Inkalandia

From Peru, July 24, 2002
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)

Hello all! its been a while i know, i`ve been settling into my new temporary life here in cusco, peru. working as for a river rafting company. the apurimac river. beautiful and technical it is nestled in a deep canyon outside of cusco. i am a trainee to be a river rafting guide. i`m doing it for the life more than anything. for me it is the perfect combination of work, fun, adrenaline and tranquility. i get up early in the morning, jump in the back of a truck and try to sleep for the five hour twisting turning ride to the river. i set up the gear with the other guides and wait for the passengers. we cruise down the river for four days at a time through amazing rapids and a gorgeuous canyon. i assist in setting up camp and the cooking. i ride along in the cargo raft or in an inflatable kayak. i am responible for the photography and videography of the group. there is nothing like sleeping on the beach under the stars listening to the water flow by.

after four days we return and party until the wee hours of the morning. recover a day, some laundry and out again. i`ve been abandoned by all my travelling friends and now find myself immersed in spanish culture. my friends, guides and other aquaintances, compliment me on my spanish. i don`t agree. it`s quite crude and i rarely use a tense other than the present. perhaps they are confusing it with my body language which i use whenever i need to get my point across.

so that is my life, but not my most recent adventures. i just returned last night from the inca trail. or incalandia as i like to call it. to those who are unfamiliar, the inca trail is a pilgrimage route through the region of cusco past several significant ruins to the famous and formerly sacred city of machu picchu. it is a four day trek covering 42 kilometers of strenuous terrain.

and lots of gringos and restrictions (thus the amusement park name i`ve given it... Inkalandia) i would never do a trek back home with this many paople on it. in fact the only thing i appreciated about all the people on the trail was passing them.

it was my first trekking experience using porters. i was rather stubborn. i insisted on using my own tent, carrying and setting it up myself. it just doesn`t seem right otherwise. i also brought extra food, i didn`t have faith in what they might bring and prepare (although it was alright). in the end i ended up having a pack as heavy as the porters. i think it was a matter of pride for me. i still am disgusted by the people i saw carrying nothing more than a light daypack and having hot tea delivered to their tents in the morning.

somewhere along the line i was joking with the porter. we agreed to change roles on the second half of the third day. i would take his potato sack of food and other camp essentials and run ahead of everyone else to the camp while he strolled behind with my backpack and ate candies, sipped water and chatted with my friends. so i stormed ahead. damn was i good. i was passing other dumbfounded porters left and right. i got to a campsite after about 20 minutes when it takes the gringoes normally one and a half to two hours. i joked and talked to some porters from another group. they didn`t know about my campsite but say there was another one further down the trail. okay, so i set off again. going like crazy, but now the terrain had changed. i descended hundreds and hundreds of ancient incan stairs (which means they were stone, large and very inconsistent). after almost an hour of (practically) running downhill descending more than 600 meters from the previous campsite the porter i traded places with caught up with me. the problem was no one told me when to stop. i almost died (sorry mom), i nearly cried... if only i had the energy to do either. we were in fact camp at the campsite now a distant peak 600 meters in altitude above my head. so i crawled back. if only i could describe how evil these stairs were. on top of that i had to explain to each and every tourist and porter why i was going the wrong way.

finally, two plus hours later i rearrived to camp. everyone seemed to think it was funny. my legs didn`t.

we passed out that night around 8pm. woke at 2am and starting hiking again at 3am. to see the sunrise over machu picchu. i`m still not sure it was worth it. or that i appreciated the famous ruins as much as i did a hot shower and warm bed when i returned that night.

tomorrow i go rafting again. this is my life...

love to all....

j

all too vivid...

From Peru, June 30, 2002
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)

it seems like its been two lifetimes since i`ve gotten around to emailing. all due a lack of energy and a clear state of mind.....

since i left you all last i had run away to the jungles of bolivia where i was all too often engaged in copious amounts of sweat, swatting countless species of bugs, pushing untold types of plants out of my path and constantly wiping spiderwebs from my face. then there was also the camping in the middle of nowhere, chasing a pack of wild boars, drinking the untreated, rusty jungle water, fishing, and spotting a puma, and handling a machete with reckless abandon.

afterwards i returned to la paz, and all to quickly had to run again (i wasn`t even close to ready to leave bolivia). this time to meet my friend in lima, peru. first a stop-off in cusco for a couple days, waiting out protests. met six travelling middle-aged encyclopedia salesmen from lima and got in with them. they called me `the bridge` to the gringas for them. all too vivid...

then off to lima to meet jeff the buttaman marlow. for all those who don`t know a close friend and teammate from university. accountant by day, rapper by night. it was his first time out of the country so i had to give him mad props!

we had crazy times in lima meeting lots of amiable locals and rarely returning to our hotel before the sun awoke. we saw quite a few parts of the city, but more insides of discotecas than anything. lima gave butta some time to adjust and get in his last bites of fast food before heading to cusco.

all told we spent a week and a half in cusco. not a night we didn`t party! butta got to meet some of the mates i`ve been travelling with. we went on a four day rafting trip through class four and five rapids (for those who don`t know...big ones!) the trip ended up being a bit of a catastrophe as three guides ended up getting injured (with butta and i acting as medics) and the equipment raft getting stuck on a rock and absolutely flooded. it was great nonetheless.

after rafting we returned for the inti raymi, the incan sun festival. quite interesting. hung out with some local friends here for the festival and they introduced us to a delicacy of theirs...the cui. supposedly its a guinea pig (but it looks more like a rat) which they pluck (most of) the fur from, pierce with a stick from mouth to anus and roast. doesn`t quite taste like chicken. parts of it kinda (and i use this word in the loosest sense of the term) taste like prosciutto. but the organs really disturbed me. i held it all down though...

today butta left though and i am solo again. he saw the machu picchu and we spent a day traversing the sacred valley and all the markets and ruins around its little pueblos. i think he really enjoyed it and it must have opened his eyes quite a bit to the world around us.

me, growing tired of constantly being on the move, i have decided to stay here in cusco a while. i got a job as a trainee to become a river rafting guide which means i`ll be an unpaid slave riding the rapids by day and sleeping under the stars on river side beaches at least a few days a week. i will find an apartment and maybe work at a discoteca bartending a few long nights a week making up to ten dollars a night! it shall be nice to settle down a while (but i have absolutely no idea how long... a month? six months?).

so if anyone is in need of a vacation, you know where i am. all the best to you all, drop me a line when you can. all my love,

j

Why do i do this?... a partial reply to Charlie et al.

From Bolivia, May 31, 2002
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)

here i am lost in south america, postponing a career, spending every last dollar i have. and i pay good money to climb a kilometer through sketchy mine shafts inhaling asbestos and arsenic, fall off running horses, contract strange singlecelled organisms by eating from food stalls in the streets, climb breathlessly impossible mountains obtaining altitude sickness, etc. i mean this is travel, but also vacation, no? i do this crazy? stupid? pointless? stuff by choice. i know mom, i should just be sitting on a beach sipping piña coladas. but this is south america. and its just what you do when you`re here. thats all i can say to explain it. its really that simple. who knows, maybe it me, but i`m not the only one...

that being said i rented a mountain bike yesterday (some homemade, mix-matched ressemblance to a bike at least) and rode down `death road` the acclaimed most dangerous road in the world. it drops 3400 meters in altitude over a winding, rarely paved 80 km stretch. the road hugs a mountainside the entire way with sheer drops often in the hundreds of meters. you start at over 4700 meters outside of la paz. its cold and above the clouds. the first two hours are paved. you descend as fast as your libido is big through the clouds, seeing only the hill to your left side and the road in front of you for maybe 25 meters. still you try to use the brakes as little as possible. its all about the adrenalin. you clear the clouds and it starts to warm up.

after 2 hours the fun really begins. the road is no longer paved. the final thrre hours you have to stay on the left side, the cliff side, of the road as all the trucks and buses coming uphill hug the hill side. the road is rocky, sometimes bumpy and dusty. traffic (mostly big trucks and buses) doesn`t seem to care about anyone else on the road.

so you fly down this road trying to use the brakes as little as possible (or at least i did) zooming along at speeds of up to 60km/hr one meter from the edge of this huge unrelenting cliff on a road often not wider than 3 meters. it curves a lot. trucks come from both directions. dust trails following them blind you. waterfalls and streams drenching the road and you as you pass.

on average 20 vehicles fall off per year. certain death. an israeli girl on a bicycle just fell off over a month ago. frank an older veternarian from jersey fell off his bike (but not the cliff) five times. he didn`t know how to work the brakes. i tried telling him.

and you don`t even have to sign a liability waiver or release form! i love bolivia!

but i arrived 3400 meters lower in coroico. semi-tropical. the air is thicker and i feel healthy. banana trees and passionfruit vines grow everywhere. they also grow coffee and coca here (although the coffee i`m drinking now is from powder, go figure...). its so quiet. and lush.

off to tackle a nice 700 page novel...

the best of the best to all...

j

Gran Poder

From Bolivia, May 28, 2002
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)

recovered a bit from the mountain, and reinjured a bit from the nightlife... regardless it was Gran Poder in La Paz! it is the biggest festival in Bolivia, although i`m not too sure about the meaning of the festival, i`ve figured what its all about. it`s really rather hard to avoid. a 20+ hour parade through the streets of the city, 20,000 dancers and marching band members storming through the city in outrageous costumes and masks. 50 entrant groups in the parade each with different dances, costumes and music, each symbolizing something different and usually pagan. confetti, cerveza, singani, wandering food vendors, mischievous children, winking women and fraternal drunks. i`ve never seen anything quite like it....

scanning some photos now...

happy memorial day all my fellow yanks...

j

masochistic tendencies

From Bolivia, May 27, 2002
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)

Huayna Potosi. 6088 meters. i`m still not quite sure what compelled me to climb to the top of it. it was gilad`s idea. at the time it sounded good. so we found a guide, rented the necessary equipment and set off thursday morning in a taxi cab an hour out of la paz to the base of this snow covered peak.

three hours of hiking up and aroundrocky mounds created by this brown glacier ominiously looking over us. we make base camp. not much of a camp, just the leeward side of a rocky hill where someone had vaguely arranged the flat stones well enough to pitch a tent on. so we did. and cooked dinner. no campfire stories for us though, nope, we would go to sleep at the bitter coldness (at least -5 C) of nightfall. why you say? so we could get up at midnight and started climbing of course!

i don`t know how they convinced me to do this nor, do i believe i was actually convinced to get out of my warm sleeping bag, but we did. gearing up... the long underwear, the snowpants, the fleeces, the windbreakers, multiple socks, hard plastic climbing boots, crampons, hats, mittens, headlamps, harnesses, climbing ropes, and ice axes. at least we felt tough with all this gear. until we started hiking...

let me tell you how thin the air is. you get out of breath just trying to lace your boots with your frozen hands. altitude sickness is a serious concern here. and life threatening too as i had read from arik`s paranoia striking information his sister, a med student, had just emailed him. i tried not to think of it.

so we set off over the permanent snow cover under a nearly full moon. luckily we had the light of the moon and a guide that had done this at least a few times, as the batteries in our headlamps were soon too frozen to function. it was absolutely stunning too!

roped in to each other and the guide we looked like a pack of mules huffing it to the market. each step brought us about 20 centimeters closer to the summit and indescribably out of breath, and our guide rarely let us stop; any time we would it was just more painfull and discouraging to started up again.

we rounded beautiful glacial formations, and mysterious icy holes that led down somewhere you could even imagine. the twinkling lights of el alto, a suburb above la paz, stood out like a twinkling diamond bracelet. i saw four shooting stars. we then headed into a moonshadow, where there was no light on the snow. i started seeing shooting stars on the surface of the snow. not sure if hallucinations are a symptom of altitude sickness, but i knew everything couldn`t be alright doing what i was doing.

finally at quarter to five we reach the final stretch before the summit. unfortunately it is a wall of ice 250 meters high and just a couple degrees off of being dead vertical. our guide goes first and we follow hammering our axes into the ice, kicking our cramponed toes into the wall for grip, pulling and pushing our weight up the wall, minding the ropes and the bits of ice falling from above.

after the longest hour of our lives, we make it to the summit for sunrise. toes and hands absolutely frozen, completely out of breath we made it! the summit has a surface area of about 25 square meters with sheer drops in every direction. i`ll stay seated thank you very much. but the sun comes and with it all its amazing colors. we see the city by light, the course we just traversed, lake titicaca in the distance and banks of clouds blanketing the yungas. 6088 meters, by far the highest i`ve been on land.

yeah, i suppose it was worth it. but it hurt. a lot. got a headache at the summit which i didn`t kick until we were well back into the comforts of la paz. altitude sickness hit us all. and the return was remarkable. to see all we had just endured just a few hours ago in the daylight felt like i had just lived two lives. all up we hiked/climbed 14 of the previous 24 hours.

don`t know why i do this to myself. and i pay good, hard earned money for it too.

siempre loco,

j

hitchhiking, amoebas and mountains...

From Bolivia, May 23, 2002
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)

in la paz, bolivia now....again. did a couple days hitchhiking around the lauca national park in the north of chile. crazy truck drivers and vacationing chilenos mostly, all friendly. high altitudes (over 4000 meters) and lots of llamas and vicuñas (a smaller, wilder more delicate species similar to the llama). stayed in a little pueblo called parinacota with only 6 families, population 22. no heat nor bathrooms and electricity for lights for only a couple hours in the evening. nothing like a windblown outhouse to keep it real...

la paz is a hectic city, reminds me of bangkok. indians trying to sell you anything they can, gangs of masked shoeshiners, hectic streets full of mini-van buses and cars doing all they can to run you over. and of course the wonderous smells in the streets...

i´m staying in a hotel right around the corner from the witches market. anything you could ever want to find for your superstitious ailments is here. powders, herbs, potions. want luck for your new home? no problem, just pick up a dried llama foetus in the market and bury it under your home (don´t worry mom, the foetus is in the mail....). and there´s a peculiar stuffed fox hanging from a telephone pole that i´m not too sure about.

it´s no wonder my stomach has been a bit uneasy. i´ve been walking the streets like a blaoted goon. the more conventional may believe its amoebas, in which case i stopped by a pharmacy and picked up a single pill that´s supposed to take care of the situation. feeling better, but we´ll see. i personally believe the stench of the streets has entered my body and is now trying to find its way out. if its not better by tomorrow i´m headed to the witches market...

probably off tomorrow to hike the grand huayna potosí. two days for the 6088 meter peak (whats that, nearly 20000 feet?) and views of la paz and lake titicaca. then returning to la paz for saturday and the gran poder festival, a pagan event involving costumes, scary masks, dancing in the streets and unknown amounts of local moonshine. somebosy has to do it....



until then,

j

mining...

From Bolivia, May 15, 2002
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)

went to the depths of cerro rico (rich hill) today on a tour of a mine in potosi, bolivia. originally mined by the spanish from the 17th century, later by private companies and today largely by mining cooperatives. this of course means there are countless, unmapped mines intertwined under the mountain.

it was absolutely unreal, the miners work together (supposedly) and have come to form union-like alliances. however ultimately it is all for one, one for all... because these mines are not run by private companies, the miners do it themselves. that means jagged, unmapped passageways, no central lighting or oxygen pumped in. no engineers or geologists. no technology of any sort. everything is manual except for the occasional wince. pick-axes, wheelbarrows, shovels, carts, dynamite.

the miners start as early as eight years old, they age amazingly prematurely and have a life expectancy of 45 (the normal in bolivia is somewhere around 60yo). they work at least eight hours a day, six days a week. they take no breaks, eat no lunches. just cigarettes and coca leaves (for energy and to supress the appetite). they make on average about US$100 a month, if lucky.

the miners consider themselves devout catholics, and believe god to be in the heavens but the devil to be in the earth. therefore they have a respect for the devil and create devil figures in the mines and make sacrifices (cigarettes, alcohol, even sacrifice llamas). quite bizarre.

silver, lead and and zinc are mined here. only about 40% of the potential has been mined, but questions as to how much more can be extracted are arising. the problem is that so many separate entities have been mining the same mountain for over three hundred years, leaving countless mines open. nothing is mapped or regulated. its absolutely mad! their are only two options for the future: continue as normal, ultimately costing many lives as the mountain gets more torn up (supposedly 8 million died in spanish colonial times), or switching to an open cast system whereby you dig out the ore from the surface. but the city has forbidden this as they consider the mountain a symbol of their city, heritage, history. damned if you do, damned if you don`t...

and amidst all this, gringos pay to go into the bowels of the earth, get dirty and covered in asbestos and arsenic and quite literally put our lives at risk! first, however, we stop at the miners`market to buy them small gifts. cigarettes, coca leaves, fuel for lanterns, gloves and even dynamite! yes i bought dynamite today!!! bolivia is a great country! (with help of the guide, an ex-miner we later detonated it outside the mine)

they lead us into the mine, nothing is consistent in its construction and probably less is safe. needless to say i was walking around bent over at the waist for the next three hours, walking through puddles, dodging mining carts, offering cigarettes, scraping through crawl spaces, and climbing makeshift ladders!

it was truly amazing to see. probably some of the worst working conditions in the world. (i think a phillip glass film powanasquatsii or kowanasquatsii or something was based on these miners. can anyone confirm this?) it was enjoyable and interesting to be a part of it for a fews hours, but how nice to see the sunlight again! i can`t even put into words now what an impression it makes on you. so please everyone, stop to appreciate for a moment how good you have it!

now an overnight bus to la paz,

until then...

j

close calls...

From Bolivia, May 12, 2002
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)

I returned last night from three days horseback riding
with gilad and adi through prime butch cassidy and
sundance kid territory (i was butch). i´m completely
sore but my butt held out much better than i expected.

after my 70 cent bolivian haircut, we set out
wednesday morning on horseback. mine was Bambino,
a crazy speckled white male who scratched his head
with his back hoof like a dog (has any one ever seen
this before???) and enjoyed attacking other horses
especially when running full speed. he was crazy,
but most would say we were a perfect match.

anyway we set out through the desert, mouontains,
canyons, rivers and valleys. the colors of the rock
was amazing. you´d look to the left and see mountains
a reddish rust in color turn completely green at their
base. then you´d look right and see these brilliant
tan eroding cliffs.

we pasted through several pueblos, all in adobe, few
with electricity which generally had less than a
hundred inhabitants in each. kids would come screaming
´gringos, gringos!´and only in the biggest villages
did we hear ´hello´and ´good morning teacher´.

finally made it to a little pueblo called Quiriza by
sundown (see i´m even starting to talk like a cowboy),
where we stayed at this with this senora who cooked us
dinner and let us sleep in a guest room.

the second day more riding and complete chaffing. that
night we convinced our guide to saddle up the horses
and take us to a party at the next pueblo. forty
minutes on horseback through the streetlightless,
moonless desert night we followed the music to the
party.

supposedly there are only parties in the month of may
and each village hosts one on a different night. we
arrived, tied up the horses and settled into the group
of about 200 villagers of all ages. needless to say,
we four were the only gringos, and we got quite a few
looks and offers at sips from about everyone´s box of
white ´wine´.

and i came to realize a bolivian party basically
consists of: a live band playing indistinguishable (to
me) music over a too loud bad sound system with a
bunch of young guys bobbing around inconspicously
(later to be rows of couple ´formally´dancing).
needless to say the wine helped, but the glances still
kept coming. we even had some columbian song dedicated
to the visiting gringoes.

the party broke up, a dusty fight started and stumbled
to our horses to arrive back by 3:30.

the next day was largely uneventful (besides the
breathtaking views) except for my incident of crashing
my horse while galloping full speed head-over-heels.
gilad and i had just spoke of one hasn´t ridden a
horse until one has fallen off.

i´m still nursing my shoulder with some indescribable
muscle relaxant i found at the pharmacy in town. i´m
lucky though in a weird sort of way.


and so i´ve composed a list of my CLOSE CALLS to this
point in south america:

-every time i rode my bicycle for the six weeks i was
in buenos aires(not one accident though!)
-car accident in a taxi cab in chile(i walked away)
-eating raw oysters in chile and missing red tide by
one day(got food poisoning though)
-stabbing myself in the hand (with a knife this time
svet, chris and michelle...) almost clean through
(accidentally!)
-crashing with my horse full speed gallopping

off to tarija tonight for some fossil hunting
tomorrow.
until then...
have a great weekend...

j

onward journeys

From Bolivia, May 7, 2002
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)

it`s been quite a while since while since i`ve written
such a group email, but i`m back!!! i`ve been keeping
in touch with a few people, but not nearly everyone i
would like to, so i`ve resurrected the group email.
please do not feel obliged to recipricate (as i
usually don`t when i recieve such emails), but i would
love to hear from you all and will try my best to
reply. sometimes i can go weeks without checking(or
being able to) my email, a concept which is foreign to
me when at home.

but anyway...

as you may know i`ve been in south america for the
past four months. i flew into buenos aires to visit my
friend pato. she showed me the town, some great
nightlife and introducedme to lots of great `porteños`
i now call friends. then there was the tango, cafes,
museums, and a bit of indepedent enthographic study on
the unfortunate social/economical unrest going on
there.

the city was too much though and after six weeks i ran
away to ushuaia, the southernmost town in the
americas. went scuba diving in the beagle channel
(drysuits- 4C, 40F!) and then travelled north through
patagonia stopping in many places in chile and
argentina to trek, for days or weeks at a time.

and how good the meat and he wine is here, its amazing
that i haven`t gained weight(never fear, i`m still the
lanky yankee i`ve always been).

then it was north to santiago, chile where i met up
with some friends, elena and pedro, i met trekking.
saw the town and met up with a couple of crazy
israelis, gilad and saar, whim i also met in
patagonia.

once again the city was great, but i knew my time was
up. headed north with gilad and saar to san pedro in
the atacama desert, the driest in the world. spent a
day sandboarding (imagine snowboarding on sand dunes)
and touring the desert from a town made completely in
adobe, with no banks but a supermarket selling only
bottled water.

then last thursday we hired a guide to cross into
bolivia on a three day tour of the altiplano. we rose
to altitudes consistently over 4000meters (whats that
15,000 feet or so?) the air is so thin up here and you
became short of breath just trying to tie your shoes
(yes, i´m wearing boots these days!).

we past multi-colored mountains, active volcanoes,
lagoons green, white and red in color, and the
largest, highest salt flat in the world(it looks like
you're driving across a huge frozen over lake). we saw
three types of flamingos, a strange creature that
looks like a rabbit but has a long tail, and cactii
12m, 38´ tall.