The Road Well Traveled: Copacabana to Buenos Aires

Copacabana, on Lake Titicaca, Northwest Bolivia. I’ve been traveling three weeks through this implausible country. Humid jungle and arid desert. I’m sunburned from my hike on Isla del Sol but I’ll fight the frost tonight. Usurped by a longing to return to Buenos Aires after an absence of five weeks (two others in Northern Argentina), I close my eyes, the sun glistens on the deep blue of endless Lago Titicaca. I buy a bus ticket in Copacabana to get me to La Paz. It’s Wednesday. I’ll travel three consecutive nights on buses to get back to the city on Saturday. Nonstop traveling. Buses and bus stations. I read and write in my journal, chat up people next to me. Everyone has a story. I buy chocolate or a peanut butter Twix to pass the time. I find internet and check email. The connection moves in fits and starts and tests my patience.

We’re all on some journey. What are we searching for? Ex-pat’s and travelers, gap-year Brits, or just finished Uni, Americans volunteering, Dutch, French, Israelis, small towns, capitals. We’re all here for a reason. Even if the reason is just to be here. What is it? The lure? A line of coke in a seedy club, broken mirrors and red velvet? Snapping three pics and saying you’ve been there? Just being away from what we know? We all have a mild traveler’s Autism. We’re all sending out so many signals but there aren’t enough receptors. So much is happening and we can’t take it all in. Chronically choosing. We are given twenty-four hours each day. We have the freedom to do what we want. With every second. Everybody has this supreme liberty. Every action is a choice. Every action is conscious. Our unconscious actions, are consciously, deliberately unconscious.

I open my eyes and we’re blowing through the countryside. Below a woman in a bowler hat scampers by with a colorful sack tied to her back. There’s not a town within thirty kilometers. The bus smells of coca and ether. Dirt is kicking up into it. I open my water bottle and sip thirstily to clear the dust. When are we going to stop for the bathroom? Down below we’re passing cactus patches, we’re floating in the sky, ten thousand feet up. I close my eyes.

We’re stopping, I get out and pee. I walk up to a cart and sit down. I eat sopita, a brothy soup with potatoes and noodles and a cube of meat and parsley. I ask for another pinch of parsley. I turn my head to make sure the bus has not left me. I pay three bolivianos (forty cents). I walk up to a juice cart. Jugo mixto. Orange juice and grapefruit please. An old man peels a grapefruit with precision. Slices it in half and places it in the vice. I drink it down. How many do you make a day I ask? Depends. But how many about? Twenty, twenty-five he shrugs. I make small calculations, what does that get you here, what’s that back home? The bus is honking, all on now or forever hold your peace. I run back. I get in my seat. I’ve been traveling twenty-five hours now. We’ll be at the border in a couple more. I close my eyes. We float on.

At the border I get my pack and slip it on my back. It’s dusty but so am I. I walk through Villazon. People are offering to get me to Salta, Northern Argentina for sixty U.S. dollars. A six hour bus ride. I know the ticket costs thirty pesos, ten bucks. I’m good I say. Sin compromiso amigo. Thanks but no. They crowd around an American and an Aussie. They’re down to offering forty dollars now. The two discuss it amongst themselves. They catch me out of the corner of their eye. I shake my head no and move on. Before I cross I buy a mixed grapefruit and orange juice. I drink it down and ask for another. I walk across the way to an old woman with a candy cart. Peanut butter Twix? No? Gimme that then. I walk over to the border. I’m waiting in a line at immigrations to get my stamp so I can cross over. There are twenty Bolivians in front of me. It takes forever and I have to piss. I curse Bolivians and Argentines alike (the country and people that have just played gracious host, and my beloved that I’m about to enter).

Three Bolivians to go and my Argentine patriotism increases each Bolivian down. When I get to the window I think of announcing rehearsed lines that I’ve been going over for minutes now in my mind. I’m so happy to be back! My heart is part Argentine! I feel like I’m back at home! But instead I just step up and say hey and hand my American passport. He flips seemingly erroneously through the pages looking at my stamps, as if to pass the time, as if to say this should at least take one minute for you, because it takes twenty for the Bolivians. My minute is up. I have a new ninety-day visa stamp on my passport. Have a good day I say. He probably wants to say Fuck-off asshole I’m working at a border post, go to some more countries why don’t you, you know how many people tell me to have a nice day? But instead he smiles warmly and thanks me. I trudge over to the green sign that announces Bienvenidos a La Quiaca, the border town I’m in, and then printed below it: Ushuaia 5,121Km. Ushuaia is the Southern most town in the world, at the tip of Argentina, last stop before Antarctica. I won’t make it there I say. It’s too cold this time of year anyway. Eighth largest country in the world, this.

I have three hours to kill before my overnight bus to Salta so I find an ATM and a diner. I eat a large meal. I’m the only customer in the place and the girls serving me are excited. They offer me all kinds of things to eat on the house. I take them up on the flan. It’s horrible but I tell them thanks it’s very good. On the bus we watch American films that would be played on cable at three a.m. What a skewed perspective they must have of America. We’re all B actors and exploding cars. We carry guns and inexplicably take our sunglasses off and put them back on, we’re all stuck in 1997. I sleep most of the way. I imagine running through a land where blades of grass are towering Aspens and Bob Dylan’s harmonica wails around every corner, droplets of dew consist of small oblong globs of peanut butter and the main transport is puffy white clouds that float above the dense grass.

At the station in Salta It’s early morning and I inquire about buses to Buenos Aires. Just another day of travel and I’ll be there. What day is it now? It’s Friday early morning. No buses for another several hours. I hop a cab to a hostel I stayed at before. I check myself in and have a nap. A real cama. I wake and go downstairs and have tea and rolls and jam. How was Bolivia? The owner asks me. I smile. Three weeks of people and experiences and sights and tastes. Good. I manage. And the weather? Cold. Very cold. At night. Pleasant days. I told you so. Did you cover up? Yes, yes I did. She laughs. I check email. I go up and have a long hot shower. A rare commodity in Bolivia, not here. I imagine using up the world’s supply of hot water and millions of people on seven continents are cursing at me in eighty languages and I smile and don’t care and say I earned it. I have a shave. I floss and brush my teeth, change my undershirt and underwear. I feel amazing. Get back to the station. I’ll be in Buenos Aires tomorrow morning. I hop in a cab to the terminal, don’t feel much like talking, I close my eyes.

The bus ride goes well enough. The chairs are large and comfy, the movies as irrelevant as ever but the bus is filled with pleasant people. I meet two gap-year English girls. A fisherman from Salta going to Mar Del Plata to work the boats. I meet a girl who’s going to see her girlfriend of two and a half-months. I ask her how the family is reacting. Do they know? My mother supports me, my dad doesn’t talk about it but knows, but my brother is a machista who says he’ll cut her throat if he ever sees her. We barely talk anymore. Just to say the phone is for you or dinner’s ready. Everyone has a story and I’m as interested as ever. I drink endless cups of pre-sweetened black coffee. When we finally arrive excitement spills over me.

I’ve been hurrying for three days to get here and now arrived I take my time getting off the bus. I say goodbye to the fisherman, to the English girls, a couple of us wait to get our packs out from the cargo. Three woman crowd around me. They’re flailing their arms, pointing to cargo, one is sneezing, they’re not from our bus. Common scheme. I flip my backpack around and the zipper is open. I check my stuff. All there. I see another woman opening the lesbian’s backpack zipper. I alert her to check her stuff. She flips it around. All there. The gypsies seemingly vanish into thin air. I get my pack and walk away. Later in line for a cab I see the gypsies being shoved out of the terminal by a security guard. They’re thieves! I tell him. Bored, he nods. Walks off. I look at the gypsies. Fuck off! They yell at me. Nothing will happen to them. I hop in the cab. Welcome back to the city.

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As High As High Gets: Potosí

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8:17a 6/5/07

Greetings from the highest city in the world! Higher than La Paz (also in Bolivia) and Tibet (not in Bolivia). After a week in Salta aptly named “Salta la Linda” or Salta the beautiful, and getting in some good Northern Argentine cuisine and a couple rejuvenating hikes in the nearby mountains I took an overnight bus to La Quiaca. We arrived at six a.m., frozen over and walked several blocks where you cross a bridge and are officially in Bolivia, in the border town of Villazón. I snapped a couple pics of the persimmons ox-blood colored sunset. Un-doctored. Un-believable. I bought a ticket to Potosí some nine hours away by bumpy dirt roads. To shake off the chill I found a makeshift coffeehouse and sipped piping hot cafés con leche with two Austrians as company. I wrote a poem the other night which I´ll post soon, Commonalities, You and I which basically talks about all these amazing people I meet, and under different circumstances, we could be great friends but we may only have time to have a coffee to share and then we´re off to separate places.

10:19a

I think I got ripped off ten Bolivianos ($1.25) on my seat! This very dark, indigenous, small leather-skinned woman next to me payed ten less. Gringo factor. No bathrooms on the bus! And it´s bumpy. But I´m told we stop every two hours or so. My fingers are cracked dry and my mouth is filled with grit from the dust that´s kicking into the bus. We stopped here in Tupiza, jewel of Bolivia the sign says. The road so far has been breathtaking. From rocky flats, to pebbly cliffs, unconvincing rivers and dynamic cactus plains where mules and donkey freely graze to a backdrop of red rock mountain gorges. How have I been in South America so long and not come here yet? We´re driving bumpy hairpin turns over steep cliffs and the smell of coca leaves permeates the air. Cocaine is produced from a base of coca leaves, here people chew it to ease hunger, for altitude sickness or mild pain, or as a commonplace stimulant. About six hours to the highest city in the world!

11:17a

Dry riverbeds and cascading rock formations and I swear the tire below me has been teetering off the ground at least twice now! Scribbling in my notebook my writing looks like hieroglyphics. I´ve taken a hundred pictures of the landscapes and gone over them three times and can´t get myself to delete even a single one. ´Bout five hours til the highest city in the world, where I´m told I´ll encounter a bone-chilling cold I´ve yet to feel. One brown hoody, check. The bus has stopped. I think a woman wants to come aboard to offer food for sale, trays of meat and potatoes and eggs. She´s speaking to the driver, in a language not Spanish. Quechua? This short dark man with scaly iguana-skin just boarded but he´s wearing a White Sox hat. Rob a wayward Chicagoan? I must look like a large feathery mongoose to these people.

11:32a

Just passed a farm with a dirt roof with a pig and chickens running wild. Oh and I´m officially the last person on the bus without a fat wad of coca leaves in my mouth. Even this baby is doing the coca. That or he/she has large poofy baby cheeks (50/50).

11:34a

Three men are hovering over me watching as I write this. They´re either threatened by my writing, curious, or they´ve clearly never seen a large brown feathery mongoose.

11:50a

Wheel teetering thing again. The good news is I´m starting to regain feeling in my toes, which has been absent since sometime yesterday. I either have poor circulation (newly discovered), or living in Southern California does a poor job of exposing brutishly-cold weather maladies.

11:53a

Lots of shrubs n´stuff. How cool is it that this woman sitting next to me is so indigenous looking!? I´m tempted to snap a pic while she´s sleeping. We´d make a great variety act the world over!

11:56a

Shrubs and despondent cactus sightings. The three wise indigenous men have taken to laughing at the difficulty the large elongated brown feathery mongoose is having writing as his pen is slashing all over the page. Later, if I´m famous I plan to sell these papers as vague impressionist sketches (subjects interpretational).

12:02p

Noises coming from below. I think someone stored chickens as cargo (30/70). Amazingly poofy-cheeked baby not crying on alarmingly bumpy road. Definitely on the coca.

12:32p

We just stopped for lunch. Immediately I ran to a bathroom, and basically paid fifty-centsB to pee in a hole. Luckily I didn´t have to waste time washing my hands as there was neither soap nor running water. Everyone was eating at various street stalls. I opted for a potato (black potatoes and dark brown, and regular old potatoes) and rice soup with a cube of meat and fresh cut parsley. Only when the girl wanted to pour the soup there were no more bowls and she took one from a person who just finished, chucked the last potato, took a cloth and wiped the bowl. Er. Soup was delish. Might (purely speculation) need that travel diarrea medicine I packed. Also had fresh squeezed orange juice from another stall. Lunch cost 50cents. One woman told me “cuidate mucho en Potosí, hay muchos ladrones, te matan por diez Bolivianos”. Be very careful in Potosí, there are a lot of thieves and they´ll kill you for ten Bolivianos ($1.25). Comforting. Very comforting. Four hours to Potosí.

4:15p

I´ve made cordial relations with a small sociable fly. Fly, as I like to call it, understands me. It also understands that it likes the ridge of my nose. Fly may not exist soon. Great Siesta! I chatted up one of the three wise indigenous men, on the pre-tense of asking what his tattoo on his hand meant. I´ve seen a few like it already. Military service, one year obligatory, the tat´s not, but we get it, you know? We spent two hours laughing and joking as he switched seats with awesomely indigenous little dark-leatherette. Again, I couldn´t help but thinking, you´re not so different, you and I. Very close to Potosí now. I can see Cerro Rico, a hill that´s been mined for centuries and in it´s heyday made Potosí the richest city in the new world, with a population that exceeded Madrid. It also was responsible for approximately nine million slaves dying over the centuries, working the mines. As high as high gets, feel slightly winded, but otherwise fine.

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Commonalities, You and I. These Things

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Commonalities, You and I

Traveling, I meet all these people.
We share histories and anecdotes,
As mush as pleasantries and politesse.
We laugh and smile, our hearts may even skip a beat.

Earnestly I look into people’s eyes,
You´re not so different, you and I,
I think but never say beyond these telling glances.
Perhaps we´ll never meet again,
different fates for all and there´s so many.

Maybe in another lifetime,
You and I would be best of friends,
You and I would be boyfriend and girlfriend,
Husband and Wife, you and I
Perhaps in another lifetime.

But for now I have to catch this bus, train, ferry, plane.
Thank you for being sincere and sharing your time,
Perhaps in another, you and I.

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These Things

Sometimes I wonder if I could live in a small town, cities are all I´ve known.
Big ones. Bustle. Life. Just the names evoke romantic images,
draw forth a whirl of energy,
as if a small symphony is persistently playing under the surface,
and at the mere mention of one of these places-boom!
New York, San Francisco, Paris, Buenos Aires, L.A.
It´s these things.

I know little towns and I´ve been to them.
I notice the breeze in small towns.
I can go to the outdoor market on Sundays and buy fruit and stroll.
I can sit on the porch and sip coffee (coffee figures into most scenarios in my mind),
And maybe there´ll be a woman made up of all goodness,
And we can share, in these things.

But it´s the cities that draw me. Bustle. Energy. Color. Tight spaces.
Book stores and coffee houses.
The movie theater and all theater.
Bakeries and brick.
I value my trees in the city.
It´s these things.
For now I accept and embrace the city,
It´s inside of me, grows out of me,
But there´s an ever-slight murmur,
A hushed but ever-present yearning,
For a little betrayl.

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