Juan the Priest

My nearly-mother-in-law at the pupuseria

He made the pupusa girl smile. Her mother laughed, and I probably blushed. Their reactions were the most common, smiles and laughter, and I saw them again and again on face after face as he and I walked around San Salvador. Something in his easy manner put everyone at ease, whether he was talking about politics or making ribald insinuations with an impish grin.

Not your average priest.

As I mentioned in my Election Day dispatch on the Ethical Traveler site, here, my current Code says that I have to accept strange travel suggestions, and he was full of them, since he quickly grew bored with all the standing-around that our group was doing.

He handed me a hard green fruit with seeds like chips of concrete, nestled in a savory pulp that seemed somehow cactus-like. “These are from Israel, the Sinai” he told me. At the next stand he had the lady laughing even as she cracked the egg into the mostly-washed blender, and the doormen at the hotel greeted him like a favorite uncle.

I wish I had a picture of the señora,
but I didn't have his way of putting her
at east

Back home in Chicago, he presides over a church dedicated to Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, that is, the Virgin Mary. On one wander we passed another such church. The crowd was thick, people clustered around the altar, lighting candles and slipping coins into the donation box. I expected him to be pleased at the health of a sister congregation.

But as we walked past the church, he gestured down to an old woman, indigenous ancestry, who was begging for coins with an outstretched styrofoam cup, empty in her bone-thin hand. He gave her his change, then looked at me, a look of laughing incredulity on his face.

“They pray over there, but this, her, she is nuestra señora de Guadalupe, right here. They pray to a statue, but she's right here.”

Not your average priest. But a damn good one.

Joaquin Media Barba

The buses all had places to go, and gas to burn to get there. The expressionless faces of passengers (some things are universal) turned towards me through rattling window panes as I waited to cross one of San Salvador's many busy roads, looking for something to find.

A few blocks and a half dozen clusters of well-armed guards behind me, some of the people I'd met (and wrote about on the Ethical Traveler website) were meeting in an FMLN headquarters, but since I'm unaffiliated with the party, my presence was politely unwelcome. I've had people accuse me of being CIA before, and it's not a comfortable experience, so I went looking for something to find.

That makes sense to a traveler.

The stoplight went red, and the cadre of windshield washers went to work, on my side a leathery older man in a black apron, and a younger woman in a white shirt that stretched across her heavily pregnant belly. I wondered how much they earn per wash, and per day. I wondered what life awaits that child. I wondered at a world where some have luxury sedans, and some hope to clean their glass.

Both workers returned my “buenas tardes” with smiles, his wide and hers shy.

The sun was strong, but not abusive, and I was considering a mango-something jugo when I heard the clash of metal. Again, and a third time, rhythmic. Through the intersection, hazy with dust and exhaust, I could see a man in camouflage shorts and a black vest juggling before the stopped cars. His hands flicked behind him, the clash of metal, and the sun glinted off three machetes as they escaped and returned to his hands.

One should not distract a man who is juggling large knives, so I waited until he was between performances to talk to him. Joaquin Media-Barba (Half-beard) had an easy smile, though a weight never left his eyes. He started practicing with machetes a few months ago, and now spends several days a week moving between a few favorable intersections, no more than two hours at each.

We talked through the green and yellow, I watched another performance through a red, then we picked up where we'd left off for another green and yellow. The currents of conversation, the percussion of slapping steel, the implacability of a stoplight, the surges of traffic, the breathing of a city; everything was rhythm and cycles, and the sun watched it all with amused patience.

Twice through the cycle on a dry traffic island was enough for me. I went back to my wander, quickly lost in the sulky anger of bus engines and the expressive honks of Central American traffic, but for a couple blocks I would catch the clash of metal, flitting past me like birds in the canyons of street sound, as Joaquin went back to work.

Passion, danger, guns and roses in Soyapango

El Salvador uses the US dollar, and since going to the ATM is always a good opportunity for robbery (by thugs, or even worse: the banks) and/or excessive “I'm Jason Bourne” playtime, I decided to stock up on one, five, and ten dollar bills before heading down there.

The bank teller found this an odd request, but paused before giving in to irritation to ask why I wanted so many small bills. At my response, she had two immediate reactions: “I'm from there!” and “Be careful, it's dangerous! In particular, stay away from...” she listed several neighborhoods. Unconvinced by my polite nod, she flipped my receipt over and grabbed a pen. “These two are the worst, Ilopango and Soyapango, stay out of those.” She underlined the latter on the paper three times.

I remembered that interaction my first day in El Salvador, as we drove to: Soyapango.

Salvadoran law prohibits campaigning in the three days prior to voting, so this was the last day candidates could actively seek votes, and we were headed to the FMLN's closing rally, where the presidential candidate would make his final speech before the election.

I was a few yards behind him, and pictures of the back of someone's head are rarely interesting, so I pushed forward for a better spot. People were packed in like crayons crammed in the box by a toddler, but I gradually forced my way into the sea of red shirts, waving flags, and air horns blasting a steady percussion of support. I squeezed like toothpaste through the gap between the stage and the speakers, but that proximity threatened permanent hearing loss, so I kept going.

My skull finally stopped rattling when I got to the back of the VIP seats, in front of the barricades holding back the masses. I paced around back there for awhile, as the candidate delivered a long and varied monologue about...everything. It was distinct from a US speech. There were no concise talking points or crafted phrases, he was just up there, shouting and waving his arms, Latin American passion. A bit rambling.

The First Lady wasn't quite as enthusiastic as the crowd

The current First Lady sat behind him, looking more bored than any human I've ever seen. It made me respect the tireless performances of US First Ladies, who gaze in unfailing adoration as their heroic husbands deliver the same speech for the 628^th time. Granted, she's married to the current president, not the candidate, but did she really have to look at her watch that often?

Then he was done, and the lady with lungs like bagpipes was howling out the party's anthem. I wandered up onto the side of the stage for awhile until a self-important functionary objected to my presence and had the guards throw me out. Politely of course, since they had no idea if I'm important or not.

That was the best part.

Back at the entrance I found my host, who nearly fainted when she saw me. “There he is! Oh thank god! This is gangland central, you can't just walk around! You scared me to death!” Seeing the panic on her face, I felt bad, and could only offer a lame “Um...sorry.”

Reputation or not, I had felt safe at the rally, where everyone was focused on the stage in universal and monochromatic enthusiasm. It wasn't until we climbed back into the van, and our bodyguard drove off at his customary NASCAR speed that I felt unsafe. Maybe a desire to calm us informed his musical selections, because to me, Soyapango is a dangerous place of gangs, political rallies, and November Rain, Total Eclipse of the Heart, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, and Bon Jovi's Always.

Interesting places, imminent culture, and an inexplicable soundtrack.

I love traveling.

Electrons on vacation, so the neurons went too

At first, it seems like one's travel computer going on the fritz on the eve of a trip would be a bad thing. It probably is. But right this second, the lack of current photos and presence of a few from last year are gifting me an unexpected return to the trains and misty mornings of Sri Lanka.

The pancakes on my plate somehow taste like string hoppers, the rice flour noodles that you swipe through curry with your right hand, and the mimosa in my cup is a shock when my mind is thinking about rich milk (chai masala) tea.

My goal today is for my feet to take me everywhere I want to go, but that day was on a train, rocking through tea plantations, exchanging emails with new Sinhalese friends, and trying for a particular photograph, a person held mostly in focus while their surroundings obey the momentum of the railroad.

Actually getting the idea to work was irrelevant, beside the simple warm air joy of sitting in the open door of a moving train, gradually working my way through a paper bag of fried somosa-things with dried chili peppers.

My computer might not work, but luckily my memory does.

Why would you want to go there?

I told a Salvadoran friend of mine that I would be passing through his country, and asked what he thought I should do there. His response surprised me.

“You're going to El Salvador? Why do you want to go there? The capital in particular is horrible and dangerous. I guess you could go to the beach, and there are some old ruins...”

Why did I want to go to El Salvador? That's a fair question. For starters, it was one of the two countries on the continent that I hadn't visited yet, but I'd like to think I have loftier aims than a checklist to complete. (Though I won't deny there was a certain urge in that direction.)

But all those headlines over the years, when El Salvador was topping the charts for homicide rates, gangs were running the prisons, and narcotraffickers were blending into an international network of macro-criminals, those stories had made an impression. Basically: Don't go to El Salvador.

“It's too dangerous!” said They. The consensus of concerned advisers. And I was inclined to obey. After all, you don't see me booking flights to Afghanistan, either.

But there is something else too. They also told me it was too dangerous in Zambia, and I found nothing but wonderful people there. They said Northern Sri Lanka was still unsafe for tourists. “It hasn't been long enough since the Civil War, there are still Tamil Tigers and land mines up there!” But I found a welcome on the streets ofJaffna that gave me smiles and a sense of welcome that are still nestled within me, nearly a year later. And They said Eastern Turkey was a hotbed of extremists and revolutionaries, yet Diyarbakir, and even more so Mardin, quickly ranked among my favorite places on Earth.

Yes, a few months after I left Zambia, several people were murdered by a mob in the same town where we stayed. And yes, two days after I left Mardin, 5 kilometers from the border with Syria, a pair of car bombs killed at least 51 people and injured 140 others in a similar town not all that far away.

Those are awful things. The sort of headlines that push people away from a nation, and drive fear and incomprehension into the hearts and minds of foreigners. They make us say “Well, that's just the sort of thing that happens there. They're just...used to stuff like that over there.” The casual racism of distance.

They're just different over there,
nothing I could empathize with at all...

And what's the best cure for racism? Both overt and passive? Contact. It's a lot harder to feel dismissive of a people when you've actually stood, talked, and eaten with them. And that's a much better reason to go someplace than stamp-collecting in your passport.

Maybe I should book a ticket to Afghanistan after all...

(More info on El Salvador, probably far too much in fact, in the first of my posts on the Ethical Travelerwebsite.)

One last off-kilter day in Lima

I couldn't find a child. I've never had that problem before. Of course, I'd never had this particular mission either, but it was an irregular day.

After MPicchu, I had just enough time in Cuzco to marvel at the mess of the girl in the dorm (who leaves a shoe insole, a chopped up water bottle, and a blizzard of shredded paper in a shared space?) before flying back to Lima.

Outside the terminal I stepped in a swirl of taxi drivers, police, questions unanswered and documents unproduced, followed by ejections among exclamations as the officer declared my ride illegal. The next driver had an unmarked car and instructed “If the police ask, just tell them I came to collect you from your hotel.”

Wait, what? Maybe I shouldn't... Too late.

He didn't murder me, which is always appreciated, and the whole ride I kept my window down, eyes searching in vain for street kids.

The hostel wouldn't let me wash my own clothes, and the laundry's minimum charge was for three kilograms, so I dropped off every article of clothing besides the ones I had on, 2.4 kilos, and prayed she'd return it. She did, and with a clean sweatshirt in hand I went looking for a child.

But I couldn't find one.

I'd met and adored a bunch of them on the coast, but those had already gotten some help (details down the road). I was looking for one still in the thick of it. My flip flops flapped for block after block, but apparently street children are not allowed in Miraflores, the tourist/wealthy section of Lima.

A friend in California gave me the sweatshirt to use in Cusco then pass on to one of the street kids who had drawn me to Peru. Maybe in the park. But in Parque Kennedy, since all the world worships the idea of a US president with morals instead of just business acumen, I found the park full of well-off park-goers.

And cats.

Felines in the flowers, paws on the paths, kitties crapping in the hedgerows. Lima had decided that street children are offensive to moneyed individuals and thrown them out. Instead the park was home to fifty cats. Well-fed, healthy, protected cats.

In the end, I left the sweatshirt in the hostel, since perhaps a backpacker is the next best thing to a child in need? Pale consolation.

I would have liked to stay another day, search out the street kids, perhaps save them with my wealthy western concern, paternalistic messiah, but the people I’ll tell you about soon know how to do it better than my bumbling flicks at charity.

Besides, I had an appointment in the next nation, an unclear event of unknown interest, experience, and danger. And a sweatshirt wouldn't protect me.

From balls to buckets. Inca Jungle Trip (Part 3 of 3)

What do you do when you’re thirsty and footsore after ten hours of walking, relaxed after watching the sunset in the hot springs, and surrounded by new and brilliant friends?

You drink chicha!

Taken from a google search, because it's awesome

Chicha is a family of corn-based drinks found throughout Central America, as alcoholic as you want them to be, that date back at least a thousand years, brewed in ancient Machu Picchu. In Peru families make it, marking its presence with a bamboo pole jutting out the front door, wrapped with red ribbons, a red plastic bag, or in the case of the gap-toothed old woman Abi knew in Santa Teresa, half a red plastic jug.

“Hola mami, tiene chicha?” Abi asked. The woman didn't look away from her telenovela as she nodded the affirmative. Abi asked how old it was, “Not very old” the distracted reply. Abi ordered a round. When the novela went to commercials, the woman put a chalice-sized glass of murky liquid on the table. An Austrian asked “Is that for everyone to share?” Abi found that funny.

“No, boludo! We each get that!” When a cityscape of giant glasses had been assembled, we toasted Pachamama, the Inca Earth Mother, blew our offering to her into the wind, and drank. Given the size of the glass, it's a good thing the stuff is generally only 1-3% alcohol (hence the question as to its age). Abi told us of her grandmother, drinking several glasses of chicha every day until she died at age 100.

As I may have mentioned, I don't love bars or clubs, but that night, with those people, the dive bar with a stripper pole and loud music was just where I wanted to be. I talked with the Austrians, peripherally relearning empathy for cute girls as I watched the chain of dudes hit on the Argentinas. I can imagine that would be fun...for the first hour.

The first other American I'd met on the trip was a guy from the Marina in San Francisco, who I couldn't help but mentally dub The Flea, as he hopped parasitically around the girls. I admit to a certain schadenfreude when he smashed his ahuacatls while showing off on the pole.

The Urubamba Gorge

(Did you research ahuacatl and discover that it comes from the Nahuatl word for testicles? How do you feel about the fact that you will never again heft, inspect, squeeze and generally fondle an avocado in the supermarket without remembering that factoid? You’re welcome.)

The next morning brought flight, nothing but wind and the whirring sound of metal wheels on the zip-line cables across the Urubamba River gorge. Cables half a kilometer long, 80 kilometers an hour, and face-down into 290 meters of pure Andean air until the ferocious water far below. God, Pachamama, Shiva, whatever, THAT is a sensation worth having, and whatever divinities were nearby heard my amazed laughter every time.

At the end of each ride I welcomed conversation with whoever was nearby, whatever their nation, language, or body odor, and was terribly proud of my Argentinians when they tried the face-down method for the last cable. As they flew past overhead I was sharing a mango just harvested with some Australians, and if there were mango strings in my teeth when I smiled upwards, the Aussies didn't seem to care.

From there it was the iconic last stretch along the railroad tracks to Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu mountain. Sand fleas lurked below avocado trees for resting ankles, but that didn't matter as we went for one more swim in the river, crossed rusting railroad trestles above the chicha-colored water that always has something to talk about, and in among the striated faces of the godly peaks surrounding the hidden city of the Inca.

That place is rife with divinity.

The Austrians and I shared a room with more sand fleas, who were delighted to crawl into bed with us, and we all woke up scratching our calves. That still didn't matter though, as we walked through the 4:00 AM murk to the stairs to Machu Picchu, other backpackers emerging from alleys in silence like the most polite zombie apocalypse ever.

What do you say about Machu Picchu? You don't say anything I guess, you go there. I've been blessed to see many historic sites, a sprawl of tourist destinations, and several ancient holy places, and Machu Picchu will forever occupy a place of honor on those lists.

A couple hundred backpackers with sore feet boarded the train that night, boisterous as a discoteca until the train started, then slumberous as the sandman's station wagon. The end of the line was Ollantaytambo, and everyone piled out into the name-shouting chaos of bus drivers, as tours fulfilled the last step of their bargains, each backpacker looking for their name in erasable marker on a laminated page held in a driver’s fist. My cadre found our driver.

Except my name wasn't on the list.

I’d switched to an earlier train, but my name hadn’t made the logistical transfer. This meant an abrupt goodbye to my new Argentinian and Austrian friends, a disappointment I could handle, armored in gratitude.

But negotiations around the back of the van and a hurried payment of 20 soles secured me a spot on an overturned bucket in the aisle, just wide enough that when I nodded off, my shoulders could curl forward and I would wedge in the gap between benches like the van had swallowed its own tongue.

We arrived back in Cuzco, where the dogs browsing the night's garbage in the Plaza de San Francisco didn't pay our parting much mind, the intimacy of travel companions evolving on schedule to the irresistible anonymity of forward progress. They see it every night.

I've seen more than my share of it too, but I still mean it when I say “Of course we'll keep in touch.” Hell, maybe it'll even be true this time. But whether the facebook “likes” peter out in a week or not, I will still blow a grateful offering to Pachamama for my four days on the Inca Jungle Trek, which I'd signed up for under the impression that it was the Incallungula, or some such romantic thing, but which surpassed my expectations anyway.

You should go, I'm glad I did.

Mangoes, cable cars, and the monkey likes your boobs. Inca Jungle Trek (Part 2)

My name wasn't on the list.

The chaos had subsided, a few more empty water bottles in the gutter, a few cigarette butts still smoking at the feet of silhouettes standing in the unreliable lamp light.

Ollantaytambo wasn't awful, but it wasn't getting any nicer. And it wasn't cold, but it wasn't getting any warmer. And it looked like I'd be stuck there until sometime after midnight, when I'd hopefully be on the list for the next round of buses.

Communication breakdown, transportation failure, this is the time when a traveler might get angry. I’ve been there, and learned that I am most fluent in Spanish when pissed off. Or maybe I just don’t care about the subjunctive when stranded in sketchy situations.

But standing there in my stinking shoes and rancid socks, I was okay with it. The delay would have a price that had nothing to do with the wait, but I had so much gratitude in me, I could pay that too. I'd just sit back and watch the movie of the preceding three days...

The morning after the bike ride, we had breakfast made by Abi's mother, coca tea for anyone who wants it. At 7:00 our feet were stepping over mud puddles from the night's deluge as we started the 21 kilometer walk to Santa Teresa.

Not these particular mangoes, but nearby

Just out of town we passed Old Santa Maria, the town that was evacuated after the El Niño storms of 1998 brought the river over its banks. We harvested mangoes from a tree alongside the path, the bark damp beneath my fingers as I tossed the fruit down to Abi, the only female guide I saw during the four days, and a powerful presence on the trail, reliable for good humor, information, safety, and friendship. I normally don’t mention companies, but I can happily give five stars to Travel Fast Cuzco.

We took a break in a family's sideyard, just outside the kitchen where a dozen guinea pigs waited their turn to become dinner. We met the notorious Jairo, the pet monkey who is famous for stealing things from pockets, smashing cameras, and...shall we say...enthusiastically embracing the attributes of buxom backpacker girls.

At the highest point of the trail, Abi told us a little more about Inca theology, and guided us through a small offering ceremony, honoring the sacred mountain in the distance with the traditional trio of coca leaves to symbolize the three realms of life.

Crossing a recent mudslide, I had the queasy sensation of looking down to find that the sludge was moving again...underneath me, and towards the rushing river near at hand. Vamonos! We swam in a side river, feeling again the liquid tug towards the torrent close by, then hiked past coffee plants, coca plantations, pineapple, papaya, and guanabana trees.

Sore feet and easy laughter, we sat on the edge of a cliff, waiting our turns to cross above the turbulent Urubamba River in the small metal basket they euphemistically call a cable car. The whole system is powered by people pulling ropes, and I took my turn. I was concentrating on the rapid process when Abi approached me, breath ready in powerful lungs.

“Hey, Señor Tim! What happened, did you crap your pants?” Sitting in the mud while I waited had given my posterior a nice brown tint, and the poor souls crossing the chasm had to wait awhile in the middle while we stopped laughing. Ah poo humor, what ever would we do without you?

Abi putting two of the funniest
Brits I've ever met in the car

The nine hour walk ended at a natural hot spring, because life can indeed be that good. Blisters on pinky toes went quiet, soreness ebbed from calves, and friendships expanded between tour groups in a web anchored in Santa Teresa but spanning the globe. Two Austrians joined us there, and it was immediately apparent that they were Grade A blokes, the kind you want to climb a mountain with. But first: drink, dance, and be careful with your ahuacatls....