Dispatch Number 83 -Dead Things

Eight months into my journey, back in 2009, I still wore the gleam of the rose-tinted traveler excited by most everything I saw, summoning it up with 'Great!' My romantic perspective was jolted when the well respected, Reverend Lawrence Rosebaugh, an American was shot dead. He had spent over thirty years running missions in war-torn countries like El Salvador and Guatemala. Now, he was slumped over the wheel caught in a road-side ambush two kilometers outside the 200-person village I was staying in.

Peace Corp friend, Ted and I watched them drive past his house at 5:30 in the afternoon. Minutes later the Reverend was shot in the head and the others in his group, all priests had their valuables taken at gunpoint. The bandits escaped on foot over a jungle trail with a couple cameras, bibles and a fistful of dollars, leaving a dead man behind. The news sent a chill down our spines because we had driven the same road just a couple hours earlier.

Traveling remote areas, which is usually where I am, carried a new edge after that. In this remote part of northern Guatemala the apathy and disinterest of the police contrasted with the anger of the indigenous communities they were expected to serve. The cops would not enter into a pursuit and the next morning a posse of local farmers took matters into their own hands and gave chase finding evidence, but no robbers.

While in Honduras with Jeff the gregarious Australian we saw these two:

After lunch under piercing Honduran sun we drove on a new highway that cut through the banana plantations along the Caribbean coast. An old man lie dead in the opposite lane. Fresh runny blood poured down the sloping roadway towards our lane as we crawled by in first gear staring out the driver's window, the blood would be in our lane soon. A very old woman of similar age stood pensively over him as if afraid to know who he was, a bicycle lay on the ground near him. The scene looked like it happened minutes earlier. The dead one appeared still warm, blood shiny and fresh pooling by his head and running over the little stones that make up asphalt. We drove seven miles before talking again.

Days later in the same region we saw a group of a 100 people or more surround and stare at a man who lay dead next to his spilled motorcycle. No one touched him and we didn't stop.
Was he dead?, I asked.
Yes, definitely dead. Jeff proclaimed in a doctor's tone.
It was a tone surprisingly similar to one I heard from the doctor caring for my mother, Hope when I asked the same question years back. She was too still to be anything else.

David
Huaraz, Peru

Dispatch Number 82 -Shot Dead

The violence broke out at 9 on a Sunday evening. Mothers and small children crying, some wail as they walk away from the scene in the cold night air. The shock felt in the aftermath of violence. People stood quiet without emotion. Quiet like a funeral service. The tidy curbs and paving stones betrayed the violence that brought people out of their houses in the small Colombian mountain town of three thousand people. The night was quiet except for aimlessly barking dogs. Quiet the way small agricultural towns are after sunset when they shutter up and the streets become still.

A man was shot dead one block from my hotel. The sounds: killing and shock could be heard in clear detail, the crack of the pistol and the horrible guttural wail women make when someone dies. Six rapid pistol shots, like Chinese firecrackers rang out shattering the peace of early evening. I thought someone had lost their temper and shot one of the barking dogs, when in fact, they lost it and shot another man.

I stood with the gathering crowd. We stared in silence at the dead man laying in the gutter. He looked so peaceful he could have been mistaken for a passed out drunk of 40 or 50 years, a man with a swollen face of too much salt, oil and beer. No sheet or jacket tossed over him, just his still body facing the cold night sky with closed eyes. He lay dead in front of a tienda, a small convenience store, the kind I buy toilet paper, beer and food at.

A crowd formed and stood quietly with a stillness only felt when you walk the streets late at night. Still, very still, like sex after an orgasm, expired and calm. No police car sirens or bright flashing lights, just one cop who arrived on foot in a two cop town. The townsfolk slowly grew into a crescent shape around the dead-man. Not a whisper.

I stood close, close as an outsider dare, looking for Hollywood bullet holes and blood. Unlike the movies there were none. I stood with the rest of them staring. Contemplating. The freshly dead are ghoulish. So strange this man in morbid state with not a whisper in the crowd.
I think to myself, What he did he do for work and wondered what the argument could have been over? How many dead bodies have I seen in my life?

I had to remind myself I was looking at a dead man, one shot dead like the days of the Wild West, there it was again: Hollywood. Listening to my thoughts I can see how much of life is played out on film and not in real life. I left the community to itself, its shock, its whispers. My return walk to the hotel was solemn as I passed whispering women standing in front of a house. I bowed my head and walked on.

Death makes you value life, albeit usually temporarily. You make half-hearted promises to yourself to do something different, much like the cheap new year resolutions we make and don't keep, or like this night, the next death.

Ernesto J. was shot dead over something. Nothing. It could have been anything, a woman, religion or saltine crackers. I sensed the killer was the man sitting next to Ernesto's still body, with his head hung low looking unhappy with his rashness. The policeman's radio crackled.

David
Lima, Peru

Dispatch Number 81 -Cow Man

A leather-faced cow herder waved us to stop at a broad curve in the road where he was shoveling dirt into potholes that burst out everywhere like pimples in the asphalt. He was working this remote section alone while his few cows munching on high plains grass that looked better suited to weave with. This scene is normal on back-country roads in Latin America, the poor get a shovel to patch holes in hope drivers will proffer tips for their labor. They do make a difference, but there are always more potholes than repairmen. Every age participates, from 7 year old boys to old peasant women.

On the drive to Chavin we crossed the famed Cordillera Blanca in search of a sulfur hot spring in the heart of the Andes, it was here we met the smiling Peruvian herder on the road. The peasants, or campesinos who live in this remote cold dry environment have red-brown weathered complexions. Age guessing is hopeless, they all look older than they are, the impassive faces of children have bright red-rosy cheeks that look painted on.

I offered a lollipop instead of a coin. He had one of those broad natural smiles that gave the appearance he smiled all the time. His teeth were badly decayed though lined in silver, like picture frames highlighting what was left.
He was pleased with the candy and surprised me by asking, Do you have an old newspaper?
We were near a low mountain pass in the middle of nowhere, not a single house in sight. I love to read and was charmed he asked for a daily and dearly wished I had one to give.

We exchanged pleasantries then drove on while the next driver ignored his plea for a tip leaving Cow Man in a whirl of road dust.

David
Lima, Peru

Dispatch Number 80 -The Guest

This August having spent the hottest part of the year in the Amazon basin I felt the urge to get out of that sticky oppressive part of Peru and clear my head in the Andes. In the foothills where grass meets granite the focus becomes the mountainous backdrop with Peruvian herders managing small flocks of sheep and cattle. The herders hiss and make guttural noises to manage the animals while tossing rocks and slapping them with thin branches. After long walks in the mountains I would take communal meals at the Inn where fellow travelers shared stories.

There was a colorful variety of guests staying at the Inn, Amy an American lawyer visiting Peru for two weeks who brought it all with her, not the work, but the weird energy of wound up America. She worked for the U.S. Department of Justice in the Environmental Division in Washington, D.C. who was a tense tightly wrapped person. When people said something she made a point to hear exactly the opposite. She had the knack of asking questions and ignoring the reply.

A person who had trouble accepting kindness like the time I gave her a tangerine as a simple food gift; eying my actions with suspicion, she struggled with a snotty "thanks" sounding like a college sorority girl who was worried her friends were watching. A person could not hold a conversation with her because she would parse one's words mercilessly derailing the "intent" of the conversation. She would search for fault and blemish in most everything, including herself.

The most colorful guests were friends of the owner, Alex a group of 2012 futurists that predicted impending doom in December 2012 that took a lot of natural jungle drugs to see through it all. It was such a colorful bunch I wrote a separate piece to be shared soon.

Two German women were among the guests at the Inn, who I suspected of being lovers (men always have to comment on this superficial bullshit) that complained of the local peasants doing their annual grass burn before seasonal rains. The confident one, Teresa worked for Airbus and described her world in extremes of 'the best and worst' despite common opinion. Germans tend to be some of the most inflexible and intolerant people I have met on my travels. The most offensive I met were two young German men teaching English in rural Ecuador who turned the motor off in my Land Cruiser as it warmed telling me as I watched from the balcony above they did not want to listen to it and authoritatively told me engines don't need to be warmed anymore. I was never asked to turn it off.

The women at the Inn were much more friendly, Teresa's unemployed girlfriend had a voracious appetite consuming anything left on the communal dining table, smothering it with hot sauce until she emptied the bottle.
The confident one went on, thick with pity about the burning hillside near the Inn, I wish someone would tell them to stop doing that.

The West always knows best. I tire of this type of traveler who accepts little of the places they visit, preferring high moral ground like fires, trash and toilet systems to bitch about. One needs to be cautious when moralizing against the countries they visit, because if everything was run to high standards like they are in the West, then these travelers would have no place to go. A principal reason to travel is to see different things and things done differently. I have found the Germans to be the most reluctant to accept this idea, they prefer the comfortable couch of criticism, railing against anything they set their attentions to. On a closing point, the practice of burning grass to set nutrients for the next crop has been an agricultural practice for over 11,000 years.

David
Lima, Peru

Dispatch Number 79 -No Hands

After I saw him I thought shamefully to myself, David, the next time you get bitchy or full of self-pity try it one more time without a pair of hands.
Through a birth defect the backpacker next to me had no hands.
He has gone through his whole life this way and it stimulated a string of questions:
What are his hardships?
How does he count money?
How does he endure being teased and stared at?
How does he eat?
And how does he do it all and not have it be at the center of attention?

He moved effortlessly about and I hardly noticed him in my morning haze. The man with no hands refreshed my perspective on how petty we can make things. In this brief passing it was to never know a man yet be affected by him.

David
Lima, Peru

Dispatch Number 78 -Notes From a Notebook IV

The Move

The petite French woman who went volcano watching with us the night before rode with us from a cool air mountain town in Ecuador down to the steamy tropics of the Amazon basin to the east. Sort of cute, she had a compressed face that squished up her features and had a munchkin-like body. We stopped for a dip in a river to escape jungle heat by lying about in the shallow riverbed.

Jason, a travel friend, did a bizarre thing -he made a move on the pug-like Nittie, an action that stood in contrast to his low self-esteem that propelled him to do little. He was throwing rocks with his cousin when he suddenly stopped, walked over to where Nittie was sitting, over fifty feet away, then faced her while he placed his hands on a large rock, then with model-like sexuality tore off his t-shirt and dunked his 80s rocker-style hair into the waters. He stood up dripping, pulled his hair back and bared his chest to unimpressed Nittie who struggled to contain a giggle.

Marjolein, my Dutch travel companion remarked, Did you see Jason's Herbal Essence Shampoo move?
Before it was over Jason, without saying a word, gave a clumsy smile, stood cautiously proud and hesitated awkwardly for a moment then walked back to his rock pile. Nittie finally gave a laugh, the condescending way French people do when confronted with American guilelessness.

When we arrived at our destination in steamy Tena she was gone in under five minutes for the bus station declaring she was bound for one of those spots promoted in the travel guides as an "off-the-beaten-path" experience. These guides are bibles for the uncreative non-adventurous types and they adhere to them with remarkable predictability. The implication made in these travel books is that you will be the only non-native person there. And like most things that share characteristics of the bible it leads to group-think and group-actions that end in dull predictability: the "intrepid" backpacker finds his congregation has already arrived at the same hotel and taking meals in the same restaurants.

Doritos
A traveler's comfort comes in many forms, tonight it is being alone in a cheap street-front room, a candle in the window with a large bag of Doritos, a chunk of cheese and two bottles of beer. Made complete with a good book, this one a biography about the Argentine revolutionary Che.
Little else is needed in this mountain town.

Unhatched Ideas

A Doritos Index. It would keep a running record of Doritos prices in each country as a measure of inflation and relative prices which can fluctuate widely country to country. Two things I can find in every country: Doritos and Coca Cola, good Coke in glass bottles.

The Recently Read List
Compañero, a biography on revolutionary Che Guevara, now I know the story and it is a great deal more than the pop-art posters that are plastered everywhere. A complicated and extraordinarily interesting man, he was a Gemini after all. After his capture the Bolivians decided to execute Che to avoid further problems they anticipated would come with having just captured the World's Revolutionary leader whose stated goal was to export revolution. The Americans wanted to interrogate him in Panama and there was a possibility the Cubans would send an armed rescue to break him out. Aside from being a rural tourist I am also a morbid historical seeker, my plans are to visit the ravine where he was captured and school house where he was summarily shot. Years ago I stood at the motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The combined pleasure of seeing the actual location of one's death and history is difficult to explain.

Blinding Light, Paul Theroux's (One of America's great travel writers) worst novel ever and something rare for me, left unfinished and abandoned on a bookshelf for another traveler to suffer.

A contemporary history of The Arab-Israeli Conflict, an eye opening read from a world historical perspective. The rule of history prevails, those in power rarely negotiate. Israel is in the driver's seat on this one.

Endurance, the Shackleton story of an exploration ship getting trapped in antarctic ice floes and of his miraculous, truly miraculous story of survival and leadership. An unbelievable ordeal that lasted nearly two years, in 1914-17.

Howard Hughes, The Secret Life, a biography of the billionaire sex crazed bi-sexual control-freak who was also a titan of American industry, a friend of the CIA and to wrap up his further eccentric side was a germaphobe and notorious tightwad (an odd trait shared by many of the super wealthy). Contrary to popular belief, the evidence demonstrates he was not crazy nor controlled by others, but was, in this account very alert and active in his latter years. With his Hollywood productions he influenced how films were made, especially the loosening of sexual censorship. Others include contributions to the aeronautics industry; spy satellites for the U.S. government; various CIA escapades involving Cuba; a secret technology provider to the intelligence boys at the CIA; transformed the Las Vegas you know today when he bought several casinos from mob families in the 1960s. Howard initiated corporate-run Vegas of today made fit for a child and a man of vice.

A Short History of Nearly Everything, a layman's book of modern science by Bill Bryson, very good, especially the biographies of the fame-crazed scientists that either made novel discoveries or stole them from each other -these guys are catty self-promoters! Did you know that if your text book diagram of the solar system was to scale that Pluto would be two kilometers away from where you sat?

What am I Doing Here, a Bruce Chatwin posthumously published book of travel and interview notes. It helped me better understand my current nomadic traits. He has a thing for very good first sentences too.

David
Lima, Peru