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