¨You are going to die. You are definitely going to die.¨ This was he consensus of everyone in my hostel when I told them I booked biking the ¨World´s Most Dangerous Road¨ with one of the cheap unknown companies.
"Do you want to leave your passport with me in case you don't come back?"
"Oooh, can I have your bed, I don't like the top bunk." I threw my pillow at my inconsiderate dorm mates.
I didn´t mean to do it, but I had gone into the office and the woman spent so much time with me that I just felt bad not doing it. Everyone else seemed to go with the bigger companies.
They have to scrimp somewhere to save money so it is on the bikes???? But anyways, I like supporting the locals, it's part of responsible tourism.
My group was small, just four of us. We started biking down the road in clouds, far above treeline. Semis were passing us and I was terrified. My brakes didn´t really work, I was wobbling on my bike and hearing strange sounds and I happened to look down and see that a very key part of my bike was taped. Awesome.
It didn't help that a girl on the tour biked up behind me, her eyes wide saying I had a big problem, and I eyed her back with even bigger eyes and then she said, "Never mind, it's not like you can do anything. You'll be fine. I mean, I think you'll be fine."
I never did figure out what the problem was.
The view was spectacular, stunning cliffs and rock faces, huge waterfalls tumbling down rock. Clouds swirling in the valley below.
I was shaking and I didn´t know if it was from being cold, malaria shivers, or because I was so scared. But I was loving it too, I mean, how often in life is one truly scared?
We made it down the paved part and to the rocky road where only bikes go.
"I've never mountain biked before, does anyone have any tips?" I asked.
"Just be bouncey to absorb the shock, " a guy on my tour replied.
Whew. "Ok, I can do that, it's my specialty," I said.
"I've known you for an hour and a half, but that doesn´t suprise me one bit."
The views were spectacular. More vegetation and waterfalls, a really windy road with a huge cliff drop off. We could see demolished vehicles with vegetation growing over the wreckage. As I got more comfortable I went from being the one that was waiting behind the others to the one up in the front, trying to race the guide. The speed was addictive. And who we kidding, going slow is not a skill that I have.
In the end, I was glad I went with the less expensive company because I never would have had the same adrenaline rush if I had been on a more sturdy bike which made it so much more fun in the end. And now I want to try more mountain biking.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
La Selva (Bolivia)
I am really happy that I visited the Amazonian jungle, but I can rest assured that I will no longer entertain fantasies of running away and living in it.
Our little crew of 4 from our Pampas tour decided to all go to the jungle together. I was happy because one of our crew is from Spain so he is like a walking dictionary for me while trying to learn Spanish .I wish I could keep him in my pocket. But it was a good group with nice people so I was glad to go to the selva with them.
If we thought our pampas camp was basic, it was luxurious compared to the jungle one. Our living area was teeming with cockroaches and all sorts of other bugs and spiders. There was ankle deep mud between the bed area and toilet area and dining area. My pants will never again be clean. But the mosquitoes weren’t so bad. But the other bugs were.
The jungle is amazing. The trees are enormous. They are taller than most buildings. There is so much life crammed into every area of the jungle. I could stare at one small area and still not see everything because the eye has to get used to the subtle shades of green, density of light and movement. There are more colors of green than I ever knew existed, it all depends on how sensitive your eyes can be. It is so beautiful and so immense and so ancient.
Our guide Juan-Carlos was great. I am convinced that there is a cure for everything in that jungle and he knew most of them. He showed us plants and trees to use as mosquito repellent, to put on bites, for diabetics, to help the kidneys, to make tattoos, to shoot poison arrow darts, the Viagra tree, anesthetics, to prevent Yellow Fever, to help with eye-sight, to help with back pain, to help the sinuses, to keep you alert, to help with constipation, to help with sleep. It was endless.
Being in the jungle also felt very vulnerable too. There were jaguars around though unfortunately we didn’t see them. But you do have to be careful. We saw spiders that one bite could kill you, others that you don’t feel bite you but then a year later you start to cough up blood and what western doctor knows how to cure that? We saw crazy looking frogs that looked like the poison arrow frogs that could kill you but my Spanish isn’t up to pare to understand if that is what they were. We saw this amazing yellow snake that was 9 feet long. Most of all, it is completely disorienting. You can’t see the sun, the foliage is so thick that you can’t keep track of where you are going and every step is a battle because there is so much life there.
You definitely don’t want to stand still for long. There are lots more biting insects. There are ants that are bigger than my thumb. I had a nice little group of them, biting red ones in fact, on me. You have to be very careful where you put your hands because some of the trees have dreadfully poisonous thorns or leaves, and chances are, wherever you touch is likely to have insects on it, poisonous and biting or not, but most are biting.
We were standing around this incredible tree, so big that 11 of us wouldn’t have been able to all hold hands and stand around it. I heard this buzzing sound really loud in my ear. Then more. I was attacked by these bee/spider looking hybrids of bugs. They attacked a few of us, they come at you fast and try to burrow into your hair and into your scalp. They are sticky and hard to remove and you hear them buzzing but can’t get at them through your hair. I had a bit of a fit there but I think that was reasonable. Brushed it off and moved on.
Now I love this, Juan-Carlos told us that there are around 30-40 tribes of people that still live in this very jungle that have no contact with the outside world. They are semi-nomadic, only eat raw foods (including meat) and most wear no clothes. I love thinking that still exists in the world and to see a whisper of where they live was just incredible.
That night we went on a night hike. It was amazing and touches all sorts of different senses to go through a pitch black jungle with nothing but flashlights. It was amazing to turn off the lights too and just listen to the sounds.
Everything in the jungle seems to have more depth and texture than I ever thought could be in one place. It is saturated with it. This includes depth in sounds, in vision and in scents. It is an amazing place, mysterious and unforgiving. It would seem soothing at times if it wasn’t for the fact that everything in the jungle seems to want to bite me.
Las Pampas (Bolivia)
I did something bad. I am a little ashamed to admit it. It is unlike me, and I didn’t mean to do it, but doing it on my own was out of the question. Really, it had to be done and there was no way around it, I really wanted to see the Amazon Basin. I took a tour.
But tours in Bolivia are different. They are a bit more ghetto than you are thinking of. We carry our stuff as well as community stuff to the camps. Conditions are pretty grim. And I think the most telling part of how different the tours here are is the fact that none of the guides speak a word of English. As a side note here, there is very little English spoken at all in South America. I have a hard enough time talking with people, I have no idea how people with no Spanish can get along. But it is one of my favorite parts about South America. Most other places where I have been people in the tourist industry at least speak some basic English, but it is good to have to get around on Spanish only.
Anyways, a rickety jeep to Santa Rosa, then another 3 hour canoe ride through the wetlands of the Amazon Basin. The birds were stunning, crocodiles lurking, monkey mischievous, sloths sloth-like, and I was positively enchanted by the pink river dolphins. They were my selling point on the whole trip to be honest, I was only planning on going to the jungle, but I heard you got to swim with river dolphins and I signed up right away.
Our guide, Diego, was impressive navigating around this maze of wetlands with so many channels and routes, I had no idea where we were. The water is impossibly still with these ripples percolating from the depths every so often that could be anything really, it is the Amazon Basin.
I
t was beautiful and tranquil, just nice to not be on a bus as well. Our accommodation was basic, a river camp over a nice mosquito breeding ground of stagnant water, though this was not to matter because they would have found us anyways. Our camp had 3 resident alligators, one of which was maybe 3 meters long, named Pequeno. We watched the sunset of the river, so entranced by the peace and beauty and then, all of the sudden, it was like a dog whistle was blown calling all the mosquitoes. As I write this, after 3 days in the Pampas, I would not be exaggerating at all, not even a little to say that I have 300 mosquito bites (and about 50 unidentified bites) on me. I could say 400 but that could be exaggerating, so somewhere in there. It was horrific. It was a bloodbath. We were not happy campers. There was nothing we could do but put on every piece of clothing we had in the heat and scratch.
In the morning the mosquitoes weren’t so bad. At least not by the river. We took a pleasant canoe ride to another part of the pampas. We landed and set out into the jungle to go look for anacondas. I love hiking. I really do. It is one of my favorite things to do in the world. Nothing about this was fun. We thought the mosquitoes were bad at camp, this was a whole new level. It was like, my experience with mosquitoes had been taken up a notch the night before, and then this blew my mind. We couldn’t enjoy the walk, we were so busy being attacked by the mosquitoes. Swatting is useless .We had on ponchos and all our clothes as we walked through the steamy jungle. We did find a small anaconda and then a cobra type snake which Diego then wrapped around my neck and had me hold its head so it wouldn’t bit me, but he had me hold it so tightly I felt really sad and didn’t like that at all either. We continued but were all wanting to get out of there with the mosquitoes. The fire ants weren’t so pleasant either and their bites are a lot more painful.
It was nice to all share in some misery together, nothing like bonding over looking like we had the chicken pox from all our bites to bring strangers together. Two of the crazy people in our group decided to go back in the jungle while the rest of us waited outside. I practiced my Spanish with this great toothless old man that lived in the pampas and he showed me types of fruit I could eat in the jungle.
Later in the day we went swimming with dolphins, and it was more swimming in the vicinity of dolphins. I think Diego could see how I was disappointed so he took us through what would be the equivalent of canoe 4-wheeling to another place. It was a little un-nerving to swim in a river that you can’t see anything in because it is so dark after having seen so many crocodiles and even more un-nerving to be swimming in a river where there are people just 40 meters away fishing for piranhas. But I had to appreciate his effort and I jumped on in. The dolphins came pretty close to me and that was really great, but they didn’t come play around me or anything like I had hoped. It was still fun.
That evening we were let out to play with some other tour groups so I played some volleyball. Then we went looking for alligators and crocodiles by flashlight in the canoe in the dark, looking for their sinister looking red-eyes. I was sitting in the back of the canoe and Diego, the guide and I started talking. He is a fascinating one, he is indigenous and grew up in the jungle. He knows about all the medicinal purposes of plants and he has this special affinity with animals, they just seem calm around him. He has been lost in the jungle and come face to face with a jaguar and also has calmed dangerous snakes. He is an interesting character who is always singing and plays his guitar when we have a free moment and sings songs he has written. His father is a medicine man in the jungle. I was fascinated by his stories of growing up in the jungle and the things his father has done, not to mention the fact that talking to him really helps my Spanish being that he doesn’t speak a word of English so we have to muddle through somehow. We both are pretty dolphin-obsessed and he told me that every night he goes to a place where there are dolphins and I could come with him if I wanted that night.
So after dinner we snuck away from the camp and canoed out to this stunning lagoon. The stars were so incredibly bright I could see the Milky Way dust in the sky and heat lightning in the distance. It was nice to be away from camp and away from people and out in quiet wilderness. Unfortunately we didn’t bring a flashlight to check the water for crocodiles, but I decided to jump in the water anyways and just stay close to the boat. No dolphins came, but it was still a really nice night out for a swim and it is always good to click with a new friend.
Our last day we went Piranha fishing in the morning. They don’t taste so bad actually and by eating them we surmised we were asserting our place on the food chain. I have never eaten anything with teeth like that before though. Another quick swim with dolphins and then a canoe ride back, jeep ride and back to Rurrenebaque with mosquito bites for souvenirs.
But tours in Bolivia are different. They are a bit more ghetto than you are thinking of. We carry our stuff as well as community stuff to the camps. Conditions are pretty grim. And I think the most telling part of how different the tours here are is the fact that none of the guides speak a word of English. As a side note here, there is very little English spoken at all in South America. I have a hard enough time talking with people, I have no idea how people with no Spanish can get along. But it is one of my favorite parts about South America. Most other places where I have been people in the tourist industry at least speak some basic English, but it is good to have to get around on Spanish only.
Anyways, a rickety jeep to Santa Rosa, then another 3 hour canoe ride through the wetlands of the Amazon Basin. The birds were stunning, crocodiles lurking, monkey mischievous, sloths sloth-like, and I was positively enchanted by the pink river dolphins. They were my selling point on the whole trip to be honest, I was only planning on going to the jungle, but I heard you got to swim with river dolphins and I signed up right away.
Our guide, Diego, was impressive navigating around this maze of wetlands with so many channels and routes, I had no idea where we were. The water is impossibly still with these ripples percolating from the depths every so often that could be anything really, it is the Amazon Basin.
I
t was beautiful and tranquil, just nice to not be on a bus as well. Our accommodation was basic, a river camp over a nice mosquito breeding ground of stagnant water, though this was not to matter because they would have found us anyways. Our camp had 3 resident alligators, one of which was maybe 3 meters long, named Pequeno. We watched the sunset of the river, so entranced by the peace and beauty and then, all of the sudden, it was like a dog whistle was blown calling all the mosquitoes. As I write this, after 3 days in the Pampas, I would not be exaggerating at all, not even a little to say that I have 300 mosquito bites (and about 50 unidentified bites) on me. I could say 400 but that could be exaggerating, so somewhere in there. It was horrific. It was a bloodbath. We were not happy campers. There was nothing we could do but put on every piece of clothing we had in the heat and scratch.
In the morning the mosquitoes weren’t so bad. At least not by the river. We took a pleasant canoe ride to another part of the pampas. We landed and set out into the jungle to go look for anacondas. I love hiking. I really do. It is one of my favorite things to do in the world. Nothing about this was fun. We thought the mosquitoes were bad at camp, this was a whole new level. It was like, my experience with mosquitoes had been taken up a notch the night before, and then this blew my mind. We couldn’t enjoy the walk, we were so busy being attacked by the mosquitoes. Swatting is useless .We had on ponchos and all our clothes as we walked through the steamy jungle. We did find a small anaconda and then a cobra type snake which Diego then wrapped around my neck and had me hold its head so it wouldn’t bit me, but he had me hold it so tightly I felt really sad and didn’t like that at all either. We continued but were all wanting to get out of there with the mosquitoes. The fire ants weren’t so pleasant either and their bites are a lot more painful.
It was nice to all share in some misery together, nothing like bonding over looking like we had the chicken pox from all our bites to bring strangers together. Two of the crazy people in our group decided to go back in the jungle while the rest of us waited outside. I practiced my Spanish with this great toothless old man that lived in the pampas and he showed me types of fruit I could eat in the jungle.
Later in the day we went swimming with dolphins, and it was more swimming in the vicinity of dolphins. I think Diego could see how I was disappointed so he took us through what would be the equivalent of canoe 4-wheeling to another place. It was a little un-nerving to swim in a river that you can’t see anything in because it is so dark after having seen so many crocodiles and even more un-nerving to be swimming in a river where there are people just 40 meters away fishing for piranhas. But I had to appreciate his effort and I jumped on in. The dolphins came pretty close to me and that was really great, but they didn’t come play around me or anything like I had hoped. It was still fun.
That evening we were let out to play with some other tour groups so I played some volleyball. Then we went looking for alligators and crocodiles by flashlight in the canoe in the dark, looking for their sinister looking red-eyes. I was sitting in the back of the canoe and Diego, the guide and I started talking. He is a fascinating one, he is indigenous and grew up in the jungle. He knows about all the medicinal purposes of plants and he has this special affinity with animals, they just seem calm around him. He has been lost in the jungle and come face to face with a jaguar and also has calmed dangerous snakes. He is an interesting character who is always singing and plays his guitar when we have a free moment and sings songs he has written. His father is a medicine man in the jungle. I was fascinated by his stories of growing up in the jungle and the things his father has done, not to mention the fact that talking to him really helps my Spanish being that he doesn’t speak a word of English so we have to muddle through somehow. We both are pretty dolphin-obsessed and he told me that every night he goes to a place where there are dolphins and I could come with him if I wanted that night.
So after dinner we snuck away from the camp and canoed out to this stunning lagoon. The stars were so incredibly bright I could see the Milky Way dust in the sky and heat lightning in the distance. It was nice to be away from camp and away from people and out in quiet wilderness. Unfortunately we didn’t bring a flashlight to check the water for crocodiles, but I decided to jump in the water anyways and just stay close to the boat. No dolphins came, but it was still a really nice night out for a swim and it is always good to click with a new friend.
Our last day we went Piranha fishing in the morning. They don’t taste so bad actually and by eating them we surmised we were asserting our place on the food chain. I have never eaten anything with teeth like that before though. Another quick swim with dolphins and then a canoe ride back, jeep ride and back to Rurrenebaque with mosquito bites for souvenirs.
Epic Travels (Brazil to Bolivia)
It was a popsicle vendor’s dream and a nightmare for everyone else. Fortunately, there was a popsicle vendor around to be the only one to appreciate our circumstances.
I think about my last blog entry with my saccharine comments of the joys of the road and sort of want to bitch-slap myself. That was written a few hours into my trip with such blithe optimism and now I know better. In all seriousness though, it goes to show the microcosm of life travel is, how it tends to inflate every emotion. Some of my best times and some of my worst times have been traveling. Actually, no, that was a lie, none of my worst times have been traveling, but sometimes are more trying than others.
I was fine until the last leg of the trip, really I was. I was enjoying myself. I was positively blissful waiting in the shopping mall in the middle of nowhere, Annapolis for 6 hours, sitting on a bus and attempting to sleep for 18 hours, then waiting in a bus station in Campo Grande for 6 hours, then an 8 hour bus ride to Corumba. I missed crossing the border into Brazil because immigration closed 10 minutes before I got there but I did get to sleep in a bed for about 5 hours before catching a motorcycle taxi across the border and waiting another 14 hours in Quijarro, a dusty town with nothing to do and nowhere to go. From there it was the 30 hour “Death Train” which only turned out to be 19 hours because I caught the faster one. Then I had to wait in another crappy city, Santa Cruz for 12 hours, which happened to be right at the same time that 3 foreigners were shot for an alleged assassination attempt of Morales which seems to be a big set-up and was interesting timing for me to be there, though admittedly I missed all the action, before catching an overnight bus to a backwater city, Trinidad in the Amazon Basin. So really, I was happy, I was loving travel, things were good. Until the last leg.
It is one thing to go into a 33 hour bus ride knowing that. It is all mental, you see, though because I have such bad neck problems I need to be as discriminating as possible about which buses I take. But the one I was taking was only for 8 hours and it’s not like I had to sleep on it so it was ok that it was uncomfortable, plus there was nothing I could do, the road to Rurrenebaque, my final destination is not really a road, thus instead of a bus, a 4-wheeling Camion type is needed instead for the harsh conditions of such a less-traveled mess of a road.
The thing about buses that one must keep in mind is you can’t use the bathroom very often. This is a huge problem. Especially for me who has the bladder the size of a raisin. So I have to be very careful to dehydrate myself, it isn’t fun, but I have no choice. So by the time I got to Trinidad I was already really dehydrated.
Two things happened before I got on this bus. I had an intuition to buy more water, which I did. And I had an intuition not to get on it, which I ignored. I had this weird feeling because it was all men on the bus and some of them looked rather sketchy, but I had no choice to get on this Camion because no women were traveling, so that was just the way it was. The bus was broken down and beat up. The driver seemed to get lost in the city before we left which was a bit disconcerting. As soon as we got out of the town the door fell off the bus. They roped it back on but eventually gave up.
We had to cross the rivers twice on these crazy little wooden raft ferrys. I was practicing my Spanish with the guys on the bus (nobody spoke English) and a man almost got run over by the bus when we were sitting behind it on the ferry and had to jump into the water because the bus was rolling back and we had nowhere to stand. But that was fine, nobody was hurt.
Then came the mud. We got stuck once and managed to eventually get out. The second time we got stuck the men all had to get out in to the mud and pull the camion through. Then we got really stuck. We, and all the other people in other vehicles had nothing to do but wait. Wait for hours. Out came the popsicles. I was dizzy with heat and dehydration, and then, out of nowhere, a man I had befriended was handing me a popsicle. A guy that had gotten on our camion had a whole cooler full of them that somehow didn’t melt. I think it was probably one of the best business days he has ever had.
Finally a tractor came and pulled us all out. We got stuck three times and three times it had to pull us out. Then we got through the deep trenches of mud and back to just the normally horrendous road. Then our bus broke down. A few hours later, I am seeing double I am so dehydrated. I am trying to ration my water because it is not looking promising that we will get moving. Other people are complaining of hunger, but I have no hungry, the thirst is like an all consuming animal inside me.
They fix the bus but have to constantly pour water into the engine. Luckily, we are surrounded by swamps and wetlands on either side of us. We drive very slowly, pouring water from buckets into the engine constantly, and have to stop every five minutes so the drivers can scramble to the water to fill up more to pour into the engine.
Then we get stuck in mud again. This time I get out and help them pull and my parts are permanently turned another color. Eventually the camion moves. The sun dips behind the horizon and I become and all-you-can eat buffet for a swarm of mosquitoes. The wetlands on either side of us that are keeping us going are also housing all the mosquitoes. I am too thirsty to raise my hand to brush them off, it is hopeless anyways. There has recently been a Dengue Fever epidemic in the area and I say a silent prayer that I will be ok.
Then we break down again. The other people are looking ready to riot they are so hungry. I try to use this as an opportunity to practice my Spanish, but unable to say anything intelligent, I wonder if they think I am un poco lento. A couple hours later we are able to move again, but we do occasionally have to get out to push the bus. The water has to constantly be poured into the engine. This goes on for about 11 hours, all night. At one point, late at night we stop in the only pueblo we find, San Ignacio. I love this pueblo right away. We go and get food but there is a big problem, somehow they don’t have water. I am willing to drink the tap water, but my new found friends tell me even they won’t do that and buy me a coke instead.
We push the bus out of the small pueblo and continue on into the muddy night. Finally we get to a bigger city. It is 10 am now and we go to the bus station. The company has an office there and us remaining passengers and shoved into a tiny, hot and very uncomfortable van that my neck hates right away. But another 6 hours and we are at our final destination, Rurrenebaque in the Amazon Basin.
Total travel time: 129 hours straight
Number of mosquito bites: 73 that I can see
Meals eaten: 2, plus a bag that my friend in Brazil packed me
Bottles of water drank: 2
Number of times I contemplated drinking swamp water: 12
New Spanish words: 4
Hours in which I had no will to live: 5
Times I will repeat that journey: 0
I think about my last blog entry with my saccharine comments of the joys of the road and sort of want to bitch-slap myself. That was written a few hours into my trip with such blithe optimism and now I know better. In all seriousness though, it goes to show the microcosm of life travel is, how it tends to inflate every emotion. Some of my best times and some of my worst times have been traveling. Actually, no, that was a lie, none of my worst times have been traveling, but sometimes are more trying than others.
I was fine until the last leg of the trip, really I was. I was enjoying myself. I was positively blissful waiting in the shopping mall in the middle of nowhere, Annapolis for 6 hours, sitting on a bus and attempting to sleep for 18 hours, then waiting in a bus station in Campo Grande for 6 hours, then an 8 hour bus ride to Corumba. I missed crossing the border into Brazil because immigration closed 10 minutes before I got there but I did get to sleep in a bed for about 5 hours before catching a motorcycle taxi across the border and waiting another 14 hours in Quijarro, a dusty town with nothing to do and nowhere to go. From there it was the 30 hour “Death Train” which only turned out to be 19 hours because I caught the faster one. Then I had to wait in another crappy city, Santa Cruz for 12 hours, which happened to be right at the same time that 3 foreigners were shot for an alleged assassination attempt of Morales which seems to be a big set-up and was interesting timing for me to be there, though admittedly I missed all the action, before catching an overnight bus to a backwater city, Trinidad in the Amazon Basin. So really, I was happy, I was loving travel, things were good. Until the last leg.
It is one thing to go into a 33 hour bus ride knowing that. It is all mental, you see, though because I have such bad neck problems I need to be as discriminating as possible about which buses I take. But the one I was taking was only for 8 hours and it’s not like I had to sleep on it so it was ok that it was uncomfortable, plus there was nothing I could do, the road to Rurrenebaque, my final destination is not really a road, thus instead of a bus, a 4-wheeling Camion type is needed instead for the harsh conditions of such a less-traveled mess of a road.
The thing about buses that one must keep in mind is you can’t use the bathroom very often. This is a huge problem. Especially for me who has the bladder the size of a raisin. So I have to be very careful to dehydrate myself, it isn’t fun, but I have no choice. So by the time I got to Trinidad I was already really dehydrated.
Two things happened before I got on this bus. I had an intuition to buy more water, which I did. And I had an intuition not to get on it, which I ignored. I had this weird feeling because it was all men on the bus and some of them looked rather sketchy, but I had no choice to get on this Camion because no women were traveling, so that was just the way it was. The bus was broken down and beat up. The driver seemed to get lost in the city before we left which was a bit disconcerting. As soon as we got out of the town the door fell off the bus. They roped it back on but eventually gave up.
We had to cross the rivers twice on these crazy little wooden raft ferrys. I was practicing my Spanish with the guys on the bus (nobody spoke English) and a man almost got run over by the bus when we were sitting behind it on the ferry and had to jump into the water because the bus was rolling back and we had nowhere to stand. But that was fine, nobody was hurt.
Then came the mud. We got stuck once and managed to eventually get out. The second time we got stuck the men all had to get out in to the mud and pull the camion through. Then we got really stuck. We, and all the other people in other vehicles had nothing to do but wait. Wait for hours. Out came the popsicles. I was dizzy with heat and dehydration, and then, out of nowhere, a man I had befriended was handing me a popsicle. A guy that had gotten on our camion had a whole cooler full of them that somehow didn’t melt. I think it was probably one of the best business days he has ever had.
Finally a tractor came and pulled us all out. We got stuck three times and three times it had to pull us out. Then we got through the deep trenches of mud and back to just the normally horrendous road. Then our bus broke down. A few hours later, I am seeing double I am so dehydrated. I am trying to ration my water because it is not looking promising that we will get moving. Other people are complaining of hunger, but I have no hungry, the thirst is like an all consuming animal inside me.
They fix the bus but have to constantly pour water into the engine. Luckily, we are surrounded by swamps and wetlands on either side of us. We drive very slowly, pouring water from buckets into the engine constantly, and have to stop every five minutes so the drivers can scramble to the water to fill up more to pour into the engine.
Then we get stuck in mud again. This time I get out and help them pull and my parts are permanently turned another color. Eventually the camion moves. The sun dips behind the horizon and I become and all-you-can eat buffet for a swarm of mosquitoes. The wetlands on either side of us that are keeping us going are also housing all the mosquitoes. I am too thirsty to raise my hand to brush them off, it is hopeless anyways. There has recently been a Dengue Fever epidemic in the area and I say a silent prayer that I will be ok.
Then we break down again. The other people are looking ready to riot they are so hungry. I try to use this as an opportunity to practice my Spanish, but unable to say anything intelligent, I wonder if they think I am un poco lento. A couple hours later we are able to move again, but we do occasionally have to get out to push the bus. The water has to constantly be poured into the engine. This goes on for about 11 hours, all night. At one point, late at night we stop in the only pueblo we find, San Ignacio. I love this pueblo right away. We go and get food but there is a big problem, somehow they don’t have water. I am willing to drink the tap water, but my new found friends tell me even they won’t do that and buy me a coke instead.
We push the bus out of the small pueblo and continue on into the muddy night. Finally we get to a bigger city. It is 10 am now and we go to the bus station. The company has an office there and us remaining passengers and shoved into a tiny, hot and very uncomfortable van that my neck hates right away. But another 6 hours and we are at our final destination, Rurrenebaque in the Amazon Basin.
Total travel time: 129 hours straight
Number of mosquito bites: 73 that I can see
Meals eaten: 2, plus a bag that my friend in Brazil packed me
Bottles of water drank: 2
Number of times I contemplated drinking swamp water: 12
New Spanish words: 4
Hours in which I had no will to live: 5
Times I will repeat that journey: 0
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Life of a Ghost (Brazil to Bolivia)
It seems to haunt me wherever I go. I could have easily stayed in Brazil my whole trip, or at least until my visa ran out if it weren’t for the whisper, “the world awaits. . .”
Back on the road again. I stayed in Brazil for six weeks, instead of the two that I expected which is speeding up my whole trip a bit now. It was sad to leave Brazil, I stayed there longer than I have stayed anywhere that I can think of. It was a tearful goodbye to a close group of some of my favorite people that I have ever met.
But, sitting in a shopping mall in Annapolis, a nondescript industrial Brazilian town pretty much in the middle of nowhere, waiting for my bus that was due to depart in 7 hours; an 18 hour bus followed by another wait in a bus station and an 8 hour bus followed by sleeping in another bus station before going across a notoriously sketchy boarder to board a train that is actually called “The Death Train,” for 30 hours to jump on another bus for 12 hours with maybe a night’s rest in between that one, and I was sublimely happy.
I wonder how much of my life I have spent waiting in bus stations and other random places for buses to depart. More than your average person, I can assure myself of that. But for some reason, instead of minding it, it feels like a part of life to me.
Bus stations are places of tremendous energy for me. I love the possibility of them. I can jump on a bus to anywhere if I wanted to. I love having options.
Travel for me, is pure freedom. It is absolutely addicting in its freedom and I have no idea how I will ever settle down to a normal life. The only thing that has ever come close to that kind of freedom was when I used to gallop my horse as fast as she could run up a steep hill, bareback. I couldn’t even steer her, just hang on for dear life and trust. I suppose travel parallels that in a myriad of ways.
I realized that when I travel, I move like a ghost. In fact, because of all the time I have spent traveling, I have spent far more time only as a ghostly presence in this world the last few years than I have as a human being. What I mean by that is the fact that most of the time, absolutely no one in the world knows exactly where on this planet that I am. I can tell people what my itinerary is, but it changes more often than not. And I also know that what I am doing, most people cannot relate too or even picture. It makes me view the world differently as a ghost.
I love how I never know who I may meet on a day on the road. I don’t always know where I will go. The possibilities are endless and every day has potential to be life-altering. How does someone who craves freedom and possibility as much as I do ever cram back into a routine?
As we grow up and decisions are made, people always talk about all the things that we gain. But as we and our friends make irrevocable choices, possibilities are limited; whether it be a friend we have always seen potential with getting married, people having babies which will change their lifestyle forever, a career choice or moving choice, people we care about moving away or us deciding on a new place to settle. And yes, much is gained. But people only seem to talk about what is gained as we grow up, but what about all the options and chances that we lose as things are limited and decided?
Some people are ready to close those other options. But me, I prefer my freedom right now. I love my life as a ghost. As I ride along the marshy swampland on the bus, I wonder if I will spend the night in Brazil or Bolivia tonight. I am happy.
Are all Travelers Crazy? (Brazil and everywhere else I've been)
Long term travel definitely attracts some unique people to put it lightly. Maybe all of us that are crazy enough to choose such an unconventional life-style are a little off, but some more than others for sure.
I think that I should write a book profiling some of the people I have met on the road. This idea first came to fruition on my first long-term solo trip to South East Asia. Some of you that read my blog traveled through Laos with me. I am sure you haven’t forgotten the Gold Smoking Ninja either, he was my prime inspiration for this idea.But at a close second would be a man that I met in Brazil.
He looks like the tall quiet guy from the American office, but I will not divulge what country he is from to protect the identity of the unique. I had seen him before, he sort of scurries around like a chipmunk carrying crystals. This is our first (and unfortunately not our last, I had one other but he didn’t remember me from the first one) conversation. This is as verbatim as I could possibly be and how it started, no introductions or anything.
Him: have you got your crystals yet?
me: um, I don't think I'll buy any, I am traveling with a backpack.
Him: Yeah, they are really good to buy here. It is good to buy them here. You can touch them and the warmer ones conduct the most energy and you can bring them to current and they charge.
me: oh, ok.
him: I know a lot about crystals. I was alive in Atlantis before it sank and I was (insert name of somebody important in Atlantis. Yeah, that's right). And then, when it sank, I grabbed the (insert name of some crystals or something that he assumes I should know the name of, in fact, I got the point that he assumes everyone knows the name of) and swam with them to Macchu Piccu (this is in the mountains by the way but apparently it wasn't then I suppose.) and buried them under the sun temple. Are you going to Macchu Piccu?
Me: um, I think. . .
him: because I need to turn on the crystals if we are going to save the world from 2012. Because I burried them I am the only one that can do that and I failed in my last lifetime because i forgot but there was another guy who was here last week that was guarding them, but he left them. SO I am going t go there and dig them up and activate them because I know how. They are under the sun temple. Im going to bring a shovel and dig them up.
me: I don't think they let you dig at Macchu Piccu.
him: no?
me: no, they probably won't let you in with a shovel.
him: Well, I'll go at night.
True story. Just thought I’d share.
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