Soothing scraping on a Peruvian morning

The party people from Lima were still sleeping it off, or maybe they had just gone to bed, so I was alone at breakfast in San Bartolo, on the coast of Peru. A steady stream of staff brought bags of fresh produce to the kitchen from the market across the street, and a 16 year old delivered two propane tanks on the back of his 125 cc Honda motorbike, improvised straps tenuous on the dented tanks.

I couldn't hear for sure, but I think the music in the kitchen was Wyclef and/or Beyonce.

A trill on a little wood pan pipe announced the arrival of the sinewy man with a wheeled contraption, a cross between a unicycle and a wheelbarrow. He paused, and when two cooks came out of the kitchen with large knives in their hands, he flipped the thing over and quickly set up shop.

A pump on the foot pedal set the main wheel turning, a leather strap scraped the road crap off then connected it to the smaller wheel. Taking the first knife, he eyed the edge, tested it with a thumb, then set to sharpening it on the spinning grindstone, the sound of scraping metal oddly soothing in the morning air.

I wanted to know this man. To take his picture. It was Day 2 of the trip though, so my nerves were still a bit shaky. “How do you sharpen knives in the US?” He might ask me.

“There's either a sharpener in the knife block, we do it ourselves (usually poorly) or we just kinda...you know...but a new one?” I didn't want to admit that. And what if he thought I was a jackass tourist? What if I was?

But there's no space for missed opportunities anymore, so before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed my bag and approached him. I used the absence of mosquitoes as smalltalk, saying I wanted to move here. Tangential compliments are always a good way to go, no?

With careful use of formal verb forms, I asked if I could take a picture. He was not an emotive man, but in his minimalism I sensed that the idea was not brand new to him, but still unfamiliar, and utterly incomprehensible. “Que raros, los turistas, no?”

He focused on his task while I snapped a couple quick shots, his leg, which must be harder than the steel he sharpens, never slowing as it pumped the foot pedal that earns him a living. We talked a little while he finished, and once his hands were free, I handed him a few soles, which he accepted with a slight nod.

He went on his way, and I returned to my table, where my breakfast was waiting, a dry bread roll with a thin slice of cheese. The radio was playing Rihanna, you can stand under my umbrella.

(Mis)judgments in the Andes

The street dogs were humping outside the five star boutique hotel in Cuzco. I'd run out the door of my own funky hostel without brushing my teeth, but luckily the numerous (and bored) staff seemed not sure what to make of a grungy gringo, and perhaps swayed by my prodigious use of the formal Spanish verb forms, agreed to let me use their fancypants bathroom while Abi waited for the Argentinians across the street.

Abi would be my guide for the next four days while we drove, bicycled, walked, and occasionally soared on our way to Machu Picchu; the three Argentinian girls would be my primary companions. They seemed terribly young, and so very.....what.....Argentinian? It seemed unlikely I would develop a traveler-crush on any of them, and I wondered for a moment what it was about them that faintly repulsed me.

Just enough space remained in the familiar white minivan of tourism, and we squeezed in among the Brazilians. They were young and male, wrapped in new alpaca sweaters and a precise lazyness. Plenty of hair gel. They reminded me of a futbol team. The eight of them bantered in Portuguese with the closed ease of a well-established clique, and I wondered if it was going to be a lonely four days.

They spoke Spanish while hitting on the Argentinas, so I had hope for better conversations to come, but I sat back within myself as we climbed through Andean towns where Inca heritage squinted in sun-leather faces, choclo grew in precise rows, and piglets followed sows through the overgrown shoulders of the new highway.

Bob Marley wanted to know is this love is this love is this love that I'm feeling? Akon tried (and failed) to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful, and an interlude of Mexican maracas preceded Argentine bliss when a countryman told them he was borracho y loco.

The Argentinas stepped aside for cigarettes at the bathroom break (is there any less attractive behavior than smoking a cigarette?) releasing most of the monkey tension from the Brasileiros, so it was time to test their cliqueishness. “So, you guys are all Brazilians?” I asked in Spanish. Feeble, but it's a seed.

“Si” one said, and they went back to Portuguese. Lonely days it is. I tried once more when we stopped to change a tire, with an identical lack of success, so wandered off to take a picture. I had just enough time to reach the nearby house and request a photo of this little girl before the van roared up beside me, Argentine pop spilling out the windows and Abi shouting “Hey! Boludo! Vamonos!”

My co-passengers might not be ideal, but Abi was clearly a force of nature, and I had Peru to keep me company. Cuzco has something special, but as we moved away from the city the houses were painted with the dignity of space, while the Andes casually asserted their divine presence through the foggy windows. Happy backpacker.

We had just passed Abra Malaga, a pass among the clouds at 4316 meters (14,160 ft) above sea level, when the Brazilian buzz escalated. Below us, figures bicycled down the winding road that marked the edge of a sheer cliff like eyeliner.

Then it was me moving through mist, effortless acceleration as the dubious equipment bowed to gravity, wishing for lower gears while I tasted rain through a grin that wouldn't stop for miles.

My favorite moment was coming around a blind corner to find myself face-to-grill with a semi truck. There's no friggin way they'd let you do this in the US, poor lawyer-ridden bastards that we are. I don't think I even signed a waiver.

Dinner that night was chicken, rice, and French fries, with conversation and a growing awareness of who these people I'd inaccurately snap-judged in Cuzco actually were. The food was good, but the conversations were better.

I went to sleep that night as rain pounded on the roof, thinking this trek might be pretty good after all. And the best was yet to come...

Making friends and witnesses in Cuzco

Normally being forced to walk an unnecessary U might annoy me, but not in the Cuzco airport, where the circuitous walkway is lined with plate glass windows that display the verdant Andean mountainsides, divided up by red dirt roads into blocks of homes, towns, and fields with a tidy precision normally only seen in Farmville.

It's Cuzco. Why would there NOT be a llama on the street?

Atahualpa has lost a llama, can you help him find it?

Everyone loves Cuzco, and with a view like that, I could see why. Literally. So I loved Cuzco, now it was time to make Cuzco love me.

Problem: who are the first people you meet when you leave an airport? Taxi drivers. Not easy people to pal with, especially when you refuse to pay their tourist fare x2.

But the taxista who accepted my fare chatted with me on the way in, warming, and was won over when I told him about the Brazilian fart monster that fumigated my room last night. In my experience most males love a good fart joke, and Latin American men even more than average thus far. Ha! I'd won over a taxista via a Brazilian's digestive disorder. Victory! Almost worth the stench.

The hostel staff were lovely (how did we end up talking about Nijmegen?), and the people around town responded politely and kindly in every interaction, from the restaurant kid to the lady in a bowler hat who sold me two cactus fruits. Dang, Cuzco and I are on our honeymoon!

“Masaje señor?” I habitually ignore offers made in tourist-saturated plazas, but while I waited for the incessant stream of cars to hiccup, she added “30 soles for one hour.” 30 soles is about ten bucks US. For an hour massage? Vamonos!

The table was handmade, the face-hole an uneven gap that you reached through Xs cut in sheets, but I was a happy camper. The honeymoon continued. Except for one thing.

My feet stank. I apologized in advance, explained that my shoes were old and I'd been walking all day... She assured me that they are used to such things. Professional. The honeymoon was back on. Except...

When she pulled the sheet back to get to my lower back she saw my undies. Tired old backpacker skivvies, handwashed and wrung out a thousand times over the miles, fraying elastic and formless droop. Not great. Then she noted: “Te los pusiste al reves.” I was wearing them inside out.

Face pushed into the hand-cut hole in the sheet, I explained to the ground that I caught an early flight this morning, so got ready at 5:00 in a dark bathroom. This excuse makes little sense, but she let it slide. Gracias, amiga.

The writing says "I love so much". Why yes.

They had Enya on loop, so I watched The Fellowship of the Ring on inner Dvd, followed by a flashback to middle school for the courageous and terrifically awkward performance of Caribbean Blue by a girl in my 7^th grade class at the talent show. So good, so awful. “If every man, says all he can, if every man were true” sang the 12 year old.

I've only gotten a few professional massages, but if they were all $10, I'd be in there daily. It was lovely, and I came out so relaxed I'd kinda forgotten how to talk, so when they asked if it was okay, my answer was a sort of boneless jig, forearms flapping. I realized this may have been an odd response and turned to see how it was received.

“Your fly is open” said the matron.

I don't know how to say “blush” in Spanish, but I know how to do it in Cuzco.

Peru why you no let me esleep?

Peru Peru Peru, why you no let me esleep mi amor

You know last night before departure it is not good for esleep I am too essited

and the next Night maybe fell out of the airoplane because I never find it

First night in Lima it is okay

the backpackers they are loud and the bed it has more topography than canyon de cobre but I come close but maybe too essausted

Then I go to the beach and everyone is esleep good at la costa, but why the men they cannot whisper

Why they want to stand in the halls and in the stairs and shout because they are not esleeping

And what was this one short cold you give me that start with a sore lung then gets an itch then for an hour I cough the yellow phlegm that tastes like gross

No importa thank you for it is gone the next day but I am sooo esleepy

And that night it is Lima her birthday and San Bartolo is close enough so all the music it is playing so loud it shake my window until 5:00 of the morning

And thank you that it two musics was because the combination was interesting so my right and left ears did no must listen to the same thing

Ah the siesta you let me esleep in the day oh so good oh so sweet oh so funny taste when I am wake up

Maybe that is why next night I am again watching the lamp outside my window and it watching me and neither he nor I are esleeping

Thank you for send the spider to my bed he is so small he is no problem we have conversation and I help him to fly out the window

Why the taxi man wants to put his car under my window and listen to his music so loud

He must like it very very mucho

And in Lima again it begin so good but you Peru you want to give me all the classic traveler experience

So you put the boy in the bunk below me with the early morning airoplane

And he is wake up sooooo early and is spending so long playing with his suitcase I don't understand what he can be doing

The llama says cool it. And careful with your teeth.

Why his light so bright

Why he slide the suitcase across the floor again

Why he hate his teeth and brush them like he is attack the enemy

Why he get in and out of the bed so many times while I lying there try not to become angry because then I am sure I am not esleep again

Why he wave his shirt like he is Spanish bullfighter why he no just put it on

Why people they are putting plastic bags in their suitcase to make so much noise when I want to be esleeping

Why he also is not able to whisper so when I go to make pee he say so loud things to me

He is very nice

He is very loud

And last night thank you for the company in the dorm

The Swedish they are very quiet and nice and the Australian he is weird and nice and the Brazilian he is muito amable too

But when he esleeping I think the Brazilian he is eating because his mouth it is making so many squishy sounds like he is drink his own tongue

Whatever he is eating it no agree with his estomago because he begin to fart like I have rarely seen

And I have seen many

The room it is so filled with these fart I want only to be washing my face

I think he kill the cockroaches with his buttbreathing

But now Peru Peru Peru mi amor I am in Cuzco

Here is no mucho air but maybe mucho esleep

I hope so

I have many mile to walk to get to Machu Picchu...

Departure Day

Then there's no more time to try and remember what I'm forgetting, it's time to run to the station. If I forgot it, it's forgotten. No time to pet the cat. Say goodbye to the dogs over a shoulder but make sure to lock the door. The BART train came while I was at the bottom of the outside stairs, and I ran on with 2/5 of a second to spare. Good start?

Why isn't everyone asking where I'm going? Can't they see the backpack? I want to tell them all about the charity in Peru, the immanency of the amazing, and the surprise yesterday that I'm going to be “covering” an election in El Salvador. I'm not a journalist, but I play one on TV in real life. From now on I'll always ask people with luggage where they're going.

The familiar stops seem quaint, the actors at the end of the play, still in character while they take their bows. It's okay you guys, you don't have to pretend it's just another day, we all know it's Departure.

Tonight has no space for sleep, an overnight flight from 23:30 to 5:00 that lasts three hours. I'm tired by the time I reach the airport, but elation is better than caffeine. I don't have the slightest idea where I'll sleep tomorrow, it's too far away to worry about. Ah yes, the immediacy of travel, I remember you. You're the reason I am so bad at planning ahead. I love you.

Vulnerable, clueless, alive. I was number 69 at the taqueria tonight. That's gotta be a good sign, right?

The movie onboard is a fiasco based on a lack of honesty, it makes no sense anymore. She would have just told him. I should have tried for sleep.

No one bothers me when I stretch out on the floor of a quiet check-in hall in the Mexico City airport, but the cold marble protects me from the sleep I seek. Step outside, chew on the smog to say hello, then wander the airport, a small blot of fat in its bloodstream.

Couches! The waiter has seen this before, and trusts that I'll order something eventually, so I spend three hours of my layover's nine curled up on the durable plasticky fabric, just too short for my body, both my long-sleeve garments on, back turned to the inexplicable blast of the air conditioner. I presumably managed a few drowsy interludes, but it felt like a lot of useless thinking.

The food is horrid, and I love the waiter for insisting on a bigger tip. “Only 15%? Maybe more. You sleep all the time...” Sorry my friend, I forgot I'm not in Latin America yet, I'm in Transit. Is 20 enough?

It's been a long time since I slept, and my elated stimulation is periodically aware that my thoughts made no sense and I can't remember the last twenty minutes, but that's okay, the pilot doesn't need my help to find Lima.

Tourist information tells me what district has the most cheap accommodation, and what's a fair fare to get there. The older taxista hears my price and waves me to a younger colleague. Lima is beautiful, familiar and new. The air is not the luscious wet rot of the Caribbean, but sufficiently proximal to the Equator that I know I've come far again. Airplanes are such a cheat, but I'll take it. With their help my inner grin has just spanned 4,500 miles.

Fifth time's the charm, and the man with the weathered voice and weary eyes says si, they have space in the dorm. I email some loved ones that I've arrived. I have loved ones. That's fantastic.

There is a battered guitar on the slouchy sofa and they're playing The Doors. Germans talk to Australians in the courtyard over giant beers, and there's the smell of a plumbing problem nearby, chronologically if not physically. The bunks are spartan and the sheet is clean, my roommate already snoring in his sleeping bag. It's been forty hours since I slept properly, but I feel wide awake. I lie on my lumpy mattress and smile at the darkness.

I'm abroad.

Sometimes there's dance in the current

Tonight is penultimate night's eve, 48 hours from now I'll be surrounded by people trying to sleep on a red-eye flight to Mexico City, too bored with the miracle of flight to look out the window. Traveling again...excitement and nerves have been simmering in my stomach for days, warring factions that rise and fall independent of reason, oddly balanced...

So what better way to spend tonight than a travel writing reading. Because that's not an awkward phrase. The Weekday Wanderlust series has been going for x years in San Francisco, and is a familial den of pleasantries, community, and catiness, a common interest shared among moderately disparate people. My favorites are the groupies.

This was my second, more comfortable than my first, and I felt at ease as I stood long-term in line for the single overworked bartender, watching the faux-innocence of the lady who cut in line, and the brazen dickishness of the guy who followed her lead. Chatting with a couple fellow aspirants was a bonus, and I took my place without qualms as a wallflower at the back of the room when the chairs were gone by the time the glacial bartender passed me the glass of overpriced wine*.

(*Maybe he thought I was with the JP Morgan conference, instead of the writers gaggle?)

I enjoyed the readings, particularly the cleanup hitter, and debated trying to mingle when it was done. I felt comfortable, yes; after all, these people have no power to hurt me, there is nothing they can take away when you have nothing to start with. But not so at ease that I wanted to try and mingle.

My new headphones have better quality sound than the last ones, and the Aloe Blacc song that came on as I walked away was just right to make my legs swing steady, irresistible, so when I reach a red light I turn to find the green. This mood happens sometimes, street surfing, following the currents of the city, accepting whatever road it tells me to follow.

I passed a block west of the station, but that didn't matter because I had energy to burn off, the euphoria that comes after leaving a tense situation. Maybe I wasn't as comfortable as I thought? Or maybe it was just the January air, warm as the sigh after a good meal, embracing like the casual presence of an old friend.

Pass two girls, one more obviously attractive than the other, so give my best flirting smile at the “lesser” of the two, a currency she seemed to value.

Good song followed good song, and I couldn't help but respond. The first dance steps were pure gratitude to B.B. King.

The cute little filly standing outside another hotel with two others is going to notice me. Lift the chin to show her I'm the Emperor of the World, an impersonation both convenient and true, and watch her look back a second later. Give her a smile and a look, see it reflect. But the legs never slow.

There's something about suits that makes me want to celebrate not having to take myself that seriously. That accounted for the next dance steps. Well, that and The Black Keys.

Then dance was just in the currents of the evening, as I jigged my way across intersections, spotlighted in the headlights of taxis, and bopping past the windows of crowded restaurants.

A security guard slept in a chair, unaware of the performance I put on for him, though the two waiters smoking behind me enjoyed it. My last move brought me around to face the gorgeous woman who had stopped to watch. She gave me a smile like lust, and a laugh like licking, but I'm sorry ma'am, I'm too in love with the night to fall for you.

Five months ago I found a $20 bill on the sidewalk on the way home from what was already a good night. That combination meant the money was clearly not for me, and I've carried it since, waiting for the person I'm supposed to give it to. But oops, I took it out last week, it was sitting on my desk. So when I passed the saxophone player, filling an urban canyon with Coltrane's familiar My Favorite Things, I could only give him my last $10. I consider the task half-completed.

My wallet felt better empty.

It's amazing how sweaty one can get while dancing around San Francisco. When the time was ready, I took my place on the BART platform, determined not to scare anyone. We are modern people, bitter at the indifference of strangers, desperately alone in our bubbles, utterly opposed to anyone who threatens this.

But...damnit..those French guys in C2C are just too catchy, and my cup overfloweth with groove. The sustained gaze of spectators threatened to put a damper on me, but it was an empty threat, and the tomfoolery continued until the train frottaged its way up to the platform. Sexy train.

Once on the train I turned off the music to behave myself. That's a personality-free environment. Breathe.

At first, I admit, the heads bent over cell phones looked to me as mourners too stupid to realize they were at their own funeral. A dozen victims, overdosed on Candy Crush. Cerebrums corroded by Farmville cyanide. But those thoughts are so wonderfully dark that I couldn't help but laugh them away.

In front of me a gorgeous man conversed with a gorgeous woman in the curt and clear tones of Spain's Spanish, beloved to my ear. She was explaining BART to him, their stop would be 19^th Street, and when she informed him that we were currently under the water of the Bay, he was impressed behind his flawless complexion under perfect hair, she had green eyes above lips too perfect to kiss.

At 12^th Street they looked around in confusion, consternation, peering for a sign, half steps towards the door. She gnawed on one of those perfect lips, and I had to intervene on its behalf.

“19^th Street is the next stop.” Did you know green can flash like fantasy as it says “Thank you”? It was the perfect opening for conversation, and the palabras swarmed through my brain, but no, I was too shy, too self-conscious to speak to them.

The yang that danced through the streets of San Francisco was satisfied, its yin now in effect, and everything was as it should be.

Good night San Francisco.

Why I travel.

Take me back.

Take me back to rotting garbage on dirty streets, where water is a luxury and stink a certainty. I want to feel unwashed and threadbare sheets on hard beds, and pay more than I think I should for it. I want suspicious food, where I savor every bite, knowing it might be the one that ruins the next day. I want to take nothing for granted, be vulnerable and love everyone who shows me kindness.

I want to be concerned about bed bugs, so I remember their absence. I want to be aware of the malarial menace of mosquitoes, so that I notice when my ankles are unblemished.

I want to be foreign to the irritation I felt on the BART train yesterday, “delayed” a couple irrelevant seconds by the guy who was too busy talking on his phone to put his ticket in correctly. I want to feel only incomprehension for the ambient discontent of the spoiled and comfortable, knowing that they are me. I want to stay shocked that people complain and grimace while they wait a few minutes for delicious, safe, nutritious food, prepared by people they won't even bother to thank, unmindful of the insane miracle that brings it to us, every single god-blessamned day.

That work, those wages...
a foreign experience

I want to look at those wrinkles everyone here has between their eyes, the scowl of the perpetually concerned, the mouths of unspecified tension, and feel a wash of gratitude that cleans my face and lifts my lips. I want to be aware of the masses that have so little, every country on Earth. I want to remember how scarce and precious food was for all of human history except the past tiny sliver, invisible on the timeline, and how horrifically we will return to that state...probably sooner than we realize, so that I can stand in awe in a grocery store again, unrushed, uncritical, reverent.

I want to move slowly.

I want to disconnect.

I want to be away from screens. I want to read a book.

I want to talk to strangers.

Here I have friends, but move among the distrusted, suspicious without reason, fearful until proven innocent. There is little danger here. Screw the newspapers, the evening news is a betrayal.

There I will know no one, but might move among possibility, alert and careful, but accessible and listening. The danger is much higher there. The intimacy with human brutality and human kindness, experiential and firsthand, the latter outnumbering the former, despite brutality's instant potency.

Here I can go in comfort. I can pass my day easily, accomplishing tasks in virtual reality, e-living in binary code that I can never touch, my life erased by a magnet.

There every hour will be uncertain, the world so foreign, so unknowable, that it might touch me at any minute. It will be under my fingernails and between my toes. Present on my skin and stained into my clothes. It's possible I will bleed. It's possible I will help, just a little. It's possible I will reach new magnitudes of suffering, or experience joy so visceral you'd have to pay a fortune to chase it.

Take me back. I want to travel.

Finally reaching 2014

Everyone knows Valentine's Day is a hellscape orchestrated to torture unsuspecting boyfriends (with sharp collateral damage for girlfriends), where the pressure to have a magical night is a self-sabotaging prophecy.

And it is hardly groundbreaking to admit Christmas has a sleigh-load of pressure for a perfect harmonious family event, leading to bitter disappointment when your uncle has a little too much zinfandel and hits on your cousin's new girlfriend. (Or the more mundane moment when the well-meaning older female comments on the eating/body/wardrobe/make up/life choices/employment/social habits/beverage consumption/hairstyle/fingernail length/cell phone case of a younger female, and le merde hits le fan.)

But surely New Year's Eve is pure! Nope, it's the social version of V-Day's romance trap, and Xmas's familial pitfalls. Plus sex. Yes, New Year's Eve is booby-trapped.

My 2013 started with board games among friends, and it was great, even if I couldn't get enough brick to build that settlement on the port. Anybody wanna trade for a sheep?

I didn't make this, but I wish I could have
worn the beard to da club.

This year, another group of friends was going to a club. Not my scene, but whatever, I was there for my friends, not the clubbin', but the inanity of socializing in a place where you can't hear each other wore me down, communication without personality left me cold, and sheer image without substance pushed me towards macro-irritation.

I made it to midnight, though spent the actual countdown separated from my friends in a sea of smelly armpits and splashing beer, barely able to breathe. Annnd that'll do. I can check “go to the club” off my list for 2014-2100.

I walked to the BART station behind two girls who had also left early. Our conversation:

Them: “We were kind of having fun, but we both have boyfriends, just wanted to dance, and the guys were getting kinda crazy, so we left.”

Me: (Being normal. Not a douchebag.)

No camera in the club, but trees'll make sense in a second.

Them: “Oh my god! You're so nice! If I didn't have a boyfriend, I'd be like 'F*** me now!'”

Me: “Oh. Heh. Um. Thank you? Okay then, I'll be riding in the other car, bye!”

The other car carried seven other girls, also heading home early. That conversation went similarly to the first, minus the explicit compliment. We waved goodbye out the window. The last rider, also female (I swear I didn't seek this out! It was just me and the driven-away-by-dudes cadre on the train at 00:45) and I had a nice conversation about books.

The path is only scary when you think
the other hiker is following you.

But Americans don't know how to talk to strangers, exacerbated by the heinous behavior of a small percentage of males. So, when we happened to both be getting off at the same stop, suddenly I was not an interesting guy on the train, I was a serial killer. Halfway down the escalator she interrupted her own comment about Orwell to say “okay,nicetalkingtoyou,bye!” and ran off down the stairs.

Oops, she needed to add money to her fare card, so I tactfully exited on the other side of the station. But of course, my card didn't work, error: see agent, whose empty office was right next to Scared Woman. I loitered vaguely behind her. Cuz that's not creepy or anything.

When the agent showed up I explained “the machine won't accept my card” a little bit louder than necessary, barely managing not to add “that's why I'm here, not because I'm waiting to follow that woman home in the dark.”

So New Year's Eve was a bust. But if Icould move Christmas, why can't I move New Year's? The calendar is pretty damn arbitrary, after all (we really should have New Year's on the winter solstice).

This was by where the pit bull came
to tell me she loves me.

So my actual New Year started on Saturday, when a close friend and I went for a walk in the woods. We had clear communication, substance, personality, and a marvelous lack of macro-irritation. The redwoods were brown, the dirt was soft, and the dogs smiled because they love me. And you. And tennis balls, and running, and drooling, and pooping, and running some more. Among the trees, I could breathe.

It's going to be a good year.