A Long Winded Happy New Year's Wish...Warning: Contains Social Criticism

Since I am just chilling out here in Buenos Aires...I will write this time of thoughts instead of happenings. The happenings have been fairly simple; drinking wine, sleeping in, hanging out with my Argentine friends, reading in parks, laying in pools of sun and green grass and other things along these lines. These are some fotos that I took walking around today...Soon good old Bamfer and his lady will be here and we will be on the road again...but until then, I'm chillin'!!! So...

Happy New Year All!! I wanted to take a minute to say that. It is a time of year that alot of people like, for all sorts of reasons, and so to all those people, Feliz Año Nuevo!

It is funny how there is so much buildup to New Years Eve...so much hype. My good friend was saying this recently and I definately agree. She said that has always found New Years Eve to be a letdown because of all the bruhaha surrounding it. I, too, have found this. In years where I have had a job around this time of year, (that sounds funny doesn't it?!) I kindof secretely hope to get scheduled to work on New Years Eve. That way I have a sort of excuse for something that I 'have' to do, plus in the food service industry, working in the kitchen on NYE is often a lot crazier than going to a party. You have somewhere to be and fun people to be around. This is not to say that I don't love a good get-crazy-lit-and-dance-on-the-table type of party from time to time. I am not as young as I used to be, but I still dig a good hoedown from time to time...and some of the best ones in memory were on NYE or the nights before it. It is likely that this year will be a grand noche for me in that respect. I seem to be recuperating from the last bit of craziness just in time to be ready to rock and roll tomorrow night here in Buenos Aires...and I'm ready for it!

I begin the blog in this manner to say that I think that New Years Eve is great as a reason to party. A lot of folks seem to need a reason to party, which is a funny notion in and of itself, so if you need a reason, here's the biggest one. I can also see this night as a kind of ritual, a long-standing symbol of a fresh start. In lots of places in the world, this night is associated with acts of ritual; normally the ritual of purification. The idea is to cleanse oneself of the past year and begin anew with a fresh one. A clean slate, a fresh start. In some cultures they throw bread into moving water, to symbolize the getting rid of the old, and of nurturing the world around to prepare for the new life to come. In some cultures, all of the holy statues are taken to the water to be washed on the last day of the year. In some places, on the night before the new year begins, they have a ceremony in which the people make as much noise as possible, to please the gods, because the day after, the first day of the year, they are all completely silent as they pray and meditate on the coming time.

The Chinese believe that it is bad luck to go into a new year in debt and so they do everything possible to pay it off beforehand. All Chinese children and young people not yet married, are given red envelopes with small amounts of money in them, for luck in the year to come. In Italy, in certain places, people actually throw the things that they no longer want right out the window!! Anything on the street is up for grabs. In some places the tradition is to throw money into the house upon the first time entering it again in the new year. The money is left where it falls for 24 hours and then stored on a family alter or given to charity. In Peru, I recently learned that to eat twelve grapes at the stroke of midnight on NYE is said to bring good luck. And to slowly walk around the block of your house will bring good luck when travelling in the next year. Everywhere you go it seems that there is some prevailing superstition or belief regarding the change of the year. And I like these ideas. I think they are a way of preserving some of the ideas of our past. Am I supersticious? Less than some, and more than others. That is probably the best way to answer the question.

Here is the thing for me. In America, the sentiment related to NYE is that of flushing the shitty parts of the past down the toilet. It is a selective sort of celebration, one of hoping for more of the good things in the coming year, and praying for less of the bad things. Then we have these things that we call resolutions. I guess this is the thing that I really don't like. A resolution is meant to be a thing that we would aspire to change in our lives in the following year. Something like, eating less fatty food, or making more time for family. Now, these things in themselves are fine. Health and quality time are good things to want in life. But to me, in regarding my countrymen in the act of playing out these resolutions, I see the word defined more like this: Something that would be nice to have or do in my life, but not something that I really expect to happen, because I am not, in reality, willing to work that hard for it. The problem here is not the thing that is desired as much as the lack of will in the person exacting the change. This gets onto a topic that is close to my heart. That of taking charge of your own existence. Most people, it would seem, would like these changes to be made for them. They like the idea of being slimmer and more attractive, of having more time to pursue the things in life that they are missing, but they are not really willing to make these things happen in any real sense, because in truth, these things are often not accomplished in a single day. For this we see the very common and boring joke of the New Years Resolution.

Dummy 1: So Bob, ya gonna get yer fence built this year?

Dummy 2: Well Dick, I'd sure like to...I've got it on the list of resolutions.

Dummy 1: You do? Well that's great!!

Dummy 2: Yep, right beside bein´ nicer to my wife, and walkin´ at least one mile a day...

Dummy 1: Wait a minute there Bob, weren't those your resolutions last year?

Dummy 2: Yeah, but this year I really mean 'em!! Ha ha ha!!

Resolutions in our culture bother me in the same way that the very well marketed concept of "dreams" bother me. Dreaming, is not what I am talking about here. The act of dreaming is just fine, and of course, it is involuntary, so dream away you dreamers!! What I mean is the idea that is expressed in cliche statements like, "one day I'll realize my dreams!!" and "If you had one dream in life, what would it be?" There is a sort of naivaté in these questions that would seem to keep them in the realm of conversation of high school guidance counselors and teen-idol pop singers...but alas, somehow they have been converted into a major part of our national psyche! Escapism and media are no doubt at the heart of these dream misconceptions, but the idea is not to place blame on the exploiters of this market. Again it isn't the things being wished for that are the problem! It is that "dreams" and "resolutions" are words to point at things that we don't really expect to happen. Not because they aren't possible, but because it is easier to not really go after them. In our cultural sense, saying you have a dream is like saying that the thing is out of your reach. A dream, in any concious sense, is always out of our reach...you may be able to remember a dream you had, but you certainly can't hold it in your hand. There is a sort of wistfulness expressed in the discourse of 'achieving dreams' that is really childish and annoying. Anyone who has already achieved what would have been their dreams will agree with this sentiment. There are people and personality types that don't fidget around with the Disney-style dream wishes, they don't hold something off in the distance, they just go and get what they want. Henry Ford, Martin Luther King, Leonardo DiVinci, these guys weren't sulking around, winjing about all the stuff that didn't go right for them. People like them understand that instead of laying around 'dreaming', they can go out, work hard, and achieve the things that they want. You say something like "Well, I had a dream once, but I just wasn't ever able to realize it..." to one of these types of people and they'll wanna smack that silly little self-pitying tear right our of the corner of your eye. I know that this is a sensitive topic for many folks, and I will certainly get a lot of disagreement on this, but I'm sticking to it. Most Americans have their dreams dangling just beyond their reach for their whole lives. Like a hotdog on a pole that stretches out over their heads from their shirt-collars, and bounces tantalizingly just outside of the grasp of their hungry fingers...And then all the sudden they are older and they get all sad-faced about the things they could never have...in some Hollywood, I-know-there's-a-camera-hiding-in-those-bushes-filming-the-great-drama-of-my-life sense. I am a big proponent of people who say, "This is my goddamn life and I am going to go do the things that I think are important with it." Even when the things that they do seem silly to others, at least they did them!! I hear people saying, "Yeah, but not everyone has as much opportunity as others..." This is true in one sense, but total bullshit in another. I just left Bolivia, where the people are way beyond poor and there is hardly a drop of hot water to be found. Here, you can say, "People don't have the abilities or resources to achieve grand dreams." You can say that in Zimbabwae, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Guatamala City, Nigeria and The Dominican Republic. But you can't say it in America. In a few isolated cases, you can. Okay. But in the vast majority of cases...saying it is an excuse. Even the poorest of colleges students, supporting themself with Ramen Noodles and peanut butter and jellies, has infinitly more resources at their fingertips than these folks in the third world. And that is the problem for me. There are always excuses. Excuses are easy. Excuses are everywhere. People who are angered by this will probably find that this anger stems from the sting of the truth. It is always easier to find excuses for doing nothing than it is to actually go out and do something with your existence!! To actually get up and do the things that would be your dreams...except that you have already achieved them and so they are now happy memories instead of some possibly possible future shadow. And this is no statement about the size of ones goals...that is immaterial...this is not comparing oaks to elms...this is to say that, no matter what it is that you wish for, thinking about it like a real and actual part of your future, instead of the ghost of a possibility, is the first initial step to actually getting there.

I also understand that a lot of people really don't ever want to get those ultimate dreams...because then what would there be left. It reflects Ayn Rand's idea of Motion and Purpose, or the Eastern concepts of Potentiality, and the idea of moving towards something, being motivated. Those are all fine and good...but if this is your motive for not getting anywhere, then you can't complain about not having achieved the 'dreams'!!! I say all this, not to chastize or belittle anyone. I say this, because it is resolution time and these resolutions rub me the wrong way in America. These desires for change in our lives might be real, but the resolve to see them through is rarely truly there. I don't feel as though we need the dates of December 31st/January 1st to get a clean start. We have a clean start with every ring of the alarm clock, with every setting of the sun, with every blink of our eyelids...if we can only remind ourselves of it. In every day we can have resolutions, real ones, that we will actually set about to change...it is in this spirit that people like Mandela, Ghandi, the Dalai Lama have achieved such great things through peace in our violent world. And people with far less fame and notoriety too.

The idea of Potentiality relies on the individual, not on some 'dream fairy' that comes along and makes you thinner, less bald, less ignorant, less stuck, more inspired, more rich, less lonely, less bored, less abandoned, more accomplished and ultimatley, more happy. There is more than likely going to be some sweat involved. This year, my one resolution is to keep having the same resolutions that I always have and act on pretty much daily...this is a system that seems to work for me. The people of America will do whatever they like. And that is fine. Weepy weepy, 'I wish this' and 'I wish that' will certainly never go away. But it seems to me that if you want to be happy with your life and the things that you aspire to...the first and best way to feel like your failing at it, is to leave it up to someone or something else...

Alright, enough of that...now let's party!! Ja ja! In all honesty, I hope that everyone has an enjoyable night this New Years Eve, whether it's at a party or in your living room or at your job....and I hope that the ritual of the cleansing can be fruitful and enjoyable in one sense or another. I also wish you all a year of prosperity, full of things that inspire you and please you. Finally, I wish for us all, the ability to take the negative things that will inevitably come to us, and make them just as important in our own individual processes of self development...may we see them not as things to fall victims to, but as teachers and fellow travelers on this "long and strange trip" that we keep finding ourselves on...Happy Maldito New Year!!!

Salar De Uyuni: Episode 2...Geysers In The Dawn, Trains To The Border, And Sleeping Sitting Up...

Due to the way that this page posts things according to date and time...please read the next blog before this one...it is the first half of the story...this is the second half...'episodes' I guess I called them...I realize that this is quite retarded, but as it happens, so am I when it comes to computers at times...so there it is!! Please read Salar De Uyuni: Episode 1 first!!

As we left the last part of the story, we were headed into a mighty day of 4x4 breakdowns! The day before, the driver of the other Jeep in our excursion, who normally goes by Juan, but whom I dubbed "The Black Rider Of Doom" after his seemingly endless run of vehicle destruction caused by recklessness over bumps and excessively high speeds upon tremendously poor roads, had gotten a flat tire which we had to fix. (How's that for an opening sentence!!) That meant that we at least should have expected to have some problems on the road. We didn't really, and so at least for a while they came as a humorous surprise...later they were just humorous. The first one of the day was good old Juan having another flat tire. We came upon him and some other guys trying to use a jack to push up the jeep body. It was a tiny red hand-jack and they had it balanced on top of a couple foot-high mound of rocks. There where two guys under the car and it was sort of swaying back and forth on the rocks. All us whities looked at each other with that "We're about to watch someone die!" look. That time they got the tire changed with not too many troubles. The next time we came upon them, they again had the car balanced on rocks but this time it fell down with two Bolivians underneath it which created a moment of panic followed by a lot of sighs, and again, eyerolling. The jeep went down, but so did the guys underneath it and so it just avoided crushing them. The problem this time was that the shock rails had come undone and so they could no longer drive over the huge bumps and ruts. We needed to brace car up high so that someone could hammer these rails back into sync. After about twenty minutes there were probably thirty people from other jeeps just sitting around watching, so I gathered them and we manually lifted the jeep on oneside high enough to get a propane canister (!!!) propped under the back of the jeep. These guys are nothing if not unconcerned with the idea of fiery death!!! We got it fixed, but that same problem was to replay itself a couple more times throughout the day.

The third time we came upon The Black Rider Of Doom, he had just about flipped his jeep over and had gotten stuck in the mud. He was reaching for the stereo and got distracted. We pushed him out of it. About the time that we were supposed to be having lunch, problems started in our own jeep. At first it was the gasoline filter and then it was the carburator. We had been the last jeep to go, so we were far behind at this point and there was no one to help us out. It ended up being me and Santos out in the boiling heat of the afternoon repeatedly taking apart the carburator and filters and cleaning them out and then replacing them. We could then get a ways before the problem would repeat itself. After a long series of breaking down and then getting going again, we found a few of the guys from the other jeep walking back towards us. They had been coming to help in the car, but then they too broke down again and so we had to go help them oncemore! It was four in the afternoon before we ate out lunch, and we ended up doing it in the middle of the goddamn desert!! It tasted all the better for it though, and I must admit that we did have a great group of people, everyone laughing instead of getting mad and we really turned it into an adventure. This day was the turning point though. Everything following that morning was rough and did not go smoothly at all. We ended up being over three hours late, so we had to really cruise to make it to Laguna Colorada and we where late so we missed the famed sunset there. Laguna Colorada may not be colored at all, we only saw its reflection of the moon in the dark of night. Because we were so late to camp, it was full. We had to drive even further to find a place to sleep. We had a late dinner and all of us giggled our way into sleep. We all six shared a room that night and it was like a big slumber party. Cold as hell at over 15,000 feet of high desert altitude. The stars shown like silver fire and we marvelled through chattering teeth at all the southern constellations that shivered above us. We awoke at four AM the next morning to get a good start. Since everything had gotten screwed the day before we wanted a little spare time to get things done and to get a head start. Anna the cutey and Doris had to catch a bus at the Chilean Border crossing and then the Aussies had to catch an eight PM bus back to La Paz. My train wasn't until ten-forty so I had time. At least in theory.

Before light that morning, we had arrived at a series of geysers, steam outpourings and paint pots of boiling mud. Think Yellowstone Park, but in Bolivia. It was amazing to come upon these things in the half-light of dawn. The steam was hot, but not hot enough to burn the skin and you could actually stand in the jet-vapor as it plumed upward. It was bone cold up at that elevation and we were all waiting for the sun and sitting close together in the jeep to create heat. The sun came up as we rolled into an area where you can swim in a natural pool of hot water. A thermal bath. There were people gathered there in the first light of day; the steam rising off the water and the chatter of ten different languages, all quietly happening in the new day. We had a sparse breakfast and again we were off. The previous day we had had a chance to view many pink flamingoes, and that day we saw many more. We stopped at many lagunas of different colors, the mountians rising off them and creating interesting colored reflections. At one point, in the sky we spotted a cloud that was a perfect hollowed out square. Gabe took a picture of it and captured the whole environment in one quick mouthful, "Dali would have loved this."

We dropped the Swiss lassies at the border and began to hoof it for Uyuni. We knew we would be close making the bus deadline, and with our luck in the jeep we knew we were likely doomed in our mission. We broke down a couple more times that day, but were able to make decent time. With about three hours to go to Uyuni, we came upon a hilarious adventure. There was a broken down jeep by the side of the road with a group of locals standing around it. One, an old man, approached and asked if he could ride into Uyuni with us. He turned out to be a drug runner and had quite a story. I am not going to tell this story online, but ask me later, and you will laugh hard. As we made our way back to Uyuni, he and our driver started getting along famously and soon they had stopped to by a 12-pack of beer. The old guy started pounding them back and when he was done with one he would open the window and chuck the empty can out onto the road. You could have followed us just by the trail of our cans, that's how much the old bastard drank. Our driver had three and was opening a fourth when I asked him to wait until we made it to town. He seemed stunned, but he obliged. A different way of live there in Bolivia. There were many more adventures on this trip but I will refrain from telling them on this blog because of how long it takes to write them all, and then also because it is christmas eve and these bastards are about to close their cybercafe...it's almost like they want to stop working or something!! Ha Ha.

Well, we made the bus, barely. Got the Aussies on their way and then I set about getting my pack and the ticket I spoke of before. That night I rolled out into the moonlit darkness in an old, squeeky train. Heading south to the Bolivian bordertown called Villazón. I slept for a couple hours this night, that was it. I expected to be across the border and into Argentina by ten AM that following morning...but...when we arrived in Villazón, it was discovered that my pack never made the journey. So now I had to wait for it to somehow get there. That was after the three hours it took for these guys to find it. That was a charade of cell phones and miscommunications...Bolivia really is something, even when you're almost in Argenitna nothing works right. Long story short, I got my bag and somehow got through the chaos that is the double border crossing. At one point I couldn't get money because the only ATM in Villazón didn't happen to work that day. A guy I just met pulled me through the gauntlet into Argentina to an ATM in La Quiaca. Then we crossed back to pay for my ticket. All this happened with no stamps on my passport at all. That is how easy it would be to cross. No one noticed either way!! A couple hours later I crossed legally, with the search and the stamps.

One thing that I must mention is that in all the scurrying for my bag I got hungry and wandered into a random bar/restaurant in this bordertown and as I sat down, these two Irish looking guys nod at me and I'll be goddamned if one of them isn´t that guy I wrote about earlier from the Uruguay Boat Trip Episode named Consi!! The guy who suggested the briliant idea of having a domestic vote in the US for the domestic policies of the president, and then having a global vote to decide who would run the American Foriegn Policy Leader. (Dare to dream right??) This guy that I met randomly on a boat across the Rio Plata...I see in some dive bar in a random border town. It was a trip. We really are brothers, in looks and in common mind. We had a great talk again over lunch and then we tossed ourselves back into the fray, not knowing when we would meet again, but definately knowing it was certain that we would.

By the time all this shite had happened, I decided to go back to Buenos Aires instead of going to Mendoza. I will be there for quite a while later, and I needed to get back to Buenos Aires for the holidays with friends. So at eleven PM that night, I was scheduled to take a very long bus ride to the capital. It began to rain at eight and by eleven, almost all the buses en route to the border were running late. Mine ended up arriving at twelve-thirty and it didn't leave until an hour after that. They tell you that it takes twenty-four hours to get to Buenos Aires, but it actually takes thirty-two. So I spent two nights and a full day riding on a bus to get here to Buenos Aires. I had a large woman and her four year old daughter sitting with me. That little kid was all over us like a goddamn jungle gym, I resisted for a while, and then just gave in. We must have watched eight movies on that bus. We sometimes stopped to eat, and then sometimes we would just continue on with growling tummies. I was the only gringo on that damn bus, and now I know what it is like to travel in the third world, South American style! I arrived this morning early and cabbed to my good old hotel. It was just like coming home. What a relief. The weather here is summer, unlike in the high elevation reaches of the Andes. Christmas Eve in Buenos Aires. I am going to cut this one off at this point. As always, there was a lot more that I wanted to write about, but it is time to call it a day. I wish you all a happy holiday, whatever it is that you are doing. You are special people in my life and I miss you this season of holidays, even if it is hot as hell down here...take care of yourselves and each other, it's quite a thing is it not? Love, Matt

Salar De Uyuni: Episode 1...Salt, Bumpy Roads And Kindness Despite The Hubris...

So this time, instead of Matteo Del Norte, it should be Matteo Del Bus...or Del Train, or Del 4x4 Jeep. It has been a little longer than usual between entries and there are a number of factors involved in this. Here are the main two. 1.) I have been really freaking busy! 2.) I have not sit down in a still environment in days. 3.) I am in Bolivia, where very few things actually work. Computers, being a sort of developed world type of thing, suffer badly here. You could click on something and then read a chapter or two out of some heavy-duty novel, and then start to see the page you had been trying to get to. Read some more or watch an episode of something dubbed into spanish and then there would be your page! Hooray! Or, it would tell you after a long wait that your page could not be retrieved. You get spoiled on a fast connection back home. And now I sound like a whiny little whiner. Disculpe.

So when we last left off, I was chillin' in La Paz, where there isn't currently a whole lotta paz. (Peace. Ja ja!) I did like it there though. They have this sorta twisted 'Witches Market' where they sell all these crazy llama fetuses and shriveled and dried alpaca babies and other wierd stuff too. I am not sure what a bruja would do with these items but if they were used for curses, I hope to never piss one off. I might grow some sort of funny appendage or llama-like gizzard. Llamas kinda trip me out. I visited a couple museums the last day I was there and then got all my shite into a pile to head down south to Uyuni. I took an overnight bus that started out great, and ended up sounding like it was driving in the chamber of a very loud submachine gun. Unfortunately, as the road out of La Paz is paved, the road into Uyuni is the most washed-out, washboardy road you ever did see. So that meant that while we watched the abominably pitiful 'Wild Hogs', it was a nice smooth ride and then after everyone had settled down into a slumber we started hitting these teeth-rattling patches of carretera that would jolt you right off your seat. Needless to say, by the time the beautiful high elevation sunlight cracked through the blinds, Matteo Del Bus was already wide awake, staring dazed off into the distance with a line of drying drool running down his whiskered chin. I went to this Spartan (I love the way the word describes lodgings...)hotel and got a room. The lady that ran it was the first full-on beeotch that I have come across so far on this journey. You could just tell she hated her life. Yeah, I am sure that the constant presence of gringos can get a bit oppressive over the years, but you make a goddam fortune and if you don't like it, do something else. She was a nickel and dimer. She would charge you for everything. For example, there is no toilet paper in the bathrooms, of which I was sharing with an entire hall. If you didn't have your own, which I happily do, then she'd charge you for a few squares. If you didn't have a towel, and I don't so she got me on this one, she would charge you to dry yourself. While I was on my excursion to the wilds I left my pack there and she charged me, when I came back to get it I needed to use the bathroom...she charged me for that too!! I said, "Money, money, always money..." and that really ticked her off. She started telling me how I had to pay for the water I was using and all that jazz. I tried to give her a tip, just cause I figured if the water was that damn expensive, the least I could do was tip the toilet, and then she got really mad and told me that she didn't want my money "Señor!". Damn, I thought, in that case, give me back the money I paid for the damn towel that hotels are supposed to give you anyway. I didn't actually say this. I did say this, "Muchas gracias señora, entiendo que la vida es caro y que todos necesitan el dinero...espero que un dia le gusta su vida en realidad..." then I bowed like they do in Asia and left. She was speechless. Hopefully she doesn't have any friends that are witches who experiment with shriveled alpaca-baby mummies.

But in all seriousness, I do have a good sense of the third world aspect of Bolivia. People here have very hard lives and are often driven to do things that are very difficult or illegal to survive. You have to respect that. You can't get mad about the facilities or the toilets or the lack of this amenity or that, because they are doing their best to be hospitable. On the whole, I found the people of Bolivia to be proud and very kind. They do not really like Americans here, there is a prevailing media trend against our kind right now, and that I understand too. I always joke with the people that I meet about that. They ask where I am from and then I make a comment about not being so popular here and they agree and then we both seem to laugh it off. People generally want to like each other, and when they are aware of the differences between citizens and governments, I find that things go along just fine, no matter where the people are from. Not always, but often. I had an experience that typified this right off the bat in Uyuni. I had gotten there a day early in order to plan a few things for after the Salt Flat excursion. I wanted to get a train ticket to the border town of Villazòn because the train is the only real viable way to get down there, and it fills up ahead of time. So I walked to the train station across the hot, dry, and almost empty streets of midday Uyuni. It reminded me of a scene out of an old western movie. When I got there there was a lady sitting out front on the curb. I said hello and passed into the cool darkness of the ticket office. The lights were on, though dim, inside and there was a desk with a computer running, but there was no one there. I waited for a couple minutes and then walked back outside to join the woman I had passed. She was a local and said that she had been waiting there for a half an hour. Some other would-be costumers had come and gone, but no one around knew where the guy had gone. We went through the Americans-are-not-popular conversation, and then talked for a bit about the current politcal trouble in Bolivia and then we agreed that people are cool and that governments suck. We were getting along well when she asked what I did for a living and I said that I was a cook. She grinned from ear to ear and at that point we became as good as family: she too was a chef. We talked about food for the next bit and finally the ticket seller peddled up on a bike with a plastic bag under his arm...he had been off buying a sweater for his sister. (Feliz Navidad) We followed the guy back inside and he got ready to work for a minute. The lady in front of me bought her ticket and then it was my turn. I told the guy what I wanted and he looked at me for a second and said no. It was tuesday and they don't start selling tickets for the friday night train until thursday afternoon. I knew this was a lie, but what could I do? I looked him in the eye and asked if it was the truth, he said it was and there was an itchy moment where we both recognized that this too was a lie. The local lady asked me to come outside and there she confirmed that the man was lying. "He sees where you come from and he only wants to cause you problems." I was not going to be back into town until just before the train was meant to leave so there would be no way to get the ticket on thursday and by friday night it would be sold out. The nice lady offered to buy the ticket for me on thursday, and I could pick it up at the restaurant where she worked on friday night. So here was an interesting situation...should I trust my humanity theory and give a complete stranger from a country that doesn't like me a wad of money? Or should I take my chances with the last minute situation. Like good old Narciso back at the Mandarin in SF, I too, am always up for a good gamble. Especially when it doubles as an experiment in philanthropy. I exchanged the money for directions to her restaurant and that was that. To speed ahead to the end of the story, on the excursion we had numerous car troubles and were delayed by hours in getting back to Uyuni. When I got back I had literally minutes to go from wilderness mode to train mode and I walked quickly across the plaza to her work. As I approached I saw a lady in chef whites waiting at the door. It was not the lady I knew, but she was looking out as if looking for someone and in her hands she held a white slip of paper. As I approached, her face bloomed into a smile and she said my name with a question mark after it. I smiled a big old sunburnt-irish-lookin'-american-guy smile and she gave me the ticket as if I was her long lost son. It was quite something. She invited me in for a quick bit to eat and then I ran for my pack and then I was on that goddamn train, heading off into the night. If she hadn't come through, I wouldn't have gotten on that train. It was packed. But I would have been just fine. I would have been out a little bit of money, but I would have found some other way to go. What I gained from it was just a little bit more reinforcement that humans can certainly be decent and good to each other, even across lines on maps that old and jaded white men put in place a good while back in time. And just in time for good old christmas too...how nice. If only Christmas where dressed in that genuine human kindness, instead of only the guise of it to hide the will of this 'the man' or that 'the man'. Don't worry, no Scroogy-ness will be braided into this entry!! Happy Christmas everybody!

So the next morning I was up with the sun in my little box of a hotel room. I showered and payed for a towel to dry off with and then went off to meet my group for the excursion. It ended up consisting of three Aussies: Lily, Gabe and Bali; two Swiss girls: Anna and Doris, and then me. Our guide, who turned out to be pretty much silent, (and yeah, a nice guy) more of just a driver, was named Santos. We started out by bumping along to an area called the Cemeterio de Trenes, which was just that, an expansive patch of ground full of rusting old train bodies and cars. The tracks came to be to expensive to take care of, so they just stopped doing it and that was the end of the trains. There is not much left but the skeletons. From there we headed out into the Salar, which is a Salt Flat more than 1,200 square kilometers in size. Vast and bright is all I can say. This, like the Inca experience, is one that will be quite impossible to sum up here. We crossed it and outside the window it looked like snow, for as far as you could see, in all directions leading out to the blue mountian horizons in the distance and the billowing white clouds beyond. It was warm out there, and completely blindingly bright. The ride in the jeep was perfectly smooth. There are areas where water wells up through the salt in slow springs and would be geysers. There is a lot of optical illusion opportunity out here. We did our best with the "I'm standing in your hand" photos. Mostly it was just really bright and the camera people had a hard time getting them to do the right thing. Those were the real camera people. I am not even on the grid of real camera people, so most of my photos are hopeless.

We had our lunch that day on an island of huge cactus' that reach out from the salt towards the sky. They come upon you in a manner that seems otherworldy, as though they are beings of some strange origin, looming above you silently. Maybe it's too many movies for this kiddo, but I kept waiting for them to talk to me!! They only did once...just joking. But they would have made good friends, given the opportunity to bond and express who they really are. The lunch was the first of several sketchy meals. Not terrible, just not hardly there. We all lost weight on this outing.

That night we ended up staying at the only legal salt structure near the salar. It is only legal because it is off the salt flat and so it does not contribute to the contamination that is a problem there. The place itself is really cool, it is made from bricks that are made from pure salt! The entire building, including the tables, chairs, beds and door frames, are made out of salt! The beds were quite comfortable and the rooms, despite the chilly nighttime temperatures, are nice and warm. I went out for a walk with the Swiss ladies at dusk. The colors on the great mountians in the distance were terrific. As the sun left us, the sky took on a color show of its own and after we ate, we watched a tremendous electical storm off across the salar. I awoke a few hours later and walked out to watch the storm come in. Lightning crossed the sky without cease and the dark clouds seemed to roil silently eastward above the hills. There was no thunder and it was all quite peaceful in a dark, nightmarish sort of way.

The morning came at about four thirty and we were up and on our way. This day would later be summarized by Gabe's question, "Which breakdown was your favorite?" But I will get to that a little later, in the second part of this adventure. Already it has taken three short sittings to get this much written...and there looks to be at least a fourth...read on...

A Lake Like An Ocean, Floating Islands And The Temples Of Mother Earth

The last blog entry that I finished was just after I arrived in Puno. Puno is the small city that is right next to Lake Titicaca in Peru. Puno is home to two ancient cultures and languages...Quechua and Aymara. Most of us probably remember Lake Titicaca from our early grade school geography classes because in our language, the word Titicaca sounds like 'boobies and poop'. Ha ha, I know. Everyone loves a poop joke. Most all of the northamericanos here confirmed this memory. Because of this phenom, I was interested in learning the true meaning of the name, and the local history, once again, refused to let me down. First of all, the Caca part of the word is actually pronounced Haha, but with the sound that the letter J makes in spanish, like the name Jorge. Second, Titicaca translates to Stone Puma. The Lake of the Stone Puma. Much cooler than Titicaca.

On the trip down to Puno, I had met some cool people and upon arrival, this Canadian guy called Daniel and I set to planning a trip through the islands of the massive lake. It is almost more of an inland sea really, straddling the border of Peru and Bolivia, and containing tens of islands full of people with their old world cultures still intact. The following morning we were up with the dawn and heading out on a small motorboat to visit three distinct destinations.

The first place we visited was an interesting place indeed. Hundreds of years ago there was an Incan King named PachaCuti who worked hard to expand the Incan Empire. He moved outwards in all directions from Cusco and conquered many smaller tribes of people. One of the groups that he took on was a group that lived on the shores of Titicaca and as they fled certain destruction and/or integration to the empire, they created a way of life not duplicated anywhere else on the planet. They began by fleeing on boats into the great lake. They lived on these boats through rain and shine and gradually, as they realized that if they wanted to retain their identity they would have to live on the lake, they developed a floating community. They started by building small houses out of reeds onto the top of their boats, eating, sleeping and fishing...but after time the boats were replaced by islands that themselves were made out of reeds and could house tens of families. These floating islands still exist today, and thanks to tourism, are flourishing with solar panels and lively markets. This series of tens of floating islands was our first stop that day. The houses, the boats, the lookout towers; all are built from the reeds that grow in the water all around. They dry them and then use them to weave all of the things that we usually think of being made out of wood or some other modern building material. It is really intriguing to look around these islands. The people are all well educated, and because their lives are supported by tourism, they are friendly and welcoming. They make a couple specific types of blankets and both the men and the woman are busy creating things to sell, both in the markets in Puno, and on the individual islands themselves.

After this, it was back on the boat for three hours of sailing to the isla of Taquile where we ended up staying overnight with a family. We came ashore on a brilliantly sunny afternoon. The quality of air and light and water cannot be over-exaggerated in this place. It has something of the magic of Cusco in it. The water sparkles a blue that seems to be forgetton by water on other parts of the globe. The air is cool and pure and the light which passes through it has the same quality of truth. We were greated by the woman that was to be our 'mother' for the time spent on the island. We followed her back to her house and we met two of her three children. All were dressed in their traditional garb and the mother was working on making lunch. The kitchen and dining room were both in a building separate from the main habitation. It was a dark little place made from adobe bricks and there was a light inside it but it was not very bright at all. I sat with the woman and helped peel potatoes. The stove was not a stove at all, but more of a fire with hot, less hot and more hot parts. She burned a combination of small logs and eucalyptus leaves, and the smell was enchanting. After an hour or so of listening to the bubbling of soup and smelling the richness of onions and garlic, we squatted down in the dirt at a flimsy wooden table, covered with a beautiful hand knitted blanket. The food was marvelous, giving a nod to what I wrote a few weeks back in Lima about food not needing to be complicated to be good. There is very little variation on the island, but it is all good. Quinoa soup with vegetables and potatoes, and a lot of rice and tomatoes and a local cows milk cheese that they sear to be golden brown. I found it similar to feta. Salty and fresh, it was a perfect foil for the starch heavy diet.

Speaking of heavy, Daniel and I found it interesting how all of the woman of the island were physically very large. It was obvious that the diet of potatoes, rice and quinoa was very carbohydrate heavy, but the children and men were all quite thin. It was, after all, a society that lived without the excesses of money or food, and the people have to work very hard and walk everywhere they go. It turned out, as we learned more about the local ways, that the larger a woman is in this culture, the more beautiful she is considered and a better wife she is percieved to have the potential to be. The women often layer on as many as six or seven skirts in order to appear in public to be bigger. I thought this interesting coming from the culture that I do. In the US we obviously place so much value in image and body shape and the damage that that mentality causes is costly and permanent. It was nice to witness a place where that global 'vomit-your-way-to-thinness' mentality didn't pervade. In fact, it was the opposite.

The relationship customs between man and woman were very interesting on these islands too. From a glance at the clothes of a man or woman you could tell almost everything about their status. The color of the decoration of the clothing and then the way it was worn would tell everyone how many kids someone had, whether they were single or married, happy or sad, mature and responsible or still juvenile, and many other things in addition. In this society, the women choose the men. So, for example, at a fiesta, a woman wearing a long shawl with a pom pom at the end that was colored a certain way, could wear it in a certain position to tell a man she was interested in him. He in turn, would wear his long stocking cap in a way that would say yes or no. All of this would happen with no words. In order to become married a man and a woman will live together for three years. If they get a long, then they become married, and if not, then they separate. There is no divorce in this society and after they are married, it is for life. A man, once married, will take on a position as a jefe or a leader of some facet of life. Agriculture, boating, tourism, etc. All of these men together form a panel that is the leadership of the community. There are no police, no judges or lawyers...if you have a problem with one person, then you have a problem with the whole island. They also employ a technique of working that I find fascinating and effective, if only in this small group, it certainly works well. When one of the three thousand inhabitants needs a new house built, all the others come to help. The entire house is built within a manner of hours. No one is paid and there are no benefits or 401k plans. The payback is that when some other person needs work done, they all go to help. Socialist naysayers can shut the hell up at this point because it has worked in this place for thousands of years.

After the lunch we climbed to the top of the mountians on the island to visit the temples of Pachamama and Pachatata. These words mean Earth Mother and Earth Father. They are on separate peaks and the sacred temples are only entered once a year by the inhabitants of the island. They overlook the water in all directions and from there I sat and watched the sun set while the chill of the high-elevation air came on. I bundled up in a scarf and warm hat and jacket and watched the elders chewing coca leaves on some rocks across the way. When they greet each other in this society, it is customary to give the other a pinch of coca leaves. They do not recieve these leaves with their hands, they may only recieve them in their folded over shirts, or skirts, or, as is most common, based on the local wardrobe, their hats.

Here is something important for those reading this in the first world. Coca leaves ARE NOT DRUGS, only the refinement of the leaves can produce the powder that we know of as cocaine. It takes twenty five pounds of leaves to produce one gram of refined cocaine. The chewing of coca leaves has been a normal part of life here since thousands of years BC. In the local belief system, PachaCoca, the coca leaf, is considered one of the many gods. It was used to communicate with other gods, and at times it was used to communicate with the land of the dead. In the history of the people here, rare was the period of prosperity. Life was hard, life was pain. It is cold here, and the manual work difficult. Coca leaves, when chewed, can take the edge off hunger and pain and give extra energy for working longer hours. When the christians first made their way here, they deemed the coca leaf to be a product of the devil. They took it away from the people and made them suffer for the habit. Then, as they began to exploit the indigenous locals in the mines of Potosi and elsewhere, they discovered that by allowing these workers to chew the coca leaves, they could get longer hours and higher productivity out of them. (Sound like the capitalist work ethic we're still so proud of? Maybe if the children in the sweatshops of Southeast Asia chewed coca leaves we could get more toys out of them by Christmas time!! Ooooh snap.) Soon they were forcing the laborers to work 48 hour stretches underground in these mines, with little or nothing to eat. The workers were living dead, the only thing keeping them going was the energy that their bodies derived from these leaves. The Hispanics soon put a tax on these leaves, so as to make even more money, and with the quantity of labor the value of the plant skyrocketed. The French and Americans capitalized on the properties of the plant with coca wine, and eventually a coca drink was developed by a man called Pemberton, in the southern American city of Atlanta. This drink eventually took on the name of Coca Cola. Merck experimented with the plant. Freud wrote about it. Cocaine as a drug has become a major problem in the developed world, but it is the demand, not the plant of coca being grown in the wilds of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Columbia that is the problem. A major divide between the policies of the Bolivian government and the rest of the anti-drug world, is the protection of the traditions of this ancient people. We all know about the war on drugs, but looking into the eyes of these calm and dignified, yet impoverished people, one realizes that they are not the reason or the root of drug abuse on the streets of America and Europe. The issue is complex, and I am not going into it now, but it is something to think about the next time Jorge Bush or some other jackass is up in front of cameras, going on about how the war on drugs needs to be fought on foreign soil. Coca was a tradition without any harm to anyone for thousands of years, then whites got their hands on it and it warped their minds and made them mad (sick). The prophecy of this existed long before the events played out. PachaMama provided her people with a solution to the suffering present in their lives. The white invadors from the north would not respect or understand this gift, and so it would make them sick and wild. That prophecy was pretty much dead on.

Anyway, back on the island...we descended back off the hills to beat the darkness. The trails on this island are not marked and we needed to make it back to the habitation while we could still see. We were cooked dinner that was very similar to lunch and then we were led by the young daughter to a fiesta of local folklorica music and dancing. That night it grew very cold and after the rain fell for a half an hour, the sky cleared and the stars were as clear as I have seen them since I was in The Outback in Australia. It was breathtaking.

The next morning we awoke to the sounds of hail on the metal roof of our habitation. It soon turned to rain and it poured for hours. We had a local version of pancakes for breakfast with a tea made from an herb that seemed to me to be a cross between thyme and eucalyptus, called muña. Then we walked through the rain to the boat and went off to visit one final island. Because of the stormy weather, the waves were huge and our little boat tipped from crest to trough. Daniel vomited up his pancakes and muña and I closed my eyes and hung on by a thread until we docked at the third island. As we roamed around this island, the sun came out and we proceeded to eat trout with lime and ajì and get nice gringo-style sunburns.

We made it back to Puno that afternoon and quickly set to preparing to travel into Bolivia. It is not the cakewalk it used to be, evidently. I had to put together a veritable dossier of different things to cross the border. Photos, proof of finacial solvency, proof of hotel reservations, international vaccination card, etc. It is a very poor country. Many people suffer here from poverty, from all sorts of causes. There are attempts at progress happening now. There is a lot going on here in Bolivia currently. The country's first indiginous president, Evo Morales, has recently drafted a new constitution that leans heavily towards benefiting the poor. South America is famous for leaders who represent the people and it is also famous for bloody protests and right-wing coups. Here, at this time, four provinces in the east; provinces containing the majority of the country's economic wealth, are declaring their independence and trying to form a separate country. Those who know much of the modern era of proposed seccesion (i.e. Kurdistan, Basque Province, Quebec) know that this will never fly. So, that means that the army gets involved and people take to the streets. I am currently in La Paz where things are going down. I am going to refrain from writing any more on this subject until I am out of Bolivia. I will be soon heading south to the Salt Flats of Uyuni and San Pedro De Atacama, then I will be in Argentina, and then I will include more details. No worries to parents or concerned friends, I am safe here. That much is clear at this time. Ok, today is another day of preparation. Tomorrow I take an overrnight bus down south. Stay tuned for more adventures in the southland...

More Inca Trail Photos

Clean Air, Steep Hills And Love For Pachamama

It is safe to say that the Land Of The Incas has captured the heart of Matteo Del Norte. Pilar "La Bruja" says that she thinks that I used to be an Inca in a former life. If that is the case then it certainly would explain the way I feel about this place, and the sadness I feel about leaving it. It is a place of blue skies and clean air. A place where a brilliant people built amazing things and designed intricate and delicate systems for interacting with nature. It is a place that has taught me many things and there is indeed a weight in my heart at the thought of departing tomorrow.

Let me say at the top of this blog that it would be completely impossible to get even a majority percentage of the story written here at this point. You wouldn't want to read that much. It was like 3 months in a week. No joke. I can't believe how much happened in that timespan. Here is a brief rundown.

Last time I wrote it was wednesday and we were preparing our supplies and packing our bags to head to the mountains. We were picked up long before first light on thursday morning and made the hour-long drive over a huge mountain pass to Ollantaytambo for breakfast and a team briefing about the plan for the trip. There were fourteen of us and then the two guides that we had. Most of the people were from the US and England. There was a guy from Ireland and another guy from Canada who had lived in Isreal and is now married to a woman in Spain. There was one kid from Brasil that cracked me up the whole time. We had pancakes and bread and jam and then again piled into our vehicle to drive to the departure point. The porters loaded up and we passed through the customs point and got our passports stamped. Then it was off across a suspension bridge and into the rocky terrain of the High Andes.

The first day was the most mellow of the four. We walked a couple hours along the rushing Urubamba River and then began to rise up above it and into the trees. There were a number of vistas looking out over the vast valleys and ancient stones of the Inca sites. The conversation was tranquil and light and even though the rain threatened a number of times, it never broke loose on us. At that point we were amazed by all the things we saw, but we really had no idea of what lay in store down the trail.

By the time we made it to our camp that night I was done in. The elevation was doing its worst to us. It was tough to get much breath and a number of us had raging headaches. The way it works with the camp is that the porters do all the work and the gringos just try to make it up the hill. All day long we were being passed by tiny but muscled men who were seemingly carrying their weight in packs and tent parts and food. Their calf muscles were huge and they walked bent over at the waist to carry the load. They wore sandals and their toes were torn and calloused, their feet as coarse as the trail we walked over. They arrive before the gringos and set up the eating tents and then they would cook lunch. After we ate lunch they would wash the dishes and then pack everything up into packs on their backs and then they would catch us and pass us only to arrive and set up the sleeping tents and the dinner. After they cooked our dinner they would get things set for the morning and go to sleep long after the sore whities had sunk into restless tent-style dreaming. In the morning they were awake long before us getting our breakfast ready. It was embarassing really. The food that they cooked was really good. Very healthy with a lot of carbs to keep us filled up with energy. Every meal had a soup and then at least four platters of meats and veggies and potatoes or rice or pasta. We got tea three times a day and lunch and dinner had dessert served with them.

That first night it was all we could do to keep our eyes open during dinner. I was asleep in two seconds when I got into my sleeping bag and I got solid sleep despite sleeping on the ground and having no pillow. We woke up at 530 and stumbled out of the tents as sore as could be. The huge glacial mountains that were directly in front of us had been covered in clouds the night before and in the morning the sun made its way up behind them, they were glorious and otherworldy in their domination of the sky. A guy named Pat, from San Francisco, had his camera set up on a tripód and he was capturing the surreal quality of the color and light. We started out soon after breakfast and immediatley started heading up a very steep mountain side. The second day is by far the hardest of them all. It is only 16 kilometers in distance, but we started by going up 2700 feet over a pass, then down 1500 feet, then up 1200 and then back down 1000 to finish the day. The elevation of the first pass, dubbed Dead Woman's Pass, is over 13000 feet and you can bet that at that height it is tough to function correctly. We had lunch at the bottom of the first downhill stretch of the day, and that would have been enough walking for me at that point. After lunch we were afforded a brief seista, which we spent the majority of talking with the brits about film and words that the americans "made a mess of". Back on the trail it didn't get any less steep but I did get a good second wind from all the food I had for lunch . We stopped at an incredible Inca sight and Orlando, our trusty guide, gave us the history. Orlando and his sidekick Cesar are both men of Quecuan descent. They ended up with the names "papa puma" and "baby puma" respectively. They were great guys who have terrific senses of humor but at the same time take their culture seriously and do their best to convey the histories and successes of their ancestors.

As we crossed the final pass for that day, the wind grew cold and we bundled up against it. We walked down into a new valley that had an entirely different set of flora and fauna. This was the beginning of the Cloud Forest, the place where we would be spending the second night. If there is one thing to say about the names of things around here, it's that they mean what they say. The Cloud Forest was just that; a large, very humid forest that had the visibility of a sauna set on high. When we got to camp we had no idea of what was around us. It was like a white womb. Not as warm as a womb, but not really that cold either. Very damp and seemingly confined. A group of us played cards that night and we were allowed to sleep in until 630 the following morning so we stayed up a little later despite the fatigue.

During the night it rained a number of times. Sometimes hard and sometimes not so hard. In the morning it was even more humid, and the porters, who we grew to trust on their instincts, promised more rain. We didn't have to wait long. On the first rise up out of the valley it began to come down. Those of us with panchos donned them and those without quickly grew moist and then soaked. We walked along for probably three hours in the rain. My shoes soaked through and my pant legs were stained with mud. The trail had sheer drop offs on the side and I was sure we were missing some incredible views. We reached the first pass that day and then began one of the toughest parts of the trip; the descent of 2000 stone stairs. Common sense tells you that going down would be easier than walking up, but for me it is not this way. With the weight of the pack bearing down, each step is a jolt that racks the knees, ankles, hips, and muscles in all sorts of areas. The rain made the stones a bit more slippery than usual and that was an added degree of difficulty. This third day saw us arriving at a camp high above the Urubamba. The place reminded me of a ski lodge. Big and full of people and smells. Not good smells generally. Up until this point we had been without the option of a shower, and we had been working hard so we were all quite ripe. That night there was a lot of drinking, but the crew crashed early because the wakeup on the fourth day was at 4 am.

The idea of the fourth morning was to get to a place called the Sun Gate by the time the sun came up over the huge mountains. We passed through passport control and then hurried along the damp and dew-covered path to barely make it in time. The view was unreal. The sun shown down from behind our backs and illuminated the ancient city and the wispy white-cotton clouds that hung suspended above it. We descended into Machu Picchu and wandered around for a few hours. Some of us climbed the mountain on the other side of Machu Picchu, called Wayna Picchu to get a good view. It was incredible too. There really isn't too much more that I can say. I feel very strongly about that place, but find it difficult to explain why. The photos on my myspace page may help to tell the story. I took close to 300 on that trip.

We soaked in the not-so-hot hot springs in Aguas Calientes that last night and drank a shitload of Cusqueña beer before passing out into many, many hours of satisfied slumber. The rest of the story will remain hidden for the time being. I have been trying for a few days now to get this blog up, but I got distracted my last couple days in Cusco and it didn't get done. Now I am in Puno after a long day in a bus. I will be exploring Lake Titicaca for the next few days before paying an outrageous amount of money for a visa to go to Bolivia. God save Jorge Bush. Punkass.

To sum up...Cusco is a place like no other. I can't wait to go back there. It has an energy that no other place has. A huge history of noble and devoted people. A respect for nature and this wonderful planet that we inhabit and work so hard to destroy everyday. Much can be learned from this long lost civilization. I love Peru!!!!

Elevation Nicknames, Ancient Ruins And Treking Off The Grid

I wanted to write a short note today just saying a quick 'what's up' and signing off for a few days. As of tomorrow, thursday, december 6th, I will be off the grid for five days as I walk the Inca trail here in Peru with my brother Jake and his wife Rebecca. In the interim, feel free to read some of the older blogs on the pages from november and october. Just click on the icon with those words to the right. There are photos here and on my myspace page at www.myspace.com/cienfuegos2008

I met up with Jake and Rebecca on monday morning after they arrived from Ecuador. We had a fun day that day touring the city of Cusco and some Incan archeological sites outside of town. We had a really funny guide and a lot of laughs. Jake was really feeling the elevation and his nickname that day was Fainty because he kept having to sit down in order to not tip over. That night we got our stuff planned for tuesday and had a fun dinner. We were all zonked out and so we hit the hay early. I was still feeling the altura at that point too. Not as bad, but it was still there. It is amazing how strong that feeling is. Your brain thinks everything is just fine but your body doesn't behave in its usual way. Lungs, brain, blood flow; all gone on strike!

The next morning we took a really cool trip to a region known as the Sacred Valley. Jake had thrown up a lot the night before so that day his nickname was Pukey. El Valle Sagrado is full of old Inca ruins and we climbed around on them and hiked around for most of the day. The vastness of this place is really difficult to relate over the computer. These mountains are so huge! The valleys in between are giant chasms that are still full of people, the descendants of the Incas. The people all still speak Quechua and worship in the same way as their ancesters, despite the domination of the Spaniards and the force feeding of christianity. It is interesting to see this living culture still doing its thing. There are a lot of tourists here, but the place retains it's magic nevertheless. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Ok, as I said, I don't have much time now, but I will post a few photos. I took over one hundred yesterday alone. It is overwhelming all the things to see here. I hope everyone is well, feel free to send me news of your lives...I am always interested!!

Sad Goodbye's, Happy Arrival's and Slow First Steps In The City In The Sky

First thing. Blogspot organizes blogs by month, and when the month changes, they no longer show the last months entries on the same page as the new month. If you are interested in looking at more of my blogs, (please do) just click on the icons that say october and november and there's lots more. The last one I wrote was on the last day of the month, check it out, it has some photos of the food here. Cheers.

Cusco is a place that escapes description. My feeble attempts at poetry would do it no justice and I am sure that somewhere, sometime, some writer has done her right. It is a city of high, lonesome sound. Not like bluegrass, (I hope you get this, if you don't, google 'high lonesome sound') but more like the embodiment of vastness at high elevation. It is a place that oozes power and at once convinces the visitor that it is a special place like no other. It is a place of beautiful colonial buildings built directly on top of the ancient and much revered ruins of the Inca Empire. A city of kings, it is said to be one of the world's centers of spiritual energy, and nearby resides the Lost City of Machu Picchu. In the morning the sun shines down, taking away a portion of the chill that resides at 11,500 feet. In the afternoon, the clouds pull over and the tiled rooves take on a different, milder hue. In the early evening, one can hear bells echoing softly in the distance, as they do in the old church towers of Europe. Dogs bark and people chatter below in the ancient cobbled streets. It is something outside of the big world, outside of our current time.

I had a beautiful final day in Lima. Spent mostly with my family, eating and playing with kids and taking photos and laughing at familiarisms. It is really hard to explain what happened there. In two short weeks, I really did get adopted by those beautiful people. They took me in like another one of their children and I became a part of their daily lives and goings-on. The two weeks that sped by seemed like months in another sense. I find myself at a loss for descriptors in this matter, which may be just as well. But I can say in all honesty, that this morning, in that misty, grey half-light of Lima, surrounded by the soft fragrance of springtime blossoms and the plaintive call of some unknown Peruvian songbird, that I had to fight back tears when saying goodbye to them at the curb of Ramon Zavala. I now have a number of new homes, and by that I mean not only places to sleep, but places to be welcomed into a lifetime, a lifeline, and what could be warmer than that? At this point in time, fortune smiles.

Time and again I come back to the idea of fortune. Often in the most simple of things. If nothing serious, it is a fun way to pass the minutes. There is an old zen story from China that reveals the insecure path of fortune and the delicacy of any given moment. It is the story of a farmer and a number of things that happen to him. One thing happens and it seems like a bad thing and all his neighbors come and say, "We are so sorry for your loss, it is truly too bad." To which the farmer replies, "Perhaps." This 'bad' event leads to another event, which is, in itself, a very fortuitous event and soon the neighbors are clamoring around saying, "Oh, what good fortune, you are blessed to be so lucky!" To which the farmer again replies, "Perhaps." The good event leads to another event which is again, bad. Again the neighbors come and proclaim their sorrow. And again, this wise farmer replies "Perhaps."
And so it is with all happenings, if we can only allow our narrow minds to lift from the moment and see out across the larger terrain of the chain of happenings. I had one of those mornings. I thought I would be crafty and beat the traffic/airport situation by getting a really early start. Of course I didn't get to bed 'til late last night and I am fighting a cold on top of a gnarly case of stomach fallout, so waking at five was definatly a bummer. But I was going to get to the airport without having to run, how good! The taxi was on time and we rolled to the airport, but being sunday, there was no traffic and we made it to the airport so fast that I quickly realized that I would have to entertain myself for hours, waiting for the plane. When I got to the check in, things got worse. As planes often are in South America, mine was delayed. By two to three hours! Que barbaro! Now I would have half the day there!! Shit! But then the pretty lady behind the desk looked up and smiled and told me that the 5 AM flight was also delayed and was, in fact, still at the gate and was about to be boarded. I ended up walking right on to that plane and I was in Cusco by 8:30. Long before my original flight would have even taken off, even if it was on time! Que suerte? Perhaps.

I arrived early and made my way to my hostal, which sits up high above the town. Let me say at this time, that the rumor of altitude sickness is no joke! They weren't messing around when coming up with this one. I took a pill for it a half hour before landing. When getting out of the airport I felt fine and got a cab to take me to the bottom of the hill my hostal is on. From there I would have to hoof it. I started gregariously up the hill and was soon hit by this phenomenon like the good old, proverbial 'ton of bricks' that lurks behind some hidden curtain of life. Whoa. My head started to spin and I could hardly breathe and in the back of my skull the blood was pounding like hammers in my veins. Walk slow, I thought. So I did, but my pulse continued to race. My head pounded with such ferocity that I thought I might adema...that is one thing that can happen. Despite the chilly breeze I was sweating like a prizefighter and my pack seemed to weigh as much as the bricks that had just hit me. With many small steps and deep breaths I made it to the top of the hill and into the old stone walls of Hostal Mirasol. Thank dios! I think I now know what it feels like to be an elderly person!! Uff! I was greated by the friendly owner who immediatly showed me to the dining room and prepared me a kettle of mate de coca. This is a tea that is made from the leaves of the coca plant and is said to aid in the adjustment to the altura. (No, you don't get high from it.) It seemed to work pretty well, but it is hard to tell because I have taken it really easy today. I watched the changing of the guard in the main plaza and I had a great lunch of Papas a la Guancauno and more Aji de Gallina. I partook in siesta and then strolled through the lazy sunday streets, looking out over the golden valley and all the red rooves turning into the lights of nighttime. Tomorrow Jake and Rebecca will be arriving. I am very excited to see these old friends. They too are family, and more and more we realize, throughout our travels and travails, that family is what it is all about. I'll be adding photos to this entry before too long, I have a feeling that Cusco and its environs will be filling up my camera.