The Fire Inside

Coast of Venezuela;

December 1992 

Turning and burning in the depths of a dream, the  anxiety and fear is palpable.  My heart races as sweat pours down my face. My shirt is soaked and my whole body aches but I’m shivering at the same time. I’m driving through heavy traffic on a super highway with many lanes.  Where am I going? What is happening?  How come it is so damn hot?  Then I hear horns honking; lots of horns with different incoherent sounds ricochet around inside my head. I see flames in the rear view window.  Holy shit; the truck is on fire. Panic, heavy breathing and a racing heart. I weave through four lanes of traffic dodging speeding vehicles as loud horns honk and honk. I reach the shoulder, slam the brakes and skid to a stop.  I try to get out but my seat belt is stuck.  I pull and yank and pull on the buckle as sweat streams down my face… the gas tank is going to blow.  Finally, the buckle snaps but now the door won’t open. Is it melted shut?  I lie sideways on the hot seat and kick the door with both feet. It busts open and I climbed out.  The gas tank is going to blow so I start to run up the side of the highway. Another truck swerves across the highway in flames. What the fuck?  Balls of fire fall from the sky.  Keep running. Heart pounds.  Have to get away,  Have to get away.  Can’t breathe.  Black smoke swirls all around.  Sweat gushes. Fire fire fire everywhere. Cough, gag, cough, burn. I don’t get far before… Kaboom!  I’m thrown to the ground.  Not hurt; just dazed. I stand up slowly and turn back to see.  The city behind me is under some kind of attack.  Flames shoot out of the tops of several skyscrapers while a number of buildings are tumbling into ruins.  Smoke and dust rises from the streets.  Ominous looking black helicopters blanket the sky like a flock of giant birds of prey.  Higher up, super sonic jets sizzle across the heavens lobbing fireballs down on the city.  More fireballs hit moving vehicles.  Explosions make the earth quake.  Lots of people are out of their wrecked cars now.  They are running and walking down the highway.  Where are they going?  What are they doing?  I am among them.  A refugee.  Stumbling along: coughing and gagging in the swirling smoke, sweating profusely from all my pores.  I’m trying to get away.  But where am I going?  I don’t know.  I just have to get away.  From what?  The helicopters.  The black helicopters!  They are in formation now.  They are flying towards us.  Everyone scatters chaotically into the swirling smoke.  The helicopters fire.  Live rounds; lots of them.  Machine guns rat a tat tat.  I am running in the smoke.  I have to get away.  Rat a tat tat.  Panic.  Fear.  Run. Pop.  I feel pain in my leg and I fall.  I’m hit.  Pop.  Another pain.  This time in my shoulder.  I’m hit again and again.  I’m shaking, writhing squirming along sandy desert ground.  I’m trying to get out of sight.  Hide from the helicopters.  But I can’t move.  I’m bleeding on the ground.  My body parts won’t work.  I have to move but I can’t.  They are going to kill me.  I have to fucking move!

I awoke on the sand in a pool of sweat with my heart pounding and my head aching.  It took me a moment to realize where I was.  I saw the waves washing up on shore and heard the sound of the tumultuous surf. That’s right, the beach… on the coast of Venezuela.  I was supposed to meet the young lady here. I sat up and looked around. There was no sign of anyone.  There I was, all alone on an empty beach in the middle of the night.  The moon was falling towards the western horizon.  I didn’t have a watch but it had to be late.  She must not have shown up.  I was stood up.  I sighed with relief.  Circumstances saved me from my sin.  She must have passed out drunk from the beer and not woken up on time.  Or maybe she got caught sneaking out? Or maybe she sobered up and changed her mind.  Either way, I didn’t get to do what my body wanted but my brain didn’t.  The universe and random chance saved me from my self. I was innocent after all… Thank God.

I gathered up my scattered belongings from the sand and started the long trudge back up the hill to the cabana.  While still on the beach, moonlight illuminated the scene but when I reached the pathway through jungle, I had to click on my flashlight.    My tee-shirt was soaked through and my head hurt.  Hungover, and suffering the after effects of the dream… I plodded along through the unreal darkness. It almost seemed as if I was still dreaming.  Half asleep.  Or was I?  I’d been having the dream for several months… almost since the journey into Latin America began.  But the dream intensified with corresponding bodily symptoms in Costa Rica when I had that virus.  The virus went away but the dream kept coming back.  Maybe I still had the virus.  Could the virus and the dream be related? How can I possibly cure myself from a dream? How in the world could I wake up and see reality?  Part of it was real, of course.  Or at least based on reality.  As I made my way along that path through the jungle to my cabana I tried and tried to use my mind to grab ahold of reality.  I started thinking about the true incident that was the foundation of the crazy dream.    

A year or so before, on a Friday the 13th in October of 1991, my pick-up truck caught on fire.  I was helping a girlfriend (Ms. A.) move from Upstate NY to Queens in the big city.  We had all of her belongings stacked precariously, ever so high, with her futon mattress near the top on the back of my truck as we made our way down interstate I-95.  We were in very heavy traffic closing in on the Whitestone Bridge that crosses over into Queens when Ms. A. tossed a cigarette butt out the window. A few moments later, the cars all around us started honking their horns and I saw the flames in my rear view mirror. I really did have to weave through several lanes of traffic with a flaming truck to reach a small exit ramp on the far side of the highway where I slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop.  In reality, the seat buckles didn’t stick and the vehicle doors opened with no problem.  But then, when we got outside and saw the rising flames consuming all of her belongings on the back of my truck, I did something very stupid.  The only thing not covered in flames was a dresser at the very front of the pile.  In order to stop my truck from possibly exploding, I climbed up onto the cab and was able to slide down in between the cab and the not burning dresser.  Then, using the dresser as a barrier to protect me and because the fire had already burned through the ropes and bungee chords holding everything down, I was able to push the entire pile of burning junk off the back of the truck.  It’s kind of miracle I didn’t get blown to pieces by an exploding gas tank but my truck was saved except for a bed liner that was melted into an unusual shape. When the police, fire engine and ambulance arrived a few moments later they found a slightly shaken young couple, a still burning pile of junk on the side of the road and a relatively unscathed pickup truck.  They put out the embers and the EMTs gave us the once over.  But the cops didn’t even give me a ticket.  Ms. A. lost all or most of her worldly possessions but she was the one who threw the damn cigarette out the window.

That was the reality I remembered as I made my way through the jungle darkness to my cabana.  There were no bombs, no black helicopters, no machine guns, no fireballs.  Just a slightly crazy experience a year or so earlier. But now I was in Venezuela and there was a revolution going on.  I saw and heard all the military planes flying over head on my first few days in Macuto.  I saw and heard the sound of gunfire amid stampeding crowds in the big city on the local television news.  There was a state of emergency declared.  Things were crazy.  That’s why I was stranded in a beach bungalow in the middle of nowhere.  Perhaps the madness of now was combining with memories of the past and the still present virus to produce nightmares.  But the nightmares started way before the revolution.  I had them back in Costa Rica and Nicaragua too. And what about the young lady?  She was supposed to meet me on the beach?  Could she have been part of the nightmare?  What in the hell does it all mean?

A Conversation at the Crossroads

Where does memory end and imagination begin? That is the issue that arises as I try to write the story of the past from the perspective of the present. The focus of this narrative is a series of inter-related events that occurred from 1992 until 1995. I have no written record and no photographs of these events. I don’t even have a copy of my old passport. All my former paperwork preceding the imaginary revolution was burned as part of the revolution so all the documents that might demonstrate the veracity of the underlying story no longer exist. Nevertheless… I do believe it is true… I was a smart young lawyer with a promising career ahead of me. But I quit. I could no longer recognize the legitimacy of the government or the insane economic system that it managed. To continue practicing law for a legal system that is fundamentally illegitimate, is to practice hypocrisy. So I ceased practicing law and started practicing anti-law… some people call it anarchy or anarchism. To emphasize the transformation I envisioned, I also gave up the philosophical concept of ownership. Is it possible to design an organic dynamic economic system based on economic value utilization and sharing instead of ownership and competition for control? Well, yes, of course it is? But to implement such an economy would require a revolution…. Imagine that?

A couple years after the imaginary revolution, I discovered the power of stonework and the stones made it rather easy for me to live a good anarchist life. They also made it possible for me to live the traveling life. That is why I believe an underlying travel gene had a lot to do with my radical transformation. Realistically, as a lawyer, I never would have been able to backpack all over the world. I remember thinking about it at the end of that first big trip in 1993, when I was still a lawyer and I was looking for a new legal position. A very big part of me wanted to find a temporary position so I could travel. Something that would end in a year or two and I would have enough cash to go traveling again. But I also had this resume and connections that set me up for long term career opportunities. Even though I rejected corporate law after that first big trip, all the not-for-profit public service organizations I applied to wanted a long term employee as well. I said the same bullshit in every interview; “That’s right, sir, mam, dude, dudess, your honor, your highness, your majesty, mr. president…. my year long backpacking experience through the Americas got the adventure out of my system. It was the trip of a lifetime but I don’t think I will ever do it again. Right now, I am ready to settle in for the long term and do some good important work.” Ha ha ha. Kind of makes me laugh to think about it. I can see my younger self in my mind’s eye uttering those ridiculous words. In reality, I quit a year and a half later when I had the imaginary revolution. As part of my new lifestyle, I started doing stonework on a seasonal basis. I earned enough currency from April to November to take Winters off for traveling. For almost twenty years, I traveled for four or five months every single year. Given this reality, and looking back from the present perspective at those long ago job interviews, it seems as if I must have been lying when I uttered those words. But if my memory serves me correctly, I didn’t think I was lying at the time. I really believed I was telling the truth. I thought I was prepared to settle into a long term career as a public service attorney. The voice inside of me telling me to give up the 9 to 5 and find a way to keep traveling was just a random deviant thought. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t reality. Or, at least, I didn’t think it was.

The same issue arises now. What is reality? The present keeps crashing into the past. I’m writing about my first ever backpacking trip in 92-93. I was still a lawyer then. It was two years before the transformation. That trip must have been a major catalyst. But I don’t remember the particulars very well. It was 27 years ago and I have been on almost twenty long distance backpacking adventures since then. The details of the many places get confused together and some events blend into others. But the mind is a strange and wondrous thing. I focus my attention on an event or place that I vaguely remember and start to write. As the words go down on paper, my mind fills in more and more of the scene. Is it reality I’m remembering or a story I am creating. I really don’t know. I could, of course, supplement my memory with some research. We do have internet now. All those crazy far out places around the globe that I stumbled through randomly now have websites and Facebook pages. I could look at maps and read old lonely planet descriptions to refresh my memory. But would the story be truer if I supplemented my memory with knowledge? Or would new knowledge so pollute my memory with reality that I would have no choice but to write fiction?

Panama: November 1992. Think think think. Focus. Dig deep but let the brain muscles relax…. let go. Open up the mind… It’s happening. It’s all coming back to me. The file cabinets in the brain are shifting and the teleplay of the story is downloading to my internal video screen…

Shortly after my breakfast with Gunther on the hotel balcony, I took a mini-bus across the Isthmus of Central America to reach a port or harbor that theoretically had boats to Venezuela. Panama City is on the Pacific side and I was looking for transport across the Caribbean so I thought I had to go to the other coast to find a boat. I’m not sure where I got this information, maybe from my guidebook or maybe from Gunther or some other traveler at the hotel. Fortunately, the minibus stop was near my hotel and the journey across the narrowest part of Central America only took an hour or two. When we reached the opposite side of the Panama Canal, the minibus turned South and traveled along the coast until it reached a harbor with lots of boats. The mini-bus dropped me off in front of a very big, official looking building. I went inside to find out information.

Nobody was selling boat tickets to Venezuela inside the building. As a matter of fact, nobody was selling boat tickets to anywhere inside the building. Actually, nobody spoke any English so I had a difficult time determining what they were doing in there. It seemed like government offices of some kind. Maybe customs or trade or boating regulations. Everyone seemed very busy. Lots of intense conversations in Spanish and lots of scurrying between desks with stacks of paper in hand. Phones were ringing and typewriters were clattering. I did see one bulletin board but I couldn’t understand the Spanish notes that were posted on it. There was certainly nothing on it about boats to Venezuela. There was no specific help desk or reception area either. I tried asking a few random people with my broken Spanish. “Permiso. Yo quiero information about barcos to Venezuela.” But everyone just looked at me like I was crazy. After a while, I gave up and went outside.

The harbor near the building was exceptionally large with hundreds of boats in all different shapes and sizes. There was an extensive network of wooden docks that went out into the water and surrounded the boats. It was still fairly early in the day as I walked along the docks and examined the boats. Could one of these boats take me all the way to Venezuela? Except for my day trip in Belize to the coral reefs and a few short lake journeys in upstate New York, I had no experience with boats. I could barely distinguish a sail boat from a catamaran. A trip to Venezuela would take at least several days… maybe a whole week. Could my landlubber body handle it? What if I got sea sick? Perhaps this whole plan of traveling to Venezuela by boat was a bad idea.

“Hey Gringo, que pasa! What you look for amigo? You want to buy boat. My name Carlos and I can help you.” I turned to see a friendly young local guy walking towards me on the dock. He raised his hand in the air to give me a high five and I acknowledged his gesture with the appropriate slap of the hand.

“Nice to meet you Carlos,” I said, “my name is Patrick. But no, I’m not looking to buy a boat. I’m just looking.”

“Nobody just looks,” he said. “Everybody wants something. What you want amigo? You want to go somewhere? San Blas maybe? Or all the way to Cartagena?”

Volcanic Eruptions

Hummingbird continues…

It’s true… We made a marijuana offering to a volcano God and that volcano erupted a few years later. Cause and effect? Maybe… The basic facts are indisputable. I hiked to the top of one of Ecuador’s many semi-active volcanos in the early Spring of 1993. I was joined in the endeavor by a young Canadian man. The day before the hike, we acquired some weed and a chicken bone pipe from a local campesino teenager. When we secured our permit for the trek, we were informed that the volcano was semi-active and could theoretically erupt at any moment. We had to sign a liability waiver in order to get the permit. It took us two days to reach the top. Up near the peak, there were cracks in the surface and volcanic steam rose up from the cracks and kind of floated in the air. The rising smoke against the backdrop of bright blue sky was rather impressive. It looked like the mountain was smoking something. So right up there near the tippy top, we found a comfy spot next to a spout of steam and joined the volcano in a smoke. We packed our chicken bone pipe full with weed and blew our clouds of smoke into the steam rising from the crack. How funny? How amazing? We were bonding with the volcano…. Yo Dude. Don’t you think we should make an offering? What do you mean? What kind of an offering? An offering to the volcano monster so he doesn’t erupt and consume us with lava and fire? That’s a good idea; let’s give him some weed. The Canadian guy opened up our satchel and retrieved a pinch of weed between his fingers. He offered the bag to me so I could get a pinch as well. He went first. “Here you go Mr. Volcano, enjoy the show, but try not to blow, at least not for a while. Wait until we are far away from here.” He sprinkled his weed into the steaming crack of rock. I went next. “Señor Tungarahua, my friend. Thank you so much for letting us reach your peak. I do believe I hear you grumbling. Are you getting ready to explode? Try a little tranquilo. Perhaps this offering will help you relax.” I sprinkled my weed into the steaming crack…

Of course the volcano did not erupt on us. We enjoyed our view from the top and hiked back down to the town of Banos where we soaked in the hot springs. A few years later though, 1998 I think, Tungarahua did erupt, big time… it blew it’s fricken top off. Some people were killed and there was lots of damage in surrounding villages and even in the town of Banos. I went back to Banos in early 2000 and the volcano was still sort of erupting. There were boiling, bubbling, overflowing pools of lava near the top. Obviously, tourists were no longer allowed to hike it. But several guesthouses had jeep tours to hot lava viewing spots at night. I went along on one of the tours. Lots of young drunk backpackers in crowded jeeps converged on a plateau just across the way from the volcano. It was a serious party with drinking, dancing, smoking and the popping of magic pills. I stepped away from the scene by the vehicles to get a better view from the darkness. I remembered my offering from seven years before. The cone was now gone. The place where we sat and smoked our pipes and made our offering no longer existed. It was now a steaming hot cauldron of bubbling lava. Or, at least, that is what it seemed from a safe distance. All I could really see was smoke and steam and dust rising from the center and dripping red streams spilling over the sides.

Smoldering… erupting… smoking… grumbling… steaming… glowing. Believe it or not, this was not my first ever experience with weed offerings and volcanoes. In Costa Rica, in November of 1992, I went to visit the active volcano of Arenal. It was the day after I got the results from my blood test. I brought my tent and sleeping bag and camped out at the base of the mountain. I now knew that I didn’t have malaria but I was still having the crazy malarial dreams. The erupting volcano added real-time sound effects to my nightmares… Perhaps camping next to an active volcano was not such a good idea…

Leaving the Comfort Zone

Hummingbird continues…

Leaving the comfort zone and making the leap into the unknown…. Do I dare? Sometimes, you have follow the shooting star and see what happens. You just might turn into a stone mason…

I remember I used to joke about it when I was in college and law school. “I’m gonna quit everything and run off to South America.” And then, the opportunity presented itself, so I did. As I went through the motions of doing what I always said I was going to do, I sometimes felt one step removed from the actor in the story. As if I was on the outside watching the character Pat Ryan experience the great American road trip. And then I watched him push the envelope on the whole road trip story by heading South into foreign territory completely alone… without a net… Is he really going to do it just because he said he was going to? He doesn’t really have to. What is he trying to prove? I don’t know. Nothing. He just has to. The director of the play, the writer of the story, said do it. So he goes through the motions of doing it.

There was no internet in those days (1992-93) and that is kind of a crazy concept to think about now and remember. My only connection with people or society back home during my first big trip was the hand written postcards I sent to a whole bunch of people. If only I could get those postcards back now they would be great fun to piece together. Once every month or so, I would find myself in a big city with international phone call capability and I would check in with my parents. But mostly I was adrift in a foreign world with no one for company but myself. I had a notebook in which I wrote a journal and my first sort of “travel stories.” But that notebook was accidentally burned in a fire (oops). I also had a camera with film that I would only develop when I got back to the US. But I never was much of a photographer and don’t know what happened to those photos. I will say that traveling alone without internet is way different as an experience than traveling alone with the Internet. The travel game has changed so much since 92 that it is no longer recognizable. The solitary quest of the soul has transformed into a social media experience. Nowadays, you are never alone as long as you have your phone.

Hummingbird Sees a Sign

Hummingbird Sees A Sign

In retrospect, it seems like it must have been a fork in the road… a turning point… a transformative experience. But now, 25 years later, I can’t really remember the specific emotions or actual details of the experience. I try to shake my head to loosen the cobwebs. I take a couple hits off a joint to blast open the rusted shut filing cabinets of my brain. I don’t have my actual notes or my journal from that trip. There is no written record. What really happened? I don’t know. I’m not sure. The objective facts are simple and straightforward. I was a successful lawyer with a promising career ahead of me. I took a year off to travel. At the end of my trip, I walked the Inca trail to Machu Picchu. Two years later, I quit the legal profession and began working with stones. Did the visit to Machu Picchu inspire the radical career change? I don’t know. That is the story I am trying to remember…

The rocky road winds its way downward from the high mountain pass to the flat plateau that is surrounded by a ring of snow-capped peaks. Even without the ruins… the stacked stones… the remnants of a creative culture that give depth and nostalgia and metaphor to the place, the plateau upon which Machu Picchu sits would still be incredible. At the high end of a long River valley, backed by snow capped peaks, it seems a place where it all begins… a sacred place. But, at the same time, it seems like the very end of the road. Beginnings meet endings in Machu Picchu and the straight line becomes a circle. I arrive now by way of the Inca trail, a long hard four day hike through the mountains. I will return by way of the train; a five hour luxury ride through a scenic canyon. Machu Picchu is the place of transition. And wow, just look at all these beautiful stones…

Honestly, did I even notice the beautiful stones? I don’t actually remember. I’m sure I noticed them in 2004 when I went back because I was a stone mason then. Of course I noticed the master craftsmanship on display at Machu Picchu then. But that is a whole other time, place and story. In 1993, I was just a frustrated lawyer, I knew nothing about stones. The incredible skilled creations probably barely registered on my conscious brain. My subconscious was, perhaps, exploding with stimuli and response dynamics but my conscious mind was so overwhelmed by the breathtaking beauty of the location that the actual stonework barely registered.

Location, location, location… The place alone is like a great wonder of the world. And the experience of hiking the Inca trail in order to arrive there is absolutely inspiring. When I got there, I raced about from stone building to stone building. I visited the temple of the Sun and the temple of the Moon. I read the inscriptions and descriptions and tried to understand what was what. I hiked to the top of Huaynu Picchu for the overview. No doubt I was impressed by everything I saw, but not overwhelmed. I certainly didn’t hear the voice of God telling me to abandon my promising career and start putting stones together instead. I can’t say for sure but I believe that I was so intoxicated by the experience of the long hike and arrival at that fantastical plateau amid the circle of mountains, that I hardly even noticed the incredible stonework.

Mountain Madness (part I)

This is another story from my archives.  If you are a very long time reader of mine, you may even have read it before because it was originally posted on my first attempt at a website way back in early 2006.  This version is edited and includes photos.  It sure is fun to re-read these stories and re-live my crazy adventures.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Mountain Madness (part I)

Merida, Venezuela ; January 2006

As my regular readers are aware, I have lots of experience in trekking or hiking through the mountains, forests, jungles and deserts of other countries. It is something I love to do. Throw on the old backpack, grab a map and some food and head off into the great unknown. But there are dangers involved. I could get held up by armed gunmen or revolutionaries. I might get lost and never find my way back. I could get hurt or killed by a wild animal or fall and break a leg. A million little things can go wrong. But a little bit of risk is part of what makes the experience special. So the question I always face is; how much risk am I willing to take?

When I arrive in Merida, Venezuela my plan is to go on a several day hike in the mountains near here. But I don’t know what exactly I want to do or where to go. I just know that the mountains are supposed to be beautiful. As I check into my room at the hotel Italia, I notice a sign on the tourist agency outside that says they organize treks to Bolivar Peak or Humboldt Peak. I look it up in the guidebook and see that the two peaks are the first and second tallest mountains in Venezuela and they stand at almost 5,000 meters (about 16,000 feet). They are, in fact, taller than any mountain in the continental US. The guidebook also informs me that to get to the top of either, it requires quite a bit more than just trekking. This is serious mountain climbing over glacier ice with ropes and crampons and ice axes. Such information disheartens me. Although I have much experience in trekking, I have none in serious mountain climbing… True, I have always wanted to do it. But I never have. Why? Partly because of the cost. Mountain climbing requires expensive gear that I don’t have. But mostly because of fear. Real mountain climbing is dangerous. People die a lot undertaking such adventures. And although I like risk, I’ve never been willing to shell out the big bucks and stick my neck out in such a manner. But hey, there is a first time for everything.

Great Wonders of the World

The next episode in the continuing saga of my courtship of Ms. B., is our arrival in Leymebamba. But I posted that story a couple years ago when I was exploring the Paradise theme so you have to pull it up from the archives if you want to read it now. For this week’s story, I am jumping ahead to the next chapter; our fantastically good time in Chachapoyas. This is another one that has to be transcribed from the hand written notebooks. Again, it’s very funny for me to read this now. It’s like witnessing a slow conversion of my own character as I learn the importance of compromise in a relationship. In retrospect, I can just imagine the eye rolls of Ms. B. as I blather on and on about how it’s more fun and exciting to experience travel the hard old fashioned way instead of the boring, easy organized way. Don’t misunderstand. Ms. B. definitely likes adventure and she does not hesitate to travel off the beaten track. She is traveling the winter with me in South America after all. She is just not overly idealistic about such things and she has no qualms whatsoever about the occasional comfort. This story is a classic case of a woman’s positive influence attempting to soften the edges of a man’s reckless extremism.

Wonders of the World

Chachapoyas, Peru, February 2011.

Imagine the perfect moment; a full on sensory immersion in the bosom of nature; a totally tantalizing experience that pushes the possibilities of physical and spiritual ecstasy. How good can human existence possibly be? How about this? Floating on my back in a natural pool at the bottom of the third highest waterfall in the world; surrounded by green jungle, towering rock cliffs, blue sky and sunshine; blowing gusts of wind scatter the flowing water into a floating cloud of mist; sunlight shines through the water droplets and fragments inside the natural prisms to glitter and sparkle like amorphous ever-changing rainbows. My body, hot and sweaty from the long trek to get here, is cooled perfectly by the refreshing waters of the natural pool. The air coming into my lungs is rich, clean, oxygenated, and unpolluted. I want to scream, to shout; to somehow express the joy that rushes through me. Every cell and sense within me is like a sponge that soaks up the surroundings. How good does it feel? Can words possibly describe it? I am the world and the world is me. Baptized in the waters of the Gotka waterfall; the cloud of human confusion is lifted and once again I can clearly see…

After a pre-dawn bus ride from Leymebamba, we arrive in Chachapoyas in the early morning and check into a tourist trap. My brain is clouded by early morning fog or I never would have stayed there. But ah, such is life, sometimes we make mistakes. It’s called the Hostel Revash; it’s recommended in the guidebook, advertised on our bus ticket and we are hustled into it’s courtyard from the main plaza almost immediately after we get off the bus. There is a crowd of gringos, a big board listing an assortment of tours and an overly enthusiastic staff. They offer us breakfast and promise us a nice double room for 50 soles once the room is cleaned. 50 soles is on the upper end of our budget, but tired and hungry and trusting the guidebook, we register and pay for the room without even seeing it. Sure enough, it’s a shit hole. It’s dark and gloomy and cave like with a tiny window looking out at a brick wall. Actually, it is a perfectly fine room for 10 or even 20 soles a night but for 50 it is an absolute and complete rip-off. When I complain, they offer me a better room for 100. Forget it. We stay in the cave for a single night and leave the next morning.

The Big Party!

This is another story from the continuing saga of me and Ms. B. on our first journey together in South America in 2011. I am finding great amusement reflecting now upon my younger self engaged in the ultimate heroic struggle. It’s kind of an old story and a new story at the same time. What does it mean to be independent? What does it mean to be part of a couple? Wherever do you draw the line? In retrospect, I can’t help but wonder if Ms. B. was even mad at all because of my late night jaunt. As I read the story now, her character certainly does not show any evidence of anger. Perhaps I merely felt guilty because of my imagined misbehavior and I projected that guilt onto her perception of me. Human beings are crazy creatures and strange things sometimes happen. I will have to ask her. “Hey Ms. B. Do you remember that night in Cajamarca four years ago…” Anyway, this version may or may not be the exact truth, but it’s the way I wrote about it in my notebook back then.

The Big Party

Cajamarca, Peru Feb. 2011

Imagine the scene. Altahualpa, the leader of the Incas, worships the God of the Sun. He cannot read or write because the Incas have no written language. He and his followers meet the Spaniards in the main square of Cajamarca in order to welcome them to the continent. When Pizarro gives Altahualpa a gift of a Bible, the Inca leader does not know what to make of it. What is this strange thing you call a book? It is not food or drink or gold or silver. It’s not a tool or a weapon or a toy. What purpose does it serve? It is nothing. He tosses the Bible aside because he thinks that it is irrelevant. Unfortunately, the Spaniards think differently. To them, the Bible is significant, precious and holy. And because Altahualpa does not properly respect it, the Spaniards think they are morally justified to massacre the Incas. And so, they do. With their horses and swords and suits of armor, they have a significant technological advantage. It doesn’t take them long to kill thousands and capture the Inca leader. Thus, the history of South America changes completely because of a misunderstood metaphor.

When we arrive in Cajamarca on a Thursday evening in early February, we are seriously concerned that we will not be able to find a hotel. Why? Carnival… a very big Carnival. It was not our intention to go to Cajamarca for Carnival. We were going to Cajamarca as the first stop on the back way to Chachapoyas. As mature and responsible adults, neither Ms. B. nor I are big fans of the wild party scene. Yeah sure, I’ve been to a few wild ones in the past, and no doubt I’ve gone off the rails on the occasional bender. Indeed, if you read some of my very old stories, you will find that a small percentage involve me drinking too much of the local poison and embarking upon an inappropriate and overly ambitious adventure with just met locals. But all that is in the past. Now that I am traveling with a partner, I have to restrain my reckless impulses. So it definitely was not our plan to go to Cajamarca for Carnival. We were on our way to the Chachapoyas region for the natural wonders and the ancient ruins. Cajamarca was just supposed to be a one day rest stop in a nice mountain town with Inca hot springs. But the day we leave the beach in Huanchaco, a group of the scoundrels on the beachfront tells us “oh, you go to Cajamarca today, you will arrive just in time for Carnival, it’s going to be great. Cajamarca is the best place for Carnival in the whole world.” And then, at a rest stop on the bus journey to get there, a guy with a guitar sings a long and beautiful epic song all about the craziness of Carnival in Cajamarca. So we look it up in the guide book and the book warns us about the reckless abandon associated with the Cajamarca Carnival. Oh no, what are we getting ourselves into?

Paradise Lost…

Yeah, I know, it’s been a while.  The thread of my story has fallen by the way side because I’ve been too busy with the stones.  The wonderful, beautiful, fantastic pile of stones.  In a couple more months, I’ll have them all put together.  Hopefully my final creations will be worthy of the rocks I’m working with.  Then I will have more time and energy for these travel stories… this travel story.   My never ending ongoing travel story.  In the meantime, I will continue posting old stories from my archives…

Paradise Lost

Vilcabamba, Ecuador; March 1, 2011

“I came here to escape the shit.  2012!  Maybe sooner, maybe later.  But one way or another, it’s going to happen.  Total financial collapse; ecological disaster, world war III.  Western civilization is going down and Vilcabamba Ecuador is the last best place to be to survive the chaos that is going to happen.”  The speaker is a retired American.  He’s about 70 years old, a bit fat and balding.  He has the look of a self-satisfied successful man.  He goes on to tell me that he bought property in Vilcabamba this past year and he is using cheap local labor to build his earth ship survival home.  I sit back in my chair and sip at my beer.  I try to wrap my brain around this bizarre Vilcabamba reality…

When Ms. B. and I arrive in Vilcabamba, it’s about 10:30 at night on a Sunday and the town is quiet and fairly dark.  We are tired after our long journey from Peru and we need a place to stay.  The first two we look at are closed and dark and the next one is fully occupied.  We find a room at Jardin Escondido but it costs 30 dollars a night.  It’s a nice room, but way over budget.  We take it because we are tired and don’t want to search anymore.  The morning is slightly bizarre.  Breakfast is included with the room and we are served this awesome morning meal on the patio in a wonderfully lush garden.  The other diners in this patio garden are middle aged typical tourists.  A taxi arrives to take one group to the airport and they roll their big luggage out on wheels.  I feel out of place.  The place is nice…real nice…  But the atmosphere is disturbing my reality.  I’ve been to Vilcabamba twice before; in 2000 and 1993.  My memory of the place involves cheap bohemian huts surrounded by paradise, lots of weed and San Pedro cactus and bizarre international hippies trying to adapt to the environment of Southern Ecuador. Now, however, I feel sort of like I’m in a Bed and Breakfast in northern California.  The coffee is healthy organic, the bread is home made, the garden is luscious and beautiful and the entire set is very well designed.  It just doesn’t seem like Vilcabamba.  I want a dirty Bohemian artsy cheap place to stay.