It's not all bad for Maritza

I am supremely grateful for the privilege to write a few things for Altruvistas, the ethical travel company that facilitated my first Cuba and Venezuela trips, but sakes alive, this one from Peru (click here) is twice as depressing as I realized. I knew it was a bit heavy, but ay carumba. Let me tell you about later that day…

Yes, Maritza’s childhood has been brutal. She prowls around a room with an energy too much like a shark, too little like a child, but when she laughs, all that falls away, obliterated in the giggles of a seven year old. And her younger brother may have come to Casa Generacion barely able to speak, making sounds more than words, but after a few months of loving support in the house, he rushed up to me with a slew of questions, a couple answers, and an array of observations. Including:

“Señor Tim, we’re going to the beach now, and you can come too.”

These kids may come from harsh places, but they are still kids, as full of exuberance and enthusiasm as any, and the two young volunteers working that morning were happy to have another pair of hands to help out. Partway to the beach, surrounded by an electron haze of running children, I realized Maritza wasn’t wearing shoes and the pavement was burning her feet. Her brother ran up, kicked off his flip-flops for her, and held his little arms up to me.

Excellent problem solving. Beautiful sibling love. Happy kids, happy me. She slipped on the shoes and he began a stream of consciousness monologue that I could decipher just enough to find hilarious. Maritza walked beside us, corroborating or disputing his stories in turns.

At the beach, the kids splashed in immediately. Little brother took a turn in the floating dragon-thing that they’d carried down, and one of the older boys showed me how close he could come to a handstand. I was watching him tumble over when I felt a small hand tug my finger. I looked down and found Maritza, looking up at me, eyes bright and serious. In her hand she held a small piece of a shell, which she placed in my palm. I thanked her and admired the pretty pink color, and she wandered away.

Little brother had passed off the dragon floater, and joined two other kids to dig one of the pointless and delightful pits that filled my childhood hours on the beach as well. I was considering joining them when I felt another tug on my hand. Maritza was back with another shell. Together we admired the purple hue, and this time she smiled after I thanked her.

She continued bringing shells to show me, which I was careful to only drop back in the sand when she wasn’t looking. We played for a couple hours before I helped the volunteers herd the horde back to the house, and I was sorry to say goodbye to them a few days later. But it was time to move on, with admiration for the work the people of Casa Generacion are doing, and one little piece of shell in my pocket to remind me of a child’s smile.

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....

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.