The Return

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The boarder from Argentina to Bolivia was a bridge between two worlds. Argentina - a beautiful country with an European style and standard of living. Bolivia - a poor country, wild and unkept. Now boarder towns are never a good representation for a country, but this time it was bit extreme. Night had already fallen and I had someone guide me through the slums between the bus station and the boarder. When I was to pay him he demanded I pay more and he tried to rip more money out of my hand than I owed. The immigration officer said to be careful and to not trust anyone outside this office. The neon lit street was cramp and filled with vapor from the food stands. Beedy eyes and loiterers all around and taxi drivers who you couldn´t even trust a pen to. Man, I love places like this. Way more interesting than some boring, uneventful crossing. My guess is it´s the sketchiest boarder I´ve ever seen.

The goal from then on was to hurry back up to La Paz. Along the way I hit all the major cities- Santa Cruz, Sucre, Oruro. I arrived in Sucre early one morning and as I was walking along a cute little street I noticed a woman selling long leaves of palm. She would cut, fold and pin them into crosses and flowers. As I continued I saw more and more ladies making the same and even more intricate creations. Putting the pieces together I figured it was good old Palm Sunday. Every church in town was swarmed by a mob of people and their palm creations. We all went inside and proceeded through the other entrance. Outside there were priests and other helpers chucking holy water at the crowd. I didn´t see any church services- just the water fight.

Back in La Paz, I inquired about entering San Pedro prison. As you may remember, there was a lot of media stir-up of the illegal tours of the prison. Well, after I left this blew-up into something much bigger. The problem was cover to such an extent that the warden and some other high officials lost their job over it. The new administrators brought in harsher regulations for entering the prison. The new regulations made it difficult for the families of the criminals to enter. Riots broke out in the prison in response and now it´s quite difficult to get into the prison if at all. Oh well, there's always a coup to destroy and reconstruct all the rules in Bolivia. Give it another 6 months.

Shooting across back to Peru, I had to restock on warmer gear. Puno was bloody cold and rainy so I got some snazzy new hats and gloves. Heading farther north I landed in the most famous tourist destination in all of South America -- Cuzco! This was the the ancient capital of the Inca Empire. Now it is a haven for tourists and school groups. The city itself is gorgeous and iconic. It's a labyrinth of narrow paths lined with Inca ingenuity and merchants. There are some traditionally dressed woman, but they only want to sit there with their llama to get paid for a photo. Normally I have a distaste for tourist infested areas, but there was another face of Cuzco that held interest. There was a back-alley bohemian music and malt wine scene that was lively.

Cuzco was filled with animation for Easter that weekend. It's a bit different than Easter back home. Firstly, they chuck a bunch of processions and parades during the weekend. The have the traditional boring one where they have the local cardinal and huge plastic recreations of Biblical figures marched to every church in town. They even had a very bloodied version of Jesus in a glass coffin to remind you that he might represent the holiday a bit better than a giant bunny. However, I'm sure the true meaning of Easter came out when the second parade came. Hundreds and hundreds participated in an outrageous display of displaydom. It's like the town raided the costume department at some film studio and brought it to the party. They would have 50 guys lined up in nickers and old fashioned clothes with the mask of a drunkard as they stumble around drunk and drinking beer. Another, more traditional maybe, group were in old indian tunics and would whip each other has hard as they can with long cords of rope and formed it into a dance. The next group would be a bunch of pink cowboys and cowgirls dancing together. Another group threw fireworks. The last group could truly confuse any man not totally sober. In huge force they came dressed as ancient chinese mythical warriors, giant monsters (adults and kids as well), fairies, kings, pimps, winged demons and as Predators. I've studied lots about religion, but I never realized how different Catholicism was. Despite the lack of egg hunt, it was still a fine Easter.

Sick of the cold mountain air, I left for the coast. Back to Lima. Only a 23 hour bus ride from Cuzco to Lima. Ain't nuttin. I was headed up to a part of Lima called Callao to meet a friend. Callao is known as the dangerous part of Lima, not because they mug you but because they mug you with guns rather than knifes. It was getting dark when we pulled into Callao on the public bus. I had been riding it for a long time and I hadn't recognized the area. Figuring I had gone too far (my first hint was I was the only person on the bus) I asked the bus driver if we were close. Of course, we had missed it but he said he can take me there on the way back. Just at that moment I saw on the side of the road a man and woman wrestling on the ground. And they were hitting each other back and forth and fighting over the woman's bag. And damn she was fighting tooth and nail. The bus driver noticed the scuffle and said, which could only be translated as, "Ah hell no!" He ripped the steering wheel to the right and guns right for the mugger. Started, the mugger starts running across the street to get away. The driver downshifts and kept his foot to the floor intent on doing damage. At the very last second the mugger jumped the medium and the bus driver had to let off. Maybe next time.

Heading north, I checked out some of the beaches in the upper spine of Peru. Not wasting much time being lazy I decided to see what the story was all about in Ecuador. After making the bus wait for me for half an hour, we finally kicked off towards Guayaquil. I was exhausted from traveling so hard and my mind was not in the right place. You can only get so much sleep on an overnight bus. The bus landed in one stop early in the morning, maybe 5ish, and I got off to use the bathroom. When I went back to the bus it was gone. With all my stuff. No securely stowed below, but above where anyone can touch it. Shit. The understanding that I lost everything I owned didn't really reach my cerebral cortex. Mechanically, I went to the bus counter to tell them not to steal my stuff. To my relief and stupidity we had actually reached out destination, I just didn't realize it. And better yet, the bus is going to stick around. So they gave me directions to where the little bus hub was that it would stay. What should have been a five minute walk turned into a two hour goose chase in a dangerous town at five o'clock in the morning. Everyone I asked pointed me in another direction. When I finally got to the hub station by chasing down passing busses, I found out that my bus never came there. Went back to the terminal and I searched on all the different docking spots for my bus. No luck. Finally, I run back to the office to say their bus never showed. "Wait, was your bus one floor or two? Oh, only one? Why yes, the bus is here right behind the office. You should have said!" The desire to kill without mercy was surprisingly absent. Found the bus and woke up the driver sleeping on it to get all my stuff which was all delightfully in tact. Close one.

Spent a week chasing the coast and hiking up to Quito, the capital. One time I accidently dove into the Northern Hemisphere for a few days. Maybe it was some sort of sub-conscious desire that needed to be fulfilled by returning to magnetic north. Or an accident. Ecuadorian Spanish more closely resembles that of Central America. Some of the same phrases and harsh slang to it. The highlight of Ecuador was the elections they just had. They had huge political rallies and parties. Big demonstrations and armed police with itchy tear-gas trigger fingers. Was really hoping just one fool would inspire the police to move on that finger but no luck. Some were very passionate about their political party (whichever out of 16 different parties). Others knew that it would all be the same to them. I think that latter took to it the right way.

Landing back in Peru a week later, I began traveling with two guys - one from France and the other from Hungary. Made for an interesting team. We coasted our way south towards Lima, stopping every now and then to see local ruins. The old buildings we saw were all pre-Inca and phenomenal. The Moon Temple, just outside Trujillo, was massive. It was five temples built on top of each other to form a huge pyramid. The ancient civilization would occasionally sacrifice human blood to remedy the weather. No regular wuss could be a meteorologist back in the day.

Back in Lima I got work in a hostel as a bartender for a few weeks while I get set for the next part of the adventure. More to come so hold on for more stories!

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