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Well it's alright, riding around in the breeze.
Well it's alright, if you live the life you please.
Well it's alright, even if the sun don't shine.
Well it's alright, we're going to the end of the line.
This post tonight is sponsored by my dear, sweet blood: the Montañita mosquitoes are small and light and nearly invisible. They love my feet, and WiFi is only available out in the main courtyard here. Devastating.
Eric arrived one day late, on Friday; his bags have still not arrived. Midday before his arrival, I was treated to a rare glimpse of blue sky and sunshine while walking to town for lunch. Otherwise, we have seen neither sun nor star—so we are treated by Ecuadorian winter. Montañita is warm, all the same, and the ocean water feels good, but the sea has been choppy and messy and no good for surfing. Oh, well. We persist happily all the same. There is relaxing and eating and drinking to do, and we are damn good at it all.
I will be in Seattle in one week. What have I been doing? How has this time passed so quickly? Part of the answer are the multiple thirty-hour bus rides I braved to make my way up the Pacific Coast. What else, after Buenos Aires?
I spent just over a week in Mendoza and, despite some sickness between weekends, managed to enjoy wine tastings with friends, relax in hot springs, and fall in love with one concierge at my hotel.
Uspallata offered a stunning taste of autumn in the Andes and a welcome time of peace and simplicity.
I never felt fully connected in Santiago and did not stay there over long. I did enjoy some delicious food and a lovely sunset.
Valparaíso had far more character, I thought. The city was beautiful, with all the colorful houses and hilltop neighborhoods and even perhaps because of the dilapidation and decay.
Arica treated me to delicious seafood stew and charming port town atmosphere and vistas.
Some bits of Peru felt like a happy return to Bolivia. Arequipa had a lovely small town feel, despite being quite a large city, and I think I could have stayed there happily for weeks.
As in Bolivia, I took any chance to drink chirimoya juice from the markets in Peru, and even converted to worship of this wondrous fruit a few travelers I met in a hostel there.
I even became instant friends with a group of locals drinking at dusk in the square of a hilltop neighborhood. Hugo (pictured below, center) and Mathilde offered me a place to stay in their home whenever I return to Arequipa.
I headed from Arequipa to Lima to meet with my mom, Melanie. We delighted in good food together and she made friends with cholitas and baby llamas in Cuzco.
And then—no big deal—my mom and I went to Macchu Pichu. Yes!
And now I'm in Ecuador.
I have, in the time spent writing now, lost track of bites suffered and mosquitoes slain. Time for bed, I think, safely away from their appetites. But still: how wondrous this life! And how happy I am in consideration of the good times past and the future coming in Seattle (and beyond).
Jump for joy!
I write now from Cuzco, sitting with my mother in the lobby of Hotel Royal Inka I. We await a driver to take us to Ollantaytambo, where we will stay tonight. Tomorrow we head to Macchu Pichu. This hotel was quite nice, treating us well with comfy beds and down comforters during our initial Cuzco sickness, but the lobby mural is a bit... unfortunate? Bad?
My mother, Melanie, joined me in Lima on Tuesday night and is staying through next Tuesday night. ("Technically," she says, "it's Wednesday morning.") We were most sad that my father was unable to join her in this visit—work travel denied him such opportunity. Still, without our darling Fico, my mother and I are having a great time together experiencing Peru.
In Lima, mostly we ate. Sure, sure, we walked around downtown and saw a totally beautiful cathedral but the most important parts of Wednesday were surely the causas and ceviche at La Mar, a well-known and quite happening cebicheria near Miraflores.
After Macchu Pichu, my mother and I will return to Cuzco for a night and then fly back to Lima. Following her return to the United States, I will head north into Ecuador to begin my final week and a half on this adventure, Adventure 2010. I will meet Mr. Eric Mattson in Guayaquil and venture out to Montañita for sun, surf, and relaxation.
Granted, this time together is somewhat dependent on the (literal and metaphorical) fallout of the eruption of the Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador. The Guayaquil airport, presently: closed. My fingers are crossed... for Eric. Me, I'm taking a 24 hour bus from Lima to Guayaquil at one sixth the price of a flight.
I might have mentioned that I am quite excited to return to Seattle? I sure hope the Guayaquil airport has international flights departing by the 12th. 14 days, and counting!
I wrote the following in my journal on April 1st, 2010, while flying from Santa Cruz, Bolivia to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I offer no other commentary, well, here: I think it's neat.
How wondrous to watch the shadow of one's own airplane slip across the fields and homes below. How can I guess what effect has this darkening? Were it slow enough, would a dog chase it, staying always in this cool patch I cast down from above and arriving finally and inadvertently in my same destination?
A glass Coke bottle from above: the gods must be crazy. A metal tube thrown by faith and ultimately magic into the sky, to cast its shadow out over the land and lost in the clouds: the passengers must be crazy.
And crazy we are not to rejoice and exult: we are strung up in the heavens, delicately balanced by the shape of a wing and the thrust of an engine. I am but a feeble man but set my wallet to vibrating and the gods of the sky accept me as their own. I fly.
I fly to Buenos Aires, to Argentina and away from Bolivia. Would that I could make this journey within the warm savory crust and stew of a salteña. A final goodbye to this fair and complex land.
But my airplane invokes the magic of metal and light and wind, not of whimsy and spice. Truly, I am an airborne god but surely they will serve me only a middling sandwich. Better they should light a grill in the mess and char a red bloody Argentinian cut. Bring me a glass of Malbec, steward, and some llaqwa for my steak.
In the face of everyday wonder, how impossible becomes the everyday. Yes, we will glide over the spine of this continent, but no, we cannot offer passable fare. I should calm my stomach and mind, awaiting whatever culinary offerings that come.
Forgive me and understand only that I tire in this station as a god and that already I feel the ache of absence of Bolivian soup and meat and rice and potatoes and llaqwa. I tire, indeed, every day in contemplation of and immersion in a decidedly unordinary life.
I never wanted to be a god. I never dreamed of this but instead a warm home, a place that smelled like forever, and a dog to follow my shadow and a partner in whose arms I could soar to the heavens and return to earth every day, every moment.
Better I should be a man eating soup at home than a god lost upon every wind and shore. Homeward, wherever that may be, but not quite yet.
I love llamas, and we saw hundreds. If they were not so obviously filthy, I would have hugged every single fluffy adorable beast.
Flamingos are rad, but they're not quite llama-level.
Here is a gorgeous photograph of Robin.
I am a bandit.
Trina is triumphant.
And that's a buttshot.
Have I mentioned that llamas are fluffy and adorable?
Vicuñas are so fluffy and delicate that they are protected by the Bolivian government and only run wild.
We saw the incredibly red and totally huge Laguna Colorada.
And were treated to a crazy wind storm thingy above the lagoon.
We frolicked in hot springs at sunrise.
And marveled at the frozen blue lagoon.
And that was Uyuni: you know, no big deal, just the best ever.
Please see Panel #5.
I am so happy to have a firm plan for what I'll be doing upon my return to Seattle.
Following our time on La Isla del Sol, Trina and I returned to La Paz for one night then headed south on an overnight bus to Uyuni. This little mining town is in the southwest, in the department of Potosí and near the border with Chile. Tourists arrive in Uyuni as a jumping off point to the tours of the salt flats (salar), lagoons, mountains and deserts of the region.
We set off on a three-day tour with Cordillera Travel. We were comfortably packed into a Landcruiser with Brenden and Allison, from Australia; Tony, from England; and Robin, from the Netherlands and with whom we had shared a ferry from La Isla del Sol to Copacabana. Our driver was Jhonny, younger than all save Robin, married with two kids, and totally great.
I'm just going to say, and then get to the photos, that Uyuni is the shit.
The train cemetery just out of town is filled with the evidence of a once booming international mining operation.
Jhonny checked on our LandCruiser frequently—the trucks took quite a beating driving through all that salt and sand and such.
Allison applied a (thankfully temporary) shrink ray to Trina and Robin. I always knew Australians were deviants.
And then they all got in a Pringles tube.
Trina and I did a bunch of jumping.
The Salar has an "island" of rocks and ancient cactus, some of them thousands of years old.
You see, it's this ginormous, um, gargantuan, um, LIMITLESS plain made of SALT. Apparently they could keep mining the salar for another million years, at present rates, and they still wouldn't use all the salt. (I might be misremembering this statistic, maybe.) Wikipedia tells us that Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world at 4086 square miles, was formed by the transformation of a few lakes 30,000 years ago, and contains 50 – 70% of the world's lithium reserves. Really, other than it being huge, who cares? You just need to go there and see it. It's incredible.
And this was just the first day! I haven't even started telling you about the salt hotels or llamas or rocks or lagoons or flamingos or vicuñas. Wow. More to come! For now, I give you the A Team.
