Ferdinand y Gabriel (Ernesto y Alberto)

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I left La Paz on Saturday morning. It was partly the expense, the pollution,
and the overall big-cityness of it all.
But also - Izzy had flown out on Thursday, and after watching her plane leave,
standing alone in the drizzle, the prospect of being alone in a city seemed
more and more lonely by the minute.
By Friday, I was ready to get out. The Chilean consulate, true to bureaucratic
form, was having me wait until Monday to come in to talk again (hours: 8h30 to
12h30), so the only question then was - where to go? I walked round town
getting the various thing I needed for my adventure. Actually, ´various things´
just meant a tent and honey. A lot of things can go wrong in the bolivian
wilderness, but if you have a warm tent to eat honey in, then no hay problemas,
muchacho.
On the way through, from Peru to Bolivia, we had a 5-minute vista of the lake
Titicaca (don´t laugh, they think the name´s sacred … although the Bolivians
like to say they got the Titi and Peru the Caca). That was enough to make me
want to go back …
Saturday morning, after an animated breakfast converstation with five atheist
Frenchman and one very determined (but very drunk) young bolivian about the
precept of Carnaval, I meandered up to the cemetery, where Hey Presto! A bus
was just pulling out for Copacabana!
I had a choice - let it go or jump on. Why would I let it go? Because
buses here don´t leave until they´ve crammed more people in than clowns into a
phone-booth, is why.
On the other hand, since the don´t leave until they´re full, departure time
could be 5 min or 3 hours (though always promised to be ahorita).

I flagged down the bus. Of course, when I got on, there was no space … I went
back up to the front and steadied myself for a long ride …
¿Why aren´t you sitting down? Asked the fare-collector.
- No space.
- ¡Si, hay!
- No, no hay.
So he went back and, after stalking up and down the aisle several times,
glancing quickly over his shoulder to make sure the old lady handn´t suddenly
disappeared, he grudgingly admitted that, in fact, there might not be any
asientos.
So I got put up in the cockpit, the big chair next to the driver, with lots of
leg-room. Cool, you say. Well, yes, in a country where people have at least
heard of seat-belts. There simply are none in Bolivia. I think the taxi-drivers
actually remove them from their Japanese imports, as if the cinturón was such
an affront to their masculinity that the sight of it is insult enough.
Anyways, this, coupled with the fact that the guy drove like a rookie scout ant
who just found a dead hippopotamus, and me having to pee, made the 4 hours to
Copacabana slightly less comfortable than they could have been. So, like an
ostrich in an uncomfortable situation, I put my head in the sand and fell
asleep.

I woke up, being poked by an old lady, to discover that we had come to a
strait, and that we (the passengers) were to be ferried across on little boats,
and the bus on a barge - which I thought sort of silly until I remembered that
3 of 4 stories from the third-world are about ferry disasters. Hm, maybe not so
silly. On the boat, I discovered that somewhere along the way a young American
had hopped on. Kevin, from Montana, was a river-guide in Alaska and travelling
south America, volunteering and studying Spanish. Apparently, you´re not
allowed to leave Montana unless you´re really cool. Because I´ve only ever met
cool people from Montana.

Anyways, we hung out until Copacabana (oddly enough, now that I think on it,
speaking Spanish the whole time. We were sitting on the beach, eating lunch,
when we became aware of a hub-bub going on behind us. Two guys about our age
were talking loudly with a boat captain. Finally, one of them threw his hands
up, sputtered something, and then spotted us, and came over to tell us about
his woes. Apparently, he had just found out that the last cheap boat to the
Isla del Sol had left at 13h30, and, having slept in till 13h45, couldn´t
understand why there wasn´t a boat for lazy Argentinean backpackers.
ENTER: Ferdinand.
I told him what I was doing - walking the three or s hours out to the
peninsula, and hopefully hire a fishing-boat to take me to the Isla the next
morning.
He thought that was a fantastic idea, except for the walking part, and he went
back to discuss the new option with his pal. He came back and announced that
they would go with me.
So, my new travelling companions were Gabriel and Ferdinand, two design
students from Buenos Aires, backpacking round argentina and Bolivia for their
summer break.
Aside from that, they were the to-the-DNA exact copies of Ernesto ´Che´ Guevara
and his travelling companion Alberto. I swear (if you haven´t seen Motorcycle
Diaries, go do so now. It´s beautiful). Ferdinand, was tall, dashing, and
pensive, with a month´s worth of patchy black curly beard. Gabriel was shorter,
pudgy, very dramatic, and hit on everything vaguely female within 50m.
However, instead of travelling round, getting to know the country and the
people and the American-ness of it all, they were attempting, it seemed, to
become acquainted with as many, and as much, drugs as they could get ahold of.
Which, if I had my pick between radical, bloody revolutionaries, and blissful
sailors on a yellow submarine for road buddies, it wouldn´t be a hard choice.
These guys were great.
We set off through town, Gabriel immediately falling behind, wheezing.

Two minutes later we were sitting in a park, me watching them chow down the
bread I´d just bought. They were, like Ernesto and Alberto, first-class
moochers. The big aluminium casserole I was helping to carry was a big ruse -
Buddhist monks could´ve learned something from these guys.
Anyways, we set off again after an hour or so. By now it was four. I would have
been walking for two hours already, but I was enjoying their company, and had
nowhere particularily special to be.
The road out of Copa ran along the lake, with flowering potato fields, adobe
cottages with red-tile roofs, and green, terraced hill-sides on the right, and
the vast, ethereal, other-wordly expanse of the lake to the left. It looked
like at some point the horizon had been chopped off - the clouds beyond the
lake were actually lower than the lake itself - making you believe, as the Inca
did, that this really was the Beginning of the World … or the End.
Ferdinand and I quickly put distance on poor Gabriel, who was trudging along
under his pack (mochila), hanging his arms and his head. Every 15 minutes or
so, we´d stop and wait, and Gabriel would come puffing up, throw down his
mochila, and, gasping, light up one of those evil black miner cigarettes.
Women with enourmous mantas on their backs would pass by, very subtley, but
very unmistakeably smirking. This put poor Gabriel into a tough situation: his
instinct was to flirt with them, but they were also challenging his argentine-
bred machismo!

We went on like this for a while, Ferdinand and Gabriel trying to flag down
every vehicle, and cursing wildly after it when it didn´t stop.
As we were climbing a hill, Gabriel yelled out, and collapsed against the
embankment. Rest! A little! Please … and a little group of girls came sprinting
up the rod, examined him for a second, and, giggling, sprinted on (I realize
this is a scene from the movie, but remember, I was practically on the set).

Finally, as dusk was descending, they flagged down a pickup. We all did a top-
heavy belly flop into the bed, and then it took off, bouncing us round like
kids in a bouncy-castle.
Up, through a eucalyptus grove, through two streams, and to the ridge above the
town that was … halfway. We jumped off, thanked the driver, discovered he
wanted to be paid, cursed the driver in our best Argentinean, paid the 2 bs,
and started down the track to the village. We were joined by Esteban, an Aymara
Indian who was also on the pickup, and going back to his village. We talked as
we walked: apparently, Aymara and Quechua very closely resemble Japanese, and
the knot system the Inca used for writing, the symbolic characters of Japanese …
We came to his village. I noticed a latrine with CARE-USA on it (CARE being the
NGO Izzy worked with in Ayacucho … among other things, quite a controversial
organization, often accused of being corrupt and having ineffective programs).
But here, apparently, they worked well - they provided the materials, and the
people in the village built a cistern for potable water and a clean latrine for
each house. Kewl.

Eyeing Gabriel, who was alternating between boiling red and emmental-white, he
said that another 10 minutes´ walk would bring us to La Casa de José, who could
take us to the island in a rowboat for about 40 Bs.
They whooped, and we set off for the house. We slid down the path, tripping and
cursing because now it was completely dark, and came up to the house. Ferdinand
clapped twice, sharply (Yes! Just like in the movie!), and a little girl
materialized out of the gloom. She stared, then whipped round and disappeared
just as quickly. A little later, José himself came out, followed by what
appeared to be his extended family, who gathered on the porch to spectate.
For the next 10 minutes or so, the boys argued with him about price - Esteban
said 40; Yes, but it´s dark and going to storm; I don´t care; There are fish-
traps and we must go slowly so fare is more; You´re just cheating us; etc,
while I stood back and watched the fun, oohing and aahing along with the family
on the porch with each verbal parry and thrust…
Ferdinand and Gabriel then started arguing between themselves (I think. I could
never tell the difference between regular talking), and moved off up the path …
I thanked Jose, and ran after them.
A little ways down the road, Ferdinand and Gabriel still squabbling, we came up
to a road-crew and a few trucks who were just finishing up their day. There was
a problem with the tractor, so I lent them my head-lamp, and while a few guys
alternated between trying to fix the tractor and oogling at my head-lamp, we
rested (#87 for the day), and talked with the workers. It was slow going, they
said. The road was poor, there weren´t many materials, and a lot of trucks fell
off the cliffs.
Then they offered us a ride. How could we refuse?

A little ways up the road, we stopped once ... two guys from the bed jumped down to help a fellow crew-member from the cab. We were in front of a little adobe house perched on the hillside. A woman, with a bowler hat, swathed in thick clothes, came out inquiringly, holding a little candle. When her husband came round the back of the truck on the arms of the two guys, stumbling on his hurt leg, she put a hand to her mouth didn´t say anything. She only put her arm under him and the two men turned round and came back to the truck. As we bounced away round the corner, I could just make out, through the dust and night and candle-light, the two figures, leaning against each other, pulling themselves up the ladder.
It was a half-hour or so in the truck, standing in the sand that filled the
bed, talking lazily with the crew before we finally got to our town, Yampupata.
Coming down into town, we could see the lake, with its silver moon-sheen, and
three or four different parts of the sky flickering with lightening … but at
that point it was more a big signal to hurry the hell up and pitch camp rather
than gush lyrically about the wonderful power and beauty of Nature.
We hopped off the truck, hasta luego, and walked wearily into Yampupata (me
because I was feeling a sore throat and dehydration - thanks to the boys´
fantastic appetite for me water supply, now gone).
We passed by an old woman walking with her head down, and said Buenas noches,
maestra. She started to reply, realized it was tourists, and then spun on her
heel and went shuffling back down the road, surprisingly quickly, and into a
dark little house, screeching something in Aymara. Apparently, the little boy
whose hostal it was was asleep, because we were almost past the door when he
came skidding out in front of us and demanded to know if we wanted to stay in
his hostal.
Much to his disappointment, we apologized and passed on - him completely
bewildered as to why gringos with plata wouldn´t want to stay in a bed if they
had the choice. A clatter of rocks on the left and two guys jumped in front of
us with the same question. They weren´t too disappointed with us though, and
when the boys started talking fútbol, they became downright friendly and showed
us to the soccer pitch where we could camp.
For the next hour, as the storm-clouds came closer, I tried to pitch my tent in
the dark. I had never used this tent before, and Ferdi and Gabi´s insistence on
putting theirs right next to mine, made the process somewhat slower.
But, we got the tents up, even as the first rain-drops started to fall.

Alright … time for food! I thought. It was past eight, and all I´d had all day
was peanut-butter and banana sandwiches. However, I was completely reliant on
the boys, as they´d eaten most of my bread and I´d passed out the last of my
bananas to the guys on the truck.
However, having been through a long, stressful, and very tiring day, Ferdinand
and Gabriel were not about to start anything that vaguely resembled effort.
Pooh! The very idea!
Instead, they laid back, and, meticulously and methodically, did what they knew
best - got stoned to the bone-marrow.
We all hung out in their tent, the rain pouring on our little hot-box, and
talked, me doing my best not to breathe into my sore throat at 4,000m. After
two hours, three joints, and the ubiquitous Bush-bashing rant, they finally
decided (after tearing through the last of my raisins) that maybe something
should be done about food. It turned out they actually had plenty of food -
pasta.
So we grabbed empty water-bottles and walked around the wall and down to the
lake, where I filled up one bottle, and Gabriel, teetering and giggling on the
edge of the stone pier, attempted to fill his, with Ferdinand bellowing
instructions. After he had nearly fallen in three times, and gotten his legs
soaked by the waves, we wandered back to the tents, and poured our bottles into
the casserole. Sweet… However, to Gabriel and Ferdinand, it was not
satisfactory. Apparently, if the pot wasn´t filled to the brim, it could not
properly cook the pasta. I pointed out that all we needed was enough to cover
the pasta, and that we already had enough water to feed the whole village (this
was a big casserole), but half-heartedly, because you just don´t tell an
Argentinean how to cook his pasta…
So they hurled the pot out the flap, and then it occurred to them that if they
just left it out there, then the rain would fill it up, and they wouldn´t even
have to go back down to the lake! This, of course, was based on the assumption
that the pot had landed upright, but - it was their gig. I demurred.
Another hour. It hadn´t been raining for a while, a detail the boys didn´t seem
to be too concerned about. Eventually, Ferdi´s munchies overcame his desire to
remain semi-comatose, and he crawled out of the tent to check on the statues of
el casserole. His cries of dismay and curses indicated that there was even less
water (¿How? How?) than from the bottles! So, we steeled ourselves for another
100m trip down to the lake, after Ferdi had a cigarette to calm himself, of
course.
This time we just brought down the whole pot.
Back in the tent (yes, inside the nylon, flammable tent), I watched the pot
balancing precariously on the camping-stove. I was no pasta expert, but a
little bit of water takes a long time to boil in Colorado (1,500m), and judging
by how high the moon was since we´d first gotten there, it looked more probable
that we were going to have breakfast noodles than dinner. Hey, you know Latin
cultures, though … sophistication is based on how late you eat.
More floating, distracted talk, the THC-brewed soap bubble of conversation that
shifts topics like a locomotive shifts tracks: noisily, jarringly abruptly, but
once you´re shunted down the new track, smoothly bouncing along, you forget you
even changed …
At some point in the night, the water (tempered with less-than-virgin olive
oil, salt, and algae), boiled.
I take back every snide or sarcastic comment I had about Ferdinand and Gabriel.
That was some of the best pasta, Italian restaurants included, that I have ever
had. Even my Sisyphean attempt at vegetarianism melted away like the grease
from the hot-dog bits…
I shared some Belgian chocolate, and then crawled contentedly to my tent and
fell asleep, visions of warm noodles cavorting through my dreams…

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Photos

Fools on the Fruit Truck
Hour 4 into the ride, with our creepy teenager in the background...