was a church-run affair, and I gathered that the good Samaritans in charge were not accustomed to taking donations from clients. Back to the library, a new man. Brother-in-law Dennis's final efforts on my behalf with craigslist did not avail. They tell you the ad's up, but it isn't. So passing on Ophelia in New Orleans is going to be a plan B,C, or D affair. I stick around the library till the seven o'clock closing, then went in search of a catfish, this one pecan-encrusted. Then the twenty-five minute walk out of town, down to my canoe on the bank of the Yazoo. I wrench her through the mud, my feet making rude slurking noises, and ply the darkness, through pestilential vapors, to my bivouac on the other bank, wondering just where that old gator had gotten himself to.

Tuesday, Oct 18

A very warm night, and a beclouded morn. I ferry myself back over to the Vicksburg side. Walking into town, along the tracks so as to stay out of the highway traffic, under a damp, heavy sky, the high, cut-away road bank bursting with weird, luscious greenery, I had a moment of deja vu, which quickly shifted to a memory of a similar scene and atmosphere, on my hitchhiking trip on the west coast in '85. Here I am, the same organism, passions muted, but wiser, if that's not a contradiction. The trade-off is certainly dubious. Anyway, I do try to maintain my vital links. So into town, eyes a little wider and lungs a little fuller. Coffee and oats at an arty place. I emerge to a gentle, soaking rain. A good day for the library.

Vicksburg, MS 10/18

Odd Cormorant

With a big blog post and other errands, I was at the library till past my drop dead time for getting groceries and leaving Vicksburg. An easy intention to let go of, as there was wind-driven mist, and I didn't feel like rushing around anyway. Temperature down a good thirty degrees from yesterday. Phone calls. I space out at the coffeehouse for a while, and get to jabbering with the locals. Wind still up, but the mist had blown away. The closer grocery store turned out to be a thrift affair, with giant cans of bad coffee and feeble bread, so I undertook an insanely long walk out to Interstate Land, the locus of universal civilization, where no human desire is left unmet. My return downtown brought me through a grand old residential neighborhood. I wine and dine myself. Then darkness and mud, to sweet repose across the foul Yazoo, my second two-night bivouac of the trip.

Wednesday, Oct 19

Canoe loaded, I ferry myself down to the Vicksburg ramp, whose dock is stranded in mud. I tie up and emerge from the mire like a mythological being. I knew of a hose up past the flood wall, so I was able to replenish my jugs and give my legs, feet, and sandals a power spray. A knowledgeable fellow at the dock confirms what I've been thinking, that the river is low - in fact aiming for a record, after this year's record high. So I feel relieved of some responsibility for the pokey pace of my progress. I linger over a coffeehouse breakfast, and don't get going till after 11:00. Back on the Mississippi, sweeping a long gaze across the hills of Vicksburg,

I raise a hand

and bow my head

to the Union and

the Southern dead

I continue, ensombered, with a cold NW wind that pushed up some swells when the river bent into it. I fight this awhile, but called it quits a little early. The coyotes are also waxing poetical:

Yippy - i - ya-ay

Yippy - i - yo-oh

Thursday, Oct 20

A cold, cold night. In the morning twilight I do some repetitious dune scrambling to get myself into circulation. Underway, under the warming sun. The river really is looking low. The sand flats are huge, and wherever you land, the sand collapses soggily under your feet, as if it's still draining from higher water. Steep, bare, terraced banks. In narrow sections, where you'd think there had to be some current, the flow past the buoys is not at all what it was. Low and slow water, and I was pushing wind all day, yet I still managed to get 41 miles. I pull over just past some mysterious Corps project, with barges with inscrutable apparatus anchored on both banks. The sun drops into the Louisiana shore, and the chill follows quickly.

Friday, Oct 21

I awake to see that a huge barge loaded with rubble had parked at my beach. I was wondering if I was standing in the way of progress, but I saw no cranes or shovels, and he pushed on upstream as I made coffee. I embarked fully bundled up, unwilling to shed a layer till the sun and my efforts had actually made me hot, which happened soon enough. I pull over and disrobe, a spectacle which gets about a one on the ten-point scale of eroticism. A calm day. Pelicans yonder, afloat by a sandbar. They take off as I approach, arcing over me, and I notice a lone cormorant among them, who eventually peeled off, as if he suddenly remembered who he was. I can hardly blame him. Who would not wish to be among the heavenly angels? (Actually, I've noticed before that groups of pelicans and cormorants will sometimes associate). To Natchez, where my errands are to get to the internet, and look into ways of disposing of the canoe, and of attending to my rupture when I get to New Orleans. I pause at the ramp under the bridge on the Vidalia, Louisiana side, and call the RV park lady who I'd made arrangements with from Vicksburg. She sent a guy with a an over-sized golf cart-like thing with a trailer to schlep me and the canoe, etc. to the park. This is incredible service. She hadn't mentioned price, but I was going to offer more that the measly ten bucks they'd get for me just staying there. Instead, I'm told that the owner is comping me the whole thing, apparently in solidarity with my venture. I let them know that The Vidalia library would get an extra big donation in their name, which it did, when I finished my researches. Then over the bridge to Natchez. The place is full of gift shops, galleries, dining, etc, looking thoroughly prosperous. When I passed through here in '04, the downtown was more than half vacant. What happened? Was it the tiki torches? I pick out a spot for dinner, and they grill me a catfish. The Canadian retirees I'd met at the toaster park were at the bar. I get to talking with them and the locals. They buy me a beer and drive me back over the bridge. Laundry ensues. It all seems too easy. Shouldn't I have to beat these clothes against a rock or something? I bed down in the grass alongside of Ophelia, at campsite #147, between the nice Canadians and the motorcyclist.

Saturday, Oct 22

Abroad before the sun. Over the levee and into Vidalia, along a row of shotgun shacks, traveling toward breakfast. I give way to gluttony at the bottomless buffet at Nikki's, then waddle over the long, pedestrian unfriendly bridge to Natchez, to admire the old houses, and avail myself of the library, as Vidalia's was closed Saturdays.

Natchez, MS 10/22

He Keeps on Rollin' Along

....emerging from the library, I submerge in the coffeehouse. A quest for bread and produce. Then over the bridge to the RV park, from where the staff kindly deposits me and my equipage at the ramp. I make ten miles and sleep on the beach. The daddy-long-legs of these regions are three times the size of ours, and ten times as numerous.

Sunday, Oct 23

A long, riverine day, under cloud. A little light rain in the late afternoon. With the sky uncertain, I was determined to camp among trees and sleep in the hammock. But as the evening came on, I had nothing but inhospitable shores, with mud and steep banks. It was dark when I switched over to the Louisiana side at a big bend, where the map promised a long stretch of beach. This involved some careful barge avoidance. The navigation lights on the shore kept me oriented. Once I gained this shore, I found myself in earshot of an annoying warning horn, alerting mariners to the nearby diversion outlets. (Utterly shut down and harmless in this low water - I'd figured all this out when it was still light). As it was dark already, I was in no rush, and continued out of range of the noise. I made a few exploratory beach landings, but my gropings in the dark revealed forests set way back and atop high, steep embankments. So I sleep on the beach again, ready to shove my bed into a garbage bag and pace the beach in my rain smock, should it start dripping. (It didn't , fortch, but it was a warm night, and I had mosquitos like I haven't had in a long time. So into the net I went).

Monday, Oct 24

It always seems a little strange, when you see for the first time where you spent the night only when you get up in the morning. Cloud and fog, giving way to a calm and sunny day. Mississippi slips past on my left hand, and I enter the full embrace of Louisiana. Passing Angola, I give a thought to the lifers up there languishing in the penitentiary. I round the bends, and let loose with some Old Man River and some Volga Boatmen. I must say, that though I possess sonority, it is wasted in song, as I really can't carry a tune in a ten gallon bucket. The declining sun lights up the beach at the head of an island. I pause there for a bath in the evening rays. Then two miles down to settle at the foot of the island, with a sunrise exposure. It's a sharp point, with sand terraces rising up to a forest. The leisure hammock goes up between two broken, weathered stalks of former trees. The dew was drenching at the river's edge, and beading up-wet ten feet up at the leisure hammock, but ten feet further up, in the woods where I slung the sleeping hammock, it was bone dry all night.

Tuesday, Oct 25

This bare, elevated point provides me a noble perch from which to absorb a fine and simple sunrise. Three fishermen run their boat up on the beach to chat. Louisiana accents as broad as the river, one of them distinctly Cajun, with Gallic face to match. They are commercial fishers, and their boat is calf-deep in flopping, suffocating buffalo fish. I decline their offer of a fish, we wish each other luck, and they go off to attend further to their nets. I kind of wish they'd shoot the poor devils, but let's face it, piscivores, this is how it's done. Another day in motion, another day of good luck weather. With fine timing, I lay up eight miles above downtown Baton Rouge. There was a breach in the fortified bank, a sandy opening strewn with old barge mooring lines. I pull up and find all is well. I'll sleep back in the woods. The opposite bank is parked up with barges for two miles, and a herd of cattle is walking around in the woods behind me. Will wonders never cease...

Wednesday, Oct 26

Large, mooing bodies lumber around my dreams and reality. To Baton Rouge, where I tie up under an unused tourist boat dock amid driftwood. Communication needs at the library. (New Orleans by Halloween?)

Baton Rouge, 10/26

Last Stretch

.....My only errand was to find bread, which I managed pretty easily through luck and intuition, though the locals declare downtown Baton Rouge to be a food desert. (Imagine a large, attractive capital city with no downtown deli, or convenience grocery). I would have lingered a little more, but I was not entirely comfortable with where I'd left the canoe. So I returned to my berth under the weird art dock by the USS Kidd, a preserved destroyer, so to speak. I grabbed my empty jugs and climbed back up the levee to the park to replenish my water supply at a rather feeble drinking fountain. A bundle man was sitting up there on the bench who kept me company during this slow process. Poor guy seemed kind of sad. He'd been places, but didn't seem to be going anywhere. We wish each other luck, and I secretly wish him some dental work, somehow, some way. Down the river I go. From here on, there will be a road adjacent to each bank, and I'll be seeing ocean-going vessels. (Baton Rouge had facilities for these, at which I'd seen my first big ship). I end up paddling again into the full night before I groped my way to a suitable, indeed comfortable, place to lay my head.

Thursday, Oct 27

An utterly placid day. The giant sand flats are behind me, and the banks are showing very little relief. There is more industry and transport facilities lining the banks, and docked ships bearing the names of foreign ports. I encamp across from a facility servicing a big ship. They're making quite a racket, yet if I so much as twitch in the hammock, the beaver slaps his tail at me.

Friday, Oct 28

When I slip out of the hammock, I detect little taps of incipient rain. Oh, it was tempting to just go back to bed. But I meant to get moving, so I stuffed things together, and hoped the drip would remain light enough to not interfere with coffee and breakfast. But it picked up, and I set off for the day fasting. Once on the river, I had another hour or so of steady, medium rain. It was pretty much done by the time I got to Donaldsonville. Epicure that I am, I had not abandoned the idea of breakfast. The town had a boat ramp, choked with flood debris and discreet enough for me to leave my canoe (which needed an unloading and draining anyway). A church spire beckons me over the levee. The main street has restaurants, but none serving breakfast, so I just admired the old, weather-beaten buildings, grabbed a few things at an actual, old fashioned downtown grocery store, and made a cup of coffee back at the canoe. In the canoe, actually, to keep the stove out of the wind. I paddle forth, into a grey, but henceforth dry day, the wind besetting me from the front, sides, and rear as I round the bends. It got very harrowing through a stretch thick with industry, with both banks parked up with fleets of barges, towboats in motion, wakes and wind, and big swells pushing me around from behind. A fellow traveler catches up with me during this ordeal, we acquaint briefly, and meet up again as the river starts to bend away from the wind and industry. Around a point to a commodious sandbar, which we share for the night. He is Robert of Austin, several days into resuming his Itasca to Gulf journey which was interrupted in '08. He has philosophy, tales drawn from a life of adventure, and a bottle of Crown Royale.

Saturday, Oct 29

Robert and I shoot the breeze well into the morning. He set out about forty-five minutes before I did. I hope he fared better than I in his more stable craft. It was an increasing NE wind that I launched into, straight down the channel and into my face. I spend a few minutes bobbing, torquing, and fighting, and persuading myself that this would not do. The bank I'd launched from was parked up with barges, as I could now see, so I vectored over to the other bank, defying death, but trying to be polite about it, and planted myself safely on a little beach. This half mile can not be said to be an advance. Buffeted by the gale, I watch the whitecaps for a while and philosophize myself into tranquility. Through brambles and up into the woods, where I spend half the day in the hammock reading. At about four o'clock, the whitecaps were down, and I set out into the calming remains of the day. I encamp at a beach and wood upriver from a bridge and two anchored ships. During the night, four or five ships pass, gliding like phantoms with the slightest hum, and cleaving the water with a crisp, subtle wake. Quite a contrast to the push, grind, and roar of the towboats and barges. I retire to the usual sounds of the crickets and creatures, a little groggy in the cold, but also hear traffic, dogs, music, and the screams of human beings.

Sunday, Oct 30

The wind backed off enough to let me travel, but very grindingly. Mid-afternoon, I pass a parked tug, from which I hear an amplified voice across the wind and water. When I make out "Minnesota John", I know it's for me. I pull up, and the crew tosses me a line. Robert is present, of course, having been offered a burger as he passed by twenty minutes before me. (Far from him being way ahead of me, it transpires that he had also bowed early to the wind, and had camped upstream from me, which I had managed to not notice when I passed the night before). So, I enjoy a hearty and unexpected meal, cooked by the captain, with Robert and the hospitable crew of the G Shelby Fredericks, and got a very interesting tour of the boat. (Not a pusher, but more of a nudger, puller, and tweaker, working with big ships along the river). Robert and I take off together and end up sharing a less than idyllic campsite near a bridge, tucked up behind a mass of parked barges. I check my phone and call a person who was interested in the canoe. It looks like the efforts of Dennis and Rhonda of Bayou Kayaks are coming through, and a deal is in the offing.

Monday, Oct 31

The river went up in the night, making for less mud to squish through on the shoreline. With a customer waiting and it being Halloween, I'm anxious to be in New Orleans sooner rather than later. I take off with Robert at 7:30, into the sun. He declines for the time being to keep up with me, and I continue through placid waters. Transport facilities, big ships, and big fleets of barges are thick on the banks, but there's not much traffic moving on the river. After some hours, I see Robert pass by as I was tucked behind a barge taking a break. I catch up with him as he is drifting in his canoe putting his lunch together. He'd been listening to the tug captains on his marine radio referring to us as "huckleberries", as in, "I've got a huckleberry out in the middle of the river. I hope he decides which side he wants to be on." (I did, well before it would become a problem for anyone). I take off ahead again, passing along vast, stilted wharves, with a contrary wind picking up. That wind got really contrary as the end point of my river journey came into view around the last bend, and made for extra dramatic effect. My intended landing spot was occupied by a docked paddle-wheeler churning up the water, so I slipped down a little further to some steps off the levee strewn with young, unwashed, 21st century wandervogel. Ophelia and I come to a stop, and I set foot in New Orleans. Well, that was a fair bit of work, when you add it all up. I throw my stuff up on the rocks and set to work getting most of it into my backpack. A few food items go to the hungry youths. Robert had pulled up, and with extra enlistees, we got Ophelia up on the levee. Her new friend had arrived, and declared herself pleased with the canoe. So Ophelia went up on a car rack, and her price, if not her immeasurable value, went into my pocket. I'd been awaiting this sad moment, but faced it squarely. Babe, I gots to be ramblin'. She was a good boat, straight and true, and I believe that she will thrive with her new, boat-loving owner. And now to perform a formal, ritual walk that I had long anticipated. Under a massive, tied up load, I step up to Jackson Square in the French Quarter, go up St Peter, and turn down Bourbon Street. It's late afternoon on Halloween, and a masked, draped, painted, festooned, and disguised cast of characters are already at large. My own persona is that of a ragged, filthy, bewhiskered, alcoholic madman. I turn up Canal, the aorta of the the city, and then up Tulane, which thins out into a kind of wasteland, to the manifestly unclean Capri Motel. Here I rent four walls, plumbing, a bed, and a locked door for $250 for the week. Within this cocoon, I will metamorphose from river rat to international man of mystery. A shower is called for. And a long walk to a laundromat. Then the twenty-five minute walk from the Capri to the French Quarter. Bourbon Street is absolutely mad, packed, revelatious. More than half of the throng is in costume. (I'd taken care to wear the most flamboyant fleece jacket I had available). Fulsome bosoms spilled voluptuously over the balconies and bodices above. I ducked out for a while to a quieter street, and dined on the crawfish etouffee. Then to press back into the wildest, thumpingest, may-as-well-be-nakedest, most phantastic orgy of fun occurring anywhere on the face of the earth.

New Orleans, 11/3

Big Easy

Tuesday, Nov 1 - Friday, Nov 11

It looks like I've seriously come to rest in New Orleans. How have I spent these days? There were tasks: I brought my breached abdominal wall to an urgent care internist on my third day in town. Hernia, shmernia! That doctor wouldn't let his dog worry about such a hernia. He declared it good for travel, and even fixing it when I get home is optional. My luggage underwent a complete turnaround. Brother Mark had sent me the box I'd prepared with my international stuff, and back to him went the gear and whatnot I'd used on the river, all cleaned up, in three parcels. This involved four mulish trips between the Capri and the UPS place. I looked up my benefactor Rhonda to thank her, and ended up having coffee with her and Julia, Ophelia's new wrangler. I met Robert also, who treated me to a beignet and the gumbo as he passed back through town upon finishing his paddle into the sea breeze. (I missed Jonathan and Christian). Every day found me at the library, where as a member of the public, I was vouchsafed two one-hour bouts at the computer, for my seemingly endless web tasks. I've taken the street cars and buses a few times, but mostly done lots and lots of walking, long treks on errands, and long sight-seeing meanders. I've worn a groove on Tulane and Canal Streets, between the Capri Motel and downtown and the French Quarter. The Quarter, and the adjacent Frenchmen Street, have received my thorough touristic attention, and I refer you to the brochure to explain the place. But I will say this: The place looks suspiciously unamerican. This is to be expected, I suppose, with its long pre-anglo history. It smells foreign too, with that close, slightly sour, not unpleasant odor that you'll not smell in Topeka. I can't put my finger on it, but it has something to do with places where the sidewalks and pavements are washed down and left wet. The city is heavy on the hedonism, ranging across the authenticity spectrum. I have dined, oh yes, I have dined, in this city of cookery. But I've also been a grocery shopper and motel room cook, so as not to abuse my thrift credentials. I had a favorite coffeehouse, and hung out therein. I've stepped in this bar, and I've stepped in that bar, for a beer and half a set. I have attended to many a street band. Brass is very obviously rooted deeply in the culture here, meaning young people play the instruments and attend to the music. Now, you all know, that if there's one thing I hate, it's fun. Yet this town managed at moments to shiver even my unyielding timbers. I only ventured into farther-flung neighborhoods a few times, where I admired the distinctive, ornate facades of the houses high and low. Dorgenois Street had parrots on the wires and chickens in the street. I took the 84 bus one day into the Lower 9th Ward, to see what a neighborhood would look like six years after being soaked to the rafters. I saw a lot of overgrown vacant lots, broken down shells of buildings, restored houses, and new construction, in that order.

A word about the Capri Motel: It was homey enough, if slightly squalid. There have been a few hints of drama among the rather declasse clientele, as well as some gastric and respiratory disturbances. I've heard some yowling, but that turned out to be a cat. But with no more than maybe twenty percent occupancy, it's been mostly quiet. The atmosphere of the place is one of end times. The for-sale sign suggests opportunities that do not include the building. The owners I'm sure are just milking the old cow before it's time to move. Ah, if the walls could tell their stories....

So where did all this time go? Following my nose around this city like no other.......poof! New Orleans, I hardly knew ye. I could continue indefinitely, but it's time to break the spell. I've been to the Greyhound website and booked a red-eye to Laredo, to commence at 6:10 PM, Saturday. The road goes ever on.

New Orleans, 11/12

Poised Again

Saturday, Nov 12

I emerge from musty old #238 at the Capri for the last time. I'm in motion now, with my thirty pounds of effects in a black travel pack that will henceforth be known as Matilda, after the Australian usage. I walk her off to the Greyhound station, and in a comic reversal, walk her right back to the Capri, to have them hold her in the office, as Greyhound will not keep your checked bag, nor do they provide lockers. (Thank you Osama bin Laden, and special thanks to our national overreaction). I spend the day in the library and about the town, again marveling at how I could spend so much time here, and yet omit so much. But I have a bus ticket now, and at 6:10 PM I am duly spirited away. No sightseeing in this tunnel of darkness, except illuminated things in the conurbation, like waffle houses and the parking lots of malls. Some familiar sights as we cross the Mississippi in Baton Rouge.....

Sunday, Nov 13

.....I had connections in Houston and Corpus Christi at ungodly hours. A very little token sleep. Morning light as we pass into western landscapes. Arrive Laredo, 9:10 AM. I'm a little beaten down with sleep deprivation, and sit in the plaza to collect myself, and phone the motels I'd jotted down on a printed off google map. I plan my lodging hunt over breakfast. The cheaper places I'd called were all booked, so I found myself walking up the highway strip, trusting my fate and intuition. I ended up at the Evelyn Motor Inn, a step up from the bottom in price, and a rip-off (run by businessmen, not innkeepers - I spare you the details). Errands, an enormous walk to the library out in the asteroid belt, and back downtown (the bus helped) to reconnoiter. The look, sound, and feel of this town is Mexican to the point of it being a real hybrid, and I feel that I'm in Mexico already. And shouldn't a Texas town have a steakhouse? Or Chinese? I love Mexican food, but with my sojourn in Mexico about to commence, I was determined to eat anything but Mexican. I ate Mexican. Had some charming communication difficulties with the waitress. May as well get used to it.

Monday, Nov 14

Eleven hours of recovery slumber. I walk downtown for breakfast and errands, then back up the strip to remove myself from the Evelyn (where they don't care) to the Pan American Courts (where they do - a great old family operation in an ancient brick and wood building). A day of getting things in order. Apparently, I could arrange to get bussed from our side, through customs, and onward to my destination in Mexico. But that would be not so elegant, and having long ago dedicated my life to Form, I prefer to exile myself thus: Turning my back upon my native land, I make a formal walk across the bridge. I pause to nod to the turtles down there in the Rio Grande, true wetbacks and real internationalists. Then through customs, into a taxi, to the bus station, and onward through Monterrey, to Saltillo. Let the adventure begin.....

Laredo, TX 11/14

Over the Line

......not. Not the next morning, anyway. (I wasn't clear in the last post, but that had been my intention). In the early evening, two hours after confidently posting the last blog, I was standing in my hotel room staring down at my shoes, and thinking of the various details I had yet to attend to, or to do half-assed, or put off, or abandon. I then looked in the mirror at my doomed beard, and reflected that the harvest of five months' growth ought not to be taken in in haste, but with due solemnity. And where was the spare hour to look over a few guidebook pages or review my Spanish cribs? I was in a damned rush, and though I could be on that bridge at seven in the morning, I would not be serene. So my tide shifts. There would be another day in Laredo.

Tuesday, Nov 15

Another day in Laredo.

Wednesday, Nov 16

Afoot, southbound. It is most fitting that I take leave of my country through that most common and dismal of American scenes, the through-route business strip. I pause in Laredo's plaza for a bit to look over my Spanish cribs and master the language. Then to the human traffic handling system at the border. I pay the toll, click through the turnstile, and am thus expatriated. Over the bridge and into another world. Soldiers scan my bag, but no one was interested in my passport till I managed to find the officials who issue the tourist card (needed if one intends to penetrate beyond the twenty mile free zone). A cab to the bus station, and within forty minutes of getting that card, I'm on the bus to Monterrey. Desert scrub and scattered joshua trees. The road slowly angles in on the long range of mountains. The entertainment was a Miley Cyrus flick, and I'd turn my head away from the scenery on occasion to check in with her emotings and wardrobe changes. The explosive Nicholas Cage vehicle that followed was harder to ignore. Thank God this was all dubbed in Spanish, or it would have really overwhelmed my consciousness. Through the surprisingly sheer mountains and into Monterrey. So far, so smooth, but I had to rely on the kindness of a baggage man to get me to my transfer, something that I would have never been able to figure out, as I had some misleading info, and the bus station was complex. Nick of time, too. More mountainscapes. Arrive Saltillo. I saw no city buses marked "Centro", so with the city center supposedly only three km away, I walked. (Getting my direction right took some doing, and it was certainly more than three km.) More schlepping of Matilda in the bustle around the main squares and side streets, looking for a hotel and getting entangled in orientation blunders. At last I engage the Hotel Bristol (180 pesos/$14), and drop off Matilda. Thus unburdened, I can really walk around like a maniac, among all these people going about their business and pleasure. The town is so modern, wired, cared for, and prosperous that it amazes me that among my errands is buying a bottle of potable water. Where to dine? There's the Mexican, Mexican, Mexican, and the Mexican. Ah, the choice is obvious. I go into a little hole in the wall, where the teenaged waitress is delighted to use her school English on me. More wandering. God, these people buy and sell a lot of shoes.

[An aside: My travels heretofore in Latin America are these: 18 days in Costa Rica in '00, 18 days in Guatemala in '05, 23 days in Peru in '07, and seven afternoon hop-overs to Mexican border towns in '96 and '98. So I have a little familiarity with the look and feel of things down here in the hispanosphere of the Americas, and with the difficulties I'll encounter as I make my way through it. These difficulties are mostly language based, and I've had my share of them on this my first day. I have a dictionary. I have a little Spanish in my index cards and somewhere in my brain. But to possess it is to use it. I have a long stretch ahead in which this will be my work. It's going to be strenuous, difficult, awkward, fun, and rewarding.]

Thursday, Nov 17

It's so easy when one can simply order the numero uno for breakfast. Now, what's a tourist supposed to do with himself after all the logistics are settled for the time being? For me, the answer is simple: hang out in plazas and religious edifices. As I am a secular humanist with anti-social tendencies, this may seem a little incongruous, but there you have it. And then there are markets to hang out in, and I'm an anti-materialist to boot! It's all very strange. The displacement of travel must account for it. As for this day, I'll be soaking up Mexico and adapting myself. I'll be staying another night in Saltillo. We'll see about tomorrow......

Saltillo, Mexico 11/17

Knee Deep

.....baked goods sustain my wanderings through the afternoon. In the evening, I fix on a Chinese place whose steam table is open to the street and to its spartan interior. I duck inside and go for the numero uno.

Friday, Nov 18

I've just gotten here, but it's time to move along. I inhaled the carrot cake that I reserved for breakfast. That, and a bit of water, marks the beginning of a day-long travel fast. (quite deliberate - more on this in a future topic). I took a cab to the bus station, as I never really did get properly oriented in this town. The cabbie cheerfully tipped himself out of my change. Well, I guess that settles the question of tipping custom (on which the authorities conflict). Getting a ticket ( to San Luis Potosi, my next stop) did not go smoothly, as many bus companies were represented behind the long counter, and I had no info to go on, nor the ability to function like an adult human. But at length, I'm waiting at the numbered bus bays, and deliberately not freaking out over an obviously late bus (good that I managed to figure out that this was a "de paso" - passing through- , and not a "local" -originating- bus). And so, six hours on a smooth, divided highway, through a desert basin flanked by austere mountain ranges. Through the scruffy outskirts of San Luis Potosi to the bus station, some three km from the city center. The guidebook was clear enough, so I boarded a ruta 6 city bus and got myself to where I wanted to be, by a city park near the middle of things. According to the guidebook (more reverently known as the Holy Guide Book), this was the cheap hotel area. Their one named recommendation could not take me in for some incomprehensible reason. The next prospect was completo (full). A very cheap sin bano (common bath) had a room, but I desisted for the moment. I ended up splurging on a medium-cheap ($13) place a little closer to the heart of things. All this was within a few blocks, so I had my bag hoisted up on my shoulder rather than slung on my back, where it would be knocking people over when I turned. The innkeeper was a kindly fellow, who used a map and his limited English (at a level to which I aspire in Spanish) to orient me. When addressing me in Spanish he deliberately spoke slowly and simply, without me asking for a mas despacio y sencilla, por favor. I mellow out a bit in my room, and then venture out for a second pass at this lively town. I break my ten hour liquid fast with something weird and fizzy, make several long sweeps of the lively areas, and duck into a restaurant to further break my fast. It's a big, well-lit place with bustling, matronly waitresses in peachy uniforms with aprons. The tightly buttoned-up members of a mariachi band that had been playing outside come in one by one, boots clicking, to use the restroom. There's a wall hanging of a grinning pumpkin next to the Mexican flag, an icon of the Virgin Mary lit up with Christmas lights, and a drama on the tube with a guy that looks just Leon Trotsky. The fish they served me was an unspeakable pleasure. It's all too far out for words.

Saturday, Nov 19

A vignette of how things are done in Mexico: Morning, and I'm sitting in a coffeehouse on the main plaza. It's a thoroughly well-appointed, upscale, international-friendly kind of place. A van pulls up with the day's supply of baked goods, and the employees commence shuttling it all in, in cubic boxes with handles. I scrutinize those boxes. They are hand-made, and well-made, to suit the purpose of fitting three trays and being easily moved about. Would a similar American business conceived this exact need and contracted it out to an artisan? I don't think so. It would have adapted itself to whatever the market offered in the way of manufactured goods. I leave it to the economic philosophers as to which is more efficient. ~ I spent this day wandering around the old colonial heart of the city, admiring the religious edifices and hanging out in the plazas, and venturing further on commercial streets and the pedestrian malls. Now, as a mid-town, South Minneapolis dweller, I've moved among large numbers of Mexicans. But to see them as a foreigner, in larger numbers yet, in all their urbane variety, going about their weekend pleasures in their own context, was very endearing. [urk. -ed., 3/'21] The old people exude their aura of respectability, the married couples seem endlessly matrimonial, the parents dote on their children, the children run around, the young people ardently canoodle. It all disposes one to love them. Now, to learn to declare my love comprehensibly! I'm on it...... ~ The plazas are hopping as I make my evening rounds. I hear something oddly rhythmic coming out of the cathedral, and I put my head in to investigate. It was some sort of semi-orgiastic religious ceremony with a lot of arm-waving. Didn't seem very Catholic. Jesus would not approve. Wait, what am I saying? Jesus wouldn't approve of the whole shebang, starting with the Gospel according to Mark.

Sunday, Nov 20

However, churches are useful, and today they were busy churning out fresh brides and grooms. I saw one bride who was so beautiful and happy that I couldn't look at her for more than a few seconds, as if she were the sun. (Radiant would be the word). In the plaza, boy scouts and girl scouts were being drilled in the virtues, which seems like a good idea. In the museum adjoining the Templo del Carmen, I looked over dusty old dolls of the saints and a lot of bloody religious art. There was a secular section, including piles of colonial era ironwork whose main function seemed to be keeping humans and horses under control. The cloister was very nice. In an earlier life, I'd be tending the peas in there. I've been to the bus station and gotten a ticket to the capitol for tomorrow. Tonight, I'll be at the bullfight. I'll let you know who wins.

San Luis Potosi 11/20

Bloody Murder

.....The humans won big. In fact, the bulls were pretty much slaughtered. Here's how the ghastly spectacle went: I'd found the bullring in the morning, just to see it, and on the off chance that a bullfight would be scheduled for later. Indeed there was, in the evening, which surprised me, under the roof and artificial light. And so, at the appointed time, I walked over the vast rail yard overpass to the bullring. I almost balked at the price for the cheap seats (250 pesos, $19) , which seemed kind of high. The expensive seats were 850 pesos, without a great deal of difference in proximity. Call it the price of intimacy. The place was about 80% full, maybe a little heavy on the male side, but mostly this was a family or date affair. Plenty of eight-year-olds were present to absorb and carry on the culture. Cue the drums and brass. The aggressors, human and equine, parade out into the ring and make a grand display of their skills, postures, and vestments for the crowd. The pageantry was pretty exhilarating. The stage clears, and two cape guys and the matador return. (In this evening's series of performances, at least, only one human is tasked with the direct physical torment, the mounted matador. The cape guys are secondary and merely tease the bull. Two matadors took turns going through six unfortunate bulls). Enter the first doomed beast. Backstage, they'd already stuck a ribbon into him, to commence the exploitation of his natural emotions. He comes charging out, looking for anyone who resembles that ribbon sticker. He goes for the cape guys, who cower behind barricades. They'll mess with him later, when he's weaker. (Their job is seems to be to distract the bull from focusing too single-mindedly on going after the horse-man). The matador and the horse provoked the bull into a kind of morbid dance, during which the matador gymnastically stuck a series of torture instruments into the bull's back. The bull bleeds, pants, runs around trying to get back at his attackers, and gets dottier and dottier. (It's worth noting that the horses are switched every few minutes, so that their performance is never hampered by fatigue. These dumb beasts deserve some pity too, as they have no idea that the tricks they've been trained in make them appear almost as vainglorious as their riders). When it was time to move things along, the matador dramatically stabbed the bull in the back with a short lance. He dismounted and poked further at the back of the bull's neck with a sword to finish him off. (With two or three of the bulls, another performer accomplished this with a knife). Functionaries appear with two horses hitched to a short, two-wheeled cart. They lash the bull's head and shoulders to this thing and drag away his limp corpse. Ole'. Then the macho, pro-wrestling foppery really gets going. The matador, who had been soliciting praise for himself all along, walked around the ring to ask for more, holding aloft his bloody hand. (Which he kept carefully away from his glittering Liberace suit). At this point, I was thinking that what he really needed was several pair of pruning sheers jabbed in his ass. The crowd gave him as many boos as cheers, however, for reasons I didn't understand. He retires, and the second round begins with the alternating matador. I saw the actual moment of murder more clearly with the second bull. He was the only victim of the night who had the relative good fortune to have the lance actually kill him straight up, sparing him the final poking treatment. The lance went in and he was down, blood spraying out of his face. I figured this would garner special praise from the crowd, but it didn't seem to. But there was a lot about this whole spectacle that in my ignorance I couldn't interpret. The blond, blue-suited matador was back for the third bull. This one was evidently a screw-up. The lance went in askew (one could see this when one of the cape guys pulled it halfway out), and the bull stayed on his feet for a long while, as the cape guys and the matador closed in on him to taunt him further with their capes in his face. Eventually the bull sank to his knees, but the matador's pokings at his neck seemed ineffectual. There was a look of defeat and exasperation on Liberace's face, as if he were thinking, hey, you're supposed to die when I kill you. Eventually, another performer knifed the bull. The crowd seemed to not want to acknowledge any of this, and didn't even boo. Liberace trudged off, skipping the grandstanding part. And so it went with the rest of the condemned. The last of the six bulls died stretched out on my side of the ring, with his head in my direction. I saw his last gasp distorting his face and the light go out of his eyes. There you have it. It's all undeniably dramatic and artistic and cruel and disgusting. What's particularly awful is the evident unwillingness of the bulls to participate. They are, after all, being goaded into all of this. They would back away between goadings, turn away from their tormentors, and look up into the crowd as if to say, "Is there not one among you....? .....not one.....?" There was not, and I skulk away with the others after the last blast of the trumpet and beat of the drum. I've seen my bullfight.

Monday, Nov 21

I thank the keepers of Hotel Principal, and step out with Matilda, as it's time to move on. Around the corner, and I see my ruta 6 pull away. No matter. I have a wall to lean against and a time margin. At length, I'm through the bus station, loaded aboard, and en route to Mexico City. More desert plants and mountains. The land greens up and becomes hillier as we approach the city. Concrete block housing crawl up the hillsides in the suburbs, but I didn't really get a sense that we were penetrating the largest city on the planet. The north side bus station had the look of a major airport. I check my bag so I could hotel shop unencumbered. Mexico City has a great subway system, just waiting for the next earthquake. Two transfers, and I'm in the heart, walking the paved-over city of the Aztecs. I check out five places, as much to practice my politeness and hotel Spanish as to secure my domestic happiness for four nights. Prices being a little higher in the capital, I opt for a cheap place, with common bathroom. I've got an absolute cell of a room, third floor, with a beamed fifteen foot ceiling, and a little balcony overlooking moderately heavy traffic. I'm a block and a half from the national plaza. Pretty cool. The subway shuttles me back to the bus station to get my bag, and back again downtown in the rush hour crush. To my room, where I mellow out for a while. This balcony is great, but something murderous may have to be done to that organ grinder. I step outside in the early eve to get acquainted with my immediate neighborhood, which happens to be the heart of the nation....and to get something to eat.

Mexico City 11/22

Metropolis

Tuesday, Nov 22

A day of walking around the old colonial core of Mexico City. It's all very busy and prosperous and has the vibe of a world capital. One surprise is the air quality. Though hardly fresh, it's not at all suffocating like in just about every other Latin American city I've been in. (Saltillo and San Luis Potosi were also good - must be national emissions standards). The National Plaza, reportedly one of the biggest in the world (though it's just one square block) is just a blank space. Very suitable for mass politics. There's a pole in the middle, flying a humungous Mexican flag. For the moment, it's cluttered up with bleachers and some sort of temporary construction project. The cathedral is said to be the biggest in Latin America, something I didn't doubt as I strolled its gloomy spaces with my head tilted back on my shoulders. So much for quiet. The theme for the rest of this day is noise. It turns out that the organ grinding is pervasive, and evidently traditional. They work in pairs, wearing khaki suits with captain hats, which they extend histrionically for coins. One would grind and beg, while the other would stand apart and just beg. They'd alternate to relieve arm fatigue. Tough business, you know. Here's a cultural practice that I really have to bite my brain to not unreservedly condemn. It's ugly, tuneless, displays no talent to admire, and the mendicancy goes far beyond the open guitar case of the busker. And it's loud as hell, and these guys will set up right in front of outdoor cafes. I don't get it. They are almost universally ignored, but I've seen from my balcony that something will go in the hat every fifteen minutes or so. Just enough encouragement, I suppose. Then in the evening, sitting in a restaurant, I suffered a different kind of noise imposition, from a trio of elderly singers and musicians. They came in and serenaded me and the two or so other parties present. I was a good sport about it and coughed up, but of course resented being cornered. Then, at 2:15 in the morning, I am jolted out of slumber by the staccato racket of....what?.... I step out on the balcony and see a work crew across the street with a jackhammer mounted on a front end loader, busting a hole in the pavement. This really tickled my funny bone. I put in the ear plugs for a softer effect, and lay awake thinking how, aside from making sleep impossible, I really did prefer the jackhammer to the organ grinding. They finished in an hour, and I got back to sleep.

Wednesday, Nov 23

A tour of the National Palace, mainly to see Diego Rivera's murals in the courtyard and stairwell. They really are incredible, covering the sweep of Mexican history, and I spent a lot of time lingering over the wealth of detail. The guy was mostly hard-hitting in his depiction of human nastiness, but in the last section, his presentation of Communism as the savior of mankind made for a kind of sweetly naive contrast. Well, it was the thirties. Then off to a plaza, where I sat by the fountain and broke fast with bread and orange juice. The adjacent religious edifice, Templo de Loreto, was pretty frowsy inside, the saints and whatnot flaking off the dome, and the floor so tilted you couldn't make yourself walk straight. (Mexico City is, after all, built on the old Aztec lake-city, and I've seen heavy buildings sinking at weird angles, including the cathedral). To the famed museum of anthropology. I made a very long walk of this, just to experience one of the grand boulevards the planners set up in the nineteenth century and punctuated with glorious statuary. I spent four hours in the museum, which is devoted to all the pre-conquest cultures. As you might expect, there were way more objects and info that one could possibly absorb, so as usual with museums, you just let it wash over you. All very fascinating, and I emerged a little punch drunk with love for the Olmecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Maya, Toltecs, Teotihuacan people, Aztecs, etc., never mind their violence. Outside the entrance, I got off my feet and observed, at six sharp, the honor guard striking the flag, nice and orderly. The lead guy goose-stepped the folded flag into the building as the others stood at attention. When he disappeared, they did a single, unified goose-step, and then broke it off and lit up their smokes. Down to the Metro station, where I see what the depth of rush hour looks like. Packed cars and packed platforms. I get the picture, and as a foreigner with time on his hands, I just prop up the wall and let many trains and almost an hour pass by, as people squeeze in, squeeze out, or like me, don't bother trying and just wait. Through all this, people act with the utmost reserve, even when squeezing. It did start thinning a little, but salvation came with some actual empty cars that they must have just tacked on. (I was at the tail end of the platform). We half- fill the car. At the next stop, we are sardines again. But the transfer wasn't bad. Okay, it is the largest city on the planet. Off my feet at my hotel, then on them again to dine. I return to the tune of the jackhammer. (They finished soon enough).

Thursday, Nov 24

Today, an outing to the pyramids at Teotihuacan. This got off to a balky start. The guidebook sent me off to the end of a subway line, where buses were said to be waiting to spirit tourists off to the pyramids. (An hour out of town). What I found there was a crowded market with a profusion of buses. I got lost and found a few times looking for one marked "Las Pyamides¨. I decided my Spanish wasn't up to accosting someone about this, so I ducked back into the subway to emerge at the second option, at the main terminal, again to seek a supposedly regular and frequent tourist bus. After some protracted observing, waiting, puzzling, and a few Spanish forays, I'm at last on a bus. Surely I jinxed myself by thinking this would be easy. But to the ends, not the means. The bus takes us through the northern outskirts, and I admire the verticality of the concrete block housing for the suburban poor crawling up the mountainsides. I was surprised to see forests still standing at the upper fringes of some of these developments. A few shanty areas adjacent to the road. Arrive Teotihuacan. The complex as it's bounded for the tourist is over a mile long, a corridor of open spaces of beaten down grass, linked by sloping stones walls with steps. This was main street back in the first century. (All this far preceded the Aztecs. They claimed ancestry, though, to impress other groups. The Spaniards knocked down all the Aztec architecture). First stop, the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, where I admired the stone heads depicting the great plumed serpent himself. The art was impressive, but more so the idea, and I shivered to think of his thirst for blood. Then up the corridor, along which were some excavations of residential areas that I looked around at. Then I join the stream of my fellow pilgrims, and ascend the Pyramid of the Sun, something I've been meaning to do for about forty years. The steps were big and steep, definitely not up to modern code. At the summit, I pause a long while on the labor of untold thousands, look over the country (diffused suburban development outside the park boundary) and muse, O Humanity! I descend and look over the restored platforms and whatnot, and ascend to the first terrace of the Pyramid of the Moon, ( which was as far as they'd let you go), at the end of the long corridor. A pleasant day among the works of those who have gone before. There were enough people to make it sociable (mostly Mexicans, but plenty of internationals), but it was not overrun. But the vendors had the run of the place, so I had to shoo away a lot of craftwork, from the fine to the truly atrocious. At length, I am bused back to the metropolis, and subwayed to my neighborhood. A thanksgiving phone call to the family dinner back home. I dine on the chicken enchiladas en mole as the closest I'd get to turkey.

Friday, Nov 25

I sling my drying laundry low on the balcony to keep it out of sight, and step out for the day. Visits to what have become my customary bakery and coffeehouse. Streets to the NE of the plaza, today set up as a vast street market, and then to the south, plazas and religious edifices, colonial era neighborhoods from the cared for and prosperous to the cared for and semi-ghetto. I pause in the Templo de Santisima and note how the nave and the apse (if I've got that right) were tilted at different angles. Another pause in the Templo de la Conception de Jesus Nazareno, mid sixteenth century, where they've got Cortez plastered up in the wall by the altar. As cursing would not do in this sacred space, I merely growled at his bones. Down in the subway, there's a tunnel several blocks long devoted entirely to small bookshops. I find my station, and go off to the eastern bus terminal to get a ticket out of town for tomorrow. Back in Centro, I emerge like a gopher somewhere south of the big park, and walk vaguely north till my position clarifies. I pause at a little hole in the wall devoted to tortas, which is a hot sandwich, and watch through the greasy glass as the highly skilled torta chica chopped and swept my lunch together using two grill scrapers. An ascent of the Seguro Latino America building, to view the vastness of Mexico City from forty two stories, as it lay unevenly in its smoggy bowl of mountains, in the late afternoon murk. I refresh at my hotel, then out to see what was up in the National Plaza ( a little bit of everything). An internet bout, then the metro out to a nightlife neighborhood, just to see it on a walk between metro stations, and maybe have a beer if there was a place that wasn't too highfalutin or packed. (There wasn't). So I had a 7-11 beer at my hotel as I thought to myself, self, I could do this again tomorrow. But I have a bus ticket, and a continent to finish, and another to traverse. So I bow to Frido Kahlo, Leon Trotsky, the University, intriguing neighborhoods, and other things undone, and set my alarm.

Saturday, Nov 26

At 6:00, I roll out of bed and step out on the balcony to great the morning scene on Calle Cinco de Mayo. At 6:30, in traveling trim, I step out again to bid it adieu. A quick breakfast at Cafe Popular, and I walk along the cathedral and submerge into the plaza. Metro to the bus station, and in due course I'm en route to Oaxaca. Mexico makes its shift from semi-arid to green, which varied with elevation as we passed through the lovely mountainscape. Exotic birds screech from the trees at a rest stop. Arrive Oaxaca......

Oaxaca 11/26

Cities, Living and Dead

.....bag checked at the bus station, I commence my explorations. Through centro to the southwest quadrant, where the cheap hotels are. The best guidebook suggestion had been gentrified into some kind of yuppie business, so I just meandered and got the lay of the land. Lots of hotels. My inner divining rod directs me to Hotel Lupita, where I secure a nice room on the second floor, off the interior courtyard. Eleven bucks, shower next door, toilet downstairs, free purified water. Now my meandering is aimed at finding a comida corrida, the large, cheap, set, late Mexican lunch. Chicken and rice, as it turned out. Back to the bus station to retrieve my bag. I pause in the park in the northeast quadrant to watch the elderly ladies on the stage perform a dance to some homely tune. They are in white, billowy dresses, trimmed in Indian motifs, and dance an age-appropriate dance, kind of stepping around in quarter-turns, and holding up their billows with outstretched arms. They had a large and appreciative audience. I pause further in the main square to watch the dusk settle on the sitters, strollers, and a few shufflers. (This was my fourth pass through here with all this shuttling). On my way to my hotel, I overshot my corner by quite a bit and innocently turned into a street of brothels. Lascivious hissing made me recognize that these girls were not waiting for the bus. Oh, my goodness. I drop off my bag at my hotel, and set out again for an internet errand, and more people watching and wandering.

Sunday, Nov 27

A lingering breakfast in a cafe with real coffee. Now, to have a good look at Oaxaca. It's an arty, touristy, gentrified kind of town, with a gringo presence. The plaza was busy and festive all day, with performances, diversions for the kids, balloons, and so on. I passed through numerous times as I walked around, marveling at an urban environment where much of what you see was built in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. And man, did I glut myself on religious edifices. I spare you the details. But from the sacred to the profane: I'd wandered way to the southwest, wanting to look over the other bus station (the second class one, which I thought might be called for on my next leg), and to have something to eat in the market. I crossed the tracks (very apt), turned a corner, and am accosted by a friendly fellow who wished to exercise his English on me. He was ready to assist, somehow. I then looked around and realized that we were being observed by about twenty or so whores lined up in front of nasty hotels. I disengage from the guy, who I figured was merely an enthusiast, and not a pimp, as he was too drunk at four o'clock to do his job properly. Me and the whores roll our eyes at each other as I pass through that lane of vice. Now, who is more incongruous in this scene? Myself, or the little old ladies walking around with baskets of chewing gum for sale? (Hmmm, maybe they're retirees....). On to more wholesome commerce, in the huge marketplace, where every human need is supplied, from toys and keys and tupperware to mattresses and garden tools and parakeets. And of course, all things edible. All this vended from little one or two person booths. It's incredible, the labor and capital outlay. I wonder how it can all add up, but I wonder the same thing about our own mode of commerce. The air is smoking and sizzling, and I'm drawn to a little torta stand, where I'm fortified. A long walk to the north, climbing into the cobbled, upper reaches of the town, to the open-air planetarium on the hilltop. (I'm beginning to think that Mexicans are big on astronomy. In Mexico City, a section of a subway walking tunnel is done up as a darkened starscape. And every night on the downtown pedestrian mall, people would be lined up at a telescope that someone had set up, to have a look at Jupiter and its moons. All this does comport with their ancestry). I mellow out at the feet of the giant statue of Juarez (a native son), and sweep my gaze over Oaxaca, sprawled out in its valley in the late afternoon rays. (For the sun had broken through. It had been pleasantly overcast all day.) The inevitable descent, and more plaza strolling as night falls. I asked for the pozole from a street vendor, kind of forgetting what it was. In this case, it was a fatty soup with enough chili pepper to flush my northern European face. Hoo boy. Better follow that up with some tacos from another vender (rolled up in soft tortillas, not our crunchy things). Heavy on the onion, cilantro, and lard. Kind of damp, too. Whoa. Better wash all this down with the little bottle I got from the mescal chicas. (The tiny free sample just about blew my head off). I'll let you know how it all goes.

Monday, Nov 28

It went well. No ill effects. All credit to the worm. After a restaurant breakfast, I stepped into a bakery for the loaves that would fuel the day's excursion, a visit to Monte Alban, a Zapotec ruin six miles up and out of town. A hotel offers a regular shuttle service with a van. Having just missed the latest, I had an hour to kill, so I walked off to Iglesia Nuestra Senora de Consolacion, a hitherto neglected religious edifice. I pay my respects inside, and sit on the steps and start in on those loaves. Back to the shuttle service, and I am conveyed up the switchbacks to the ruin, the only passenger. I clarify some points of Spanish with the driver, who spoke English well. The setting of this ghost town was pretty spectacular. The builders had laboriously flattened off an arm of a mountain overlooking the three converging valleys in which Oaxaca now sprawls. Here they built their platforms and pyramids and walled spaces, in the first couple of centuries after Christ. I spend several hours reverently walking the ruins. The vibe here in the 21st century was mellower and more pastoral that at Teotihuacan. Fewer people, but including the usual English-speaking foreigners, so I was able to air out my native tongue. Vendors were supposedly prohibited, but a few elderly, gentleman vendors had insinuated themselves in and were furtively displaying their wares. The oddity of the day came in form of a swarm of bees, who swirled thick as gnats for five minutes around the broad, open, grassy court between the platforms. I bow to the Old Ones, and to those who met unhappy fates here (the bas reliefs depicted prisoners to be sacrificed), and begin my descent. I had planned to skip the ride and walk back down into town (six miles, one thousand feet - suggested by guidebook and affirmed by the driver), but it didn't quite work out the way I'd intended. I walked down a good stretch of the winding, mountain road, and followed the sign for "Oaxaca" at a junction. This was an error, for which I forgive myself pretty easily. I was well below this, and thus committed, when I realized that the driver must have started our climb on a lesser road, coming in, no doubt, at the other fork at the junction. That road had skirted the upper fringe of the hillside barrios down through which I had wanted to meander on my way back into town. Missed opportunity. Still, I had pretty views from the road. Down in the valley bottom, I walk a long string of roadside businesses, mundane, but hey, cool, I'm in Mexico. Over the river, and through a quiet, bedraggled neighborhood, and back into centro. My waiter tonight was pleasantly obsequious fellow who comped me a mescal. Big tip for him.

Tuesday, Nov 29

After a sit-down breakfast with Matilda, we pause for a bit and meditate in the spectacularly gilded Iglesia Santo Domingo. To the station for the next bus to Tehuantepec. (Frequent and regular, so no need to plan ahead or be early). Through rugged mountain scenes, forests in the upper reaches, cactuses and yuccas further down, and palms as we approach sea level. I feel that I'm leaving behind the Mexico of the hunched figure against the wall, snoozing under his sombrero, and entering the jungly, more Central American Mexico. There is laundry being done in the rivers, and corn is growing on unlikely slopes. And more army checkpoints. Arrive Tehuantepec. I waltz Matilda to the south and inquired my way to the plaza, which was a ways off, through a grid that was a little wacky. One guidebook hotel recommendation looked like it was once a great place, but it was now a ghostly ruin. The other had improved itself out of my price range. With the tropical dusk falling, I settled on a grim little place set up for cars to park in a courtyard, like a motel. Twelve bucks, which, given what the place turned out to be, I think included a gringo tax. Out to the well-peopled plaza. This is the smallest place I've been in so far, and the most tropical. (Actual Tropic of Cancer crossed before San Luis Potosi). A warm breeze through the palms, suggestive of a not too distant sea. Weird screaming birds, with traffic noise light enough that one could hear them. Mototaxis (motorcycle parts tinkered into three-wheeled contraptions, with a platform for carrying passengers) were putt-putting around. The dogs all have teats or balls. I'm not in Kansas anymore. I sit down at a mobile street kitchen and asked for tacos. When offered a choice of parts, I went for the cabeza. I watched through the greasy glass as the cook plucked lardy gobbets of flesh from the grinning skull of a hapless bovine, to slap down on the grill for my dinner. I can only hope that this poor beast met a less protracted end than those bulls in the ring.

Wednesday, Nov 30

It seems so abrupt, to merely lay over for a night in such an intimate place. I may think I have a lot of time, but what I really have is a lot of space. The world is an embarrassment of riches. So I take a turn around the plaza, grab bag from hotel, and start walking. I intended to hail a mototaxi, to save myself from getting lost and missing my bus, but every one that passed was engaged, ferrying workers, or goods, or kids to school. But my path fell into place well enough. I am bused across the plain, mountains yonder, to Tuxtla Gutierrez. I have a two o'clock in the afternoon traveler's breakfast in the bus station, coffee and muffin, waiting for the hourly to San Cristobal. Right out of Tuxtla Gutierrez, the road makes a big climb. The drop-off from the heights above to the plain below was breathtaking. Through patches of cloud. Arrive San Cristobal. I check my bag and penetrate the town. This place is smaller that Oaxaca, and several magnitudes more touristic. The gringo element is high, more Euro than Yank, and weighted toward the young. Must be the revolution/resistance politics (this being Chiapas, heartland of racial oppression, and hence of the Zapatistas). But the only marching and chanting I observed was from kids displaying school spirit. The pizza, coffee, artesania, dining, and t-shirts are all very comforting, but I won't hold it against the town. (I did stop here quite deliberately, after all, and I am One Of Them). The guidebook directed me to a cheap gem of a hotel. I'm on the second floor, open to a little patio. My host and I manage a friendly, useful, difficult, and satisfactory exchange. Back out on the street, I am accosted by a trio of cute little Indian niñas, who got under my feet as they put on a hard sell and lifted their wares up in the direction of my face. I was playful and firm with them. They looked at me with their big, brown eyes, yet I remained unmoved. When they simultaneously realized that I wasn't buying, they stalked off, howling as if in pain. Passionate creatures that they are, I fear they will hate me forever and ever. I sample some street food, including an elote (a mealy corn cob) on my way to get my bag. Coffee, internet, and an Italian dinner, cooked by an Italian, in this tourist town (or to be accurate, its tourist section). Last night, I basked in lowland warmth. This night, a deep mountain chill had settled with the darkness. (San Cristobal is at 7200 feet). It took an iron will to get naked and step across the patio and get in and out of that shower. Bundled up, I knead a sinkful of laundry, and step up to the roof to hang it. North Star hanging low, and my familiar constellations way out of place. Hey, which of those bright new ones is Canopus, and which Alpha Centauri? I don't know, not being a southerner. The earth is moving under my feet.

Thursday, Dec 1

Out of a warm bed and into the morning chill. I climb the long staircase to the church on the eastern hill, and thus put myself into circulation. Morning rays over the town. I found the perfect breakfast place: cheap, simple, Mexican, and with decent coffee (I'd spied the espresso machine - meaning they wouldn't be slipping me instant - there are benefits to being in a tourist town). I'm sure the elderly, international, bohemian cafe lizards lounging significantly under the colonnade overlooking the plaza would agree. What beautiful idlers, slouched in their thoughtfully careless clothes, philosophers all, I'm sure , with stories to tell. I duck into a covered street market, tarps hanging low, ropes holding it all together. Walking amongst the stalls, I kept my ears open for indigenous languages, which I certainly heard, as well as some weirdly accented Spanish. Three or four blocks later, I find my way out, with my head permanently crinked against my left shoulder. Insofar as this day had a focus, it was to make an excursion to Moxviquil, a small, unrestored ruin in the hills above the town. Though I made a valiant effort, I never did find the place. (The guidebook not entirely clear). But in the effort, I passed through a charming neighborhood up on the slopes, and trod forest paths, all very peaceful. Back in town, I ascend the long stairway to the church on the western hill. Evening rays over the town. A brass band is playing down there somewhere. I descend, and for a half hour am myself a coffee lizard, sitting out on the pedestrian street. After web tasks and a too expensive meal, I wander behind the church, where an open plaza was set up as a handicraft market. It's 10:00, it's absolutely freezing, and sitting in their little patches of handmade goods were twenty or so Indian women, bundled up in the shape of cones, many with their bundled children, as hipsters, drinkers, and diners, Mexican and foreign, pass by their perimeter, ignoring them. A common theme: whether the tourist/customer presence is high, medium, or low, the supply of artesania will always be a hundred times greater than the demand. A little later, I did see them beginning to pack up. I hope they all got a last - or a first - sale.

Friday, Dec 2

I take leave of my amiable host. Through the streets. I went past the bus station, for I feel I've been luxuriating on first class buses too much, and cross the thoroughfare to be waved aboard a combi, a twelve seat van in this case. They leave when they fill up, which happened soon enough. For what turned out to be about the same fare, I get to ride with my bag in my lap. Not a good value, this time anyway, though I suppose we got going quicker. Arrive Comitan. My hotel shopping got a little out of hand, and with Matilda accompanying. Everything was priced over my limit, or was under my standards. (For I do have standards, low, but not lowest. But it was nice to learn that 70 Pesos/five bucks will get you a shared bathroom too grotty to ever be cleaned, and a mattress that looks like it was scrounged from a landfill). I was ready to splurge when I found a reasonable place for eight bucks. (This is my economy now. I've got months to go, with spending and no earning). Bag off back, and to the plaza, and sweet repose, with loaf and orange juice. The greenery of the ficus trees have been manicured into the shape of giant hockey pucks. One odd thing after another. An afternoon passes. An evening too.

Saturday, Dec 3

The indoor market must have had a dozen comedores. These are small, simple, cheap, home cooking operations, with benches, checkered plastic tablecloths, ancient plates and cutlery, and suchlike. I let myself get gently touted into one of these for a breakfast of eggs, beans, tortillas, and instant. Today, an excursion to Tenam Puente, a Mayan ruin nine miles out of town. I find the combi company that does that route and am soon underway, the van making a few stops and packing up with humans, boxes, and vegetables. I take it past a village, to the ruins at the end of the line. First on, last off. The ruin is tended, with a little interpretive center. I look the place over slowly for a few hours. The platforms, temples, and ball courts (for they did play ball, losers to be sacrificed), run up the slope of a hill, with broad staircases between the levels. The site was forested, except where the restorers had opened things up and mowed. There were a few big trees growing out of the stonework. (The place was overgrown and unknown until 1925 - flourishing AD 600 - 900). The stone-fitting was tight, and sometimes tilted to settle well with the ages. Some surfaces still had the red pigment that they were painted with. From the upper temple there was a great view of the valley, town, and mountains beyond. Peaceful, with yellow flowers in December bloom, and corn yonder, drying on the stalk. A few families and a couple the only other visitors. At length, back to the park facility to wait for the combi to come by. I spare you, and me, a lengthy essay describing how this was not going to work out. Miscommunications were involved. That much got communicated. Nothing to do but walk back. Downhill, along a pretty country road. It had gotten cloudy, chilly, and windy. My situation was slightly dire, but still, I was kind of slap-happy about it, and was well willing to walk down through village and field (five miles), if not along a highway business stretch in the dark (another four miles - I figured I might hail a cab). But as my fate would have it, the couple I'd greeted in the ruins passed by and very kindly offered me a lift. They took me as far as the Walmart, and I took it from there. In due course, I'm plopped down in the plaza. It's dusk, and the place is lit up with Feliz Navidad stuff. Strollers are strolling and lovers are loving. It's my last night in Mexico. Tomorrow, I take a combi to the border and walk over into Guatemala. I've been in seven countries in my life (not counting two airport touchdowns - eight or more new ones in the offing on this trip), but this will be the first time I cross a border that's not my own. I'll let you know how it goes.

Comitan 12/3

Bad Air

Sunday, Dec 4

My last meal in Mexico is a classic breakfast of eggs, beans, and tortillas, in a comedor across the highway from the combi station. Into the combi, through the countryside, and out at the outpost of Mexican officialdom. The Mexican official kindly stamps my tourist card. It's another two miles to the border, and since I didn't see anything like a shuttle that might absorb my last coins, and not wanting at this point to break paper money on a taxi, I thought I'd make a formal walk. This was dumb: mid-day sun, hat buried, uphill the whole way. But it did afford me the opportunity to linger over a very picturesque dump. (You'll see the picture). At last, I'm threading up the string of micro-businesses that comprise the little border town of Cuauhtemoc. I sit down outside at a tienda for a cold coke and to collect myself. Little kids pass by to stare with wonderment at me and the inflated, rotating santa-reindeer-snowman installation. I follow others under the traffic barrier (the whole concept of a border here seems a little loose) and present myself to the Guatemalan official, who stamps my passport with a bienvenidos. I pick out the most flamboyant of the money changers to exchange my pesos for quetzales. He's got pointy boots, oily mustachios dribbling past his jawline, and is accented head to toe in silver, including a very rococo sidearm. Tuk-tuks await, and I engage one, having no idea where I might pick up a bus. (Tuk-tuks are not frankenstein motorcycles, but are built from the start to be three-wheeled monsters). And so I am tuk-tukked like a sahib up through the Guatemalan border town of La Mesilla to the dusty lot where chicken buses await. I am instantly touted aboard one of these, and in a minute we are rumbling away for Huehuetenango. One has to laugh at the ease of all this. These people are motivated to move your ass, and to take your money (not much) for doing so. (Traveling by first class bus in Mexico was easy for entirely different reasons). Through dramatic,vertical, deeply green mountains. This chicken bus never filled beyond two to a seat, but I've been in this country before, and I know what I'm in for. Arrive Huehuetenango. I take a taxi, not knowing how otherwise to get to centro, and to save me the walk. Bag on back, I make a few turns around the central blocks, and settle in Hotel Mary, which has a roof I can step up to. Out to make more thorough rounds. The relative poverty in comparison to Mexico is evident everywhere in the general look of things. The lighting at night is feeble (actually, I'd say this is thrifty, easy on the senses, and thus highly advanced) and the fume in the air is fairly bad. Lots of rumbling traffic right in the center. That, and the fact that the plaza is entirely walled off with corrugated sheet metal as it undergoes a renovation (no plaza ?! OMG!), will make my stay in this town shorter rather than longer. I come full circle with a dinner of eggs, beans, and tortillas. (cuisine note: the Guatemalan tortilla is fatter than the Mexican, perfectly delicious, but not so well adapted to rolling things up. I think they are more often still done on the comal, rather than being machine made).

Monday, Dec 5

I spend the day walking around, hanging around, fussing with how to make a phone call, making a spectacle of myself lurching around the indoor market (farm tools for sale that looked like the work of a blacksmith), making culinary/linguistic experiments (with varying degrees of success), and thinking about how I'll be spending the next few weeks. Since Oaxaca, I've been sinking deeper into Indian country, and will be sinking further. Though I'm in a fairly sizable, busy provincial capital, plenty of the women are wearing traditional Mayan dress, and even some of the men are in red and white striped pants. I'll be seeing much more of this in smaller places. In the early eve, I was having a cup in a little place weirdly done up as a log cabin. A little old Mayan lady walks in to have some business with the owner. She very formally, punctiliously, and cheerfully greets everyone in the place. In the US, you don't see faces as old as hers, and if you did, it would be propped up in front of a TV in the memory care unit. In Latin America, these old ones are out on the street making a living. As she's leaving, she heartily addresses me, insisting amiably that I visit Todos Santos (this much I understood). This place was on my short list anyway, and I dig the verb out of my head to assure her I will. (Veno! Veno!). (Correction, 12/14: Doh! It's irregular! Vengo!) < Health note: I've begun my daily anti-malaria pill. Delicious! Not so nice is my present case of malaria (literally "bad air"), a.k.a. keratolysis, which is afflicting my right foot. (Thank you for the diagnosis, Dr Internet. And thanks to Señor Pharmacist for the treatment). This is sometimes sore enough to lame me, and it has sensory effects of which delicacy forbids me to etc, etc. Suffice it to say that the already foul air in this country is not sweetened when I take off my right shoe. Caramba! I've been giving it as much air, soap, water, and chemical as I practically can. >

Tuesday, Dec 6

After a few practical matters, I took a city bus (in this case, same idea as chicken) a short ways past the edge of town to Zaculeu, a Mayan ruin, as much to study the guidebook in quiet, shade, and fresh air as to see the place. The site is well groomed and compact, and the structures architecturally impressive, but the feeling of antiquity is muted by the philistine restoration job. It seems that in 1947, our United Fruit Company, after years of manipulating and ripping off its banana republics, desired to show themselves to be cultural nice guys by plastering over the whole place, and, you know, straightening out some flaws. As a result, Zaculeu now evokes a state university built in the '5os. Anyway, nice place for a picnic. Getting back on the bus into town, I see that the back is loaded up with a lot of cut branches and bundles of sticks. When the passenger who cut all this firewood got off, the ayudante ("helper" in a chicken bus) kindly kicked all this out the back door on to the road for him. The MTC wouldn't do that. Twelve strong sweeps of the broom completes the job. Back in town, I pause over a cup, and then go forth again on a city bus, this time to the chicken bus terminal, for the sake of a dry run and to check things out for my exit in the morn. The route through the city streets is clear now, and I walked back, engulfed in fume and travel satisfaction. This was a nice day, peopled with nice people. Tomorrow, onward to (Quetzaltenango? Solola?) Plans are taking shape. Now to duck out of this internet place, find something to eat, and retire to my hotel, where, God help me, I'll be taking off my right shoe.

Huehuetenango, Guatemala 12/6

Another Planet

......to the roof with a gallo (the national beer - pretty tepid) for a lengthy gaze over the town. The waxing gibbous moon bears down on me from directly overhead. Unearthly.

Wednesday, Dec 7

City bus to the terminal, where I find the office of a first class company and buy a ticket. (I'll save the chicken buses for when they are the only or best alternative. This three hour ride was to be on the pan american highway, and for $6.50 over maybe $4.50, I'll have a place to put my knees. Though this bus was greyhound style (chicken buses begin their lives as school buses in the US), it was pretty beat up. I was told we'd be leaving in twenty minutes. As the bus was jacked up, with a wheel off and hub parts spread all over the pavement, I thought forty. With two mechanics applying themselves intensely, and with full spectator support, forty it was. Through mountain and vista. I made a bit of an ass of myself, and could have made a major travel blunder, by almost missing my junction. Only the attention and solicitude of my seatmate saved me. (I spare you the blah blah about the perfectly reasonable assumptions that led to this. But here are three rules: One, don't make reasonable assumptions. Two, greet and know your ayudante. Three, learn vocabulary for stop!). Anyway, I'm dropped off and touted aboard a chicken bus for the short leg to Solola. (Geography and personal history note about Lago Atitlan, where I'll be lingering: The lake is eleven by seven miles, with a small and a large bay. It is deeply and stunningly set in mountains, including three foreboding volcanoes. The towns and villages of the shoreline and hinterlands are Mayan. These people are hanging on and getting a piece of the action as paleo-hippies, neo-hippies, students, crystal gazers, travel scenesters, shoppers, Guatemalan weekenders, young life-on-the-roaders, wealthy relaxers foreign and domestic, and the likes of me have turned the area into a tourist mecca. I was here for four nights on my '05 trip, staying in Panahachel (the main tourist town), and spending the days on a long walk through some villages, and boat excursions to Santiago Atitlan (the least altered lake town), and San Pedro (the youthful, bohemian town).). I'm back, because it's gorgeous and cool, and I don't mind, and indeed even like tourist places, in reasonable doses, being that I'm a tourist. And I'll be looking into getting a few Spanish lessons in San Pedro, which is well regarded for this. Arrive Solola. This town made a deep impression on me in '05, though I never set foot in it, but merely passed through on a tourist shuttle on the way to Panahachel. The dress, and the dense, inscrutable activity of these people struck me as being so utterly foreign, so utterly belonging to another planet. Tourists reportedly rarely stay in Solola, as Panahachel is only six miles away, way down on the lakeshore. I thought I'd lay up here (I really don't need to stay in Panahachel again), and arrive by boat in San Pedro early next day. I saw no other gringos as I walked the core streets, nor any hotel but the one mentioned in the guidebook. I engaged it, after a street party cleared so I could approach it, and after making a mess of myself with some vendor tacos. I clean up and return to the streets and market. Almost all of the women are in Mayan dress, and bundles are riding on heads everywhere. Most of the men are also to some degree dressed traditionally, with the fancy, baggy pants, wild shirts, the woolen wrap-around skirt thing, woolen shoulder bag, and cowboy hat. A kaleidoscope of weaving and embroidery and color and detail. I eavesdrop on the Mayan being spoken, which to my ear seems heavy on the sh, ch, k, and a strange, tough t. I step away from the action for a while to a little park which afforded a vista over the lake below, and the mountains plunging steeply into it. With Volcan Toliman presiding conically over it all, it's right up there with the Grand Canyon in terms of grandeur. A blustery wind is blowing, the tarps in the market are flapping, and men's hats are flying everywhere. But the women's bundles remain firmly perched. My hotel has a number of bad qualities, but I'm tickled pink to be in this town.

Thursday, Dec 8

I look the streets and plaza over in the relative calm of the morning before getting on the bus for Panahachel. The driver tears down those tight mountain curves like he's done it a thousand times, while I concentrate on staying in my seat and on the incredible views opening up at every bend. Arrive Panahachel. (Or 'pana' in common usage, or 'panapanapana' in bus touting lingo). I got off at the upper end of town, which has the market and the sixteenth century church, and which still belongs to the natives. I stayed up here in '05. I walked around and remembered things. Then down the long tourist strip to the lakeshore, pausing for a breakfast of bread and coffee. A boat awaits at the dock, and soon enough there are the twelve or so passengers required to make the trip, and we ply the waters to San Pedro, at the west end of the lake. I step off the dock and up the steep cobbles, fondly fending off the eager tuk-tuk drivers. My orientation and hotel exploration took me along a touristy stretch parallel to the lakeshore, and up into the heights to look at interesting guidebook suggestions. I got thoroughly turned around on the way back down and had to engage a tuk tuk to get myself back to the dock. From there, I retrace my steps back to the first place I was touted into, which was really an obvious keeper. I've got a nice, clean, tiled little cell on the third floor, with louvered windows looking out two sides, and door opening to a walkway/terrace, where hangs a hammock. Bathroom shared with two others. A thousand dollar view. Five bucks. I could linger in such an economy. The rest of the day, I further orient, up in the more native heights, and down below, where foreigners are catered to. The town is awash in language schools, and many of the assorted internationals I'm sure are students. I'll be joining them shortly.

Friday, Dec 9

A most tranquil cafe negro and pancaque as I ponder the info I'd gathered on a few of the schools. I visited three of them, and signed up at San Pedro Spanish School for five, four-hour days of tutelage, to start manana, with Sunday off. As for today, it's Friday, market day in Solola, so I take the next boat to Panahachel, and bus up to Solola (every day is market day to some extent, but towns always pick one day of the week to be the big one, and another day to be the medium one). On the bus, Andres, an affable old Mayan gentleman, sits next to me, and we have a nice chat, during which he produces a scrap of notebook paper in somebody's English, explaining wife-ultrasound-hep B-800 quetzales-etc-etc. My pathetic superego said 800, my id said zero, my ego also said zero, but settled on twenty, on the off-chance that there was something to his story, and hey, he really was such a nice fellow, and easy to exchange pleasantries with. He taught me 'adios' in Kaqchikel, which I forget. Off the bus, and I spend a few hours insinuating myself among the inhabitants of Planet Solola. Their market is a sensory explosion. I take it all in, as a spectator that is, have some blue corn tortillas hot off the comal, disappoint some child-hawkers, and furtively filch some photographs, a morally dubious activity. (topic on this is pending). Back to Panahachel, where my sense of intrusion is washed away by waves of fellow gringos. More waves, on Lago Atitlan, as I return to San Pedro. Tomorrow, it's back to school.

San Pedro 12/9

School Days

Saturday, Dec 10 - Thursday, Dec 15

These were languid days of scholarship and leisure. As for the scholarship, I spent five, four-hour tutorials with Javier, a very able and philosophical young man with good English and a lot of patience. He would coax my Spanish along from nine to one as we sat in one of the little thatched study pods in the verdant grounds of the San Pedro Spanish School. I'd then spend part of the afternoon or evening piecing together some sort of Spanish composition and otherwise studying in my usual ponderous fashion. In the morning, I'd review for an hour over breakfast in one of the more tranquil locations on the planet Earth, a cafe in an arboreal courtyard next to the school, the name of which I never cared to learn, but which I thought of as Anita's place, she being the paragon of poise, warmth and serenity who prepared and lay down for me the morning soul food. My studies went well, and I feel that twenty hours of skilled and persistent coaching has augmented my little fund of knowledge and loosened my tongue. A bottle of wine for Javier. As for leisure, San Pedro is an easy place to exercise it. The street along the lakeshore where boats from Panahachel dock is devoted to hotels, tour outfits, bars, restaurants, and the usual trappings of a tourist economy at the "laid-back" end of the scale. My hotel was at the very end of all this, and as I've said, the natural setting was as grand as it gets. Another section of Gringoland was known as "the trail", or "the barrio", around on the other side of the rounded point of the town's shoreline, also more or less on the lakeshore, stretching from my hotel to the dock for boats to Santiago Atitlan. This serpentine route, mostly narrow enough to admit only the occasional motorcycle, tuk tuk, or horse, with mysterious little side walkways leading to various establishments, overgrown with plants wild and domestic, had as much of an international traveling Bohemia vibe as I've felt anywhere. My school and several others were in this neighborhood. Suffice it to say, I've not been economizing on restaurants and cafes as I've been lounging around this town, even as I've put away several of Anita's gigantic loaves of whole wheat bread. So I've been dining, drinking (mostly coffee), hanging, and speaking a lot of English with students, travelers, and various exiles, while studying Spanish in a mostly Tz'utujil-speaking town. Muy bien. Tranquilo. When I desired a break from Margaritaville, I'd climb the steep, cobbled streets up into the old town, and see how the natives were doing, which was seemingly well. With school going to one, I really didn't have the full days I'd need to delve into the towns and pathways around the lake. But with no school on Sunday, I did make a climb of the picturesquely named La Nariz Maya (a.k.a., Indian Nose), which looms 2000 feet above the lake. I walk around the western end of the lake, to and through the neighboring village of San Juan to get to the foot of the mountain, but finding the trailhead involved some waste of energy and eventually a ride and info from a tuk tuk driver. Up through the coffee. Pretty steep going at times. As I top out, I am wafted with floral aromas, as the summit is planted with flowers, and is set up with plank benches and a platform and whatnot, as the people hold ceremonies up here. Lago Atitlan lies splendidly at my feet, its towns and villages tucked into shore or shelf where the slopes would permit, and the peaks of the three volcanoes yonder. On the other side of the peak from my approach the village of Santa Clara lay beautifully in a high basin. I linger a long time, and even take a nap on one of the benches. A chilly cloud blowing through wakes me up. Some boys come up from Santa Clara. I pass the monocular, and they point out things in their town to me. I took my sweet time on my descent, and ended up converging with an interesting Nepalese-American fellow and walked back into town with him. Then after school on Tuesday, I took the boat to see Santiago Atitlan again (having visited in '05). The wind and waves were up and were tossing us violently. The local chicas were really screaming, and they're used to it. When we docked, I asked the fare (an error, of course - ask before you board). Forty Quetzales, which certainly included a gringo tax. Pay and learn, or rather, relearn. I walk up through the colorful artesania street and find the old colonial church, but wasn't able to give it a good looking over, as devotions were underway. (The saint-mannequins in this church are clad in Mayan garb). I amble the market and look around the commercial streets. I found some cord, which I needed. I also was in need of a spoon, but settled on a fork. Back down to the dock. I was determined to not give "El Capitan" (the boat that screwed me) the satisfaction of my business, but it was not present anyway. I asked the fare of the "Velma". Twenty Quetzales, about what one would expect. (A two-tiered system - for locals and for tourists - is reportedly normal here. Fair enough. But a third tier for fools? No...) I sit under a palm tree with a can of peach juice and sink into a nice mellow as passengers gather for the Velma. At length, into the choppy water. The ayudante and a passenger up front held a plastic tarp aloft to keep us all from getting drenched in the spray. That's it for side trips. Otherwise, as I've said, I've just been soaking in this rather paradisiacal place. For the rest of this evening, I'll have a beer somewhere, then go back to my hotel, light up the candle I've got stuck to a can of tuna, and go over the guidebook a little. (The candle is for ambience and concentrated reading - and studying - light. I haven't had a power outage yet in this country. In '05, they happened every night). I'll step out to the walkway/terrace, swing in the hammock, gaze at the silhouette of the mountains and the lights of San Pablo across the lake, and trance out to whatever club music or reggae is wafting up from Bohemia. There may be a bout of moon-worship on the roof. I'll be tearing myself away in the morning. I'll be on the bus for Quetzaltenango, pass again through Huehuetenango, and then on to Todos Santos. (Footnote: cured!).

San Pedro 12/15

Mayan Towns, and a Dark Night

.....over this particular beer, I found myself getting sociable, and then, with two tequilas, too bombed to be sociable. I make my exit at the right moment and careen home, ....

(A little background on Bob Marley: Bob is the madman of San Pedro. He was given this name by the people of the town, for Bob doesn't speak, much less introduce himself. The connection with the reggae icon is his hair, which, though not in dreads, is all over the place. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that Bob once had dreads, but that citizens concerned about his hygienic well-being restrained and sheered him. In any case, Bob's hair is a mess, but doesn't seem to be dreading. His hair, skin, clothes, and blanket are a uniform, indeterminate color of filth. He walks around barefoot and finds little places to occupy. Not only does he not speak, he also does not look at people. He's very independent, but people find ways to help him, coaxing him into odd jobs or shelter. It's said that Bob will shy away from anyone trying to give him anything within the sight of other people, but that he has accepted money or other things when it's offered discreetly. I'd been thinking about the man since I first saw him, and when I learned a little about him and his place in the town, I wished to contribute to his maintenance. And as luck would have it.....)

Friday, Dec 16

.....early in the morning, there was Bob, crouched against a wall, and with no one in the street. I approached and addressed him obliquely, and set down a one hundred Quetzal bill a yard away from him. (Thirteen bucks, which should set him ahead a little). He did make a kind of sound and looked past my feet. A ways away, I glanced back, and saw that he was examining the bill. That's good. [Even better if I'd left him with bills he didn't have to break. What was I thinking? -ed., 3/'21]. Now to commence my travels. Up to the plaza to see what conveyance awaits. A chicken bus for the capital, which I would take as far as the highway. (If I'd looked at a map, I'd have seen that Quetzaltenango was never going to be on my route). We are underway in five minutes, crawling laboriously up and out of the bowl of Lago Atitlan. At the highway, myself and a few others are dropped off and instantly touted aboard the westbound bus, which was evidently waiting for us to connect, for we were away pronto. This bus was merely full, but the next, at the Cuatro Caminos junction, was overpopulated in the best chicken bus tradition. I mostly stood, which is fine except that one can't see anything with one's head against the ceiling. This bus had a TV mounted up front, so I was constrained to take in the weirdness, in this environment, of seeing scenes of home by way of a wacky Arnold Schwartzenegger comedy that was filmed in the Twin Cities. At one point, I was maneuvered out of a place for my left foot, and found myself standing on one leg. As this torture was moving from mild to medium, we arrived at Huehuetenango's bus station, and I was helpfully escorted to the bus for Todos Santos. A half an hour wait, and we are underway again, at length climbing spectacularly into ever greater heights. There was an unfortunate hour and a half of wait time for road construction. In motion again, haltingly, for it took a long time for our pile-up to disperse. This old bus never filled with people, though we took on a huge quantity of vegetables from a stranded truck. Mountain cloud, mist, and drizzle. It was dark and raining when we arrived in Todos Santos. I was as quick as I could be with orienting and finding a place to stay. I settled in a nice, cheap place in a narrow side street, and stepped out to look around and hopefully find a place to sit down and linger over a meal. But I'm in a small town, with few options and early hours. No restaurants, closed comedores, and it looked like the rain (now mist) had dampened the spirits of the street vendors. So I picked up some leftovers from a chicken and fries place to take back to my hotel and dine like a lord. The morning light will reveal this place more fully to me.

Saturday, Dec 17

I have arrived for market day, as my good luck would have it. I purchased bread and fruits and found the spoon I needed (for spreading butter and other hotel room food operations), and otherwise enjoyed the free stimulation. In my wanderings, I met Carolina, the local Peace Corps volunteer. We had a nice long chat, and she gave me a lot of useful information. I had a look at the church, of course. I couldn't tell if it was old, or very old, but it had ancient-looking, carved, wooden angels looking down from the beamed ceiling. The saints along the walls were in Mayan dress. The place was a little beat up, and it was funny to see in a place so old things like compact fluorescent bulbs screwed into busted light fixtures, prints of the stations of the cross taped to the walls with their edges curling, and Christmas lights strung up, twinkling in time with a mechanical Jingle Bells chirp. [ Much, perhaps most, of the religious action in this town seems to be evangelical Protestant, not Catholic. The same was true in San Pedro. The Holy Ghost is really blowing in from the north. The Word appears in slogans everywhere, crowding out images of the Virgin. Sermonizing and songs of praise, replete with hallelujahs, ring out from churches large and small. Now, as a secular humanist, I don't have a dog in this fight, but nevertheless, I favor the Catholics. Insofar as I am a theologian, I'm with the protestantism of my childhood. But I am more of an aesthete, and so go with the artful, idolatrous, mysterious Catholics. Besides, I hate change. (Ack! I'm a conservative!) And I think there's already more than enough American cultural influence in the world. (Whew, I'm a liberal). I just hope that all the arm-waving and holy rolling down here doesn't correlate with them voting for plutocrats, fools, and maniacs, as it strangely does in the USA. But I digress.] Virtually everyone in the town is mostly or entirely in traditional dress. The men wear red and white striped pants, knee-length black chaps open at the front of the legs, with some blue trim in the back. Their shirts have a fine blue and white striping, with minor accent colors, purple etc trim at the yoke, pockets, and spine, and big, heavy, purple etc collars with the same kind of elaborate patterns as the women's blouses. They may be in cowboy hats (or the young ones in baseball caps), but the standard is a small, cream-colored, brimmed hat with a blue etc band. The women will be in a calf-length wrap-around skirt, dark blue with light blue stripes. Their blouses (huipiles) are mostly purple, with a universe of color and detail within. The woven and embroidered huipil is the acme of these people's textile art. A sash will encircle the female waist, as well a sash should. Their uniformly raven hair will be simply tied back, or more elaborately bound, sometimes braided with something colorful, in a style favored by old ladies. A length of colorful cloth is a useful accessory for carrying vegetables, firewood, babies, etc. Western elements are present, of course, but the general impression is, holy cow, these people all dress alike. Even the teenaged boys, with their universal teenaged boy attitudes, seem perfectly happy in their red and white striped pants. Social solidarity must be behind it all. These people are involved in their clothes. You see women at their looms everywhere, and men operate tailor shops where the pants are sewn together. According to the the Holy Guidebook, the kind of detail I've just described is specific to towns and regions, with some places adhering to tradition more closely than others. Todos Santos is a traditional place. So is Solola and Lago Atitlan generally, where I certainly noticed differences. But enough of clothes, fantastic though they are. Let's move on to lunch. When I finally found a comedor with a place to sit, I ducked in and asked for what they had, which was big chunks of potato and vegetable, rice and beans, giant chicken leg, four fat tortillas, and sugar-n-instant. Fifteen Quetzales, two bucks. Impressive. Out to the streets, where I spend perhaps a little too much time sitting on the curb with Timo, who wished to exercise his English on me, in spite of, or because of, his being three-quarters drunk. He was at pains to let me know that I was in a country of twenty-two languages, and that he was Maya. I let him know that my ignorance was not perfect. He was also very puzzled over what the hell I was doing in Todos Santos. I found it difficult to answer this question to a drunken Maya who'd spent two years slaving in the US (hence the broken English). "Quiero ver el mundo" ("I want to see the world") didn't seem to cut it. Adios Timo, mucho gusto. (The language here is Mam, which to my untutored ear sounds a lot like Kaqchikal and Tz'utujil. Carolina had confirmed to me that everyone here is perfectly bilingual, i.e. with Mam and Spanish, except the very old and pre-schoolers.) Later in my meanderings, I see a procession of cars and trucks coming up a steep side street. Most of the vehicles were flying both a Guatemalan and an American flag. Very puzzling, but I was able to gather from a man watching from his gate that this was a funeral for a local person who had died in the land of opportunity. Hence the stars and stripes. I climb up into a hillside neighborhood, through the grunts and gobbles and giggles of the pigs and turkeys and children, to look over the town from above. I was also looking for the local ruins, which I walked right past, focused as I was on the kids playing soccer among them. The fellows chopping up a field of cornstalks set me straight. These ruins were just small, earth-covered mounds. There was some sort of modern, Mayan altar set off to one side. I descend as the cloud settles more resolutely on the town and turns to mist. The market had been packing up at four, and now, at dusk, it was a sweeping operation. A restaurant would be nice to sit in when it's dark in the early evening, but this town of 2500 lacks this, so I had a banana and bread at my hotel, out on the terrace overlooking the rooftops, breathing woodsmoke. Cozy enough.

Sunday, Dec 18

Today's venture, after puttering around in the morning and another big comedor lunch, was to climb La Torre, at 12,662 feet, the highest non-volcanic peak in Guatemala. The approach was from the small, spread out village of La Ventosa, which I'd passed through on my way to Todos Santos. I cram in with the next passenger van heading that way, and we commence climbing the steep, tight windings of the road up the valley. This vehicle was bottoming out under its load of humans, and was otherwise over-tasked. At our first failure of horsepower, our nineteen-year-old driver expertly braked us back down the narrow dirt road, avoiding the death-precipice by, oh, enough inches. He then went for big momentum, and got us around that steep curve by burning up the clutch. The next incline proved to be too much, however, and various passengers got off to lighten the load. They followed along as the van labored up the hill. I had tried to get off too, but the old people blocking me were not responsive to my efforts to get past them. When everyone reboarded, I realized that I had been the only able-bodied adult male who had not been out there walking. As a macho man in a macho country, this was not to be borne. At the next horsepower failure, I got insistent with the old people and got off with the rest of the gentlemen. There were several more of these episodes, during which I exchanged pleasantries with the walkers, and learned that the Spanish word for turkey is "pavo", and the Mam word is "meesh". Arrive La Ventosa, 1552 feet below the peak. I started up a side road through some farms, figuring I'd just climb till I could climb no more. Through open spaces and pine forest, sheep bleating out there somewhere, though I never saw one. The usual communication apparatus at the summit, and tremendous vistas of distant horizons, with clouds lying heavily in the valleys. I have picnic, as is my custom on summits. Carolina had told me of the new trail that she and local volunteers had laboriously constructed, which followed the ridge more or less and at some point dropped down to the valley bottom. I figured I'd take this down to the road and let the night fall on me as I walked back to Todos Santos. There was a four-way junction below the summit, from which I set off westward, figuring the green paint splotches were her blazes. All went well, through pretty pine forests, parklands, and basins. A very few tilled fields here and there, and little corrals and animal shelters. There were other tracks and trails, but I was reassured by the blazes, and the newness evident in sections of the trail. Everything serene, till I was beset by a pack of dogs. Now, I've never been one to get up in arms over one or two snarling beasts, but here I had five medium to medium-large ones circling me and making serious feints. With two rocks in my hands, I spun slowly and talked peace. The shepherd appears in the misty distance, hales me, whistles his dogs, and withdraws back into the mist. The dogs sheath their fangs in their slavering maws and slink likewise back into said mist. I dropped my rocks. That certainly raised the hairs on my back. This was a sign that I ought to have turned back, because this tale is about to become one of me coming to within fair distance of paying the ultimate idiot tax. The upshot is that I ran out of daylight, and flashlight power, before I had a hard road under my feet. And I was not prepared for a long night of wind and freezing temperatures. Here's the short version of how I got into this predicament, leaving out most of the topographical and psychological detail. (This is always vast, as well I know from my experience as a "confused" person - not "lost" . I prefer the term Dan'l Boone used). I kept expecting the trail to veer south and descend, but it just wasn't happening. I'd closed in on Carolina's time frame for the whole stretch, and yet I was still up high, while the valley floor would have been dropping away from me the whole time. I had good reason to think I was still on her trail (though I'd lost it a few times and the blazes had changed). I had the nagging fear that I'd gotten a crease between myself and the main valley, and that any descent would lead me down to oblivion. It didn't help that I couldn't see through the cloud filling the valley. I paused, I dithered, I looked at the sun low in the west. The beginning of a sharp descent to the road might be just around the corner. (In hindsight, of course, this was almost certainly the case). But I just didn't have a good feeling about it. I turned around, trusting the path and the direction I knew, and hoping that my flashlight batteries would last. (Bring flashlight in case I get caught in the dark? Always do it. Extra batteries? Nope). So I stride back in the deepening gloom, relying on my cat eyes till I had to resort to the flashlight. At one point, I lost the trail, and in trying to pick it up again, was surprised to find myself within twenty feet of an occupied house. I could see through the vertical slats of the walls the glow of a lamp, a laptop, and a fire, with the smoke blowing through the slats in the wind. Of course, I set the dogs off (just two, within my limit.) I talk peace with them, in fine English, to give the people inside some idea that they had an ignorant foreigner on their hands, and otherwise announce my presence, which was pretty much required under the circumstances. I imagine I scared the bejeebers out of them. After a long interval, the man comes to the door with an LED desk lamp in his hand. I could see his wife through the slats. I was successful in apologizing for disturbing them, though I'm sure I was not clear about it being accidental. I asked trail directions, which got me a gesture (what else?). Looking greedily at his lamp, I showed him my AAA batteries and offered to pay him for two if he had them. He didn't. But he had warmed up to me, and for all I know he may have been asking about my well-being. But I withdrew, as if I knew what I was doing, with further disculpes about the dogs. Now, a more sociable person, or one more attached to his life, or a smarter person, would have invited himself in and inserted himself between the farmer and his wife for the night. But it seems I would rather die than be intrusive, or at least very intrusive. So off I go, in the right direction, but never picking up the trail, till that sickening moment came when my light made a precipitous drop. I flipped it off. LEDs last, but when they go, they go. I was now definitely spending the night rough. My remaining light had to be spent on comfort, which is to say survival. Hypothermia kills the complacent sourdough as well as the innocent cheechako. Step one was to get out of the wind, which was pretty stiff. I found a little hollow down a slope, against some rocks and a shrub, which cut about eighty percent of the wind. Now to gather warmth, in the form of grass. I pulled at the tufts of heavy grass that grew all around, till a light dawned in my primeval brain, and I employed a stone tool. Using a sawing motion, the grass came easier, but still laboriously. But I had all night, and the more grass, the better. I conserved my light, and I never did use it all up. At length, it was time to hunker down. I had three insulating layers, plus a windbreaker and a nylon rain smock. I drew the drawstring of the windbreaker tight and lined myself with vertical sheaves of grass. (Same idea as in '93, when I spent the night in a park in the Bronx with my clothes stuffed with autumn leaves. My car was locked up in a parking ramp. But one story at a time...) I made a nest of grass to sit on, leaned my back against the not very comfortable rock, and considered my prospects. As there was a very real possibility that my internal fires might go out in the night, I wrote a brief note, declaring my love for all, and denying any extra regret over this misstep. (I do like to hike! My vast, ambient regret, will, of course, go with me to the grave.). Also, a little note for Carolina, assuring her that this fiasco was completely and utterly my bad. But a few hours into my death vigil, I realized that my core temperature was holding up, thanks to the grass, and I gained confidence that my little life would continue. My legs and feet were frozen, so there was no question of sleep. I just marked time with the stars arcing overhead, and looked down at the lights in the valley (for the cloud below had vacated with the sunset), and smiled upon all those people under piles of warm blankets on a cold night. A major event of the night was the moonrise, which lit up yonder slope, and then the nearer treetops. After maybe two hours, it cleared the slope behind my head, and by its phase (a fat crescent), I judged the nearness of the sun. I never did look at the clock till it was light enough in the east to move. This was at 6:15, with a little boost from the moon.....

Monday, Dec 19

..... I rose from my hollow and took my first steps very carefully, knowing that my body and mind were going to be clumsy. But when I reached the top of a long incline, my fires were stoked, my feet restored to life, and I felt like a normal, sleep-deprived person. I took my direction, eventually hooked up with the trail, and made it back to the junction below the summit. Now, it was a fine morn, and I do like to hike, so I made the short ascent again. Clouds lay in the valleys, their tops lit up by the rising sun. The distant volcanos were lined up on the horizon. I'd been hoarding a can of fruit juice. This I lifted to the universe, and toasted life. Then back down to the junction and the open land below the summit, where I unstuffed myself and shook out my clothes. I couldn't figure out where my ascending route had come in, but I did come across Carolina's trail up from La Ventosa, so I took that instead. But I lost it in due course, and came down cow paths (startling the kid cowherds, I tell you) reaching the new road, still under construction, well down the valley from La Ventosa. I could backtrack to the village and pick up the public transportation I'd been planning on, but I turned directly for Todos Santos. Not really wise, given my condition and the long, foot-plopping descent, but as I do like to hike, what the hell, let's pile it on. I passed the named place where last night's trail should have come out. It was, indeed, the mouth of a huge gorge. (A few pertinent questions for Carolina would have forestalled my missteps). I was a little chagrined that I had abused my body, almost killed myself, and pinched my travel plans back a day (I'd intended to be moving along this morning). But my spirit adjusted as I threaded down the pretty valley, with winter work going on in the fields, greeting everyone I saw. At long length, arrive Todos Santos. At the first tienda I see, I refresh with a can of fruit juice and a little sweet junk food. Today would be devoted to recovery. I accomplished some sedentary tasks at my hotel, had a hot shower, and stepped out for a big lunch at a comedor. I read some back at the hotel, talked awhile with a traveling American couple, and at seven o'clock was in a warm bed, asleep.

Tuesday, Dec 20

My sleep debt is paid. I occupy the upper terrace of the plaza, breakfast on some old, crumbly, sweet cornbread, and people-watch as I wait for whatever conveyance would be heading up-valley to the Paquix junction. An hour and a quarter later, I'm rumbled and belched away by chicken bus. Dropped off on the roadside. A twenty minute wait for what turned out to be a former plush bus, now gone to all but functional ruin. This would take me as far as the Cruce Pett junction. Nowhere to sit but in the upper tier in the back, where I had to recline like a dining Roman to look through the windows at the gigantic mountains and spaces. I managed to move forward eventually. The largest town of the region, Soloma, was so attractive as we threaded through it and past the plaza, that I was tempted to get off there. But one can't go everywhere. Santa Eulalia was similarly tempting. But my destination, San Mateo Ixtatan, will do just fine. I arrived by passenger van (microbus, in the parlance), which is worse than a chicken bus when they're crammed. I counted twenty-five people, but I might have missed a few babies. Only fifteen miles, but I could hardly shake off my stress position when I stepped off into the street by the plaza. I raised my first eyebrows and dropped my first jaws. The town spills steeply down a ridge between two mountain creases. The plaza is a small, grimy place, given over to street food and vending, not really much of a gathering place. I explore the main street above and below, looking through promising side streets, orienting and noting hotels. I was unenthusiastic about the three prospects I'd noted, but was returning to the first, when I finally saw the one guidebook recommendation in an unexpected place. The book needs revision, because Hotel Ixtateca evidently no longer functions as a hotel. The family running the tienda adjacent is somehow connected to the place. If it were not for the intervention of Andres, who had good English from his tour as an American wage slave, I would have withdrawn in confusion. The way I was accommodated was kind of funny. One goes up through a kind of utility room on the first floor. From the second floor balcony, an interior hall leads to ten cells. Andres and one of the women show me one, which suited me fine. I left my bag, and the padlock clicked around the screw-eyes of the security arrangement. I went down to the tienda, paid up, and had a nice chat with Andres, who introduced me to a few of his family. I looked around a little more, and found myself well-pleased with the roof, which afforded a picturesque view of the lower part of town, framed in valley and mountain. But when I tried to get into my room, the key wouldn't fit. I alert one of the women, who dispatches one of the girls with a box of keys, none of which availed. This really gave her the giggles. One of the young men intervenes, and at length borrows a claw hammer from down the street and goes after those screw-eyes, which were actually pretty tough. Free at last, Matilda comes with me to another room, where we made sure we had a matching lock and key. Sink and cold water shower downstairs in the utility room. Toilet outside in a booth opening to the sidewalk. I had to ask for a key to that padlock. No top sheet, but the blankets looked OK, and I'd be sleeping in my clothes anyway up in these mountain heights. First guest in who knows how long. Three bucks a night, and I am most pleased. Out in the early evening for web tasks and to find something to eat before everything shuts down. The girls in the comedor above the police station took care of me patiently, but I could have skipped the clash of televised soap opera and mechanical chirping Christmas tunes. But Latin Americans are as indifferent to meaningless noise, or addicted to it, as USA Americans. A cold night up here at 8330 feet.

Wednesday, Dec 21

I spent a pleasant hour warming up in the morning sun on the rooftop. Then to the plaza to people-watch from the roofed platform. The gaping goes both ways. There's no question that my arrival in the small, mountain town of San Mateo Ixtatan is front page news. Of course, I am obliged to be a good sport about people's astonishment (due more, I think, to my height than my foreignness). So I try to be engaging within my linguistic limits, and thus humanize myself, and them. People will try out their polite English phrases on me, which I'll answer in English and echo in Spanish. Kids often venture a hi, before or after my hola. People with experience as a peon in El Norte will approach me with their fair to good English. Deflecting my freakishness can be kind of fun, as when I caught the chicas hanging out in front of a tienda referring to me as "sexy". My Spanish wasn't quick enough to be funny (obvio!), but my facial gesture just about made them fall apart. Or when I giggled up the kids by inquiring (again by gesture) what was so funny, me or the goose in the middle of the street. But still, without my participation, the laugh response can get a little unnerving. (Teenaged boys are the worst, of course). But this is just another of the rigors of travel. - - I found a place calling itself a cafeteria, which I ventured into for lunch. It was set up and looked like a restaurant, which was nice, because I felt I could linger. I don't think this is done in comedors, which are usually very small. But the operation was pure comedor, meaning one or two or three choices, which appear before you in two minutes, because it's all sitting on the stove waiting for you. Three bucks instead of two. The church is a thing to behold. The facade, with the saints in niches, looks like it was made of play-doh. There's a basketball court right in front in constant use. In the corner of the courtyard is something like a four-sided fireplace, attended by one or two ladies, with wood fires burning all day and candles set around. Women will face the fire with bunches of thin candles in their hands and chant softly. There's a crucifix, of course, but obviously we have some Mayan-Catholic syncretism going on here. Inside the church, there were about twenty people, mostly women, all kneeling, some in the aisles, all murmuring to God. I sat in the back a long time, entranced by the murmuring, and found myself getting religious. I would have loved to go up front and see what paganism I could see, but this was clearly a sacred place, and it would have to be vacant before I would profane it with my tourism. [Regional clothing detail, on display by the kneeling ladies: printed cloth, in designs like paisley, wrapped to the head, but with a long corner trailing down the back.] [Language note: The people here speak Chuj, which sounds to my untutored ear a lot like Kaqchikel, Tz'utujil, and Mam.] Another selected thing of interest in this town: The town drunks, who are an exceptionally blotto-looking crew, whose hangout is conveniently in the trash behind the police station. Web tasks till closing time. When it gets dark, this town goes home, with a few lingering tiendas the last to turn off the lights. I do so myself, with a little bread and fruit. I'll be scrounging another blanket from the utility room, as it promises to be frigid tonight.

Thursday, Dec 22

I've been in the western highlands since I crossed the border. I hate to tear myself away from these mountains and people, but a world awaits. So, I'll be leaving the domains of the modern Maya, and descending to the jungly haunts of their esteemed ancestors. It will be nice to warm up. I've got a small cold, and the woodsmoke up here is sometimes a little much. Today, I'll move just eighteen miles, but way down in elevation, to Barillas, which the guidebook describes as "an unlovely Ladino frontier town". (Ladino being the term for undifferentiated Guatemalans who do not identify as Maya, Garifuna, or other ethnics). This will give me a head start on the next stretch, five hours by picop (pickup) on a relatively new, though certainly rough, road into the vast lowland province of Peten, where I'll connect with regular roads and transport. I hope to be in Flores for the holidays, and will have to find out about any transport or hotel obstacles. As for this morning, I have been fortified with eggs, beans, tortillas and instant. It's market day. I'll now sign off, take another turn through the crowded market, to gawk and be gawked at. I'll pack up at my hotel, and step back up to the main street to see what kind of contraption will bear me away to Barillas.

San Mateo Ixtatan 12/22

Climate Change

.....After a half hour wait in the plaza, a chicken bus pushed its way through the market, fuming up human and vegetable alike, as a chicken bus must. The thing was already packed, so I tossed my bag to the ayudante on the roof. My camera was in the bag, so I'll just have to describe a classic photo never taken: a sea of colorful head scarves, trailing down the backs of the venerable ladies as they face the open door of a packed chicken bus. I was standing behind, and deferential me was the last to enter, or rather "enter", as I rode with my feet on the bottom step, one hand on a pole, and an arm crooked around the folded door, with a shifting mass of humanity pressing on me. Fortunately, we were all in the safe embrace of the ayudante, who hung on out in the breeze, ready and able to forestall anything like an accident. As we went along, there was a gradual thinning, more people getting off than on, I imagine returning from a day in the market. Arrive Barillas. I schlepped Matilda toward centro, which turned out to be a good six blocks from the bus station. I skipped the nice place, declined the overpriced, grimy place, and never found the guidebook recommendation. Back to the hotel I saw near the bus station. This was cold water, but the young hotelier kindly escorted me to a hot water hotel around the block. Newish, charmless, functional, clean, and cheap. I drop off my bag, and go make inquiries at the bus station about transportation tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, picops have nothing to do with the bus station, but tout for their passengers at the plaza. Good to know. Back into centro for some coffee, walking around, a bite to eat, etc. In this town, I've definitely moved closer to the center of world mono-culture. It's a small town, but not so much a country town. A few women here and there are partly in Mayan dress, but the general look is back to world-casual. There are women in blue jeans, with delineated forms, riding around on motorbikes. People's faces evince a broader gene pool. I don't feel that my presence has raised a general alarm. All in all, it's a less interesting, and less taxing, place. After tortillas and eggs and beans, I walk the dark and dusty streets back to my hotel by the bus station. For a culture nightcap, I pause to the side of the open door of an evangelical church, where a meeting is going on. The building is a kind of warehouse, with plastic patio chairs lined up for the congregants. I attended for a while to their song of praise, the sound of which I'm starting to recognize. Unlike the form of the religion itself, it's not an American import. It's kind of slow, lilting, and Latin, with drawn-out, slurring phrases. A female soloist will sing it out, accompanied by a recording, or, as in this case, a few guys with electric instruments. It comes through straight and true and is very moving. It's also too goddam loud, of course, which is always the case when humans are in control of volume knobs. Nevertheless, hallelujah. And so to bed, inspired.

Friday, Dec 23

The actual how-to of the day's travel agenda contained uncertainties, so my approach was one of one step at a time. After an eggs, beans, tortillas infusion, I sat in the plaza a while, first to observe if there would be any kind of gathering on this or that side that might be picop passengers in waiting. I'd been told that the plaza was the place, but had a hunch that this might have been inexact. At length, I shift my observation to whom I might accost for trustworthy information. I opt for the three knowledgable looking gentlemen, knowing I'd get a solid, three-legged consensus. Indeed, I was in the wrong spot. One block over, four blocks up, in the market streets. I head thither, and am spotted a block away by the tout/driver, who hustles me along. We embark shortly, at nine. Before the edge of town, we had a full packing of twenty-six, including the obligatory crate of chickens, which the shorter ladies were standing on. The ebb and flow of passengers continued throughout the journey, with me steadfastly holding the left, rear corner. (My bag rode on top of the cab). The first part of the road was the roughest, with big cavities to lurch into. I received most of my wounds early on, mostly contusions to the hip bones from being smashed into the bars of the cage, and one minor facial laceration from passing vegetation. There were a few short, paved sections, including a steep mountain ascent. The other side of that was a tremendous panorama of the plains below that reminded me of US 16 coming out of the Bighorns. The landscape greened and warmed as we more or less descended, through forest, de-forest (i.e. pastureland), farm, and village. It was all the more intimate to take this all in from an open, (mostly) slowly moving vehicle. As for my fellow passengers, it's funny how taciturn they are. Even the women who obviously knew each other said little. Most of the talk I heard was on cell phones. But there was a moment of robust levity when we'd stopped for passengers, and the little girl who'd crawled off the truck to pee in the weeds admonished the driver to not leave without her. Occasionally, another packed pickup would pass in our direction, and to imagine a lengthy foreigner sticking up in the back, well, I have to laugh at the image. Four hours, arrive Playa Grande. The town is a sprawling resource exploitation operation, put together without a lot of thought given to the finer things. I'm deposited in the vast, dusty compound that serves as the transportation hub. The air is hot and heavy, which I've not experienced in a while. I revive myself with sixteen ounces of sugar water and gas as I sketch a map of the region's towns and roads to aid me in my communications. After making inquiries, I am passed along, and end up on a microbus for the junction near Raxruja. Further than I expected, but these guys know the routes. A ten-minute wait at that junction, and then a short leg to another junction, during which we got a light rain. My bag is riding on top (nothing but people inside, of course), so at the next transfer I covered it up with its cowl before I tossed it up to the ayudante, though it was already well dampened. On this last stretch, I had to hold my stress position so as to not disturb the sleeping toddler whose head had ended up in my lap. But in a later repacking, I was maneuvered up to the actual passenger seat in front, which was nice. Arrive Sayaxche, the end of the line for this microbus. We are let out among the vegetables and their minders. I found the plaza (kind of a basketball court in this, another resource boom town) to pause and figure out what to do. I had really only hoped to make it as far as this town, but I was feeling frisky about my progress, and considered taking it all the way to Flores, my actual destination. Given that I'd have to figure out the river ferry and subsequent transport in the dark, that would be extravagant as it would be elegant, but in any case, the idea was nixed by a real cloudburst. I found shelter under a concrete walkway, accompanied by a tour guide finishing his spiel, as it really poured. When it went to drips, I took a turn through town and eventually settled on a cheap, cold-water place, giving up on the idea of a shower, as I found hot water to be expensive in this town. I made it up to myself with a lingering dinner in the best restaurant in town, which kind of reminded me of a Mr Steak.

Saturday, Dec 24

A human beyond hope with a rhythmic noise making device got me out of bed before six. I escaped and looked around the town, waiting for a place to open for breakfast, declining all the frying and grilling getting started up on the street. At length, to the riverbank with Matilda. The ferry was very cleverly designed. The rectangular, floating platform had on its downriver edge a rotating turret at each end. Only the rearward one would be manned. The ferryman would push this thing accurately to the other side by swinging around in his turret with a 45 horsepower motor. A short wait, and I'm on a microbus. Two hours later, arrive Flores, or more accurately, Santa Elena. (Flores proper is a small island in Lago Peten Itza. It's connected by a short causeway to the mainland, where the towns of Santa Elena and San Benito hold the vast bulk of the people. Flores is quiet, genteel, and touristic. Santa Elena and San Benito look like the rest of urban Guatemala. The three towns are sometimes lumped together as Flores). I take a tuk tuk from my drop-off and over the causeway, though I could have saved the ten Quetzales. It's about 10:30. Flores is small. You can walk the perimeter in twenty minutes. I look it over and settle on another great hotel in a great town with a great view. I have my delayed shower and step out to cover the streets more thoroughly. There's the perimeter street going around the island, a lakeshore walkway, a little network of streets leading up to the church and plaza on the hill, and a finer network of narrow alleys. I had no idea of what to expect for the holidays. For all I knew, the place would be swamped with gringo college students on winter break (This being in the top three tourist destinations in the country, as the jump off for Tikal), or similarly vacationing middle-class Guatemalans. But it was just the opposite. Flores was dreamily depopulated. I got the best spot in the house in my hotel. I spent the day being languid. Kids were running around the plaza, and swimmers splashed in the lake. The air is wet in this climate zone. It was the kind of day where one produces rivulets of sweat by just sitting under the thatch with one's cup of coffee. In the evening, a candlelit dinner for one, on the lakeshore, tranquillity fixed and suspended by the placid expanse of water. Diners and drinkers had come out of the woodwork in the evening, and Flores on a Christmas eve developed a mildly festive atmosphere. I spent the later evening up on the terrace of my hotel. No point in going to bed with the fireworks going on, which culminated at the stroke of midnight. Guatemalan children never stop playing with this stuff, but tonight the adults took over, with something to celebrate. They did it for Jesus, for Santa, for the sun, for the fun. At length, they were out of ammo, and the sky across the water in Santa Elena, and the streets of Flores settled down. A pall of smoke hung over the lake. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Sunday, Dec 25

The roosters were almost drowned out in the cacophony of wild bird song. A day of languor dawns. Happy birthday to you know Who. Flores is quiet. The air is wet and heavy. I walk the ankle-busting streets and the lakeshore and up to the empty plaza. Coffee under the thatch opens at ten. I feel I could wait happily forever for this with a big, dopey grin on my face. People did emerge and gather as the day progressed. By late afternoon, tourists and Guatemalan families were out and about along the lakeshore, having a good time. I raised a beer to them. Then a round of phone calls, including the big one to my gathered family.

Monday, Dec 26

The languor never ends. I exchange travel lore with fellow coffee lizards under the thatch. Still, I have an agenda today. I'm moving on, to Tikal, the remains of the great Mayan super state. A tourist shuttle gets me to the national park at about noon. The whole idea was to spend the night, for the sake of the dusk, and the night sounds of the jungle, and the misty dawn. Knowing that the three hotels at the site were expensive, I avail myself of the park's campground. Bag secure under the stewardship of Gerardo, who kept an eye on the campground and had a key to the luggage closet. Lodging thus settled, I tread the trails through the jungle to visit the haunts of the Old Ones. The modern stewards and restorers of Tikal have selectively cleared forest and made compounds among the clusters of Mayan structures. In the heyday of Tikal (flourishing 400-900 AD), the whole area would have been clear, and the vast, built-up area presenting one visual space. But until modern restoration began (mid 20th century), the place was wholly overgrown. The back of Temple V, and many other structures have been left this way. I saw a number of hillocks that were too steep to be natural that obviously had Mayan structures underneath the thousand year loam. From the highest perspective, Temple IV, one sees three other structures sticking up out of the jungle. The rest of Tikal is in the shade of the trees. I walk the trails and spaces, climb around the buildings where it was allowed, admired the indecipherable (except to a Mayanist) pictographic inscriptions, and otherwise attended to the antics of the turkeys, coatis, spider monkeys, and humans (about three quarters domestic - or at least Spanish speaking - and one quarter foreign). As night fell, I went back to the campground, oriented some newcomers, and had a washcloth bath at the laundry sink as I waited for Gerardo to show up with the key to the luggage closet. I gathered together what little I needed for the night and the next day so I wouldn't have to bug him again. I decline the very expensive hotel restaurants in favor of the merely expensive place calling itself a comedor. Bad food, but very atmospheric. Back to the dark campground with flashlight, where I've engaged a tent with a bare mattress under a thatched roof, the most expensive accommodation I've had yet in this country.

Tuesday, Dec 27

Awake at five. I roll off the mattress and step into my shoes. It's still pitch dark. The guard post was unfortunately manned, and I declined to pay the one hundred Quetzal bribe to get me in before opening time at six. I wandered around and let the sky lighten, and hearkened unto the wild roar of the howler monkeys (breathy, resonant, drawn out, and very,very deep). Strangely, the birds were not as vocal as they were in town. At ten to six, as I was examining the scale model of Tikal outside the visitor center, another staff member, possibly the janitor, kindly offered to accept twenty Quetzales to look upon my early entrance approvingly. I declined. At six, I bought the day's actual legitimate paper ticket from the somewhat grumbly guards. I went straight off to ascend Temple IV, and face the east, if not the sun, for the day was heavy with damp, high and low. The other temples protrude from the green, undulating forest canopy stretching far away. I sat up there a long time and talked with other travelers who happened along. (I had had reason to expect surreptitious dawn-greeters up there, but the temple was unoccupied when I arrived). For the rest of the morn, I just strolled around the trails and structures, and marveled at the locutions of the howler monkeys, which really are unearthly, or rather, extremely earthly. Farflung Temple VI will have to wait for the next trip/life, as I figured I'd better get on the 12:30 shuttle. So I pick up my bag from Gerardo, and am shuttled back to Flores. I'd been planning to move on to Rio Dulce today, but I thoroughly changed my mind. For this afternoon and evening, I'll be luxuriating further in Flores. In the morn, I'll make my move, not to, but through the town of Rio Dulce, and on to the river of the same name, where the boatman will ferry me down toward the sultry, seacoast town of Livingston, 'cuz I could use a little Caribbean vacation.

Flores 12/27

Caribbean Vacation

Wednesday, Dec 28

My mind changes and slows down even further. Of the two certain departure times for the boat from Rio Dulce to Livingston, the 9:30 was too early to be practical, and the 1:30 too late to be tranquil. So I figured I would indeed lay up in Rio Dulce this evening, and sail the next morning on the 9:30 boat. With no reason to rush, my final leave-taking from Flores is reptilian and elegant. A last cup under the thatch with my fellow lizards. A tuk tuk tuk tuks me over the causeway and up to Santa Elena's bus terminal. I buy a ticket for what turns out to be a "pullman" (i.e., a greyhound-style plush bus). A little pricey, but I didn't even see a chicken bus at the station. (Mostly, it was microbuses for local routes). With forty-five minutes till departure, I scrounged in the streets for something to eat. When I boarded the bus, I was told that I had seat number ten. Assigned seat numbers..... - oh, that'll work out, with tickets being sold by different agents. Mine was occupied by a toddler and a mess of styrofoam taco trays, from which mom and her friends were feeding. I sat in back, but joined the standers when the bus started to overfill. The ayudante made a futile effort to sort things out, and even pointed me into a seat, but I gave it up to an old man who had twice been displaced. And that, people, is the sad tale of how I spent three and a half hours with my head against the ceiling, covering forty percent of the length of the country on a smooth highway, seeing nothing but the ditch. And here is the moral: if you're going to be a chicken bus, be a chicken bus, and don't charge me double the rate. A good first step would be to remove the arms from the bucket seats, so that aisle people can get that vital fifth ham down on a seat. But these are travelers' complaints. Arrive Rio Dulce. The town is at the river outlet of the huge Lago de Izabel. With the water and pretty forest, there is a resort/leisure aspect to the place, but the main drag is pure truck route, rough and functional. I quickly determine that the hotel prices were high. But in my enthusiasm for budget travel, I found that I'd inadvertently checked myself into a bit of a whorehouse. Hospedaje Marilu seemed alright (and was, actually), but as I was stepping out, I got a satanic glance from an evident harlot who'd been hanging out in the courtyard. I thought my rebuff was clear, but after I returned and was sitting on the bench outside my room, she approached again, extending the questionably hygienic hand of friendship, and getting down to business. Having failed to ensnare me with her own dubious and well-worn charms, she took on the role of madame (at forty, I imagine she was making the transition), and offered me a young one, a true bonita. Still, I remained unmoved. The poor woman could have no idea of what she was up against. I was polite and emphatic with her, and shook her off. But after a while, the bonita herself sat down on my bench, batting her gloppy eyelashes at me and disturbing my austere studies. I guess she needed to hear it straight from me. I was as sweet and polite to her as she was to me, but not at the expense of clarity. Still, when she walked off, she seemed a little insulted. Vanity, thy name is woman! I was a little worried about what dramas might erupt later at the hotel, but nothing came up. Even the harsh exclamations of "Puta!" I heard from below were made by a guy packing a truck and not liking how his load fit. Dusk falls, and I walk around the scruffy strip, and at length have an excellent kebob at a dockside establishment patronized by international sailing types of dubious aspect. The Global Lake can not be far away.

Thursday, Dec 29

A comedor breakfast. To the dock to await the 9:30 boat for the two hour passage to Livingston. This is a lancha, like those on Lago Atitlan, holding twenty plus people. We are about one third foreign. For the sake of tourism, the boat stopped briefly at the colonial fortress (built to blast English pirates), an island with a lot of roosting birds, the hot springs establishment, and a place from which we were swarmed by a flotilla of children in wooden dugout canoes, rather sadly vending seashells and dried-up starfish and such. We pass through the broadening of the river called El Golfete, and then into the final stretch, where the Rio Dulce becomes enclosed with towering, verdant cliffs. Large birds, who may as well have been angels in this setting, glide from one side of the gorge to the other. The green walls unfold themselves, and the river opens up to the sea, heralded by the heavenly seraphim, the pelicans. I lay my eyes upon the first watery horizon of the trip. Arrive Caribbean Sea. Livingston is close at hand. We round its shabby littoral and come up to the dock, to the enthusiastic welcome of the local opportunistic tourist helpers. I nod agreeably at them and head straight up for Hotel Rio Dulce, where I had stayed in '05. This is in a great,old, wobbly, wooden building with a big porch and a broad veranda wrapping around three sides of the upper floor. I've got the best spot in the house, at the end of the veranda looking over the street. A hammock hangs and waits. Facilities downstairs in the backyard. (The cold water is actually pleasantly cool, down here at sea level in the tropics). A nice family runs the place. To the streets, to reacquaint with pleasant, leisurely Livingston. Various errands. I dine with a fellow I spoke with in the lancha, who was also staying at the Hotel Rio Dulce. Web errands till late. I lay in the hammock and hearken to the Caribbean rhythms wafting up from a music club, muted and mellowed by the light roar of a pouring rain.

[A word about Livingston, my tenth and last town in Guatemala, and the third with a major tourist element: Culturally and geographically, Livingston is a Guatemalan outlier. It is one of only two towns in the country's small corner of Caribbean coastline. (The other is the big, industrial port of Puerto Barrios, through which that banana in your hand may have come). It is not connected by road to the rest of the country. Hence, what little traffic there is in the streets is local, making for a humane and peaceful environment. The town and hinterlands are the Guatemalan home of the Garifuna, an ethnic group of black people with a very interesting history and culture. The speak a language based on the the languages of the Caribs and Arawaks, with whom they battled and melded after their slave ships wrecked off St Vincent. They were pushed around the Caribbean for a time by the Powers that Be, and have been now for a long time well established along the coastline from Belize to Nicaragua. (And in New York and Los Angeles). Looking around Livingston, I'd have to say that Ladinos are in the majority, but that the Garifuna provide the rhythm, and, as it were, the local color. Livingston the town is a very Caribbean place, full of hammocks, chickens, dogs, trash, thatch, sea breezes, and coconuts, as well as some dereliction and tourism. Rasta touches everywhere. Mostly wooden construction, which seems to be gently falling apart. A person could spend his life here just lounging around and eating. It certainly crossed my mind............ Language note: I've been paying attention to what the black people around here speak. Though I've certainly heard clear samples of Garifuna (it somehow seems more distinct with women), they also speak Spanish to each other. With that strong Caribbean lilt and percussiveness, it can be hard to figure out what language they're speaking. There's a lot of English among them too, of course. I remembered one word from '05: "ee-oh" - goodbye- I tried to learn "hello" from a fellow I met, but I'm afraid it didn't stick.]

Friday, Dec 30

Lots of hanging around this hanging around town. I explore the coastline streets in both directions for a ways, and visit the local dead in their colorful tombs. Of the day's culinary experiences, the tapado stands out. This is a traditional Garifuna soup, with a coconut milk base, and every sort of sea creature included. Delicious, but a little hard to eat, with a whole fish and a crab in there, and many eyes staring out at you. In the street, I am accosted by Alexander the Great, whose name and schtick I remembered from '05. He still makes his living by helpfully telling tourists what they already know and agreeing with everything they say, and asking for their money. I got a little stern with him, explaining that the inequalities with which we were unfairly bestowed did not morally transform me into a cash machine. (I left out any suggestion that drugging and soaking his otherwise able body yada yada). I seemed to have impressed him and managed to shut him down, even though he'd been coming on strong. Kind of funny. Another long evening in the internet place. The Garifuna teenagers who take this place over in the evening remind me of my students, in their general uproar and in the true awfulness of their electronic entertainments. But as a sap-headed Romantic in a strange land, I'm less inclined to have my fondness for them be undermined with annoyance, or to fret about their futures. Out to dine at a streetside establishment. There's a small, wiry cat scrounging around. The only way to distract it from going after your dinner was to cuddle it like a baby. I pass the cat back and forth with the charming German women at the next table, so we all could have a chance to eat. A pouring rain, and I make my dash for the Hotel Rio Dulce.

Saturday, Dec 31

Another bout of rain to accompany my streetside breakfast, a truly elegant gesture on the part of nature. Another day of lounging around Livingston and the Hotel Rio Dulce (with some Spanish study, too). In the afternoon, I walk the narrow, cluttered beach a couple of miles, passing through little beachy properties, in various stages of use or dereliction. The hills of Belize are yonder. Pelicans a-soaring. Back through intimate domestic scenes. I'll be dining grandly on something fishy tonight. As the festivities in the town will surely make sleep a fool's errand, I'll observe the torch pass from year to year from the hammock on the veranda. In the morn, I'll be on the lancha for Puerto Barrios. From there, into Honduras, if there is sufficient public transportation on a holiday. (A big if). If things work out, I'll lay up in San Pedro Sula, buy a ticket for the next morning for the capital, where friend Paul will pick me up, for a visit to him and the group home for kids where he works.

Livingston 12/31

Our Little Brothers and Sisters

.....(Things did work out, which was very lucky. But first, to put 2011 to rest.....) ....After posting my last post, my final web tasks were derailed by some little Garifuna girls, who nosed up to my screen and required that I satisfy their curiosity and entertain them, which I did by googling up animal images and getting some Spanish and Garifuna vocabulary from them in return. When they released me, I dine, and stroll Calle Principal with a beer in my hand, among other foreign and domestic strollers. Rain sends me back to my hotel. I yield the veranda to the dreamy-eyed couple, and hearken unto the pyrotechnic crescendo from behind my closed door. Later, I emerge to lingering rain and fireworks, and to the mesmerizing punta music pulsing up from its origins. Happy New Year.

Sunday, Jan 1, 2012

I managed to achieve my travel goal today, by snatching victory from the jaws of defeat from the jaws of not having really thought everything through. I'll try, and fail, to be brief: I'm on the 7:30 lancha, crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Puerto Barrios. I walk into this deserted, hung over, sprawling dump of a town under a steady drizzle. To the corner where minibuses for the border stop. It transpires that this transport link is indeed canceled for the holiday. Stumped so soon. Plan B was to occupy myself for several days and come into Tegucigalpa at Paul's next time window. I puzzle over logistics and my true desires in the bus terminal, out of the rain, and make relevant inquiries. Since neither Plan B1 (Honduran beaches), nor Plan B2 (going to the Copan ruins) turned out to be practical or desirable from this time and place, I opted to turn tail back to Livingston, as staying this night in Puerto Barrios would lead to major depression. Back to the dock in the drizzle. But before adding myself to the next (unscheduled, but collective) lancha, I inquired of an English-speaking capitan about the likelihood that a booked tourist shuttle might turn up for a boatload of tour-service tourists enroute from Livingston to the snorkle heaven of the Bay Islands (I thought I'd squeeze in for the usual fare. Seemed plausible, and I was kicking myself for not looking into this days ago with the tour agents in Livingston). He thought not, but suggested something else that should have occurred to me: a cab to the border. I reject reflexively the $36 one cabbie wanted for the forty minute trip. But the capitan suggested another fellow, who wanted $24. Here I tip, and have to deliberately trust that people knew and meant what they said about travel links being in place over the border. (Getting over the border and being immediately stumped again would defeat my purpose and possibly lead to other travails). So I engage the fellow, who drops me off at the border. Smooth sailing henceforth: Officialdom passes me through quickly, and I trade my Quetzales for Lempiras. A chicken bus awaits for Puerto Cortes. From there, I am instantly touted into a minibus for the last link. Arrive San Pedro Sula, at the giant, closed up bus terminal. With no map or guidebook pages, and it being dark in a reputedly dangerous city, it was time to throw money at a travel problem. Thus, a request to the cabbie to bring me to a hotel that was safe, close, and cheap, which got me to the safe, kind of far, and expensive place from which he gets a kickback. I'm not complaining, though. This place had a computer in the lobby (communicating with Paul was vital, and it had become a real problem). The host spoke good English, and offered to get me to the bus station early at a reasonable price. Things had fallen quite into place for me. My host assured me that the several blocks to centro were safe, so I ventured out in the rain to find something to eat. That something turned out to be a Big Mac, for the restauranteurs of Sula were taking the day off.

Monday, Jan 2

Up before five. I check my e-mail for Paul's details on how and when to meet. My hotelier schleps me to the bus station, from which I am underway at 6:30, on a comfortable bus. Arrive Tegucigalpa, 11:30. There's no bus station in the capital. Buses just pull into lots adjacent to their company's offices in the dangerous quarter of town. Hence a cab, of course, to the Parque Central and the cathedral. I find our designated coffeehouse, install myself with cup and muffin, and await Paul. In due course, his familiar face (the first since August) appears, and he drives me off to a nice place for lunch and extensive jabbering. Then thirty minutes up and out of the city, to the extensive, pine-shaded grounds of Nosotros Pequeños Hermanos (see title of post), a.k.a. The Ranch. This is the home of five hundred-some children of all ages, who otherwise would have no family, but here have one big happy one. Two hundred staff attends. It's a Catholic Church affiliated organization. Paul directs the religious stuff for the kids. He introduces me to the charming and ebullient Sister Colby, an Argentinian who spoke the most delightful English. Also to various staff, including to two English-speaking gentlemen who grew up in the home and now worked there, and who are referred to by the kids as uncles. And of course, the names and faces of many children are presented to me. Paul and I join the medium-sized girls for dinner, which took place picnic-style, at no particular time, in the grass around the basketball court. We had impromptu astronomy lessons and kicked balls around and I felt my stolid heart well bestirred and swelled by a lot of lovable innocence and inquisitiveness. A nice dinner too: eggs, rice, beans, bananas, and hot milk with oats. (The children assist the animals and agricultural professionals in keeping themselves supplied with all their eggs, milk, chickens, and most of their vegetables). After dinner, Paul drives us off to meet the uncles at the house where one of them and his family was staying with relatives, where we have a nice gathering. At length, back to the ranch, where Paul puts me up in his quarters.

Tuesday, Jan 3

Breakfast in the kitchen (not the big one), with Paul and Sister Colby. A visiting American priest and the psychologist stop by on business. In a few days, a group of American physicians are coming by to do a round of surgeries. Volunteers have been preparing the clinic for them. In the meantime, five hundred children are being raised. A lot of good and useful work is being done here, in the service of That Which Is Larger Than We Are. I am honored to wash the dishes. I got out of Paul's hair so he could prepare for the retreat that starts in the afternoon for the university-aged kids. I walk the grounds, saying hi to scattered kids (they're on break), and admire the church, with its age-appropriate art. At length, I find Paul. I help him schlep a few watermelons, and we're ready to go. We give Sister Colby a short lift to her next errand, and thence down into the city. After looking around a little at my hotel prospects, we part, I to the Hotel Iberia, and Paul to pick up someone at the airport and to commence his two-day retreat. Blessings on him and his. I drop off my bag and have a look at downtown Tegucigalpa. The plaza is well-peopled. Shoeshine men, not boys, are lined up like they're guild members, under a fixture built for them. I wonder if this is a little sign of the labor solidarity that is part of the country's culture. The cathedral and the Iglesia Los Dolores are unsurprisingly stately and soothing. All in all, the place seems kind of provincial and funky for a national capital. The legislative building is a real mess. It was a modernist monster to begin with, with the look of some freshman's final project for Design 101. And now it is falling apart, with busted louvered glass, and air conditioners and drying mops hanging out of the windows. There is fast food all over, but scarcely a place to eat. Tiendas also are in short supply, and I had a hard time finding water. I never did find a beer. (One shopkeeper: "Cerveza es malo!". Temperance, evangelism, and a lack of beer in tiendas is a connection I started seeing in Guatemala. Bible reading is very common, by the way). I ended up eating in a Mexican, by-the-numbers, chain kind of place, with illustrated bible verses on the wall. It's dark, things are shutting down, and downtown is becoming dangerous, according to report. I seek refuge in my hotel, without a beer, porque es malo.

Wednesday, Jan 4

I rose this morning bedazzled with possibilities. Specifically, I needed to decide whether to enter Nicaragua up in the hills, or to aim first for low-lying Leon. I had thought that I'd make my pick, vacate slightly forbidding Tegucigalpa noonish, and lay up in the relevant Honduran town (Danli or Choluteca) for an early jump over the border the next day. But my further Nicaraguan itinerary, on which the decision depended, was too large and shapeless to wrestle down in a morning, in spite of a head start the night before. Thus, over a ten o'clock cup of coffee, the benefits of staying another night in delightful Tegucigalpa dawned on me. Thus freed, for the moment, from the tyranny of time, I duck into the covered market, and pick out one of about twenty comedores for a late breakfast, raising some eyebrows. Then a walk up to the hilltop park to take in the view of this city of one and a half million, lying in its vast, irregular bowl. I caught a whiff of the middle class up there. I went off to explore their haunts east of downtown, but found myself mainly trying to figure out where I was in their traffic streets. I never did get oriented (one street sign would have helped), and gave up without ever finding a residential area or the bookstore with English titles that I thought I'd browse. More coffee, web tasks, and a dinner in an actual restaurant I found downtown. Darkness falls, and I and the other respectable people leave the streets to the wolves of the imagination. (Actually, for all I know, little girls are playing hopscotch in the plaza at ten. But I have noticed that security measures taken in this city are definitely a step up from what I've seen elsewhere: Business doors locked during the day, razor wire in unlikely places, more armed guards - my restaurant had one - and an internet business with twenty paying customers who had to log off at the seven o'clock closing). As I enter my hotel, I finally see a solvent huffer, sitting almost too picturesquely in a pile of trash in the street. (These people were everywhere in Guatemala City in '05). And now, the final birth pangs of a decision.......

Thursday, Jan 5

......to take the high road, via Danli, crossing the border at Las Manos, to settle in Ocotal, Nicaragua. The bus stop for this route is conveniently downtown. My bag is packed, I'm ready to go........

Tegucigalpa, Honduras 1/5/2012

Three Towns and a Buena Vista

.....I was expecting a particular company's minibus for Danli at a particular corner, but what I got was a collectivo taxi from around the corner to the terminal of another company, for a minibus through Danli all the way to El Paraiso. All this had to be figured out by fits and starts with my micro Spanish. The Holy Guidebook has been proven to be erroneous and not up-to-date. Yet I remain a believer. Through pine forests and hills, evoking parts of the American west. Dropped off at the bus terminal at El Paraiso, where we wait for the chicken bus to fill up for the last leg to the Nicaraguan border. Arriving at which, I trade my Lempiras for Cordobas, squeezing my guy till I got a rate close to what I've gotten so far. (Any further, and I'd be starving him, he assured me). The officials also got some pista from me. As with Honduras, I couldn't figure out if this was legit, or regularized extortion (receipts were involved). All in all, I flashed my passport four times to get along the road to a waiting bus. In due course, arrive Ocotal. With centro an uncertain and dusky kilometer from the bus station, I engage a cab. Dropped off, I walk the perimeter of the Parque Central, and inquire at a cheap, guidebook recommended hotel. It was full. I'd forgotten that can sometimes happen. Getting myself installed elsewhere took a lot of walking around. But no matter. Ocotal is kind of city-like in the look of its people and businesses, but is nevertheless a small and mellow place. Not much traffic. Kids playing in the street. I sink right in.

Friday, Jan 6

The guidebook ascribes a "family vibe" to Mi Hotelito, meaning the family wakes you up at 6:30 having breakfast right outside your door. Buen provecho. At a more reasonable hour, I avail myself of Ocotal's truly great write-home-about breakfast-lunch buffet. Rice and beans ("gallo pinto" in Nicaragua and Costa Rica), revolved eggs, a weird and wonderful potato salad, more beans, a great chance to skip all the meat, and big fluffy tortillas. Savory cooking. A nice courtyard in which to inhale all this. Three bucks. Today, I accomplished a few little travel tasks, and otherwise just padded around this relaxed sprawl of a town. Market, church, and plaza received due attention. The plaza is spectacular in its plantings, thanks to one of the mayors way back when, who was a botanist and evidently took charge. In the church, I paced and carefully translated the stations of the cross. In the market, I fended off a drunken and badly dressed beggar. That's it. Nice town to pad around in.

Saturday, Jan 7

At the buffet place, I sink into wonderment over what they could do to make beans so good. Onward to Patagonia. But first, a little side trip to Jalapa, out of my way, and up against the Honduran border. On the chicken bus. When the thing started packing, I squeeze over for mom, and, to my inward sighs, her three little kids, who needed to be climbing all over her. But I ended up befriending them, as I, but mostly mom, explained the concept of how an adult may be incapable of speech, not having a comprehensible language. The older boy became solicitous of me, and made sure I knew what to do when we were asked to disembark at the site of a bridge repair. We all scrambled down a steep embankment into a creek, where we stepped over rocks and logs, and up again to the road. The ayudante helped to steady the ladies in nonsensible shoes. (A few oldsters had stayed in the bus). The bus then made its nosedive into the creek and managed to claw its way back up to the road. All good fun. Arrive Jalapa. The were cabs at the bus station, but no cabbies. (Perhaps they were all gathered at the nearby beisball game). So I walk. This led to various travails, with drizzle, and eventually a cab to find my way to centro. Oriented, I engage the charmless but functional (except for the sink in the common bathroom) Hospedaje Jonathan. Out to walk the streets without a bag on my back. Jalapa is a further step into the country from Ocotal. The streets are in pretty rough shape. With the rain today, they are muddy and flowing with mountain runoff. There is some horse traffic, and I even saw a couple of oxen dragging a cart down the street. I sit down to dinner at a place that made vague gestures toward the cosmopolitan, but after almost an hour nursing a beer it became apparent that they'd forgotten my order. With the plastic tables being moved and the disco crowd showing up, I was definitely out of there. The hostess was mortified, but I soothed her. So I dined lined up at an outdoor counter establishment with some charming ladies. But I wasn't able to escape disco mania after all. Its mechanized pulsations wafted over the rooftops to molest me in bed. But they quit at the stroke of midnight, as well befits the one nightspot in a small town.

Sunday, Jan 8

In the morn, I wander in circles in the nearby residential backstreets, well pleased with the individuality of the chickens and domestic architecture and this moment of travel. Now, to a strategic breakfast. The guidebook reports that the Dutchman who runs a hotel and restaurant at the edge of town is a good source of info about the terrain hereabouts. So I sit over eggs and beans in his pleasant patio, figuring he'd show up, which he did, and we had a nice long talk. He points me in the direction of the local road which would bring me into the heights above the town. I ascend, through adobe, smoke, laundry, roofs of tin or tile, fences of everything, piles of firewood, chickens, children, tubs, tools, and dogs. I say good morning, but the nosy camera stays in my pocket. The road is steep, sometimes very steep, as it winds its way up through the tight, green folds of the mountains. Cloudy, tepid-warm, the heavy air turning to mist, with bouts of breezy drizzle. I pass over the first crest. The coffee bushes are well over my head and heavily laden with precious rubies. Continuing would involve a steep descent, which I decline. (I figured 1500 feet at a steep and slippery grade was enough). So I return to where I had had a good view of the town and valley as I came up. But at this moment, the world was enshrouded by cloud and reduced to a microcosm. I sit at a bend in the road and have a slow picnic. A truck loaded with bags of produce comes sliding down the muddy ruts, wheels locked up, scraping against the embankment, the driver with a big, happy grin on his face. At length, in an unfolding hallelujah moment, the cloud blows through in wisps and reveals the larger world. Jalapa lies below. The broad, flat valley bottom is a patchwork of productivity as far as the eye can see. All is intimately enclosed by yonder mountain range and the parallel range in which I am perched. Most tranquil. I descend. As I level out below, the town thickens around me, till I find myself at my hotel. I rest a while and go out again. Enroute to find something to eat, I find myself lingering a long, rainy while under a rattling tin eave, not a soul in the muddy, flowing street. Most tranquil.

Monday, Jan 9

More wandering in circles. For breakfast, I line up at the outdoor counter with the affable gentlemen. Time again for another leave-taking. I walk Matilda to the bus station. (Eight minutes from my hotel. Not like my travails wandering ignorantly into town). A directo for Esteli, my destination, leaves shortly. Seeing how packed it was, and without a break for a transfer back at Ocotal, I knew I was in for a grueling experience. I toss my bag up to the ayudante on the roof, risking rain, but I didn't want to try to get it on the bus and keep my eye on it. I press into the bodies and souls. Three hours standing back to Ocotal. (The bridge was fixed. No need to disembark). A hale-looking man of sixty-five or so had boarded and worked his way into the aisle. He had the most gentle and serene smile on his face, like he wouldn't want to be anywhere in the world but on this crowded bus. Twenty minutes later, he was in a full faint, several screaming women trying to hold him up and get him into a seat. This required difficult chinese checkers maneuvers. I did my part by clearing six or eight inches with a resolute thrust. One woman took charge of the man, splashing water on his chest and fanning him. His expression was now one of feebleness and vacancy. He was a scrawny guy, but his hands were big and meaty, and I thought of all the shovels and pickaxes he'd spent his life wielding. I'm glad it wasn't his heart. Three hours to Ocotal, where we did get a little break, as some debarked and others came on. I resumed my position for the next stretch, two more hours for Esteli. Eventually, our population thinned, and the two young men I'd met at the station in Jalapa invited me to squeeze myself halfway onto their seat. So for the last hour, they worked their up-and-coming English on me. They were in their early twenties, but didn't yet have the means to go to the university, which is a pity, as they both had very good brains. But they had other irons in the fire. One was particularly ambitious to improve his English. Good luck to them. Arrive Esteli. A bit of a walk into and around centro. I was a little travel-goggled, and assented to Hotel Nicarao before I realized it was beyond my price point. So I vowed to enjoy it, which was easy. A much needed shower, and I put on my last clean shirt. Out for a taste.....

Tuesday, Jan 10

.....and another taste of Esteli. The town is medium-large (compared to Ocotal's medium-small, and Jalapa's medium-smaller). One senses that it is a university town, though one wonders where the campus is. The town was strongly Sandinista (as was the whole region), and one sees leftiness in the ubiquitous mural art. (Mural painting being a national art form, along with poetry, which one doesn't see). Last night I had abandoned the idea of visiting a nearby nature reserve as involving too much time and fussing. So I just devoted this day to wandering around, mural art, and cups of good coffee. In the evening, a speech from recently re-elected President Daniel Ortega is broadcast from the Plaza of the Revolution in the capital and projected on a screen in Esteli's humble plaza, sound at the usual insane volume. (His victory had an assist from his friends on the Supreme Court. Can you imagine! Thank God we don't live in a banana republic). The ridiculous Hugo Chavez and Ahmadinejad were present, giving anti-Americanism a bad name. The people in the plaza listened to Mr Mellow placidly. I am informed that the current FSLN is divided between "Danielistas", who can not help but love the old revolutionary, and the actual socialists, who are fed up with his crackpot egomania and personal corruption. Animal Farm all over again. I go off to the Cuban restaurant to mull all this over. Tomorrow, at the ungodly but unavoidable hour of 6:45, I'll board a bus for Leon. This is a large city on the coastal plain, the colonial gem of the nation. I'll sojourn there a good while, sifting my Spanish for particular items to improve, looking over the calendar and guidebooks and shaping up my itinerary as far as Quito, eating, and walking all over creation.

Esteli, Nicaragua 1/10

Days in Leon

Wednesday, Jan 11

Under load and moving at six. A twenty-three minute walk to the bus station, with no one on the sidewalks or streets to slow me down. Corn bread on the fly. A mere two hours to Leon. I had a seat to myself on a non-crowded bus. Cab to the plaza. I pause a little and look around, but soon enough make tracks to the one cheap hotel mentioned in the guidebook. I planned to check into this place no matter what, and if it were not quite suitable for an extended stay, to take my time looking around Leon for something that was. Hostal la Clinica had its charms (a cozy, but not really usable little courtyard, and a narrow, common balcony, and three generations of very sweet and kind women running the place), but it lacked a crucial element for my studies, viz., a table and chair. In fact, the room had nothing in it but a bed, which is a little inconvenient. So I stepped out, had a late breakfast, and spent the day thoroughly and methodically covering the central grid of the city, getting the gist of things, and keeping a sharp eye out for hotels. Leon is a comfortably stretched out place, not particularly jammed with people or traffic, and is rather calm and quiet for a sizable city. Many of the streets are a humane mix of domiciles and businesses, and much of it is only one story. Hotel prospects were surprisingly few. In fact, cheapsters were non-existent. I found a couple of youth-oriented places that I held out as possibilities. But over miles of pavement pounding, nothing had really jumped out at me. So I sat down to await the evening spaghetti slightly defeated. But a golden beer glowed me up as I considered two promising, but as yet unseen outliers to check out in the morning. And with a second tranquil brew on the balcony of the Hostal La Clinica, I knew I could make this place do as well.

Thursday, Jan 12 - Monday, Jan 16

Here's how the hotel situation transpired: I checked out a few prospects Thursday morning, and engaged a well-equipped and cheap enough room at Hostal La Tortuga Booluda for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Thursday was booked, so there would be another night at Hostal la Clinica, which was fine. On Sunday, I decided that another day in Leon was called for, which meant a return to Hostal la Clinica for Monday night, as the Tortuga Booluda was booked up. It sounds complex, but my days in Leon had elbow room. The Tortuga had kind of a hostal/sociable set-up, which was nice. Free coffee in the morning (in theory, actually), a fridge for your groceries, nice common areas, etc. Most of the people there were American Peace Corps youths. - - - My studies in Leon were long and ponderous and conducted at the peak of inefficiency. My meanders were similarly dissolute. I just kind of swirled around the city in a kind of formless eddy. I took about three cold showers a day, which the climate called for. The town has an actual laundromat, which was nice. I've never seen one before in Latin America. I prepared myself with relevant vocabulary and ventured a haircut. The bookstore with English titles was out of business. That's about it for errands. There are great old churches everywhere, and the cathedral is a real monster. I looked them all over well. The houses and neighborhoods are very cozy looking, with tiled roofs, creative concrete work, old doors and gates of wood and ironwork, lively paint jobs, and signs of ruin, as when the plaster falls away to reveal adobe blocks that were stacked and mortared who knows how long ago. The town feels utterly safe and civil. I've met various interesting characters. There's a lot of politics and history in this town, with murals and public art to document and commemorate it. I've looked it all over, and had some specifics pointed out to me by a gregarious lady who accosted me and gave me a lengthy tour. Thus, I've seen the crosses painted in the street marking where the bodies lay in the '59 massacre, and the boarded up restaurant where the first Somoza was assassinated by a warrior-poet in waiters' clothing. I've been to the museum to see the photographs of the Heroes and Martyrs, my contemporaries, attested to by their '70s hairdos, who gave their last full measure for the revolution, while I was safe in Minnesota gazing at my suffering and ever so fascinating navel...... - - - I've got a plan. In the morning, I'll be heading over to the other side of the country for another Caribbean vacation. Plan A includes a very uncertain link that would take me on a bit of an ocean cruise. Plan B would involve some backtracking and a consolation prize. In any case, I'm heading for Bluefields. Let there be coconuts.

Leon 1/16

Another Caribbean Vacation

.....evening, after posting the last post, I amble toward the plaza. Light, sound, and action in front of the cathedral. A big crowd has gathered, and a score or so of dancers are in costume and performing a traditional dance. Very much a boys meet girls narrative. Other groups follow and dance the same story, one of them swirling around a maypole. All very elemental and moving. I find out later it was a celebration of the university's two hundredth anniversary. The colored sawdust art I'd seen in the streets would have been part of this. I imagine the many participants were students who joined up to rehearse and perform one of the particular dances. The climax of the last dance was marked by the tolling of the cathedral bells, fireworks from the roof raining hot ashes on the crowd, and, in the Latin American tradition of Too Much Noise, the municipal disaster siren blaring and drowning out the rest of the cacophony. One has to wonder about that last bit, but it's the thought that counts.

Tuesday, Jan 17

Time to move on from this hot city. A last breakfast at the comfortable and comforting El Desayunazo, which every morning had served me Nica tipica (gallo pinto, eggs, that white, crumbly, salty cheese, plantain, and one tortilla), and a gringo-friendly bottomless cup of brewed coffee. Another visit to the precious and rare laundromat. Taxi to the bus station, from whence a chicken bus spirits me away to the capital. The sweep of Lago Managua hither, volcanic cones yon. Into vast Managua. We rumble past the neoclassical facade of the national palace. No sight-seeing, though. I'm here to make a connection. The bus terminates, not at a station, but on some scruffy street somewhere. A long cab ride to the bus station that served my next stretch. I'm touted aboard on old greyhound and am underway in five minutes. I finally have a minor travel disaster, the classic missed-my-stop. The ayudante figured this out and alerted me in ten minutes. I blindly followed four assumptions into this fiasco. I won't dignify them with explanations, but two were weak, one medium, and one strong - the most dangerous kind. I get dropped off at the next likely spot where a bus might pull over, to await what was said to be coming my way. I crossed the road to where a group of people were sitting around, and proactively made sport of my situation, to good effect. But my assumptions were not at an end. Not one of these people were waiting for a bus. I had merely made myself at home sitting on their woodpile. It's a good thing the next bus didn't just blow past us, as no one stood up, and I was following the general travel rule of following other people's lead. But I got uptight and leapt up in time, (with local back-up), and got the bus to swing over. Shortly thereafter, I am dropped off somewhere on Juigalpa's highway business strip. I broke my long thirst-fast with a fanta and asked a few questions to avoid further blunders. A cab to centro. Less than an hour consumed by my boobery. Dusk, a populated and very civil plaza, and the birds are screaming. I like this town already. The guidebook hotel is where it's supposed to be, and is a five dollar gem of simplicity, with a pleasant second floor balcony. I make enough of an exploration to claim this realm for King John, and have my royal chicken, rice, and beans at a streetside establishment.

Wednesday, Jan 18

I kind of blew my reason for sticking around this town for another night. This was to be a half-day side trip to a village on the shore of Lago Nicaragua, just for a beer and a view of the vast lake and volcanoes. By the time I realized that only the early bus would really work out, the early bus had left. Sometimes the traveler is too easy-going. So, I just hung around in this well-kept town. I had a good look at the big, colorful cemetery. The church is a mod, unlovely thing, about my age, with all the period details, including mosaics that look like they belong in a bathroom. The municipal building had a display of pairs of past and present photos of scenes in the town, so I saw a photo of the old, colonial church. I got involved in a sub-conversation with a cop over these photos, but our language link was not up to me learning why the old church had to come down. The leafy parque central was obviously a well-loved place. The town had a second small park, built on a rise with a panoramic view of the broad, pastoral lowland below, stretching away to yonder ranges of mountains, intriguing and inviting, with sheer, white cliffs in the upper reaches. I sit in the park and groove to this worldly scene, and reconsider the idea of making a hike up into these mountains from the village of Santo Domingo. I had discarded this prospect in Leon (three full days required, with ill-timed transport, and details of the climb uncertain). I had to wrestle myself to discard it again, though I vowed to get into a cloud forest and a finer artery of the gringo trail at some point. Rain on and off all day, increasing later. Pleasant pattering as I dine at the streetside establishment, and a real downpour as I sit on the hotel balcony with a beer.

Thursday, Jan 19

I step into my shoes, into a cab, and into a bus. Rolling at seven. Pastoral hills. Arrive El Rama. This town is a booming, inland seaport, linked to the world pond by the navigable Escondido River. The town is a muddy mess today. The main street follows the sharp bend in the river. I nose around till I find the dock. I have some sport with the small army of bored touts for the two competing transport companies, and make my random choice. I buy a ticket for the panga (the word for a small passenger boat has shifted from lancha to panga) and am told confidently (and accurately) that departure would be after twelve. With a safe half hour, I step up for a late breakfast of cornbread and orange juice, which I inhaled as I walked the muddy streets of this frontier town back down to the dock. I could have sat down to a substantial lunch, as the passenger list didn't fill till 1:30. I shared a patch of shade during this long wait with an affable German. When we had enough people to pack a boat with, the captain pulled away from the dock, swung around, and stepped on the gas. With 200 horsepower, this meant highway fast. Hang on to your hat and brace for wakes and whitecaps. Brown water, hot sun, palmy, jungly banks. At length, the broad river broadens further into Bluefields Bay, and I cast my eyes upon an endless horizon. We sweep into the docks of the large town of Bluefields. The roofed market is right there, so one passes through a dark and fragrant labyrinth before emerging to the streets. This town is going to be cool. I part, for the moment, from Jank ("Yahnk") the German. My hotel search got out of hand, as I persisted too long in not finding a desirable guidebook suggestion. Worn out, under drizzle, I should have just had a cab bring me to the place. But I ended up taking a gone-to-seed hotel back down near the dockside market. It had a bucket to flush the toilet with, a tub of water and a dipper sitting on the floor of the shower (no shower head, but a working, knee-level spigot. Why?), no sink, inside or out, and just enough light to find the doorknob. All very charming, except that they asked too much, and misled me about not having cheaper, baño general rooms. But I pay like a chump, and go out to get some dinner. I come back with two cold beers. It's a good thing that this hotel has a nice balcony, a rocking chair, a view of a decrepit street, and a tropical downpour, or I would have been dissatisfied.

Friday, Jan 20

Nevertheless, I switch hotels to the cheaper and nicer Hostal Doña Vero. Now, the question arises, why exactly am I on planet Earth, I mean, on this trip, I mean, in Bluefields? The answer is almost clear: to continue to Pearl Lagoon and Orinoco, or to the Corn Islands. Both are very attractive options. Pearl Lagoon (the town) is a small Creole town, and Orinoco is a smaller Garifuna town. Both are on the shores of Pearl Lagoon (the lagoon), an enclosed body of water set back from the open sea. The Corn Islands are way out to sea, a Caribbean postcard kind of place, with a tourist friendly economy , but small scale and mellow. Ease of transportation had a bearing on my decision. I go down to the municipal dock to make inquiries, and confirm, deny, and sort out the overlapping and conflicting info I'd gotten from the guidebook, a website, and a dubious local. This got very involved, with some uncertainties unresolvable. But the upshot was that the Corn Islands were not practical by boat. So Pearl Lagoon it is. I also learned that the reported weekly ferry or panga between Bluefields and San Juan de Nicaragua at the mouth of the Rio San Juan was not operating. Hence, I would not be able to make this interesting sea-link and river journey when I move on, but will have to backtrack. With things as resolved as they were going to get, I go off to get better acquainted with Bluefields. The guidebook had led me to believe that the old wooden town of Bluefields had been blown away to the last stick by Hurricane Juana in '88. So I expected a lot of charmless, new concrete. There was that, but I also found lots of old concrete (so the town couldn't have been all "Victorian charm"), and a fair amount of old wood. No doubt much Victorian decrepitude was lost, but Bluefields still retains a patina of mildew and an aura of decay, and all the signs of care and neglect that the dreamy tourist wants in his Caribbean port town. I walk neighborhoods, listening in on people's lingo, and seeing how they reply to my greetings. Unsurprisingly, the language spectrum is color-coded, though not strictly, of course. I vaguely sense a lot of cross currents in people's ancestry, culture, and language. Here, where the shores of the Hispanosphere are laved with the waves of the Anglosphere, a tide of comfort washes over me in the oceanic murmurs of my mother tongue, be it more standard or more creolized. - - - This day was punctuated by overtures of friendship turning to gold-digging. My faith in humanity is restored in the evening, as I hear the strains of soulful religious song coming through the traffic noise and rain.

Saturday, Jan 21

To the municipal dock to resolve some details. I'll be bound for Pearl Lagoon with a few uncertainties in my baggage. I saw Jank, the affable German I'd shared the panga with from El Rama. He was innocently hoping to catch a boat to the Corn Islands. I had to tell him that the only certain departure was Wednesday, with return on Thursday. Deft traveller that he is, he turned on his heels for Pearl Lagoon. I went back to my hotel, grabbed my bag, had a bite and a cup, and commenced propping up the wall in the waiting room at the dock. In due course, I'm in a packed panga, swerving through mangrove channels, and rocketing across open water. I pass the time with a local gentleman who had studied in a seminary in Minneapolis for a year in the eighties, and with a traveling Swiss woman named Esther, who likes to go on tours. Arrive Pearl Lagoon. There are a few parked vehicles, but none in motion. People are walking around in the middle of the street. Mostly organic sounds, including human speech, which, let's observe, tends to be obliterated in cities. I look over the whole town (not a lengthy task) and settle in a comfortable old converted house. The hotelier was able to call and reserve a room ahead for me in Orinoco, resolving a daunting uncertainty. (A booked town and no return transport? Problem!). Jank had arrived on the later boat and informed me that there was a Swiss woman abroad looking to assemble a quorum for a tour of the Pearl Keys. I saw this coming. Sign me up. I knew I'd run across her again in due course. I met an interesting Moskito gentleman at the dock, who told me his war story, and showed me his wound. He had been reluctant to join Somoza's National Guard, but signed up after they threatened to shoot his parents. ("And the Sandinistas were the same way!") - - - I'm really in my language zone now. Pearl Lagoon is pretty much English/Creole. After all this travel, it feels strange to just address people in English. Creole speakers will bend their English in my direction, sometimes as far as the Queen's English, as with the nice baker lady, who spoke full-on Creole with her family. Fortified with her coconut bread and coffee, I make a walk to Awas, a Moskito village some thirty minutes away. The path is mostly a concrete walkway through a marsh. Awas is a small collection of plank houses set up on posts in a green pasture, kept nicely cropped by the horses and cows. It also has chickens and kids running around naked, fishermen mending their nets, and people hanging in hammocks. One Vidal appoints himself my tour guide, and concludes his spiel with a tale of an expensive medical problem he has stemming from getting his neck stepped on when he was in jail on an entirely unjust marijuana charge. I decline to contribute, which he accepted graciously. ("I respect you, Daddy.") On my walk back, I came across Jank and Esther on their way to Awas. We are three and need a fourth, with more making the tour cheaper for each. They had run out of prospects. I said I'd work on the middle aged American couple and the young Euros at my hotel. I gave them a heads up about Vidal and agreed to meet at dusk at the Queen Lobster for dinner. I continued on my way, through the swimmers and launderers, back to my hotel. The Americans were out, so I left a note on their door. (They ultimately declined). The young Euros had actually been considering the same tour, but were hesitating over time and cost. We let it rest for the moment, and I go off to meet with Jank and Esther. We have a fine dinner, with the able Esther acting as a sensitive linguistic intermediary between me and Jank. The youths show up, and with a few more questions for the tour guide (who also runs Queen Lobster), our quorum is formed. We are: Esther (with her native Italian, Swiss German, German German, English, and Spanish), Jank (German, and well-grounded, aspiring English), Catalans Genis and Alba (engineering students with Catalan, Spanish, and English), and Norwegians Charlotte, Celia, and Maya (nursing students with Norwegian, English and a little Spanish). And monolingual me, with my crumbs of German and Spanish. We raise a bottle to our meeting in the morn. To my hotel, where I am lulled to sleep by a slow drum beat accompanying long, drawn out phrases of human song.....

Sunday, Jan 22

....and awake to songs of praise. Our hotel lady cooks breakfast for me and the young Euros. (They're all working on projects and studies in Bluefields through their universities). Then to Queen Lobster (which sits conveniently on posts over the waters of Pearl Lagoon) to meet Jank and Esther, and Pedro, our Spanish expat tour guide. Into the panga, around the point that encloses Pearl Lagoon, and out to the open sea, strewn with archetypical tropical isles. Dean, our lookout, stands in the pitching bows with one taut line in his hand, and using his free hand to direct Pedro back in the stern. The seas get rough enough to deliver a real ass-beating, and buckets of drenching spray in our faces. Arrive Crawl Key, for a Caribbean idyll. It's a crescent shaped islet, inhabited by a few chickens, a cat, and two watchmen who keep an eye on a monstrous, half-constructed dream home. Coconut palms and beaches of white sand and coral. We spend the day walking around and bobbing in the surf. Needing the materials for lunch, we venture out in the panga again. Pedro, Dean, and the Norwegian girls pull up a variety of fishes. Back on the island, Pedro chopped them into big chunks, and otherwise prepared a rondon (a.k.a., "run-down"), a fish soup of potato, vegetables, and coconut milk. (The coconuts were local, meaning at our feet). Now, as no Caribbean idyll is complete without a shipwreck, fate duly supplied us with one. A Belgian couple showed up, soaked to the armpits. They had pulled their unseaworthy dugout canoe up on the back side of our island. They were staying in one of the few cabanas on the next island as guests of the resident British lady. (We had met her when we were out fishing, and man, was she stuffed in her pants). They were out of everything but rice, and were in especially dire need of rum, and so had ventured over in hopes of scrounging some gas so they could motor off to supply their needs. Let's just say it all worked out for them. And the rundown worked out well for us. A delicious repast, and a long-lasting one, with all those fish parts to handle. The time comes for us to sail into the sunset. The ride back was considerably calmer. We disperse to our hotels for showers, and eventually gather again at Queen Lobster, and raise a bottle to our successful excursion. To our hotels, splashing in the streets in a downpour.

Monday, Jan 23

I'm down at the dock at seven to say goodbye to the students, who are returning to their duties and studies in Bluefields. I'm hoping to move on to Orinoco today, and ask at the dock office (if a woman at a desk with a list can be called an office) about calling Bluefields and somehow ensuring me a spot on the panga that would be passing through. I had been told to do this, but when I think about it I can count the ways it was pointless. She told me to come back at eight. Then nine. I would skip that one, and went splashing through the rain to meet up with Jank and Esther. The street had flooded, and a fellow was standing in water up to his knees pulling up handfuls of street flotsam out of the plugged storm drain. "This is a nasty job, mon". Yet he seemed to be a volunteer. We shipmates managed to find each other, and sat at the bakery for coffee and a bite and partings. To the dock with my bag. The panga is supposed to show up at something like 10:30. I forget when it did show up, but it was full and nobody was getting off. Pretty much a show stopper, and since I wasn't going to be hanging around for two days for the next boat to Orinoco, I went up to the office to put my name on the list for the next boat back to Bluefields (and on to the Corn Islands, by air). (As for these pangas, it's best to think of regularly scheduled service as irregularly suggested possibilities). But this reversal reversed again, through the efforts of Kara, an American I'd been speaking with. She had economic/ecological researches going on, and was highly motivated to get to her field work in Orinoco. (For now, spending whole nights in a boat and methodically counting fish). She had been making inquiries, and caught wind of someone she knew coming our way and bound for Orinoco. He shows up in due course in his boat, gathers his business and passengers for an hour or so, and we're off. We pause for a hour and a half in the Moskito village of Kakabila. Kara shows me around a little. She goes off to catch up with people she knows, while I step back down to where I can keep an eye on the boat. "White people!" exclaims a boy, with apparent delight. I had a nice travel moment in Kakabila, sitting on a log in the shade, inspired by nothing more than the sea breeze and birdsong, flapping laundry, biting insects, and kids jumping off the dock into the sea. Kara and the other passengers and the capitan reassemble, and we resume our voyage. Arrive Orinoco. Kara walks me up to the hotel (the hotel) and orients me. I have a shower and a look around the neighborhood. Vida of Hotel Garifuna cooks meals upon request. So I dined with Kara, and we had a nice long talk, in which she filled me in on her scholarly work, and lots of interesting and useful info about Orinoco and its people. << Though the people here identify as Garifuna, Kara reports that the language is on the last legs of the old. The young are being absorbed, linguistically at least, into the larger Creole speaking world. (The critical mass of Garifuna speakers are on the Honduran coast). The Creole I've heard in passing has ranged from the understandably English, to the identifiably English, to the incomprehensible. I've been able to understand everyone I've spoken to, but I'm not sure if a broad speaker could bring himself within my scope. Kara herself bends delightfully Creole-ward when she speaks to people. >>

Tuesday, Jan 24

Breakfast on the patio of Hotel Garifuna. Now is the time to do a big bucket of laundry. (Dried-up seawater in your clothes - not good). Out to do the town. - - - (Orinoco: This place is a village. Not only is it unconnected by road, it doesn't have the internal commerce or scale - or wealth, perhaps- for so much as a motor scooter. There are no streets. Concrete sidewalks and dirt paths thread among people's houses, yards, gardens, and pastures. Pretty intimate, walking around. One does not skip "good morning" or "good afternoon". (Returned in kind, or sometimes with "OK", or "Alright" - both of which are sometimes offered initially). The only retail I saw was a small tienda, and a smaller one. Nothing like a restaurant, but a few people will feed you out of their houses. (Ms Rebecca has a nice operation). There were a couple of bars, which I never ventured into. And a lady who baked, which is nice. The economy is suggested by the horses and cows walking around, and the nets of fishermen spread out to dry or undergoing repair, and their boats and dugouts coming and going. That's it. The town's generator takes a break between midnight and six. Pretty mellow.) - - - I supply myself with some coconut bread for a walk. When I came in view of the tethered spider monkey, he caught sight of that coconut bread and really went bananas. He had ignored me before, but I had had nothing in my hand. So I tossed a crust to the prisoner of Orinoco. I walk out of town to the north, crossing a stream with a concrete bridge where women do their laundry. A concrete walkway parallels the shore through a bog. I go as far as the next solid ground and farm, then turn around and find a shady spot on the shore for repose and studies. Then through the town to its other end, where the young men were playing checkers, shooting hoops, and kicking balls around among the cows. Through the cemetery and schoolyard to the ballfield, where I sit up in the stands and watch many innings of the girls playing softball, while two boys on a horse gallop around the outfield, and little kids clamber up and down the bleachers. Dusk, game over, we disperse in the darkening pathways of the village. Endless summer.....

Wednesday, Jan 25

.....in which one day seems like the next. This day I took the path to the north past the farm to the neighboring village of Marshall Point, which is just a smaller version of Orinoco. Raised plank houses, animals, dugout canoes, and fishing nets. Back to Orinoco, where I approach Ms Rebecca's house for a midday repast. The ladies outside direct me to wait inside while they alert Ms Rebecca, who walks across the field from her job at the health center, and sets her daughter to work cooking me a meal. A plenteous array of fish, rice, beans, plantains, and cucumbers. I carry this precious cargo in my belly around the village, marveling at my good fortune. I make my way to the softball diamond, trying to stay out of harm's way as two boys chuck coconut husks, plantain stalks, and other trash at each other. At length, they settle down and walk together. "Is there peace?" I inquire. Yes, there is now peace. "So who won?", I ask, with mischievous intent.....and the coconuts are flying again. More endless summer.

Thursday, Jan 26

I'm on the dock before the sun, for the six o'clock panga. The boat arrives almost full, presumably from Marshall Point. (I had thought it originated in Orinoco). Quite a little crowd had gathered, and I began seeing myself spending another day in Orinoco. (There are four departures a week). But most of the people were onlookers and leave-takers, and I managed to get a seat. (Somewhere, there's a system, but I could never get it more than half-explained). We motor off, through several bouts of hard rain, during which a plastic tarp would be passed forward, with the front seat people hanging on to the leading edge, and side people further battening it down. We pass among the morning fishers in their dugouts. Arrive Bluefields. I feel like I've put in some travel today, yet it's only eight o'clock. Everything's been rained on and is glistening in the morning sun. I check straight back into Hostal Doña Vera. Then back to the dock to inquire about the far-flung chance that Captain Lester might take a passenger on his weekly, wee-hour fuel barge to San Juan de Nicaragua at the mouth of the San Juan River. (This was a guidebook idea). No one knew anything about a fuel barge, and I knew I'd be stopping short of trying to get the captain on the phone and pestering him with my sub-Spanish. With that interesting avenue now definitively shut off, I resolved to console myself with a little jaunt over to the Corn Islands. The sea and sand I'd experienced with my tour comrades left me wanting more. And really, how does one not go the Corn Islands when they are so there. As I already knew that going by boat would not really work out, I ran off to the airport and booked myself a round trip flight for a four day sojourn. (This violates the no-fly ethos of the trip, but since it doesn't actually advance my movement, I figure it's OK). The rest of the day I spent in internet places and puttering around Bluefields. I did have a disaster, to no lasting effect, which provided some drama. I had sat down on a bench in an unused part of the park, and was chagrined to feel stickiness. It would be bad enough if this was someone's spilled soda, but it was uncured yellow paint. Not wet - that bench was painted long ago - but somehow uncured. My essential and irreplaceable light nylon cargo pants, hemmed to fit, whose pockets I had extended for travel, were stuck up with yellow paint. I wasted no time in howling, but made haste to the paint store I had passed numerous times. The paint guys were duly alarmed at my predicament, and provided me with a rag and a pop bottle one third filled with solvent (which I first tested on my painty hands), for ten Cordobas. I then picked up a little packet of detergent and made for my hotel. I set to work on a stack of concrete blocks in the backyard. My toothbrush was sacrificed in the effort. I got the paint out, let the solvent dry, found a bucket, and did a wash and rinse. The disaster clocked in at an hour and a half. Not bad. Pants saved. All is well.

Friday, Jan 27

A nice family had taken a couple of rooms near me last night. The voices of children waking me at 6:30 I can look upon indulgently. The voices of a blatting television, I can not. Oh, humanity. I endure it for a while and make my escape. The usual slow bustle at the dockside market. My breakfast place normally had one or two people having a morning beer. This morning, Cafetin Johanna was crowded at 8:30, and the tables were bristling with empties. Was it payday? I like beer, but the timing of these people kind of put me off my eggs and beans. I work on this post in the morning (which I meant to get up, but it didn't quite happen). Off to the airport. I stumble through officialdom. Hurry up and wait, through the long lead time and the plane being late. But at length, I ascend, in a twelve-seat prop plane, for the twenty minute, forty-five-plus mile hop out to the Corn Islands, from which tropical paradise I now hail you.

Little Corn Island 1/28

Another Caribbean Vacation Continued

.....The squat, metallic insect comes to rest, and disgorges the contents of its stomach. Kids resume riding their bikes around on the runway. (Great Corn Island: Forty-four miles offshore from Bluefields, four square miles, with some roads and motorized traffic. Seven thousand people, devoted to fish, lobsters, and a few tourists). I persuade the cab driver to merely overcharge me rather than shamelessly rip me off, and have him drive me through the bayshore businesses of the town to its further end. There, I engage Hotel Beach View, which aptly sits on the beach. The surf pounds and the wind is in the palms. The Corn Islands are going to be nice. I look around the town, and make my observations and inquiries at the dock for my morning voyage to Little Corn Island. A huge pile of big conch shells sits on the shore. Such excess, and I had thought they were rare jewels. The setting sun is cosmically, even comically, indifferent to my worshipful attention. And now, the time has now come for me to consume a lobster. It's been a few years.

Saturday, Jan 28

I'm at the dock at 6:32 with my bag, but I never see the 7:00 panga. (I now have a hunch it had left at 6:30). Instead, I am directed to the Roger Saul, a cargo vessel fitted with a few seats. The capitan assures me he'll be leaving at 8:oo for certain, passengers or no. Time for a cup, but I'll have no breakfast, on the chance that it may benefit the fishes more than me. The Roger Saul embarks in a timely fashion. We rock and roll through waves and troughs. The other passenger and I keep a hand on a fuel barrel to keep it upright and not rolling around and smashing into our shins. An hour and twenty minutes, and no sign of gastric disturbance. (Little Corn Island: Eighteen miles further out to sea from Great Corn. One gorgeous square mile. The seven hundred people make do with their feet and wheelbarrows, as there are no streets or motorized vehicles). Poor Albert really tried to tout me into his hotel, but I had other plans. The Village, with its low-key tourist infrastructure, is strung along the bay shore. I sit down to breakfast with my fellow passenger, and talk over Walden, which he'd brought along to read. From the Village ("frontside"), I walk the path through the forest to the east-facing shore ("backside"), where the more secluded, beachy places are. (As well as the prevailing, blasting wind). As I came into view of the sea, I really had to laugh at the excess of it all. Reality and archetype merge into paradise. A stiff sea breeze thrashes the coconut palms, and the surf pounds the sand. The sea is moving out there, and shining in a strange pinto pattern, deep blue and turquoise blue, with white breakers out on the reefs. Time will pass easily here. I engage a little bamboo bungalow with a hammock, at Grace's Cool Spot, a cool spot, which also served food and drink under the thatch. The Norwegian girls from Pearl Lagoon are here, and various escapees from northern climes. I settle in, and stroll back to the village (twelve minutes), in search of knowledge and bread. Knowledge, as always, was at hand. Bread was not, at least in the little stores. I was directed to Ms Louisa, as she bakes for the public. Her house took some finding. She told me to come back after 3:30. I did so, and bought two loaves from her, to tide me over Sunday, for Ms Louisa does not bake on the Sabbath. Otherwise, I explored the island, swam in the deep blue sea, and dined on one of its inhabitants. (...of the sea that is, not the island. Cannibalism would be taking the tropical isle archetype thing too far). <<< Little Corn Island is a remarkably congenial place. The people mostly live in the Village, which has the solid-sided hotels, stores, and restaurants. Along the eastern shore are several hut-style accommodations, some serving food. The northeast corner has a few very cool, arty, ends-of-the-earth places to stay. I did see one uppity, but small, new development under construction. The interior is a beautiful forest, rising to a hilltop, with open areas, and a very few cows. A long sidewalk stretches up this hill, with art and messages of virtue cast in the concrete. The island can be surveyed from the fire tower on the top of the hill. Paths follow about half of the shore and lace through the interior. Look both ways for wheelbarrows. > > >

Sunday, Jan 29

I'm strolling the beach at six. The sun, presumably, is rising out of the sea behind yonder cloud bank. Overcast all day. I spend this day walking, talking, eating, studying (Spanish), sewing (an unraveling seam in my pack), reading (a reader's digest from 2001), and frolicking in the surf like a porpoise. (Actually, I should be so nimble. But I will say, salt in the water is very effective in allaying my tendency to sink while swimming).

Monday, Jan 30

More island time. My snorkeling expedition was unfortunately canceled when a necessary part of the needed quorum pulled out. (They were worried about the wind, which never stops blowing here). This was a disappointment. (The Norwegian girls had gone previously, and seen stingrays and sharks and suchlike interesting creatures). So I make my rounds: sea and sand, woods, Village and its rustic extensions, pasture, hill and tower, many a pathway, Ms Louisa's house for sustenance, and more sea and sand. I bob in the waves after dark, under southern stars. A parting beer with the Norwegian girls, as I'll be gone at the crack of dawn.

Tuesday, Jan 31

An enmellowed traveler emerges from a bamboo hut and sets foot on a sandy trail, while the sun emerges from the sea to cast a glow upon this classic departure. Passengers accumulate at the dock. A large panga arrives, this one holding about forty people. The voyage is faster and wetter in this craft than it was on my outbound passage on the Roger Saul. We deployed the tarp against the spray. Arrive Great Corn Island. Presumably, most of the passengers are meeting the early flight to Bluefields. They get cabbed off to the airport while I sit down to a long breakfast. All is quiet at the airport by the time I walk across the runway to drop off my bag at the terminal. I have five hours to explore the island. Which I do, unhurriedly and attentively. I climb the concrete path up to the school, nose around, and continue on a dirt path, through bananas and butterflies, up to Mt Pleasant. The tower on the summit affords a 360 degree view of the island and horizons, and was a nice place for a little nodding nap. I descend, and stroll the ring road, pausing on roaring, azure beaches. Back in the town, I have a filling comedor lunch. To the dock, to watch the stevedores humping bags of concrete off a real tub of a vessel, stepping from the swaying gunnel to the dock in their bare feet. Back to the airport, for the long wait they require. In due course, I am deposited back in Bluefields, this time by a forty-seat, two-propeller plane that was continuing to the capital. I check quickly back into the Doña Vero, wait out a rainstorm, and go down to the dock to confirm that nothing can be known about how or when I'll be leaving in the morning. < < < This long Caribbean Dream has felt like something of a vacation from my vacation. The feeble ember of my Spanish is in danger of being extinguished. It's time to get moving, and even accelerate some, back into the Hispanosphere. So in the morn, I'll be leaving the coastal domains of English/Creole speaking black people, and plunging back into the domains of their Spanish speaking countrymen, to whom they refer, with less than entire affection, as "Spaniards". I'll be stepping on it for Costa Rica, straight for the capital, with only one possible side trip that may tempt me to divert.

Bluefields 1/31

Pura Vida

("Pure Life" - the Costa Rican national slogan) ..... (As for my onward journey, not so fast, Buster. I'd thought I'd make it from Bluefields to San Carlos in a day, and be thus poised to cross into Costa Rica. But when I actually looked at the details, this was not going to work out. There was a bad stretch of road, requiring extra time, and no buses late enough for me to connect with at the crucial junction. So then, tomorrow I'll be going past this junction, to lay up in Juigalpa, a town I did not expect to see again). ......Where to dine on this, my last night in Bluefields? This is a rhetorical question, for I have a stomach for no other eatery than the nameless place near my hotel. This humble establishment serves up the finest from its steam tables, mainly to a carryout clientele. But there are plastic tables to sit at, where one will be presented, within two minutes of sitting down, with a plate of rice and beans, the forequarter of a roasted chicken, cole slaw, a big, floppy plantain, a big, floppy tortilla, and a coke. Four bucks. Bliss and contentment on every face.

Wednesday, Feb 1

With no particular reason now to rush things, I abjure the supposedly regular early panga, and take the time to have a last look around the cramped passages and fetid recesses of the docks and market. At a reasonable hour, I return to the dock with my bag to await what may come. It took an hour and a half of waiting in the dark and dank waiting area for the passenger list to fill up. Depart Bluefields. Two hours, roughly, roaring up the Rio Escondido. Arrive El Rama. A disaster dawns on me on the dock. I bear the disaster up into the town, and carry it with me into the bus for Juigalpa. (The Disaster: On the dock in El Rama, I realized that I didn't have my distance glasses with me. I had a fair idea of how I'd let them get away. I imagined they were now stepped on and scuffed under a bench in the waiting area of the Bluefields dock. I'd been waiting for the moment when I would lose or destroy a pair of glasses. (There's always a lot of switching between distance and readers, and face and breast pocket, though this was not a factor in this fiasco). Two hundred bucks, poof! Inconvenience, yahoo! On the bus to Juigalpa, I tried not to brood about it. I'll succeed in time. For now, I'll get by with the sunglasses, contacts, and bareback - for my eyes don't actually need much correction). Arrive Juigalpa. At the bus station, I confirm that the last of four departures for San Carlos is at 6:00 AM. (I'll abjure the 3:00 AM, and aim for the 5:00 AM. If it's jammed, or I miss it, I'll be early in line for the last one). Waving away the cabs, I time my walk from the bus station to the Hotel el Nuevo Milenio. Twenty-two minutes. I will set my alarm accordingly. For now, a shower, and a stroll through the renewable cultural resource of the Parque Central of Juigalpa, with its promenading, canoodling humans and screaming evening birds. Web tasks, and a call to Vision World, Calhoun Square, Minneapolis. It's the only way. As I partake of the evening rice and beans, I try not to brood about it. I'll succeed in time.

Thursday, Feb 2

Up at four, the ungodliest hour yet. (Perspective shift: It's really the Godliest). I slip phantom-like through the dark streets and highway to the bus station. There is no Southern Cross among these winter morning stars. I'll discover it at some point. The five o'clock bus leaves in a timely fashion, only a third full. An illuminated icon of the Virgin brightens up an otherwise dark bus. She gradually fades in the light of day. The bus slowly fills as the morning progresses. The last stretch of road was a little rough, but nothing dire as reported. Five hours, arrive San Carlos. I stand out of the rain under the awning of the crowded bus station, and consider that, being as early as it was, I might just cross the border and keep going. But over a hearty comedor breakfast, I discard the idea. I need a destination to keep going, and I hadn't yet decided whether to succumb to the tempting side trip in Costa Rica. I will, however, resist further Nicaraguan temptations. The seductive Rio San Juan is right here, tempting me, but it will have to wait for the next trip, or life. So for this day, I just hung around this quiet, charming, old wooden town on the shores of Lago Nicaragua. There's a nice promenade and park from which one can gaze across the vast lake at the volcanoes. I checked out the details for my departure in the morn. From the site of the old Spanish fortress, I surveyed the lake's outlet into the river, and loaded the cannon of my imagination against the ghosts of English pirates. Someday, I'll be down on the water in a kayak, and, switching sides, will brandish the cutlass of my imagination against the ghosts of the Spaniards. I dined rather fine this evening, on a fish swimming in a garlic sauce. I could have skipped the disco thumping from the bar below the restaurant, but I don't make the rules around here. To my hotel, a nice family operation in an old wooden building. My cabin-like room is all planks and two by fours, painted white. The snores of my neighbor are just as disturbing, but not nearly so annoying, as disco mania.

Friday, Feb 3

How does one choose among seven comedores under one tin roof? My breakfast biz goes to the one with the human touch, meaning the one whose girl was first to spot me and invite me to sit down. I observe the goings on of the bus station and among the street vendors as I assimilate my eggs and beans and rice. Bag in hand, I place myself in the physical/procedural tubes for a border crossing. This means queuing up, getting through Nicaraguan officialdom, stepping out on a dock, and taking a place in a long, covered boat. When the last passenger is crammed aboard, we pull away from San Carlos, nod to the great inland sea of Lago Nicaragua, and proceed up the Rio Frio, a jungly and soporific stream if there ever was one. One hour, arrive Costa Rica. More officialdom. First, a dockside bag check, then, some distance away, past a hotel and some eateries, one finds the place to get one's passport stamped. Not exactly the iron curtain. [This is the border crossing through which Reagan surreptitiously supplied his right wing "freedom fighters" during the Nicaraguan civil war. -ed., 3/'21]. The bus station in the town of Los Chiles is a fifteen minute walk away. I was hoping to find a money changer there, as I had blithely walked past one back at the bag check. But no one was there flapping a wad, so I turned around and got in some extra walking in order to unload my Cordobas for Colones. Good for the circulation between long bouts of sitting. In due course, I'm on a double-decker plush bus for Ciudad Quesada. A long stretch of jungly lowland, with agriculture. We gain some elevation, and the beauty of the landscape morphs accordingly. Arrive Quesada. It had gotten late enough in the afternoon that I had decided to ease up and go no further. (This was also the point at which I had to decide yay or nay on the three-day side trip). I'd been keeping company since Nicaraguan officialdom with some American travelers. One continues on his way to the capital. The other two, David and Danny, who were traveling together for the time being, opted to call it a day. We formed a hotel-shopping crew and walked up the street to find the Parque Central. Oriented in due course, we check a few places. They opt for the better hotel, I for the cheaper one across the street. We all settle in, I explore the town, and in due course we meet up to dine in an ordinary tipica place I found on the plaza. There is a refreshing hint of coolness at this slight elevation. A perfect atmosphere for the first hot shower I've had since Esteli. (Day One in Costa Rica: It's very obvious that living standards took a jump up when I crossed the border. Everything looks several degrees more prosperous. After nine weeks in three poor countries, I'm back at the Mexico level. Much less trash on the roadside and streets. Traffic is less noisy and pushy, and turn signals are sometimes in use. And there's good coffee everywhere.)

Saturday, Feb 4

The parque central belongs to the pigeons on this early Saturday morn in this pleasant, provincial town. The modern church has a very notable Christ on the wall above the altar. The Lamb of God is huge, and very naturalistic. He is in the general posture of a crucified person, and marked softly with the stigmata. But he is relaxed, and flying under his own power, as he has been freed from the cross, which is nowhere in sight. As this seems to illustrate the whole point, one wonders why it's not the standard imagery for Christians, rather than the gruesome focus on the instrument of torture. I drop a coin in the slot for That Which Is Larger Than We Are and go off to get something to eat. This country town is not big, but there had to be about fifteen sodas cooking in the mercado. (Soda being the term for a small Costa Rican eatery, with stools at a counter, or sometimes tables.) Gallo pinto (rice and beans mixed) continues as standard fare, as in Nicaragua. The big change is in the coffee. I had been a good sport and adapted to instant (which really is not as bad as it used to be). But now, I am in a country that drinks some of its coffee before they bag it up and export it. All these humble sodas had espresso machines or drip operations, and a succulent cup was soon placed before my slavering maw. Deep, rich, and strong. It hit me like a scotch. I ho ho ho like Santa Claus. Thus blissed, I grab my bag and make for the bus station. (I have resisted the side trip. Volcan Arenal has reportedly gone to sleep after forty years of constant sputtering, and though a revisit to the cloud forests of Monteverde would be cool, I'll be walking through similar terrain in Panama. And my mood is not tuned for three days on a beaten tourist trail). Bound for the capital in a plush bus. The bus groans up forested mountain curves. Lovely vistas, till we are enveloped by cloud. Down again under the cloud, and through the field, farm, and town of the Valle Central. Arrive San Jose. I had carefully kept oriented as we penetrated the city, and saw that the bus terminated within walking distance of my hotel prospects. (Though this city holds a quarter of the country's population, it crazily has no central bus station. Instead, there's a neighborhood where each company has its own little station, or designated street corner). I set off, circulate, investigate, and engage Hostel Gran Imperial. It's right across the street from the mercado, where the bourgeois glitz of downtown gives way to seediness. It's a big hotel, clean, secure, and with a balcony wrapping around the corner, affording a view of two scruffy streets. I'm fond of San Jose, as it was here that I was deposited by rocket ship on my first venture into foreign travel (aside from Brother Canada and Sister Mexican border town). Out to pound the pavement and connect with twelve year old memories. The pedestrianized streets of downtown are thronged with city folk. I'm well aware that this is the first metropolis I've been in since Mexico City. (Not counting Managua, which was a drive -through). Very cosmo and bourgeois. It's not New York, but neither is it Tegucigalpa. The air is definitely cleaner than it was in 2000. I get oriented, and mark places of use and interest. In the late afternoon, I spy David and Danny on the main pedestrian mall. I knew they were on their way to San Jose, and expected that we'd meet again by hook, crook, or web. We have a long beer at a nice place and go off to get some dinner. We split up in the streets of urbanity. A touch of the doorbell, and the iron gate of my hotel clicks open to receive me.

Sunday, Feb 5

The coffee around here is really something to write home about. A day of web tasks, planning, sewing on the balcony (Matilda is really coming apart at the seams. A stitch in time at each breach, shored up with super glue), and lots of walking around San Jose. I took a bus out to San Pedro, the university barrio. I remember there was a very creditable student ghetto there. It being Sunday, and school still out for the long winter break, the neighborhood was utterly shut down. I took a walk through the deserted campus. This being Costa Rica, the greenery is gorgeous, and the architecture hideous. Back in the city proper, I make a survey of the various public spaces. I looked up Hotel Belle Vista, where I stayed in '00. It now rents rooms for three hours for ten bucks. When I was there, it was a respectable haunt for idling American expats. The guidebook gives it a thumbs up and a medium price mark. It must have new ownership. Back to Hostel Gran Imperial, on the other end of downtown. David has relocated there. Danny has moved on. In the later evening, I spend a good long time on the balcony, observing the antics of the crackheads down on the street. Five guys, more or less, and a girl. The twitching of these people was really remarkable. Hands and feet everywhere, clothing being tugged at, hats on and off, hands in and out of pockets and swept through hair, cigarettes constantly twitched at. They pace corner to corner, back and forth, clumping and separating, heads pivoting, eyes darting up and down the street. One might think they were dealing, but all of them? They seemed antsy for something to come along, but took no interest in the little traffic or few walkers that passed by. I watched them for a good half hour from directly overhead, and checked back when dramas would erupt among them. Yet never once did they lift their eyes from street level to see that they were being observed. Pura Vida.

Monday, Feb 6

The street corner is reoccupied by respectable venders, hawkers, workers, and shoppers. The vampires, I imagine, have crawled off somewhere to sleep. The big deed of the day was to show up at the national parks office, thinking that this was the way to make a reservation for my planned visit to Corcovado National Park. I was told to e-mail the park directly. For this I waited over the weekend for the office to open? Otherwise the day was given to small tasks and desultory wanderings. The mercado, with its little shops and sodas, is a delight. As is the coffeehouse on pedestrianized Avenida Central, with savory coffee and carrot cake and a great perch from which to scrutinize the passing hordes. I have swung wide in San Jose, from the giant, glitzy mall (looking for a compass - my old one had come off its bearing - I later asked around and found one at a gun shop), to peripheral streets, where one must take care to not disappear into giant, man-eating storm drains. I dined in the evening with brother traveler David. As for simply being abroad in this wide world, I really must say, it's a gas.

Tuesday, Feb 7

I take my leave of San Jose slowly, lingering over my breakfast at a soda in the mercado, and gazing unfocused into the street life from the balcony of the Hostel Gran Imperial. At noon, I'm walking a mile to the bus station. Rolling at one. We rise, and rise some more, from San Jose at 3800 feet, to the pass through the Cordillera Central at 11,450 feet. When the cloud would open, the mountain views were tremendous. Big, steep, green forests. (In fact, cloud forests, with things growing on the trees). We descend, to something like 2300 feet. (In 'oo, this up and down, along with a drippy allergy, blew my ear drums and deafened me for a week). Arrive San Isidro de el General. I make straight for the Hotel Chirripo. Time has taken its toll. What was once three bucks was now sixteen. I check in, look around town, and see how far my memory had veered from reality, which was quite a bit. (The plaza, and town generally, is much more open than I remember, and the Chirripo a less significant presence on the plaza. And I'd utterly forgotten that the church was contemporary). I check my e-mail for a reply from the Corcovado Park people. (I can get in and stay at the main ranger station for three nights. That's the good news. The bad is that the meal service is not available to me. This means missing the international conviviality at table , which was so pleasant in 'oo. It also means lugging in a lot of ready-to-eat food. But the upside of that is that I'll be free to be abroad in the world during mealtimes. Dinner, after all, coincides with Pacific sunsets, and breakfast with jungly birdsong. I'm also not complaining about not having to pay 20-25 bucks per meal. It's already going to cost me plenty just to be in the park for four days and three nights.) The greatest-people watching locale in town is the open-air restaurant below my hotel, across the street from the plaza. It's a gringo enclave, and I do my bit to maintain it as such, over spaghetti with shrimp.

Wednesday, Feb 8

A hang-around day in San Isidro and the Hotel Chirripo, whose modern, concrete slab architecture affords an open, third floor perch from which to keep an eye on the plaza. I did some writing up there. Paying my fees to the national parks involved the rigamarole of making a deposit into their account at the Banco National. I went armed with relevant vocabulary. But I discovered too late that the park had mistakenly charged me for a reservation for two, and I had mistakenly paid. Nonrefundable. It makes me a little ill to name the price, so let's just call it a parking ticket in Saint Paul. Tomorrow, I leave another perfectly nice town in the dust, and make for Puerto Jimenez, on a gulf on the Pacific coast. From there, I'll make my way to Corcovado National Park, for an interlude of far-flung beach and untamed rain forest. Should be wild.

San Isidro, Costa Rica 2/8

Rain Forest, Cloud Forest

Thursday, Feb 9

(My sluggish eye detects a second error on the reservation the park sent me. I'm in for only two nights. So I'd asked for three for one and got two for two. I dash off an e-mail. If they're booked for the third night, I'm screwed.) On the bus I meet Leon, a very smart guy and a super-traveler, a German who spoke a supple BBC English, with whom I'd be talking and walking in the upcoming days. A long haul down to the steamy, Pacific lowlands. Mountain slopes plunge steep and green into the blue Golfo Dulce. Arrive Puerto Jimenez. I remember this hot and humid little ecotourist town pretty well from '00. A thorough hotel hunt, and I come around to the three bed palace that was the only room available at the desirable place. (I check my e-mail, and see that I'm in for a third night at the park. Now that all is square and settled, my over-payment was not so bad.)

Friday, Feb 10

A day of puttering around the dirt streets of Puerto Jimenez, sweating, and preparing for my excursion into Corcovado National Park. Leon has gone on ahead to stage himself for an early Saturday entry into the park. I blow ten bucks and some of the world's resources on a cheap daypack that I knew I'd be discarding. (Most of my stuff I'd be leaving behind with my hotelier, and I didn't want to lug along my big bag). Soccer in the field all day. The tide comes in in the afternoon and lifts the town's boats out of the mud. Chickens run around, as they tend to do.

Saturday, Feb 11

Early rising. The cheap daypack, laden as it was with food and water, made it six inches off the floor before the strap buckles gave way with two comical snaps. Field repairs will ensue. A morning cup at the soda as I wait with locals and fellow sojourners for the collectivo to show up. Which it does, promptly at six. A covered flatbed with parallel benches, with room for sixteen plus. The ass-beating was on the severe side for two and a half hours, as we rounded the coast of the Osa Peninsula, through woods and pasture, and in and out of stream beds. Arrive Carate, a little store at the end of the road. I slap off my dust, make the daypack functional with a bit of cord, and commence twelve miles of wild beach and jungle. With steep hills and gigantic trees, one expects a pterodactyl to swoop by at any moment, but I was well enough pleased with the pelicans. And the shapely anteater, in lieu of a triceratops. About the time I started to wonder when I would see signs of the airstrip and the Sirena ranger station, I came upon a tidal river. As it was high tide, I was a bit flummoxed. I remembered from '00 the tidal river past the airstrip, but not this one. I had a moment of confusion as I dug out the thumbnail map and figured out that this river, the Rio Clara, was indeed blocking my way. I save for later any self-reproach for this failure to plan ahead, that is, if there was to be a later. For the problem pressing at the moment was this: sharks or crocodiles? Upstream, the estuary was swollen to quite a breadth. I wouldn't want to fend off any crocs in knee-deep water, and for all I knew, it was over my head. So I opt for sharks instead, at the river's mouth. I knew the tide washing in and out would have carved a deep channel in the sand and gravel. So, it would be a swim, but it was only twenty feet. The pack and my clothes went into a trash bag, with a little air for flotation. I kept my shoes on for traction and shark-kicking. I shove off, with the bottom disappearing in two steps, as I expected. I float my parcel ahead with one arm as I dog-paddled with other, the swells sloshing me to and fro. Arrive far bank. I'm not dead yet. ( I am later informed that sharks don't bother with this river for some reason. It's the mouth of the Rio Sirena that they patrol at high tide, where apparently they get enough fish, as they pass on opportunities for red meat). I dry off in the late afternoon sun, put on my clothes, and continue on the trail through the woods. This emerges soon enough to the grass airstrip, which forms a promenade between the beach and the Sirena ranger station. I approach this little outpost of civilization, and claim a spot on the covered, wooden platform among the other campers (foam rubber mats provided, shoes not allowed). Leon is well established. I dine with him and two well-traveled, highly knowledgable, nature-loving Englishmen, Patrick and Jeremy from the isle of Jersey. Howler monkeys roar through the night.

Sunday, Feb 12

We had a very nice earthquake in the wee hours, which I happened to be awake for. Rocked thus back to sleep, but up again before the sun to go tapir hunting with Patrick, Jeremy, and Leon. The Englishmen had had the beast pointed out to them by a guide, and knew the approximate whereabouts of his kip in the woods. Nevertheless, he took some finding, wherein their skills and patience came into play. We did disturb him from his repose, but as he went straight to browsing, I don't think we irked him much. He certainly was a big fellow. My companions continued on the trail, while I went back to the ranger station to collect myself and stake a more suitable claim on the camping platform. Later on, I walked the opposite way on the loop and met up with them. We took another walk together in the later afternoon, hunting spider monkeys and whatever small creatures came our way. The butterflies were fantastic. At length, out to the mouth of the Rio Sirena for shark-spotting at high tide. We saw no iconic fin slicing the water, but we had a glorious sunset, and the good fortune of a whale spotting. The oohs and aahs of another party alerted us to the presence of Leviathan. He was way out yonder, but clearly outlined against the horizon. I've seen humpbacks spout and breach their backs before, but this fellow was in a dancing mood, repeatedly throwing up his great flukes and slapping them down festively. With the monocular, you could the clouds of spray.

Monday, Feb 13

I creep off a bit into the dark woods to attend to the morning light seeping in with the morning sounds. Back to share a parting breakfast with Patrick and Jeremy, who are moving on to get in some fishing. Leon and I spend the day on the trail into the interior, turning around for the world in reverse when the clock called for it. Our banter on the state of the world and culture was brought down to earth by various creatures, including a lime green snake that held himself as straight as a stick. Also a taira (a black weasel), which we stirred up while hunting howler monkeys, which are so easily heard, but not so easily seen. ( Even the spider monkeys seemed rather scarce compared to '00. I was never shit or pissed on once - this being their customary welcome, very endearing, for human visitors.) The star of the day was the anteater. When we approached him too closely, he went into a comical defense posture, standing with his curvaceous arms thrust up and out, like the Incredible Hulk. His silly-looking snout looked harmless enough, but I'm sure if you got into his embrace, his claws would take your face off. We leave him in peace, and he promptly goes back to tearing up rotten wood looking for ants to eat. Back to Sirena in due course. I step down to the beach for the rather muted sunset, and to commune with the pelicans. Leon and I later attempted a night walk, but the rangers forestalled this, as it's against the rather arbitrary rules.

Tuesday, Feb 14

Nevertheless, there are no rules against whole parties taking off under packs in the wee hours to get over the Rio Clara at low tide. This happened every night, to the whole platform's disturbance (next visit: be equipped to sleep out on the lawn). This morning, Leon and I took our leave before five. We missed the lowest tide, but with the moon at last quarter, it wasn't going to be low low anyway. We crossed in the estuary, and had maybe three feet of water at most. We each had on one of my flip flops, as the most efficacious way to inch across and keep our shoes dry. No crocodiles molested us. Onward to a bit of fortune good and bad. The good was another tapir encounter. Leon spotted her in the woods. She flanked us, we flanked her, she crossed the trail, and we gently stalked her down to the beach, where she posed in the surf like Botticelli's Venus. But we paid for this sublime wildlife moment by losing the trail. Though we had taken no more than a few hundred steps and a couple of minutes through the woods and thickets down to the beach, we had a devil of a time regaining the path (where our packs were, of course). We had circled twice and reached the how-can-this-be stage. But Leon's instincts saved us as I was about to lead us further into perdition. Lost in a closet. It's happened before and will happen again. A long, sunny walk back through forest and along the beach. We encounter a mass movement of coatis (raccoon-like creatures with rubbery snouts). One frequently sees them alone or in small groups, but now a whole tribe was on the move, rooting around in the forest and digging up the beach looking for turtle eggs. At length, arrive Carate. Cold beers as we await the collectivo. It was dark by the time we reached Puerto Jimenez. I checked back into the Oro Verde, showered , and met Leon for dinner at the appointed time. It turns out that Patrick and Jeremy were still in town, having opted to stage their fishing expedition from here rather than Golfito. So we again had an amiable dinner together , and compared notes. They'd seen a puma with her cubs on the way out of the park, for God's sake. And so we part again, with Leon staying on for the fishing, and I to make my way to Panama.

Wednesday, Feb 15

After breakfast at a nice little soda, I schlep Matilda to the dock and into the boat for Golfito. Soon we are plying the deep blue waters of the Golfo Dulce. Volcan Baru looms yonder in Panama. Arrive Golfito. I'd been pondering two ponderous bus links to the border, but let myself get touted into a taxi. This was certainly the way to go, given that it was only some thirty-five miles, and other passengers were at hand to share. Panamanian officialdom officially required an onward ticket before they'd let you in. I was told I could turn around to the Costa Rican side and pick up a bus ticket to San Jose for eighteen bucks. The semi-stated rationale for this is to demonstrate solvency. How ingenious. One shows one's solvency by throwing money at a Costa Rican bus company. You'd think the Panamanians would want it in their coffers. I told the official that I could return with a ticket, which I would then throw away. Porque?, I implore. He relented, satisfied with a showing of my cash and credit card (I was on guard for a bribe request, which was not forthcoming). The couple with a kid with whom I'd shared the taxi had shelled out the full fifty-four bucks to the laughing-all-the-way -to-the-bank bus company. What madness. A bureaucracy that misses its own mouth with the spoon, perhaps because it doesn't know what it's aiming for. Anyway, a new country. I change my Colones for familiar US greenbacks, which the patriotic Panamanians refer to as Balboas. (....well, not really. They usually say dollares, though prices are written as B/x. I had been surprised to learn as I was studying up for this trip that Panama has never printed its own currency, and have always used the Yankee dollar. They do mint coins in our sizes, which circulate with American coin. Another intimate link with the country that conspired with their elites to pry them loose from Colombia in 1903, and then built their money-maker for them - and invaded them, too). A comfy minibus to steamy David, and then a school bus up three thousand feet to temperate Boquete. This town has been thoroughly discovered by American retirees, and it looks like it. I'm here for a walk in the woods. I manage to find a fifteen dollar hotel and a cheap buffet. Comfort assured, I see what is to be seen. (Ngobe Indian fashion note: The women and girls wear a big, sack-like dress, in a bold, solid color, with a shoulder-yoke thing and a little colorful trim. It's not very flattering. The men, of course, leave the traditions up to the women).

Thursday, Feb 16

Eight bucks for a cab to take me out of town and up the mountain road, all the way to the national park entrance. I commence my walk along a rutted two-track, through pastureland, and at length step onto the fabled Path of the Quetzales. Soon I pass by a tin house. The resident Indian children head me off and are in place at the stream to see how this ungainly monster would pick his way across. A seven mile, two thousand foot climb through cloud forest, with heavy greenness and vines and things growing on trees and cloud aptly blowing through. A lot of wooden stairway infrastructure had been built, now all mossy and picturesque in its rot and ruin. I cross paths with various international sojourners. At the other park entrance, I turn around and descend, for the same walk, but new, in reverse. I scarcely saw a creature, much less the charismatic quetzal, but I dare say I heard them. A party with a guide had demonstrated the call for me: a downward slurring note, not part of any melody. As I had a picnic, I distinctly heard two widely separated birds issuing this note. (Wikipedia has this as repeating "monotonously", which was certainly the case). I would have hunted the great bird of myth, but they were deep in very steep woods.) The kids follow me for a while as I again passed through their domains. This would have been a low-stress day for all of us. At length, I'm on pavement, and my feet are plopping down a steep, winding incline. The fallow fields and steep mountain faces are all very peaceful. I'm on the verge of a full blown serenity attack, when a passenger van comes up from behind. With sixteen miles done for the day, and six more into town, I figured I'd better flag it down. Serenity gives way to pop music and an exhaust leak somewhere. But the driver's route took an interesting meander, not directly to town along the gringoized valley bottom, but through the hills above the town, vouchsafing me scenes of country life. Back in Boquete, I avail myself of the cheap buffet. And as the grocery stores aim to please my fellow Americans, I was able to toast a day well spent with an ice cold Hamm's.

Friday, February 17

While sitting in the bus in Boquete, waiting for it to get moving for David, I catch wind that the Indians are protesting again and have shut down the PanAmerican highway. But I go forward with going forward, though I fully expected to be stuck in David for who knows how long, not nearly so elegant a prospect as laying up in Penonome, for an early Saturday entry into the capital. I figured I'd get the picture at the bus terminal in David. (I did: false alarm, a mere rumor, at least to the east). I make my connection and ply a long stretch of isthmus. The mountains pass by on my left, big and rugged, with steep and jagged slopes in the upper reaches in some sections. A very impressive spine forming the skinny link between the continents. Arrive Penonome. From the bus stop, it was a fair walk along the highway business strip and then into the town center. It soon became clear that staying in this town was not going to work out. Capboys working for the cell phone companies had parked monster music-thumping trucks near the highway. The center of town was set up for blocks with stages and stacks of speakers, on a state fair scale. No one performing yet, but multiple torrents of recorded music were clashing at chest-thumping volume, to, you know, get people properly beaten down for the festivities. I was already fed up with noise-o-tainment for the day. (On the bus from Boquete, two teen parents spent the hour simultaneously blasting picked-at bits of tin "music" from their cell phones into an otherwise quiet bus. Good luck to their innocent baby. On the next bus we had back-to-back guns-n-cars movies.) Penonome is reportedly a quiet, provincial town, but today it is the gaping maw of hell. I stick my head into the colonial church by way of tourism and bug out, not even bothering to find a hotel to confirm that it was full, not that I wanted to stay. Back out to the highway to catch a bus for anywhere but here, beslimed with an extra hour of sweat in my clothes. I have two hours of daylight. I'm touted into a microbus, to wait the twenty minutes before departure in air-conditioned comfort. I stuff kleenex in my ears against the too loud, always too loud, pop music. Next town, Anton. The roadside hotel wanted eighteen bucks. I desist, and walk off to find the town center. There, I was delighted to find an empty stage with a stack of speakers blasting recorded music. Though stupefied, the kindly citizens informed me there were no hotels anyway. Back to the roadside hotel and the relatively serene murmurs of the PanAmerican highway. I drop my bag off and walk over to the Chinese grocery to grab a cold Atlas. Standing amid the trash barrels, I crack that beer and survey the thundering highway and its strip of thundering highway-type businesses. As a venue for tourism, this is surely a full step below the Champs Elysees. With the only open restaurant in the town back in the blast zone, I cross the road to the diviest buffet ever. Back to my overpriced hotel. As some of the more obvious surfaces haven't been cleaned in a long time, I'm afraid I can only give the place three stars. But to give it its due, the roaches really are jumbo size. You can feel their bones break when you grind your heel into them.

Saturday, Feb 18

Across the highway, I had discovered a real rarity: a coin operated laundromat. I linger and put it to use. Then down the road, in air-conditioned comfort. The mountains sink into the plain. Isthisthethinnestisthmus? Seems like a good place to put a canal. And there one is, opening to the sea, below the great steel girder bridge. Ocean vessels strewn about. Arrive Panama City, at its kilometer long bus station. I reconnoiter. The reported baggage check is a fiction. Bummer, as a bag on one's back always inhibits one's investigations. So I'll be taking a stab at a hotel. With two cabbies wanting to gouge me, I board a Diablo Rojo ("Red Devil", the term for the school buses with the extravagant air-brush art) that had the name of my intended plaza on the windshield. We roar off into confusion. I was quickly disoriented, and when it became clear that we must have passed my plaza, I redefined the bus ride as a tour of the city. So I rode the Devil to the End Of The Line, wherever that was, paid my quarter, and rode it back. Many a scene of material rise and fall. The ayudante and I were allied at this point, and he alerted me to my destination at about the time I'd figured it out myself. I emerge at the Plaza Cinco de Mayo. The Indians had established a little protest camp there, as it was adjacent to the legislative building. Keeping my eyes open and making inquiries, I make my way to the one plausible guidebook suggestion, which was full. At length, I unburden my back at the Hostal Miami. Not the best situation, but prospects were slim. I rinse off my sweat and step out, light of foot. What curiosities will be revealed to me, here at the crossroads of the Americas?

Panama City, Panama 2/21

Crossroads of the Americas

Saturday, Feb 18 - Wednesday, Feb 22

Days of circulating around Panama City.....

.....Hotels: The Miami was a functional enough place, but it was nowhere that you'd want to hang around (no chair, window, or common balcony or courtyard - though it did have AC). And at twenty-two bucks, I was feeling gouged. I spent the rest of the first afternoon and the first half of the next day running around trying to improve the situation. Panama City turns out not to be my kind of hotel town. The rooms are expensive, and are in charmless, closed-up buildings. One wonders about their actual function. I approached maybe fifteen places. Most asked how many hours I wanted the room for. When I replied overnight, some grew suspicious, and denied having anything available. Weird. I got this question in the more business-like neighborhood, as well as the seedier neighborhood I favored. For the third night, the Miami had a fifteen dollar baño-general opening up, but with a twelve dollar private-bath finally available at the Hotel Caracas, I relocated. It was a step down in the seedy scale, but much more cheerful. Never mind the light bulb and ceiling fan operating jointly, nor the slowly growing pool of water around the toilet. It had a big, sliding window through which you could stick your head and survey the fantastically decrepit side street three floors below. I could sleep with my face open to the sky, the southern stars reeling, and the yowls of cats, the scowls of inebriates, and the howls of madmen wafting up from Plaza Santa Ana around the corner.

.......Neighborhoods: Plaza Cinco de Mayo: The failed dream of some civic-minded designer, it is a completely inert public space, hemmed in between an elevated highway and the shabby tower where the congress meets. It seems to operate mainly as a landmark, though as I've said, the Ngobe Indians have set up a political outpost there. (Hostal Miami was a few blocks away). Plaza Santa Ana: an intimate, functioning plaza (shade trees help). Old people hang out there, reflecting or expounding. Unfortunately, there was a sociopath who had access to a kiosk on the corner, from which he displayed videos and blasted music all through the weekend. I'm sure he didn't have a license to lord it over four city blocks, and yet people don't rise up. There are some things about Latin America that I just don't get. (Hotel Caracas fronted the plaza; my room was over a side street). Between the two plazas was the pedestrianized street that was the spine of my stomping grounds. It was busy and functioning, but pretty decrepit, like the city generally. A lot of vacant businesses, including the hulks of old department stores. Lots of street vending, of course. It got very homey at night, when the crowds thinned out. No cars to disturb the stalking of cats, the ravings of the lost, the running around and playing of children, the last efforts of the last vendors, or the tired leers of the plumpish, not so succulent young ladies of the evening, wobbling around in their not so sensible shoes. Beyond Plaza Santa Ana is Casco Viejo, the old colonial heart of the city. It's a UN declared locus of world heritage, as well it should be, given its history as the transit point for the ripped-off wealth of a continent. The oldest religious edifice was built in 1680, using stones from a previous church, when the original city was relocated to this more defensible spot. (The Spaniards had gotten fed up with having the spoils of their thievery ripped off by those confounded English pirates). At present, the neighborhood is blocks and blocks of old buildings, most in a state of spectacular ruin. Floors collapsed, ceilings gone, doors gaping, trees growing out of roofs, everything damp and rotting. The neighborhood seems mostly vacant, but scattered buildings have been restored and put to tourist/gentry uses. Hence, tourists and gentry are out and about, but the critical mass is lacking for a sense of a lively neighborhood. Still, you can fine dine if you want. (I declined). There are authentic old-time residents hanging on, though not nearly filling the available space. Laundry hangs here and there on balconies, and an open door will sometimes reveal their down-at-heel, sometimes squalid, living arrangements. One hopes (but hardly expects) that they own their properties, and will at least profit by their ultimate displacement. A legion of very bored, young tourist police stand at the street corners, ensuring everyone's happiness. The adjacent slum of El Chorillo (where I rather foolishly got rather lost one afternoon, to the concern of various elderly residents) is not quite so vacant, but it's still pretty thin soup. Reportedly, the place got burned up and people killed during Papa Bush's splendid little war in '89. At the end of Casco Viejo (it's a peninsula) is a long promenade atop the old battlements. This is the place to mellow out in Panama City. At one end, Kuna women vend their handicrafts, at the other end, hippies vend theirs. Plenty of space between for strollers, sitters, and smoochers. Left to right, there are views of the tower district across the bay, Balboa's big South Sea, a cluster of big ships anchored and waiting for a green light into the canal, ships entering or exiting along the causeway, and a setting sun (for I was there every evening) over the bridge spanning the canal. I never ventured into the more solidly middle class sections of the city. (Unless the giant mall counts. This thing was almost as big as you-know-what. I was on a mission to replace my expensive LED flashlight that I'd destroyed with cheap batteries). I did make an outing to the Miraflores Locks, to get a close up of the canal in operation. Made me pine for the Mississippi.

......Kuna Indian fashion note: The women wear skirts and blouses in wild prints, and a head scarf. A colorful, beaded wrapping goes around their arms and legs. They wear a lot of gold - maybe brass? - , including through their noses. As for the men, nothing distinctive that I can tell.

........The Near Future: How to get into Colombia? Since there's no road through the fabled Darien Gap, this is a problem that's been waiting for me. As a man dedicated to Form, seeking always the elegant approach, I have wished to travel only by land and by sea. I had done some web researches on the problem well before I left on the trip, and have reviewed my bookmarks, investigated further, and thought things through here in Panama City. The sea route would entail a lot of uncertainties, and probably a lot of time and expense. The road ends not far east of where the canal opens on the Atlantic side. There are boats that serve the tourist and local traffic to the San Blas Islands, but where the islands peter out to the east, so do the transport services. Almost the whole coast from the end of the road to Colombia belongs to the Kuna Indians. People have hired them to move them along in motorized dugouts, but this has to arranged piece by piece and on the spot. (And since it's still the season for rough seas, keeping up with the baling would be difficult. And getting started with this doesn't mean you wouldn't get stuck somewhere where you don't belong). Colombian trading vessels sometimes take on passengers, but this involves being in the right place at the right time, or knowing what's going on, or speaking Spanish, or being blithe as to what's being traded. There could be charters, but they need passengers. There are luv/party cruises that could take me across open sea to Cartagena, but that would require $500 and five days, never mind the luving and partying. Given that I'm more than three months past the Mexican border and I'm not in South America yet, I've decided I'd better forego the extra adventure, wimp out, and fly a puddle-jumper to Puerto Obaldia, the Panamanian border town from where I can reconnect to the world of roads. Now airplanes are like a Star Trek transporter beam: they can zap you anywhere without you feeling a thing. But fortunately, there is no temptation to extend my lapse of elegance as far as Quito, as this would cost $600. The puddle-jumper will be something like $88. So here's the plan: Since AirPanama hasn't answered my two reservation request e-mails, I'm going to show up at the airport early Thursday morning and see about getting on the 8:30 flight. (Hoping that the nine-seater will have a space, or that someone won't show up). If this works out, I'll be in (nasty, militarized) Puerto Obaldia an hour later. If my good luck extends further, I'll be in time for the morning boat to (pleasant, relaxing) Capurgana, Colombia. But if I can't get on the flight, I'll have a human being in front of my face from whom I can buy a ticket for the next flight, which is Sunday morning. My bag will be at my feet, and I'll have a couple of days to kill, which wouldn't be happening in Panama City. The elegant course to take would then be to visit the Atlantic side of the isthmus, and stay in the colonial town of Portobelo, with a possible day trip to dangerous, decadent Colon. I'd be back in Panama City Saturday night, poised for my Sunday morning ascent. As fate wills.....

Panama City 2/22

New Continent

Thursday, Feb 23

I'm up before the city roosters are done crowing. Their hapless cousins are being piled up in fried mounds as I pass by on Avenida Central. The first cabby I flagged was an eager young man who wanted thirty dollars to take me to the airport. Fifteen, he ventures? For zero, no, I reply. I knew that five should do it. The next guy took three on a share. Arrive airport. Unsurprisingly, the flight is booked for today. But booked on Sunday? Booked through mid-March? Truly, I am flummoxed. (I'd vaguely thought that they'd meet higher demand with a bigger plane.) So I stand by with no hope, and resift plans C, D, E, and F. (Still to Portobelo, inquiries in Colon, call to Captain Eugenio, standby again on Sunday, last-call splurge on cruise to Cartagena.....). The 8:30 flight was to leave at 10:00, meaning 10:45, arriving at 9:40, meaning, oh, whatever. At 10:00 I was shocked to be hustled forward as a passenger. All my nail-biting replanning went poof. (Funny - I was getting what I was aiming for, but regretted passing on Portobelo and the further adventure I had ducked when I had the choice, and now was ducking again with the choice restored to me.) It transpires that the thirteen seat plane was a seventeen seater, half-full, including me and at least one other standby. (...and to think, I had to suggest the standby option to them). Here, I blundered into this working out well, while the poor Russian guys had languished an extra two weeks in Panama City because they took AirPanama seriously. But enough of logistics, as absorbing as they are. Let's get traveling. We rise above the metropolis. The canal lies folded within soft, voluptuous hills, as ships, like so many spermatozoa, swarm offshore. (All are welcome to refine this metaphor, which is clearly missing something). The bristly tower section bristles below, a symbol of the city's cosmopolitanism - but a symbol only. The towers are reportedly quite vacant, built to launder drug money. The cosmopolitanism is in the low-lying creases, in the thick mixture of thickly mixed humans, rooted in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, and seasoned with more recent arrivals from South and East Asia, and the Middle East. They're all down there, feeding off each other and working their butts off. And very evidently having a good time, too. Bye bye, one million humans! We follow the Pacific coast a good while, before cutting across the coolest isthmus on the planet Earth. The abused Darien forest lies below, carved into an irregular patchwork, and gouged by roads. (Though there are also vast stretches of just treetops). I'd hoped to see both oceans, but clouds prevented this. At length, we are on the other side of the world. We dive in. Arrive Puerto Obaldia. I advance with the Russians into this quiet, roadless town, and commence figuring things out. I had expected to stay, thinking the only boat left in the morning. I was pleased with the look of the town, and its friendly people and inquisitive kids. (Guidebook and bloggers were hard on the place). But it transpired that the boat was to leave shortly. So I hustled through Panamanian officialdom, and wade through surf, shoes in hand, to get into the lancha. We embark, twelve passengers and crew. The swells were big, and I dare say that eighty miles of this (the rougher, eastern half of the whole Kuna coast) in a motorized dugout would have been....an adventure. I didn't get soaked, merely wet. The surf pounding the rocks and headlands sent up explosive, spraying geysers. Somewhere along that coast, we cross the Colombian border. Forty-five minutes, arrive Capurgana. The young men of the village are out on the dock to welcome us and be helpful and irksome. The Colombian officials are dressed like surfer dudes. Matilda and I waltz through town and settle on a hotel. No ATM in town, but my hotelier kindly sells me some Pesos. I shower off my seawater. Down to the dock, where I sit, mellow, and hydrate with an apple soda, followed by an Aguila - I may as well get started with the national beer. I wander, smiling dreamily at the reality of a town without motorized traffic. Look both ways for horses pulling flatbed, single-axle carts on tires. The town is set up to receive a tourist stream by boat, but visitors are few at present, and most of the many eateries are dormant. I had a pleasant plate of Colombian tipico under the thatch at an outdoor comedor, as I watched the kids kick a ball around in a field where horses grazed. When I crossed the field to get bread and water, I did a pull-up on the bar and set off a pull-up frenzy among them. Endless summer. Back toward the dock, I notice, for the first time, an actual ticket office for the lancha to Turbo, Capurgana's link to the rest of the world. So I step in to see about a ticket for the morning. Full. Well, twist my arm, I guess I'll be staying till Saturday. I'm number eight on a list of thirty-eight. I can occupy myself with sea, sand, thatch, and village paths into the hinterlands. To the hammock at my hotel. Night falls, and the power goes out. Tranquilo.

Friday, Feb 24

I went down to the dock at seven, just to observe the passengers gather and the lancha take off. Bags are being weighed (???), and soldiers are looking at IDs and passports. (We do have smugglers, illegals, guerrillas, and paramilitary around here, of course). The ticket guy comes by and welcomes me aboard. I hadn't even thought that as I was standing around, I was standing by. I figured that everyone on the full passenger list had paid up front like me and would be there. Ten minutes (meaning twenty) till the boats leaves. I dash off to my hotel and throw my bag together, asking myself as I did so whether I really wanted to go. But as I generally have been in a get-going frame of mind, I let momentum carry me through with my original intention. Matilda is born on my shoulder down to the dock, her sleek black shape concealing the chaos within. The hapless Russians (who I'd lost track of yesterday in town) were blithely having breakfast, thinking they'd just be buying a ticket and stepping aboard. They didn't make it. The soldiers had lit up their smokes at this point and didn't bother with my passport. Soon, we are plying the waters of the Gulf of Uraba. I shared the front row with the lovely rhinemaidens, where we received a severe, and I mean severe, ass-beating. The girls were screaming with self-directed schadenfruede till one of them actually got hurt. (Though by the end of the voyage she seemed to have womaned-up and shook it off). The surf was huge till we got well out into the gulf. We'd get launched and come down hard on the rebounding boat seat. If I hadn't managed to get that life vest under me, I'd be a broken man. People towards the back fared better, of course. It moderated for most of the voyage, and picked up again as we approached shore. Two and a half hours, arrive Turbo. It was early, but I'd decided to lay up here, not being up for gunning it to Medellin. (Which was ten hours away anyway, as I found out). The dock office had a baggage check, to my delight, but no baño. So, the first comedor I see gets my breakfast business and pent up water. After investigations, I engage a humble place with a rock-hard mattress. Turbo is a hot, bustling port town, rough and ordinary. I'll be saying goodbye to the Caribbean Sea here. The docks were particularly cool, with beaten up wooden boats being loaded with toilet paper, soda, stacked plastic chairs, produce, rolled chain link, lumber, etc. The motorcycle traffic was like a swarm of gnats, weaving through walkers at high speed, and from all angles. In the evening, all were out and about, celebrating who knows what. I don't know the language, but I toasted them with a cold Aguila from my grimy little balcony.....

Saturday, Feb 25

.....and toasted them again with a steaming cup of instant from the bus station. I'm the only passenger as we set out for Medellin. There were never more than six in this short bus. I resemble a bobble-head as I sleep and wake for five second intervals. Vast, flat stretches of pasture and bananas. We rise through cloud forests and into the, savor the word, .... Andes. The road gets pretty rough. Big hats with floppy brims as we pass through the towns. Ten hours, arrive Medellin. A sleek, urban train conveys me from the bus station to Centro. I'm starting to figure out this hotel by the hour business, and why I've been turned away (as an overnighter, a low value customer), or invited back later (at a lower demand time). Prostitution, I think, is the lesser part of this. I've inferred that infidelity is a national pastime, and that young people, who live with their parents into adulthood, are in search of privacy. Anyway, my bargain hunting reaches its conclusion, which got me a squeaky clean place with a rock mattress on the Parque de Bolivar. I unburden and set off. Medellin's cosmopolitan feel far surpasses that of San Jose or Panama City, and is on a par with that of Mexico City. Actually beyond, as I found whole blocks thronged and frenetic and looking very much like Times Square. This in a town the size of the Twin Cities. Looking around at these at-ease urbanites, it's hard to imagine that this city was recently the murder capital of the world and under the thumb of the cocaine lords. But at least said lords seemed to have left some money behind.

Sunday, Feb 26

A bit of a lost day, travel-wise. I was caught up in the world wide web, with various fussy investigations. I did a ridiculous amount of pavement pounding along the commercial boulevards of the bourgeoisie, seeking a bookstore that might have the holy guidebooks that I require. Striking out was in the cards, but it had to be tried. I stuck my head into the old churches, and admired the many Botero sculptures in the public spaces (he does the beautiful fat people, and was a native son of Medellin). So much for the sacred. Now to the profane. Looking down a side street near Parque de Bolivar, I saw a tragicomically perfect tableau of squalor and vice: the pavement strewn with trash and the stretched out or curled up figures of the mad or the blotto. But standing upright in front of scary hotels were clusters of the most cheaply and atrociously gotten-up whores ever seen on the face of the earth. I would have loved to have taken a picture, but I didn't want to offend anyone.

Monday, Feb 27

A quiet morn. I pass beneath the weird, hairy trees of Parque de Bolivar. I bow respectfully before the statue of the Liberator and his Horse, and make for the metro station, inhaling a street banana on the way to fortify myself for bus travel to come. Train and cab to the bus station for points south. Soon underway in the Queen Mary, with lots of legroom and individual screens and earphones (hence, quiet!). Nine hours of evolving views of mountain heights and high basins, and the fields and towns of the Colombians. Arrive Cali. It was dark at this point, and I engaged a taxi to get me to hotel hunting grounds. This turned out to be the in residential wing of a lively, hip, urbane, and thoroughly middle class neighborhood. A bit of running around, but I secured a suitable hotel. I ask to be introduced to the beagles in hopes of keeping them quiet. Out to dine. The neighborhood is full of lively, fashionable bars and restaurants full of lively, fashionable young people. But I opt for spaghetti with the old farts, because, you know, I do love spaghetti.

Tuesday, Feb 28

A morning stride across the river into the old center of town for coffee and religious edifices. Satisfied, I return, assemble, and step out for the cab my hotelier kindly called for me. With the cabs being metered in first world Cali, why even ask about the fare? Because he took the long way, that's why. The ticket windows of twenty-plus companies beckon me in the bus station. I take a stab at one of many that had a sign up for my destination. Thus, I end up in a dirty old microbus. Nice, but cramped. The three hour journey took four, including an hour just to get out of Cali. I've entered the zone where women wear what we think of as men's hats. On the bus, perched above the distinctive, avian profiles of a middle-aged Andean couple, were two matching, narrow-brimmed fedoras. Kinda sweet. Arrive Popayan. Check bag, take walk, engage homey hotel and pet the dogs. The city is blindingly white, and full of old buildings and churches. (Quaked in '83, but lovingly put back together again). In the eve, when I emerged from the Web to the street, fate, in the form of rain, sent me into the nearest restaurant, where I have a superlative beef experience, in the form of the filet mignon. Cheap glass of decent wine, too.

Wednesday, Feb 29

A morning stride for coffee and religious edifices. One of the dogs had taken a crap in the common shower. (I hope it was a dog). To the bus station. The six hour journey took eight. (Including an hour for a late bus). I paid for legroom however, and was able to enjoy the vistas in comfort. I've never seen more voluminous mountain spaces. Arrive Pasto. A bit of chill in the mountain air, and I put on a jacket for the first time since I think mid-December. A taxi through the dusk of this large city, to the Koala Inn. Out to get entangled in the Web and dinner. You can be sure that in the morning there will be a stride for coffee and religious edifices. Then on to Ecuador.....

Pasto, Colombia 2/29

Over the Line

Thursday, Mar 1

I take a slow turn through respectable Pasto. A cab to the bus station. This was to be a day of many travel links. I board a minibus for Ipiales, sitting on the left for the views. Mountains and chasms that would awe the Titans, yet humans manage to cultivate all but the most extreme slopes. To the south the landscape morphed into more of a rolling, high plateau. Hedgerows enclose a patchwork of productiveness as far as the eye can see. Arrive Ipiales bus station. I share a collectivo taxi for the last three miles to the actual border town. An amiable money changer there tried to bamboozle me. I declined, but he had my head swimming enough that I didn't actually dismiss him. He approached again after I satisfied Colombian officialdom. So I sat on a bench, opened my notebook, and confirmed my arithmetic in big numerals as he innocently fingered his calculator to produce his twenty percent bonus. I left him, wounded and protesting, and got a fair rate from a guy across the road. Mathematics, the universal language. (Back to the greenbacks, by the way. The Ecuadorians gave up on their Sucre in 2000. They mint their own coins, including a big fifty center. You don't often see singles, though. They pass Sacagaweas instead). I cross the bridge into another land. A big, taciturn Ecuadorian soldier goes through my bag, squeezing everything like Mr Whipple. The customs guy and I have a moment of levity and mutual understanding, as it were, as we butcher each other's languages. Across the road to the waiting collectivo van. I'm delighted to hear that the driver is playing Andean Huayno music, which I know from Peru '07, and which I love so well. Seven miles to the bus station in Tulcan, the Ecuadorian border town. I get to talking with Natasha, a young Australian women with whom I'd shared the collectivo on the Colombian side. On to a plush bus for more grand mountain scenery. We pierce Ibarra, my destination. My seatmate, with whom I'd been exchanging micro-vocabularies, got alarmed about the time I realized that we were swinging wide of the bus station and heading out of town. The bus doesn't actually stop at the bus station....so that's what she was trying to get through to me, as I assented to everything she said. This called for an abrupt stop. Natasha opted to get off too, as it was getting late (she was bound for the next town, where she was ultimately to meet someone). With map and compass, we trod the thoroughfare and found centro. We checked out a guidebook hotel, which suited me fine, but Natasha declined it and sought out cheaper digs. At the appointed hour, we meet at the obelisk, and went for Chinese.

Friday, Mar 2

I pay my respects to yet another ephemeral town. Ibarra has not one, but two block-sized public squares, leafy and nicely laid out, with a built up block separating them. Kind of a strange arrangement, but lending lots of space for people to loll and amble civilizedly. Nice basilica, too. (Living standards seem to be at the Colombian level, by the way. I was kind of expecting a slip). I grab my bag and walk the old railroad tracks along the mercado to the bus station, a light rain picking up. I don't see Natasha at the station. We'd left this to chance, and so our paths diverge. On to the capital. At some point, we cross the Line, and late winter imperceptibly becomes late summer. Rain, earthbound cloud, and fogged windows obscured the Andes for most of the ride, unfortch, but it lifted toward the end, and I was able to take in Quito's spectacular setting, with its outskirts crawling up the slopes. The bus disgorged us at some far-flung transportation node, not the main terminal as I was expecting. It took a long time just to figure out where I was, and then get into town on the trolley system (buses actually, some electric, that use designated stops and turnstiles like a metro). I had to rethink and alter my whole approach to exploration and settlement. So I abandon the idea of a possible bag check at the bus station, and take a stab at a hotel in the Mariscal district, rather than the old center. (Quito geography: Mariscal is the newer, modern downtown with the shopping, services, eating, drinking, and city life generally. The middle class established this neighborhood in the early twentieth century when, in their search for modernity, they abandoned the old colonial center. So the old town went to wrack and ruin for decades. But the restoration has been comprehensive. A good thing, because the neighborhood is intact, extensive, and beautifully old). I settle in an international-friendly, hostal-like kind of place in Mariscal, but I will be looking for something cheaper after this night. The day's stroke of very good luck was bumping into two English language used bookstores just walking around. They had three of the four guidebooks I needed. (The fourth I learned would also be available. And so I am spared the extreme measures I was planning to acquire these necessary aids). The neighborhood is swarmed with funsters on this Friday afternoon and evening. With all this far exceeding my tolerance for fun, I went out to the business thoroughfare, where I figured I'd find a sufficiently dull, old fashioned place to eat, catering to the middle aged middle classes. Success, and the soup was weird and delicious. Back to my hotel, where I find myself tipping back the rum with two Slovaks and a German.

Saturday, Mar 3

Last night's fun seeking hordes are sleeping it off, and the streets of Mariscal are eerily empty. I check out a few hotels, just to keep my options open. But I was really aiming to relocate to the old town, assuming it proved congenial and cheap enough. I walked the two and a half miles separating the neighborhoods to investigate. The old town is well-peopled and vital, with the shady aspects that the guidebook had hinted at minor and tolerable. I look at a number of lodging possibilities. Hostal Residential Sucre was the cheapest and most interesting place. It was arranged around a funky interior courtyard, and had a penthouse with a roof open to all. The place was full of hippies and freaks and had that frisson of squalor that makes me feel alive. I didn't actually engage the room that was opening up, as it was occupied and I couldn't see it. An error, because by the time I had trollied to Mariscal to get my bag, trollied back, missed my stop in a packed trolly bus, failed to pack myself into the opposite-going bus, forced myself into the next, etc., and got back to the Sucre, the room had been snapped up. Oh well. But I'm tranquil, as my second choice was a real gem at ten bucks. Quiet, tidy, with an interior terrace open to the air. Settled, I step out to get better acquainted with this venerable neighborhood. It's the weekend, and lots of tourists and lots more Ecuadorians are out and about. People go home after dark, though, and I did too.

Sunday, Mar 4

I manage to relocate to the Sucre. Getting skunked yesterday turned out to be good luck, as I got a better situated room. I've got a wide-open view over the Plaza San Francisco, a window that opens, a surface to write on, adequate light, four pegs on the wall, and a plastic patio chair, the most comfortable kind. At four a half bucks, I'll be staying here awhile. Out for some serious plaza lingering. Here on this people's day of leisure, we had the usual toddling, toddler corraling, smooching, bantering, and musing, as well as traditional musical performances, comic street dramas, mimes, sermons, a political group raging against corruption in high places, and a small group of bold and silly young people going through their Hari Krishna phase. I also attended a bit of mass at the colossal Iglesia de San Francisco. I'll be looking this place over more thoroughly when it's not being put to its intended use. But I was able to get a good look at the small adjoining chapel, the Capilla de Cantuña, which had only a few people at prayer. The altarpiece had a lifetime's worth of woodcarving, all leafed over in gold. All this magnificence was crafted to bedazzle pagans in the sixteenth century. It certainly bedazzled this pagan in the twenty-first.

Monday, Mar 5

A day given over to planning, and running around on various little errands. Some afternoon rain provokes a siesta. The day's culinary delight was a humita, a blob of corn meal, cheese, sugar, butter, and vanilla, all steamed in a corn husk.

Tuesday, Mar 6

In addition to the usual street plodding, this day was devoted mostly to plodding through guidebooks and websites. As this can get overwhelming and freeze a person up, I refreshed myself at the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus (commenced 1605). Now, I've seen some grand colonial religious edifices in my day, but none so lavish in its ornamentation as this. Every surface was carved, and most leafed in gold. It's a baroque effort to depict the interior of God's brain. It cost three bucks to get in - I'm sure they're still paying off the huge restoration effort. Photography prohibited, unfortunately. I resisted the strong temptation, having been spooked as to the fate of sinners by the huge painting on the right as you enter. It was a ghastly depiction of hell, with horrific demons meting out imaginative tortures to the condemned, gnawing them, spitting fire in their groins, carving them up, and so on. Every mouth agape in an eternal wail and gnashing of teeth. The artist had helpfully labeled the damned souls with the usual sins. I was especially pleased that Vengeance and Cruelty came in for harsh punishment. I nodded to the most horrible-looking demon and named him Doctrine. But generally, the imagery in this exuberant space is about uplift, and I'm certainly in favor of that.

Wednesday, Mar 7

I've shaped up my short and medium term itinerary, and booked a tour into the upper Amazon basin. This commences Friday morning, which entails me being on a bus late Thursday night. With all this finally in the tubes, on with another day in Quito.... Religious edifice of the day: Iglesia San Augustin, sixteenth century. Very heavy and Gothic inside. Most of the walls and columns are done up in designs in what I think is fresco. Baby blue predominates. Heavenly. Culinary delight of the day: The quimbolito. Like a humito, but fluffier and more confection-like. Comes in a banana leaf. It wants to fall apart when you open it, but after the steam opens your pores, it firms up. Heavenly.

Thursday, Mar 8

Quito has been a very easy city to just kind of be in. I feel curiously existential every time I make the diagonal pass across the barren expanse of Plaza San Francisco, to or from the Sucre, to or from whatever idle errand, or ardent mission, or touristic sight has beckoned me. I have plodded streets, peeked around corners, confronted closed doors, swept around on the trolly, tipped back cups, puzzled over what people are eating, and generally kept an eye on the urbanites. And haunted plazas, of course, chief among them Plaza de la Indepencia, the heart of the nation, fronted by the National Palace. Normally there's a mild bit of politics and culture and a lot of civility taking place here. Today it is the focus of a gigantic rally. Every party, advocacy group, and labor union came swarming through the streets to the plaza like bees to the hive. Banners, song and chant, and a block and a half long Ecuadorian flag. The crowd was huge. Since widely disparate groups were present, I can only conclude that this was an open invitation rally to all individuals and factions to show up and be civic and not tear each other's heads off. Patriotism was the reigning theme. Is such a scene imaginable in the US? People wouldn't show up.... Ascent of the day: Up to El Panecillo, "the little bread roll", a prominent hill, to visit the mammoth Virgin they've got up there. She's made of bolted together aluminum plates, and has been presiding largely over Old Quito since '76. Great view of the mountain city. Delicacy of the day: Mote con chicharron, which is big kernels of popped and unpopped popcorn with crispy pork fat sponges. Texturally interesting, but I don't need to repeat the experience. ········ My tour of the jungle officially starts in the morning in the town of Lago Agrio. But they've helpfully taken care of getting me there, too. So at ten o'clock tonight, I'll be waiting in front of the Sucre for mysterious jungle people to come and bear me away. I'll be back in Quito late Monday night, and will incommunicado in the meantime. A night bus......into the Heart of Darkness.

Quito, Ecuador 3/8

Jungle Journey

Friday, Mar 9

Arrive Lago Agrio at 6:45, with perhaps an hour of token sleep. I share a cab with an English couple to the hotel meeting point, where we have a long breakfast. (They'll be on a different tour). With another hour to kill, I have a good walk around Lago Agrio, to see what was to be seen, which was a thrown together, rough, functional, unlovely, frontier oil town. At length, a van arrives at the hotel, sweeps us all up, and conveys us through two hours of semi-cleared forest, with farmsteads and settlements, to El Puente, where our riverboat awaits. We are: Daniel, Sonja, and Eva, recent grads in social work from Germany; Jess and Michele, recent grads from Edmonton, Alberta; Josh and Melissa, from Brainerd (!); and me. We board the long, narrow, wooden boat, and with boatman Papa at the outboard, begin motoring down the brown, moving mass of the Cuyabena River. After a few bends of deep, green, 3D jungle, under an arching, hanging canopy, the reality hits me: I'm afloat in the headwaters of the, savor the word...... Amazon.... A wild and mellow voyage of two hours. Arrive Samona Lodge, a comfortable sanctuary in the forest, consisting of twelve or so plank huts around a green space, with a circular walkway connecting them. The buildings and walkway are raised a good five feet off the ground. Each hut has two or a few rooms, each with two or more beds, to accommodate guests according to their connections. The lodge was mostly unoccupied, and I got a privado. Each hut is beautifully plumbed, with river water pumped up to a water tower, and on-demand hot water. The bit of solar and generated electricity is not wasted on lighting; candles are provided. Three thoughtful and well-made meals provided each day. We meet our guide, Pajarito, a Quichua speaker from a more elevated neck of the woods. He was a font of knowledge gathered from his traditions, observations, and the university. His spotting abilities and repertoire of bird imitations were amazing. Out we go for an excursion back upstream to Laguna Grande, a big body of water off to the side of the channel. The equator actually runs through this lake. Papa threads the boat through the trees of the "inundated forest", the term for this biome. The water level has an extreme seasonal variability in these parts. It's on the upswing here in the beginning of the rainy season. In December, broad Laguna Grande is reduced to puddles, and what is now a surging river can be navigated only with canoes. Nature and Pajarito present us with many birds and monkeys and other creatures, and a glimpse (I got ripples) of the pink river dolphin. At dusk, we motor smoothly through the green to the lodge. Matt of England and French-Swiss Tim join our cohort and join us for a fine, three-course dinner. We're being treated like real sahibs here.

Saturday, Mar 10

After breakfast we boat back up the river to a shore on Laguna Grande. From there, we walk slowly along a muddy trail in rubber boots. The creatures of the woods rustle and stir. We attend to the antics of the squirrel monkeys, who swarm in the treetops and make long freefalls onto palm fronds when they want to make a big descent. We are picked up at a further shore, and return to the lodge for lunch and a break. Out again for more creature spotting and some piranha fishing. A few of us were successful (I got a nibble), and we admired the fish's orange belly and lower incisors, and the sunset, and the world generally.

Sunday, Mar 11

A boatload of tourists slip downriver, under the quizzical gaze of the toucan. In due course, we arrive at a trail landing that leads to Tarapuy, a village of Siona people that was on our agenda. A walk of an hour through second growth forest and some patches of crops brings us to the village, which is just a few plank buildings around a big compound. We pull up a big bunch of cassava tubers for lunch. Two young women were on hand to facilitate our cultural interchange, something that happens with some regularity around here, and which is part of the town's economy. (Small contribution requested, craftwork on offer). We tourists grated the tubers, and the women set about transforming the resulting mush into a course flatbread. (Delicious, in a staple sort of way). Evidently, the cassava was just an appetizer. We were fed an overlarge box lunch under the thatch, with the cooks and the kids hanging around. This was pretty awkward. It was not that they're poor - though that's certainly true - it's that we were eating in their faces. The whole thing from the start was a bit stiff for performers and audience. I got the feeling that this tourist stream was something the people had to endure rather than turn down actual cash. (I had thought I was skipping the culture thing when I opted for the shorter tour, but here it was. I had been dubious about the inevitable artificiality, but to be fair, it was a small-scale thing, and there were some easier moments. I suppose it's possible that this kind of thing can work). Our visit to Tarapuy over, we assemble at the village dock and motor off to a larger village, for a visit with the resident shaman. This, I think, would have gone smoother, as he was just to deliver a little talk. The shaman was out, however, so we continued hunting fauna. (Here's an incomplete compendium for the trip: toucans, yellow macaws, the beautifully adorned "stinky turkey", herons, kingfishers -including our Minnesotan- , the bird that builds a drooping, pendulous nest, pigeons, swans, owls, vultures, and various perching birds. Snakes, frogs, and lizards. Six monkey species: wooly, white fronted capuchin, squirrel, saki, black tamarin, and the noisy night monkey. Our gazing and spotting was spiced and punctuated by the jaunty flight of the sapphire on wings, the morpho butterfly. No sloth, however. The sloth remains my Holy Grail.) We pause at the lodge for a while, and go out again on Laguna Grande, for the sunset, and a slow coursing through the bayou-like inundated forest, the bats emerging as dusk deepened. Back for dinner, then out again for a brief walk through the woods in the night, hand-to-hand for a while, flashlights off, to let our eyes adjust to the glow of the phosphorescent fungi. Back at the lodge, we finally got our caiman. He was lolling in the eight inches of water that had risen in the grass under the walkways, his inscrutable, reptilian eyes glowing up at us. We raised a glass to him.

Monday, Mar 12

We go out at six for a last bout of birdwatching before breakfast. I sympathize with the strangely forward-looking toucan. In due course, we are fed, packed, assembled, loaded, and boating upriver to the world of roads. A last pass through the twisting bowels of the green beast that is this forest. Arrive El Puente. We tourists take leave of the skillful and knowing Pajarito and board the shuttle bus. Arrive Lago Agrio bus station. The North Americans take leave of the Europeans, whose later buses will bear them away to their further lengthy and ambitious travels. Seven and a half hours, arrive Quito. The Canadian girls go off to their hostal, further travels in the offing. My fellow Minnesotans and I share a cab to the Sucre. They'll be up and gone early, the Galapagos on their agenda. (This little sojourn in the Amazon rainforest was very nourishing to my sense and imagination. A return with camping stuff, a canoe, and a month or two is now on the bucket list. Knock wood.) (Weather note: Mostly overcast, with only spotty sun one late afternoon. Occasional bouts of light to medium rain. Shirt-sleeve comfortable. Few visible bugs, but I'm itching from no-see-ums).

Tuesday, Mar 13

A last full day in Quito, devoted to errandry, and to religious edifices, through which I rampage like Godzilla on a pilgrimage. I return to San Augustin, wanting to see the cloister and the paintings. There was a school kid stationed there, a self-described student of English, who offered me a tour. I declined in my usual way, but a little later noticed him stalking me. I looked at those big, brown eyes, and I thought to myself, What the hell am I doing? - and offered myself up to his services. His English was scarcely better that my Spanish, so not a lot of information was conveyed. At sixteen, he couldn't have had much anyway. But we both gained, and I flipped him a Sacagawea as I left. [That was cheap! What was I thinking? -ed., 3/'21]. At Iglesia de la Merced (early 18th), I let another guide strong-arm me. But this was an elderly gent with good English and real knowledge. He pointed out some Inca motifs (suns, and native fruits with associated symbolism), which the native craftsmen had snuck in, perhaps with a nod from liberal churchmen. The guy really gouged me about the tip (set price first, you dope!), but I did get a nice Jesus bookmark. Off to the Basilica. It's only a hundred and some years old, but it's a monster Goth, storming heaven, with leering gargoyles, and buttresses flying everywhere. One can climb way up into the spires for a great view of Quito. A fine city in which to tarry.....

Wednesday, Mar 14

....but one can not tarry forever. Abroad for breakfast, web tasks, and last devotions in the Iglesia San Francisco (the big one, next to my hotel - begun 1536). I take my shower up in the penthouse facilities of the Sucre, for the sheer elegance of it. Bag on back, I step out of the hotel, and nod to the newspaper hawker, whose musical notes were part of the fabric of the neighborhood. Stirring pigeons, I stride the diagonal across the plaza, and down to the trolley stop. To the bus station at the end of the line. By the time we got rolling, it was 1:40. Voluptuous high country, wild and cultivated. The great snow cone of Volcan Cotopaxi looms large. Arrive Guamote, dusk. I'm dropped off on the highway, and make for the church dome. This does not mark centro, however, and I had too inquire my way to find it up the hill. I check into a simple, cheap hotel across from the old train station. Not much going on in the early eve in this small town. Few people on the dark streets, and the comedors were shutting down. I saw nothing like a restaurant. So I had a mushed and fried potato and vegetable thing on the street. Went back for seconds.

Thursday, Mar 15

I was freshly awake and at my morning studies, when I sensed an eye peering at me through the hole in the door where a knob used to be. I opened the door to a man who wished to know if I was a doctor. I thought this strange, said no, and wished him good health. But sometime later, when I emerged with a mouthful of toothpaste slurry, aiming for the courtyard sink, I saw that twenty or so blanket-wrapped Andeans had quietly gathered outside my door. I had to spit before I could say good morning. We were all somewhat taken aback. (It transpires that the front room of the hotel is outfitted as an examining room for the doctor's occasional visits). Today is market day in Guamote. Hence my visit. I'm in and out of the bustle all day. This is definitely a country affair. Urban-wear is not so prominent. Most people are wrapped up in ponchos and blankets and topped with fedoras. Four-footers and people mingle freely. The cows were pretty compliant, but the pigs and sheep really had to be dragged along, squealing and bleating. Produce and goods bursting forth everywhere, but all I bought was a plate of fried rice with a boiled egg, two bananas, and some bread. And I got a haircut (not exactly a market item), much to the amusement of the barber chicas. Many a great photo not taken: pigs borne in bosoms, sheep borne on backs, grisly street roasting, rummaging dogs, dirty kids, ad hoc conveyances, colorful displays, a bored girl lying in the grass with the pigs, and the deep, weathered faces of the old. I tried to be pleasant and disarming as I went about this snoop-tourism, and found the people to be nice and friendly. Gringo count was about six. In the late afternoon, people, goods, and infrastructure disperse in buses, trucks, carts, triciclos, and on backs. It's now evening. The streets and spaces are quiet and strewn with litter. A very few people and dogs are about. I'll be seeing if the mushed and fried potato and vegetable lady is still cooking.

Guamote 3/15

Waiting for Godot

Friday, Mar 16

My room was a bare, windowless cell, but with all the creaky old wood, and at five bucks, I declare the Residencial Turismo to be a real charmer. A few people are about in the morning sun, having breakfast at the cooking stalls by the tracks, or sweeping up yesterday's trash. With no bus station in town, I plod down to the highway to see about catching a through-bus. Other people were indeed waiting at what I had figured to be the logical spot, and in twenty minutes I'm en route to Cuenca. Lovely, undulating high country, everywhere carved into an agricultural patchwork of various green or earthy shades. Villages lay comfortably in valley bottoms, or perched on shelves above. The sight of all this human labor and care, so productive and beautiful, inclined me toward love for mankind. But it took some discipline (with the help of earplugs) to not let the entertainment harsh my brotherly mellow. (We had three back-to-back gunfire and explosion movies). Five hours, arrive Cuenca bus station. I splashed cold water in my face, sat down to bread and coffee, and breathed deep to dispel the violence in my soul. (Note to humanity: when traveling in Ecuador, avoid the "Santa" bus company). A fifteen minute walk with bag on back brings me to centro, where I engage a guidebook recommended hotel. I commence my rape and pillage of Cuenca. (of which: Cuenca is another UNESCO world heritage site, full of old churches and colonial architecture. Bourgeois and picturesque, well touristed and comfortable). (I have a special errand in Cuenca: Friend Brad has fedexed me a package with my new glasses and a few other items. It should be waiting here for me, but checking the website, I see that it is hung up in customs. For a day or a month? This is a problem....)

Saturday, Mar 17

So I order an Americano for breakfast (i.e., a continental: -coffee, juice, bread and jam-, - plus eggs). I got all this, plus a pile of white rice and a chicken leg. How Americano is that? $3.50. I love Ecuador! I spend the morning hotel shopping, as my room at the Majestic was too dark and cramped to be functional. I found a nicer, cheaper place, a family operation, again of creaky old wood. I picked the room whose floor sloped to my advantage. So I resettle, attend to little practicalities, hit the web, lunch cheaply in the mercado, and gawk at a lot of grand old architecture.

Sunday, Mar 18

I had gone to bed a bit at sea about where I am and where I'm going on this trip. I rose determined that Cuenca was the place to not just wrestle this matter, but wrestle it to the ground. Calendric and logistical realities have snuck up on me. Pace and timing have always been open, but I do have one constraint imposed by the Earth's axis. If I think I'm going to Patagonia, I'd better get moving, because it's already early autumn there. As I hate to rush (understatement alert!), this may mean not taking it to the bitter end, and lingering instead in lower latitudes. Or inelegantly taking a flight, to shorten the eight full travel days it takes to consume the string bean of Chile. In any case it will mean focusing on selected gems and rudely blowing past a lot of worthy and fascinating earth and humanity. But that ¡s the story of travel anyway. - - - So I hit the guidebooks and web. For a late lunch, I went whole hog in the mercado again, where the nice pork ladies offer you a sample plucked with their fingers from the grinning carcass of a hapless swine. The greasy gobbets of flesh come with potatoes, poofy corn kernels, and a little onion for $2.50.

Monday, Mar 19

What little tourism I perpetrated today was related to food. Mostly I researched my travel options and dealt with the burgeoning complexities that being fedexed in another country involves one in. It seems that I'm missing not just a second document (which Brad has sent - basically a repeat of the first), but three more documents (a photocopy of my passport, and a declaration from an Ecuadorian that he bears a relationship to me, as well as that person's ID - this kindly supplied by the very kind local Fedex guy). All this figured out with my sub-Spanish, the wacky googletranslate, and the patient efforts of the fedex guy. What a chain of events was unleashed when I stood up in that waiting room in Bluefields and had those glasses fall out of my lap and hit the floor...... Had I known of the upcoming rigamarole (you've heard but a part of it), I'd have certainly skipped the recovery effort. So here I sit Cuenca with good time and money tossed after bad, wondering how long I'm willing to wait. I can still profitably use another day or so with the guidebooks -this time does need to be spent- , but I'm antsy to get down the road and into the world and to clear my head of logistics.

Tuesday, Mar 20

More waiting, study, web tasks, and puttering around pretty Cuenca. The only religious edifice I've gotten into is the new Cathedral. The rest they keep locked up. In the Parque Central, I was accosted by school kids who'd been assigned to hunt down a gringo and do a video interview in English. (I've experienced this numerous times in my travels). After heaping slow and simple praises upon Cuenca, I was asked about negatives. I politely feigned to struggle with this question, and came up with a criticism that I explained applied to all of Latin America, as well as New York City, viz., nine unnecessary horn honks for every useful one. I hope this to have an effect on the next generation. (To be fair, cities are getting quieter as I've been going further south).

Wednesday, Mar 21

More studies, fedex maneuvers, wanderings, and feeding off the carcass of the hog. Washed down this time by a batido, fruit (I went for the coconut) blended with milk. I suppose I'd better see about filing an extension for this year's taxes. More rain than usual today.

Thursday, Mar 22

Time to clear my head. In the morning, I boarded an intercity bus and got dropped off an hour out of town, at Parque Nacional Cajas, for a walk around up in the moors. This was nice. My head was literally in the clouds. I tramped the soggy trails, hailed the llamas, picked my way through a grove of quinuas, weird trees with smooth red bark, and gnarly limbs with the heft of granite. I picnicked on a knob at 14,000 feet, no big deal here, but the height of the highest summit I've climbed in the US. Nevertheless, I wasn't racing around in the thin atmosphere. Down to the road in the rain, where I walk a distance to the bus shelter across from the park entrance. In five minutes I've flagged down a bus back to Cuenca, where I'm dropped off, not at the convenient main bus terminal, but at some far-flung outpost. I took a cab back into known territory. Checking the web, I'm unsurprised to see that my package hasn't moved. The time has come to leave this fiasco behind. I've spent three or four nights longer in this town than I had intended, at a time when I want and need to be moving along. I'll be calling Fedex and seeing about what it will cost me to get my $200 glasses sent back. Though I'm sure that Ecuadorian customs have lost sight of their purposes in the glare of their procedures, nevertheless, I blame Fedex. (I spare you the awful details). It's like I walked straight into a trap. So now, I'll gnaw off my leg, and hobble off to the Mexican place for a burrito. Tomorrow, southbound.

Cuenca, 3/22

Bat out of Cuenca

Friday, Mar 23

Not. I rose with every intention of clearing out of town. I got half-packed, stepped out for a cup, and made a call to Fedex, basically to vent. They now claimed they never received the crucial document that Brad sent twice (BS, but never mind). This got me thinking about a fresh effort with the local fedex guy, which I'd declined before, not wanting to cause a clash of documents. I took a cab to far-flung fedex, and sublinguistically availed myself again of this nice fellow's help. (I had been intending to go out there anyway to announce my defeat and thank him). Another doc in the tubes, I take the bus back to centro, where I spent an agonized half hour leaning against a wall, dithering over whether I was seriously going to risk another three days, four really, over something that may never resolve. To set back my trip a full week.....this floundering was awful and wholly out of proportion to the matter at hand. But, to pay double ( I'd be on the hook for a return - $94 x 2) and then walk away without those glasses...... I again ponder how I might usefully spend my time, aside from more puttering around Cuenca. I could tidy up website, write out the details and decision points of my itinerary (which would save me a few hours down the road), read, write, shop for galoshes (needed for soggy and cold hikes to come - this is just the kind of errand that might consume the better part of a day and yield nothing), do my taxes, etc. And I have hours of sewing that I've been putting off. Why, Cuenca is the perfect locus for these activities! So I say to myself, Self, Serenity Now! Off to the Monarca, where I pay for another three nights, explaining to my very nice landlady that I am esperoing for a paquete. This set her off on a long spiel of sympathy, with me nodding and waiting for a moment to break in and explain (as I've done before), that my español is poco and that I no entiendo a thing she's saying. She really is a dear. Now, to spend some time.....

Saturday, Mar 24

Today's largest errand was to ritualistically fail to find anything like overshoes at the big mall. Getting to the mall itself was a big adventure. It seemed straightforward on the map, but by the time the number seven swept around a few roundabouts I had no idea where I was and I'm sure we quickly swept past the place. I realized this, and figured I'd just ride the whole route. Great. I was two hours on that bus, with only occasional, fleeting glimmers of orientation. But during the calibration break at the end of the line, I made the acquaintance of my driver, Antonio, who'd worked six years in Minneapolis, living four blocks away from me on Lake Street. - Podiatric treat of the day: I impulsively put my head into a cobbler shop, and contracted a pair of insoles for my aging shoes. As the cobbler cut them out, she really grilled me on English vocabulary for shoe parts. She had a hard time with "heel". I spelled it out for her ("jil"), but it didn't help her. A buck and a half. Happy feet! - I went into the other Mexican place for dinner, mainly because it was not crowded. In fact, it was quite dead. This in spite of excellent food, cool ambience, and a cheap glass of wine. The owner and I exchanged micro-vocabularies over this sad state of affairs. (I blame competition). After a two year effort, he'll be shortly relocating to a coastal town for another go. Brave man, heart of gold. I wish him well.

Sunday, Mar 25

Another day in Cuenca.

Monday, Mar 26

A new business week has dawned. What will transpire?, I wonder over my eggs and poofy corn kernels. No e-mail, or movement on the Fedex website, of course, so I make my call. They now, again, affirmatively say they have the document, and that the package will clear customs within four business days. The whys of why this is so wrong, and the galling details of the whole affair, I wish to vomit forth, as they are a seething mass of brainless, viscous parasites gnawing my inmost bowels, but I spare you. I call back later with my instructions: promise me a delivery in Loja by Wednesday or Thursday, and e-mail me to this effect by late Tuesday, or return the package to the US. And don't even think of charging me. I pack up at the Monarca and walk to the bus station. The weight of my bag on my back feels like relief. I am glad to be moving again, no offense dear Cuenca, a week after I intended to leave. The question arises, If I had the glasses in hand, would all this have been worth it? Answer: absolutely not. As I don't have the glasses in hand, words fail me. Time for forgetting. Five hours in the bus, through lower, steeper, less inhabited terrain. Arrive Loja. A cab to centro, and I secure a five dollar room. Loja is a nice, lively, medium-sized town. Out to dine. I had the big, set dinner for $2.50 at a nice family operation, with a wacky sitcom on the tube, and kids rolling around on the floor with their toys.

Tuesday, Mar 27

In spite of all my laying up in Cuenca, I mean to lay up here in Loja for a day. I'd like to catch my breath before an eight hour bus ride over the Peruvian border to my next destination. And I do need to get my tax extension in the mail, and of course give Fedex a chance to catch me, if they care to, which they won't. I had a good look at the big, orderly mercado. It's like the Mall of America in its comprehensiveness, but with most shops about bedroom-size, its on a human scale. As for the meat section, it's striking how one can walk through all this stacked and hanging butchery, with everything looking freshly dead, and sniff not a hint of rot in the air. And tell me, O vegetables, how do you stay so young? I lunch good and cheap at a comedor, where I was seized as I passed and planted on a stool. Out to the streets and plazas. School kids get a long midday break down here. They keep the small ones locked up, but the medium and large ones are free to be out and about and be cool. They range in clumps, their uniforms color-coded to their schools. The girls walk hand-in-hand, and the boys push each other around. When they couple up, the gravity of their romances is palpable. It's all very sweet. I've done some church-lurking today. And I've bought a window seat for my early morning departure for Peru. Crossing this border on a through-bus seems convenient. We'll see if it is. No e-mail from Fedex. I'll be putting up a fight over paying them to waste my time. But enough of that. Time to look for something to eat. I'm not worried about how that will turn out.

Loja 3/27

Sea Level

Wednesday, Mar 28

My remark to the cabby at 6:30 in the morning was that the city was quiet at 6:30 in the morning. When Tarzan make small talk, it good to stick to the simple truth. I have time at the bus station to slurp some instant and scarf some sweet corn bread. The bus goes forth. Heavy cloud fills the valley bottoms as we wind down toward sea level. Five hours to the border. The passengers have dwindled to three gringos and five latins. We satisfy Ecuadorian officialdom, walk over the bridge, and satisfy the Peruvians. I took a moment to buy a few Soles from the money changer, so as to have a little jingle before I get to an ATM. He wanted all my US Bucks, but I like to keep some as a stash. Three more hours to go. The elevation drops some more, and the temperature rises. From mountain forest, to field and rice paddy, and at last to desert scrub. Prosperity dries up accordingly. The outskirts of Sollana were a grim, dusty spread of shanties and open compounds, strewn with trash and patrolled by buzzards. However, wealth did raise its head in the form of limes. I saw about fifty times my lifetime total, being bagged, crated, and loaded along the road. Must be harvest time. Arrive Piura, at the bus company's private lair, some distance from centro. I decline a cab, wanting to walk the mad streetscape the bus had just passed through. So far, these Peruvian coastal lowlands are a little rougher around the edges than anywhere I've seen up in the Sierra, which is to say, since Turbo, Colombia. I hoist Matilda and plunge into the human and automotive miasma of Avenida Sanchez Cerro. I have an immediate goal in mind, which is to celebrate my return to Peru after five years with an Inca Kola. I find a cold one soon enough, and the two Soles I drop marks my first purchase. I toast the traffic island..... .....ah.....that sweet liquid, savoring of bubble gum and medicine, with the rich, amber color of fresh morning urine.....but cold, of course - don't let my imagery put you off. I'll be sure to have another upon my exit from Peru. The cab fleet here is pretty beat up, and there are mototaxis everywhere (three-wheeled motorcycle rickshaws). They are all making about five times more useless honking noise than in Ecuador, a country where they make a lot of useless honking noise. Almost all of these honks seem to have no more meaning than the clucking of chickens. It is mere, primitive self-assertion, as in "I'm a chicken, I'm a chicken", or "I'm a taxi driver, I'm a taxi driver". But nevertheless, my other impressions are favorable. I feel like I'm back into the human wild. I turn into centro (where things smarten up, of course), mark hotel prospects, and pause with Matilda in the Plaza de Armas (standard Peruvian for the central park/plaza). All congenial. This is the first town the Spanish settled in Peru. I'll be on the hunt for old buildings. But now, to settle myself. Welcome, to the Hospedaje California. Out again to make my rounds. Having consumed nothing today but that instant, cornbread, and Inca Kola, my evening rice, beans, and fish, all washed down with a Cusqueña, was especially fulfilling. I walked out of that restaurant quite blissy, and dismissed any silly notion that I'd be dashing off in a hurry in the morning. I had another Cusqueña on the roof of the California, with the laundry flapping around me and the southern stars fixed and mysterious above. I had some nice little human encounters today, and feel that my funk has quite lifted.

Thursday, Mar 29

A day of just settling in Peru. This town has good coffee that does not involve a waiter, something that Cuenca lacked. The drama of the day was a demonstration by the brotherhood of mototaxi drivers. They marched to the municipal building to chant their demands, whatever they could possibly be. A line of riot police were in place and waiting for them, and politely faced them down. The people of the plaza had a good chuckle over all this. In the afternoon, I had a $1.25 lunch at a comedor in the mercado (again yielding to the ferocity of cook's daughter's touting effort). Rice, chicken leg, and potato in some tasty muck, washed down with a big glass of some whitish fruit pulp. I don't know the names of all the many weird fruits I've seen in the markets everywhere, but by now I'm sure I've drunk most of them, with pleasure, and good digestion. Transport to Trujillo tomorrow turns out to be not so straightforward. It took some walking around to the various bus company lairs to figure out that the only directos were at ungodly times. A little surprising, as the coastal road is the artery of the nation. So I got a ticket to Chiclayo, halfway there. Winging it further should work out. This was a hot and sweaty day, but the evening has mellowed into classic Mediterranean weather transparency, revealing the people of the plaza to be philosophers all.

Friday, Mar 30

It's rather quiet in the early morn. A few taxi-chickens cluck groggily as I make my way to the bus company's lair. The baggage man takes Matilda, and I step out to inhale the buns of the street. Let me take this moment to bow to all the street vendors of the world, who labor, who lay out their capital, who hope, and who persevere. Rolling, into the "despoblados" (wastelands) and the Sechura Desert. Three hours, arrive Chiclayo. This was as far as I could get on my ticket. But I assumed, correctly, that there would be sufficient departures onward for Trujillo. And from this bus company too, so I didn't have to wander around the thoroughfare looking for another company to advance me. (So far, Peru doesn't seem to have central bus stations - I know that even Lima doesn't have one). With the 12:00 full, I book the 1:00. This leaves me an hour and a half of playtime. I plunge into the unsexy bosom of Chiclayo. To the mercado, to be accosted for something to eat. Communication difficulties led me into a potato and a fried blob. Out on the street and still seeking coffee, I found myself in a sit-down establishment, having a second late breakfast, which I had room for. The cathedral and I take each other in, and then back to the bus. To continue. This landscape is really very foreboding. Past Piura, the desert scrub gave way to barren moonscapes. Sand, sometimes in dunes, or in little hillocks held together by a few tufts of grass. Vast plains of just rocks or dirt. Not far to the west across these wastes lay the ocean. The dry slopes of the low mountains were mystified in air-borne dust, and looked positively extraterrestrial in their inhospitality. The scenes of human life were bracing. I saw low, uneven walls, the foundations of buildings. I couldn't determine if they were new construction going up, or old buildings being knocked down. In either case, the projects looked abandoned. The outskirts of the larger towns, and the entirety of the smaller towns were simply grids, or lines, of adjoining dwelling boxes. Some were of rough brick or block, some of some sort of whacked together construction sheeting. They must be like ovens under their corrugated tin roofs. Uneven streets and compounds of dust and rubble were scraped out between them. I hardly saw a soul. One wonders starkly what could be here in these dismal places for people besides work, whatever that work could possibly be. The town of Pacasmayo was large enough that this severe, frontier infrastructure coalesced into something that looked more like a functioning city center. There was some thoughtful public art and usable spaces along the main drag, mitigating the bleakness of the environment. Other signs of civic life include messages of political affiliation or social uplift painted on the long, low concrete walls that often line the roadsides. Good luck to them. I pass by Pacasmayo with some yearning, as it is from here that one would turn off for Cajamarca, an untouristed town with country walks up in the mountains. It was there that Pizarro got huffy about the Incan emperor declining to be wowed by the Book that was thrust into his hands, slaughtered the Incan army in response, and had the emperor strangled, thus precipitating an empire shift. But visiting Cajamarca would take two full transportation days, so I'll save it for one of my future trips to Peru. There are sugarcane fields on the approach to Trujillo. Who knows where the water comes from. Arrive Trujillo. I take a cab to the Plaza de Armas. My hotel hunt was a bit long and balky. In this cool, old colonial city, I'd hoped for a cool old hotel. But I ended up in an uncool, but mostly functional place. To the plaza for the evening cool.....

Saturday, Mar 31

As befits its desert setting, Trujillo is a little austere. The main impression is one of long walls. But cool, old doorways and ancient ironwork and think-big paint jobs break the monotony. There's not a lot of plant life or shade. The Plaza de Armas has some big palms, but is mostly a grand expanse, perfect for large gatherings. The monumental statuary at the center is a Blakean assemblage of crouching, writhing, and triumphant figures, that will stand well the test of time. I spend the day looking over the old architecture, and of course, the modern, scruffy, and functional quarters. My search for a laundry got a little protracted, and led to a public inspection and inventory of my intimate things. This seemed a little extreme, but they do things by the book at Luxor Lavenderia. (The laundry came back to me with numbers, hand-written on little slips, and stapled, twice, on each article.) I'm now in a 220 volt country, with more to come, so I had to find a transformer for my one plug-gadget, the charger for the camera battery. It was all of $2.50, but it adds a pound to my bag. But I jettisoned a pound, when I gave away the Ecuador guidebook to a hostel, whose room I'd declined, but who I knew had a bookshelf. My efforts to get out to the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon (Moche culture, peaking around 800 AD) did not avail. Looking for the area where I might catch a collectivo out to the site merely got me lost in a vast, seething commercial area, with a gazillion collectivos going everywhere. I'll take a cab tomorrow. In the evening, a march of environmentalists, enjoining us to turn off the lights for a while, held up traffic as they made their way to the Plaza de Armas. The taxi drivers complained in their accustomed manner, but they can go ____ __________ . Once in the plaza, the enviros continued with speeches and songs and skits, while other processionistas, the Catholics, carried on in the streets. They'd taken Christ out of the church hours ago, and were bearing him on his throne, with slow, penitential baby steps, on the street around the plaza, to the blast of the horn and the beat of the drum. 'Tis the season.

Sunday, Apr 1

More action at the Plaza de Armas. This was a military display, with ranks of soldiers, barked orders, choreographed motions, a military band, and reviewing dignitaries. Must be Palm Sunday. I made another effort to get on that collectivo out to the archeological site. This was a mistake, as I burned up over an hour, and ended up taking a cab anyway. The "pyramids" (a bit of a misnomer) are out near an exurb. The one named for the sun has some terracing evident, but it basically looks like what it is, the biggest pile of adobe bricks in the Americas. It's not been excavated and is not open to the public. But the Huaca de la Luna, built into a hillside, has recently been dug out of centuries of windblown sand. The museum had a great collection of the Moche people's ceramics. Bodies and faces were incorporated into vessels, including an imaginative piece with a woman's head protruding from the pot with a head strap, as if she were bearing it. All very detailed and naturalistic. I wasn't expecting a guided tour of the site, but it turns out to be required here. With a dearth of people requesting English, I started out with the private attentions of the knowledgable Rosemary, but we were soon joined by an English/French couple. The Moche people, Ai Apaec bless them, were highly driven to propitiate said Ai Apaec with human sacrifice (warrior males only, the losers in ritual combat - virgins were safe in this society). The friezes on the walls (well preserved, with original pigments) were very explicit about this. The physical and interpretive labors of the excavators were much in evidence. There were helpful depictions of what the place would have looked like in its heyday, to aid the touristic eye. Utterly strange and one hundred percent human. Rest in peace, my brothers. Taking the collectivo back into Trujillo posed no difficulties, of course. One van in a parking lot is not a thousand vans in blocks of chaos. But a traffic jam on the way out to the highway pretty much shot my prospects for getting out to the other great ruin on the other side of the city. (The Chan Chan ruin, Chimu culture, 1100 AD). Back in Trujillo eventually. I got off in chaos-land (a bit early, as we were jammed again), pushed through seething humanity, walked through to the other side of centro to where I could pick up public transportation to Chan Chan. This really should have been straightforward, but I concluded that the guidebook was in error. So I walked out to where the minibuses simply had to pass, and hopped on the first rattletrap to come my way. It was now too close to closing time to visit the ruin, so I watched it slip by and made it my mission to visit Huanchaco, a beachy exurb at the end of the line. Here, I lay eyes on, and dip a finger in, the Pacific, which I've not done since Panama City. I got my cup of coffee and watched kids in the sand and surfers in the surf. In due course, back to the city. I'd been thinking I'd be moving on in the morning, but with decisions still soft and the bus trip long when I actually looked at it......

Monday, Apr 2

......nah. Besides, I really did want to see Chan Chan. In the early afternoon, I took the minibus out in that direction and got dropped off on the road. Two guides were at the bus shelter, who I shook off gently. I walk the dirt access road toward the mighty adobe walls of the old city. The quiet and emptiness was there to savor. But the guides wanted another subtle crack at me, and drove up to offer me a lift, which I felt obliged to accept. It was a slow day at the ruin, where more hungry guides languished. I finally explained to one, quite sincerely, that though I'd surely gain from her knowledge, half the reason I was out there was to take an info break and enjoy some quiet and tranquilo, after months of bus transportation. At this, her face melted in sympathy. I'm sure she spread the word, and no one was insulted. So I made several passes and pauses through the complex, which is kind of like a huge, adobe maze, with passages and plazas. There were a good twenty or so people working on the restorations, moving earth around in wheelbarrows and doing more delicate operations. The walls abounded in friezes, with the usual mythic animals, including pelicans, which warmed me up to the Chimu people considerably. A reigning motif was a thick diamond pattern, said to represent their revered fishing nets. Looking around this barren desert, this seemed a little out of place, but the ocean is but a short ways off. This citadel area I was touring was large, but more walls and pits and unrestored foundations stretched out afar in all directions, as this was the capital of a large empire. But then the Incas showed up and started lording it over them, followed shortly thereafter by the Spanish. Poof! I reflect on all this on the long desert walk back to yonder bus shelter. Rest in peace, my pelican-loving brothers. Back to Trujillo. My plans for rising out of this heat and getting up into the mountain towns of the Cordillera Blanca got a little complicated. The guidebook, may Ai Apeac the creator/decapitator god bless them, has supplied me with a lot of contradictory, incomplete, and misleading transportation details. I'll sort it out as I go in the morn, and take the most fitting forks in the road.

Trujillo, Peru 4/3

Realms of the Giants

Tuesday, Apr 3

Before the sun or humans, but not before the chickens and cats, I slip along the long walls of Trujillo to the lair of the Entrafesa bus company. We depart at the godly hour of 6:15. Dunes lie banked up against the mountains. Arrive Chimbote. I knew this town actually had a central bus terminal, so I was able to make a quick and thorough survey of the ticket windows, looking for a way up into the mountains. The elegant approach (to stay first in Caraz, and then go up valley to Huaraz), was unfortunately not timely. Plan B, then: Huaraz first, which did have some compensatory advantages. With an hour layover, I fed off the meager table of the Chimbote bus station. Up river courses from the coast, the desert giving way to alpine verdancy. Mighty snow-clad peaks appear. At length, the city of Huaraz appears lying in its bowl, and the bus winds its way down. I settle, gaining comfort and knowledge.

Wednesday, Apr 4

All praises to the guidebook, but actually knowing what to do around here and how to do it required finer inquiries. Huaraz being an international mountain dude kind of town, I was able to ask around and finalize, finally, my agenda. I had had no idea of what to expect with this being Holy Week. It's a big deal everywhere, of course, but I had to ask around to find out that Huaraz draws people in in large numbers. Hotels were said to be booking up for Thursday-Saturday. I was reassured that transport in the valley should be functioning alright. So with down-valley Caraz still on my agenda, it's a good thing that I first ended up in Huaraz. So, I've formed up my little goals in the midst of a lot of grinding and fussing. To clear my head of logistics, I set out on a walk to the local ruin (At Wilcahuain, Wari culture, late first millennium). I took a cab to the edge of town, and managed to find the side road with a sign for the ruins. The distance was twice what the guidebook suggested, and other uncertainties presented themselves. So I gave up on the ruins, and just strolled up the winding, potholed street. This neighborhood, to call it that, is just the long string of houses, businesses, and farms that line the road as it ascends the stream valley. I attend to the peals of thunder, and pumped up my lungs with thin air. Back in town, I have a noodle and chicken-chunk soup at a streetside comedor as the drizzle came down. This soup had a submerged, brown-shelled egg as a special treasure. A Holy Wednesday procession, not well attended, and with but one Sacred Image, was underway around the plaza. Christ and three of his Roman tormentors were being plodded along, followed by the band. These musicians obviously take other gigs besides religious processions, because they had the Lamb of God on the way to his crucifixion swaying to more than a hint of Smooth Jazz.

Thursday, Apr 5

My breakfast in the international mountain dude place was perhaps a little too leisurely. When I went off to the trek-organizing office to ask the helpful Marie another question about the climb I had planned for the day, she advised me against starting so late. She was certainly right, when I reviewed the details. With my hiking experience, I know that early is always better, but I am a foot-dragger. I formally kick myself and go forward with lesser ambitions, which did work out very satisfactorily. This was to actually find the ruins, and to rise further above. Armed with better knowledge, I get to the edge of town and start walking up the road past the signpost. To save my strength, I hail the first collectivo I see (van form). Space was made for me on an overturned bucket in the center of an array of knees. My fellow passengers and I exchange some days of Holy Week vocabulary. We got some elbow room when the sweet old ladies with their bunches of Easter flowers debarked. We were held up a good while by a funeral. People dressed in their Andean best crowded the road as they bore the deceased in a baby yellow casket up through the village. When they paused at the cemetery gate, we were able to get around. The ruin was perched right above the cemetery. I got off and leaned over the stone wall to observe the funeral from a respectful distance. There was a long interval, filled with song, before they trundled the casket up the steep slope to where the gravediggers were still scratching away. Rest in peace. I turn to the ruin, which is a three story house built entirely of stone. You'd think the floors would crack and collapse, but the sheer mass of the material apparently prevents this. There are light bulbs here and there, and one can creep around the narrow chambers. They say it was a house of the dead, but the corpses have long since been cleared out. I emerge, and ascend the trail, greeting the farmers with a feliz Jueves Santo. Up into the treeless climes. I make for yonder knob, adorned with a cross looming meaningfully over the valley. This is far enough for the day. I'd made my last aspiring steps bare-chested, but with my engine now idling and the wind up, on went four layers. I bow to the city below, but have my picnic facing the fierce and snowy peaks. The trail continues along a snaky green ridge up to where it presumably drops down to the bowl containing the source of the stream. Inviting as it was, I declined, as the thunder was dramatic, and I didn't want to get zapped. The drops splatting, I slip into my rain smock, and wave to the shepherdess as she deploys a plastic poncho. Back down to the ruin and the valley road. I declined the passing collectivos, which were jammed anyway, as I was on a formal pleasure walk. So, I make a winding, muddy descent, greeting people in the windows and standing under the eaves. My statuesque figure in its blue drapery provoked some merriment. The dogs, however, were not amused. At length, the highway, and a cab to the Plaza de Armas. No processions this eve, but the streets were thronged and festive. (On this day, I had to acknowledge that I'm sick. I thought I'd felt a distant tap of fever the night before, and during the hike it became pretty clear. This will be screwing my agenda and setting me back. This night was long, and I passed many times through the gates of delirium.)

Friday, Apr 6

I got up a little exhausted, but after a hot shower I felt my pulses and believed myself to be mending. Into the morning light for a cup. With the sky clear, I see for the first time the enormity that is (I believe) Mount Pucaranra, bulking icily over the town. Let us enjoy our glaciers while we can. The main drag is closed off, and artists are on their hands and knees in the street, creating Easter-themed murals with colored sawdust. I pack up, walk off to the collectivo spot, and soon am spirited away down valley, under thrilling peaks, to Caraz. This town is a smaller, quieter place, without the uniform, modern look of Huaraz, which was 80% destroyed in the '70 earthquake. My hotel stroll led me to a place that looked like it was too nice for the likes of me, but I inquired, to get a sense of what to expect in Caraz on Good Friday. Besides the nicer rooms, there was a simple cell for me at four bucks. As for my sickness, I was over-hopeful in the morning. I was still feverish, and scratched the idea of preparing for a Holy Saturday climb. For now, I pass through Caraz in a fever dream. The church is a plain, dignified structure, certainly old, but when you enter, you see a ceiling that could be in a gymnasium. I imagine some quake took down the roof, and it's never been restored. In the later evening, I sit on the steps before the open door, to harken unto the inspired song of the people. It was churchy, but Andean, and accompanied by the sparkling notes of the charango, a plucked, stringed instrument that gets me every time...... I paid no mind to the the bier-like things for carrying the sacred images that were waiting in the entry. I felt sick and lazy and lullabyed, and was in bed at nine. But at 10:30, the drums and brass roused me. How could I lie abed at a time like this? So I emerged and attended the procession, and walked with it from time to time. Elderly male dignitaries took the lead. After each pause in movement, they would announce the resumption with a few bars of sonorous song. A group of venerable ladies with ten gallon hats kept re-placing themselves on the curb ahead of the advancing men, who I imagine were their husbands. Four sacred images were borne along, with the priest ahead of the last, which was a bloody and regally robed Christ in a glass coffin. The band followed up, playing off sheet music clothespinned to the collars of their bandmates ahead. There were a few false notes, but no irreverent inflections. Between dignitaries and band were two or so blocks of meditative townspeople, plodding along at the customary snail's pace of these things. It was all very solemn, but not somber. Kids had some fun with their candles. At one point Christ was plopped down under a streetlight, and the priest led the people in a very moving prayersong. This wafts out to my distant orbits, where I assent to everything, except the details.

Saturday, Apr 7

After all this holiness, Satan struck a blow in the morning. I was awakened by the increasingly frantic voice of someone realizing that he'd been robbed. It transpired that an Englishman traveling by motorcycle had left his bag unattended in the courtyard outside my door, and that it had fallen into selfish hands. Someone had ventured in off the street and grabbed it, or perhaps another guest was the perp. This was a nice, family business by the way, in Mayberry, Peru. He kept his stiff upper lip, but declared it passionately to a be a Bloody Nightmare. For his peace of mind, I invite him to look under my bed, and give him my sympathies. I hang around till after the anticlimax of the police coming to write it all up. Poor guy. He's got a lot of ill thoughts to think. - - - My fever seems to have burned out, and I'm left with a little congestion. The high altitude climb is rescheduled for Monday. May my lungs rise to this occasion. A day of recovery, gathering travel tips, and detailing how to actually make Monday's climb happen (it's always something more). As an excursion, I went off to see the local ruins (Tumshukaiko, reportedly begun around 500 BC). In keeping with the established pattern, this walk did not just fall into place. But my initial missteps sent me up into a pretty neighborhood with narrow paths, an alpine stream, and rivulets channeled to suit the inhabitants. I asked a man about the ruins, and he directed me back down to the road. We got to talking, so to speak. I asked him how to say Hola in Quechua, but lost his answer in his explanations. (Language note: I've done my googling. Though Quechua is taken to be the big indigenous language of the Andes, with ten million speakers, it's actually a language family, with some twenty mutually unintelligible dialects - or "dialects" rather - when I went to school, mutual unintelligibility meant a different language. Pajarito's Quichua would have been one of these, as well as what was spoken in Guamote, and what I'm hearing hereabouts. But of course, it's all Quechua to me). Back on the road, I figure out what the sign must really mean. In due course, I am walking among the ruins in the afternoon rains (regularly scheduled in these climes). The exposed, semi-restored part is on a hillock. There were a few straight and curved walls of uniformly hewn stone, some stairways, what must have been arched passages, and mysterious holes and piles. There's a lot more below under people's houses, farms, and fields. I bow to the living and the dead. Back in town, my appetite restored with my rising health, I sit down in a rather nice place for a pounded chicken breast and rice. This was accompanied by a dreamy mound of spinach, glistening like kelp in the sunrise surf, and steaming with garlic and accents unknown. Best spinach ever, people, and it happened in Caraz, Peru. Thus the first glass of wine. Upon the second, and more of Mozart's requiem from Rome on the tube, I was so very ready for mass. To the church, where solemnities were underway.

Sunday, Apr 8

The explosions started at four. Not bells at dawn, but explosions at four. Piercing, big volume cracks, coming at roughly five minute intervals, with occasional staccato bursts. People who'd been up late now get to lie awake, with their return to sleep or thoughts of a resurrected Christ blasted by a violent snooze alarm. At seven, the humane sounds of church bells and singing commenced. I'd hoped that this would put an end to the brutality, but it did not. I put on my clothes and stepped out into Easter morning. The procession was in front of the church and nosing its way around the corner of the plaza. The bomber was in the center of the plaza with sheaves of bottle rockets as tall as he was. (Four and a half feet, but still, those are big rockets). He picked up his pace now, one to three per minute, with never a gap of more than about two minutes. He kept this up for the duration of the procession, with no sense of synchronicity with the religious proceedings. My jaw hit the floor when he blew one off in the middle of the priest's prayer. It's just a lot of jabber anyway, right? Why not just blast the crap out of it! All this was impossible to ignore, but I did my touristic best to be a good sport about it. But my mood remained one of sour anti-irreverence. And I paid for my failure to Understand: I was sitting on a bench in the plaza across the street from the church. The procession was at the far end of the plaza at this point. The bomber switched tactics and set off a mass of staccato daisy cutters on the street in front of the church. This, by the way, when the people and band were quiet and the priest was delivering some liturgical thing. I was hit with force with shrapnel in the knee, which set me cursing. It didn't break the skin through my pants, but it raised a good, dime-sized red welt. The shoeshine boys though this was great, and my inner shoeshine boy agreed that it undeniably was. I later measured the distance between my bench and ground zero at thirty paces. Closest thing yet to a bullet, knock wood. Since this didn't kill me, but only made me stronger, I continued following the procession, and mimicked the people in ignoring the turds splashing into the punch bowl. I issued and solicited extra Feliz Pascuas, so as to not sour on humanity. At length, I broke away and repositioned myself at the little plaza in front of a small church up the hill, where the procession was heading. The bomber, who had been keeping pace with the procession, had also repositioned himself there. I watched him for a while. He would set off a rocket, pace a little circle, rub his chin, set off another, pace a little circle, scratch his ass, set off another, etc. The people rounded the corner, singing, into this fusillade. Each blast would pose a question: where is the ritual? where the meaning? where the beauty? where even is the celebration in this, with its dumb monotony? More cowbell! I'd had enough, and went off to get some breakfast. At nine, as I sat over coffee, the hell roaring ceased. Christ is Risen. Five straight hours of deer flies at the picnic. A few reflections: What gets me is the thoughtless innovation. This was not the way of these people's grandparents, and I don't believe that the priest's mentors at the seminary would have been on board with their performance being enhanced with carnival noise. Somebody came up with this dumb idea, and nobody said no. The whole thing smacks of modern man's penchant for not thinking things through, for not leaving well enough alone, and for piling on, usually with something that involves noise. If I'm missing some cultural significance, or some proper way of seeing this, I'm willing to be corrected. I follow the general rule of being open and tolerant, but I don't have to like everything, and I don't like this, because it's ugly and it's stupid. I Have Spoken. I hasten to add, I'm not denouncing in the same breath the people of Caraz, not roundly, anyway. Human beings and human cultures and Human Culture are nothing if not mixed bags. Any properly felt, unsentimental sense of the Brotherhood of Man will include disgust as well as love. OK, I'm done now. Happy Easter. - - - Sunday is market day in Caraz, so this little piggy went to. Then I pack up and hop the collectivo up-valley the short distance to Yungay. I'll spend two nights in this town, with the day between to be spent in Heidi Land. I settle in the Hostal Gledel, take a look around town, and pick up a few picnic items in the market. Yungay has an unusual grid, which is well-adapted to its slope, and it lacks old architecture. It looks like what it is, something thrown together in the seventies (on the urban planner's grid), to replace the old Yungay, which is two kilometers away, buried under the landslide from the '70 quake, along with the bones of the 26,000 people who were living there up to that moment. Imagine that. (Quake total for the whole valley: 70,000). As Sunday is also market day further up-valley in Carhuaz, the little market piggy got on the collectivo and went there too. This was a bigger affair than the one in Caraz, but it was winding down when I arrived. Still, very interesting and countrified. I had the soup, but bought no farm tools, pants, dolls, beans, phone chargers, chicken parts, weird fruits, tupperware, fright wigs, or religious literature. Trying to go back, I waited too long at the highway (the down-valley collectivos were passing behind me up at the plaza). But I was thus vouchsafed a very Peruvian musical performance. Six or so men with brass and drums were up on a rooftop across the road from me, playing and cheering, to what I believe was a kid's soccer match going on in the stadium on my side of the road. The unusual pattern that the two bass drums set up was especially engaging. At length, I get out of town. I had wanted to get off at the site of the old Yungay to pay my respects, but it had gotten a little late, and it was now raining. It's a memorial place now, of course, with a lot of rose bushes and four palm trees marking the corners of the Plaza de Armas buried below. So all the way back to the new Yungay, where I dine under the eaves, in a real pouring rain, the streets flowing.

Monday Apr 9

The alarm beeps me, at last, to a day to be spent in the Upper Reaches. I grab my packed and ready little knapsack and head into the mercado to see about something quick to eat. That turned out to be spaghetti with a green sauce. To the bus stop, where I board a collectivo, one of a small fleet that makes this run in the morning over the pass to points on the other side of the range. We rise through the back roads of Yungay. I tried to get a visual sense of what physically happened down there in '70, but I never did, not least because I was being bounced around so severely on that road that I couldn't see straight. But when we rose past the switchbacks the road improved, somewhat, and I was able to hold my head straight for some sublime mountain scenery. The iconic Llanganuco Lakes are enclosed in gigantic, sheer walls. At length, I'm dropped off at the trailhead, and the collectivo, with its handful of passengers and load of cargo, continues up and over to remoter parts. I step down through a quinua grove to a broad valley, stalked by curious cows. I have a long, flat stretch here, at 13,000 feet. I feel of the atmosphere. It is thin. I'll be climbing to 15,000 feet. (14,000 is as high a peak as I've ever climbed in the US). I commence, breathing deep in the flat. Three sets of switchbacks brings me up off the valley floor, through gorgeous vistas of sheer walls, cascades, meadows, moraines, and deep bowls and spaces, into the austere realms of the giants. At length, I attain the blue gem that is Lago 69. Three and a half hours up. The summit of mighty Mount Huascaran (22,205 feet, highest in Peru, fourth highest in the Americas) [Wrong! It was Chacraraju, 20,039 feet -ed., 2/'20] looms directly over me, severe in its frozen whiteness, and hung with chunky, cracked, near vertical glaciers. I'd say more, but you had to be there. I took forty-five minutes for my formal picnic before my drop dead return time. I made my descent, well pleased that my still sick lungs were able to carry me up here. But by the time I'd gotten down to the cows, I knew I'd been overconfident about my return time. (And wandering off trail into a bog for a little while didn't help). When I got to the road, I'd blown my serenity margin. The last return collectivo was to have passed between three and four. It now being 3:30, I thought it best to go straight for Plan C, which would be a grueling walk down the road to a lodge, where I could have a very expensive cab called for me. I commence walking, in the rain, while simultaneously going for Plan B, which was to keep an eye peeled behind for a truck to hitch (if not good old Plan A, which would be that collectivo). In due course, I find myself jammed into the cab of a truck with three other passengers (two behind the sedats), exercising my vocabulary, and listening to some great huayno music that the driver had on a thumb drive. In back was a big load of choclo, which is what Peruvians call those corn cobs with the characteristically gigantic kernels. I had offered to pay, of course, and fixed a price. (Trucks always have several heads in them. Sometimes work colleagues, I imagine, and sometimes paying passengers). Arrive Yungay. I had a nice, rudimentary chat with the kindly old patriarch of the hotel. (Similarly the night before with his son, the Spanish teacher at the school). I had a little bread in my room, but otherwise went early into a travel fast, as my digestion has been a little alien. As I was falling asleep on my feet, I showered and went to bed early. In the morn, I tear myself away from these mountain climes (is there any other way?) and their further opportunities, and head for the capital. Lima will be the third and last place that I'll be retracing steps from previous trips. I know it to be a great city, and look forward to a revisit with relish.

Lima 4/11

Bones

Tuesday, Apr 10

The bus rolls through rolling, uninhabited steppe, with rugged, snowy peaks peeking over the horizon. We slip into deep creases, dropping, drying, to the desiccated coast. Solid mountains surely reside in what look like mammoth sand dunes. We penetrate the vast outskirts of Lima. Everything looks like it could use a good hosing, but nature does not provide. It scarcely rains in these climes. I had no idea where the bus would terminate, but I began to recognize things and realized that we were coming in within the broad core. Ten hours, arrive Lima. A cab straight to the Hotel España, where I stayed in June,'07, a few blocks from the Plaza Mayor, in the heart of the nation. I check in, and step out to make a round. Lima Centro is still here, in all its stately coolness.

Wednesday, Apr 11

The Hotel España: Truly, the most elegant hotel ever. The first two floors are arranged around two courtyards. Half of the roof of this provides a terrace, the other half the foundation for two more added floors. When I was here in '07, I stayed in one of the four or so cubes that were stacked up higher, making for a true penthouse. These have now been removed, and it's merely a roof again, though a cool one, as it affords a great view of the roof of the church and monastery of San Francisco across the street, and the steep hill of Rimac, with the colorful facades of its houses. Spiral staircases link these odd levels together. Clinky old chandeliers hang portentously. The place is spacious and cluttered with art. Lots of reproductions, and lots of 18th and 19th century originals. This stuff you'd think ought to be hanging in museums, but I suppose that it's common enough that why shouldn't it hang in the España? It is, after all, somebody's old mansion. Statuary all over too, including kitsch. The lobby has a case of either authentic or persuasive reproductions of detailed pre-Inca ceramics. Also three skulls which would have come from the vast boneyard next door (see below). Plant matter threatens to smother the whole hotel. The third floor terrace, where I reside, is the domain of two squawking parrots, two ambling tortoises, and a peacock and hen. Gringos of all species also. The staff is a little surly, which is a nice touch. Expensive, though. I'm paying $14 for a share-bathroom, and my room is crammed with spare tables. - - - - - Lima: Old Lima is centered on the Plaza Mayor, of course, with the Cathedral and the National Palace each occupying a side. A pedestrianized shopping street leads to another square. Around this is the old town, with the old religious edifices and colonial era and nineteenth century buildings. Here and further afield are some exuberant, think-big neoclassical piles devoted to public uses. Like Quito, Lima has a separate dine and shop bourgeois downtown (Miraflores) some distance away. But Lima centro is thoroughly central, and remains vital day and night. - - - - - This was a day of hanging around the Hotel España and Lima Centro.

Thursday, Apr 12

More hanging around. - - - - The Cathedral: It's a big one, with every side chapel a gift of some oligarchical family from way back. The bones of Pizarro reside in the first chapel, in a sarcophagus under a sleeping lion. His bones (recently discovered and confirmed) have been thoroughly examined and interpreted, and strangely for a church, this has all been graphically depicted for you museum-style. The fellow died by the sword in an act of revenge. (What was that proverb again?) He drew a cross in the earth in his own blood and kissed it, though, as the last act of a pious man. All is forgiven. More bones in a crypt under the choir. Centuries of archbishops are walled up down there, and there are the femurs and skulls of who knows who on display. The wood carving of the choir stalls was incredible. I raise a hand to the sculptors and bow to their immortality. - - - - - Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco: I remember this place well from '07, and was highly re-impressed. It now required a tour, which was informative, but I could have easily spent more than forty minutes. (Photos not allowed, alas). The place is impressively old and worked and ornate. The cloister is one of the great ones. Its perimeter has got illustrative and decorative tiling all around, blue and yellow, an Andalusian thing, shipped over in the early 17th. Lots of great paintings, too. Lots of original flooring and carved wood and whatnot. There's a huge library full of dusty volumes that look quite plausibly like they haven't been opened in three hundred years. The catacombs are a great highlight, of course. Low and cramped passages, with the sorted and stacked bones of many thousands. Long bones here, skulls there.... I wondered where the ribs and spines were, but we did finally come across a small pelvis section. All this sorting and tidying was done in the fifties, when the catacombs were rediscovered, but it was in keeping with the original custom. It was all about communal anonymity. You were put in one mass grave with some quicklime till your corruptible flesh rotted away, then your eternal bones got moved and mingled with those of your fellow Christians. Kind of sweet.

Friday, Apr 13

More hanging around Lima Centro and the Hotel España. I made a little foray into the decrepit and not utterly safe Rimac. And a walk through the mercado and Chinatown, and thoroughfares to the area of bus stations, for investigations and to get into some grime, chaos, and decay. Lima provided. Back to mostly genteel Centro. I never did in these days find a reason to visit genteel Miraflores.

Saturday, Apr 14

In the morning light, from the roof of the España, I have a last look over the venerable roof of the Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco, and bow to the bones of the builders of Lima which lie below. A cab through the still quiet streets to the bus company station. We embark. Lima thins into desert. And a remarkably lifeless desert it is, utterly without a green thing. Somewhere out there are the famous mega-drawings on the plains of Nasca. I'll be declining the plane ride required to actually get a good look at them. A break at the bus station in the town of Nasca. Chickens run around the bus compound and raise clouds of dust. Ten hours, arrive Chala, the town I chose to break my journey. It's down there on the charm scale, as is common enough the world over of towns that are defined by and stretched along a highway. But the town is also stretched along a beach, so the eternal verities are forever being pounded into it. My hotel search led me to a price-reject, a bed-reject (I've learned to be alert to these slab things that resemble beds, but that are so hard that you literally can't lie on your side), and a cheapo-score, though I had to squeeze my landlady. I've also learned to be straightforward about starting from the bottom. Hoteliers understandably want to sell you their best room, but I've also often sensed that they genuinely assume that the sahib-gringo requires a private bath and TV. This gringo will pass on that, but I do appreciate access to the roof. I walk the strip, observe where buses have pulled over, and examine the facades of their closed offices, trying to figure out how to make my exit in the morning. There will be a way here on the PanAmerica, but they're not making it very clear. I dine on the fish, to the ocean's pounding roar, never mind the fume, or the roar of truck traffic. I keep my window open to the religious music with Peruvian cadences from across the highway, which goes well into the night .

Sunday, Apr 15

I sit outside a bakery with a few rolls and watch the triciclos, mototaxis, and big trucks pass. This rough and functional outpost has grown on me, as they always do. After a few false starts, I get on a bus. More endearingly lifeless landscapes. We divert from the desert coast at Camana. After a long stretch and a bit of elevation, a very few little green plants begin to assert themselves. Seven hours, arrive Arequipa. I reconnoiter the bus terminals (two adjacent, utterly similar, even in their names - weird). Cab in the dusk to the Plaza de Armas. I make a round in a light rain (as we have quite risen out of the desert), settle cheap, and make a further round. The time has come to consume a guinea pig, having finally seen one on a menu that was not done picante, and not off the expense chart. I've eaten them happily on my first trip to Peru, but this iteration was not so satisfactory. I got mostly skin, bones, and blubber in a mound of jellied gravy. I'll have to give it another try.

Monday, Apr 16

Arequipa: I'd say it's the most beautiful old city I've seen so far. The Plaza de Armas is a classic, with a fountain and towering palms, two-tiered colonnades on three sides, and a broad-faced, seventeenth century cathedral with widely separated bell towers. Excellent religious edifices abound. Much of the city is made from blocks of white, volcanic stone called "sillar", including many old buildings put to humble uses. The source of this stone, El Misti, looms conically over the town. At one point I had to duck out to the mercado and find a divey comedor for lunch, just to clear my head of all this tourist-friendly loveliness. But for the evening repast, I dined up in the colonnades overlooking the plaza, on yet another exotic native, the alpaca.

Tuesday, Apr 17

I had a wild hair to splurge the ten bucks it would take to tour the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, the most extensive and venerable convent in the western hemisphere. But when it turned out to be fourteen bucks, my price point tipped. If I were going to spend that money, I'd need to spend proportionate time in meditative art and architecture worship, which really would mean another day in Arequipa. I could spend a month here, of course, but the world is meant to be wasted. So I use up my time till check-out in other religious edifices, and taxi to the bus station. There, my luck point tipped against me, as I missed a not quite well timed bus. So, from the Arequipa bus station, with two hours to wile away till the next bus departs for Chivay, I hail y'all........

Arequipa 4/17

The Flight of the Condor

.......We rise into, and above and beyond, the range of the octillo cactus. Vicuñas cavort across the pampas. Cloud and rain obscures my sightseeing, but it lifts to reveal Chivay laid out in its bowl. Arrive, three and a half hours. Myself anyway, but not my bag. I suppose I should take the blame for this. I'd handed my bag under the ticket counter, expecting that it would be put in the belly of the bus - a standard enough procedure. I then had an hour and a half to kill at the bus station. But evidently, they were just holding it for me (she had shrugged off my asking about a bag tag). Add some hurry and distraction on my part (my blog post wasn't saving, O Readers), and I blew past that ticket counter to get on the bus at departure time without even thinking to look to see if my bag was still sitting there with the other boxes and bundles. Hence, my alarm in Chivay to see that luggage bay empty, though an inkling of what had happened was rising in my mind. (Nothing tagged, by the way). But a phone call was made, and I was assured I'd see my bag in the morning. A relief, but for now I'm in a small town at 12,000 feet in a short-sleeve cotton shirt, and with only what I have in my pockets. I shiver my way in the dark to the Plaza de Armas. If it were windy or raining, I'd be dead. I look around and engage a very humble place on the plaza. I made sure to note that the bedspread was something I could wear. As I was stepping out, draped like a native, my sweet landlady handed me a pullover, for I had apprised her of my travail, and she was aware of my nakedness. Web and dine. I return with two bottles of water, for I needed the caps to soak my asymmetrical contact lenses.

Wednesday, Apr 18

It had rained pretty hard in the night. In the morning, I took a turn around the muddy streets of the town. At eight, I was waiting in the bus station. Soon, Matilda and I have joyous reunion (she had been forwarded by another bus company). I lug her into town. Hospedaje Plaza had its charms, and very kind hosts, but it was cold water, and frankly a little sour. And the bed had evolved into a kind of trough. So I relocated to less cool but more salubrious digs. My breakfast included mate, or coca tea - ten or so leaves soaking in hot water. To go for more flavor, you'd have add a lot more, but that might overperk a person. As it was, I was perked just right. Off to church. Chivay has a nice old one, overstuffed with carved wood, and florid with old frescoes. The market was cool too, with lots of artesania for the tourist trade. I walked across the "Inca bridge" spanning the Colca River. The thing had an arch, though, something that the Incas didn't do, so maybe it's just a name. But there were some ruins on the hilltop I climbed. From that vantage point, one can survey the ancient terracing that surrounds the town. My visit to a neighboring village was forestalled by the afternoon rains. So I found other ways to occupy myself in this pleasant little mountain town. (Where I'm at: The Colca Canyon and environs. Until some recent remeasuring, it was regarded as the deepest in the world. There is beautiful countryside hereabouts, and nice small towns. Chivay is in the upper reaches, above what is regarded as the canyon proper, though the chasm below the Inca Bridge looks plenty canyon-like to me. I'll be hanging around here and down-canyon. The region is thoroughly on the tourist trail, and is well set up to host gringos, and vacationing Peruvians.)

Thursday, Apr 19

As per previous arrangement, I'm outside my hotel at 6:00, having a stand-up breakfast of bread from a market lady, and expecting to be swept up for a half-day tour within the next fifteen minutes. At 6:50, I was still propping up my post, making other plans, and plotting a refund. I've had recent cause to reflect on how low on the disappointment scale this ephemeral little snafu actually scores in the large view of things. But they caught me before I went in search of coffee. I was number seventeen of eighteen in the short bus. Off we go to see the canyon and its neighborhood. First stop, the town of Yanque. The van disgorges us to a plaza full of tourists from other buses, and natives dancing for our benefit. I've heard of this kind of phenomenon, and seen it from afar, but never yet been one of the VIPs to whom it was directed. There were llamas and tethered eagles and cute kids with lambs. It was all a little intense. I quickly sought refuge in the church. When I thought it was safe, I made a dash back to the bus. (But seriously folks, I'm not really condemning this the way I once would have. Actual connections can be made this way, and it's no more artificial that the whole idea of tourism anyway. And, aside from the kids and lambs, it's real culture, and they're really proud of it). We continued, stopping at a few viewpoints to look over the canyon and the terracing on the slopes, still productive after a thousand or so years. Our guide had a nice spiel for us in Spanish and English. She reports that the two tribes of the area once practiced cranial deformation, so that their heads would take on the the shapes of their respective Apus, or mountain gods: flat for the Cabanas, and rounded for the Collaguas. Though they no longer squash the heads of their babies, they maintain cultural identity through the shape of their hats. Not as cool as the cranium thing, but still, pretty cool. (You see these two kinds of hats in different concentrations all over the valley). Ultimately, to the Old Faithful/Eiffel Tower of the Colca Canyon, the Mirador Cruz del Condor. This was a series of ascending viewpoints, overlooking four thousand feet of canyon. We were let off for an hour of grandeur. About two hundred people were arrayed along the viewpoints, attending to the flight of the condors, who soared breathtakingly about the abyss, seemingly quite indifferent to their many observers. In due course, we return, making a stop in Maca, for another (less choreographed) bout of tourism. Five hours, return Chivay. I was all riled up, and after a quick scarfing of the Menu del Dia at a comedor, I rented a bike and headed for the hills. Across the bridge, to the village of Coporaque. I reconnoiter a little, inconclusively, for tomorrow's walk. From the town's nice, deserted plaza, I watch the afternoon thunder-gloom come in. A light rain commencing, I start rolling down the winding, beaten road, through terraced fields, down to the canyon rim. This is the first time I've been on a mountain bike on a road that required one. It occurred to me how thoroughly untempted I was to be Outrageous or Extreme. The world in front of my face was quite extreme enough for me. Over the foot/mule bridge spanning the sheer walls of what is still not officially the canyon. I carry the bike up quite a flight of stairs, and ride it into Yanque. The plaza that was so festive in the morning was now unoccupied in the afternoon drizzle. Into the muddy side streets, and I find my way out of town. The drizzle dries up, and I've now got asphalt for the mostly gradual climb back up to Chivay. Very little traffic out here in the country, and only a bit of distant stream roar muffling the birdsong. I pass a shepherd driving his flock along the road, and this city boy is once again reminded of what a very shitty animal a sheep is. I roll into town. Twelve miles, three and a half hours. I have a nice inter-language chat with my bike rental entrepreneur. More rain. Spaghetti and wine. A day well spent.

Friday, Apr 20

I lean against the church in the early morning sun, keeping an eye on the plaza. This was a pleasant way to spend a half hour, but it turned out not to be to my purpose, which was to catch a collectivo (or combi, as the usage is here) to Coporaque, country walk to follow. The combis, I learn upon asking, leave from their lair around the corner. Another little travel assumption corrected. Soon, I again find myself in Coporaque's pleasant, deserted plaza. I pick up a few picnic items in a tienda, and sample them on a bench. My walk for the day has a destination, namely, the tombs of the old ones. The misleading directions in the guidebook sent me on a pleasant tangent, groping around this seemingly almost unoccupied town. The ruin is advanced here, with roofless shells of stone or adobe, and walls broken down. At length, I ask about las tumbas, and am set straight. The path was even signed and administered, which I hadn't expected. I leave town through fields of green wheat and ripe quinoa. The path takes me up a slope toward some rock outcrops. At length, I come upon a small stone and mortar edifice built against the foot of the outcrop. It has a window, from which peer three skulls. Arrive tombs of Yuraq Qaqa . I stepped up a lesser path to the right, rising with the foot of the outcrop. When I reached what seemed like the last convenient place where the dead might be stowed, I moved in for a closer look. Indeed, this was the final resting place for quite a number of my cousins. The natural overhang of the cliff was partly dug out and walled in, enclosing a grave with many skulls and bones. It was all pretty scattered, for surely this grave has been disturbed repeatedly over the centuries. (I never got a date, but these people were pre-Inca, Huari culture, which got started hereabouts around 600AD). There was an intact skeleton, though, tucked in a corner in an upright hunch, right hand raised to the mouth, as though she were pensively biting her nails. The left hand had fallen away and been repositioned. At first, I'd thought this a child, but the pelvis was big, so I figured she was a small woman. The was rope and woven things and fabric scattered around, which I thought was astounding, as some of it was exposed and even damp. From here, I climbed steeply, trying not to get impaled on the cactuses, to get above the outcrop. I didn't see any likely grave sites up there, but I had a tremendous view, of Coporaque, and Yanque, and the Colca valley between, with its elaborate terracing. On a prominent knob below, overlooking the patchwork of fields, were the ruined structures and walls that these bone people built. After a long, reflective pause, I scrambled back down to the cliff base and followed it downward from the upper tomb. I discovered many cubbies and walled enclosures, with the earthly remains of those who had gone before. I imagine the woven together mat and rope things would have had a body wrapping function, though I saw intact pieces that were like open ended baskets. There were no obvious ceramics. Back down to the skulls in the window, at the end of the signed trail. There were a few more grave sites below this, including the most impressive work of masonry. This had an upper level that I would have risked injury to approach. I left these dead in peace. Down at the cross that some good Catholic had erected for these pre-contact people, I raise a hand to my predecessors and advisors, and go on my way. Down through the ruined walls and structures of the old ones on the prominent knob, and down further into the fields of a thousand years. I walk through the fields, wondering at the provenance of their stone fences, and into modern Coporaque, and wondering further at some of their stonework. It was almost four, and the sky was heavy, but I opted to complete my walk as planned, rather than to see about a combi from Coporaque. So I retraced the route I'd ridden yesterday on the bike. Through fields and windings down to the bridge over the crack in the earth. Hail started up, and the rain turned out to be a real soaker. My rain smock is like a space suit, but below the knee I may as well have been wading. Needless to say, few people were out and about in Yanque. But there were some people hunkered under an awning on the plaza, waiting for the combi to Chivay. I join them, and soon enough we stuff ourselves damply into the combi. As most of the women had bundles on their backs, this was a real bundle in your face operation. A little ways into the four mile ride to Chivay, we stop for some reason. The driver is almost done with a tire change before I even realize what he's doing out there in the dusky rain. We resume, hardly missing a beat. Incredibly, the streets in Chivay are dry. But soon enough, the deluge sweeps in. Coffee, web, and dinner are fortunately all within a block of my hotel. No hanging out on the roof tonight, though.

Saturday, Apr 21

Since it rains every late afternoon, it's nice that the sun shines every morning. My soaked shoes go up on the roof to catch the rays, while I pad about town in flip flops. I make inquiries at the bus station and tourist shuttle operations, noting my options for linking up my movements. For today, Matilda and I board the noon bus for Cabanaconde, a town an hour and a half down canyon. I make sure to sit on the right side for a reprise of the valley and canyon scenes I'd seen on my little tour. Yesterday's climb to the tombs under the outcrop is grandly arrayed across the valley. At length, the canyon opens, and the human presence thins. But I did see villages on shelves way, way down there, with switchbacks snaking up mammoth slopes to link them to the world. Arrive Cabanaconde. I sit in the plaza for quite awhile chatting with a young Canadian super-traveler I'd met back at the bus station. Later, when the deluge came in, I thought of this poor fellow making his way down 3700 feet of steep canyon trail to his hostel and friends at the bottom. I engage a four dollar hotel, cheap, but one wishes for an overturned cardboard box, or something, to serve as a surface besides the bed and the floor. It did have hooks on the wall, though, so it's not as though it was totally unappointed. Cabanaconde: I use the term "small town" rather freely, but this place really qualifies. Its whole scope was easily surveyed from the roof of my hotel on the Plaza de Armas. As it is the jumping-off place for various adventures, it has a bit of tourist infrastructure, but still, it's an intimate farm town. I step out to look around, but soon the afternoon rains start up, sending me into a tourist-friendly, rustic/hip kind of place, where I have a mate de coca and the soup. A series of huayno bands were performing on the tube, accompanied by dancers done up as packets of Magio Blanco detergent, who sponsored the event. These performances blissed me out. (I am not kidding - more in a future topic on huayno music). I lingered till the rain slacked. To my hotel, to get my solar heated shower while the water was still hot. Out to the streets. I have the church to myself. It's old and faded and peeling, long and barrel-like, with voluminous acoustics. I hum a few bars, and feel strangely divine. Later, stepping into a tienda, I hear more strains of huayno, quite live, from a man with a guitar sitting on an overturned bucket, entertaining an audience of three. My web errands were hampered by the incapacities of the town's one internet place. Through muddy streets, glistening under the few street lights, to find something to eat. The shapes of sheep cross my path like ghosts.

Sunday, Apr 22

That confounded rooster was crowing at stars in the darkness. Still, I managed a few more bouts of sleep. I rose still thinking that this day I'd do my big walk up and out of town, but this idea faded with the light of day. This was to be a slow day, and in the meantime I'd learn the lay of the land and where the reported trail out of town actually was. So, over the course of the day, I probed the outskirts of town, and passed through its amiable semi-ruin numerous times. I spent the morning at a viewpoint past the little bullring, gazing into the abyss of the canyon, hearkening unto the birdsong wafting up from the fields, my soul soaring vicariously with the condor. Later, on the up-canyon end of town, I climbed a knob, and then further up an aqueduct, to get an idea of where to climb out of town tomorrow. Later, at the other end of town, I climbed a higher knob, which was marked, as is common, with a cross. There was an adobe building with a tin roof up there. I couldn't tell if it had been a chapel or a barn, but it offered me shelter should the sheet of rain reach me, which never quite happened. Hardly the sound of a motor all day, but plenty of bleats, grunts, and brayings of the animals, who had full run of the streets. Late in the afternoon, I run across Nick the Canadian in the plaza. He had just spent the day climbing out of the canyon, having never found his friends down there. He settles while I hold vigil at the darkening overlook. We later meet up for food, drink, and world-wide jabber. (My reading glasses....poof! It had to happen sometime. My spare pair has been waiting for this moment, so no more glasses drama. A few searches and inquiries in the evening.....)

Monday, Apr 23

(.....and in the morning, yielding nothing but unresolvable puzzlement. I leave the glasses in the past....) At 7:15, I'm walking out of town, heading for the hills. As for the named trail, I decided that if it existed, it was not relevant to my purpose. My goal was simply to achieve some height, and turn around when the clock demanded it. Up odd paths and lengths of aquaduct. An elderly dog indifferently kept pace with me for a while. He would pause now and then and set up a mournful howling. I set about route-finding. The world clarifies as I rise in it, as the world tends to do. Mountain folds unfold. The only activity I saw in the farm patches below was a team of oxen and a plowman stirring up a field, as several women behind stooped and rifled the earth with their hands, tossing loosened potatoes into piles. From such homely agriculture to the austere heights of marginal pastoralism and its droppings. Five and a half hours, and the clock demands that I pause. I've climbed quite a bit, though I wouldn't venture to put a number to it. My route-finding eye perceives that an early start and a direct northeast approach would have vouchsafed me yonder peak. But you don't know these things till you learn them. So I have my ascended picnic on a subsidiary knob, with snowcappers above, abysses below, and the mountain landscape between. I start my descent, pausing for a half hour when the condors swept forth to conduct their surveys. The sky gloomed, and they retreated to their eyries. The drizzle starts up. I took a steeper route down, through wildflowers and cactuses, aiming for the pastures and fields below. At length, I'm on a less demanding incline and ambling the country way between two stone fences. I walk a bit of the dirt road that serves this dead-end alpine valley, and cut downward again, on odd paths and along aqueducts and more stone fences, arousing mild interest among the beasts of the field. As for their masters, they got distant waves. In the dusk, the crumbling adobe outskirts of Cabanaconde. Three more minutes get me to the Plaza de Armas and my hotel. My shoes are soaked again, but that is the price of ambulatory bliss in a rainy environment. Wordsworth never addressed this topic in verse, so the burden falls on me. I'll get back to you on that. Tonight, two glasses of wine wash down the alpaca and fixings, as I was feeling excessive.

Tuesday, Apr 24

(When I came to the Colca Valley, I had no inkling that I'd be returning to Arequipa. Next stop was to be Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. But it transpires that the only direct link there from Chivay is by expensive tourist shuttle. I considered this, but it would get me there late. And by laying up back in Arequipa, I'll not be going to my grave having missed the Monasterio de Santa Catalina. So.....) ......In a timely fashion, I'm in the Plaza de Armas of Cabanaconde, waiting for the six o'clock bus for Chivay/Arequipa. This bus actually leaves at seven, a fact well known to the locals, who showed up in a genuinely timely fashion. Underway in due course. We stop at the great Mirador Cruz del Condor to let off a few tourists and a dozen local women, who busily pulled their bundles of trade goods out of the belly of the bus to set up shop for the day. The bus pulls away, with me on it, wishing always, always, to linger. The awesome terracing of the Colca Valley slips by, especially lovely around Maca. It's always there, whether my eyeballs are or not. Arrive Chivay, where we switch buses. Through the pampas and back to Arequipa. Cab to the Plaza de Armas, and I check into my old hotel. A quick shower, and I'm off to the monasterio. (I've gathered that "monasterio" and "convento" sometimes seem to have the opposite gender connotations as their English cognates ). This place is like a little walled city, which housed many a reverent nun from the earliest colonial days. (The modern sisters still have a separate section). I reverently amble the cloisters, cells, odd kitchens and cubbies, and religious spaces of this extensive little City of God. These women were cloistered, meaning no outside world for them. The ghosts of the sisters are very much present. Tomorrow, I'll lay eyes on another one of the wonders of the world, the lofty expanse of Lake Titicaca. Having a lovely time, wish you were here.

Arequipa 4/24

Island in the Sky

Wednesday, Apr 25

Packed, taxied, and at the bus station early. I was thinking I'd buy a ticket with a little lead time and get some breakfast. But the bus tout woman seized me, processed me, and kicked my ass into a bus that was just pulling away before I had time to object. Thanks to her decisive action, I had an early start, and the lengthy fast purified my body and soul. The scarcely populated landscape shifts gradually from rugged topography with scrubby plants to a more sweeping tableau with fluffy grasses. My sightseeing was hindered by my aisle seat position, which denied me curtain control. Why anyone would rather look at a curtain than the world is beyond me, but this is common everywhere, whether the sun is beating in or not. Through remarkably unlovely Juliaca. At last, Lake Titicaca reveals a bit of flesh. Six hours, arrive Puno. The bus station had a baggage check, so I was able to spend the afternoon exploring Puno by way of a hotel search. But first, I dive into the first comedore I see for the menu del dia, demonstrating again to myself how actual hunger makes for gustatory bliss, even if, as in this case, the food is a bit limp. Puno: A quite charming town, with narrow streets and reasonable traffic. It's rather lively, surely in part for its presence on the tourist trail. Hotel search: too many two star places, which is two too many stars for me. I found only one six dollar cheapster in the central area. It was dismal enough, but it had one of those bedsore inducing slabs, which I've decided really can't be borne. So I splurge at the next level, ten bucks. I like the place, though. It's got homey people, a terrace of sorts, and a sloping, dizziness- inducing, creaking wooden floor. I taxi my bag back to this hotel and go about inhabiting yet another town.

Thursday, Apr 26

I inhabit further, just puttering around, looking at stuff, grazing, doing little errands, and shaping up my short term intentions. Triciclo peddlers move passengers around in this town, at least in the flats. It's odd to ponder the port, with rows of boats up here at 12,500 feet. The indigenous women are mostly in bowlers here, which I think means that the Quechua language zone is giving way to the Aymara. I spend the late afternoon on a height above town at the statue of Manco Capac, an Inca bigwig, with the sun sinking its rays into my back, and into the town below and blue lake beyond. I had the spaghetti in a place where the pizza oven was out in the dining room. Nice on a frigid evening in a country without central heating. Two glasses of wine and nothing but Beatles songs complete the blissful scene.

Friday, Apr 27

Since there was a Bolivian consulate in Puno, I thought I'd get my visa there rather than at the border. That way, if they were insistent about me having a hotel reservation, of all ridiculous things, I'd have a town to fall back to and regroup. I got some forms and what I think is a visa, but the official directed me to pay my entry tax at the border. (They're welcome to it, but it's pretty exorbitant at $135. Nicaragua was about $25. Other countries were little or nothing). We'll see how it goes. My stay in Puno was extended by an hour, as my hosts had the doors locked and were not responding. So I had a second breakfast to supplement the nice, but skimpy one they had left out for me. The door was open upon my return. A taxi to the terminal for the regional combis. An hour and a quarter, arrive Juli, my last stop in Peru. Juli is the self described Rome of the Americas, possessed as it is of seven hills and venerable religious edifices. I engage a hotel on the plaza, where it seemed they were put a little off balance by having a guest. There was a lot of fussing with keys and who's in charge and whatnot. I waited while a room was cleaned for me. A hotel with no one attending, no guests, and no clean rooms. Kind of funny. I got oriented in the town, which is a small place, and took a long walk down to the dock sticking out into Lake Titicaca. Snow-capped peaks are arrayed across the water on the Bolivian shore. In an adjacent field, a man and a woman winnow grain in the mild breeze. As I'm about to leave Peru, I went for a Peruvian dinner classic, which on this trip I somehow hadn't quite yet ventured: a visit to a Pollo de la Brasura, where the one and only option is a quarter chicken, fries, and some kind of salad. I washed this down with an Inca Kola. Viva Peru!

Saturday, Apr 28

A day of plodding around a town of seven thousand people on an inland sea up in the sky, founded fifty-five years before the pilgrims showed up at Plymouth Rock. I climb half of one of the seven hills in the morning, to feast my eyes, and plot my holy pilgrimage to the religious edifices. These are many and grand for a town this size, as this was reportedly a Jesuit hot spot. The main church, San Pedro, is full of carved and gilded wood, and lots of great paintings. I watched a funeral come and go from here from the plaza, with drums, pan pipes, and bells. Two other old churches, San Juan Batista and La Asuncion, are now put to use as galleries for more big canvas religious art. All or most of these paintings were from the Cusqueña (from Cusco) tradition, painted by Andeans who the Spanish had put under tutelage and turned into masters. They were beautifully restored, with the characteristic reds and golds glowing. (Hence the six sol entry price). Both churches had very simple exteriors, with the tile roofs held up with timbers and cane. But there is Jesuit excess inside, with carved wood and a gold and silver altar in the former, and frescoes galore (where they're not painted over) in the later. The church Santa Cruz de Jerusalen was notable for its precarious state, with a collapsed roof covered with tin, and walls propped up with poles. I touched on the usual secular spots over the course of the day, too. In the late afternoon, I walked again out to the pier, again passing the winnowers pouring grain from plastic bowls in the light wind onto plastic sheets on the ground. Plump, coot-like waterfowl bob in the wavelets on the shore of the lake.

Sunday, Apr 29

It seems that Sunday is market day in Juli. It's a pretty small affair, perhaps because the energy is drawn off to neighboring Ilave's large Sunday market. I was tempted to take the combi there to visit, but desisted. (I'm tempted to do a lot of things, like revisit Cusco and the Sacred Valley, and sweep up the locales that I missed in '07. I never did see any of the finer Inca masonry on this pass through Peru. But the world is too large and lavish to do everything, though it pains me to pass by). I had a nice breakfast of rice, chicken wing, and odd, swept-together bits of french fries, lentils and vegetables in the mercado for a buck and a half. As I was leaving, a vendor caught me eyeing her sack of coca leaves, and she touted me into a purchase. I'd been meaning to chew some leaf, and this seemed a good way to bid adieu to Peru. So I softened up a wad in my cheek and chewed it up as I packed my bag. It numbed my cheek a little, but zipped me even less that a mate de coca. I'll try it again sometime with whatever the stuff is that the natives take with it to release the vital power. I complete a web task with my bag at my feet, and walk off to the lair of the combis. Soon underway. A quick and easy transfer at a crossroads village, and on to Yunguyo, the Peruvian border town. This traveler really needed to drain, which led him into a Polleria (a.k.a., a pollo de la brasura). Eight soles got me the use of the hole in the floor, and I was well fed and used up my coinage to boot. A mototaxi for the two or so miles to the border. I get stamped out of Peru. I bought a few bolivianos, but held off on a larger exchange, figuring, probably falsely, that I'd get a more competitive rate in town. (Rather then spending my soles down, I'd just gotten a big wad from an ATM, because the recent edition guidebook had said that the tourist-ready town of Copacabana had no ATM. Hard to believe, but I thought I'd better play it safe and buy that money twice - meaning from the bank and the money changer - It transpires that there is, of course, an ATM in Copacabana). I walk a few hundred yards to the Bolivian outpost of officialdom. It's open, but no one's around. The police at their station next door rummaged around and helpfully got us few waiters started with some forms. At length, the two immigration officers come panting in, dressed in their gym clothes, from their afternoon run. They got done with me and three others quickly, and then were swamped with a big tour bus. Glad I wasn't on the wrong side of that. A combi awaits to bear me the five miles to Copacabana. Dispensed in the plaza, I commence my tour. Copacabana is full of hotels, places to eat, and artesania shops. This is the first full strength tourist town I've been in on this trip. The gringo count is high, and there are a lot of vacationing Latin Americans. I engage a cheap place on a quiet street. I run across Sonja and Eva, the German girls from the jungle tour in Ecuador. They take a rain check on a beer this evening. So what does one do in a tourist town on one's first night in Bolivia? Eat Mexican.

Monday, Apr 30

In addition to the usual puttering and planning: In the forenoon, I climbed the hill to the south, to where the Incas had chipped holes among the standing slabs of vertical rock, to direct solstice sunlight to a sacred lintel they had hoisted up among said slabs. Afternoon, a pensive turn through the cemetery. I had the local trout in the mercado, among the dogs and pigeons, as the lunch crowd had cleared out. Late afternoon, I climb the northwest hill, past the stations of the cross, to the shrine at the top, for a fiery sunset over placid Lake Titicaca. And in the evening, I met up with Sonja and Eva. We find an amiable bar, and quaff a few beers.

Tuesday, May 1

Rising to beeps, I stretch myself and think, What could be finer than a morning voyage to the Island of the Sun? I pack up, and flip open my (accurate) pocket watch. Rise to ready came in at the usual forty minutes. But, doh, I'd not attended to my mental note to reset my alarm clock ahead an hour for the time change from Peru to Bolivia. So it looks like I'll be taking the afternoon boat. Not a disaster, but very, very inelegant. I got a few tasks in in the interim. In due course, I board the not very swift boat, and we commence crawling across the waters of this inland, upland sea. I'd gone up to the roof for the view, which put me among the international weed smokers. Gracias, pero, no gracias. An Aegeanesque land and waterscape reveals itself as we plod along. The awesome, icy whiteness of the Cordillera Real seems to loom larger as we go, though I think it was merely growing in my consciousness. Two hours, arrive island paradise. <(Where I'm at: La Isla del Sol. The name is rooted. The Incas had the sun being born here, as well as the human race. The island lies across a narrow straight from a peninsula on the Bolivian side of the great Lake Titicaca, a blue jewel the size of Delaware and Rhode Island together, puddled up here at 12,500 feet. The land mostly sprouts shrubs and scrubby stuff, where it's not being tilled by the 2500 residents. There are exposed sandstone faces, and groves of tall eucalyptus trees in odd folds and slopes. At five miles by two, it's easily encompassed. Its coastline reaches out with peninsulas and encloses bays, and is punctuated with islets offshore. It has 850 feet of relief. There are three villages, and no roads or motors. The people keep sheep, pigs, donkeys, and cows, in that order. It's all very Grecian, and the island seems to float in a sea of myth.)> I disembark at Challapampa, the northern, further village of the island. The boatload of tourists disperse into the little village, and I commence my explorations. The town is on an isthmus, with beaches front and back, and a lobe further up the slope. There are a few tiendas and little restaurants, mostly closed or unattended. Really nothing else in the way of businesses. There are quite a few hostals, including several new, half-erected, and seemingly dormant ones. The whole town seems semi-inhabited, and I wonder if the tourist infrastructure is waiting for high season, or if it merely represents hope. I settle in and step out. A community meeting is being held on the basketball court, with oratory, some of it verging on the heated. (I've left the vast Quechua language zone, and am now among Aymara speakers. Sounds a lot like Quechua to my untutored ear). The setting sun is lighting up land and water. I ascend a promontory adjacent to town to soak it all in, a little slap happy with travel lust, as this village and its setting is really something to be glad about. In the evening, I step into the one restaurant that had its lights on, a cramped, five-table operation. It got crowded, and I tabled up with Dmitri, a seaman, and a great intellect in the finest Russian tradition. Lofty volleys were exchanged, and we got pretty beery.

Wednesday. May 2

I rise with the words of a self-made man still ringing in my ears: "The brain is a muscle. If it is not exercised, it becomes weak. I will not be weak." Back to the same restaurant for breakfast, and to retrieve the bread and toilet paper I'd left there the night before. Iver, my ten-year-old waiter, scritches at his homework before school. Now, to tour the island. I take the low road, along the northeast coast, through the village of Challa, through walled and terraced farm patches, up into the heights, and in two hours total, to Yumani, the largest village, perched up high at the southern end of the island. I had expected Yumani to be a little more urbane, but aside from an internet place and a pharmacy, it's just like a large Challapampa, that is, an utterly rural village, with some (possibly overbuilt) tourist infrastructure. I look around, marveling at the quiet, and make my way, way, way down, to the dock, to gather any useful info that may be posted. I climb back up, dither some, but eventually find the path that would take me to an Incan ruin at the southern end of the island. A dog picked me up and accompanied me for the next couple of hours. She was a pleasant companion, but rather naughty, as she would chase the sheep full speed around the terraced slopes. Kind of funny. A dispersed and peaceful flock condensed into a white, flying carpet flowing over hill and dale, with a silly dog yipping behind. (A real contrast to the skilled labor of the actual sheepdogs I've seen). This dog loved me enough to whine when I disappeared into parts of the ruin inaccessible to her. The ruin was a sizable, mostly intact house, with the usual inscrutable little cells, passages, and niches. Back in Yumani, the dog finally left me when I paused for a mate de coca with some travelers I'd met before. Now, to take the high road the length of the island, back to my village at the northern end. This path, broad and edged with calf-high rocks, follows the undulating ridgeline in a way that evokes the Great Wall of China. The views are sublime, with the land dropping away on either hand to meet the blue lake surface below, in bays and arms and sheer headlands. On the highest point of the main body of the island, I pause for a picnic of bread and tuna and whatnot. The highest high point is on a large capstan-shaped appendage of the island, attached to the main by a low saddle between the two enclosed bays. I'll be climbing there, tomorrow. For now, to continue further along the high road, into the dusk, and into the moonlight (the moon on the waxing side of full, perfectly positioned for an evening stroll). Three and a half hours actual walking time, village to village, including quite an overshoot before the path turns back down to Challapampa. More travel talk with fellow travelers over dinner. To sleep with the sound of gentle surf on a beach in the sky.

Thursday, May 3

Up for the sunrise on the beach. I read for a while on a rock, as people and animals with their respective burdens pass by. I putter around some in the morning and watch as a boat discharges a load of tourists. I've figured out that a lot of the people who visit the island are daytrippers, either hanging out at one end or the other and looking at the ruins, or walking the high or low road village to village and hopping the boat back to Copacabana. It's time for a walk, but I let my fellow tourists get ahead of me on the trail to the ruins. I had an embarrassing moment involving myself and another ass. I had an impulse to get a photo of a rather bedraggled donkey on the path. The photo never happened, as I couldn't get any distance from the friendly beast, who wanted to rub his flea-bitten face into my pants. But as I blindly maneuvered, it turns out I was blocking the way of a very old woman, driving another donkey and a few sheep around the bend. Her hisses were, I'm sure, directed as much at me as to her animals, as she looked pretty disgusted. I excused myself, but stood convicted. I was caught red-handed being a doofus tourist by a red-blooded peasant going about her unfrivolous, earthbound business. I can only laugh at the unfunny funniness of this silly moment. I pause along a side trail and write for awhile to let my fellow tourists get the their fill of the ruin, and then follow in their footsteps. The ruin is a large maze of rooms, presumably roofed back in the day, but now open to the sky. Nearby is a wall with niches, for idols, so they say. There was also a kind of altar, which I declined to photograph, as a shaman was there blessing a couple of tourists. I climb the nearby knob at the northern extremity of the island, chat with a sojourner awhile, and study the lay of the land. Now, for the big climb of the day, to the highest point on the island, on the western appendage. I take the high road to get into position. Then a big descent, to the saddle between the bays. I started climbing again, and ended up taking a longer and more gradual approach than the one I'd projected. This brought me in rather low on the ridge, with a long walk up. No cracks or chasms or problems. Just a series of false summits, which didn't surprise me. At length, the summit cairn. All I survey lords it over me. A picnic ensues. The whole island is in sight, floating in the blue; compact, yet seeming large. Evening sun glints off the white ice of the Cordillera Real far across the lake. I didn't have time to linger, unfortunately. I had some perspective now, and took a more plunging route down, which connected me with the path I'd originally intended to take. After bottoming out, I took a more abrupt route back up to the high road, following a path that a shepherd and his flock showed me was doable. With the broad and well-trod high road under my feet, and the vastness around, I walk into the evening light, twilight, dusk, and moonlight. The moon is quite upside down in these southern climes, but it does its job fully symmetrically. I finally got a grasp on the stars this evening, as I had a country sky, and no clouds to hinder a comprehensive view. The big dipper hung low in the north, pointing at an offstage north star, buried forever at these latitudes. I got the zodiac figured out by facing south with my head flopped back all the way and my eyeballs rolled upward. I then rotated a half turn, kept my balance, straightened my neck, and saw things from a new perspective. I have exercised and strengthened my brain. Still, having the celestial pivot in the south hurts my head. I wonder how people down here can avoid walking into walls with this kind of astronomy. And then there is the whole stella incognita around the southern pole. This I will leave mostly unknown but for the Southern Cross and its relationship with Alpha and Beta Centauri, which I have fixed forever in my memory. - To dine, again on the trout of the lake. Iver is at his homework again. He likes my ninety-nine cent mechanical pencil and wants me to give it to him. I demure, but he does get two bolivianos, as he is my waiter.

Friday, May 4

The sunrises in the west....doh!.....I mean east, to arc its way perversely through the northern sky. I don't fight the situation. What to do on my third full day on the Island of the Sun? Make another round, of course. I pass through Challa again on the low road, this time ambling into its further reaches. I find my up through the farm patches and pastures and folds of land to the high road, and thence into Yumani. The internet lady was closed for the day, so I thought I'd have a little lunch down at the comedor by the dock. A meal well worth the descent and subsequent climb. My legs have been feeling like pistons, my lungs are well-adapted to the rarified atmosphere, and my soul is grateful. Again I stride the high road in the late afternoon and evening, aiming to shut off the internal dialog, and let the world unfold itself wordlessly. Pausing on a knob, I share my crackers with a hungry shepherd boy who'd given up for the moment trying to draw his flock up a slope. (I've never heard a shepherd baa at sheep before, but that's what he was doing). I saw a lot of intimate country scenes on this day. Back to Challapampa in my customary moonlight. I'd decided I'd been a little closed-fisted with Iver, so I approach his restaurant with a pencil and a plan. I thought I'd run through Dimitri's dictum in English and Spanish with this scholarly kid, if I could hold his attention, and thus model my inabilities and abilities and the use of the dictionary. But as they were closing early for some reason, and clearing out their last customers, the kid got the short version, the pencil, and spare leads and erasers to mull over.

Saturday, May 5

All idylls must come to an end. I'm at the dock awaiting the 10:30 boat. A few of the international hippies have rolled up their tents and are waiting too, but there are not nearly enough people to fill a boat. So it transpires that there will be no 10:30 departure, but that the 1:30 boat will leave regardless. The downside is that I won't make it to La Paz today, as I'm unwilling to arrive there after dark. And I'll be inelegantly stuck in Copacabana. The upside is that with an early Sunday arrival in La Paz, and a baggage check said to be at the bus terminal, I'll have leisure to make a satisfactory hotel search. But for now, I have time, which is easily spent in what passes for a plaza here in Challapampa. It's a courtyard of cobbles and sprouting grass, closed in but for two walkways by the church, and a break in the wall opposite. The buildings are mostly vacant, and I've never seen the space put to use. As I sit in the quiet and shade, a few kids pass through, aiming for that break in the wall, including Iver, who has a big smile for me. Otherwise, only one snuffling pig. Lots of butterflies, though. At length, I relocate dockside, and have a sandwich, banana, and a mate de coca in a patch of shade. One of the Argentine hippies who had made pests of themselves busking in every restaurant, every night, was playing his guitar unobtrusively and rather sweetly near the dock. I had refused to cough up the last couple of nights, but as he now didn't have me cornered, and was moving my soul, I dropped a few bolivianos in the hat hanging off his guitar, called him brother, and wept. It's all true except the last part. At 1:30, the boat is half-filled, and pulls away from the Island of the Sun. I've again installed myself on the roof, to enjoy the paradisiacal passage in reverse. But it emerges in our travel banter up there that we're sailing into a problem. An elderly French couple let it be known that Copacabana is seriously booked up for the Festival of the Cross. I was vaguely aware of the event, but in my blithe way didn't think of it in the dire terms in which it was now being presented. We landed, and I quickly find a price-jacked room in a too-nice place. That seemed easy, so I declined and went out to at least try a few cheap places. Quite full. I pulled my head out and went back to snap up the expensive place. Secure and therefore happy, I step out into the festivities. I ran across the German girl from the boat. She'd been searching while her French friend guarded their bags at the dock. Ten strikes. I directed her to my hotel, where they did have a room for them. The Fiesta de la Cruz is evidently a very big deal in this town. The dancers and musicians parading down the street are way too numerous to actually be from Copacabana. (And they need hotel rooms as well as the visiting partiers). The music and costume and dance were voluminous and flamboyant and festive. I decided that being stuck this evening in Copacabana was in fact quite elegant. After attending for awhile, I ducked out to get a bite in the mercado. I'm in and out of the party between web tasks and a late dinner. Drunkenness in the name of the Cross got pretty advanced, and even some of the venerable ladies seemed a little unsteady. Late in the evening the brass bands had condensed and were holding their own against the amplified band on a stage across the way. How many tubas does it take to contend with one electric bass? Come to Copacabana, Bolivia, to find out.

Sunday, May 6

I'd been lulled to sleep at midnight by the brass and drums, and awoke to their joyful noise at 6:30. Breakfast was included at my luxurious digs, as well as a towel and hot water, so I availed myself of these amenities. Then out to the steep streets and steep morning sun, to marvel at the sheer doggedness of the revelers. You'd think that the trumpet players would have blown out their cheeks by this time. Yet the streets are still crowded with performers who haven't slept. And they kept it up through the morning. My efforts to get an actual ticket for the supposed comfortable and secure 9:00 bus to La Paz did not avail, so I'll let myself be touted aboard whatever conveyance is first in line at the plaza, which seem to leave at frequent intervals. And this leaves me time, O Readers, to actually get this growing post posted. To the capital....

Copacabana, Bolivia 5/6

Canyon City

.....at Copacabana's plaza, I lean on the bus that will bear me away, with a lava flow of festivity passing by. A Bolivian gent approaches to chat. He informs me that these cadres of performers are professional fraternities, that they perform all the time, and that Bolivia exports their talents to neighboring countries. Also, that a transit strike commences tomorrow in La Paz. Good to know. After a long wait, the bus pushes its way through the crowd and climbs out of town. Great sweeping vistas of the altiplano, Lake Titicaca, and the snowy mountains. This journey involved a ferry crossing over a neck of the lake. The bus went on a barge, and us people packed into a boat. We penetrate the huge brick suburb of El Alto (the Aymara capital of the world), and then plunge off the high plain into the canyon that contains the metropolis of La Paz, its buildings clinging dramatically to the walls. The bus terminated not at the terminal, but in a street somewhere. Figuring out where I was and where to go was a minor feat of orienteering and linguistics. As I was close to a guidebook recommended hotel, I walked there and engaged it without the usual looking around, as it was now late afternoon, and I was uncertain of the neighborhood. But the neighborhood was fine, of course. I was in the broad center, and I soon sniffed out the tourist ghetto. La Paz is a big, urbane, amiably scruffy place. I'll be pleased to make its acquaintance.

Monday, May 7

My hotel was acceptable, but since I'll be in La Paz awhile, I went in search of more coolness. My searches turned up mediocrities, price surprises, and footboards on beds, pure evil to a lengthy person. The one place that was a definite improvement had been snapped up when I returned, before noon, with my pack. So then, to option number two. Now to see about getting a pair of glasses made, since I know I'll be here awhile. It turns out that this takes one day in La Paz, perhaps in Latin America generally. I had never considered asking about this before playing Charlie Brown to Fedex's Lucy-with-the-football. (Which, remember, was supposed to work like a dream). Since the major chain I've used in the US, the world mecca of customer service, says two weeks and means four days, I assumed that this standard would be unbeatable. It followed that I'd never be in one place long enough to wait, and risk further delay. Another travel assumption.... poof! - I have the good fortune to be in La Paz during a transit strike. The drivers have parked their blue buses strategically at major intersections, effectively reducing traffic to a trickle. Everything seems so peaceful, the riot police seem redundant. It was eery and joyful to be a two-legger among two-leggers taking over the streets of a metropolis, with the usual stampede of our four-wheeled beasts somewhere far away. People needed to get where they're going, so power walking was the order of the day. As La Paz occupies a canyon, the streets are accordingly steep, with some equipped with stairs. The people clamber around blithely like mountain goats. I can't help but think what would happen if Minnesotans were transported into this environment. They would end up in heaps at the bottom of the lower intersections, flopping and gasping like stranded buffalo fish. - Evening, plaza. A singer with crutches and an upturned hat holds forth. He has the bad fortune of twisted up legs, and the good fortune of a voice reaching towards Roy Orbeson's.

Tuesday, May 8

Peace still reigns in the streets of La Paz. I attend to the body, by way of laundry, a haircut, and acquiring the prosthetic that will correct my vision. Also, lots of insatiable grazing on delicacies high and low, including yet another papa rellena (common also in Peru), a stuffed potato, with which one happily stuffs oneself. Plaza Murillo, fronted by the cathedral and presidential palace, is the most pigeony plaza I've ever encountered. The swarms are carpet-like on the ground, and cloud-like aloft. Cholitas (the term for Andean women who have come to the city, but persist in traditional attire), vend packets of feed, and people offer themselves up as perches for the flapping multitudes.

Wednesday, May 9

The traffic is back to normal, mostly, along with its various ills. Somewhere beyond my touristic eye, the bus drivers have won big, or released tension, or made a vague gesture. But the main artery is still blocked off, this time by the police, to provide a venue for cadres of public employees and health care workers to shout to the skies. A lot of marching takes place south of the Rio Grande. Though I imagine it's mostly ineffectual, it is political, and social, and not stay-at-home passive, so I bow in appreciation. - I spend this day in wanderings and researches.

Thursday, May 10

Time to get a proper perspective on this canyon city. In the morning light I start climbing, past Plaza Murillo, up winding streets and concrete stairways between closely built houses. I was aiming for the mirador (viewpoint park), but I missed and rose well above it. La Paz said behold, and I beheld. The walls of the urban canyon are completely built up, with nature baring her bosom only on the sheerest slopes. Unseen in the crease at the bottom lies a thin river, subterranean in its upper reaches, that carries away the excreta and laundry detergent of 2.5 million. I descend. Wanderings and researches ensue.

Friday, May 11

La Paz is a fine and fascinating city, and an excellent venue for a bout of travel paralysis. The time has come for me to flop around and gasp like a stranded buffalo fish. The paralysis was of a piece with the Patagonia decision crisis. (See homepage update). Then there was the prospect of what to do with myself, and how, here from La Paz. I've been buried in info, logistics, detail, possibility, questing for maps, purpose puzzling, and existentialism generally. I have quite lost sight of the forest for the trees. I even spent part of yesterday shopping for the shoes I won't be needing in Patagonia, as Patagonia was slipping below my horizon. My little life as a self indulgent tourist is not at the moment falling into place. There are quite a few of us tourists wandering around here, but there are even more tour agencies, and their mere presence on the street is not helpful. I knew I'd do a tour or two in Bolivia, but the hunger, hype, thumb-twiddling, and sheer numbers of these agencies freak me out. How did I get so swept up in the I-94 of the Gringo Trail? But I shall overcome. - A calming gesture toward entropy comes in the evening in the form of a power outage. The candles were already lit where I was dining. My hotel was only a few doors down, well within groping distance.

Saturday, May 12

I've got something of a plan in place. In spite of spending a week noodling around La Paz, I'll probably be returning to it more than once, as there are a lot of points of interest nearby, and all roads want to return to it. In the morn, I'll be off to Sorata, a small town with an interesting hinterland.

La Paz 5/12

Long Pause

Sunday, May 13

Why take a taxi when one is still young? Bag on back, I climb the market streets. A street preacher holds forth amid the commercial bustle. Just because La Paz is a big city doesn't mean that women won't butcher whole hogs on the street and vend the chunks, with no visible means of washing their hands. A steady climb, and I arrive at the lair of the regional combi company. We are soon underway in a fourteen seat van, not even packed. The packing would come later. At the top of the urban canyon, the combi gets seriously bogged down in a crowded Sunday market. In fact, it was stop and go getting through vast El Alto. But at length the altiplano opens up. We skirt a bit of the shore of Lago Titicaca (I'm going generally north, and backtracking part of the route from Copacabana). The frozen Cordillera Real is ranged across and beyond the expanse of open rolling country. We work down into creases and the slopes green up. Little villages are perched here and there. Sorata comes into view, hanging at the juncture of two converging valleys, and at the bottom of many serpentine windings. The town is somehow 3700 feet lower than Lago Titicaca, though it's only thirteen miles away as the crow flies, and between it and a great mountain range. Go figure, topographically. But at 8800 feet, it is green and warm. Three and a half hours, arrive Sorata. This is a town of only 2200 people. I step out of the combi and plant myself under the big palms that shade the plaza. In spite of having just come off a long bout of puttering in La Paz, I feel quite refreshed, and can see puttering in this setting quite happily. The hotel I engaged at the corner of the plaza is a real gem. Old, cavernous, lofty, with sloping, cobbled courtyards, and escheresque stairways everywhere. It was built in 1895, though the style is older, as a mansion for a quinine tycoon. It was later passed on to a rubber tycoon, from whom it takes its name: Casa Gunther. I'm in an enormous room up a mountain of stairs, with twelve foot ceilings, a brick floor, and a terrace looking over the rooftops and at the plunging, green slopes of the valley opening up below town. There are three creaky, ancient beds. Four bucks. It's market day in the streets. I pick up a few items and graze as I make my rounds. In the eve, I bring back a bottle of wine to my hotel to nurse over the upcoming nights, as the setting really calls for it.

Monday, May 14

I've got a sunny, shady, quiet, mellow, charming hotel in a small town that shares these qualities. I'll be lingering here. Today, I just soaked it all up, sitting in the plaza, or studying in my palatial hotel room, above the rooftops and open to the world, or probing the peripheries of the town. Tomorrow, I have a big climb planned. I know the way to get started out of town, and have some thin instructions, but no map. My goals are, in order: 1) not get lost 2) gain some height 3) make a creditable effort to get to Laguna Chillata 4) get to Laguna Chillata. We'll see how it goes.

Tuesday, May 15

The roosters are strangely mute in this town, but the combi hawkers were heralding the morning, calling out for La Paz, as if passengers wouldn't come if not beckoned. At seven, in the first peeking rays, I am stepping up and out of town. The precipitous valley I am to ascend lies before me. I remind myself to keep my eyes and memory sharp for the whole ascent, and to be alert to the lay of the land. Up steadily through woods and fallow plots and patches of corn. The scarecrows hereabouts are well made, and succeed in slightly scaring me. I pass many uniformed kids with their backpacks coming down the path from the village of Jumuco, on their way to school in Sorata. In the afternoon, they'll climb back up for an hour, playing, scheming, flirting, throwing rocks, giggling, digesting their lessons, seeing things for the thousandth time, or for the first time. Meanwhile, far to the north, our cosseted little butterballs are being chauffeured home direct, either in mom's minivan or in their own dedicated public transport system, so as to not lose any facebook time. At length, I come down to a bridge over the tumbling mountain stream. Crossing to the other side of the tight, V-shaped valley, I went from morning shade to morning sun. I disrobe accordingly. I steeply ascend the most plausible path, pass through a village, make inquiries (I was navigating by place name, a little uncertainly), and grope my way upward, out of the steep, green, cultivated valley, up into pastoral uplands. An elderly shepherdess encourages me to go upwards, ever upwards, which was nice. Much of the walk was on a more or less intact two-track. This ended abruptly up among some grand, elevated knobs. I pause and reconnoiter. I'd been fairly confident that I was on the right track, and close to my arbitrary goal of Laguna (lake) Chillata, but now had to wonder. Topographically, it might be tucked up beyond yonder ridgeline, and at the roots of mighty Illampu. But there was no trace of a trail anywhere in the turf, nor did the monocular reveal any such up on the ridgeline, which there really should have been, as this destination enjoys some popularity. Attaining the ridge would have entailed a drop into the turfy bowl and then a fairly stiff ascent. With this uncertainty, the great peaks now enshrouded, my drop-dead sit-down-and-picnic time only forty-five minutes away, and a very nice stone barcalounger right at hand, I stopped where I was and opted for an extra long picnic, which I commenced forthwith. I feast on bread, sardines, crackers, cheese, cookies, and juice as I face the unseen peak before me, truly monstrous at 20,892 feet, catching a few quick glimpses of root or summit through the passing cloud. (This peak, Illampu, and its companions ranging south, were the mountains I admired daily across Lago Titicaca from Isla del Sol. And every day I saw from afar their middle, and then upper levels, collect clouds as the day advanced). Not having attained the lake, I'm not sure how much of the five thousand foot climb I'd made, but it would have to be close to the whole, and have put me somewhere above thirteen thousand feet. I certainly felt ascended. I'd been observing a large, charismatic bird perched on yonder cliff, and was surprised when he swooped in to join me. Of course, he got some bread and a bit of sardine. He was big, with a raptor's beak, mostly black with white underparts, a red face, and comic yellow legs. Also present in the peaceable kingdom were two viscachas frolicking in the rocks. They are chinchilla-like creatures, but look like rabbits with long, curling tails. The time comes for turning. It had been five and a half hours coming up. I figured on four hours down with a fair safety margin. I commence foot-plopping downward. For all my efforts to keep myself oriented on the way up, on the way down I managed to get derailed in the pastureland, and took an alternate route into the cultivated reaches. I had the usual moments of confusion and super-reasoning over this, facilitated by head-scratching, but it all worked out in the end, as it always does, knock wood. Inquiries helped, mostly, though replies coming from six-year-olds or shepherd girls fearing rape were a little dubious. (Garbling the word for bridge didn't help. "Puente", not "punto," which means "point"). At length, familiar landmarks line up properly and I converge with my upbound route. I pass through the village where a man had reassured me on my way up that I was on the right path. I reassured him on my way down that all went well. Seemingly everyone in the village was present at a discussion being held around the hind-quarter of a hog in a wheelbarrow. Down through the corn and the scarecrows to the bridge deep in the crack of the valley. Further descents, for upwards of five thousand feet is a lot to do and undo. Back in Sorata in the twilight.

Wednesday, May 16

Eleven hours of sleep for my well ascended body. I throw open the doors to the full length, gated window and let in the morning light. I do this in the nude for extra dramatic effect. A day of leisure commences. I spectate as kids run around the futbol field. Several balls are in play, and the dogs need to be quick to avoid being trampled. She scores! (A follow up on yesterday's climb: The clouds stayed off the peaks this day till late afternoon. Looking up with monocular from the plaza, I had a good idea of where I'd picnicked yesterday. The tourist office was finally open, and they had a small scale but informative map on display. I couldn't tell much from the contour lines, but lining up the lake with Illampu and the town, I figured I had indeed been in the right vicinity. )

Thursday, May 17

A day of leisure commences. The plaza sitters point out a paraglider up yonder, suspended in the heavens like a dandelion puff. I drift with him in spirit. In the afternoon, I undertake a climb of the local knob, Cerro Iminapa, at 10,735 feet, a 1900 foot climb above Sorata. I took the road most of the way, which entailed breathing through my sleeve every time a vehicle passed, which wasn't often, fortunately. Lots of steep corn. One wonders how with years of tilling, the soil doesn't just end up working its way downhill. (Maybe it does). Sorata spills prettily off its shelf down below. At length, the village of Laripata, arrayed below the saddle adjoining the peak. The kids are down in the field, kicking balls around, while others make a racket with their brass instruments, beautiful because purposeful. The radio tower marking the summit seems to be right there, but summits always play hard to get. There were quite a few switchbacks yet around the flank of the mountain. I passed through some fields and past a farmhouse as I neared the summit. The people there seemed a little put off by my presence. I attain the summit, and behold accordingly. All around, the earth is enfolded upon itself voluptuously. The summit of great Illampu rises through its mantle of cloud. At yonder shrine, across a little soccer field (of all things up here), there is a man seemingly at prayer. When he stands up and reenters the profane world, we wave, and he steps away to a little brick house. I imagine he's the caretaker of the radio apparatus. I do not linger, as the three hours up was more than I had counted on. (That road had some very lengthy switchbacks). Passing the farmhouse on the way back down, the people warm up to me some as I befriend their dog. (I had learned his name, Chaco, which is common enough). I took an alternate way down which I had spotted, which bypassed the switchbacks and speeded my descent. Nevertheless, I entered the town in the dark, with crickets chirping, murmurs from roadside houses, and human shapes on the road with whom to exchange a shadowy buenas noches. Final steps up to the plaza, a turn into my hotel, a hot shower, and dinner on the sidewalk at the corner of the plaza of a very agreeable little town. What could be finer than this?

Friday, May 18

The loci of my leisure today was the plaza, my sunny and airy hotel room, and a sylvan cafe/ecolodge a little ways out of town. I'd include the internet place, but there's a whiff of work about that.

Saturday, May 19

Today is the grand day of the second annual Feria de la Chirimoya y Frutas de la Epoca (Custard and Fruit of the Season Fair). The streets around the plaza were parked up, and stands were set up with weird green fruits in piles, but I saw no sign of custard. I thought I'd let some momentum build, and went off for a half-day walk. Down valley I go on a dirt road carved into the steep, roll-to-your-death slope. Gorgeous vistas of the plunging valley, the local peaks, the giant heavenly peaks up valley (enshrouded soon enough), badland formations in the lower levels, Sorata on its sloping shelf, and little villages with farm patches in unlikely places. In two hours, I pass a village arranged around a soccer field, pause for a picnic, and approach my arbitrary destination, the local cave, la Gruta de San Pedro. There was a tourist handling booth set up to take an admission fee. The entry passage required that I stoop my outlandish frame in spots as I plunged into the netherworld. But soon the space opened into a large, lengthy chamber. The whole place was strung with dim electric lights. A boatman was eerily present. I declined his offer to ferry me into the lake in a plastic peddle boat, not knowing quite what this portended. But I walked the length of the short lake on the path carved up on its side, holding on to the rope railing. The space was not adorned with any weird formations, and I saw no bats. But I felt the weight of the mountain above, the heaviness of the bound air, and the heat of hellfire below. Though I'm no spelunker, this was certainly the most cavernous cave in my experience. I emerge, blinking like a creature not yet named. On my walk back, I am strafed with raucous cries from a squadron of green parrots. I come across a couple of ten-year-olds and play a little vocabulary with them. I got their dirty English words soon enough, and diverted them to the temple of the body, waist up. I got the Spanish and Aymara for this and that. They had no Aymara word for elbow, and implied that the Spanish was used, but I wonder if an adult would concur with that. Back in town. Not much going on with the custard-fruit gathering. The soccer game on the tube seems to be a big one, though. The sunset beamed me warmly in the face as I sat outside my hotel room sewing up some undone stitches in my trusty shoes. About again in the town, I hear the sound of brass and drums starting up in the enclosed basketball arena. I didn't venture in, as I perceived this to be a Sorateña thing. Could this at last have something to do with the custard? Later, I attended remotely, sitting at my gated window with candle and wine, the music reaching my open ear from over the plaza and rooftops. The horns and percussion were now accompanied by a host of voices. The sections trade off, marching low and striding high, driving on without a rest. The cadences were Andean, but the thrust was pure Ode to Joy.

Sunday, May 20

Sunday is market day in Sorata. This means that there are about twice as many vegetable ladies on the street, several fruit trucks parked by the plaza, and a few extra street food vendors have set up operations. This sounds country-idyllic, but all is not well in Eden. In the evening, after my hour-long walk to and from the ecolodge for a good cup of coffee, I was sitting in the dark in the plaza, spearing the elements of a salchipapa (sausage slices and french fries) with the provided toothpick, and saving a select sausage for the dog who was looking at me with such purity of desire, when...... an altercation erupted on the street. It was all verbal, but very passionate, between two men, with side volleys from a woman. I was amused to see everyone in earshot, not just the boys and young men, but everyone, down to the last little old lady in her bowler, gather in to spectate, some at a trot. By the time I flipped the dog his sausage, the street was filled and the squabble had become theater. No one intervened, and I left before the resolution, as this gathering was too intimate for me as an outsider.

Monday, May 21

The pitter-patter of little feet on the street below my window (kids on the way to school) suggest that it's time to get up. This street, like most of the streets in Sorata, is too narrow, and too consisting of stairs, to admit vehicle traffic. This makes for tranquillity, and audible details like the pitter-patter of little feet. A day of leisure, and web tasks, ensues. My excursion for the day was a descent through the neighborhood that dribbles down the shelf that Sorata sits on, toward the convergence of the valleys. I expected this to be newly constructed sprawl, but it was mostly old adobe. Houses give way to lush woods. At the first stream crossing, I turn back up, foregoing the confluence, as this valley really keeps on plunging. Do I detect a whiff ...... of the Amazon? On the way down, I had passed a captive pig on the side of the path, bound with the usual cruel, three-foot length of rope. When he saw me, he grunted and oinked imploringly, hoping that I might be the one to set him free. When I passed again coming up, he really cried out in desperation. What could I do but slink away? It would be a mercy to eat him. Though many pigs down here enjoy total freedom, still, the three foot rope is common. Why not twelve foot, I don't know.

Tuesday, May 22

Another day just is. But in the evening, something is afoot in Sorata. The band struck up, and lured me to investigate. A long, thick line was working its way into a building on the plaza. The Lucha Libre fighters have descended upon the town, and everyone has shown up to attend. That line wasn't moving, so I figured I had time to grab a quick cena (a set dinner - this is what you get, and you're going to eat it and like it). Businesses were closing early under the pull of the event, but there was a cena place open across the plaza from the slow-moving line. As I wolfed my chicken and rice, the band launched into what had to be the national anthem. The entertainments had commenced, but when I approached, the line was still way out into the street. I leaned against the fence of the plaza with a row of observant ladies, and joined the line only when it got with spitting distance of the door. At fifteen Bolivianos a head, and with a fair slice of the whole populace within, I think the promoters were doing quite well. The doors led through a public building to an outdoor space in back. The basketball court with the wrestler's ring was the only finished surface. The heads and bodies of the packed-in audience sloped upward as though they were in bleachers, but (as I saw the next day in the light) they were all sitting or standing on piles of concrete rubble and the gouged earth of an abandoned foundation dig. Directly over the heads of the main section of spectators was a long concrete beam with rebar sticking out of it, approachable only with a flying leap from either end. With that lovable Latin American indifference to physical safety, it was lined up with boys sitting shoulder to shoulder. I found a place to stand against the wall of the building. A man vs cholita bout was underway (I had learned of the fighting cholita phenomenon back in La Paz. And I've figured out that "cholita" is used broadly for any traditionally dressed Andean woman, regardless of whether she lives in city or country). Blessings be upon them, their skills were not up to our pro-wrestling standards. The gymnastics were obviously practiced, or otherwise they'd get hurt. But they needed to work on conveying the illusion of momentum. Two more man vs cholita bouts took place. These followed the form of our familiar drama-wrestling, but with the added visual detail of splashing petticoats when the cholita took a fall. Though much abused, the women were always declared the winner by acclamation. I was surprised to find that the program included performances by locals as well as the traveling circus people. (I'm sure the ten-piece band was also local). Next up was a kind of dance-promenade by the young beauties of the town. The came out one by one and stepped around in the space in front of the ring, swirling their skirts to recorded Andean music. (Short skirts - these girls were not, for the moment anyway, cholitas). For a second round they were joined by young gentlemen. The girls in the crowd who were in the Barbie-to-Hannah Montana stage of life got very excited about this and jumped like kangaroos to catch a glimpse over taller heads. The town madman stepped forward from the crowd and joined in, sparking much amusement. (This madman, a young, smelly, unkempt fellow, was happier and more sociable than is typical among the mad. I'd noticed before that he liked to be where people were. His affliction was real, though. You don't make those quirks up. He was in and out of the action for the rest of the night. People stopped laughing, but he was treated indulgently, as he is throughout the day in town. He was a good dancer, by the way, and a good mock-fighter). Next up was a man-to-man fight between a Batman/Creature from the Black Lagoon hybrid and a guy who was merely dazzling. This battle went on for quite a while, with other participants stepping in from time to time. I can't say who won. (This is all a little boring, to tell the truth). Next up was another dance-promenade, this time of the local cholitas (no gentlemen accompanying), swirling around and displaying their finest dresses and accessories. Next, an all girl fight. A cholita in red came out and easily solicited praises for herself. Her opponent, in purple, went for the opposite effect. She came out growling abuse, scattering water and chalk dust at the crowd, kicking at rubbish, and scaring the crap out of the little kids. Thus, she established her unpopularity. The battle was joined. It was fierce, with pulled braids and splashing petticoats, but in the end goodness prevailed. The little kids swarmed out to jump around and cheer the victory of their champion over the wicked cholita who had scared them so cruelly. Next up, the well-dressed local cholitas stepped out again, en masse, swirling their ample apparel and selves to loungy music. Evidently, this was a beauty pageant. Judges were lined up at long tables (which wrestlers straying from the ring had upset a number of times). I say beauty, but I think that the sartorial taste and tailoring skills of the ladies was what was actually being contested. Because let's face it, after their girlhood, Andean women begin to resemble the mountains they live in. The dresses are fulsome, and with the bowler at the apex, the conical effect is complete. I'll never know how much is petticoat and how much is flesh, but in either case, it's plenty. Bless their hearts. As the drama was not killing me, I didn't stick around for the decision. After two and a half hours of standing, my back was starting to hurt. About half the crowd had filtered out by this time, and the social contract had begun to unravel. Kids and dogs were wandering the performance space and diverting attention from the cholitas. But it is notable how this event held together as well and as long as it did. The entertainment was thin, and the pace plodding, with regular dead spots. Judging by their faces, the people were not at all overwhelmed. But still, this was an event, and in a town of 2200, people show up at events. I include those not actually within, such as the penniless teenagers hanging out on the street, and venerable old ladies keeping watch.

Wednesday, May 23

Another day in Sorata. Midday, from the plaza, I note that the clouds are mostly off the peaks. I've been toying with the idea, and am now resolved. I'm going back up there. Not all the way up there, of course. I'm not Sir Edmund Hillary. But up to touch the hem of Illampu's garment. A journey redone is a journey renewed. I'll aim for Laguna Chillata again, and with an early start and good fortune, I'll get up to the ridge I stopped short of before, and get a clear and close view into sublimity.

Thursday, May 24

Under a black sky and morning stars, I climb a narrow street up and out of Sorata. The morning unfolds as I make my way to the bridge. I cross, and venture a steep shortcut. These people really know how to channel water into their sloping fields. Birds are chirping. I'm well up the side of the valley before the first sunbeam reaches around a mountain to lave me. I connect with the vehicle track that twists its way laboriously upward, and grind this out like a juggernaut. Four and a half hours, arrive stone barcalounger that marked the highest point of my walk nine days ago. My goal for the day, aside from just walking, was to ascend to yonder ridge, rise above and beyond, and see what was to be seen. I dip into the turf bowl at my feet, and commence route-finding my way upwards. Gaining the ridge, I see no Laguna Chillata (as I thought I might have), but rather a dip, with further and higher local horizons beyond. I continue, keeping a close, backward eye on my route. A little round lake comes into view below me. I take this (too easily, and falsely) to be Laguna Chillata. As it seemed no great shakes, I preferred to keep climbing rather than go down and visit it. I aim for another apparent horizon and arrive, quite by surprise, at a sheer precipice. Time to pause. Fate has chosen for me a prime picnic spot. At my feet, a voluminous abyss, with regal Illampu rising out of its far slope. I pick a spot to sit down and lunch far enough from the edge for my digestion to not be upset. I have two hours to gaze at Illampu and Ancohuma, and their chunky glaciers and wind-sculpted snowfields. I had them in the clear at first, then fading in and out of stalking cloud, and at last enshrouded. From this vantage point, I at last discovered the elusive Lago Chillata. It was not the little lake in the bowl I'd seen just below. It was perched on a shelf way back, tucked up in the knobs above and to the left of my old position down there in the barcalounger. I had climbed way past and well above it. A couple of tents were pitched on the shore. I spy on the inhabitants with the monocular as they go about their ablutions. The time comes for turning. I decline to visit the lake, as there was no way to traverse over without a big descent and reascent. So I retrace my steps, more or less. The viscachas, I note, dash about more like cats than like rabbits. Many a poetical scene of shepherdesses and their flocks as I made my way down. One shepherd girl was particularly striking. She stood bolt-upright, wrapped in her colors, above and quite apart from her flock. In this aloof posture, she seemed positively divine. No photographs to convey and distort these intimacies, of course. But do come to Bolivia, and be lulled by the pastoral. I work my way down from the grazing land and into the corn. From scattered farmhouses to a clump of farmhouses. This would be the village of Kholani. I pass through and down to the bridge. I walk, and my buenas tardes segues into buenas noches. Starlight on the path, and down into humanely ill-lit Sorata.

Friday, May 25

Another day in Sorata.

Saturday, May 26

And yet another day in Sorata. This is my last. My time sense is astonished that I've been here two full weeks. When I arrived, I was thinking maybe five days. This setting and my mood directed me to be more lavish. Besides hiking around, as detailed above, I have........... walked the streets of the town, and its inner peripheries, and outer vistas, paying attention, or sometimes not; climbed those streets like a goat, to the strength of my quadriceps and the glory of my buttocks; sighed with pleasure over the Andean tunes emerging from the houses; fallen into little patterns of commerce, and spread my custom broadly among the eateries, tiendas, and internet places; engaged in micro-conversations with locals and travel talk with (the rather few) foreigners; associated certain plaza benches and times with certain old people, and learned the dogs' dispositions and infirmities; Marvelled at the everlasting burdens of the women; read a volume of Borges stories; pondered and read up on where this trip is headed, always a hard thing to nail down, both in the overview and in the details. Thus I have sojourned in Sorata. And in the center of it all was my open-to-the-world chamber of ease and contemplation. I've had plenty of pleasant hotels on this trip, and a handful of great ones, but the Residencial Sorata in the Casa Gunther takes the prize. Its comfort and elegance, and the serenity of the town, is what lengthened my stay. But it's time to shake myself out of it. Tomorrow, back to La Paz, to which all roads lead.

Sorata 5/26

Death Road

Sunday,May 27

Sunday morning market day, and the elderly gents are blowing their horns in the bandstand. Habitacion G had become very homelike, so packing my bag was a sad affair. As I had breakfast at a sidewalk eatery, a young Englishman and Portuguese approach me for trail info. I send them up toward Lago Chillata, with the understanding that they didn't have time for the whole walk. But I suggested that they ask for Pablo in the village up there, who would happy to advance them anywhere within reach of his truck. The boys pass me off to a couple of French girls, who sat down to break fast with me. They opted for the road to the cave, with decent coffee at the ecolodge well positioned for their return. I showed them the coolness that is Casa Gunther and gave them my map of the area. Passing on my lore thus eased the pain of my departure from idyllic Sorata. I made a little farewell walk around the market streets and plaza. Sorata's tourist draw is rather light, but it's still on the radar screen of the young, Argentinian neo-hippies. They'd arrived a couple of days ago and set up their tents down on the stream bank. They would sit around the plaza, take up their travel-beaten instruments from time to time, and burst into song, to amuse, in one way or another, the Sorateñas. This morning, they had arrayed their hippy craftwork on blankets in the plaza, for who knows what clientele. Bless their hearts. So at last, after two weeks, I finally heed the call of "lapalapalapalapaz!", and board a combi. (The purposeless yelling of the combi touts was the fly in the ointment of tranquil Sorata). The combi takes off, sinking deep into the valley to get over the river, then climbing spectacularly up the other side, affording me comprehensive views of my stomping grounds. Then across the stark altiplano, with its scattered and desolate signs of signs of human presence. I was packed into an upright fetal position for much of this passage, and really started to hurt. But at last, I unfold into La Paz, and am relieved. The Cactus was again full. I'd be happy to return to my old hotel, the Tipnis, but on impulse I stuck my head into a youthful place next to the Cactus, and planted myself for forty Bolivianos, cheap. - - - Bolivian sight of the evening: A six-foot-wide pile of black hair on a street corner. This was the sweepings of the twenty or so barbershops within half a block (the clumping together of like businesses being common down here). It looked like a giant wig but for all the litter it was mixed with. The trash truck and sweepers on the way, I presume.

Monday, May 28

Bolivian sight of the day: Great pomp at the presidential palace. A red carpet had been rolled around the corner of Plaza Murillo. It was lined by stiff soldiers in red, nineteenth century dress uniforms, with vintage rifles and fearsome bayonets. The band strikes up, and dignitaries, in five clumps of twelve, civil and military, and with quite a few women, advance into the presidential palace. Is this the cabinet? Of course, I expected this big to-do to herald an appearance by Evo himself, and I kept an eye out for the man with the plump shock of hair growing out of his forehead. But he didn't show. I suppose exposing him when a fair portion of the population wishes him harm (the wealthier lowlanders) would not be a good idea. But what was this all about?

Tuesday, May 29

Another day in La Paz. The large group of young Japanese here at the Hospedaje Jimenez (which has a kitchen) use some sort of poisonous, airborne choke powder in their cookery. I am inclined to resent them over this. But then they start singing.....

Wednesday, May 30

Another day in La Paz. I've at last shaped up my long term itinerary (this took some study - stay tuned), but I'm still floundering with my immediate agenda. Relevant info is hard to get at, uncertain and contradictory. The excursions I'm trying to arrange are starting to look like a strategic advance into a field of risks. It's crazy and funny how the logistical complexities of mere tourism burgeon when one tries to fit things together and make them work. And as my task management is constitutionally sluggish, bless my heart, time has been dissipating. La Paz is certainly an interesting place, but I'm leaving sights unseen, and I've not been doing it justice given the time I've spent here. But I hereby proactively declare a breakthrough. This is my last day of wasting time in La Paz.

Thursday, May 31

To that end, a little day trip. At eight, I am waiting in the serene pedestrian street in front of my hotel, and am promptly swept up by Leo, my tour guide for the day. I'm the first in the short bus around the corner, but soon we gather our quorum and are crawling up and out of La Paz, through the sea of brick that is El Alto, and across the Altiplano. An hour and a half, arrive Tiwanaku. Here in the high plains are the scattered remains of the capital of the most important pre-Inca empire, which peaked around 700AD. First a tour of the museum, with absorption time. Leo explains the cosmic vision of these ancients, and the symbology carved into the great monolith. The ceramics were mostly of animate forms, with some very naturalistic human faces. Pumas were big with these people. Out to the ruins. The main feature is a big walled courtyard, made of well-hewn stones restacked by moderns, as this place was literally in ruins. Structures within line up with the sun at the usual times. Several more monoliths stand about, clutching the symbols of religious power in the left hand, and political and military in the right. There was a large, layered, mostly unexcavated pyramid. The most striking feature of the site was a sunken courtyard with carved heads sticking out of the walls of fitted stone like studs. The stonework here was on a par with the Inca's good stuff, and original, undisturbed since the masons tapped it all into place. Time for lunch. I decline the thirty Boliviano buffet we were herded into and opted to have a look at the village of Tiwanaku, a fair stroll away, where the bell tower of an old church beckoned. I'm joined by another buffet refugee, an eighteen-year-old super traveler in the making, between high school and college, an individualist, abroad on her own. On the drive back to La Paz we had a nice chat, and I drank deep at the well of her youthful wisdom.

Friday, June 1

On this day, I finally arranged the means of achieving my touristic ends for the next five days. It fits together rather tightly, but that's how it fell into place. (Sat: Ride bike down Death Road to Yolosa, taxi to Coroico, drop Matilda at hotel, taxi back to rejoin bike group. Back to La Paz. Sun: Taxi to trailhead. Walk Takesi Trail to Takesi village, or if need be, all the way to Don Primitivo's place in Kakapi. Spend night. Mon: Walk to Kakapi, or if already there, take a day hike. Stay at Don Primitivo's. Tue: Walk down through the mining town, into Yanicachi, and catch transport to Coroico. Rejoin Matilda and spend -most- of the night. Wed: Join jungle tour group as it passes through at 3:00 AM. Proceed into the wild.) A simple choreography of motion. It was not arrived at simply. If you could see a journal of my actions and thought processes since Monday, you would be appalled. But, no matter. Forward, into tourism......

Saturday, June 2

<(Today's agenda: A bike ride, or roll rather, down the infamous Death Road. El Camino del Muerte, a.k.a., The Most Dangerous Road in the World, is scratched into the sides of a gargantuan valley, and has been the means to the end of many wayfarers over the years. One rides it from an alpine pass above La Paz at 15,500 feet, down to the steamy greenery at 3700 feet. That 11,800 foot drop represents 41 per cent of the entire relief of the earth. The road kills fewer people now than it used to, as it now carries only a very little local traffic and hordes of thrill/serenity seekers renting bikes and guidance from La Paz tour agencies. A new, and safer, road has been scratched out on the other side of the valley as the main connection between La Paz and the Amazon basin. This ride will be a bit of an expensive, but elegant stunt. As detailed above, by leaving my bag in Coroico, I'd relieve myself of the need to return to La Paz after the Takesi trail. Now, to the unfolding of the best laid plans.....)> Amerigo, my guide for the big bicycle descent, is waiting for me outside my hotel at 7:00. We gather up a couple of Brazilians (only three of seven spots filled) and head for the hills. At the staging area at 15,500 feet, we prepare to roll. Amerigo points out the crumpled shell of a bus way below. The bodies have been removed, but it's a fit gravestone. Welcome to Death Road. We begin our descent. The first part is paved, and carries through traffic, though it's hardly busy. From barren mountain to valley green. We take the fork to the old road on the right side of the valley, leaving the new road on the other side. The old road is an unpaved single track, with squeeze-by room built in at intervals. One sees it sinking in and out of the forested, near vertical folds of the plunging valley. The caution level goes up, and we go down. The general rule is keep right, as you may imagine, as this ride is along the edge of a cliff to the left. I plunge for a while, blithely enough, but the moment comes for my unaccountable good luck, which I have never deserved, to suffer a temporary (knock wood) interruption. No, I did not slip off the left edge into the void of death. I slipped off the right edge into the little run-off trench and came down on my face. I roll out of this knowing well that I was hurt. In my daze, I was aware of a heavenly angel come to my relief. This would be Rene, who kept to the rear of the procession in the van. Amerigo and the Brazilians, who were not far ahead and below, soon gathered. We confer. The upshot is that Rene would convey me back to the new road, from where an ambulance would bear me back to La Paz. (Deferential me was prepared to ride down in the van and not disrupt the system. Blythe me thought I might even resume the ride at some point - after I stopped feeling faint. But wiser heads prevailed, and I didn't argue. For one thing, they had a better view of the extra hole in my face. The Brazilians assure me that their women regard scars as sexy. Uh, thanks, I think. So Amerigo and the Brazilians continue, and Rene drives me back to a waiting ambulance. (I discover later that the ambulance set-up is a cooperative thing between the bike companies, and that my contribution was in the tour price). I play the role of the cheerful patient with the ambulance guys, who have certainly done this route before. The first hospital rejects me (I think they were busy), and I end up at a nearby clinic. A young nurse with just enough English orients me and advances my processing. I clean up my bloody face and neck and marvel at the inch and a quarter tear in my chin. The tour company had dispatched one of their staff to look in on me. She hovered sympathetically, and helped with some communication, and stuck around for quite a while, which was nice. They had laid me down and stuck an IV in me (one wonders why). I had two hours or so to stare at the ceiling and reflect. Here are my regrets: 1) Scarred for life. 2) The full-face helmet would have saved me. I'd rejected it in favor of the marginally more comfortable Gothic style. Oops! 3) This is going to cost money. 4) The elegance of my tightly choreographed short term agenda is blown. The whole trip set back a week, unless I jettison itinerary items. 5) How did this happen? Am I not an experienced (albeit urban) rider, and given to caution? I didn't feel that I was going too fast, though given the outcome, by definition I was. I let an inside curve get the better of my ability to handle it. 6) As I am a human being, I accept my quota of shots to the foot. But really, the setting and timing of this pratfall marks me forever as a doofus. To spill shortly into a much-hyped danger ride is just a little too pat. Thousands upon thousands make this ride down to lunch and the complimentary t-shirt, and I just put myself on the sliver side of the statistics. I can not help but be sheepish. Thus my regrets. But soon King Philosophy comes storming into my private hell. "Who do you think you are, to condemn yourself as a doofus, doofus?" he thundered. "They're called accidents for reason. So shut yer trap and eat yer beans." "You're right, I'll try," I reply. Then Yoda sticks his head in the door and snorks, "Do or do not. There is no try." Fortunately, these phantasms of virtue are dispersed by the advancement of my case. I am wheeled away to the operating room. Dr Justiniano arrives, in his blue jeans, summoned from who knows where. I go under the lights, and the instruments are flying. "Hmm, profundo....", remarks the affable doc, as he clicks an instrument against my exposed mandible. (The same word used by the admitting nurse. Hence the call, I imagine, to a plastic surgeon, for which I am grateful.) A nurse was present with medium English, which was certainly helpful. I get stitches in the chin, below the lower lip (mashed through, though the outside hole didn't seem so bad. It's a miracle I still have my teeth), and in my right eyebrow. (Otherwise, my wounds are a sore jaw, two sore ribs, sore muscles from breaking my fall, a bruised shoulder, and jostled organs, which made me feel weird for the rest of the day). Muchas Gracias to the crew, and I am wheeled out. I am processed further, and ultimately presented with a bill for $450. (I'll be looking into my insurance options. Can you imagine what this would have been out of pocket in the US? ). As I was short, the guard kindly guided/guarded me to an ATM several blocks away. I settle up and am released. I declined the offered cab. I wished to walk the stretch up to my neighborhood, to feel my systems and regain my macho. On the way, I pick up the prescribed antibiotic and pain/inflammation drug, as well as bandage stuff. A giant street party was underway all over La Paz. (The biggest of the year, La Festividad de Nuestro Señor Jesús del Gran Poder. Drums and brass, and 25,000 dancers celebrating Aymara folk traditions. Thousands of families stake out positions along the parade routes for the day. Drinkers take over later. I wasn't aware of this coming till after I'd solidified my plans). I attended for a while, but had to duck out and get some pasta stuffed into my swollen face, as I'd only had a light breakfast. I had a parade passing out in front of the restaurant, and scenes from other streets on the tube. After slowing getting through the pasta, I stepped out into the dissipating party. The dancers had retired, and the drinkers were carrying on in various ways. Festive splashes of piss and vomit glistened here and there under the street lights. All will be tidy in the morning. I love La Paz!

Sunday, June 3

On this day, I undid my laid plans, set up my remade plans, attended to the needs of the body, physical and administrative, and urged along my healing spirits.

Monday, June 4

The new plan is the old plan, set back a week, but with a full day worked in for Coroico. (I was set up for stitch removal in six days, a little less than the doctor had suggested, so I'll be double checking on this. Ten days would work out fine for me with some rearrangement). With four open days right in front of me, I thought I'd interrupt my overstay in La Paz and spend three nights in Chulumani. This is a nice country town down in the green, and is in the region of the Afro-Bolivians, whose anscestors were slaved to death in huge numbers in the silver mines of Potosi. But as I sat with my morning coffee, trying not to dribble into the bandage, I felt myself getting lazy. Two days would be mostly transport and travel fussing, for two days being there. La Paz, how will I ever leave you? A jaunt on a tour up to the heavenly apex of Chacaltaya will be my consolation prize. So on this day, I putzed further in La Paz, with a view toward relocating. My face is a mess, but the señoras of the market eatery are full of sympathy.

Tuesday, June 5

I woke up thinking I'd be relocating to a place I'd found with a room more open to natural light, but I felt myself getting lazy. Hospedaje Jimenez, your rooms are dingy and you're full of strong cookery, but you're cool. How could I ever leave you? I spent the day solidifying the logistics of my itinerary, doing errands, walking streets, and spacing out in plazas and churches. I'm chagrined to find that I won't be driven up to Cacaltaya tomorrow, as there weren't enough people signed up to make the tour happen. I'd hoped to make the final four hundred foot climb up to the summit at 17,785 feet, where I would declare a lifetime elevation record, likely to stand till death unless I happen to make it to Nepal. All right then, twist my arm, I'm going to Nepal.

Wednesday, June 6

Another day in La Paz. I'm healing well, but have some limitations. I had to pass by my papa rellena lady without picking up my usual midday snack, as my wounded mouth still lacks the stretch required to pass the succulent spuds. I stretched out my legs well exploring streets I hadn't yet touched on, including market streets rural in appearance, but urban in scale. Tomorrow, I'll plunge down Death Road safely and completely. I figure that I've used up my bad luck on the first pass. (Wink! Just kidding, Fate, I know it's in your hands! Ha, ha! Knock wood!) This time I'll be in a full-face helmet, and I've paid extra for a full suspension bike. (I'd thought that these were merely a comfort option. And that they'd be squirrlier, but I'm informed that they hold the road better). Also, I'll be keeping as far to the left as possible. Doh! I mean no! I'll keep right, just not so far as the ditch. I'll let you know how it goes.

La Paz 6/6

Inca Road

Thursday, June 7

Seven o'clock, I walk around the corner to the bike office and meet my ridemates. We are a Canadian couple, an Australian couple, an English-speaking Bolivian, and me. Amerigo will again be our guide. Up and out of town, to the high point of the road. I cram my head into that full-face helmet, face the openness, and bow humbly before the forces of Nature, most notably gravity and momentum. We commence our roll. It was overcast, and by the time we had forked over to the old danger road we were riding in cloud, and ultimately, mist and droplets. So unfortunately, there were no lengthy views of the plunging green crack in the earth. But the consolation prize was riding into the atmospheric gloom, the road ahead snaking and disappearing into a gray mystery. The shrines of the dead line the way. We pause at various points, to gather together and take in as much view as visibility allowed (one had a better sense of the vertical than the horizontal). Amerigo points out a vehicle way, way down on the stream bank. This was a fresh kill, two weeks past, young men who had, if you can believe it, been drinking. At length, we pause at a little refreshment set-up a half hour from our endpoint. We had gotten under the cloud base, and the road was no longer wet, so it was time to get out of the mud splattered rain suits we were in. Down to the paved road and the end of our ride. That was a nice 11,800 feet. I never checked the time, but I think it was about four hours. Time for lunch. And to the coming apart of my best laid plans. I had been given to understand by the tour broker that it would be no problem getting a taxi from our lunch spot up to Coroico, where I intended to drop off Matilda at my arranged hotel, to be met up with again in four days. I'd then zip back down at least in time for dessert. I'd thought I had this clear with Amerigo, but I think we were both guilty of that head-nodding agreeableness which afflicts the second language impaired. Looking back on it, I'm sure he didn't realize that I intended to return to La Paz with the group. And that when I said "taxi" (meaning, a privado, and let's get this done in less than an hour), he heard transporte, with no need for urgency. The lunch place was not in the crossroads village, as I expected, but at a hotel way past off in the country. There's more to this tedious story, but let's just say that I went off on a fool's errand, during which time I finally recognized the obvious solution (which was not blowing off my planned trek, nor spending the next day on the bus shuttling back and forth to La Paz). I'd have the group just leave me at the crossroad village of Yolosita. I'd then take regular transport up to Coroico, leave Matilda at the Hostal 1866, and take a minibus back to La Paz. I'd pay twice for transportation, spend a few extra hours, and forego the planned elegance, but it was perfectly doable. If I'd thought earlier of my purpose rather than my plan, I wouldn't have missed lunch with my ridemates. Amerigo was all apologetic about the whole affair, but I soothed him. At Yolosita, I bid adieu to the whole crew. Amerigo left me in the care of a shopkeeper who was a relative of his. She rustled me up a salchipapa as I waited for her to alert me to the arrival of the minibus. At length, up to Coroico, where I drop off Matilda at the hotel. The next minibus back to La Paz allowed for some time to kill, so I invested in a little bottle of some sweet rotgut, which I sucked down while leaning against the minibus, watching the street life, and thus mellowing out in the settling dusk. After a three hour ride, I'm back in La Paz, at the end of the line in some unknown neighborhood. I ventured queries of public transport, but ended up in a taxi. After a late dinner, I'm walking back to my hotel, when I'll be damned if sprinkles didn't turn quickly to thunder and rain. First real rain since Puno in Peru.

Friday, June 8

I sweep up sights and errands on my last day in La Paz. My stitches are plucked, leaving me with a healing itch. I begin the scar cream treatment. I'll be leaving La Paz without ever having my fortune told. One fortune teller on my street seems to get some custom. He always has coins stacked on coca leaves, and is often actually consulted. The other fortune teller just sits on the sidewalk, chullo on his head (the Andean pointy stocking cap), outstretched legs wrapped in a poncho, cheeks stuffed with coca leaf, and his clients' stool empty. I have a feeling he knew all about what awaited me on my first pass at Death Road.

Saturday, June 9

I got to bed way too late for what was to come, and then suffered bad insomnia. It thundered and poured for hours, which kept me entertained as I tossed and turned. A physically demanding day ahead, with only token sleep. All calm at 6:30 as I step out of my hotel. My driver, Ruby, shows up promptly. Saturday being market day, the streets are active. Cholitas sit on the sidewalk shoulder to shoulder, with their produce arrayed in front of them on tarps and blankets. Good bye, La Paz. We exit the city through the lower reaches, giving me a great view of the badlands that the city has built itself into. Ruby aims the four wheel drive upwards. I see up on the slopes where last night's rain had come down as snow. I'm a little concerned, but I've got momentum. The snow thickens as we rise through a few villages. Arrive Choquekhota, 12,800 feet, one and a half hours. From here I begin my walk. Ruby drives off to his other duties, and I consider my prospects. I've got snow sticking to the road down here, and flocking in the shrubberies, and a 2400 foot climb up to the pass. Though I can see that I won't be wading through it, it will certainly thicken as I climb, and my feet are going to get wet. But I calculate that I will survive, and even regain comfort. The climb should take three hours. Whatever snow is on the other side of the pass will have been facing the morning sun, and in any case, the trail quickly drops into warmer climes. So I pour a libation and step forward. An old fellow leading some donkeys offers to carry my mochila, a service I'm sure he's rendered to hikers before. But I decline. My daypack contains only water, food for a couple of days, and a few sundries, and is hardly a burden. (I remind you, big Matilda is stowed and waiting for me at a hotel in Coroico. I'm not equipped for camping, and am aiming, a little uncertainly, for two nights lodging on the trail). The boys the old guy was with keep me company for a while, but I outpace them all. The first stretch is a rough road that leads to a little mine at the base of a mountain. The trail veers off from this and climbs steadily. The snow thickened, and got past my ankles where the sun hadn't touched it. I got wet, but not sloshing, fortunately. And with my systems in exertion mode, my feet never got cold. A friendly llama led me for a while in the upper reaches. Steep switchbacks on the final approach, and I become aware of treading upon the roadwork of the Incas. Arrive Apacheta Takesi, the pass at 15,200 feet. This is a relatively low pass through the Cordillera Real. Hence, the Incas' interest in building a road through here. The llama had veered away below, but now came up and kept an eye on me as I had a rest and a bite to eat. But I couldn't linger more than half an hour at this regal vantage point, as my lodging prospects were a long way off, and daylight limited. So after noting everything beautiful and sublime, and pertinent to my navigation, I bow west to the Pacific (may Bolivia ever assert its rights to the sea) and to the northeast, toward the far flung mouth of the Amazon. It's all downhill from here. The snow was pretty much dried up on this side of the pass. My hot, working feet commenced drying out my shoes. The Incas really did an admirable job on this road. You couldn't skateboard on it, but if you're a llama, or a human being watching your step among the paving stones, you'll move along nicely. The steeper switchbacks in the upper reaches are shored up with big stone embankments. The turns and steep stretches have run-off guides built in to redirect water. It was about a lane wide high up, broadening to two as the landscape flattened out. At a few spots, the road dissappeared under the effects of time. From the skies above, my traipsings are observed patiently by the condors. At length, the village of Takesi comes into view. It's still treeless alpinity at this altitude (12,500 feet), but it looks like the villagers have cultivated a few shade trees. I passed a guy above the village carrying an ancient radio, and waved to a woman in the distance. That's it for people. If they were off herding their animals somewhere, I didn't see them. There wasn't a soul in the village, which had maybe six scattered houses with outbuildings. Lots of llamas, though. Everything was built of stone and roofed with thatch. This village was surely the most rustic place I've ever seen. There was a plastered building, quite empty, with a plaque indicating some turistic purpose. This must have been the "hostal" mentioned in the guidebook. Staying in this village would have been the thing to do, for timing, elegance, and coolness, but from what I had gathered, I hadn't thought the prospect likely. So with no evidence of bed or blanket in the "hostal" (Plan A), nor a villager around to offer me a kip (Plan B), I continue my descent. Into the trees, and more warmth and humidity. The trail crosses the river, narrows, and now clings to the steep slopes of the plunging valley. The Inca pavement continues, with gaps, narrowing to more of a footpath, with steps of set stone or sometimes carved directly into the rock. At length, I pass a house, then another, and then a third with a farm patch. At this last, a man and a woman were down in their yard carrying on in Aymara. I waved but didn't stop. A few steps further I find a building with a plaque identifying it as the "Refugio Turistica Kacapi", the work of the Fundacion Pueblo, a rural development concern. This rings with the guidebook, and I realized I had just passed through the village of Kacapi, quite a bit sooner than I had expected. Somewhere in this locale, I need to scrounge a place to sleep. I look over the refugio. It was locked up, but through the windows I could see that one half was something like a meeting room, and the other half a bunkhouse. The whole place looked fairly new, but utterly out of use. I stroll back over to the nearby occupied house to make inquiries. After the woman figures me out, she indicates that yes, I can stay there, and that she's got the key, and to go back up there and wait. This is great. Plan C has fallen into place. (Plan C evidently being the same as Plan D, the "hostal run by an elderly couple" mentioned in a web forum. Plan E was staying at Don Primitivo's, whose house would have been the first I had passed, and whom the señora confirmed was not at home - he works in the mine. Plan F would have been worming through the busted door of the baño next to the bunkhouse and sleeping on a couple of mats on the floor of what was once a shower room, adjacent to the squat toilet, quite dried up and out of use, I assure you. Plan G was to sleep like a bunny in the grass, and hope that at this elevation (8900 feet) my clothes would hold up to the cold - I note, by the way, that no one in La Paz had a specific word to say about lodging on the trail, or just insisted that it didn't exist). So, I sit on the step of the bunkhouse and wait as dusk fell. Eventually the señor shows up with the key. The place is equipped with five bunkbeds, two two-seater school desks, some clothes racks, and two fancy wooden fold-up lawn chairs. Just a hint of the mildew of authenticity. Baño as I described. (I'll be enriching the soil hereabouts). Perfect. Twenty Bolivianos. But when I looked at those bare mattresses and asked about a blanket, the price went up to thirty bolivianos. Well worth the extra buck and a half. I followed the señor back to his house, where his wife scrounged me up a bedspread and the usual rug-like South American blanket, as she was muttering who knows what. I filled my bottles at their spigot, and wished them a good night. Back to the refugio, where I had a candlelit dinner of bread and cheese on the school desk. The bedspread went on the mattress like a sheet, and I slumbered under the blanket in my clothes.

Sunday, June 10

Twelve hours later, I arise, sleep debt paid. I step out on the grassy terrace into the morning sun. The refugio is set hugely up on a mountain slope, overlooking the convergence of two yawning valley spaces, with the combined valley space falling away into the distance. The señora checks in on me, all morning cheerfulness. I step over to her house to avail myself once again of their water tap. I didn't mind that I'd risen too late for an ambitious hike. Body and soul called out for moderation on this day. But I did stroll around Kacapi's mountain shoulder to have a look up the Rio Sochicachi valley, which I had considered ascending on its supposed mine trail. It was a grueling ramp straight up into extremity. I'll save that for my next trip to Bolivia. I spent the better part of the day just slowly retracing my steps a ways back up the Takesi Trail. I had coming and going picnics on the same boulder overlooking the deeply, deeply carved landscape. The butterflies flutter and the raptors soar. (Not condors - I think they prefer the alpine levels). As I walk back to the refugio, I marvel again at the antiquity of the stone path I was treading. I arrive in the deeper dusk, and call out a buenas noches to my hosts, who were presumably dining in their stone house, so they would be aware that I was at their tap. Up to the refugio, where the horse and the donkey are keeping the grass under control. I set up a lawn chair, and with a broad sky, made a close study of new stars, and of new old stars.

Monday, June 11

Ah, to rise with a day's journey ahead. God help me, I love it. The señor stopped by as I was getting myself together and doctoring my face. When I got my shoes tied, I brought the bedding down to the house to take leave of him and the señora. I asked him about the colonial era church that was said to be hereabouts. He pointed out a stone facade up in the green. I made an effort to find it, and managed to confuse it with one of the buildings in the second domestic enclosure. I pass back by my hosts' abode and wave again at the señor as he whacked at stuff with a machete. A steep descent to the stream crossing. An old pedestrian suspension bridge was in a twisted wreckage, and the stepping boulders were not particularly easy. I thought of the people above, who, though sturdy, were old, and wondered when the last time was that they made the long trip into town. I make a climb up to a little hamlet. Looking back along the way, I see Kacapi in full array on its mountain shoulder. There was a fourth domestic compound, and up on the slope in the trees was what must have been that old church, connected, I imagine, by a footpath that escaped my attention. Peering at it with the monocular, I see that it was just a stone structure like the others. I continue my sharp descent to the Rio Takesi, cross it on a bridge, and continue along an aquaduct traversing the mountain slope, as the river bed dropped further below me. Mostly, I was walking on the concrete slabs that covered the water rushing below my feet in its trough. At length, I come to the mine, where the diverted water is put to its arcane use. I pass the hobbit hole through which the earth is plundered of its tin and tungsten. Narrow tracks emerge from its gaping maw. The miners were lounging about their inscrutable apparatus on their lunch break, though some, including women, were at work at troughs sorting through the earth-matter by hand. Everybody's chewing coca. All this foliage coming out of baggies amusingly evokes the seventies in the US, when the fun green stuff came in similar packaging and bulky quantities. I had thought I'd visit the mining town of Chojlla, to see if it was as dismal as reported, but I couldn't figure out the shortcut, and when I saw how far above and beyond the mine it was, I figured I didn't have time. So then, along the road to Yanacachi, a pleasant, sleepy town down at 5600 feet. I sat by the church to plan my next move. Looking at the notes on the back of the map, I am reminded that through transport doesn't actually pass through here, but passes down on the main road, an hour's walk below town. I'd known this from way back, but it had slipped my mind. It was now three o'clock, and with uncertainties ahead, it occurred to me that I could stay in Yanacachi without unduly straining the main plan. But I yielded to momentum. I confirmed the essentials with a local, and started heading down and out of town. Though I would now be heading up a valley, the main road was still way the hell down there. Once I got some distance, I could really see what a shelf Yanacachi sat on. In my concern about time, I thought I ought to see about catching a ride. I did not solicit passenger vehicles, but the first big truck that passed stopped for me. The driver was quite precise in keeping his right-side wheels from slipping off the precipice as he eased his rig down around the bends, air brakes gasping. It is amazing, the endlessness of the descent from Andean heights to Amazonian lowlands. At the main road, he was to go right, and I left. The gent would take no money. And so I find myself in a crossroads hamlet called La Florida, sitting against a wall in the shade, sucking down a cola, and waiting for the next Chulumani to La Paz bus. The locals assure me that I would not wait in vain. At a decent interval, a bus does come through and receives me. It's full, and I sit on the floor with my legs in the stairwell, gazing down through the glass door straight into the abyss. Main road though it is, there is no shoulder, and meeting traffic requires a lot of maneuvers and squeezing. I trust in the self-preservation instincts of the driver. Turning my head, I can see him through the door of his enclosed cockpit. His cheeks are stuffed with coca, so I know he's alert. And so we snake up a valley, late afternoon sun lighting up the peaks and slopes. Arrive Unduavi, a crossroads on the paved highway. I'd been alert to not miss this spot, which I had passed through on the bike excursions. The people in the front seats were also looking out for me, and I debarked at the right moment. Not one other person got off here for points north, which did not surprise me. All were going to the capital. This place is just a police checkpoint, with a few food stalls and tiendas. A vending lady takes an interest in me and reassures me with some details, most importantly that I could expect a directo to Coroico, and that I wouldn't have to fuss with a connection in Yolosita. I'm only halfway through her cup of coffee when a minibus comes through to receive me. And so to Coroico, in the dark. I check into the Hostal 1866, reunite with Matilda, and hop straight into the shower, as I was one dirty bird. I dine on the goulash, of all things. A very satisfactory day of movement on good old planet earth.

Tuesday, June 12

Coroico is an agreeable little town, with a nice plaza, and the trappings of a tourist industry, aimed at the foreign and domestic. (At three hours from La Paz, weekending Paceños come here). There are Italian restaurants, not too fancy, couply hotels, and a bit of coffee and yoga and whatnot. There are a few Afro-Bolivians about, the women in full cholita regalia. I spend the day grazing, doing web tasks, and walking the not very extensive streets. There's a brand new mercado, with most of its tiled stalls not yet occupied. It's funny to look over its newborn freshness, and think of it evolving into the scrubbed and hosed, but grotty mercado of the future. My only excursion was the usual devotional up the stations of the cross to the chapel on the hill. The plan is to commence a two-night, three-day tour from this town. The tours originates in La Paz, but would pick up people in Coroico, which is why I'm here. I was to be picked up at 3:00 AM and conveyed to the Rio Beni, for a jungle boat trip to the remote town of Rurrenabaque, with nature walks and animal spotting along the way. Rurrenabaque is the locus of tours into the surrounding jungles and pampas. Getting to Rurrenabaque on a river tour (and a well regarded river tour) was certainly the elegant way to go. Otherwise, it would be a grueling fourteen hour-plus bus trip, or a flight. I engaged the only company that offered this, whose people impressed me. They embark every early Wednesday, if they gather a quorum of at least seven. But, as I found out this night, what I'd had reason to regard as a good bet did not work out. Trip canceled. Crap. Godammit. (Last week cancelled too. A paid-up member -ahem, myself- cancelled before the quorum was reached, leaving six at the final count. The gift of my accident keeps giving. And by the way, next week's departure has already sold out its maximum fourteen seats). Now I'm faced with getting to Rurrenabaque by others means, and arranging a tour there. Time, money, my disinclination to return to La Paz, and how I'll get my cash refund will have a bearing on my next moves. Logistics! Thank God my tourism is not as consequential as was the Battle of the Bulge.

Wednesday, June 13

I laboriously gather up the info I need to inform my decision. Though I had preferred if possible to remain earthbound, I will be flying to Rurrenabaque. The deal breaker on the bus journey was not the fifteen hours on a grueling road. It was the arrival time of six or eight in the morning. No matter what, I'd be spending eleven-some hours in the dark, not sleeping, and the world slipping by unseen. Breaking the journey would not help. I was sure I exhausted all the regular transport possibilities. I considered being truck cargo if I couldn't get a flight tomorrow, but I was able to book the flight. So I will, again, be passing through La Paz. The advantages are, besides speed and ease, that I'll be able to pick up my refund direct and in cash, rather than through some Western Union rigamarole, and, if I get a good seat, I'll be able to see from the heavens one of the more fantastic regions of the earth. --- Aside from thus arranging my next leap, and generally padding around Coroico, I saw how far an hour and a half's climb above the town would take me. A ways, but still well within reach of the rhythms of the drummers practicing down on the futbol field. A bird of prey holds his position in the air like he was on an invisible perch. A couple of farm patches smolder below. Voices on the wind. Sunbeams on the folds and peaks. Everything good.

Coroico, 6/13

Chewed by a Dolphin

Thursday, June 14

Another early morning diagonal plaza crossing. Down the steep concrete stairs to the nearly deserted bus station. I buy a ticket for La Paz from the company that had an actual short bus rather than a van parked in its bay. (a "microbus" - larger than a "minibus"). The ticket chica cheerfully said a half hour, but I had my doubts. I broke fast on bread and coffee with a few other early birds. An hour and a half later, my company's four passengers and fares were handed off to another company to make a full load, and off we went into the heights in a minibus/van. Three hours, arrive La Paz, again in the outlying neighborhood I'd arrived at four nights ago. This time I saw a "trufi", a tiny, cuboid mode of public transportation, with "Plaza Murillo" on the windshield, so I figured I couldn't go wrong. Arrive Plaza Murillo. As I had time and was in the neighborhood, of course I had yet one more earthy morsel from the papa rellena lady, and a decent cup of coffee from the national chain. To the river tour place to be refunded of my best laid plan. Then a taxi out of the canyon of La Paz and up to the high plains of El Alto, where the airport naturally was. (Up here in the rarified air, at the highest international airport in the world, the runways are extra long for high speed landings and balky takeoffs). After the obligatory hanging around the airport, we at length rise into our forty minute flight. There are eight passengers in the nineteen seater. I had repositioned myself in the odd 9B, the only middle seat, in the back row, so I could direct my hungry gaze port and starboard. The metropolis sprawled and rippled below, at the feet of the stolid local peaks. But soon we were over the cloud tops, from which only the mightiest peaks protruded. Hence, I did not get a good sense of the falling away from high to low through the transitional Yungas region. But the cloud mostly relented in the lowlands, a flat, green carpet punctuated here and there with abrupt, verdant hills. Fat, brown rivers loll about in loops. We touch down, and I emerge from the space capsule and set foot on the steamy jungle planet of Rurrenabaque. It's hot and humid, not like it's been, well, since I was last in the Amazon Basin, on the tour in Ecuador. I embarked on the 2km walk to town, but some sort of bus swept me up. I cover the grid and shop hotels, and through lucky accidents end up in a penthouse room with windows on three sides and a huge tiled terrace. Four and a half bucks, and I am tickled pink. Now, I have but one mission: To the riverbank with a cold Paceña, to sit on the concrete peer, next to the Mother of all Drift Logs, and partake of the sunset over the broad, brown Rio Beni. Barges and odd aquatic contraptions ply the waters. I linger till they are reduced to silhouettes gliding against the pumpkin sky. More padding around town in the eve. Now, kids have fun in the streets wherever there are kids and streets. But somehow they seem to have even more fun when it's sticky hot. I went for a cool shower myself. I dine in an world tourist culture place, and got all dreamy over the eighties pop music. What the hell.

Friday, June 15

A day of flip-flopping around town looking into my options for tours into the jungle and pampas. (The jungle being the deep woods on dry land west of town. As for the "pampas", I've learned that this word doesn't necessarily mean grasslands and gauchos. It simply means "plain" in Quechua, and applies also to the vast wetlands northeast of Rurrenabaque). I reduce and ignore complexities and settle on an outfit that seemed eco-responsible and medium priced. (Animal-unfriendly practices and price undercutting by fly-by-night operators, which leads to underpaid guides and poor service, I learn is a problem. The agencies share clients and facilities and charge erratically. It's hard to know who are the good guys and the bad guys. All very confusing). - - -Rurrenabaque is all spread out and has got lots of wood in its construction. Scooters and motorcycles are the main mode of transportation. All signs that I'm back in the hot, flat lowlands. Another glorious sunset over the Rio Beni.

Saturday, June 16

At 8:45, our pampas group forms at the office of the tour company. There are only three of us, with three spaces unfilled. We are me, and two other young independants, Yehuduh of Israel, just off his military service, and Eunjung of South Korea, who is in her last year studying business on an exchange in Missouri. Our guide is Ovidio, a fellow from an indigenous village in the jungle, whose knowledge and skills were to unfold before us. He spoke good, medium English. Our cook is Patricia, and our mascot Rafael, her six-year-old son. Into the four-wheel-drive for a three hour ride, through a lunch stop, to our embarkation point on the banks of the Rio Yacuma. The longboat motors us slowly up the river. Pink river dolphins keep pace with us for a while. We make the acquaintance of the yellow squirrel monkeys, who were just about in our hair. (They had been habituated to being fed by less eco-friendly tour groups). We also see capuchin monkeys. Arrive Dolphins Lodge, an assemblage of posts and planks creaking and groaning over the riverside wetland. Caimans below eye us inscrutably. We guests establish ourselves in the bunkhouse, and at length assemble for a beer and the sunset with our guide in the elevated observation patio. And then, dinner is served.

Sunday, June 17

The purring longboat pushes upriver in the predawn darkness. Ovidio parks us in a broad bend for the sunrise, and the sounds of creatures aroused. We are soon joined by two other boatloads of tourists from other lodges. After the inevitable climax, we motor in for breakfast, and then out again for a morning excursion. This was a walk through the pampas, which was mostly marsh with water past your knees. Rubber boots were provided, but it was expected that you'd overtop them. We fanned out like soldiers, but found no anacondas. But we did see a big sleeping daytime owl in a dry grove on a rise, and of course, lots of tropical waterfowl. Back to the lodge for lunch and a siesta. I sit up in the second floor porch and watch the pink river dolphins going about their business in the broad river bend below. Insofar as one can see them, they are odd-looking creatures. Unlike our dear Flipper of the salt sea, their backs are not a smooth arc, but have more of a swayback line. Thus when they breach, you get a two-hump effect. That, and a more snout-like face, makes for a lumpy dolphin. Their cadaverous color is a little off-putting at first, but one is soon seduced by the graceful movements of their great bodies. I am awakened from my dolphin dream by the drama of the day. I'd heard Rafael down below yelp and commence a bout of crying. Routine enough for a six-year-old, but when the tears didn't stop, I had to lean over the railing to see what the fuss was about. It seems that a piranha had bitten the poor boy. (He and Ezequiel, the young helper about the lodge, had been fishing). His mom was tending to him and eventually soothed him. Later, when I was inspecting his bandaged finger, he reached up, wordlessly, as he knew my linguistic limitations, toward my own bandaged face in a sympathetic gesture of pure brotherly love. (The next day, his bandage was off, revealing a miraculous recovery. My own bandages are to ward off the scarring effects of the sun, as my wounds are well knit together). In the afternoon, we went out for piranhas ourselves, and caught a few little ones with much effort. Macaws and toucans entertain us on the voyage back to the lodge. Dinner was augmented with crispy little piranha chips. We go out for a night float, and to hunt caimans with flashlight beams. Their reptilian eyes gleam back vacantly. The sky is clear, and I unleash my astronomical pedant. Over beers back at the lodge, Ovidio spins the yarn of Lars, the Norwegian agricultural consultant, who disappeared into the jungle, seeking multiple wives and a twenty year sojourn. He's due back in four years.

Monday, June 18

The howler monkeys were roaring this morning in the trees right behind the lodge. Ovidio identified black howlers to the left, and red to the right. He distinguished the tribes by the vowel sound in their roars. Our morning agenda was to go swimming with the dolphins. As we course our way upriver, we hail the various creatures of the river bank, including toucans, and the common "watsin" (the "stinky turkey" of Ecuador), with its flopping motions in the trees and its flamboyant plumage and crown. Eventually, thar she blows, and Ovidio stops the motor. Yehuduh and I slip over the gunwale to approach the people of the river. (Eunjung declined). Three or four of them are about, coming up for breaths at unpredictable spots. I tried to close ranks with them without being too abrupt. But the river people came to me. I was treading water, and became aware of a strange being, or perhaps two, down about my legs. I was butted and nudged a few times, and an effort was made to push me up through the soles of my feet. But most interestingly, I was chewed. A dolphin got my left foot in his jaws and chomped and fondled it inquisitively. I tried to hold still so he could get a good taste. His teeth were stimulating, but not sharp. I could feel his meaty tongue slobbering the sole of my foot. After he had enough, I swam around some more, but had no further close encounters. Another boatload of tourists had shown up, and the caimans were eyeing us with strange desire, so I hoisted myself back into the boat. Gentle as the dolphin had been with me, he did very slightly break the skin on my big toe, so I figured we were now blood brothers. Back up river, to yet another great wildlife encounter. Ovidio's skilled eye picked out a sloth suspended in a tree hanging over the water. For all my previous efforts, this is my first sloth, and a major Holy Grail for me. There he hung, in all his unhasty glory, representing my favorite vice. He was of the three-toed tribe, and had a mottled pattern on his coat. It took me a while to figure out which end was which. We hung around till he moved an arm, then left him to his activities. Next creature, the white howler monkey, for a hat trick. Back for lunch and packing up. The tour now reduced to transportation, we motor back full throttle to our drop-in point in a mere forty minutes. Eunjung shares her umbrella with me as we plow into showers. A muddy, three hour drive back to Rurrenabaque, with a glimpse of an ostrich on the way. I part from my tour mates and check back into the Madidi. A quick shop-around of the tour agencies ensues, for an excursion into the jungle. I got myself set up, never mind the considerations and complexities. I had an interesting social/linguistic struggle in a restaurant over the gone-bad glass of wine I was served. We all came out winners.

Tuesday, June 19

I'm at the tour office at 4:45. Some local people with a political ax to grind had blockaded the river, but apparently were ready to wink at pre-dawn picket jumpers. Thus the early meet time. Still, an hour passed before we motor away from the city dock. My head nods as the darkness lifts on the Rio Beni. We turn up the Rio Tuichi, and at length arrive at Mashequipe Lodge. This is a collection of screened and thatched wooden buildings set up in two compounds, with a nice hammock colony. (This was an upgrade for me. My operator had sold me to a more upscale outfit). We are: Ferdinand, a young Austrian; A Bolivian couple, Jorje and Marcela - she a "parodista", who does a nightly TV news satire ala Chevy Chase ; and me. Our guide is Jesus, a local, indigenous fellow, like most of the staff at the lodge. Jesus's English was minimal. Among us five, we had one Tacana speaker, one German speaker, three Spanish speakers, and three English speakers. Jorje, with his excellent medium-good English, kindly served as our link. After settling in, we set off on a trail, Jesus leading us slowly, and pointing out various plants and fruits and trees, with their nutritive and medicinal uses. Back for lunch. Then upriver in the boat, seeing a baby capybara (a rodent that is very large as an adult) along the way. We park, and head through the woods to a backwater to try for piranhas. No luck. (They stab at the bait ferociously, but will not take the hook). We persisted at this way too long, but eventually moved upriver to try for catfish in the channel. No luck here either, but one could sit comfortably on the cobble beach, tend but slightly to the line, and gaze across the river at the abundant jungle. After dinner, a long walk in the darkness. The eye-pairs of the monkeys gleam in our beams in the treetops. There are numerous spiders and tree frogs. Back to the lodge, and a refreshing shower by flashlight.

Wednesday, June 20

Another long walk in the jungle. Jesus slowly walks point, his machete nipping here and there at routine trail maintenance. The machete also goes through fruits and nuts and digs at bark, and generally assists Jesus in illustrating his voluminous plant lore. He points out various bird species, and at one point, yet another sloth, this one way up there. We also see ocelot tracks and the big burrows of armadillos. Back for lunch and a siesta, after which our party splits up till tomorrow. Ferdinand and I had opted for an overnight deeper in the woods. The Bolivians preferred to sojourn at the lodge. So, in due course, we step to the trail, Jesus in the lead, and Wilson, the cook (with fair English) accompanying us in the rear. I had only my light load, plus the sleeping bag and mosquito net I was provided. I pinched a few heavier items from the supplies that Jesus was carrying, to ease my guilt about being catered to like a sahib. I was carrying a two liter bottle of water in the crook of my arm, till Jesus cut a supple vine, and in about one minute fashioned the perfect sling for it. His lore was tremendous, and so his powers of observation and interpretation. The juvenile tapir toenails in the jaguar shit did not escape his attention. He took us on some lesser trails, rather overgrown, where his machete really rang out. Three hours, arrive jungle camp. Tarps had been pitched over a spartan kitchen, "dormitorio", and commode. We lay out the mats that were stowed there, and pitched the mosquito nets. Ferdinand and I take a few ax whacks at the firewood. Jesus takes us out for dusk sounds as Wilson stokes the fire and makes his preparations. When we return, there is chicken and beef, rice and plantains. I'd hoped to able to pull out four beers, but the lodge had had none for sale. But we had a convivial evening, through our linguistic limitations. Heavy rain in the night.

Thursday, June 21

A walk for morning sounds. Rain had started up by the time we returned to see what Wilson had cooking. We are joined by Jorje and Marcela, and the boatman who had conveyed them upriver and led them on the twenty-five minute trail to the camp. There is real coffee, eggs, empanades and "Amazon donuts" done up in boiling fat. Breakfast done, we stroll to the bank of the Rio Tuichi. The river is way up from the night's rain. Packed into the boat are ten or so long logs. We slide them out and tie them up into a raft. Everything ship shape, we push off. Marcela observes from the boat, the huckleberry boys sit on the logs in the lapping water, and Jesus stands in the stern with a pole. This was certainly an agreeable way to get to back down the river. Jungle flats to the right, and jungle cliffs to the left. With the high water, our passage was a swift hour and a half. Arrive lodge. In short order, we set off again, through the woods, to attend to the flocking of the macaws. A steep, muddy climb brings us into the heights, and at length to the edge of the cliff. A sign in Hebrew memorializes the Israeli girl who stepped a little too close to the edge in '07. Below and abroad is a scene from another planet, except, of course, it is from our own, extremely so. In the great spaces above the sea of green are a score or so of macaw pairs, the red and blue kind, arcing and swinging, or driving straight, moving about their voluminous three dimensions, between their perches in the treetops below, and on the sides and top of the cliff. They scream in their rough, effusive language, and fly and perch always two-by-two. No scene in my experience has been more phantastic. We walk the trail along the cliff top to get a closer look at the perching macaws. In due course, back down to the lodge, lunch, siesta, and making ready to depart. Into the longboat and down the Rios Tuichi and Beni. The blockade is in place. A rope is strung way across the water, and a lot of people are milling around the right bank. An ornamental pillory is set up to show that they mean business. We pause for a good forty minutes while Jesus goes through the formality of assuring the blockaders that all aboard our vessel are in total sympathy with their demands. We are released in due course, pick up and drop off some passengers along the riverbank, and at length pull up in Rurrenabaque. To the office for my bag. I take leave of easy-going Jesus, check in once again to the Hostal Madidi, have a quick shower, and meet up with my tourmates for a parting several beers. Web tasks, and I dine late. Returning to my hotel, drips accelerate quickly into a downpour. This was foreboding, though I knew it not. (Happy winter solstice. I missed the festivities among the ancestors of sun worshippers).

Friday, June 22

<<(Here's the plan, more or less: Eastbound, on a rough road, through Amazonia. A night in San Borja, a night or two in the Beni nature reserve, perhaps a night in San Ignacio, and arrival in Trinidad. In this sizable city, I'll see about getting aboard a cargo vessel for a four day or so voyage up the Mamore and Ichilo rivers to Puerto Villarroel, where I'd reconnect with the road network. This would provide a leisurely adventure, consisting mostly of downtime in a hammock as the world slips by. All very iffy, though. A Plan B waits in the wings.)>> I step out of my penthouse and look over palmy Rurrenabaque. The rain was done, but the sky was dark and heavy. I break fast, pack up, and schlep Matilda through the back streets to the bus station. I get a ticket for a minivan that would get me only as far as Yucumo, with the onward link to San Borja to be taken from there. A wait under the starfruit tree for a quorum of seven to assemble. At length, we are underway. The road from Rurrenabaque to Trinidad is reputed to be the worst in the country, and is frequently shut down in the rainy season. But it's now dry season, and with the guidebook implying plausibility, and the transport system in place and seemingly operating, I was sanguine. Still, the prodigious mud was alarming. But the driver got us through, with only one push episode (as well as a flat tire). Arrive Yucumo, three and a half hours. I make inquiries, and am chagrined to hear that no transport is continuing to San Borja. Dry season or no, it seems that a couple of days with rain soaks the roads enough to make them impassable. A hollow-eyed Englishman told me the harrowing tale of spending the night on yonder parked bus, being told alternately that it would, at some shifting time, or wouldn't, be continuing to Trinidad. He had had enough, and was waiting for a van to fill and bear him back to Rurrenabaque. As we spoke, the bus in question started up and took off on the San Borja road, to who knows what fate. (It occurred to me too late that jumping aboard would have been an option). I didn't know what to think, but figured that just staying here was the thing to do. The town was small, just a few commercial streets and a highway frontage with a truck stop feel. I was ready to check into the least dubious looking hotel, when I noticed people waiting at a shelter apart from the main transportation hub. They were, indeed, awaiting transport to San Borja. The prospect seemed doubtful, but I figured safety in numbers and joined them. Various causes for doubt emerged as I waited and prospective passengers accumulated. Eventually I decided I was unwilling at that hour to risk getting stuck in the mud with non-regular transport, which, I perceived, was an option for at least some of these waiters. So I took leave and started walking across the street to the hotel. But a man on a cell phone waved me back, declaring regular transport to be on the way. So I rejoined, mostly to be polite to this guy who had been kind to me previously. Eventually a van shows up and quickly stuffs. Unlike a chicken bus, a van has limits. As my own sense of urgency about San Borja had completely dissipated, I was happy to be the one that wouldn't fit. I wish them luck and check into the hotel. It's late afternoon, and I go for a bite at an outdoor comedor. My hotel is set up like an American-style two floor motel, rather unusual down here. I sit in my doorway on the second floor and write. Out for a late cena. The streets in this burg are comical with slippery mud. The highway is threaded with huge ruts. Motorcyclists, a persistent bunch, look like true men of the soil. The floors of the businesses will presumably get a good hosing after things dry out. (No advance on this. It was cloudy-dark all day, and it never warmed up). Even aside from the mud, Yucumo is well on the god forsaken side of things. It's about time I got stuck in a place like this.

Saturday, June 23

<<(As for the plan: I've blown off the idea of visiting the Beni nature reserve. Getting picked up from there would be a wait-for-anything-that-moves situation, a dubious prospect at present. Also, I'm set back a day, and not in the mood for the uncertainties and complexities that a visit would entail.)>> Matilda and I step across the road from the hotel to the shelter. Quite a few waiters were already in place and stuffed the minivan that eventually showed up. We three latecomers, and later arrivals, wait two hours for the next. Underway. I don't know what to expect, but defer to the judgement of the transport company. It transpires that they are indeed valiant risk-takers. There were some fair stretches of road (flat country, by the way, farms and ranches), but mostly it was mud, with many long sections of utter morass. The tires of big trucks had set up ruts greater than two feet. Stranded vehicles struck crooked poses half in the ditch. Men with shovels were hard at work. Our driver pulled off some great moves, keeping the rear wheels from swinging off the road, or the whole vehicle from slipping off and tipping into the ditch. Nevertheless, there were a good half-dozen brushes with disaster. Arrive San Borja. That's enough. My butt's killing me. The sun is out and working for our benefit. I walk a mile through the spread out neighborhoods, find centro, and engage a hotel on the plaza. Nothing very special about this town. That's what makes it so special. It's possible that it has the highest chicken and fries places per capita in Bolivia. I walk the center and far flung side streets, at one point quaffing a cold Paceña in a street where no gringo had gone before. Some sort of festivity is taking place. There are speakers set up in the plaza (done by evening, thank God), a small band of brass and drums going about the streets, very visibly very drunk, and kids having danger/fun with fireworks. Also, teenagers piled high on motorcycles tottering and swirling around the plaza, but I think that is routine. Profane thumpings from the bar inhibits my sleep.......

Sunday, June 24

......as do the sacred church bells. Through the quiet outskirts to the bus station. I make my observations and inquiries. The minivans seemed to be idle, and the "flota" (greyhound-style bus) was late in arriving, and dubiously said to be due in an hour. This would be comfortable, but with a "camioneta" (a truck) soon to embark, I opted to go open-air. I also figured it would be faster and less likely to founder. Soon, this contraption arrives. It's a tough old Toyota flatbed, set up with a cage and a tarp, and four planks for sixteen, which is to say twenty-plus, including the kids filling in the chinks. A few more in the cab makes for a full load. Everybody's luggage and bundles are stowed under the planks and in the foot spaces. I secure my favored spot, right rear. This will be a long ride, and will not be comfortable, but it will not be the can't-move torture of a minivan. We embark. The mud is spectacular. Huge slurking trenches. I'd look ahead and see quagmires that seemed utter madness to traverse. Yet our driver kept us moving forward. After three hours the flota passed us. An hour later we came upon it again, in mud up to its axles. It miraculously splattered its way out, and we never saw it again. We passed several big trucks tilted crazily off the road. They will somehow, by human ingenuity, be righted and sent on. It was like a warm weather Minnesota snowstorm. A half dozen times, the men got off our truck and walked ahead while the driver made a run at a particularly viscous section. I learned to not get too worked up over sliding, forty-five degree tilts into the ditch. The truck was cat-like in its ability to stay on its feet. There was some good-natured screaming by some of the women during these tilt moments, and the kids thought it good fun. The general attitude was one of laughter and acceptance. The world we were so dramatically passing through was a varied and pretty mix of jungly forest and wetland, with cattle ranches here and there. We shared the road at one point with the most enormous herd I've seen in my life being driven along. Seven and as half hours, arrive San Ignacio de Moxos. Six or so blocks to centro. I make an erratic orbit around the big central square, and land myself in a homey hotel built around a courtyard. The pile of onions laid out on the tiles makes me hungry. It's past five, and thus far I've eaten only a boiled egg and a few banana chips that a señora had kindly handed to me on one of our rest stops. I go out and have a few street empanades to hold me till dinner, sitting in the big, central square. Web tasks ensue. There are no menu restaurants in town. So I have my late dinner at the last chicken joint still open. The fries are a little dried up, and so the chicken, and even the rice. I find this strangely pleasing, don't ask me why.

Monday, June 25

A cup of tea in the little mercado. I return for a hearty lunch for a buck and a half - one of many reasons to love Bolivia. San Ignacio has an old church from its Jesuit mission days. I think everything but the four walls is a restoration job, but it's still pretty cool in its simplicity. The modern art inside riffs on old styles and is very affecting. On this day, I prove that there's a first time for everything. After shunning the proposals of thousands of shoeshine boys and men, I at last submit to this service. My shoes were encrusted with yesterday's dried up mud, and could use a cleaning. The shoe shine man deftly slithered out of his wheelchair, directed me to the ledge where his customers sat, positioned himself on his coiled and withered legs, and set to work. The job was beyond his stiffest brush, though. When he resorted to picking at the encrustations with his nails, I thanked him, and said it was suficiente. Two Bolivianos. Definitely an improvement, but all was for naught, as I shortly got myself into some more mud. In the late afternoon, I walked north out of town for slanting rays, creature sounds, and pastoral scenes. The cosmos, nature, and man provided. Tranquilo. The screech of the parrot alerts me that it's time to turn around. Back to town in the dusk. Chicken and fries await. (And frustrations getting this post saved and posted...........)

Tuesday, June 26

(......and more such frustrations). Onward to Trinidad. I inquire my way to the transport office, and got a ride on a scooter to boot. There were two competing companies side by side, a fact which I did not notice till after I'd bought a ticket from the one with only two spaces filled, rather than with two to go. Oh, well. The second company was jabbering for me (I think) to go for a refund and sign up with them, but as they didn't offer to fight for me, I left things as they were. An hour and a half wait. Yesterday's sun had generally firmed up the mud, and earth movers had worked over a few select sections, leaving huge berms of rich loam. Still, there was a jam where a big truck had sunk in the middle of the road. A narrow path had been constructed around it that could accommodate smaller vehicles. We passengers do a long walk-around, while our driver careens the minivan around the obstacle. Meanwhile, several large trucks and a flota languished. We come to the ferry over the Mamore River. Men with long crowbars pry heavy planks into position between rutted earth and the rough, timber barge. The driver aims us aboard, the chains are undone, the pump starts up for the leakage, and we sail, pushed from the side by a little tub with an outboard. Upstream to the other bank. There was a second crossing a bit later, which I hadn't expected. After this, the wonder of a paved road. Arrive Trinidad, three and a half hours. A fair walk along a scruffy street of businesses catering to the construction boom. I repose in the big, leafy plaza with something cold to drink. This is a large town, and with ninety-eight percent of the vehicles on the street being motorcycles, it's not going to be quiet. My hotel search got a little protracted. Supply seeming low, places full (very rare on this whole trip), and prices kind of high. I leave my bag at a rather nice place, where the English speaking hotelier had offered me a discount if I were willing to wait, and step across the plaza. I'm telling you, the sloths have recently been coming fast and furious. I see one crawling under a park bench. I watch him carefully as he makes his way through an iron fence and up an ornamental tree. He was Mr Smooth in his motions, and though no squirrel, neither was he particularly pokey. I assume he was motivated to get up that tree. His face was kind of funny, and oddly humanoid. Web tasks and coffee, and I return to the hotel that had my bag. It transpires that the room would not be available after all. No harm done. I checked into my alternative. Tonight, I'll rehearse some relevant Spanish. Tomorrow, to the river port, to see about arranging my next adventure.

Trinidad 6/26

Valley of the Penises

Wednesday, June 27

I never made it to the river port this day. Instead, I blew the whole morning trying to get my clothes washed. The details of my futile wanderings and faulty leads are best forgotten. I finally got to a laundry out in the outskirts after seista. Errands and info gathering for the rest of the afternoon, and an extended thinking bout in the plaza. No sign of the sloth, who must have moved to another tree. I had a nice lunch in the mercado, never mind the chicken feet in the giant poofy corn kernels. - - - The motorcycle culture in Trinidad is a thing to behold. Everybody rides them, including old ladies. Crossing the street is a problem. It's not that they go fast; they generally don't, as they are mostly 125cc models, on rough streets, and often heavily loaded. It's that they are many, and they never stop, except at the few red lights (which cycle in about eight seconds). The swirl is continuous and chaotic. The stuff they're willing to carry is astounding. The passenger may have arms wrapped around construction materials, a ladder, a mattress, office furniture, you name it. Even aside from crash lacerations, the potential for wrenched joints and backs is huge. I've seen families of five on a 125. Babes will ride in arms, toddlers usually in front with their little hands on the handlebars. - - - A word about drainage: Trinidad has got a great system, admirable in its consistent application. Every block in the core is completely encircled by a protective moat. Whether these should called gutters or sewers is a matter of taste. They are deep and wide, and spanned by little bridges of concrete or planking. Urban effluvia stagnates in them picturesquely. One wonders what the annual motorcycle-in-gutter rate is.

Thursday, June 28

This morning, I really need to see about getting on a riverboat. I go over the relevant Spanish over breakfast at a sidewalk cafe. The shade is pleasant, but the motorcycles going around the plaza are loud. The river port is five miles out of town. I walk out along the thoroughfare and find the lair of the mototaxis. (I don't think I've seen a four-wheeled taxi in this town. People use motorcycle taxis, which are inconspicuously marked, or, I think, not marked at all). Soon, I am flying down the road on a magic carpet ride. Arrive Puerto Almacen. A village built on stilts is thinly spread around the port area, which is just a stretch of riverbank with a dozen or so wooden barges tied up. A few vessels, including tugs, are also parked here and there. I have a good look around and mentally inhabit each fine ship. I inquire after the "capitania", or port office, which turns out to be one and the same as the military installation. (This, an outpost of the ever hopeful Bolivian navy, which for the time being keeps a watchful eye on the nation's rivers.) There, my little pipe dream is shot down. There is presently no upstream navigation due to low water. This was one of a few ways for things to not work out, the others being too long a voyage or too long a wait. Disappointing, but not unexpected. Anyway, the prospect had provided me a good excuse for sweating it out this far into Amazonia. Now to get back to Trinidad to get Plan B finalized and put into place. There wasn't much going on in Puerto Almacen. Some men were loading shrink-wrapped bundles of two liter sodas into a barge, others shifting firewood, others baling or swabbing the decks. Pigs snuffle about the village streets. I didn't see much need for public transportation, as I didn't see much public. I wait around, but eventually ask at the capitania if they might call a mototaxi for me. The request threw the young navy man a little, and he insisted that waiting was the way to go. I'd done that for over an hour, but figured I could do it some more. I sat in the shade at a tienda, watching the dogs sleep and imbibing a big gaseosa. (Love that word for pop). Well hydrated, I thought I'd start walking the five miles back to town in the baking sun and see if I'd get there before I'd get a ride. Soon enough, I catch the eye of a passing moto. I have no idea if he was an actual taxi or not, as he wasn't marked, but he gladly took ten bolivianos to bear me into town. This ride sealed the deal. When I get home, I'll be getting myself a hog, exposing my butt crack, such as it is, cultivating the de rigeuer pimples thereabouts, and heading for Sturgis. For now, Trinidad. My next stop of interest will be Sucre. The river trip and subsequent bus link would have been the elegant approach. Time and money will bear on forming the alternative. Elegance is out the window. Bussing it to Sucre adds up to 24 to 36 hours, including mandatory night rides. As I'm not willing to spend this (sleepless) time, I'll spend money instead, and fly. Tying up this decision and its means occupied the afternoon. In the eve, I step down to the arroyo, where the little screams of many frogs equaled the din of the motorcycles. Later, the university students were parading around celebrating something or other. A good excuse for the chicas to wear their skimpy things, and glitter and balloons and whatnot.

Friday, June 29

Trinidad in the morning. Birds wild and domestic emote. Why does one suspect that a balmy town in its balminess never really sleeps? That it will never not be open-eyed and aware? But I wax Bradburyesque.... Matilda and I waltz to the airport. One link of the 8:30 to Sucre via Santa Cruz is booked, so I'll be on the 11:45 via La Paz. (same distance and price). I leave my bag with the airline and engage a mototaxi back into Trinidad for another final look and a leisurely breakfast on the plaza. The school kids have set up displays celebrating foodstuffs and nutrition. The small kids are parading around in every conceivable costume. Who knows how it all fits together. A moto back to the airport. At length, we rise. The green carpet of Amazonia gives rise to obscuring cloud. Still, the Cordillera Real reveals itself as we approach La Paz. Swerviest landing ever. A couple of hours of puttering around the airport. We rise again. It's now cloudless, and the far out geography of La Paz is clearly arrayed. Illampu is in my face, and the other great ones yonder. The earth below is deeply wrinkled and scarcely inhabited. Gorgeous. Sucre lies like cornflakes in a shallow bowl. Touchdown. I emerge from the space capsule on a much more temperate planet. The lowlands really beslime a guy. Here, at nine thousand feet, one's clothes will not become instant laundry. I decline the taximen's appeals (back to the usual four wheels), step out to the road, and for a tenth the price get into a micro, whose driver confirmed that he'd be passing through centro. Hotel shopping, and I make my first rounds.

Saturday, June 30

Sucre is certainly the most genteel city I've been in since Arequipa. Wealth and (worldwide) culture are way up. At 215,000 people, it's no metropolis. There's lots of colonial and nineteenth century architecture. I like the idea of it being the nation's capital (which it is, constitutionally, and the seat of the Law, i.e., the Supreme Court), and yet being unsullied by actual politics and bureaucracy, which festers from La Paz. The buildings and people are mostly white. So I put on my white shirt for the day's perambulations. A fair chunk of the day was given over to sitting on park benches with guidebooks. Act five of this worldly walk really does need to be shaped up and forced into a calendar, as it will involve buying tickets for long distance air travel.

Sunday, July 1

A day of travel study in Sucre, in the sunny doorway of my hotel room, or on the benches of the plaza, under the cast-in-bronze gaze of Sucre himself, and his attendant pigeons. Cultural events of the day: Half a mass in the cathedral in the morn. Balloons being twisted into swords for the kids in the plaza, and subsequent sword fights. The facades of the central religious edifices (all locked up, unfortch). Another fantastically worthy and cheap lunch in the mercado. And a visit to the museum in the Casa de la Liberdad, the birthplace of the nation. Swords, funny hats, martial art, odd nineteenth century doodads, and the portraits of many presidents, with odd gaps in the sequence, giving rise to my eyebrow. As with our prezes, the beards stop late nineteenth century, and the smiles begin mid-twentieth. Highlight: The Founding Document, in a little brass and glass case on a pedestal engraved "Bolivia", in the hall in which it received its John Hancocks in 1825.

Monday, July 2

The breakfast infrastructure of Sucre is at an international standard, so I succumb to the lure of good coffee. Time to move on from yet another of the Earth's many human settlements. I inquire my way to the bus station, as it was well off the map. Soon, I am borne away, in the first flota I've been in since I first arrived in La Paz. We rise, into ever greater topographical grandeur. The landscape evokes the American West, and one expects Ben, Hoss, and Little Joe to be galloping up any moment. Arrive Potosi, three and a half hours. The city is arrayed below the bare cone of Cerro Rico, the silver mountain that was its historical money maker. A micro with "centro" on the windshield conveys me thither. This town, as I expected, is very cool. I make a hotel round, and settle in. Out in the dusk. Ah, meat and potatoes on the brazier. That will hold me till dinner. I sit on a ledge with the little baggie of steaming delicacies, and thereby attract the attentions of a dirty bum. I relocate, perhaps rudely, without ever hearing his appeals. Sitting on a bench elsewhere in the area of outdoor cookery, I spear the morsels with a toothpick, fortify myself, and add my person to the throngs streaming through the narrow streets and sidewalks.

Tuesday, July 3

My room at Hostal La Casona is adequate enough, and it's in a building from 1795. But the international backpacker vibe verges on the overwhelming, and it could be cheaper. So I look over a few more (dismal) options in the morning, but stay put. (This old mansion has only recently been fitted out as a hotel. My room included a little toy radiator, which was warm to the touch in the morning, and gave me perhaps eight additional degrees. This the first heating system I've ever seen in a hotel in Latin America). Potosi: 150,000 people at 13,400 feet. Cities don't get much higher than that. At one time, it was the mother lode of planet earth. The oodles of silver that came out of the mountain bought Spain a long stretch of world power, at the cost of the lives of uncounted (though some say eight million) native and African slaves. All that wealth and greed seemed to have worked up a religious mania in the local powers that be, which led them to build a gorgeous church about every two or three blocks. Perhaps it was their magnanimous way of assuaging any poignant whiff of guilt. In any case, it's great for twenty-first century tourism. I aimed for bell towers and domes, and little crosses on the map, and walked all over hell, I mean creation. All were locked up, I was disappointed to find. The core of the old city has lots of great old buildings, with enclosed wooden balconies, ancient, heavy doors, family crests on lintels, cane eaves, wooden beams sticking out, old tile roofs and such. I climbed up to a hilltop viewpoint to get the big picture. No agriculture at these barren, rugged heights around the city. But there looms the mountain, still producing meagerly for the miners, who work for themselves in cooperatives, digging up I'm not such what at present. I was much tempted to take a tour of the mines, but as a claustrophobe, I desisted. (A tour would have entailed a gift of cigarettes, coca, and dynamite for the working-for-pennies miners, a tourism era tradition). I raise my hand, and bow my head, to the miners living, and the miners dead. I dip back down through the city, and climb into the far upper reaches at the other end. This was modern sprawl, the uniform concrete frame and terracotta block architecture of functional Latin America. I'm off the gringo trail up here, and enjoyed many a homely and ordinary neighborhood scene. How to blunt my strangeness? Eye contact and a heartfelt buenas tardes. Works every time, and people love it. As do I. Back down through this rough suburbia in the golden rays of the declining sun, which beautifies everything it touches. - - - - - Odd human encounter of the day (of the year actually): In the morning, in the courtyard of my hotel, I had noticed a woman in her sixties eyeing me strangely. I'd seen her before hunched in a sunbeam and writing voluminously. I greeted her, and she smiled a faint, weird smile, but there was no social hook, and the thing was awkward. I spent a few minutes at the computer in the lobby. When I got up, I saw that she had been watching me. I hoped she was merely waiting for the computer, but as I walked up the street, I was aware that she was following me. I ducked into an internet place to complete my errand ( the hotel's mouse was balky). Stepping out a half hour later, there she was. I greet her again with eyebrow raised, and got no reaction. I had wondered whether she was a free form individualist wishing to seduce me, or whether she was just nuts. Yes, nuts, I think, as I continue up the street with her on my heels, and me affecting to not be aware. I exercised her for a good mile, wondering if she'd ever break off. But at length, I pause around a quiet corner, and face my pursuer. I venture a few words of wonder, but she had had quite enough of my "theater". She asks me if I speak German (I perceive her to be such). I reply, nur ein kliene bisschen (just a little bit). She smirked knowingly at this, but indulged me by speaking English. You see, I am in cahoots with the Bavarian mafia, and am a torturer. We use small electronic weapons that leave no mark. The whole bit and more. I asked, in my mildest torturer's voice, if she meant to follow me all day. Her non-answer was that she was not out to harm me, but that she meant to look at me, the torturer, in the face. Fair enough. I let her know that I had an errand and would be on my way. Fine, fine, I could expect no interference from her, as she kept to my heels. At length, I sit down on the steps of a church. Go ahead, pray, she exhorted me bitterly, that's what torturers do. Quite true, I remark, and refer to the prayerful men who had slaved multitudes to death in yonder mountain. But this gesture at touching common ground fell flat, predictably. I wasn't trying to engage her, really. I know from experience that you can never take the lead with psychotic people, nor expect sequential replies. Conversations with them may be interesting, but they are never fruitful. And when hostility is present, it can be a little off-putting. So, I lead her on a little further, till I spotted an optical shop and ducked inside. She didn't follow me in, but I saw her through the glass door. She had seemed a rather humorless sort, but she was now laughing hard, no doubt at the transparent "theater" of an electronically torturing mafioso stepping into an optical shop, as though he were intending to, say, get his reading glasses screwed back together. When I stepped out fifteen minutes later, after having gotten my reading glasses screwed back together, she was gone. This spared me from having to rudely assert my running superiority and ditching her. But I knew that we'd meet again. When I came back to my hotel, rather late in the evening, the glass doors were locked. She was sitting on the bench in the lobby eating something. She looked at me and laughed a knowing laugh. I rang the bell, got my key, and passed her with a guten abend. She just shook her head.

Wednesday, July 4

Back at my hotel after getting some breakfast, I see the mad frau at the top of the landing, combing out her wet hair, and looking very much like Bette Davis in a few of her later roles. She histrionically makes a sweeping bow as I pass, and now addresses me fiercely in Spanish. In my room (door locked) I consult the dictionary: hmm....mata, mata-something....ah, yes, of course: matar, to kill, to butcher. I look in the mirror, and find myself strangely enjoying my new role, with my devilish goatee hiding the mark of Cain. But the feeling was momentary. Out to pursue an errand of peace and goodness, viz., a visit to the Convento de Santa Teresa, founded 1685 by the severely cloistered Carmelite order. Most of the colonial edifice is now museum, and the modern sisters live adjacent. I was the only English speaker signed up, so I had the undivided attentions of Lidia, my Potosiña guide. Back in the days of the silver mania, aristocratic families would pay big money for the privilege of consigning their second daughters, at age fifteen, to a life of simplicity, meditation, purpose, humility, devotion, and spiritual bliss, or, if you will, a life of social and sensory deprivation, lost sexuality, aching wombs, regret, resentment, and stifled madness leading to vacancy. Take your pick. By the way, getting your girl in when one of the twenty-one spots opened up guaranteed the whole family a place in heaven. One does not have to wonder out from which orifice that theology was pulled. Calling Luther! Anyway, Lidia knowingly tours me around the convent. We begin at the entry, where the hapless teenager would show up in a wedding dress, and pass through the doors, never to return. The tears would stop sometime, I imagine. Human beings can take just about anything. The visiting room was divided, as befits a prison. Here, the nuns would receive monthly visits from their families. A curtain kept the parties from seeing each other, and spikes in the grate prevented anything like touch. Speaking and hearing were within bounds. In the church, a clever, rotating thingamajig allowed the sisters to receive the host through the wall without glimpsing, or being glimpsed by, the priest. Commerce with the outside world was also by this means. Four times a year, the sisters would sing for the people gathered for mass from behind a curtain up in the choir. They ate in silence, facing a skull in a bowl of dust, in order to keep it all in perspective, while the Mother Superior read from the Scriptures. They slept on bare wood, so as never to stray from the sufferings of Christ on the cross. There was a nice collection of self-torture instruments. I don't imagine that anything for self-pleasure made it past the planning stage. There was a collection of sewing stuff, speaking to the sisters' recreational life. In the midst of the day's spiritual toils, they would break for two hours and toil with the sewing: everyday things, as well as artful vestments for the priests. At this time they were free to talk , though one wonders what about. (This severity lasted till Vatican II. Modern Carmelites have some elbow room to be human, and as volunteers, are not enslaved at fifteen.) All this is great for twenty-first century tourism. The rooms and cloisters were all very interesting, of course, with old wood, door hardware, and stone floors. Lots of masterful religious paintings and gilt altarpieces and such. I wouldn't spend my whole life there, but the two hours were well spent. Thanks and a propina for Lidia, and I'm out for late afternoon rays in the old quarters, street food sampling, and a haircut. I took a micro out to the bus station to plan my exit. It's a good thing I did, as I discovered that my options were limited. Alarm set for 5:20....

Thursday, July 5

Venus and Jupiter blaze up there in the blackness. Not a soul in the freezing streets. I pause at the corner of the plaza, where I knew micros to pass. With no one around, and seemingly no one emerging, I began to wonder if I might be too early for public transportation. So I took the first taxi to pass, and got to the bus station for a buck and a half rather than a quarter. The place is outer-space cold, and people waiting are wrapped up in blankets. I provision myself with cornbread. The bus takes us up and out of town around the root of Cerro Rico. The slopes are a wasteland, torn up over ages. The rock grinding and arcane mining processes continue. Through a rugged landscape of shrub, cactus, and short juniper trees. Knowing that I wouldn't otherwise keep awake for the scenery, I had my coca pouch handy. This time, I had provided myself with the crucial ingredient: baking soda ("bica" - there are traditional substances, but I was never able to complete the communication in markets. I got this bica - actually baking powder, which is all I could find - in a grocery store). With the alkaloids thus properly released, I had my perkiest coca chaw yet. From chin bouncing off chest to wide awake for the duration. Coffee couldn't do that. Six hours, arrive Tupiza. From this town I'll be embarking on the standard four day tour of the great landscapes of southwestern Bolivia. There are inviting walks in the local canyons and hinterlands, too. In the evening rays, I ascend the stations of the cross to the graffitied Christ on the hilltop, and look over the town, set in its gravelly river bottom, amid rugged, red mountains, and claim it as yet another ephemeral home.

Friday, July 6

I further absorb Tupiza throughout the day, as I consult tour agencies, gather info and gut feelings, and generally fuss and putz about getting hooked up with a tour. I spare you the details. A late emerging possibility did not work out, but first thing in the morning, I'll be putting myself in the tubes.

Saturday, July 7

I engage an agency that had the volume, and I think the mentality, to match their clients thoughtfully. (Language the main issue. Jeeps leave with four tourists, a driver/guide, and a cook; or in convoys of two, one more tourist and one less cook). I assured them I was flexible about the departure date to give them flexibility for plugging me in. They'll be getting back to me. Now, for a little walk into the wild. I pick up picnic items in the market and head out of town. Destination, Valle de los Machos (Valley of the Males), or, as it known more specifically, Valle de los Penes (Valley of the Penises). A dirt road passes through a gap thoughtfully blasted through a steep ridge and leads into a strange and colorful desert landscape. The scene is rather Utahesque. (Indeed, Tupiza, in its setting, could be the sister city of Moab, Utah). Scrubby trees and big cactuses down in the washes and vehicle tracks I was walking. The slopes were of tilted and weirdly eroded layers. The tourist map I had was of limited help. I did take a false turn, but fellow travelers and a local kept me to the right track. At length, the penises come into view. They are rock hard and seem to have been standing there a long time. Depending on the fertility of one's imagination, there were between six and twelve of them. Actually, with the help of a little paranoid schizophrenia, one could look around the weird, eroded slopes and be quite beset with a multitude of penises. What would the mad frau make of all this? But I am mentally healthy, sort of, and proceeded with my picnic a ways further on from the phallic-looking rocks. The wash had narrowed to a boulder-choked canyon, a shrubbery-fringed, vertical aperture that seemed to be open to exploration. I scrambled up there a ways, and then turned around for an expansive desert amble back to Tupiza, in the golden rays of the sun.

Tupiza 7/8

Wide Open Spaces

Sunday, July 8

A big Sunday market is lined up under tarps along the railroad tracks. I pass through on my way out of Tupiza. For today, an outing up Quebrada de Palala (Palala Wash). I walk a mile past the edge of town along the tracks. The wash opens up on my left. I become a small figure in its broadness. In the rainy season, it would be ripply; at present, it is gravelly. A vehicle track lies along its edge. There are towering red fins on either side of the broad bottom. There are a few cows and llamas, but mostly this is goat country. They happily browse what looks like dangerous plant matter. A distant fleck of color will mark the presence of the goatherdess. The road crosses the wash and divides. I take the lesser, toward yonder vertical formations. There are thorny, desert trees and cactuses. Three little girls of four, five, and six are engaged in a rock piling operation. They are widely spaced as they waddle under the weight of small boulders, and each eagerly awaits my hola as I pass. At length, the time for turning, which is also the time for a picnic. Bread and cheese under a thorn tree, here in the Utah of South America. When I pass the girls again, they have abandoned their rock piles, and are clustered together by an aqueduct making mud pies. I am the funniest thing they've ever seen. Who knows where in this wilderness their parents are, but I'm not worried. Evening rays enflame the spines and vertical gullies. A man on a bicycle passes. We agree that he lives in a beautiful world. I pass through the biggest flock of goats ever as it flows across the road. Their beards could not be more goatish in twilight silhouette. Their distant bleats sound lunatic, though surely they are not. Small groups of them erupt in orgies of gamboling. At length, the main road, the railroad tracks, and the Sunday market packing itself up. Another fine walk.

Monday, July 9

Tupiza is the perfect town in which to browse and putter. I confirm that my tour will start tomorrow. Outing of the day: to Cañon del Duende. I had a merely suggestive map and some abstract instructions. I never found the place, but trying made for a grand expedition. The city garbage dump was a sight to behold. Its boundaries were vague. It had a resident gleaner and a pack of vigilant dogs. Downwind, the shrubberies and cactuses were thoroughly festooned with flapping plastic bags.

Tuesday, July 10

A shower in the early morning chill renders me clean and alert. I place myself among the tables in the mercado for tea and a pastel. (A dough skin draped into boiling fat and poofing up. One rolls it up with powdered sugar). I grab my packed bag from my hotel and round the corner to meet my tourmates. We are: Marie and Hugo, a physician and numbers man from the Netherlands, and Michael, a student of the world from Germany. Fluent English speakers all. Michael had a competent and confident store of freshly acquired Spanish which provided our link with Marco, our driver/guide, and Maria, the cook. Luggage on the roof of the jeep, and off we go for a four day tour of the wild southwest of Bolivia. Up the Quebrada de Palala and into broad horizons. The general, though widely varied theme, is of widely spaced, snow-capped or snow-dusted mountains, some of them volcanos, set around the vast, rolling altiplano. Marco expertly eases the jeep through numerous frozen creek crossings. We pause for a tire change. Vicuñas browse and frolic. Many a sublime landscape. Maria passes the coca, and with the traditional catalyst, "lejia", at hand, I had my first proper chaw. We pause to walk among the ruins and ghosts of San Antonio, a sixteenth century silver town whose last inhabitants cleared out only a few decades ago. Not a roof, but plenty of stone walls. The sun bakes the rubble on the floor of the church, whose weddings and funerals are long forgotten. We pause for the evening at Quetena Chico, a hamlet of adobe and tin roofs held down by rocks. The few buildings are mostly built to accommodate tour groups in dorm style rooms, but the town has a few inhabitants. Five or so little kids come in to serenade us at dinner. They were very cute and dirty, so it was hard to refuse their appeals for money. But we remained unexploited. They will succeed with others. A cold, cold night.

Wednesday, July 11

The scenic drive continues through wide open spaces evoking the United Statesian west. We pause for lunch at a hot spring. Lots of near-naked tourists, myself among them, ducked out of the cold wind into the hot water, and back into the cold wind again. Next pause is at a tableau of warped rocks scattered in the sand, a place named for Dali, the artist whose work it all evoked. Also a visit to a thermal area, with pores in the earth hissing hellish fumes, and paint pots boiling. The slopes and basins are a palette of subtle colors. We pause at Lago Colorado, red with algae, and visit the flamingos, who go about their business quite innocent of all kitsch. The night spent at Huaylljara, 14,200 feet, a little adobe strip mall, pretty much rooms for passing tour groups. Another frigid night.

Thursday, July 12 More wild landscapes. We pause among weird, eroded rocks. Lunch among the tame and well-fed viscachas. (Rabbit-like chinchillas). More visits to algae-sprouting lakes, to commune ever more closely with the flamingos. We pause for the evening at Atulcha, a village near the edge of the salt flat, and at 12,000 feet, not so bitterly cold. The hotel is made of salt blocks, and the tour infrastructure is the most well-appointed so far, even to the point of having hot showers. Michael and I visit the nearby ruins of Qhatinchu, an extensive set of stone walls that began with the Incas, but was also evidently put to use by moderns. Inscrutable little stone igloos cover pits in the ground. Dinner among the other tour groups at the hotel. Bottles of wine are deployed in our group, and a convivial fume arises.

Friday, July 13

Still black at 5:45. We are poised and ready for the sunrise and breakfast out on the salt flat. But the sun came up on us in the village, and we had breakfast in the salt hotel, as Marco worked at getting the jeep open, as it was locked up and running with the keys inside. I gave it a try myself for a while, but plan A was hopeless. I took a walk around the village in the extreme morning rays. When I returned, plan B had succeeded, and we were off. (To be clear, Marco was an able fellow in every way, notwithstanding this accidente). The jeep sails into the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world, the size of two Delawares. Arrive Incahausi Island, a prominent hillock in the salt, with a permanent population of big, saguaro-like cactuses, and a transient population of jeep-borne tourists. From the summit, one surveys the immensity, the horizon presenting landforms mounded or ranged, more near or more far. Volcan Tunupa squats conically like a patient Buddha. Sections of horizon are purely white and infinite. We sail further into the salt sea, pausing in the middle for the pure extremity of it, and to examine the encrystaled pots of standing water. We have lunch in Colchani, a tourist-ready salt mining settlement on the edge of the Salar. A brief stop outside of Uyuni to see the famed collection of rusting, vintage locomotives. Then into town for the inevitable breaking of our well-knit fellowship. Hugo and Marie to points north in the early morn. Michael straight back to Tupiza with Marco and Maria, soon to wind up his long South American sojourn. And I to Chile, shortly. I engage a four and a half dollar hotel, a luxury, so to speak, that I don't think I'll be seeing again. Uyuni is very much a frontier town, not much older than a hundred years. The streets are absurdly broad. There are no trees, of course, nor architecture to speak of. The church is just a big space, but the art inside is kind of sweet, looking very much like colorful Sunday School illustrations. Behind the altar is a big, frankly political mural, with Christ front and center offering strength and comfort to the oppressed. The town is full of identical pizza/pasta joints, and is swarming with young gringos from all over the world and their giant backpacks. (Most foreigners begin the standard four-day tour from Uyuni. I did it in reverse for various reasons). Uncharming Uyuni gets a good look-over as I ponder my exit strategy. Fate directs me to a dine in a pizza/pasta joint. A good thing, as the place was heated, sort of, and bone-cracking frigidity had followed the sinking of the sun. I sleep in my outdoor clothes under three South American rug/blankets.

Saturday, July 14

A day of puttering around sunny Uyuni. ---(((( Here's the plan, as it evolved: I've been meaning to head for Chile from Uyuni. There had been some flip-flopping in the last month over the Argentina-first option, but never mind. It transpired that the flota departures direct to Calama in Chile leave at ungodly wee hours (I expected this), but they were all booked for early Sunday. So, rather than spend an extra day in Uyuni, I went for an option I'd previously dismissed, as not so cheap nor quick: jeep transport again. It's not exactly a tour, as the focus is on transportation, though it is through a tour company. All for the best, actually. For another thirty-four bucks, I'll be on minor roads, in daylight, in a scenic paradise, with room and board included for Sunday night in a Bolivian village close to the border. And I'll be dropped off in a small, charming Chilean tourist town, rather than in a mining town that the guidebook described as a "shit hole" (from which I had planned to continue three hours to a coastal city). ))))--- In the late afternoon, I walk out of town on the railroad tracks for the evening rays. The high desert scrub is a sea of fluttering plastic bags. Back into Uyuni in the dusk, its empty, desolate outskirts like a sci-fi lunar base.

Uyuni 7/14

Half the String Bean

Sunday, July 15

I was dreading the shower, till I saw that the hotelier had wheeled a gas heater into the common baño. (My room never got any sun, and even at midday, it was like walking into a freezer). I stow my bag at the office of the jeep/tour company, and so was able to walk around Uyuni freely for the afternoon, soaking up my last bit of urban Bolivia, and marveling at the general emptiness of the broad streets. The mercado didn't have much of a lunch operation going, so I ate in the diviest almuerzo place I could find. At 3:30, I join my jeepmates, a Spanish/German couple and their German friend. All good speakers of English. We're off, back along the same roads (mostly) that had been part of the previous tour. More flamingos and ostriches. The afternoon and evening light was sublime on the voluptuous earth. No photos, though, as we were in transport mode. After dark, arrive Villa Mar, another little adobe village, this one populated by quinoa farmers. (I had seen their bare, winter fields as we approached the town in the dusk. It seems rather sterile up here, but I'm told that the summer rains will usually yield them a crop). In the general sorting out with the two other jeeps that had arrived, I ended up rooming with three Brazilians, rather that my jeepmates. These were affable fellows with good to very good English. The dining room of the hostal was very homey, the perfect setting for a cream soup, chicken, and rice. I broke out the wine I'd stowed in my bag for this occasion. More bottles followed, as the place actually had them for sale. Glasses were raised to the Wide World, Johnny Cash, and other toastable things.

Monday, July 16

The eastern sky is black at 5:30. I had forgotten about the existence of the Magellanic Clouds, but there they were, hanging up there like friendly Caspars. (These are two milky way-like blobs viewable from southern latitudes). The nice Chilean lady was able to heat up cups of water for us with a plug-in element, for breakfast was otherwise not to be served. Our convoy of now four jeeps takes off at six. Dawn breaks on the road, and the morning rays light up more scenes from the previous tour, including Lago Colorado and Dali-land, to which my midday photos will not do justice. At ten, we stop at Bolivian customs, a little blocky building in the beautiful desolation. We get our exit stamps, and sort out the various means that have been arranged for us to continue into Chile. A little lunch is served by each transport company. After eleven weeks I turn my back on my dear Bolivia and board a minibus. From a rough, often sandy track with rocky wash crossings, to a paved, signed highway. Welcome to Chile. A long descent into a great basin ringed with mighty mountains brings us in forty minutes to Chilean customs on the outskirts of San Pedro de Atacama. There was quite a crowd and quite a wait. At length, there is a general dispersal by jeep or foot, and I take leave of the various people I'd met. I plop myself on a bench in the plaza for a moment of stopping. Then, to waste a lot of time and energy in the baking sun trying to locate hotels that seemingly did not exist, till I realized I was holding the map upside -down. Confounded Southern Hemisphere! I'll never curse the guidebook again. (Actually, I will). (This was a two bone-up day. Later, I bought a bus ticket for Tuesday, thinking it was presently Sunday. I was lucky to get back to the bus office before it closed, to make an exchange for a Wednesday ticket). The cheapest hotel I could find was twenty bucks. And bring your own toilet paper. In Bolivia, this place would go for four. I know that Chile is going to be more expensive, but I hope this multiple of five is due to me being in a tourist town on a three day weekend. And tourist town it is, surpassing Copacabana, Bolivia by, let's say, five times. The town is physically small, and utterly overtaken with fine dining, faux fine dining, artesania, and tour outfits aiming to hook you up with the area's scenic attractions. I never did find a pharmacy. And there was no mercado. All tourist types, foreign and domestic, are represented: courting couples, married couples, with or without kids, swarms of youths with backpacks, and hippies young and old. (And, ahem, a very few outliers). The town is supposedly indigenous, but unlike Copacabana, it seems swamped in whiteness. There is a nice old colonial church with a warpy, cactus-wood ceiling. Where to dine in this lalaland of near American prices? I opt for this town's outlet of international Bob Marley worship. The place was festooned with the great man's iconography, and his live performances were on the tube. As a Marley fan (never mind the out of his ass religion and the callow weed-worship), I was perfectly happy to have his music pulsing at high volume. Having my back to a reflective wall with a fire in front of me was also nice. As was the artful food.

Tuesday, July 17

Though I had originally planned to bypass this (not so) charming tourist town, I figured that as long as I was here, I'd take a day and walk and bid a fond farewell to the altiplano, before I sank back down to sea level. So, up a broad wash, this one not so pretty as the one near Tupiza, as its bottom had been beaten up with earth moving equipment, and part of the flowing stream channelized. I visit the hillside fortifications of the Atacameña people (12th century), a great beehive of small stone enclosures on the steep bend of a hillside overlooking the natural roadway of the wash. There was a big battle here in 1540, after which the victorious Spaniards did a lot of beheading. I walked quite a ways further up, sometimes stirring up six inches of powdery road dust, but never found the plunging gorge or Inca site I was aiming for. Though from my picnic spot in the shade of a tree, I spotted an old church further up the wash. I didn't visit it, but contented myself with peeping at it with the monocular. On the way back, I was mildly scolded by an old shepherd for not being on the main road on the other side of the stream. (I was trying to avoid fording for a third time). I can't imagine I was on his land, as I was right on the bank with a lot of vehicle tracks. Maybe he was miffed that I was distracting his dog from his duties by scratching his ears. (Nevertheless, that flock was one tightly packed, single-minded unit). Glowing slopes and dark shadows in the last rays.

Wednesday, July 18

Yet another early morning diagonal plaza crossing. The 7:30 flota pulls away at 8:15. The stark Atacama desert. Through the mining town of Calama, its general awfulness presided over by a giant statue of Christ. The long descent from the American Tibet to the shores of the world pond. Somewhere along the way, with my chin on my chest probably, I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, for yet another geographical/geometrical milestone. Four hours, arrive Antofagasta. The bus pulls into a great, not-new multicompany terminal that the recent edition guidebook made no mention of. I was expecting an elegant, four-block walk to my pre-selected hotel from the bus office. Instead, two miles on a city bus. The elegance of this new approach was somewhat muted by my having to get off, cross the thoroughfare, and get on the next bus going in the right direction. (More dubious elegance: It's a good thing that this terminal had useable facilities. I think the salmon I had last night had taken a little too long to get to San Pedro). At length, I'm in centro and settled. I have an afternoon to absorb this large port city. Antofagasta is not very old. It was founded to be the Bolivian seaport shortly before Chile muscled in and grabbed it and the whole province in the 1880s, land-locking Bolivia, to its everlasting resentment. Peru got a little dismembered too. Shades of the fate of Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century. First stop, the waterfront, to gaze at the Pacific and dip my fingers therein. The big blue sky I'd been living under up in Tibet is now grey, its usual state, I think, down here at the sea. Said gray sky is soared by the Pelicans of Life. Urban squatters have a little tent village in the sand behind a breakwater. I walk around centro and attend to some practicalities. The town is said to be unremarkable, which seems true enough. But it's got a few old wooden buildings, a nice pedestrian mall and plazas, buskers, coffee, a mime, and some wealth to provide some contrast to the grime. Also, big-box stores and actual supermarkets. I felt a bit rude today. In addition to a beleaguered bowel, I've got a touch of fever. I fast accordingly.

Thursday, July 19

(Health on the rebound....) The 111 drops me at the bus station at 7:30. I was expecting a staccato stream of buses here at the artery of the continent, but this was not the case. Prices, and superfluous comforts, are up hugely from what I've been accustomed to. I opt for a relatively cheap option at 10:00 (meaning 10:45). I had more than enough time to soak up the charms of this bus station. (To be fair, I had a view of the steely ocean beyond the big boxes and urban grayscapes, as I sat on a stool with my nescafe and rubber roll). Underway, every infinitely divisible instant offering me a new extreme of southernness. At a particular stream-instant, a green plant breaks the perfect sterility of the Atacama Desert. There would be more, as we penetrated climes that occasionally see a bit of rain. Arrive Copiapo, after dark, an eight hour seven hour journey. This town is layover city. Twenty bucks to lodge. Ouch. The slightly cheaper digs were booked. This in a non-touristed, provincial mining town on the highway. At least the drinking water comes free out of the tap in this country. I drop my bag and make a round of the scattered bus offices and terminals, gathering info among masses of travelers in various states of transition, and purchase a seat for the morn on an almost booked bus. To dine in a sandwich place. I perceive that Chile serves draft beer ("schop") - nice.

Friday, July 20

(New ailment: The ligatures of my right foot are evidently stressed, and I am lamed enough to be seriously limping). Coffee and a flaky confection at a sidewalk cafe on the plaza. To the bus station. Copiapo, I hardly knew ye. Southbound. The desert blooms a little more. Five hours, arrive La Sirena. Hotels were expensive and frequently booked. I schlep Matilda around for two hours on my bad foot before I found an unbooked place for under twenty bucks. I hereby declare that I am now acclimatized to Chilean hospitality prices. It's at about the level of American exorbitance, if one adjusts for the lack of space, furniture, a bathroom, and heat. Culinary surprise of the day: I asked for "chaparrita," with cheese, which was alluringly displayed at a little street outlet. I didn't know what this was, but it looked like another variation on the endless empanade theme. But when I bit into the thing, I discovered a hot dog in there! And I'd ordered two of them! That'll hold me till dinner. Now normally, I flee from hot dogs. But these did me no harm, and I'm a more worldly person for having eaten them. It's what travel is all about.

Saturday, July 21

Today, I hobbled around La Serena, taking in the sights, such as they were (there were a few old churches), attending to practicalities, and marveling at the first worldliness of it all. I eschewed larger physical ambitions, like a visit to the the beach, two miles out of town, so as to spare my sore foot further abuse. Though this country is not as cool as Bolivia or Peru, there is a kind of ineffable homeliness about it. I dined in a humble place with butternut paneling, yellow paint, and old clocks and whatnot that made me feel that I was in, oh, I don't know, Houghton Michigan, don't ask me why.

Sunday, July 22

An hour after getting out of bed, I've imbibed a hotel continental breakfast and installed myself at the bus station. Underway in the 8:45 at 9:30. Chile further greens under gray skies. I was so asleepy that I wasn't even aware that we'd penetrated a big city till we came to a stop. Arrive Santiago, seven hours. I have a short to long term hotel strategy to put into place. Down to the metro. A young man on the platform has his aesthetic nose in a volume of Pablo Neruda. Back in the larger/smaller cosmo world. Four stops and a walk brings me to Hostal de Sammy. This was more expensive than I'd hoped, but as it was was sunset in the city, I was determined to plant. Out again to walk up the main axis and initiate my orientation. Urban city. I taste slightly of its pleasures.

Monday, July 23

Today, I walk all over Santiago, or its cosmo-scale inner precincts at least, pursuing various errands, and in the meantime letting the metropolis unfold itself to me. There seems to be no end to its variegated urbanity. Very New York-like. Though I availed myself of the subway a few times, still, my suffering right foot was called upon to suffer further. It can't be helped. It's pleasantly cool, and cloud fends off the burning sun. Though the air is a bit murky, one catches startling glimpses of the snow ranged Andes standing gigantically to the east. In the evening, I find myself dining in a neighborhood/thoroughfare bar and grill, the kind of place that one may find in, say, the Bronx. As I was about to leave, an affable gentleman approached, asking if he might buy me a pisco sour, and if I minded him smoking. Yes and no. As his English was not much better than my Spanish, our conversation was carried on with the aid of a lot of amiable grunting and head-nodding. Chile was generally approved of, and my purposes were disclosed (Quiero ver el mundo). Soon enough, the question came up, as it always does, of just where the hell were my wife and children. (Though it goes against my grain to be deceitful, I have on other occasions lied about this - divorced, at college - in order to spare innocent small-talkers from having to back away from a freak. In my own culture zone, the discomfort can usually be finessed, but in Latin America, I've learned that people really can't handle it). Of course, he was caught off-guard by my unconnectedness. Spluttering, he ventured a "very, very good". But this stuck in his craw and would not do, and he amended it instantly to "very, very bad". "What happen? What wrong?" He was really distressed, gesticulating wildly, pulling his hair, lighting up extra smokes, and reaching to the ceiling for something in English, invoking at last "the tree of life". I was clearly being called upon for an answer. I had blown my chance for the initial diversionary lie. And I was disinclined to offer the two available stop-gap lies (sour grapes, or homosexuality - the first just kicks the can down the road, and the second would horrify him further). Well, this inquisitive fellow was asking, so I blasted him with the truth, and declared myself to be a failure at life. But I don't think the f-word was in his vocabulary. Or perhaps the beatific smile on the face of my appalling condition led him to miss my curt meaning. In any case, I don't think this guy quite got it, which is a tribute to his good sense. But I think he saw an impasse, so our conversation came around again to Chile-approval and pisco sour. (Which is, by the way, the national cocktail of Chile and Peru, consisting of Pisco brandy, lime, sugar, and egg white).

Tuesday, July 24

The first half of this day was shot on a particularly ridiculous fool's errand, in which I checked out of my $30 hotel, aimed for a $20 hotel, and ended up in a $40 hotel. Here we go: I schlep Matilda to the relative cheapster I'd laboriously prospected yesterday. The maid now told me from behind the locked door that it was not $20, but $40, then that she had nothing, then basically for me to get lost. What the hell? I was close enough to the bus station that I went there and checked my bag, got some breakfast, and then blew a lot of time and energy not finding an internet place. I retrieved my bag and returned to the hotel, hoping that yesterday's nice, welcoming manager would now be in charge. But it was the surly maid again. I was determined to get to the bottom of this. It transpires that this was a love hotel, with a complicated price structure in which $20 would get me a night, but no portion of anything like the day. $40, me love you long time. Not a good value. I step out onto the rough, commercial street, flummoxed. I did not want to return to the out-of-the-way hippy hotel of the last two nights. I had already pounded enough pavement in this city, finding few hotels, and nothing cheap. So I hop the metro to the one relatively reasonable prospect I knew of, a place that had yesterday quoted me $32. Well, they now had a $40 matrimonial, a waste for an unconnected man, but there you have it. The most luxurious place I've had on the whole trip, though. It's in a venerable old hotel in an old world neighborhood. My room has a beamed ceiling, a blocked off fireplace, a skeleton key for the door, and a lot of clunky, useless furniture that prevents one from fully opening the doors overlooking the street. (A cheaper room opened up for the subsequent nights). Out for more city life.

Wednesday, July 25

Santiago has become the locus for a lack of focus. I had arrived with a far-fetched but firm plan to be advanced, but I've been having second and third thoughts, and am now enmired in a bad case of the whithers. So today, I am a man in the streets, groping about, and trying to regain my purposes. Highlight: An ascent of Cerro Santa Lucia, a park on a hill artfully sculpted into a kind of neoclassical/romantic magic mountain. It's a great urban space, and so is duly populated with families, photographers, philosophers, teenyboppers, pigeon fetishists, and canoodlers. Great view of the city, with its spread and murk and bristling towers. The Andes are piled high above. Should they ever relax, Santiago would be quite swept away.

Thursday, July 26

I spent this day running around to malls and markets, further beating up my sore foot, looking for a pair of shoes, and learning that my size is off the bell curve in this country. I had high hopes for a wealthy city of five and a half million, with plenty of big northern European types walking around, but there you have it. I need a 13/47, and they go up to 11/44. (I did actually come across a pair of 47s, but they were clown shoes, proving that there is a God, and that He is a comedian). Somewhere in Santiago, I'm sure there's a pair of pointy snakeskin jobs for me, but I give up on this project. I've been walking around for over a month in dead shoes with a three inch breach between sole and upper, and I can do so for another month.

Friday, July 27

After sleeping on it, I decided that the f-word, at least as it applies to shoe-shopping, is not in my vocabulary. So, glutton for punishment that I am, I took the subway out to the peripheries, and hobbled dismal suburban motorways to yet another shopping mall. Skunked again. But on the way back, I came across a shop in a strip mall that was able to shoe me well, if expensively. This proves scientifically the truth of Oprah's dictum: if you just wish hard enough, your dreams will come true. The box of the new shoes became the coffin of the old. They were great travel companions and true friends, and led good lives. Requiem Aeternam. I left them in the care of the shoemonger with instructions for their final interment. It's good that I persisted in all this. My wounded foot needs all the help it can get, and a fresh shoe will be helpful. - - - My attack of the whithers continues. I will work it out, as I must. It's time to duck out of Santiago. This has been a good environment in which to be without focus. Just being in a big, anonymous world city is vaguely interesting and comforting. In the morn, I'll make a short removal to Valparaiso, the colorful, romantic coastal town beloved of poets and painters. I'll be passing back again through Santiago, bound for who knows where.

Santiago, Chile 7/27

Sea to Shining Sea

Saturday, July 28

It's time to step away from Santiago. I affirm this decision, unmysteriously, over an "alto" (meaning "tall", meaning small) coffee in a Starbucks. Metro to the bus station. Two hours, arrive Valparaiso. I check my bag and walk off on the usual orientation/hotel search, with a goopy empanade in hand. The bus station was down in "El Plan" (the plain), the flat and functional lowlands wrapping around the long waterfront. I walk a long avenue here with an eye peeled for humble digs. I guessed that hotels would be cheaper here than up in the picturesque and touristed hills. I swung and missed three times: a high-price normal, a high-price-bad-value love, and a dead-looking place with a pissy entry whose price I did not ascertain. But the hills yielded me a room in a homey old wooden house for $24. Back down to the flat to hop a city bus, hoping it would get me back to the bus station, which it did. I retrieve my bag and hop another city bus back along what is now an axis. All this to spare my foot, which is killing me. I creep around a bit at night. The harbor is a black velvet jewelscape.

Sunday, July 29

Everything about this atmospheric city of steep hills and weather-beaten houses and serpentine streets calls out for unfettered ambling. Unfortunately, I'm in no condition for this. If physical well-being were my only priority, I'd be spending a week in bed with my foot propped up on a pillow. As I'm not prepared to do that, yet, I've just been walking less than I would be otherwise, but still frankly a lot, and making my strides easy and efficient. It occurs to me as I hobble around how much of my sense of self is tied up with my athleticism. I am not quite myself to be thus lamed. To be in the condition of yonder disabled beggar would require a profound mental adjustment. Yet this man has made it. And I blithely expect to heal, in spite of my self-abuse. Sooner or later, the Universe will crush me for my pride. - - - Among today's hobbled ambulations: Up to Cerro Artilleria (named such as it was a nice place for gun emplacements), for a comprehensive view. I actually attained the hilltop by funicular. The city had fifteen or so of these contraptions dragging people up the hills in the early twentieth century. Three still operate, and the rest await restoration. The top overlooks the docks, the long sweep of the bay, and the thickly built city sweeping up into the hills. The huge container port down there is compact and orderly. My inner child was happy to watch for an hour as the giant cranes and rolling frame and cable thingamajigs stacked and shifted the colorful, oblong blocks between ships and dock. Beyond all this activity, anchored at their own dock, sat the stolid, gray fighting ships of the Chilean navy. Judging by the monuments hereabouts, and the crisp white hats, these are serious people. - - - I found a particularly pleasing hole in the wall for dinner. I must say, the Chileans really know how to make a sandwich. National pop music singers from the 70s are on the tube, with atrocious clothes and tremendous voices.

Monday, July 30

Valparaiso: Possibly the most visually interesting city ever. Three crooked dimensions offer one humane, urbane angle after another. There's grand old wood construction, and brick and block and plaster, but much of the domestic architecture is actually sheathed in corrugated metal. This sounds unpromising. But almost every such surface is painted as a big color swatch, making Valparaiso a playful, rainbow city. A bit of rust and decay adds to the ambience. The color does not stop at mere decor. Mural art is everywhere, most of it very good and well worth lingering over. There is vandalous non-art, too, of course, but the forces of civilization have the upper hand. The art characterizes the city, and I'm sure it's mostly officially sanctioned. A whole neighborhood on Cerro Bellavista is actually designated an outdoor museum. Today I was a deliberate and deliberative billy goat, scaling the streets and pasajes (alley stairways), soaking up the art and ambience, and savoring topographical route-finding decisions. My foot troubled me less today. Is it the ibuprofen which it occurred to me to take? Or yet more of my chronic, undeserved blessedness?

Tuesday, July 31

Another day of sampling the artistic, architectural, topographic and culinary delights of Valparaiso. My foot continues its unaccountable improvement. My whithers are also getting better, slowly, as I shake myself out of them and face down the details.

Wednesday, August 1

I creak down the wooden stairs of the Hostal Girasoles, and open the door to a gray and pacific morn. Down the cascading cobbles to the flat. There's a global lake out there, rimmed with multitudes asleep or awake, in body or in mind. Oh, Humanity! - - - Valparaiso keeps a fleet of electric trolley buses from the forties in service. They are very spacious and eternally modern. I hop one of these for the elegance of it, but when it turned to follow its wires up a hill, I debarked and continued to the bus station on foot. Back to Santiago. I check back into the Hotel Paris. Out to travel through the city, pursuing travel related errands.

<<(Chile Notes: Chileans smoke a lot, enjoy hot water coming from bathroom sinks, and always serve you a little glass of sparkling water with your espresso. Astronomy looms large in their culture. The men wear scarves, but otherwise seem underdressed in the chill. The women in this first world country have a firmly established and well expressed beauty culture. The nation is late to bed and late to rise. There are lots of bookstores. One suspects Bohemia lurking everywhere. Language: Chileans drop the consonants off the ends of words. Now, I'm a guest here, and speak in ape-like grunts, and have no right to an opinion, but ........ but, dammit, that's not the way I was raised! (editor's note, 8/28: This not finishing words went all the way through Argentina, Paraguay, and to Santa Cruz). Noise: A blessed relief. The horn-honking madness of the countries to the north does not obtain here. The streets are quieter than in Minneapolis. The drivers are courteous and moderate too. Movies in buses are presented at a humane, low volume, with Spanish subtitles. Hot Dogs: Vended everywhere as the "completo" (hot dog with everything). The fully dressed hot dog must be standard, as I never saw it named anything else, much less an "incompleto". Regular Dogs: Way, way too many of them. This is generally the situation south of our border, but somehow, I thought Chile would be different. It's not. Maybe it's worse. Valparaiso is particularly bad. Not one in ten dogs here could possibly be a cared for pet. Dog shit is absolutely everywhere. It stands in triumphant cones, ready to be skidded into smears or kicked into crumbs. Tires pack it between the paving stones. The whole city is paved in shit. When I saw one of Man's Best Friends stroll through a shopping arcade, lift his leg, and unleash a thick, amber piss onto a stacked display of kids' toys, I was convinced that it was time for a general round-up and gassing. I recommend pure nitrogen. Cheap, humane, and non-toxic outside the peace chamber. Pardon this tangent, but this gone-to-the-dogs thing in a wealthy country is a real head-scratcher)......

Thursday, August 2

..... Across an open concrete space towards the subway station. My cheerful, morning gaze swings from an unnervingly inhuman model on a bus shelter, to a strikingly human Christ on a banner on the cathedral. At this moment, I just about pulled a hamstring sliding through a big mound of soft dog shit. This sight gag really tickled yonder prone inebriates, one of whom called out in English, "May I help you?" My inner prone inebriate had to admit it was pretty funny. Still, as I headed for the grass to scrape and curse, I looked with hatred upon the oafish canine lying there. Or is the culprit yonder scrofulous beast, the one gnawing his foot? But assigning blame is pointless. The guilt is collective. I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on a species whose monumental leavings testifies to its genius for living in the moment. But please pardon this digression. Chile is more than its animal control problem. Down on the subway platform, a girl has her nose in a volume of Gabriela Mistral, the other national poet, and mentor to the teenaged Pablo Neruda. (She's on the 5000 Peso note). To the bus station, and underway, through orchard and vineyard. We rise into the great heights, crossing the spine of the Andes at the Pass of the Liberators (11,500 feet). Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas (22,841), is right in the neighborhood. A cold, 45 minute stand-around at Argentine customs. A baggage handler gets the last of my Chilean coins. A little further down the road, we had an unaccountable hour and a quarter delay at a police checkpoint. Moving at last. The mighty Andes unfold and settle themselves as we descend the watercourse in its varied, canyon-like bed. Eight hours, arrive Mendoza. What will the ATM yield me? A first: a bill longer and skinnier than our greenback. I look into my prospects at the ticket windows of the bus station, and opt to skip the layover in Neuquen tomorrow, and go instead for the 24 hour long haul straight for Puerto Madryn on the Atlantic coast. Pricey ticket in hand, I walk into town to further integrate myself into the Argentine economy. Stopping into a used bookstore, I lightened my load by two guidebooks and got the price of a lunch to boot. Mendoza: A big city with a big downtown grid, full of goods, food, fun, prosperity, and beautiful people.

Friday, August 3

Another early morning diagonal plaza crossing. I tip back a rich, black brew, because it was so richly available, and continued long blocks to the bus station. $161 will get me fed, lodged (so to speak), and transported for 24 hours to the other side of the continent. I paid an extra $26 bucks for the plusher set-up on the lower deck, figuring that a guy might actually get some sleep there, but I could see as soon as I sat down that this splurge had backfired on me. There was actually less legroom than with a standard seat. The space under the seat in front was blocked by a fancy fold-out foot-bucket, designed to oochy-coochy-coo people under five-nine, irritate people up to six feet, and torture those beyond. I test the available stress positions and resign myself to an uncomfortable day and sleepless night. But there is elbow room, as the seats go three abreast rather than four, and you get a few more degrees of incline. So I call it a wash, and kiss $26 away. We commence. Vineyards give way to desiccated plains. Change a few details, and the towns we passed through could be in Nebraska. Among the entertainments was a good two hour sample of the oeuvre of an Argentinian crooner in the Fabio mold. I'm not sure if you'd call his genre flamenco or tango or what, but it was certainly high quality pop. He poured forth his considerable talent through many numbers, either as a straightforward vocalist, or playing himself as Señor Macho in tender and abrupt man-seizes-woman melodramas. The guy can wear a white shirt like you wouldn't believe. His name is Diego El Cigala. Google him. He's fantastic. We also played bingo. And there was a Brazilian film set in the 70s with fascinating period detail. - - - The pampas roll by. The sun goes down. The moon comes up. The night deepens.......

Saturday, August 4

......There was a shift change somewhere along the line. The night crew was not so sensitive to its human cargo. We had a slugfest boxing movie going at three in the morning, sound unmuted. I was going insane and composing a note for the crew in Spanish (my tongue was certainly not up to the task) when the credits mercifully rolled, and nothing followed. The road rolls away. My lower half was in some distress, but to my surprise, I fell asleep, and got maybe three or four hours, in and out. When the sun got insistent through the window, I popped the seat forward. It was nine o'clock. The time change, and big swings in latitude and longitude made for a late morning. I felt pretty good. Arrive Puerto Madryn 10:30, twenty-five hours. I step out of the bus and into Patagonia. A cold wind is blowing. I dropped nine degrees of latitude on this move, to 42 degrees south. But with the sun out, and a warmer ocean at hand, the day ended up warmer than any day I had in Chile. I stowed my bag in a locker and gleaned pertinent info from the bus station. Then out, to the east, to breathe in a whole new ocean and dip my finger therein. I haven't touched this one of the big three since Colombia. My search for cheap lodgings comes to rest at $33. I had some travails with the ATM card, which took some fussing to resolve. Puerto Madryn is a small city, fitted out for visitors, but retaining a provincial feel. I'm here to visit the whales and the other creatures of the Reserva Faunistica Peninsula Valdes. This is a huge park, connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. Figuring out my approach and fitting together the logistics didn't quite get done. So I resolved to stay another day in Puerto Madryn, rather than relocate to Puerto Piramides, a small town closer to the reserve. The usual back step, for the sake of tranquility. I'll make good use of the time. - - - For the declining rays, I walked out on the long pier, among the strollers and families and lovers. The eve is still and transparent and quite aglow. Diving birds flit around under the surface like porpoises. Out yonder on the flat water, two whales are grazing. They roll about, and lift fluke and fin, and expose the odd contours of their bodies. They are well within audible range, and I hark to their heavy breathing.

Puerto Madryn, Argentina 8/5

Leviathan

Sunday, August 5

I slept late, but not late enough. The streets of Puerto Madryn are eerily empty on this Sunday morning. I spent too much time on web tasks, and thus thwarted my info gathering purposes. (Sunday business hours turn out to be ten to one). So, I'll arrange my activities tomorrow from Puerto Piramides, which is probably the thing to do anyway. And I can call from there about possibly renting a car (!), to lodge in for a night, and for a closer and freer look at the Peninsula Valdes. I took a long walk along the shoreline to the museum on the outskirts of town. The exhibits are devoted to the Southern Right Whale, and the local ecology generally. They had a whole whale skeleton mounted outside. Jonah would have plenty of room in there. As I am reserving Tierra del Fuego for some other trip in the boundless future, this skeleton marks the southernmost point of my journey. I raise my palm to the South, and make my vow .... I shall return. Back into town in the late afternoon, through multitudes of beautiful, beautiful Argentinians, gathered along the beach for their Sunday leisure. Many of them are sipping yerba mate through ornate silver straws from fancy crockery. This exotic apparatus evokes the hookah, and alerts one to the fact that these people are not Burnsvillites who speak Spanish. (The vessel - most traditionally a gourd - is stuffed with yerba leaves. The straw has a filter. There is all sorts of lore and elaborate custom connected with the practice. I'd never heard of it before). The waters of the Golfo Nuevo are flat and calm again. The whales are out and about. Their anatomy is kind of hard to figure out as they loll and roll around. Fluke and flipper are clear enough, usually. But they expose their bulky parts partially and at odd intervals. Two whales in close proximity can be hard to sort out. This all makes for an irregular, undulating effect, and one can easily see how ancient mariners would imagine Leviathan as a sea serpent.

Monday, August 6

I'm at the bus station an hour early, having looked at an outdated schedule. So I have time to go off for a cup and inquire into renting a car. (Ultimately, too much money and fuss for what I'd get out of it). Underway. Arrive Puerto Piramides, one and a half hours. What was once a salt mine port is now a classic two-street tourist town, handling a stream of whale watchers and wildlife enthusiasts. There are hotels, a dozen plus restaurants (always empty), various tour operators (all working in conjunction), a bar for the locals, and scarcely a loaf of bread. I check into the humblest place I could find and went forth to put together my agenda. (This will unfold before you, but here's what I won't be doing: going anywhere on the lengthy perimeter roads of the park. Tours are expensive and not really operating at present, as demand is low. The penguins are out to sea, and the elephant seals are just arriving). - - - For this afternoon, a boat ride to visit the whales up close. The standard tour is sixty bucks for an hour and a half. Twelve pilgrims in a boat for forty. A tractor pushed the boat on its trailer down the beach and into the sea. (This is still the big, tightly enclosed Golfo Nuevo). We set off, and the brine is on our lips, as we did have some wind and spray. Whales are grazing, right and left, near and far, like so many cows in a field. (Actually, they fast by these shores. The women start showing up here in May to give birth, or to show their toddlers from last year how to get to the ancestral homeland, or to get pregnant. The men show up later and start sniffing around for this last purpose. In December, everybody clears out for the krill feast off Antarctica). In due course, the captain eases the throttle, insinuates us in among the whales, and cuts it down to an idle. We are vouchsafed fascinating glimpses of cetaceous behavior. They lift their heads, arch their backs, and flip their flukes, sometimes holding them up for moments at a stretch. They will roll around on their sides, to lift a flipper into the element of mystery. They will swim in twos, sometimes more, in a close physical embrace. (I'm told that this phenomenon takes place only in this time and place for breeding. When they are away for the feeding season, they are not so touchy-feely). We saw mothers and babies. The exhale is a big, wet gasp, and the inhale resonates like it's being done through a vacuum cleaner wand. One senses the big volumes of air that are involved. They are said to be curious, and did approach the boat. This amiability did not work out for the species back in the days of whale hunting. The Southern Right Whale is famous for its encrustations of parasitical whale lice, and these whales were indeed beautifully encrusted. They have the weirdest mouths in the animal kingdom. One can't decide if they wear the mask of comedy or tragedy. To turn that frown upside-down is always bad advice, but for these whales, it would only lead to confusion. The bane of the whale is the obnoxious seagull, which will peck at them furiously when they surface, literally eating them alive. Ecology aside, I know whose side I'm on. We idle with the whales for an hour, and then motor back to Puerto Piramides. That was cool. <<(My slowly healing foot suffered a setback today. I reinjured it over-flinching from being knocked slightly off balance. It's bad. I should be on a crutch. Or at least a bicycle....)>>

Tuesday, August 7

..... I rent a bike and head for the hills. I'm aiming for Punta Pardelas, the point that encloses Puerto Piramides's local bay. I have a map and instructions from the bike guy, but still got very slightly lost for a bit, and so enjoyed some extra countryside. I have roads of packed dirt, some sandy tracks, and for a while dragged the bike through a stretch of barren dunes. Most of the landscape was of scrub covered dunes. Guanacos (the wild brothers of the llamas) cavort therein. Though the sea was over the crest of the dunes, I'd still hear the huffing of the whales, a sound which seems to carry for miles. At length, the point comes into view. Whales are sporting everywhere in sight. I drag the bike down through thickets to the point, which is a flat surface of jagged rock and fossilized seashells. It's an elevated tide pool, actually, puddled and pooled and full of aquatic green stuff and little sea creatures. I spend a couple of hours there, picnicking and hailing the whales. The water was deep right off the shore, and they came in very close. I still haven't made eye contact, though. (Their eyes are small and set very low on their heads). But I observed from a distance flukes being held aloft for five or ten minutes, and an extended period of mere floating. Also great splashing, vertical leaps. All this from afar, unfortch. But from close in, much huffing and puffing, and rising and falling from the great lords of displacement. A pleasant interlude, with a serene ride back to digest it. I pause at my hotel to hydrate, then passed through town and up and out, and around and down, to the other enclosing point. Sea Lions are said to frolic there. I got hot grinding up that long hill in the sun, and so went down to skin for a while. (Though it's winter in Patagonia, I'm told that it's been unseasonably warm. Where have I heard that before....) There's a permanent colony of lobos marinos ("sea wolf", in Spanish, which seems a little more fitting) on a shelf above the sea, and a place set up above for people to observe them lolling about. The women and children bleat, and the men (considerably larger) rumble and croak as they push each other around. Whenever a sea lion would vant to be alone, he/she would inch down the steep slope of the shelf, pause, and make a flying belly flop into the sea. One could see their heads bobbing around out there in the blaze orange rays of the setting sun. And here, there, and everywhere, the moving hulks of the great whales. - - - My re-entry into the little whale town of Puerto Piramides was one for the ages. Dusk, a bicycle, the force of gravity, and a long, sweeping, descending curve of asphalt. Most elegant.

Wednesday, August 8

Life is short. Therefore, I happily toss another sixty bucks and embark on another priceless whaling voyage. Same crew as before. The guide carried on in Spanish, while I picked up bits of whale lore from the English-speaking capitan, who, she confesses, loves her job. The morning is calm and sunny. The whales came in closer yet this time, even passing under the boat. (The capitan cut the motor this time, having no need to keep us oriented in wind). In the still water, we could clearly see their great hulks passing down in their element. They rise like submarines and blow, and purse their nostrils, and stretch out their appendages, and are impressive in every way. The condensed breath of yonder whales, backlit by the sun, was fairy tale perfect. V-shaped, double geysers, spouting up explosively, and hanging for a moment in the still air. At length, back to town. That was cool. The time has come for turning. Yesterday's whale point marks this trip's greatest distance from Minneapolis. I bow to the noonday, winter sun low in the north. I'll now be making my serpentine way home. To that end, the bus back to Puerto Madryn. I purchase an onward ticket, for another all-nighter, for Buenos Aires. Timing dictates this to commence tomorrow, noonish. After my errands, I step down to the city beach to gaze further at fluke and flipper and bulky profiles. Strollers are about. The people of Puerto Madryn, I've noticed, are fond of their whales.

Thursday, August 9

Packed up and ready for another bout of bus travel. But before I schlep my bag to the bus station, I step down to the beach to wave goodbye to our friends, the whales. They wave right back to me.....

Puerto Madryn 8/9

Turnaround, Bad Foot Forward

...... The pampas sweep uniformly past, quite flat, with endless desert shrubberies. I don't think I saw a cow. It's hard to know what sustains the few towns we passed through. The sun sets on this monotonous scene. I fine tune my itinerary, and read some from my well-traveled volume of Borges. I'd thought to have a little bottle of wine on hand, which was just the thing. What I lose in scenery by taking the night bus (and I do love monotonous shrubberies), I gain in big miles and a place to lodge. I had no seatmate, and found that two cheap seats were nicer than one luxury seat, with its foot bucket and immovable armrest. The quintuple feature ends at midnight. I'll be damned if I didn't get five or six hours.....

Friday, August 10

...... The sun rises on the pampas, which have sprouted some trees overnight. Soon enough, they sprout scattered edifices on the fringes of a galactic metropolis. Said metropolis thickens. We merge unto the working shoulders of the Rio de la Plata. Twenty hours, arrive bus station, Buenos Aires. I'm feeling pretty good. It's not yet nine. In spite of my interest in this city, I arrived with every intention of editing it completely out of my hurried travel itinerary. The idea was that I was going to get into another bus straight off, to lay up partway for a Saturday night arrival in Posadas, on the Paraguayan border. Only if time permitted might I dash into town for a stroll down the boulevard and a bow to the cathedral. But a thorough survey of the ticket windows of this humongous bus station got me rethinking the whole shebang. There was no way for me to get to Posadas without either taking a night bus, or arriving late in the evening. Breaking the journey wouldn't help. So it seemed the thing to do would be to spend this night in Buenos Aires and Saturday night in the bus, for a Sunday morning arrival in Posadas. Twist my arm. I lock up my bag and head for the subway station two blocks away. It was blocked off, as were the next several. It transpires that the workers were striking. Bad luck for me and my bad foot. More bad luck cascades when I duck into a neighborhood lunch place for something to eat. I place my order, and have plastic bottle of 7up placed before me. This would not open till I really bore down like a titan, and I got my hands soaked in sugar water for my pains. Up a steep, cramped, turning staircase to the restroom to rinse off my hands. I was overdue for a head-smashing, so on the way down I smashed my head but good on something or other, which caused me to put unprepared weight on my wounded foot, tearing its tender healings with two morbid pops. My spirit departed for a long moment, leaving me with my pure animal. My first returning thought was a value judgement: Bad! My intake of breath had sucked the air out of the dining room, and when I somehow got to the bottom of the stairs there was much concern over my well-being. But my "no importa" and "no pasa nada" had the ill effect of generating more questions. I was in no condition to speak English, much less Spanish. But I eventually soothed these kind people. Now to get through lunch. Evidently, I had not understood the special. I was presented with a big, greasy steak and a loaf of bread. What to do? It was high noon. I faced down the absurd steak and ate it. Now to rise. And walk. Out the door. Half a block and a long time later, I paused and gasped profoundly to myself, "my foot is fucked". I was in no mood for eloquence. I had but one thought in mind: get a cane, now. To this end, I gimped around the core city and its throngs, hanging on to walls and lampposts. The sun had come out, making me instantly overdressed. Sweating, staggering, and wide-eyed with pain, I was an unsightly being among the masses of beautiful Argentinians. I inquired at a farmacia. Though I knew they wouldn't stock canes, I figured that as health people, they might be able to direct me. From the first I got the vocabulary ("baton"), but otherwise they had no ideas. Likewise with the next two. But the fourth directed me to a fifth farmacia, which did indeed have a cane for me. (A good thing that pharmacies come every two blocks around here). So for twenty-five bucks, I have something that will get me through the day, and with further use, hopefully accelerate my healing. I train myself in its use over the course of a block, and declare it to be a very useful prosthetic limb. Still, I am seriously lamed, and reopen myself to the prospect of just getting back on a bus out of town. Even before I aggravated my injury, there was no way I was going to schlep my bag back and forth between the bus station and central Buenos Aires. With the subway shut down and cabs expensive, the city bus will have to be convenient. I look around a little, but in my condition, and with the shortness of my visit, there wasn't going to be any protracted hotel shopping. I check into a guidebook suggestion ("budget", though I could see it was too grand to not be expensive). The hotel lady assures me that the 100 bus is the way to go. With my near term future thus settled, I tap my way down the street, quite reset and tranquil, and opened my eyes to this new environment I'd placed myself in. The 100 whisks me off to the bus station, from where I retrieve my bag, and whisks me back, quite as deftly as would the subway. Web tasks and Chinese. The Hotel Reina is quite an edifice. It's got an old elevator that runs up the middle of the stairwell. The third floor rooms have tall, double doors opening up to a big salon. Wood floors and fifteen foot ceilings. And a balcony overlooking Avenida 9 de Julio, the great, eighteen lane boulevard of Argentine myth.

Saturday, August 11

Breakfast included. And at the elegant Hotel Reina, this was a fulsome buffet, easily worth 20% of the room rate. (The included breakfast down here is common, and is usually a very feeble continental). I took full advantage, all the while gazing with wonderment at the dining room full of gorgeous Argentinians, who really are a fine-looking lot. Checkout at ten. Light rain in the streets. I haven't seen rain since Trinidad. I hop the 100 to the bus station. A thundering storm rages when I get off. There is much less street vending in the southern cone than in points north, and it's certainly less vocal. But I must say, this downpour really got the umbrellamongers excited. And sales were brisk. In the station, I lock up my bag and buy a ticket for the night bus. Then back into town for errands, a condensed walk, and, count 'em, three cups in three cafes, as I'm in one of the cafe capitals of the world. Buenos Aires: Truly a world capital, full of purposeful people and imposing, early twentieth century architecture. My little pass in the core and inner peripheries hinted, I imagine, at the whole. A whole in which large scale is part of the character, and where a section of grid can seem intimate. At length, back to the bus station. Every time I've gotten on the 100, my cane has stirred a kind Porteño to offer his/her seat. The Terminal de Omnibus Retiro is bustling little city of travelers in the early evening. At eight , my bus is rolling, with few passengers. I install myself in the back row, with a little bottle of wine to savor. The scenery slips by unseen, though I perceive at moments the presence of a great, continental river. I was up late before even trying to sleep. I might have gotten two hours.

Sunday, August12

A gorgeous sunrise over a thoroughly lush and greened-over earth. Twelve hours, arrive Posadas. This town is on the finger of Argentina that rather intrusively probes its neighbors. Paraguay is just over the Paraná River. I'll be crossing soon. For now, I have a day-resetting espresso, leave my bag with one of the ticket counters, and hop a city bus for centro, three miles from the station. (But first, a tour of the humble suburbs, as I'd gotten on an outbound. I'd asked, but knew quickly that I'd been misdirected). I'm back in the steam bath climate. The utter lack of human presence in downtown Posadas on a Sunday morning is astounding. I beat up my foot a little too much finding a hotel, but eventually settle in an old family place with an ancient electric water heating tank bolted to the shower wall, and where the towels must be from 1962. I spent most of the day at the computer or in other sedentary positions, trying to stay off my foot. (The cane, by the way, is definitely therapeutic). But I did walk down to the Rio Paraná to have a look. It is truly an oceanic river, having been flooded recently by a damning project. The margins are sterile parkland. (The dam has actually been in place for a couple of decades, but only a year and a half ago did they decide to let the last twenty-three feet fill up. The riverbank homes of 50,000 people ... poof!)

Monday, August 13

Big, drenching storms in the night. I pay my sleep debt and check out at ten, leaving my bag with the hotel. The plan was to get a visa (required, with entry fee) at the Paraguayan consulate, and to move over to the Paraguayan town of Encarnacion, on the other side of the river. The plan foundered. It transpires that one does not just walk into a Paraguayan consulate and walk out with a visa. Time is required to digest the application. So I'll be spending an extra night here in Argentina. I'm unhappy about this, as I've bought a plane ticket, and the days before my return are now countable. (The Paraguayans, by the way, required that I show a ticket out before they'd let me in. I'd spent an hour an a half running around in the morning trying to get the ticket thing printed out). They also needed more photocopies of more stuff than I expected, and were reluctant to take my pesos, preferring US dollars. (The fee was $65). I'd had a hunch about this last bit, and have been keeping an eye out, unsuccessfully, for an ATM that would not only offer dollars, but actually spit them out. So I run off to get further copies, but was unable to find any dollars, and had to dash back to the consulate before they closed at two. They would, in fact, take my pesos. The official did the math. When I checked my own figures and questioned the big increase, he explained that the rate in Paraguay is much higher. (8.0 vs 4.6?!) It crossed my mind that I might have not figured in the tip. (An unjust supposition, as later became clear enough). I balked, though my head was swimming with the prospect of a second extra night in Posadas. But he was a good sport, if a little cold, and told me that if I showed up first thing in the morning with the cash, he'd be able to get the visa to me same day. I'm on it. I check back into the tatty and homey Residencial Misiones. Now, really, where are the dollars in this town? The exchange place was now off its siesta. But they would not sell me dollars. Nor would they sell me Paraguayan Guaranis. The explanations were incomprehensible, but sounded matter-of-fact. Here we have a Casa de Cambio that does not deal in the national currency, nor in US dollars. I look around. This is no hole in the wall, but looks like it could be Chase Manhattan Bank. The exchange rates are prominently displayed on a high-tech sign. So what do they actually do here? The chicas at their computers seem busy. But I notice that there are no customers. I walk off mystified. I'd had enough of ATMs, and the banks were closed. Ultimately, I inquired of the tourist info chica. Her friend was present, from whom I gathered that pesos were hard to get rid of (other than for goods and services, presumably), and that dollars were hard to acquire. He wished his English was better so he could explain, and express his "shame" at the state of his nation's currency. (Which, by the way, is physically in rags, quite as bad as the Guatemalan bills). But this helpful fellow led me around the corner to a stool-sitting money changer holed up in a shopping arcade. He had no dollars at present, but could supply me first thing in the morning at a rate of 6.3. I'll take it. I did, however, get on the city bus to at least check the official-looking exchange place by the international bridge. The woman behind the glass there just sadly shook her head at my proposal. I could have spared my foot those extra steps. - - - This sad tale of a bad day could be fleshed out with plenty of further detail about missions generating sub-missions, and all going awry in trivial and comical ways. But you know what? Who cares! I certainly don't. Don't cry for me, Argentina. But on this day, I did have a couple of good cups of coffee and nice human encounters. And the cathedral had some recorded chant going, which mellowed me out. Looking at number eleven of the stations of the cross, I reflect that, though my foot hurts, at least I haven't had a spike hammered through it.

Tuesday, August 14

I wish a good morning to the money changer on his stool. As I wait for his colleague to scrounge up the dollars, he passes me his vessel of yerba mate. Very green and very strong. To the consulate, where the final obstacle was the inadequacy of the required photos. (Only four months old, but my scar-hiding beard has rendered them not "actual"). I gestured at the official's scissors and offered to cut off the beard, but he directed me to the photo shop next door. I returned with the photos quick enough, and was told to come back at noon. Which I did, and with visa in hand, paused in the plaza with my bag to finish off my supply of bread and cheese, figuring that importing foodstuffs within one's body would not be a problem. Now, to board that shuttle bus and cross the bridge, into yet another undiscovered country.......

<<(Argentina Notes : Kissing: They really do this a lot, cheek to cheek. Even the men with each other, though these man-kisses are sent wide of the mark. I'm frankly relieved that I never provoked such intimacy. Yerba Mate: This stuff is being sipped at everywhere, all the time. When people are with friends, the vessel will make the rounds. Vessel and silver straw are never merely functional, but will always be something artful. The thermos bottle, often carried in a decorative sling or bag, is part of the paraphernalia. They come equipped with little spigots, so that people can touch up the green mash in the vessel and keep on sipping. Cafes and tiendas will fill your thermos with hot water for a few pesos. Evita: They do love her. Her face is never far away in the media landscape. Language: Very, very weird. It hardly sounds like Spanish. My rudimentary powers of comprehension are set back. The cadences definitely smack of the Italian, which is a large immigrant group from way back. Now, it is reported that the rest of the Spanish-speaking world regard the Argentinians as a vainglorious lot. Perhaps the Italian-inflected Spanish has some bearing on this, as I think the world agrees on the general grandness of the Italians. Taking a tangent: Perhaps Argentinian vaingloriousness has led them to such extravagances as, say, challenging the Royal Navy. (By the way, I've noticed several memorials to the Heroes of the Belgrano, the 323 sailors who went down with the ship in the Falklands War). The guidebook advises one, obviously, to never refer to the Malvinas as the Falklands. And if you're British, to never refer to them at all.)>>

Encarnacion, Paraguay 8/14

Maniac for Manioc

......... across the river, through customs, and into a new land. I install myself quickly (and blessedly cheaply) in the Hotel Germano. The family kid tinkles at some Chopin or Liszt or something on the piano in the lobby/living room. Out to reconnoiter and observe the contrasts between Encarnacion and its sister city over yonder damned river in Argentina. It's pretty much a resource thing. Encarnacion is just a little more beaten up and broken down. Not bad, though. Just by way of comparison. The people's faces evince a native look which is mostly absent in Argentina. The Spanish is no longer weirdly Italian, and I hear my first strains of Guarani. <<(Here's what I've read: Most Paraguayans are mestizo, and do not regard themselves as particularly indigenous. Yet the large majority of people speak both Guarani and Spanish. Both languages are official. There is a pidgin called Jopari in regular use. This unusual situation of a nation of non-indigenous people speaking an indigenous language is a source of national pride.)>> My first errand is the ATM, where I supply myself with a cool one million Guaranis, just to get started. I see a Ukrainian Orthodox church, other small signs of Ukrainianism, and no longer hip mannequins who silently scream: "We're trapped in this over-sized small town!" I look over what remains of the old, lower part of town, which used to be the cool port and market section, flooded only a year and a half ago. Map in hand, I see cleared sections of grid below, now just mowed turf. Beyond that, under the fattened river, were neighborhoods that people grew up in. Progress. Oh, the weight of the watery dead. Now, for the cuisine. At a "parrillada", one points out a sizzling chunk on the grill outside, and it is presented to you on a little brazier set on your table, with salad and steaming manioc tubers. Buen provecho!

Wednesday, August 15

<<(Here's what I've read about the Society of Jesus: These fellows started showing up hereabouts in 1609, seeking to spread the Word. They went deep for converts and established missions all over this broad region of South America. They were nice to the natives, most notably not murdering or enslaving them. They offered the blessings of civilization within a communal set up, and left native authority in place. The priests learned Guarani, and did not push Spanish. (Though presumably God's language, Latin, was in play during mass). The people liked the agriculture and the technology, and seemingly took to the art and architecture, which they happily got busy at. They did have to give up their occasional festive cannibalism, but they got the grisly doctrine of Christianity in return. All went well for a century and a half, but the Jesuits ultimately ticked off other colonial powers, who persuaded the king to boot their asses out of his New World domains in 1769. The missions physically went to ruin, and their influence soaked into what would become national cultures. (For the Hollywood treatment, see "The Mission", '86, with Robert De Niro). I skipped the local missions when I was in Argentina, but will be on the trail of the Jesuits when I reenter Bolivia. But for today.....)>> ...... a visit to the local Paraguayan missions. First stop, Trinidad. I had to get on a long distance bus, though it was only sixteen miles out of town, and was at pains to get dropped off at the right spot, with my cane and all. Of course, the ayudante knew well what he was doing, and deposited me expertly. A bit of a walk through what was hardly a town to the ruins of the mission. Everything is nicely restored and stabilized, and set in mowed turf. But still, the place looks like a ruin. Rowhouses that once housed the people are set around a big compound. Standing walls, and what were once cozy interiors are now exposed roofless to the sky. The centerpiece is the church, of course, the walls partly standing, and the beautiful stonework exposed to the elements. The pulpit was really too ornate and meaningful to be standing there mute. But mute it was, in the face of time. I walk back through the town to the highway, and take a right to the nearby crossroad, aiming to get to Jesus de Tavarangue, another mission some seven miles away. I inquired at the gas station about the supposed bus or collectivo, but was told that a mototaxi was the only way. I sat outside with a coke, my commitment wavering, when a mototaxi showed up and dropped off a gringo couple (These, by the way, were the only obvious foreigners I saw in my week in Paraguay). He wants ten bucks for the two way trip and hour wait time. I'm agreed. So off we go in his three-wheeler, through the country, wind in my face. The ruin at Jesus was not so extensive or ornate as the one at Trinidad. It was just the church building, but it was large, and mostly standing, except for the roof, of course. The countryside from this hilltop location was rolling green and gorgeous. I spend a meditative hour. Then the fun-ride back to the main road, and a wait for a bus back into Encarnacion. There, my word becomes flesh, as the waiter presents roasted meat, and manioc.

Thursday, August 16

I board a bus for the capital. The countryside is mostly flattish, yet green and varied and oddly voluptuous. Odd hills provide punctuation. Few humans in sight, and the land, though manhandled, seems benignly neglected. It fit easily into the space in my imagination labeled "Paraguay". Six hours, arrive Asuncion. My pokey start ensured an inconveniently dusky arrival. I checked my bag, took the city bus the long ways into centro, secured a hotel, bussed back, bussed forth, and settled. All this to avoid schlepping my bag around a big city not knowing where I was going to drop it. Not an arm-twister, though. City buses are fun. Staying on top of this one's route was an engaging challenge. It passed through a big, squalid street market as well as sleek urban spaces. Freshened up, I step into said sleek, urban spaces to look around and get something to eat. In this economy, this may include a big glass of wine for two bucks. Pardon my thrift, but this tickles me pink.

Friday, August 17

A day of (too much) walking, for errands, and sights by way of errands. By starting late and moving too slow, I managed to not accomplish the main errand, which was to get to the Brazilian embassy, prepared, for a visa. Though it may yet turn out OK, this fumble leaves me with uncertainty and may yet screw me. Got the laundry done, though! Asuncion is an eclectic mix of the sleek and the frowsy. One feels the weight of both the wealth and the poverty. I note that the kissy-poo of Chile and Argentina continues, as does the yerba mate sipping, though the Paraguayans drink it cold and call it "terere". There's an election going on. (In '08, they managed to vote out their 61 year dictator-party). There are plenty of signs of last year's bicentennial celebrations, the first on the continent. My hotel is across the street from the humble, white building where the patriots signed their declaration. In the eve, I slow down and have a look at the grand, national buildings. Below them, on a hillside sloping down to the river flat, one can peer down into a very interesting shantytown. I did not venture in, lest tourism slip whole hog into voyeurism.

Saturday, August 18

City bus to the bus station. Vendors get on and off, especially as we pass through that big, squalid street market. Small vendors go under the turnstile, large ones over. (Vendors are never turned away by bus drivers. They ride for a stretch while they spiel and transact, and get off free. It's a Latin America thing). A boy with an armful of socks makes a sale, incredibly. It can happen. Arrive bus station. Depart bus station, for the provincial town of Concepcion. Through the plain, green plains, mellow and inviting. Arrive Concepcion, much later than I expected. I was a little ornery about it being dark, and me being clueless in a town for which I had no map. But I shook myself out of it, and my mood lifted, indeed quite high, as I inquired and sussed my way into centro, through commerce, motorcycles, humble civic art, and street food. I lodge, and step out to dine at a streetside, wood-fired chicken roasting establishment. I am presented with half a chicken, and uncounted steaming manioc tubers. And a liter of beer. But who's going to eat these other eighty or so chickens that I count as they turn on their mechanized spits? Why the people of Concepcion, of course, who pull up on motorcycles to take them away at 20,000 Guaranis per.

Sunday, August 19

A day of hanging around Concepcion. The town remained amazingly asleep until well into the afternoon. I was a little disappointed that Sunday meant not a sped up market, nor a slowed down one, but a shut down and dead market. Still, I enjoyed its pleasant stillness, with only a few cats about, and kids at play. Highlight: the river port. I spent the morning there, under a tree, watching ferrymen row people across the river, the muleteer shift cartloads of cargo between ship and town, and people mill about generally. Great mats of vegetation slide down the Rio Paraguay like floating islands. (The Aquidaban is tied up on its weekly layover in Concepcion. Heading upstream on this vessel would have been an option, given open-ended time, and willingness to deal with a lot of uncertainties, and ultimately dealing with Portuguese to make the links. Next trip). Street food: meat chunks, manioc chunks, fire. Good! No sleep this night, sad to say. It was karaoke night at the bar attached to my hotel. They kept it up till 2:15. My alarm was set for 3:30, and I never got those transitional moments of unconsciousness......

Monday, August 20

..... Still, as I schlepped Matilda through the wee hour back streets to the bus station, I felt pretty good. Alive, even. The 4:30 bus is scheduled to leave at 5:00. We roll, and the sun rises on green expanses, with palm trees distributed savanna-fashion. The bus gradually overfills. I get a few nods. Steep, outlandish buttes punctuate the landscape. Arrive Pedro Juan Caballero, on the Brazilian border. As I intended to cross that border, I dash off to the Brazilian consulate for a visa. (Burdened with my bag, unfortch. The bag check in the bus station was set up as one-stop shopping for thieves). I was tentatively confident about the visa being approved, but was concerned about the digestion time. Same day, great. Tomorrow, OK. Next day, close to a show stopper). A slow day at the consulate, which was nice. My interlocutor and I carried on as well as we could in Spanish, and with his few words of English. (I'd come in armed with the Portuguese greetings and with "Eu nao falo portugues" to ingratiate myself). He threw up some obstacles, but let them down when he decided he liked me. He did, however, require a copy of my bank statement. With that, I'd have my visa first thing in the morning. Great! I dash off to find a place to print this off. But one must travel without hope, grasshopper. When I returned, a new obstacle had arisen, which took a lot of patient word volleying and dictionary flipping for me to get the gist of. Which was, I'm not getting into Brazil. The federal police, who actually stamp your passport, have not been letting anyone (?), of any nationality (?), across any border (?), for the last twenty days. The why of this I never grasped. I could get the expensive visa, but it wouldn't actually get me into the country. He was emphatic about that. Why had he not told me at first? He had not remembered. Evidently, visa requests are not common at this consulate. (He says I'm the first American he's seen in five months, which I find hard to believe. This crossing may be only a trace on the gringo trail, but it's no backwater either). The fellow seemed sincere, and I can't imagine why he would toy with me. None of this makes any sense, but it surely stops me in my tracks. He suggested I call the American embassy, which I tried after I left, just to satisfy my curiosity. But of course, the two phone places I found were both out of commission. With nothing to productively futz over, it was time to get out of that godforsaken border town quick. Back to the bus station, to cross the country, again, back to Asuncion. <<(So much for Plan A. Which was, by the way, to merely nip this corner of the Empire of Brazil, two days max, and cross into Bolivia for a pass through the mission towns, and the elegant approach to Santa Cruz, from whence I will fly home. I rue the poofing of my researches and time, and content myself with the saving of the visa-toll. This was a whopping $160, way up from what I'd first believed. By the way, what if I'd gotten to the consulate in Asuncion on time on Friday? Would they have alerted me to a problem? Or sold me a useless (?) visa? I'll never know.... Here's Plan B: To Santa Cruz, straight from Asuncion on the night bus, which is the only way. The highly interesting desert Chaco region will slip by unseen. There's no practical way to lay over in the Mennonite towns there either, as the only Bolivia-bound bus is that night bus, which actually bypasses the towns. One would have to get out to the distant highway and wait for that bus at two in the morning, and hope that the driver wouldn't blow past you, thinking you're a jackrabbit. So then, straight for Santa Cruz (a modern city of no particular appeal). The mission towns will be done as a looping side trip from there. Not elegant, but there you have it.)>> My bus this morning was a beater. This directo to the capital was a plush bus, and I scored a front row, picture-window seat on the upper deck. The landscape in the first miles really is spectacular, with steep, knobby buttes in the green, some verging on the DevilsToweresque. Rangy layers recede in the distance. Six hours, arrive Asuncion. I buy a ticket for tomorrow's night bus. City bus to centro, where I lodge quickly. I certainly have been running around this country like one of its many chickens with its head cut off. I sleep with deliberation, having had a sleepless night behind .....

Tuesday, August 21

..... and another likely ahead. A day of puttering around Asuncion. And now, for a submarine through the night .....

Asuncion 8/21

Wanderjahr

..... City bus to the bus station, where I board a long distance cruiser. This was altogether a funkier affair than the night buses I was on in Argentina. Good thing the ayudante was handy with the aerosol freshener. Underway at eight. The damper, eastern side of the Chaco is said to be teeming with birds and wildlife, but all is dark to my eye, except for the silhouettes of globe-crowned palm trees close to the road. No entertainment for the whole trip, thank God. The bus was near full, but I managed to repel any seatmate, and so did get a little sleep, in and out.....

Wednesday, August 22

..... At 3:30, we pause at a locus of Paraguayan officialdom to get stamped out, who knows where in this unpopulated wilderness. (The western part of the gizzard that is Paraguay has 60% of the land and 3% of the people). There are Mennonites among us, real super-blonds. They have colonies in both Paraguay and Bolivia. No exotics besides myself. I take a moment in this odd place and wee hour to stand apart, leak in the grass, crane my neck to the heavens, and open my ears to the wildness. Back in the submarine. At some point pavement gives way to gravel and dust. The sun rises, as it always does, knock wood. I have no idea what country I'm in. At length, a flag over an outpost of officialdom indicates that it's still Paraguay. At further length, I repatriate with my beloved Bolivia. Three widely separated stops for officialdom to handle us (checklist, visa, passport stamp). At each stop, the wind is kicking up a shut-your-eyes dust storm. Pavement resumes. There was not a lot to see from the road in this drier part in the Chaco. Occasionally there was a view of distant sierras, but mostly it was a middle-height desert forest blanketed and muted with dust. I spent part of that long ride looking through the guidebook and planning the last chapter of my little lark. (A full swing through all the mission towns is biting off too much. I'll visit two towns, with perhaps a side trip to a third). Arrive Santa Cruz, 7:30. This twenty hour trip took twenty-three and a half hours, really cutting into my refreshment time. (And I'd fondly thought that I just might have been able to catch the 4:30 train out of here). So it looks like I'll be lodging in Santa Cruz, the prudent thing anyway. I wander the bus station to look into further transport details. Within the crowds and noise of this chaotic place are the serene faces of the Mennonites, in their cowboy hats and overalls and bonnets and baggy dresses, quite in the world, but not of it. I was dying of thirst, and so sat down in a food court kind of place with sticky plastic tables with a cold two-liter bottle of water. An odd place for a moment of true relaxation and travel bliss, but you never know when you'll get one. I satisfy myself that I can work the further transport link details in the morning. City bus to centro, for a guy needs to lodge, and to dine.

Thursday, August 23

I'm only here in Santa Cruz for the coffee. This need satisfied, city bus to the bus station, and its attached train station. Bolivia has a bit of a rail network, and I've finally had occasion to use it. (This same line would have taken me toward Santa Cruz from the border, had I made it into Brazil). Just getting on such a classic contraption renews me as a traveler. We pull away punctually at 11:45, at the sound of the whistle. Clacking and rocking, I become one with the weight and momentum. We pass through scrub and open field, and a few thin, small towns. There is the scattered apparatus of industrial agriculture, an unusual sight on my travels down here. Mostly, though, the land was covered with thorny, dry forest. A very soothing passage. Arrive San Juan de Chiquitos, punctually at 6:28, in the last of the dusk. I grope and inquire my way into centro. It's medium hot and humid. Headlights pierce the dust. At length, an expansive plaza opens before me, one long side of which is fronted by an enormous religious edifice. I have arrived where I want to be.

Friday, August 24

I have a day to spend in this dusty, spread out town, with its great church and long history. First, to improve my hotel situation. The night before I'd been blasted out of bed by the courtyard television, and spent two hours writing in the plaza before the blaster (the owner himself) decided it was bedtime. Blasted out of bed in the morning, too. My new place is a bargain with a great, third floor terrace. I spend a couple of hours walking around piecing together the transport info I need. Now, to have a look at this great religious edifice. It's a block-sized fortress, mostly walls, with buildings and courtyards incorporated. The church was closed, but I got into a courtyard under the bell tower that was festooned with frescoes that the Indians had done in the eighteenth century. Rooms off to the side were devoted to museum stuff. Time for lunch. As I sit over a humble almuerzo outside a place on the plaza, I ponder how homelike this food culture has become to me. This urban pleasure put me in the mood for a country outing. I engage a mototaxi (two-wheeled) to take me out of town a ways. I never found the path to the overlook I was aiming for, but I had a nice walk back, to the moo of the cow and the squawk of the parrot, the bell tower of the mission church looming ever larger, framed right at the end of this straight north-south road. The church was open when I got back. I waited for a bit of mass to over, and went in to be secularly reverent. The place is a big vault, with tree trunk columns and a pitched roof, this being the simple, mission style. (The flat, stone facade of this church is an anomaly. A mission church generally has the roof and columns extending out and forming a big porch. They kind of look like a ski lodge). There were simple frescoes on the walls, as well as the usual gilt and statuary. When the bells start ringing, I step out into the courtyard and look up at the musician in the bell tower. This guy has a great job. I worry about his health, though. He was really puffing when he got down those stairs. Time for a haircut. My barber wants to know just where the hell are my wife and children. Dead, and away at college. A cool, south wind has come up, drying out the tropical air, and driving spirited clouds of dust.

Saturday, August 25

My door opens to a classic morning tableau. From the highly ascended third floor terrace, I gaze over roof tiles and mule backs at the rising sun, wearing his red rubber ball aspect, as the roosters assert their roosterness. The south wind persists in its shivery blast. This would be a surazo, which blows in from Patagonia from time to time, chilling out the tropical lowlands. And now for a weekend getaway at the end of my long vacation. On the bus for San Miguel de Velasco, one of the Jesuit mission towns to the north. Matilda rides on my lap, as the bus was overstuffed. Everyone seems to be in a great mood, and here are joyous meetings and partings as the bus stops at farms along the way. From the bus window, I fleetingly admire the frescoed facade of the mission church in San Rafael as we pass through. Arrive San Miguel, five and a half hours. All but a very few of its ten thousand residents are in hiding. I make a round and settle into a very nice little six-room alojamiento. The charming, teenaged girl keeping an eye on the place had no key to the room with the washing machine, but she set me up later so I could wash what I need by hand. Out for breakfast and lunch in the form of a coke at a rusty metal table in front of a tienda. Every few minutes, a motorcycle would pass, bouncing through the dips and puddles. Kids and chickens are running around, there's dust on the bananas, and the dogs are doing it in the street. How can I ever leave this country? I walk around to see what more this town has to offer, which is almost nothing beside tranquility. (There's no internet - a first - , and nothing like a restaurant, nor even an almuerzo place that I could see - a few street operations, but nobody's cooking). I inquired into my scattered transport options, and gradually came to the conclusion that my Monday departure can't take place before midafternoon. Earlier would be better, but it will do. Two back-ups should prevent me from missing my flight. I'm in and out of the alojamiento as I go out and about the town. That girl is at her homework for six hours straight, without the aid of an ipod. What's not to love? Now for the church, my arbitrary but tangible excuse for coming here. I'd earlier made a pilgrimage around its frescoed exterior, and had a look at the courtyard to the side under the bell tower. But the church itself had been locked up. Now, in the evening, as I idled on a bench in the plaza, facing its ski lodge facade, the doors swung open, as if by the hand of God, and the Light emerged. I take that as an invitation. The custodian is readying for mass, lighting candles and so on. He welcomes me in very warmly, and I have a good look around the frescoes and carvings and gilt and the heavy, sculpted, spiral pillars. When the believers started showing up, I skedaddled for chicken and fries, for I had discovered where such could be had.

Sunday, August 26

Ah, a full day to simply be in this town, in tranquility. This begins well, with an hour of lying in bed and looking through the window at the sunlit palm fronds whipping around in the surazo. I wrote a while in the courtyard, and lingered over the provided breakfast. Out to amble and maybe catch a bit of a mass. I was standing outside the church as people were gathering, preparing my soul to enter, when I was smashed hard and simultaneously by good and bad luck, sending me reeling. The bad luck was the news. The good luck was getting it. The college girl who had befriended me yesterday on the bus, and who knew of my plans, had spotted me and approached to let me know I had a problem. What that problem was exactly we weren't able to get communicated in our little common language in the minute she had. She was in a hurry to get on the northbound bus idling in front of its company's office. I thanked her as she disappeared into the bus, and went into the office to inquire more thoroughly. A señora and señorita there kindly gave me to understand that tomorrow, the road between San Jose and Santa Cruz was to be shut down, presumably for construction. No bus travel. One can only laugh. I sit down in the plaza, to puzzle through, again, transportation logistics. I need to be on tonight's or tomorrow's train from San Jose. (Tonight's is the preferred choice, lest my sleepless night in the airport/plane be preceded by a sleepless night in a train). That means being on one of the two afternoon flotas out of this town. Tranquilitus interruptus. My time for the mission towns had always been tight, had gotten tighter, curtailing my ambitions, and now was yanked out from under me. How cruel can be the life of a tourist! Anyway, I know (I think) what's up, and go about salvaging the day. The highlight of this was another visit to the church. It had been locked up again, but I approached a fellow in an office in the courtyard after he was done handling a swarm of kids. This turned out to be the padre, who kindly let me in through the sacristy. I made a thorough pilgrimage around the fittings. The padre and I had an amiable micro chat. I leave him with a cash donation, as well as my cane, as I figured he was well placed to find someone who could use it. (The cane had been constantly at my side since Buenos Aires, and had eased my foot to where I felt it could be weaned. As for the injury, I have, in hikers' parlance, "walked it off"). The offices of the two relevant flota companies were still closed, so I hung around under the palm at my alojamiento. When I emerged at 3:30, the 7:00 flota was loaded and ready to go. The office of the 6:00 flota was now open. Departure was to be at 4:00. One can only laugh. I buy a ticket, stuff Matilda haphazardly, and dash off to conduct a small ceremony. From a plaza, and toward a religious edifice, I make a small bow, thus marking my turnaround and the start of my homeward trajectory. The rush trumps the formality and elegance, but still, ritual must be observed. I turn and show up for the 6:00-meaning-4:00 ("en punto" - sharp) bus, which left at 5:00. And so, I am untimely ripped from the full, untroubled day that was to serve as the coda for my whole trip, and which this town truly merited. Ah, but elegance would lose its value if it were not sometimes withheld. In motion.... (The ticket I'd bought was for all the way to Santa Cruz. It had at first slipped my mind that, of course, the San Jose bus would continue to Santa Cruz. Indeed, this would be the last to do so before the road closed. Hence the early departure, I imagine. No need to switch to the Midnight Train in San Jose, besides pure Romanticism). The road is bone-shaking to San Jose. The road to Santa Cruz, which was to be closed, was smooth and paved (with a few diversions). I make no particular effort to sleep, and amuse myself with puzzling through the alternative ways in which I might have been saved, or screwed, in this situation, with its further unknowns. My favorite would have been to get to San Jose (on a foreshortened flota) late Monday evening, as planned, and spend the night in blissful slumber as my last-chance night train clacked to Santa Cruz. I'd then show up in front of the collectivo offices at seven, gradually start wondering where the hell is everybody, eventually ascertaining that there would be no collectivos to Santa Cruz, nor regularly scheduled, daily flotas, because now is the time they decided to close the goddam road! I would then do whatever a guy does on the phone or internet when his flight leaves in eighteen hours without him. Pretty funny. Especially since the collectivo touts, who make their living by that road, on Friday morning had been all thumbs up for me to be returning Tuesday. The likelihood and import of all this is like a meteor strike. But then so is that girl catching me as she did. There are a couple of other scenarios in which I might have been saved, but they were not likely. Miss Prudence is right: get a hotel next to the airport three days before your flight. Because your layers of safety are not enough. .....oof.... But enough of this essay into vital trivia. It's not what travel is about, except of course, when it is, it is. - - - Arrive Santa Cruz, less than ten hours. Matilda is one dusty bag after riding in the luggage bay of that rattletrap. I am handily catapulted by cab into the alojamiento Santa Barbara. In bed a little after three, the basic shape of a regular day salvaged.

Monday, August 27

Santa Cruz: The other large city of Bolivia, bigger than La Paz proper. Relatively wealthy, white, and cosmopolitan. When the Andeans, with whom they grudgingly share the country, elected Evo, they freaked out and wished to secede and be just like Argentina. - - - This was a day of coffee, writing, typing, being (moderately) free afoot, and attending to signs of deeper Bolivia in this relatively worldly city. I feel at last, and only now, the springs of my little adventure unspringing......

Tuesday, August 28

..... and unspringing even further. I'm becoming more and more rarified as I putter around Santa Cruz, and feel as though I'm about to float away up into the sky ......

Many a grand and vital theme has been neglected in the I-did-this-I-did-that form of this narrative writing. Soon, we'll have a beer and talk them over.

I have nothing but good feelings for my fellow Americans, and wish them and their republics well in the difficult century to come. As I've said elsewhere, I think we're coming their way.

As for myself, I have kicked the Existential Question can down the road for another year. I'll continue doing this as long as I'm still kicking. And as for the year, it was a year well spent.

Thanks, O Readers, for keeping me company.

Aeropuerto Internacional Viru Viru

Santa Cruz, Bolivia

August 28, 2012