Uyuni to San Pedro

I thought later about the surrealism of long bus rides during the night. Looking out the window, I couldn't tell the stars from city lights, nor could I tell snow from salt, because the hole in my belly had swallowed my weary consciousness, and the hole in my weary consciousness had swallowed my sense of reality.

The salt flats in Bolivia are the biggest salt flats in the world. The surface of the earth is a crust of salt that spreads as far as the eye can see. It's whiteness and dreaminess inspired me to write a little poem:

I found a place

to cast a net

and fish for dreams

of cloud, or lace

and race across

this lovers' land

a wedding dress

of silver frost

Back in the township of Uyuni I took a wander around the streets, taking myself away from the main tourist drag for a little bit. I found myself in a school zone, just as school had ended for the day and the streets were swarming with children in uniform. The older ones wore gloomy or indifferent looks on their faces and dragged their feet, in groups of three or four, clutching their books, the girls twirling their hair and giggling behind girly magazines. The younger girls skipped along the footpath holding the hand of a parent or older sibling, with sparkly pink barbie backpacks, still young enough to have a bounce in her step at the end of the school day. A lot of the kids had cold popsicles. I suddenly had a pang of nostalgia, remembering the times when I'd get home from school in the summer months, very tired, throw my backpack down in the livingroom and head straight to the freezer to see if there were any iceblocks left. Remember those packs of long icypoles in different colours and flavours? There was lime, and strawberry, blackcurrant, lemonade...

How hard and long, and yet in hindsight how incredibly easy, those days of being a young kid were. The last time I had felt this nostalgic for my childhood was not long ago, when I was taking a walk in the Bolivian pampas. I had picked a mushroom and was transported immediately back to the time I truly believed in fairies.

Is that what travelling does? Does it draw into a dark, quiet closet of childhood dreams, packed to the top shelf with fairies and elves, daisy chains, Robin Hood bows and arrows, dark and dangerous forests, dragons, hidden treasures, and all those memories of being small - brushing close to your skin as you crouch in that closest - whispering in your ear things that suspend all belief?

Is it something to do with being small again in a big world? Or being an explorer as you were when you were a child, only the space under the dining table is now Argentina or Chile, the broom closet an entire city, backyard fence now stretched further to become national borders and coastlines?

Or maybe, when you are travelling, you just have a lot more time to think.

To be continued

The night bus to Uyuni

Salar de Uyuni was my next destination, in the southwest Bolivian altiplano. I found the township of Uyuni to be a strange, almost eery place, and extremely quiet. The main street is wide and long, with few people or cars. It felt as though nothing had happened there for hundreds of years; the place had an expectant feeling, an air of anticipation. In the evening, the sun spilled pink all across the sky. The roads and pavement shone white. Everything white and pink like a bag of marshmallows. It was a spectacular scene.

The road from La Paz to Uyuni was long and uncomfortable. I read 'The City of Thieves' by David Benioff until my eyes couldn't stay open. However the road was very rough and the jerkiness of the bus wouldn't allow me the luxury of sleep. I had twelve hours to close my eyes and think.

A few hours earlier at the bus station, Brooke and I had bought an elderly beggar woman a packet of crackers, the main reason being that I didn't particularly want to give any more money. I had bought myself a packet of the same crackers, which I now nibbled on in the bus. I realised they tasted terrible, and subsequently felt extremely guilty for not giving her a couple of bolivianos with which she could have bought a plate of tasty rice or papas rellenas on the street with.

I was thinking about food because I had forgotten to eat dinner before getting on the bus and now my tummy was grumbling . The only food I had with me was that terrible packet of biscuits, which I couldn't bring myself to eat, despite my hunger. So I placed myself in Benioff's novel - wartorn, World War II Russia, closed off and starved by the Germans, and I imagined that I had been eating biscuits made from the saw-dust swept up from the floors of the steelworks, and that I had been eating this way for the last four months, and that this was the first real cracker I had tasted since before the war. Suddenly, it actually tasted quite good, and I ate half the packet.

I found myself drifting in and out of sleep. At one point, I wiped the condensation from the window and saw what I thought was a large town settled on the side of the mountain, its city lights twinkling brightly. After some time of gazing dreamily at this mountainside city, I suddenly realised that it was not in fact a city, but a dark sky full of stars. I must have been dreaming of La Paz. The windows fogged over again and the stars began to look like specks of white chalk on a blackboard sky.

When I next woke, I looked out the window again and thought I could see drifts of snow on the ground. I wasn't entirely sure if it was snow, or salt. It was very cold, and I shivered most of the night, despite wearing a thick woollen poncho, a beanie and two pairs of woollen socks. I slept for a short time I think, and I didn't wake up again until the sky had lightened and we had arrived at Uyuni.

Cycling the Death Road, and Down the River of the Pampas

Having been convinced by a number of backpackers that the "Death Road" is not nearly as scary as it sounds, I decided to sign up for a bike ride along the infamous road.

The real name of the road is the Yungas Road, and it winds nearly 60km along the edge of precariously steep cliffs and hillsides. It is great for downhill bike riding, because the ride starts at 4,650m and finishes at 1,200m. So downhill all the way.

I have to say that I started out a little nervous. However, the scenery was so stunning - an eery mist hung in the air, lush rainforest glistened and sprung from the depth of nothingness providing a dark, almost sinister yet mystical setting, and waterfalls tumbled down the canyon walls, irridescent in places, like a prism catching light and casting blue and pink dancing beams - for want of better words, for words alone cannot describe such a magical place - that I was, after a short time, completely distracted from the danger that lies in the sheer drop that fell to my left. Only one time I glanced down, and having discerned that there really was nothing there, I made my mind up not to look again.

Like the road to Macchu Picchu, the Yungas Road is not sealed, and very bumpy, and muddy in places.

The road´s nickname, the "Death Road" or "Death Route" is attributed to the number of car and lorry accidents that have occurred over the years. Not much more than 3 metres wide, the accidents were due to cars meeting on the road travelling in opposite directions, with one having to back up in order to let the other pass. I could see how vehicles could easily veer off the road and plunge into the deep canyon below, backing up in this way. Rows of crosses adorn the sides of the road, bearing witness to these tragic accidents, and the ghosts of the dead seem to loom in the fog, silently forming a useless wall of protection for those that continue to pass through the deadly route.

There are only mostly mountain-bikers that take the road now. A new Yungas Road was constructed a few years ago for the lorries and buses.

I thoroughly enjoyed the road and at the end was able to throw the bike down, sink into the grass and cool myself down with a cold drink.

For some reason, this wasn´t enough adventure for me, and some friends and I enquired back at La Paz into taking a military flight to the Bolivian jungle town of Rurrenabaque (on the Beni River). We were able to get flights for the following evening, and during the taxi ride the girls and I were so excited we got the giggles and couldn´t stop laughing nearly the whole way.

It wasn´t exactly funny, though, when the taxi driver took us to the wrong airport, and informed us of his error with a big grin on his face accompanied by the figures of the cab fare. After a bit of persuasion though, he agreed to take us to the right airport, with no extra charge.

At the gates of the military airport, a sleepy guard in a grey poncho waved us through, with cheery gesticulation and no concern whatsoever as to who we were, which for some reason made us laugh more (you had to be there, I suppose), bearing witness to the fact that your humour can still remain in tact after a number of slip-ups. Sometimes, when things go wrong, all you can do is laugh.

But it wasn´t funny when the cab drove off and I realised, upon having to pay the airport tax, that I had left my purse behind in the taxi, probably having fallen onto the cab floor in the mad rush.

Why then were we all still laughing?

Nor was it funny when, after waiting for our flight for over half an hour, we discovered that it was cancelled due to "temperature" problems. Apparently, the plane doesn´t fly when the temperature reaches over 17 degrees. Dodgy! We were guaranteed a flight the next morning, at 6am. In the meantime, my friends and I had kept ourselves entertained by watching a bunch of military men expertly roll down a red carpet along the length of the airstrip, and into the terminal. I joked with Luis that perhaps Chavez was paying a visit; being a corrupt capitalist dictator behind the mask of a benevolent Socialist demagogue, the man is not highly popular amongst the Venezulans, least not my good friend.

We watched the men pat the carpet, stretch it out, straighten it, and make a general fuss over it. Some of them lay down on it for a while. I had the impression that not a lot goes on in this airport. Perhaps there was no arrival of Chavez, or Evo, afterall.

The airline kept their word and we were able to get our flight the next morning. The military plane was not a green camouflage plane as I had expected and we weren´t crouched on the ground with helmets nor with parachutes. It was an ordinary plane, with ordinary passenger seats, and an air hostess offering yoghurt and fruit salad from a trolley. Pretty regular, really.

We landed in the fog on a grassy airstrip. The tropical heat hit like a hurricane.

Sweat was pouring off my face within five minutes. Whilst the girls took a jeep into town, Luis and I decided to take motorcycle taxis. It was a lot of fun, passing one another on the dirt road, despite the dust in my face. We were met in town by a little green Spanish-speaking parrot, which muttered incoherent phrases that neither Luis nor myself could comprehend. We played with it for a while and then went to sort out our boat down the river.

I could talk about the Bolivian pampas forever. We started with a drive in a jeep for a number of hours on a dirt road, stopping for a lunch of yucca, cooked green bananas, egg and rice. This is a typical jungle dish. It was really good. It was so hot that day. The jeep stopped again at a roadside shop, for cool drinks and a swing in a hammock. I played with the puppies there before reembarking the jeep and driving for several more hours, before reaching the river.

About eight of us were shuffled into a long narrow canoe-shaped boat. The girls had gone off in another boat, Luis and I remaining in a Spanish-speaking group. We glided down the river for a good three hours. It lay brown and glistening in the afternoon sun. The weather was very hot. Like Australia, the water was muddy and whatever lurked beneath remained a hidden mystery. The guide, Jaime, pointed out birds - storks, pretty small ones, and crazy birds that sport a colourful mohawk. Aligators lounged all down the riverbanks, gleaming eyes and rows of teeth exposed, their jaws open wide to regulate their temperatures.

I loved the little families of tortoises clumped together, basking on rocks in the sun. The animals have real personalities, reminding me of the film Animals are Beautiful People: the tall stork-like birds are similar to solemn-faced undertakers; the tortoises look as though they are doing tai-chi, balanced on their sides with a foot or two sticking out in calm contemplation.

The birds stretch out their wings to dry in the sunshine. The aligators wink at you and sink like rock into the water.

The chocolate river winds its way through the golden, rippling pampas. I suppose you would describe the pampas as a grassy prairie, where tall grasses sweep across the lowlands. Anacondas are hidden in there. So are many other things.

Our boat drifted through patches of sunlight and of shade. The cool, shady parts were the best, a relief from the oppressive sun, puddles of shade trickling over our sweating bodies. On the river´s edge the trees grew high and leaned over the water, dangling its parasitic roots as if they were fishing for pirouanas. Cannibalisitc trees.

We stopped here, in a cool, breezy spot where the trees formed a semi-canopy over the riverbed, and cast our lines to try our luck with the pirouanas. Luis was the first to catch one, although he let it go. I had no luck whatsoever; every time I felt a tug, and I pulled my line up, the sneaky little thing had gone, together with my bait. I suppose I would want to get away as quickly as possible too, if I were that little fish, so I couldn´t blame it.

In the early evening, loads of backpackers sat up in the forest lodges, legs dangling from the boardwalk, to drink beer and watch the sunset.

During the night, the boat slid quietly through the water under glossy black sky, a backdrop for a ceiling of stars. The night reminded me of childhood days in the Malborough Sounds in New Zealand. My Dad and uncles took my sisters and I garfishing at night, rowing silently through the still, dark waters, trying not to make a sound, except for the splash of the oars and of our small hands stirring up the golden dust of phosphorescence.

The next day we went walking through the pampas. It was an oppressively hot day, and my face was already coated with perspiration despite the day being still young. I will never forget walking through that tall, apple-green grass, rustled by the wind´s caresses, stretching on forever.

We found two anacondas, asleep inside the hollow of a tree, their bodies intertwined. It´s funny the way that humans do that too, with their legs, when they sleep in a bed together.

In the darker recesses of the shady forest, I was suddenly overcome with memories of my childhood, sweeping over me in waves. I picked a mushroom and carried it for a while, my thoughts revisiting the fairy stories I read when I was little, about deep dark forests and magical creatures. I also found a snake skin and tucked it into the pocket of my shorts.

During the night I lit an incense that night to try and ward off the mosquitos. Between that and the mosquito net, I did quite well - didn´t get a single bite, wasn´t going to let them, either, not after my rafting trip mosquito experience.

In the morning, we went for a swim, and found ourselves not too far from some pink river dolphins. Francis and I had a mud fight and Luis got bitten on the nipple by a pirouana. They kept getting me on the neck. It must have been a real feast for them.

I saw tucans too, and capybaras.

Lunch was really good that day. I have been eating like a horse, however it is that horses eat. I have put on five kilos and a roll around my tummy. A roll of rice and green bananas.

On the third day, the jeep took us all back to Rurrenabaque, flying along the dirt road at an alarming pace. Brooke and I were out of money, so we ate as cheaply as possible that night, particularly as I was covering for her and only had 16 bolivianos remaining. I chose a 13 b meal. Brooke had her eye on a 15 b meal (something like $2.00). I gave her a discerning look of disapproval across the table, eyebrows raised, and we burst into fits of laughter. ("Uh, Brooke." "Oh! Then I´ll have the vegetarian tacos. The entree size.") The funny thing was the fact that we really didn´t have that extra 2 bolivianos!

Rurrenabaque was a great little town: underdeveloped but quaint, dirt road and simple roadside cafés, shops selling brick-a-brack from soccer balls to cheap beauty products, to hammocks and mosquito nets.

My best buy was in Rurrenabaque in fact: a large blue hammock, in colours that remind me of the sea, to hang up in Cairns! I had been dreaming of this perfect hammock for some time, and during a walk around Rurrenabaque had become a little lost, as usual. Turning a corner, there to my amazement was my dream hammock, hanging up in the door of a store.
Some things are just meant to be.

What I love about La Paz

Omri, Itay, Amir and I took a bus from Cusco to La Paz, Bolivia, via Lake Titicaca and Cochabamba.

(Did you know that Titi Caca means "grey puma"? Amazingly, it was named this way by the Incans...or possibly even pre-Incan, but I will need to check that fact...because upside-down, the lake actually looks like a stretched-out cat. How could they have known this though, without an ariel view? The answer to my question was vague: the Incan empire holds a lot of mysteries.)

In the middle of the night, as we neared the city of La Paz, we were all woken up and informed that we would need to get off the bus and onto a ferry so that the bus could cross the lake empty of passengers. (There had been accidents in the past. Did I mention that before a bus-ride in Peru or Bolivia, somebody hired by the bus company walks around the inside of the bus filming the passengers faces in case of a bus crash? A rather disconcerting thought for people intending on travelling around South America in the future, I know...so I´m sorry if I have put anybody off...but it is one of the quirks of travelling in this vast mountaineous continent, and as I find it amusing myself, I thought I would mention it.)

Rugged up in blankets and warm clothes, we huddled up in what was not really a ferry but more like a dinghy, sleepy dismal faces on a rocky boat that didn´t leave until nearly all of us were already seasick. I remember that boat-ride, because it felt like a dream. The most surreal experiences tend to be, not surprisingly, at strange hours, and when you are not expecting them.

We were glad when we finally got a hostel and climbed into warm beds.

What do I love most about La Paz? Well, everything, nearly.

Drinking Bock (a local beer), 7 percent alcohol content, at high altitude. It really improves my Spanish. (This is my first point, because I was jotting down notes in my journal whilst sitting in the bar of my hostel, the Wild Rover, and having a drink whilst waiting for a friend.)

I love the Witches Markets. This is my second point, because everybody has to mention Witches Markets. They are quirky, and you can get great bargains. The textiles are dazzlingly colourful and there are things that constantly surprise you - such as walking around a corner, and finding shrunken, dried up llama fetuses, their eyes gouged out, necks stretched thin as string beans (can you imagine bombarding Australian Customs at the airport with a couple of those? Yuck. Yet tempting...).

I love the mix of old and new. I love the way in which people go about in old-fashioned business suits, in the streets lined with boot-polishers and men employed to type on clunky old typewriters whilst somebody dicates to them. I entertained the idea of dictating a letter to somebody this way - a Pablo Neruda poem perhaps, or a Bolivian counterpart - but sadly didn´t get around to doing this (like many things).

I lean against the table in the bar and scratch the mostquito bites on my legs, a ritual that has become a daily, automated event ever since my rafting trip. In between my leg scratches, requiring heavy concentration, I think a little more about what I love the most about La Paz.

I love the kindness of people that takes you by surprise. Walking down the street with Brooke one night, an older ex-patriot approached us and asked if we would like two tickets to see the Bolivian Symphony Orchestra, with a guest violinist from Argentina. It was on in five minutes, and we gladly accepted. It was lovely to watch some classical music, and the violinist performed exquisitely. I´ll include his name when I remember it. Brooke and I were enchanted and left feeling very grateful at the man´s kindness, and filled with the sweet potion of music from head to toe.

It is funny, that many people don´t like La Paz for the reason that many people live below the poverty line. Remembering my walk around the city, I wonder why there aren´t as many beggars and desperation here as I expected - at least, what is visible to the tourist´s eye. Have the poor - who possess the type of desperateness that causes people to claw at you, cling onto your clothing as you brush past them, to wail, to cry - have they been swept out of sight? Into the backstreets of oblivion and out of the suit-clad man´s consciousness?

I wonder about the welfare system here and how society is taken care of. Is it different here from that of other countries? I don´t know how much you can tell from the smiling faces about a country´s government.

I love the old women, the cholitas, who stroll along the narrow pavements, in a slow gait. Large women wearing long, puffy skirts that make them appear twice as wide, with polished black shoes and bowler hats, which were introduced by an English business-man once upon a time when the hats were in fashion in London. The story goes that the hats didn´t catch on amongst the Bolivian men, and so in order to sell them he convinced the Bolivian women that bowler hats were a current London fashion item (amongst women). They caught on, and are still worn, although you don´t really see any young person wearing them. Perhaps my generation will be the last to see this sort of dress, to feel as though you have stepped into a time capsule and gone back several hundred years. I feel that in this way, La Paz is a real treasure, in that precious, genuine tradition has been preserved.

Macchu Picchu (Cont.)

I´m writing two blog entries about Machu Picchu not because it deserves such a long account, but really just because it takes a lot of words to properly describe the way that the hike there made me feel, the emotions the surrounding wonders of nature evoked in me, the spirits that were let loose in that rugged landscape.

I should probably first say that I made some really great friends on this trip: Luis and Gustavo, two good friends travelling together from Venezuala, Omri, Itay and Amir, three friends from Israel who I found incredibly relaxing and enjoyable to spend time with; and the fun-loving Danni from Australia. I loved all of these people and I really hope I will stay in touch with them; as free-spirited citizens of the world I am sure that some of us will find each other again, in some obscure part of the planet.

The walk was partly along windy dirt roads thousands of metres above sea-level, carved into the side of the mountain. This was what gave me the most vertigo. There were parts where my legs froze and simply wouldn´t carry me any further. Very frustrating that is, when the body won´t obey the mind. We stopped at a horrifically dizzying boulder and Willy took some time to explain the Incan culture to everybody. Basically, the Incans worshipped nature so that they would be treated kindly by her, through rain and good harvest. Pachamama is the Incan word for Mother Earth, and many rituals were...no, are... performed daily in worship of her, such as by offering coca tea leafs by throwing them into the river. The Incans also worshipped the Sun God Inti, the Moon goddess (the partner of the Sun God), and most importantly, the river, the source of all life. I believe that, too: the river gives me life, insofar as she gives me energy. It is the river that gives me the most energy (see my posting about my whitewater rafting adventure), and that is something I need to live a full life, to keep the fire burning in my spirit.

I thought about the river a lot whilst I was hiking.

For quite a long stretch of the hike, though, we walked along an old railway track, headed towards Aguas Calientes, from Santa Teresa. After a good night´s sleep at Santa Teresa, my legs had sufficient spring in them to take me across the old wooden railway, which wound its way through lush jungle. Luis and I chatted as we walked side by side, our feet falling on each plank simultaneously like a coordinated march. Eventually, I fell behind as I stopped to examine small things on either side of the tracks. I saw an amazing flutter of orange butterflies, clumped together on a rock. A few minutes later, a fat green caterpillar crawling lethargically along the edge of the railway, at a pace I could strongly identify with. I thought: is this the pace of life that humans should be adopting? At the caterpillar´s rate, the scenic views would be thoroughly and permanently stamped onto one´s mind like a copper etching. Wouldn´t we appreciate everything a little more if we took things a little slower? At the same time, I couldn´t help feeling as though, like the caterpillar, I was falling behind with life; but of this I was glad.

After a long day´s walk we arrived at Aguas Calientes and I had a good night´s sleep.

The climb up Machu Picchu was slow and steep. I climbed over 1,000 steps at 4:30am with a flashlight. It was a very sharp incline and the steps seemed to wind up and around forever. At the top, I found all the tourists a little overwhelming, so I sat on a rock and closed my eyes for a while. When I finally opened my eyes again, I saw the mountains rising directly above me, the edges sharper and the colours brighter. It was like being reborn! It was an amazing experience. I couldn´t help thinking that the image of Machu Picchu must be, for many people, such a worn and faded one; sort of like looking at a photograph for so long that it no longer has any effect on you. I found that by closing my eyes and shutting the iconic images out for some time, and forgetting where I was, I could almost surprise myself by letting it all flood back in again at the chosen moment.

"Sube a nacer conmigo, hermano"...

I had meant to bring my book of Cantos by Pablo Neruda so that I could, like a real gringo, read Alturas de Macchu Picchu (Heights of Macchu Picchu) from the top. I had forgotten my book completely, however, so I contented myself to look around the ruins and learn a little bit about them before retiring from the buzz of tourists.

Back in Cusco I got the Santa Ana bus back to the school to see the kitchen that we had built just one more time, and properly say goodbye to the teachers and to my little Luis. A big toothy smile spread across his tiny face when he saw me and he leaped into my arms like an orang-utan. I´m really going to miss that little monkey. I´m sure my face will fade in his memory in time as he grows up, but I´ll never forget his. No; I´ll go back sooner than later. I´ll make sure of it.

Don´t we always tell ourselves that?

Goodbye Urubamba, hello Macchu Picchu

I am in bed, at Yame and Miguel's, it is 7:30am, and I have a throat infection. Melanie, a longstay resident workingn with an NGO in Urubamba, scolded me when I padded downstairs into the kitchen barefoot for a cup of tea. "For the sake of sounding like a mother..." she said, shaking her head. I tiptoed back upstairs and climbed back into bed, where I am now snuggled cosily with my lemon and ginger tea and wondering how I can knock this infection out of me in the shortest time possible. (I made a mental schedule - hot toddy, Paddy´s, Saturday. Instant recovery, to be sure.)

I finish my week at the school and leave feeling incredibly guilty about the paperchain doll massacre incident.

A few days later...It is now almost 5pm, and I am in the Real MccCoy, curled up on the worn brown sofa in the corner of the pub, feet tucked up under me. I like that I can take my shoes off here and just wear my socks, like I am at home. I think that is how they want backpackers to feel, especially those who have been away from home for a long time.

It is warm and cosy inside. There are only a few people, reading and sipping tea.

Travelling is a rollercoster of emotions. You can feel up and down from one minute to the next. Fearful and hopeful. In love one day, a complete skeptic the next. Angry and forgiving. Distant and close.

I reflect on my hike to Macchu Picchu. The journey there made me a feel a number of things: at first, I felt annoyed at the disorganisation (I was with a group and we were hiring bikes to cycle and hike there), and unappreciative. I allowed myself to feel frustration for some time...and then I remembered my Mum´s words, "I love you so much, because you never complain". I thought about that, and I said nothing, but felt guilty, because I felt like I was complaining on the inside, and this is no different to complaining out aloud.

When we got on the bikes though, a sensation of exhiliration took over. Flying down the mountain roads, the fresh air kissing and playfully biting my cheeks, I felt alive and truly happy once again. I felt an amazing rush as I sailed downhill, taking in the incredible mountainous scenery around me. I loved the swallows, I loved the dragonflies that dipped and dived in the clear blue sky, and it was so quiet that you could have heard the beating wings of a hummingbird. I listened for every small noise in nature that is possible for humans to hear. The sun shone. Our faces shone.

After lunch, we embarked on a dirt path that was extremely rocky. Until now, we had been on a paved road. So this was a little difficult. It began to rain, gently first, then heavily. We had a guide, Willy, driving behind us in a jeep and he suggested that the boys go ahead on the bikes, and the girls get into the back of the car.

Well. Nobody puts Beani in the back. I politely informed Willy that I would be going ahead with the boys. And off I went.

With a fresh dose of determination, thanks to Willy´s comment, I crawled at snail´s pace along the rocky path, cursing the suspension on my bike and wondering, with the boys so far ahead of me, whether girls really are the weaker sex after all (nothing that was going to stop me, of course, but it did infuriate me slightly). I stayed on the right-hand side of the road, so that jeeps and buses could pass, with Willy driving right behind me, on my tail. The bumpiness of the road shook me around until I felt like my insides had turned into a milkshake. My vision was blurry. Completely soaked from the rain, I gripped the brakes until my hands hurt, because I was still on a decline and I feared that if I went any faster, my brain and eyeballs would liquify. The road curved through the lush jungle.

Before, on the paved road, Brooke and I had sailed past waterfalls with air rushing through our lungs, screaming at the top of our voices, feeling the natural high that downhill biking in the Andes gives you without failure. Just a few hours later, I was tired, soaked through, hands hurting from all the braking, and feeling inferior to the boys. Instead of feeling resigned though, I told myself that it would be bad to wear down the brakes, so I turned and signalled to Willy that I was done, with a big thumbs up sign, and settled myself back into the jeep.

The next day, we started the hiking. I will fill this space in with facts and statistics later. But what I can say now is that hiking to Macchu Picchu is both amazing and hair-raising. A narrow - and I mean narrow - path wound around the mountainside, the drop below so steep and far that I experienced vertigo in a few places and my legs simply refused to move.

Falling, falling, falling. Why did I feel like I was falling, when I had my two feet firmly on the ground? Was part of me actually falling? Was part of my soul unable to resisit taking the plunge, an air spirit diving and catching the wind, souring through the canyons below, watching the mountainside stream away, an upwards blur towards the heavens? The free spirit part of me perhaps? There was definitely a part of me that felt like I was tumbling into the valleys far below. Every time a rock crumbled and fell, that rock was me, or the essence of me. My stomach would lift, as though the falling rock was that essence of myself, leaving my body behind. A sensation I have felt before but never been able to explain, something deep and mystical.

For quite a while, I felt as though the mountain could wake from a deep sleep, and heave and shake it´s body to free itself from all the tiny people that crawled along it´s belly.

(to continue...)

Paper-chain dolls in Urubamba

Imagine you are in a small village in Peru. It is a very hot day; scorching the backs of your legs and the top of your head. The sky is tall and blue and very clear. You are walking slowly along a dirt road, carrying a bagpack and swinging an imaginary waterbottle, wishing you´d brought it with you, and scanning the horizon for the farmhouse you are staying in. It is your first day of a stint of teaching in the local primary school; you have arrived early, spoken to the principal, and found out that your first class doesn´t start until midday, and it is barely past 9am. You decide to go back to the farmhouse...but you have lost your way.

On one side of the road is a tall mud brick wall. On the other, a row of homes with low doors, hobbit homes, also made from mud brick. The doors are all shut. Everything is quiet. There is not a soul around; everybody is inside, taking refuge from the sweltering heat. You pass an empty-looking shop, selling candy, bottles of water and cigarettes. You stoop low to enter the shop, to see if anybody is inside. No-one.

You continue along the road until you reach a fork in the road. Sweat rolls down your forehead and down the ridge of your nose, the shape of a question mark. Which way now? A lone donkey is tied up next to the mud brick wall, which you have been following for some time. There is literally nobody to ask. The donkey looks at you with soft blinking eyes, as if to say, "don´t ask me. I´m a donkey."

You take a left turn. There is a house painted mauve; the owners must have money to own a house dressed in colour. The house looks familiar. Next to it is a large cactus and a pot of geraniums, also familiar to you, but then again that is a normal sight in Peru. A clear stream murmurs along the right side of the road. You stop and dip your hands in it, then you wash your face. Mmm, it is so cool. The sun really is hot, and the water gives you instant relief.

A young woman is approaching. When she is closer, you ask in Spanish, "do you know where Miguel and Yume live?" She doesn´t know. You can´t remember their surname, either.

So you keep walking and turn another corner. More mud brick homes, cactuses and pots of geraniums. All you can think about is finding the farmhouse, taking your shoes and socks off and sinking into the hammock in the garden.

Several times, you turn back and attempt another route. But every corner is familiar now; the real path to the farmhouse will no longer ring bells even if you are on the right track. You pass the donkey with the absent expression six or seven times. It is almost like a dream, in which you are trapped in a maze. Every corner that you have already passed is etched deeper in your mind, like tracing over the same path on an etch-a-sketch.

There are mud brick walls on almost every side. You can barely see over them; the mountain tops peek over at you, and through a few cracks in the wall you can see a pretty garden, or a cobblestone courtyard decorated with hanging washing, or a field of corn, the scene changing every few steps. You keep following the brook upstream. It leads you to a field with a wall around it. Surely this was the field you took a short cut through early this morning? No, but this one has rows and rows of lettuce; the other was growing corn. Ah, here are the rows of corn, in the next-door field. But wait, there is another field over there, behind it. You lean against the wall, feeling thirsty and exhausted. Peering over the top of the wall and into the field, you see a capuccino-coloured calf rolling around happily amongst the lettuces. A cow, tied up nearby, lets out a loud "moooooooo". You have an urge to let out a loud grown, just like the cow did. Completely lost - for all the cornfields and mudbrick homes appear identical, and you can´t remember which parts of the stream you had skipped over and followed in the early morning - you find a nearby tree to sit under, and bathe in the cool shade.

A dying bee is struggling on the ground. You pick it up and watch it die on the palm of your hand. Then you stand up, walk over to the corner of somebody´s field, and throw it over the wall.

In doing so, you notice a couple of farmers ploughing the land. You wave. A man approaches you - he is elderly, with a wrinked brown face and a green woollen beanie. The beanie is much too small for him, and sits like a parrot on the top of his head. You ask whether he knows Miguel and Yume, and explain that you are looking for their farmhouse. He nods enthusastically - he does know them, in fact Miguel is godfather to his son. He will show you the way. He motions for you to follow him.

You follow behind the man as he swings his cane and leads you across the cornfields, over the bubbling streams, through whispering trees, and along the top of a mudbrick wall. You follow the wall for sometime, making left and right turns, as though you have found a way to cheat in a hedge maze by walking along the tops of the hedges. Somehow, you find the situation extremely funny - you have been wandering the village for over an hour now, when the morning's shortcut had only taken ten minutes - and scrambling behind the farmer, you resist fits of giggles. Eventually you catch sight of Yume and Miguel's garden with the rows of young corn, and the hammock hanging amongst a bed of bright flowers. You are greeted by the farmhouse dogs, Toby and Gitana. Gitana barks furiously at the farmer, probably because of the cane stick he is swinging by his side. A little embarassed at Gitana´s lack of propriety, you thank the farmer profusely and head towards the house for a drink. It is actually nearly time to go back to the school for the first hour of class.

So, this is how I spent my first day in Urubamba, teaching art and English in the village primary school. At least, that is what I was supposed to be teaching...the first hour was a 6th grade communications class! As it was the first day of spring, I broke the class into groups of four and they composed short songs about 'la primavera' (springtime). Although, I had to say, on this particular day it felt like the middle of summer.

The next day, after breakfast in the farmhouse, Yume's eyes shone as she described her idea of getting the 2nd grade kids to draw pictures of springtime on paper plates. Brilliant. Although I was supposed to be teaching painting, the school had absolutely no materials, apart from a couple of sets of coloured textas. So it seemed like a simple idea and I set off (knowing the route to the school pretty well this time, although Toby sensed my inherent lack of direction and accompanied me this time) with a bag full of paper plates and lollies to reward the class with.

Funnily, the teacher sat down with the children to draw and demanded my attention the whole time. When she wasn´t doing that, she was screaming at the children. In truth, I found her quite immature, much more so than her class. Which makes me question the meaning and value of 'maturity'...in that class that day, 'immaturity' and 'childish' took on completely opposite meanings...the kids who are supposed to be 'immature' act spontaneously on genuine feelings...whilst being 'mature' just means that a person has aged, has ripened, into something which is not necessarily better than the child. Becoming older just seems to mean gaining undesirabl traits and characteristics, like greed and desperation, not being spontaenous... My point?? Stay a child as long as you can!!!!

Anyway, I taught the kids English vocabulary about the springtime, and in the class after that we made paper chain dolls. I was a little horrified when the grade one-ers started cutting out their dolls. Forgetting that it is difficult for a small child to use scissors, I walked around the class just in time to see heads, legs and arms being chopped off...leaving a pile of massacred dolls on the teachers desk at the end...I still regret not having time to glue all the pieces together and stringing them up on the classroom wall.

I spent the evenings swinging in the hammock with Toby by my side, reading an Incan drama called 'Ollantay' and wondering what on earth to teach the next day, that doesn´t involve the slaughtering of innocent paperchain dolls.

To be continued...

Cusco, Part II: Rafting fun, cats in pubs, becoming a god-mother and other random things.

Where shall I start?! It has been probably a couple of months since my last posts, and naturally a lot of things have happened. South America is a fruit salad of adventures. Colourful, lots of variety, and the occasional bad bit of fruit (reference to my cat-in-pub incident, below.)

On Sunday, 6th September at 7:30am, I sipped coca leaf tea in a small café on Clle Plateros near the plaza in Cusco, listening to a Simon and Garfunkel song that was playing softly on the radio in the background, and explaining to an elderly frenchman on the bench next to me that I saw them in concert in July. I was waiting to meet up with a group to go on a three-day rafting expedition on the Apurimac river (one of the best white-water rafting rivers in the world). We were to meet at 8am, so I was a little early. Alain, the Frenchman, explained to me that he had first come to Peru in ´68 and that there were no tourists in Peru at that time, save for a small number of drifting hippies. I imagined what it would have been like, travelling at a time when there were no mobile phones, no facebook, no lines of tourists and flashing cameras, no big bus or tour companies. Of course, there are benefits to living in this day and age. Had I been born in Australia or New Zealand back then, I might not have ventured on trip like this, unless I had money and an independent spirit.

There were about 18 of us in total, plus the guides. About half were Israeli, and a New Zealand couple, a couple from Tassie, a couple from Poland, a kiwi girl on her own, a British guy, a Danish guy and myself. All around my age, and an awesome crew. We started with a bus ride of several hours then had a nice lunch by the river, where we got our gear ready. We got ourselves into groups, 6 people per boat. Our guide was Joselo, a bit of a cheeky monkey with a long pony tail. It is so hard to describe the trip...the Apurimac river is absolutely stunning...it gushed and roared as we navigated the most wild of the rapids (the class Vs), and flowed and golden and green in silence in the quieter parts, swirling and carrying us gently downstream. A canyon wall rose metres on either side...we passed waterfalls...and swallows and dragonflies skimmed and dipped the water. Large boulders and smaller rocks piled on either side of the river at the foot of the canyon, and in parts where the river was too difficult to pass through, we left our boats with the guides and clamboured over the boulders, meeting the boats further along where it was safe to continue.

The river cast a spell on me. I found myself falling deeply in love with nature and drawing energy from her that I have never felt before. It was one of those feelings of being truly alive...

The camping was stunning. We set up our tents on the sandy river banks and camped under trillions of stars. On the second night I slept on a big smooth rock, that curved up on four sides to form a sort of natural bedroom, protected from the wind, the sky full of stars as the ceiling. During the night, I needed to pee really badly. I realised I didn´t know how to get down from the rock, so I climbed up a bit higher and squatted on the edge. I think peeing on the top of a boulder in the Andes at night would have to be the strangest, most surreal sensation I have ever experienced. My hair blowing wildly in the wind; the ragged, black mountain peaks silhouetted against the midnight blue sky, on such a starry, starry night, and my pee trickling down the rock to join with the raging river, I felt like some kind of river goddess, or maybe a half condor woman (?!)...it was very strange!

The river's daytime brillance, and the sky that night, reminded me of a poem that is one of my Mum's favourites, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'Pied Beauty':

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:

Práise hím.


In the morning, we had pancakes with condensed milk for breakfast. It was so good. I was really energed for a third day of rafting. Changing into my wetsuit, though, I discovered the price I had paid for a beautiful campout under the stars: about 200 sandfly bites on my legs and ankles...

So, the rafting was fantastic, but moving on to the cat in the pub incident. A day before my rafting trip, Saturday morning, I was enjoying a big breakfast in the Real McCoy, which is the English pub where gringos flock to for vegemite toast, pancakes and Earl Grey tea. I was talking to my Irish friend Dave whom I met in Lima and was keen to watch some soccer that morning with Marcus and David, his travelling buddies. Suddenly, a friendly-looking black cat, identical to my cat at home Phoebe, jumped up on my lap, lured by my bacon. He was purring and sniffing the air, pawing playfully at my jeans. I stroked his head and played with him for a while, because he was so cuddly and affectionate. After a while, my face started becoming really itchy and my breathing quite fast. I asked Dave if his breathing was fast too, because I thought it could have been the altitude, which makes a person easily puffed. He said no, and maybe I should go to the bathroom and check out my face. Anyway, into the bathroom I hastily went, and saw that my face had broken out in hive-like bumps. I couldn't stop coughing, either. Now, it happened to be the Day of the Tourist, and the town was filled with tourists, locals and processions. The friendly owners of the pub called the doctor, but he took a while to arrive because it was simply impossible to enter the plaza de armas in a vehicle. When he did arrive, the condition had got worse and he informed me in a serious tone that I was "entering into an asthma crisis". The cat was swept up in the owners arms and shoved into a cupboard where he lives amongst a soft nest of cushions and blankets. A big needle came out. "That´s not going into my arse, I hope" I said, knowing full well where it was going. (There is only one way it is done in Peru.) Dave looked completely freaked-out. I was laughing, probably out of nervousness (I remember getting my brain scans back when I had an aneurism early last year, and finding myself laughing in the same way). Although, the situation was pretty amusing. Bending over in the tiny pub toilet with my pants down, I duly received my dose of steroids, giggling ferociously and gasping for breaths of air.

My poor bum! And my poor face. It was as puffy as a bowl of honey puffs.

Going back home to retrieve my asthma medication proved rather difficult. I couldn´t get a taxi; as they were all full, because of Day of the Blimmin´Tourist. The processions, with their trombones and trumpets and clarinets honking noisily, were completely blocking the road. And every road I turned down to get away from them, in search of a taxi, they seemed to follow me, in the way that the monster comes after you in PacMan. The sun was beating down; it was an incredibly hot day. My breathing wasn´t good. I called my roommate Brooke, and she agreed to pack a bag with my medication and meet me in the Plaza with it. However, the phone cut out before we could agree to an exact meeting place, so I decided the best thing to do was to go home, and continue my search for a taxi. Finally I found one and waved it down. When I got to the house, Brooke, bless her alpacca socks, had already left to find me. So back to the Plaza I went. I found her in the Real McCoy, the original source of the incident, and we indulged in a big plate of nachos and laughed about the whole thing. I parked myself on the sofa in the pub where I remained stationary all afternoon, and I even let the dear cat stretch across my legs and share in my laziness; I don´t bear a grudge.

The month of September passed really quickly. Lots of progress was made on the kitchen, and we were served our daily dose of chaos by the little kids in the school: more little footprints in the cement, lots of chasing around after the wheelbarrow we bought Marco, squeals emanating from within, and the constant cries of "empujame gringita, empujame gringita!"´s of the little girls on the swings (this means, push me gringo!). The project has been a lot of fun. We plastered, tiled, painted, grouted, filled in holes. At the end of the day, we barricaded the door so that we would not end up with more little footprints, which seemed to work pretty well.

I can´t really describe literally everything that has happened in Cusco. I´ve made a lot of friends, been out enjoying the salsa scene, ferreted around in the marketplace, that sort of thing. I can, though, mention a couple of random things that remind me of everyday life in Cusco:

* Trying anticucho on the street stall at night, near my house
* Football games
* Going to the zoo
* Ceviche and chicha morada with the crew at a local joint behind our house
* Going to visit Brooke at the hospital, and eating her hospital food and her cake
* Finishing all of Kevin´s meals
* Dancing salsa with Jose at the club with the creaky wooden floor that bounced up and down, and the live band
* Kevin´s awesome ceviche, and Brooke´s amazing macaroni cheese
* The day we had lunch with all the teachers at the school, and they put on 1980s disco music to eat to
* Going out for 'forest food' with Maritsa and her cousins, and being served a pile of meat that included a small, hairy paw in the middle of my plate!

And then there was the day I became a god-mother! To cut a short story long, a small boy at the school, named Luis, had injured his face quite badly (his father Toribio said he fell out of a window). One of the kind volunteers, an elderly gentleman named Michael from New Zealand, ensured he got some medical attention and asked me to translate for himself and for Toribio when they met to discuss the x-rays, as Michael didn´t speak any Spanish. I was happy to, but I was very surprised when we asked to be Luis´s godparents and to come to the baptism on the weekend. The next-day, Toribio brought two bead bracelets that he had made, and put them around our wrists. I was a bit reluctant but also touched so I agreed. On Saturday morning, 19 September, Lola (the girl who cleans the house) woke me up early for the baptism practice. I had my doubts; but I had given my word that I would be Luis´s god mother, and that I would be on the steps at the plaza at 9:45am. I had been out dancing and had a headache; I wished I could be a fairy mother, so I could just magic myself there, and lie in bed for longer. When I got there I saw Toribio crossing the road, and Michael with his floppy bush hat and bag of baptism gifts. I wondered if Toribio had walked. It takes him two days to walk from his village.

Toribio kissed us all and kept repeating the word "compadres". He seemed really happy. We went over to the Santiago church, and went into an office where the Padre made us repeat parts of the bible. It was quite boring, actually. I hadn´t had much to do with the Catholic church before, and not much desire to, what with its stance on homosexuality and contribution to the spread of AIDS. (I hope this doesn´t offend anyone, seriously.) But the church means a lot to the people of Peru, being an enormous part of religious and social life, and I was impressed to learn that the Catholic churches were happy to encourage the Incan belief in workshipping the sun, moon and other deities. They have a great belief in worshipping nature, particularly the land and the river that provide for them. The church never destroyed these beliefs, and somehow the two religions existed together, many people converting to Catholicism but keeping their ancient beliefs and worship practices.

The actual baptism was really nice. First, we attended the misa - mass - Michael and I, Toribio and his young wife Victoria, Brooke, Marco and his family, and of course little Luis. The mass went for quite some time. The church was full. The dim light and all the candles made me sleepy, and I distracted Luis with lollies. These things must be really tedious for children. The baptism itself was quite short. All I really had to do was hold a candle. Afterwards, we took some photos, and went out for cake to celebrate, as is the tradition. Michael read out a speech which he had had translated into Spanish, and the family were really happy. Victoria, Luis´s mother, is a Quechuan woman, meaning native to Peru and a speaker of Quechua. She dresses in the traditional stiff, colourful skirt, round hat and her hair in two long plaits, tied at the end with pom-poms. She doesn´t speak any Spanish or English, so we just smiled at each other a lot. It was a lovely night. Luis is very affectionate and jumps into my arms when he sees me. I am going to miss him a lot.

Next time I see Luis, he will have grown up...When is someone going to invent a magical medicine that stops that from happening...!?

Cusco, part 1: savouring the sublime

I have now landed myself in Cusco, capital of the Incas, bustling tourist town, charming old cobblestoned city that lies sprawling at the feet on Macchu Picchu like an offering at the feet of a Sun God. (Actually, I don´t know that, not having been to Macchu Picchu yet but it sounded poetic. In fact, I believe that Cusco is in fact at higher altitude than the old m.p, so perhaps I should amend to read "city that floats in the air above Macchu Picchu like an offering of grapes to a king".)

Maybe I should write no more about Macchu Picchu until I have been there and actually know where and what it is.

Riding on the Santa Ana bus to my project this morning, standing amidst Cusceño men, women, babies, bunches of flowers, bags of market produce, all staring at me silently whilst jolting up and down thanks to the pot-holed dirt road (and just imagine this scene rotated anti-clockwise, as I had to stand with my head bent so that I would fit vertically inside the vehicle), I watched as the landscape changed from one of tour company signs, money exchanges and postcard stands, into a countryside scene of rolling patchwork hills, mud-brick houses, burros (yes, the donkeys again) and dogs scavenging amongst roadside rubbish heaps with contented doggy smiles across their blinking canine faces.

I watched the scenes melt from one into another through the open window and could almost feel the land breath a rustic sigh of contentment, tinged with a hint of weariness in the eyes and slow movement of the passing villagers.

I watched all this out the window whilst being pickpocketed (I´m assuming somewhere on the bus there was also a contented pickpocketer smile, but as everybody looks at me the same way, I don´t think I´ll ever know who it was whose crafty fingers made their way into my pocket and out again without my knowledge. Even the spring flowers looked at me as if they knew something).

This did not come to my attention until much later, of course. I was too busy hanging on to the unmoveable parts of the bus (although rather like a child grasping the graspable parts of the parent, without realising that everything moves together) and eyeing the view as we all rattled along the road, men, women, children, flowers, vegetables and pickpocketer all together like a mixed bag of lollies. Dodging the wandering dogs was an attention grabber, too. Stray dogs are everywhere. They belong to nobody and rule the streets. Nobody can tell them where to go, sell them alpacca products, or pickpocket them. They can sniff bottoms or sit on a throne of garbage, whichever they please. The boys of the barrios. Queens of las calles.

There are not only stray dogs all over the outskirts of Cusco, but cows too, grazing here and there, and what always comes with these lovely velvety animals, the Splendid, Steaming Cow Pat. The impressive digestive facility of the four-stomached, grass munching, field roaming Peruvian cow is much to be admired. So much so that during a roadside stopover a lasting impression of its splendor was left as a friendly reminder on the rubber sole of our bus driver´s zapato, like the way the laundry service slips an extra business card into your bag of freshly cleaned clothes, or the stamping of your tourist card.

The Santa Ana stopped halfway up a hill so that the embarrased driver, our freshly dunged friend, could zip over to a patch of grass that those four stomachs so enjoy (in equal quarterly parts) and scrape his boot with a sitting-on-the-toilet-after-a-gianormous-meal look of concentration on his face and two bemused onlookers (being myself and Irish Kevin, the only remaining passengers at this time). Ten minutes and much more scraping later, we considered walking to our project from there but the driver promptly returned at that moment and we were again on our way.

Up in the hills, I also noticed through my observations of people walking here and there along the roadside that the stiff, coloured skirts and stockings of Huaraz have danced off with their cowboy hats and dissolved into the Andean sunset with trousers on every woman instead providing the practical comforts of the appendicular kind that always comes with a good pair of farmers´pants. (!) (Who knows, really. I don´t wear farmers´pants. Or carry a pitchfork for that matter. But the two go more hand-in-hand than puffy lime green skirts, although the latter looks cooler. Hr hrm anyway this isn´t a fashion column...)

The kitchen we are building is part of a small primary school, where probably around 90 or 100 children attend. When I say "attend", I mean running around outside flying kites and climbing all over things: the volunteers, piles of rock and dirt in the construction corner, up walls, up the soccer posts. The teachers, few as they are, round them up, and the little monkeys escape again, usually to be found back at the construction site, or again hanging off the arm of a humbled volunteer, who will typically keep a straight face but be glowing inside, like a young zoo ranger with an impressive rare bird perched on her shoulder during her very first bird show presentation. I have to admit though, the children there are very sweet with their large brown eyes, rosy bucolic cheeks and tiny flat noses. I suncream them up each day as the sun is extremely strong at an altitude of over 3,000 metres. I find the little girls quite funny. Even the incredibly timid ones aren´t afraid to climb up my sweater in search of my boobs which they seem to be curious about. They also like playing with my hair and putting it into a high ponytail. For a few minutes in the morning, the construction site is a ladies beauty parlour, with all the grooming needed to start a day of laying stones and getting covered in dust and dirt.

The walls and roof are already up (the kitchen having been started in May, I think). At the moment we are putting down stones (which some of the boys in our project team break up first with hammers and gravity), like a jigsaw puzzle or a tiled mosaic, onto the floor to form the base, which will be covered with cement on Monday.

After a morning of laying stones at high altitude I have to say I´m kind of pooped.

In the tired sense, of course.

Now, I have come to realise that hard work means being very hungry, very often. I have discovered the answer in a chocolate bar that is sold here called Sublime. On Thursday night, I filled my pockets with Sublime bars and my volunteer house and I headed out to a big and much anticipated soccer match. Peru was playing Liverpool (not the English team, but Uruaguay(!)). The night air was filled with excitement, and the streets with red jerseys and flying flags, many bearing the capital letter C in blue. Despite hints that Uruguay´s team is "mas fuerte" (stronger), I have to say that their defence was terrible and the players actually looked somewhat tired. I am not sure, but perhaps the Cusceños have an advantage when the game is in their hometown at high altitude, something that they are used to. My housemates and I enjoyed a smuggled cask of Chilean wine and partaking in the chants (laaa, laaaa...corizon...vive....something...ole, ole...) and the wave that went around and around like bath water swirling anti-clockwise down the drain. A band played, consisting of continual drumming and random sounds coming from a variety of wind instruments, no particular timing but kept up throughout the match. And there was one particular stand for the craziest aficionades of all. It was hard to take one´s eyes of them; an enormous banner rippled above their heads bearing the most famous revolutionary face in South America, Che Guavara, and the stand was a sea of red (with the occasional flicker of an orange fire). It looked like a fruit stand of excited apples shouting "me, me!".

Peru won the match, 2-0, scoring their first goal about 25 minutes in. I got my face on tv (someone back at home was watching). Of course, the peruvians were happy with the win and a long night of festivities followed.

So, after laying stones all morning I think it is time for a nice long siesta and a cup of coca mate. A sublime chocolate/peanut bar might not hurt either, for that matter.

I hope the reader is well, whoever you may be. Hasta luego!

:)

Huaraz and the Cordilleras Blancas

Huaraz is a smallish town of around 88,000 that tourists generally stay in as a base for trekking in the Cordilleras Blancas. My first impression of the town as our bus trundled in was that it had just been struck by an earthquake, In fact, it had been - in 1970 - causing enormous devastation, and many houses had not been rebuilt, or had been build precariously on top of the rubble. I found it bizarre that it still looked such a mess. Apparently, a tax is payable upon every finished home, so to avoid this, people simply do not put a roof on. The typical house is flat on top, unpainted, and in need of much work.

Yes, on the corner of a street, I nearly bought a puppy - a man on the corner caught my eye, asked me where I am from (as everybody does here) and proceeded to tell me that I could most definitely take the puppy back to Australia if I get a vet´s certificate. Hrm hrm... The small, soft brown pup snuggled into me and it was hard to give back...and gushing at a dog in Spanish must have been amusing to passerbys...

The trip to Huaraz, a bus ride that left Lima at 10am and arrived at 6am, was the most terrifying trip I have ever taken in my life. I reclined my chair and tried to sleep as we climbed slowly, and shakily, higher into the Andes. Although ít was dark, I could feel my ears popping, so I knew we must have been high up. As the night grew darker, and blacker, the passengers began to put their seats back and go to sleep. Curiousity took the better of me and I drew back the curtains. I was gripped with fear... above me rose the mighty Andean mountains, a dark, dark mass that loomed seeminly to the sky... and below, a sea of nothing!! I can´t even describe the fear that took over me. The wheels of the bus appeared to scrape along what appeared to be a sharp-edged cliff, but how deep the cravass was, I couldn´t tell, because there seemed to be nothing below but a deep dark hole. Dramatic images of the bus turning a corner and plunging to the bottom flashed through my frenzied mind. My hands began to sweat and my whole body froze in my seat, as it might when faced with a dangerous enemy. The scariest part occured when we drew nearer the mountains - for as we got closer, they appeared to open up as if to swollow us, like the jaws of a monster stretching open to reveal a gaping black hole. Indeed, the mouth of the mountain appeared as though it were ready to swallow up the entire bus...

Luckily, I remembered that I had a number of ABC radio programs downloaded on my phone, so like a typical gringo I plugged in my headphones and tried to distract myself (funnily enough, the program was about the enormity of nature compared to man, and at that moment I could not have agreed any more). I was enormously relieved when, around 5am, I wiped the condensation off the window and saw that we were surrounded by stretching, flat plains. The next thing I knew we were pulling into the bus station at Huaraz. I had survived!

My first few days at Huaraz were spent incredibly sick, with the flu. I took myself to the local hospital where I proudly described my symptoms to Dr Moreno: mal a la cabeza, duelen los ojos, duele la garganta, toser, etc, etc. I was prescribed some medicine and I started my trek completely loaded up with drugs. They certainly did help though.

I love Huaraz. I can really see why tourists stay on for lengthy periods of time, as the place oozes charm and tradition. The women wear exactly the same thing - a stiff coloured knee-length skirt over tights, a cowboy-like hat that is usually black or brown, a brightly coloured cardigan and usually a stripy bag slung over their bag, carrying a child or bundles of market produce, or both. They wear their hair in long, dark plaits, decorated with pom poms. The entire outfit doesn´t look exactly practical when you see them this way working in the fields, but apparently the stiff fabric of the skirt is amenable to holding things underneath. Imagine if Western fashion just stopped one day at one particular outfit, which everybody wore forever more! It seems this way with the Peruvians, as their clothing is very quirky and whatsmore everybody wears the same thing.

The day before my hike I had to return to the local hospital for a checkup. This was quite amusing, and took a long time, as nobody appeared to have heard of a Dr Moreno. So, I spent all morning wandering around the hospital, and being sent left, right and centre by the administration. Finally I was led by who I think was a patient to the influenza department, where it turned out there certainly was a Dr Moreno, the new American doctor whom nobody seemed to know just yet. I was prescribed some more cough medicine, which I have hardly taken, and sent back to my hostel with a white mask which cost 50 centimos. I looked like a paranoid gringo, walking around wearing that thing.

The next day I embarked on the Santa Cruz trek, in the Cordilleras Blancas. I would like to say that it was an adventure as worthy of a book/film as Touching the Void, but it was only four days, and didn´t require any picks or crampons. Nevertheless, parts of it were quite tough. It was around 45km, and up to 7 hours walking each day. Words can´t describe the enormity or beauty of the mountains and surrounding valleys. We climbed up steep boulders, scrambled across stony paths, meeting many a burro (donkey) along the way, either lazily grazing in the bushes, or carrying camping gear and followed by a gaucho (Peruvian cowboy), hissing to encourage the animals to continue along. Sometimes the dear things looked as though their legs would not budge another inch, and I felt quite empathetic towards them when I saw them standing forlornly at the bottom of a steep rise.

When I finally reached the pass, which at one point was such a small speck in the distance it seemed impossible that we would ever get there, I collapsed on my bag and slept. The altitude, almost 4,500m, was getting to me and recovering from the flu wasn´t helping either. When I finally woke, I peered over a large rock and saw the most incredible snow-capped mountain, that rose above a sparkling deep lagoon. To think that I was so tired I couldn´t even lift my head to witness such a miraculous sight. After that, the walk consisted of a dramatic decline, which had a phenomenal positive psychological effect on me. I felt better almost straight away.

The things that will remain in my mind from Santa Cruz are primarily the heaving, towering mountains, glistening white and pink, the yellow wild flowers that stood out, albeit humbly, against an intense deep blue sky, and the rounded, spiky cacti that seem to characterise the Peruvian bush. The water made me thirty whenever I looked at it. During the last stretch of the walk, we stopped at a running stream to wash our faces. Water, sparkling, gushing, clear, cool, lifegiving, water. There is so many ways to describe it, and all those words rushed through my head as my body and hands (and armpits!) embraced the cold stream. No wonder so many people have tried to write about the awe that they feel when they have gone without water for some time, and then come across a clean, golden, bubbling stream.

Meredith and I went out for a very rewarding Peruvian beer and dinner when we got back, in the popular gringo quarter of town. The next day we went to the hot springs at Monderry. We soaked our bodies in brown, hot, sulphuric acid, got rather sunburnt, and had lunch with another person from our trekking group, Elan. After lunch, we walked into the village and got ourselves chocolate icecreams, which we ate in a deserted soccer field, next to a hospital.

Goodbye Huaraz. I hope I will see you again...

The road to Huaraz

So, here is my blog, which I have to say is not quite the same thing as scribbling pensively into my diary on a roof-top terrace, sipping mate tea, with the occasional glance up at the pink snow-capped mountains and a satisfied, inward sigh. Rather, the glare of the computer screen and HTML editing options make blogging somewhat unromantic, but at least it is a record (albeit sketchy) of my goings-on in this wonderful vast continent that I´m happy for anyone to read, and confirmation to the family that I´m still alive and heading in the general direction that I´m supposed to be.

(And excuse any poor spelling - any attempt to squeeze an extra item into my already bulging backpack, such as an English dictionary, would mean the bag exploding every time it is opened...but I´m sure no-one cares about spelling that much other than my dear Mum!)

Admittedly,I have not done a great deal since I arrived here in Peru. In a nutshell (and my blogs will probably end up being nutty-shellish given I have exhausted myself already writing the same account of things a number of times in emails and in my diary...but we´ll see if the words flow or not...how much I want to be exploring outside!!) the most interesting things that have happened thus far is:

Stuff it. I´m going off to explore.

Watch this space, though. Things just might appear there.

I will tell you all about the scary, scary road to Huaraz where the mountains just about swallow you up, my experience in the local hospital, and how I nearly bought a puppy, all in due course :)

Hasta luego!