Thursday, September 30, 2010

Dispatch Number 74 -Superlatives


Peru is a country of superlatives in geography and mineral wealth. Until you study a map and some export statistics you would never know this side of Peru except for the famed Machu Picchu. A land of extremes that range from dense jungles and rivers of the Upper Amazon to the Andes mountain range.

The Amazon River, the world's largest, begins in Peru. A 6,800 kilometer (4,800 mile) twist to the Atlantic ocean. It possess the heart of the Andes with the second highest mountain range in the world, second only to the Himalayas. A cathedral of ice capped peaks with nearly two dozen over 6,000 meters (19,800'+). Then Pacific north coast with its tropical hot lowlands. And the southern coast is desert, some of the driest in the world. A 100 mile drive from the Amazon basin into the heart of the Andes can leave your mouth agape, changes are extreme, each turn reveals a staggering display of nature.

In Peru you will find the highest coal mine in the world at 4,000 meters (13,200'). Highest train station in the world, 4,760m (15,700'). Highest drivable pass in the world 5,060m (16,700') and yes, I plan to drive it. Highest sand dune in the world, 2,080m (6,860'). Deepest canyon in the world, 3,350m (11,000'). Even lake water is at the top of category, Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at 3,810m (12,575').

The mineral wealth, albeit not shared with the people is impressive. They are the number one producers of silver in the world; number two in zinc; third in both copper and tin; fourth in lead and sixth in gold.

Another category approved by me is the food of Peru, it is the best I have eaten since leaving Mexico. Central America, Colombia and Ecuador left much to be desired by way of flavors and creativity. Gas approaches $4.50 per gallon making Peru one of the more expensive places to drive a private car.
A six month tourist visa hardly seems adequate.


David
Huaraz, Peru

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Dispatch Number 73 -Some of My Favorite Things

As the two year anniversary approaches I reflect of some of the things I have done and experienced. It will be two years this October since I crossed the border into Mexico to begin a driving journey to the bottom of the world.
-David

Directions
Waving goodbye to a backpacker in northern Guatemala after convincing him to take a road that was not in the Lonely Planet guidebook. He looked so happy standing with his travelers bag in an empty flat bed truck with two workers. I drove the same road weeks later. A special route not frequented by travelers through mountainous communities of indigenous Maya. He waved back to me as the heavy truck built up speed leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. He was going the other way just 15 minutes earlier.

Eating
Buying stolen fruit from a beggar.

Flat Tire
The Man who fixed my flat out in the middle of the jungle, where services such as tire repair services don't exist. No one in the village owned a car and the town itself lined both sides of a long unused dirt runway now grassed over with a soccer pitch shared with untethered pigs and horses. I sheared off a valve stem on some jungle brush while deep in the dry jungle of northern Guatemala searching for a Maya ruin that had not been exposed to the tourist hoards or polished up. It was near the famed ruins of Tikal.

The old leathery Guatemalan making the repair had no valve stem to replace the one I'd broken, but explained he'd look for one and to come back later. When I came back I was disappointed to see him stuffing an inner tube into a modern tube-less tire. It was done. I let go of my finely honed "make it perfect American way" by joining the men who were inflating my newly repaired tire with a bicycle pump in repressive Guatemalan heat. The bead eventually set after 45 minutes of pumping settling at 18psi. I had a spare tire and could barrel off into the bush again. I was beginning to learn something about Latin American resourcefulness.

Stuck
The Honduran who pulled my truck off a precarious rain soaked mountain road; it was a land bridge that gave way with four friends out for a Sunday drive to the top of a mountain that overlooked Trujillo on the Caribbean coast. A hole as big as the truck lie waiting. My old Land Cruiser's rear axle rested on crumbly soil. Any attempt to get it out without help condemned it to the hole beneath it. Even if the tow out went bad the hole lay waiting. It was my worst pickle to date. We dug, placed timber while another Toyota pulled it out safely. We drove off the mountain and went back to town returning to our rum.

Fantasy
Driving portions of the 2008 Baja 1000 off road race circuit through the Baja California desert in my antiquated Toyota Land Cruiser.

Readers
It was the strangest book trade I ever made and the most unequal while standing on a remote people-less beach. We drove 100 miles over dirt roads to reach this pristine crescent white sand beach on the Sea of Cortez in Baja California. I was fiddling with the tent when they appeared on the beach in a pair of kayaks and pitched camp. A fit and attractive Swiss couple.
He asked, Do you have a book to trade?
Yes, I do.
I said with pleasure, I have a travel book by Paul Theroux, a collection of his works. What do you have?

It was a juvenile action book for 8th graders about a man hunted naked in the desert by a nut who hired him as a guide. It was a stupid read of survival and homoerotic fantasy. Usually for an unequal or poor trade like this one I refuse the trade. It didn't matter, the setting was too unusual not to, plus the fact that these two were rowing a significant portion of the Sea of Cortez in kayaks, carrying all their own supplies, including 15 days of water. I was impressed by their mode of travel and traded the book willingly. I read the naked man in the desert book and it was awful. It contained Jeeps, guns, survival, strange behavior and nudity. What did the Swiss man think of America after this read?

Pie I
Eating genuine apple pie in the indigenous highlands of Guatemala. You find Americans in the oddest places provided the oddest services.

Two Wheels
The French couple that Stephanie and I met who were bicycling from Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina (near 16,000 miles) that we met in the earliest days of my journey in the Baja California desert. This was November 2008 and one way or another we were all headed to the bottom of the world, Patagonia in buses, cars, motorcycles or bicycles. In January 2010 I received a letter indicating they arrived -the bottom of the South American Continent by bicycle. Almost two years later I am less than halfway in a car.

Pie II
Eating genuine apple pie again a year later in another indigenous highland town in Ecuador. This time it was an Ecuadorian baker providing the oddest service.

David
Huaraz, Peru

Friday, September 17, 2010

Dispatch Number 72 -Notes From A Notebook II

On the Value of Men
The men keep the machines running -it is a brotherhood. In some ways the male half of the species may seem lazy and unsupporting in Latin America when compared with the female half, but the men keep the machines running.


In Quest of What is Not There
There exists no idealized society, only ones different than your own. One's both equally great and equally screwed up. I slowly, almost reluctantly confront my romanticist views of the countries I travel through. Dismantling notions of countries somehow better than my own, when in fact they share the common threads of human nature, both good and bad.


Secrets
Oh, how uncomfortable it can be when people, especially strangers ask about your eating habits. In my case, my Ecuadorian host family noticed I was not eating my fruit or drinking the fruit juices they placed with my main meal. I could feel it coming, Don't you like fruit? Put into the unwelcome position to defend or explain my eating habits I went on in rough Spanish to explain the concept of Food Combining and how fruit inhibits digestion of non-fruit foods. So, you don't eat fruit?


My quiet world revealed to strangers. It felt like a drinking problem had been exposed.


A Question
Has anyone been shocked or knows someone who has been shocked by one of those electric fences used to keep cows inside the pasture fields? When I look at them in their old decrepit state I find it hard to believe they work. But I never touch one.


On Swimming in the Amazon Basin
It is a fine line between stupidity and bravery, I think to myself as I reflect that in the past three weeks of traveling the Amazon waterways including the Amazon River I have not seen a single local person swim. It feels more ominous considering I have traveled nearly 1,500 Km (930 miles) in a variety of boats and dugout canoes. When we fished for Piranha and I saw how fast they attacked (one to three seconds after casting with a chunk of fish meat wrapped on a simple hook) I decided to swim no more. When I asked, Why don't people swim?, of the locals they all responded the same, It's too dangerous.

Dreams
Billboards Promise Paradise
You'll never arrive.

Paul Theroux
Travel at it's most enlightening is not about having a good time.
-Paul Theroux

On Choosing Friends and Company
There are some people who pay their way. They bring their own energy their own light, but most of the others are useless both to you and to themselves. It is not being humane to tolerate the dead, it only increases their deadness and they always leave plenty of it with you after they are gone.
-Charles Bukowski

Words
It has been a while since I have written. I just don't seem to write much when traveling with someone. Perhaps the thoughts that usually go to paper are dissolved when spoken with another. In the company of others the juice of the word is lost.
When traveling alone you are the perpetual stranger, all is fresh and new. In Latin America the conversations tend to repeat themselves, however, your secrets remain yours. No one sees you pick your nose more than once.


Ecuador
Ecuador does not make for interesting writing, it is so tame and safe under the spell of good government and a shy reserved indigenous people. As a group and community it is a very peaceful place with mellow people and this makes Ecuador such a "sweet" place, safe and unassuming, they are poor but not angry. Peaceful to the core.
If I wrote about Ecuador it would be so sweet and honey like, pretty and comfortable; the good food, nice people, albeit shy, stunning roads crossing from the dramatic mountains of the Andes into the dense jungles of the Upper Amazon, handcrafts, merchantiles of sweaters and soft shawls.


Listen To Me
Deaf Ears.
-That's what most of us walk around with.

Iquitos
When do you turn on a place?
A city tires me. Too many days in a two-day city. Noisy dirty, over touristed this place Iquitos.
-Iquitos, Peru deep in the Amazon, a city of 500,000 people that has no road leading to it, planes and boats are the only way you can see it and how they get their food.

On Waiting
Everything worthwhile is NOT in the future.


David
Huaraz, Peru