July brought with it a final South American dilemma: Colombia or Ecuador.  Colombia is, at least in 2009, the most recommended country on the South American backpacker circuit.  Without a doubt, it’s the number one spot on the lists of almost everyone that I talked to.  Nice people.  Beautiful people.  Great scenery.  So long as you manage to avoid any of its kidnapper-friendly borders (the Darien Gap is still always mentioned in a whisper) and dive right into the heartland or coast of the country, it’s a traveler’s dream.  For months, Colombia was the last lily pad for me in this vast continental pond, and the one I most hoped to savor and enjoy.

Ecuador, on the other hand, I had granted more coverage to than any other country I’d visited.  With over three months already spent in the country, and huge tracts of land already covered, there was little reason to return.  Yet it was Ecuador that I chose.  

Despite the crime (worst I’d experienced by far in South America), mosquitoes and sand flies, the place felt more like home to me than anywhere else I’d stayed.  I had friends here, and a job (of sorts).  And with a birthday on the horizon, I felt like it’d be nice to be somewhere that people gave enough of a damn about me that there could be a celebration of sorts.  To top it off, two friends from the states, Tom and Steph, would be arriving in mid-July to visit the Galapagos, and I wanted to be there to greet them.  Colombia will just have to wait.

I’ll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves, though without the benefit of a few words to go alongside them, I’d likely appear to be a raging alcoholic.  But put the pictures in some perspective, please:  I went to an Ecuadorian wedding, ran a pub quiz at a local Irish bar, celebrated July 4th and had a birthday.  What red-blooded American wouldn’t toss down a libation or two for each and every one of those cases?

(Another Country’s) Independence Day

It’s weird celebrating your country’s independence when you aren’t actually in your country.  Particularly when you’re in a country that doesn’t care much for your country.  Parties oozing with red, white, blue, apple pie and PBR are in short supply.  You basically have to throw your  own, or  otherwise deal with Ecuador’s gayness.

Yes, July 4 marks Quito’s “Gay Pride Day,” and these latino homosexuals were feeling particularly proud today. 

Regardless of gender, the play is most definitely over when this person sings.

Ok!

Well, at least I'm pretty sure I'd never hook up with any of these ladies by mistake...

In lieu of an American bar to take over on the fourth, we went for the next best thing: Uncle Ho’s, a communist themed Vietnamese restaurant.  Hell, the place is already drenched in red, so we only need a little white and blue to make it downright homey.

The pictures tell a better story than I can describe.  Actually, I can describe it perfectly: Kathleen and I get very drunk and play with ribbons.

For America.

Decorating Ho's

Getting patriotic

The ribbondance begins...

To their credit, the people sitting directly behind us stayed for their entire dinner

So graceful...

Sufficiently encouraged, the dance is taken out to the streets

Patriotism Overload

The Quizmaster

I’d run the quiz at Finn McCool’s three or four times during my last visit to Quito, as my good friend Eimear was kind enough to pass the torch onto me.  She did so again this time, and I even had the benefit of an official shirt, as provided by resident artiste, Kathleen.  The whole “pub quiz” phenomenon seems to be standard fare throughout the UK, Australia and other English speaking countries, though the closest things to it in the States are those electronic trivia machines at restaurants like TGI Friday’s.

It’s one of the highlights of my time in Quito, and inspired me to push the idea forward in Chongqing (quite successfully thus far — though more on this when the blog catches up with me in China).  For the first two weeks, I had the questions provided to me by the Ecuadorian children’s charity group that sponsors Finn’s quiz.  But I know too many worthless things to not quiz other people on them, so I used the vast free time this month allowed me to run the quiz entirely as the month went on.

My expertly designed "Quiz Master" shirt, as created by Ms Kathleen Prevost of KathleenPrevostPhotography. Always quality work.

Yes, Heckle Me. Thanks, Kath!

The Quizmaster at work

Quizzees

The Girl

Travel, life, beds, conversations and large pieces of cake are almost always better when you’ve got someone to share them with.  The freedom that traveling alone brings with it was also a drawback at times, and those moments in the year when I’d spend the casual day or week with some of the nicer girls traveling about the world have inevitably been my favorite.  But the best of those was Saskia, whom I met my first night back in Quito.

Sure, she was cute, smart, was almost impossibly rational at all times (except for fearlessly wandering the streets of Quito alone at night) laughed at my jokes, knew how to cook, let me live out a scene from Steve Martin’s The Jerk that I’d always wanted to and had an overlapping birthday with me.  And those are all good things.  But you know what made her so awesome?  I got sick and she took care of me.

Man, shit like that’s hard to come by on the road.

An Ecuadorian Wedding

I was specifically invited back to Ecuador, not just for my charming personality, but to attend a wedding.  Whose?  I didn’t know at the time (turns out it was this guy Aaron that worked at the club Bungalow 6 — really friendly American guy), but Eimear needed a date and since the wedding ushered in my birthday, it was a perfect opportunity for a free party.  There were very few gringos in attendance, meaning we had to represent ourselves properly.

Knowing the hit song Veo Veo by Guajiras was all the rage right now in Ecuador, I requessted it from the DJ to get the party moving.  Sensing he may have forgotten my request, I went back again.  And then again.  The fourth attempt finally broke the language barrier and the mad thumping beats of Ecuador’s Machine Gun finally started to play.  Breaking all preconceptions, the gringos danced hardest to those hot latin beats.  In fact, we were the only ones on the dance floor.  Such was our impressive display.

At some point I caught a plastic flower.  I think this means I’m getting married soon or something.  Par for the course in Quito, “soon” doesn’t actually imply something will occur in the immediate future.  Or the distant one…

Catching the plastic Ecuadorian flower of love

Post-wedding, my birthday begins at Finn's

With the Bozzos

Late July brings with it some friends from home, here to see me off in style.  Truthfully, the (mostly) newlyweds are coming for two weeks to get  the classic “best of” package, including a visit to the Galapagos.  I welcome them into the city in style, then send them on their way for a week to one of nature’s most famous playgrounds.  However, on their return, we get some quality time back in Ecuador’s most popular Eco-adventure city: Banos.  I’ve already written about the city in the past, so just pics here.

Tom and Steph meet Finn McCool's

Tom meets Blady

Me and Saskia, about to cross the gorge

Tom successfully retrieves a napkin

Inside the cave leading up to the biggest waterfall in Banos

The four of us on the bus back to town. The alternative is to bike back, but since our initial ride was entirely downhill, the return trip didn't sound as fun.

The newest rage in Banos: pendulum jumping. Similar to bungee drops, though one end of the rope is tied to the opposite side of the bridge, leading to more of a swinging fall than a dead drop.

Eimear, me and Saskia at one of Finn's many spontaneous sing-a-longs. This picture most likely takes place during "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

Peru

My time in Peru was divided between kooky “jungle medicine” tours in January and my Machu Picchu adventures in June.   Since food from the earlier trip was covered in this post, I’ll only cover the latter delectables here.

Alpaca.  Like its cousin, the llama, these South American beasts of burden are used as pack animals, tourist attractions (Peruvians love to dress them up in brightly colored clothes and then ask for money after you take a picture of one) and, of course, food.  They’re surprisingly good, too, and not nearly as tough as I would’ve guessed.

Alpaca with a side of... well, I'm not certain what this was, but it was vaguely reminiscent of grits.

In Lima, I decided to give cuy (guinea pig) a second chance. The results? It's still as worthless a meal as I found it before. Not bad, per se, but so much effort and mess for about four bites worth of meat. What's the point?

Rocoto Relleno. Stuffed peppers. A popular dish in the south of Peru, though this was a particularly fancy version as it's from Cuzco and marketed to tourists.

Rice pudding with raisins from a street vendor. The woman had a cart with four different flavors that I couldn't tell the difference between. Warm and tasty, though as with most street food down here, it'd never pass a US health inspection

Chile

I didn’t grab many shots of Chilean food.  Santiago had many seafood restaurants, though I couldn’t find sea bass anywhere.  Also, I really don’t much care for fish, so these restaurants did nothing for me.  Combined with the fact that Chile was the most expensive country I visited in South America, I didn’t eat out very much.

The restaurant informed us that this was a traditional Easter Island soup. Not bad, but nothing special

Ecuador

Food from Ecuador was also mostly covered here, but I’ve got a few additions.

Sugarcane juice. These machines take a stalk of cane, run it through and then dump out the excessively sweet (shouldn't be surprising) juice. It's also possible to just buy a stick of surgarcane and chew on it for a bit, if that's your thing...

One of the main food attractions of Banos is the toffee, even though I've never met anyone that likes it. This toffee is made by repeatedly pulling at it from a metal pole affixed to the wall (as seen in the background), then wrapping the pulled toffee around said pole and pulling again until it reaches the desired consistency. This open-air-dirty-pole method likely wouldn't work in the states.

Brazil

As popular and enjoyable as Brazilian barbecue restaurants are in the states, I wasn’t overly impressed with Brazilian food.  Maybe we went to the wrong places.  My friend Jaimee joined me for much of these spots and we had similar lackluster reactions to the country’s offerings.  We visited one steakhouse that, like its US counterpart, involved serving men roaming about with a wide variety of all-you-can-eat meat to slice for their patrons, all with several buffet style tables of fresh food in the background.  It was good, but bore little difference from what one would expect at similar restaurants in the states.

A popular local delicacy that I never quite figured out was manioc, a powdered form of cassava root that, throughout Brazil, is served with slivers of beef jerky.  This side can be found served with almost any meal in Rio.  Despite its ubiquity, we found it fairly bland and pointless, like eating bits from the bottom of a jerky bag that had been dropped into sawdust.  Meh.

Top of the list in Brazil was the açaí (pronounced “ah-sah-EEE”) smoothie.  Mixed with bananas, ice and sugar (apparently the fruit is, by itself, quite bland), this densely blue drink is both energizing and uniquely flavorful.  I made a point of having at least one of these daily.

Pastels (pronounced, in that bizarrely Portuguese way, as "pahs-TEY-ees"), are the Brazilian equivalent of empanadas. Unlike their baked Argentinian equivalent, these are larger and often deep fried. In addition to the standard chicken and ground beef flavors, "pizza"-filled is an option in many places, and not too bad

Crepe on a stick, filled with thick pockets of dulce de leche caramel and then covered in chocolate. We found this one at a random beachside stand between Sao Paolo and Rio.

Coconut water. Jaimee's favorite. Vendors were located everywhere with large coconuts on ice. Upon ordering one, they would use a machete to open it, then serve the beverage with a straw.

Steak, pineapple, sweet potato puree and, at bottom, manioc with jerky

Açaí berries with a glass of the puree on the side (pic not mine)

Nearly everything is available on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, including a wide selection of food. This vendor carries a small cooler of cheese and a small over to bake said cheese, which is eventually removed and passed over on a stick

Uruguay

I only visited Uruguay for about three days, and the food wasn’t terribly different from what we found across the river in Argentina.  One treat that we were told was Uruguayan in nature was Clerico. Much like its red sangria cousin, clerico is a white-wine based fruit punch served with an ample supply of fruit.  My mother’s not much of a drinker, but she was so taken with it that we ordered two pitchers.  From a recipe online:

Clerico, with mother in background

And the winner is…

Argentina

(pic not mine) Argentinian style pizza. It's more common to have cheese, like the right half. Dough is excessively bready, for my tastes, and every slice gets a single olive.

The cuisine of Argentina is, much like its urban architecture, more heavily influenced by Spanish, Italian and French culture than anywhere else on the continent.  For instance, no breakfast is complete without medialunas (literally: half moons), the Argentinian name for croissants.  Breakfast is meant to be simple and light, to the point where those seeking fare more substantial than the standard coffee, orange juice and medialunas are generally out of luck.  Ham and cheese sandwiches are also fairly popular for breakfast, though for some reason no one believes in making these with more than a single slice each of ham and cheese, regardless of the thickness of the bread.

Brazil, the -guays, Chile and Argentina all have variations of the empanada (Note: there is no tilde over the ‘n’ and thus these are pronounced em-puh-nah-duh, and not “em-pan-yah-duh” as I mistakenly said for the first week or two that I lived here), for which I am thankful.  The doughy half-circles are sold with a wide variety of different stuffings in the middle.  Ground beef is typically my favorite when selecting one of the quick, warm mid-day snacks, though another variety includes a densely starchy corn pudding that’s also quite good.  Most vendors sell chicken varieties as well, but empanada de pollo always ends up tasting a bit dry.  There seems to be an unspoken rule that the dough that wraps each different filling be folded in a specific way to make the varieties more recognizable.

Rounding out the fast food selections is a wide sampling of standard sandwich fare.  Like anywhere else on this continent, hamburguesas are widely popular, as are “hot dogs” (that’s how they’re called here as well).  However, why one would go for a simple hot dog when choripan are available, I’m not sure.  From “chorizo“, the insanely good Argentinian beef sausage and “pan” for bread, this sandwich slices a massive chorizo down the center, coats it chimmichurri (a spice rack’s worth of different seasonings all in an oil and vinegar base) and serves it on a fresh French roll.  There’s a reason why there are so few American fast food restaurants here — they’re unnecessary.  Of all the countries, I think Argentina had my favorite street food.

A variety of empanadas, filled with beef, chicken, egg, onions, tuna, cheese and other fun ingredients

As fun to make as they are to eat

My friend Nicole displays an Argentinian hot dog with one of the more popular condiments here: potato chips

A choripan covered in chimichurri sauce. These epic sandwiches still make my mouth water and typically go for no more than $1.50

My attempt at making chimichurri. This attempt yielded incredibly tasty results, but it was closer to a salsa than a chimichurri. Still, as I had plenty of corn chips, this mistake wasn't much of a problem.

All of these are merely lead-ins, of course, to Argentina’s most famous of coronary-inducing main courses.  No, not red wine, though there’s plenty of that to be found here on the cheap as well.  I’m talking, of course, about steak.  Massive, bloody, succulent, affordable steak.  How affordable, you ask?  Well, this massive cut of tenderloin that I used to make about seven large cuts cost me the equivalent of four US dollars:

Yeah.  I miss that.  Parillas are Argentinian barbecue restaurants, and typically you can find several on the block of any busy street.  Restaurants like these specialize in meats, typically served with a side of meats and your choice of two additional meats.  Sometimes, these meals come with a small side salad, though it should be noted that the salad is made entirely of meat as well.  In short, Argentinians like their meat, and tend to order a large platter brought out to the table on a hot plate (often with a compartment for hot coal kept underneath to keep the food warm throughout dinner) with about 4-8 different meat varieties.  Purees of either regular or sweet potato are available, though that’s generally it as far as non-meats go.

The only downside to this is a general lack of options for dinner (which, I’ll remind you, is eaten between 10 pm and midnight throughout most of Argentina).  Most restaurants (and parillas for that matter) also serve a handful of pasta and noquis (gnocci) dishes, though the pasta options are almost identical throughout every restaurant in the entire country.  As much as I miss the steaks, I think the lack of options in Argentina would’ve gotten to me over time.

A parilla, with food guide (note: pic not mine). I mostly agree, though I found in many cases the chorizo I had was from beef and not pork.

The best steak dinner I had in Buenos Aires, by far, was at La Cabrera. There's always a line to get in, but they provide free champagne and cuts of steak (on toothpicks) to those outside, so even waiting is a pleasure at La Cabrera. Each serving gets four large cuts of meat with six dipping sauces each and then eight more hot tapas (not yet pictured). Epic, decadent meal, and one of the culinary highlights of Buenos Aires.

A more primitive parilla. In Ushuaia, a guide brought us out on kayaks to a cold island in the middle of nowhere and proceeded to build a fire for his makeshift parilla. There, an hour from civilized land by boat, sitting on fallen logs, we had a meal almost as perfect as the one above.

And for dessert?  Helados, and lots of it.  Meaning iced cream, the typical Argentinian helado is closer to Italian gelato than anywhere else I found in South America.  The frosty treat is popular across the continent, though harder and more similar to US iced cream elsewhere.  The Argentinian style is rich, creamy and ubiquitous.  There are almost more helado shops than parillas, with each one trying to out-gourmet the next.  Equally widespread are alfajores (al-fah-WHORE-eys), which some friends and family were lucky to get upon my return home last May.  These treats are made from two cake-like cookies pressed together with dulce de leche (caramel) in the center, and then usually coated in a thin layer of chocolate.  I found them “OK” at best, but the locals love ‘em.

A standard sampling of helados

A typical alfajore. I actually found pictures of my favorite style, but I only found said style once. These are the more readily available variant.

A typical Argentinian bakery. These are also tremendously widespread, and nearly every one seems to do a good business. Argentinians love their pastries.

Because who hasn't ever thought, upon eating a candied apple, "If only this had popcorn on it..."

Candied fruits, also with popcorn. I couldn't bring myself to try one of these, due to the thickness of the shiny, sugary glaze covering the fruit. Interestingly enough, I never saw these again until China, where they're also quite popular (sans popcorn, though)

Oh yeah.  Mate. Argentinians love their tea, and specifically, yerba mate.  Mate is a holly plant used to make tea throughout most of southern South America, though most popularly in Argentina.  As boiling the leaves tends to make them unpleasantly bitter, mate is instead steeped in hot water.  Due to high amounts of caffeine, the drink is a stimulant and is considered a social beverage in Argentina where it is passed around in small cups made from gourds called guampas.

Mate in Argentina, from Iguazu Falls in the north to Ushuaia in the far south, is inescapable.  Argentinians carry their guampas with them everywhere, typically with a small bag of tea, a bombilla (metal or wood straw used for drinking the tea while filtering out the leaves) and a thermos of hot water.  The leaves typically pack enough punch to be used for 7-10 servings of hot water; when they fail to provide any flavor, the mate is discarded and the gourd promptly refilled.  On buses, Argentinians pass their gourd around like a joint in a college dorm room.  At parties, it’s as likely that they show up with a thermos of hot water and a bag of mate as it is that they’d bring beer or wine.

Personally, I like the flavor but never quite got used to properly handling the bombilla.  The majority of these straws are made from metal, which doesn’t have much of a problem conducting heat.  Combine this with the near-boiling temperature of the hot water and it’s searing pain on the lips.  Though the response from all Argentinians is the same: “Oh, you get used to it…”

A bag of mate, along with two goards and a bombilla straw (pic not mine)

“So what’s the deal with Route 36?” he asks.  Now that the true nature of his conversation comes out, the forced banality of his prior dialogue is all too clear.  She’s heard the question before.  Many times.

“Officially,” she says, “we’re really not supposed to talk to guests about it.”  She leans in toward him conspiratorially, lowering her voice.  ”But since it’s not like you’re not gonna find out anyway, I’d personally recommend Eddie’s Place.  Cheaper and better quality as well.”

“Hunh.  So how do you get there?”

“Oh, the cabs all know.  Certainly any of the cabs hanging out in the gringo parts of town, like the ones you’d see outside [the hostel].”

How the cabs are so well versed in the location of Route 36 (and Eddie’s Place, for that matter) is somewhat of a mystery, considering both are known to change their locations from month to month.  As to why, the answer is simple: they are cocaine bars.

Bolivia, perhaps moreso than Colombia, is one of the chief exporters of nearly all of the world’s cocaine.  The notoriously addictive drug is both as cheap and as powerful as one is likely to find anywhere in the world, and it’s clear from talking to some of the hostel’s denizens that these facts brought them to Bolivia more than any others.  Three dollars gets one a gram of the drug that in the same quantities brings in upwards of 60 dollars in the states.  And close to 300 in Australia, apparently.  Combine that with the fact that by the time the drugs reach the shores and cities of other continents, they’ve been cut down to a fraction of their original composition, and the draw to bars like these is almost understandable (at least to those of questionable moral standing).

Cocaine in Bolivia doesn’t quite attain the decriminalized status that marijuana has in Amsterdam.  It’s still illegal, and those caught trafficking the drug outside of its borders are dealt with harshly (brilliantly recounted in Thomas McFadden’s true story Marching Powder, which I would recommend to nearly anyone), though this is mostly due to quotas from the US war on drugs imposed on Bolivia.  Within its borders, political corruption and indifference reduce the trade in the drug to nearly legal levels.  From time to time, police will investigate Route 36, imposing fines on the owner and forcing them to close down, though a new location is generally chosen within days.

I had considered not posting any information I’d heard about either place, but a popular article by the UK Guardian published this summer had many people asking me what I knew about the place, so I figured I’d share the little information I had.  Certainly I would never go to such an establishment, but word of mouth does tend to spread…

Seven Hours on a Sofa

A group of nine curious travelers has formed at the base of the Loki Hostel in La Paz, anxiously awaiting the taxi cabs that nearly always line up outside the entryway at this time of night.  Tourists can be charged extra, despite arguing for a better rate and assuming they’ve won.  It’s good business to hover around the gringo-heavy hostels.  Nine of them should be too many for two cabs, but a girl is willing to lay across the laps of those in the back, despite protestations from the driver.  He doesn’t like it, but knows he can’t do much about it either and eventually shrugs off what could result in a citation.  Not likely though.  Not in La Paz.

“Eddie’s Place, por favor?”  It’s less a request than an actual question.  Everyone’s been told that taxi drivers are aware of the bar, but do they really know it as “Eddie’s Place”?  Not La Casa del Eddie?  Eddie’s bar de la cocaina? No?  He simply nods his head and says “si,” turning the car around.

Both taxis stop in a non-descript neighborhood of relatively new townhouses.  The streets are clean and well-lit and there seem to be no restaurants or bars of any type in sight, let alone the seedy type of establishment that one would expect to house a notorious cocaine bar.  Staring about, the backpackers look to one another in confusion, questioning the driver as though he’d clearly made a mistake.

“Allá.  Allá”  He points to a townhouse with a black metal gate covering the front door.  It’s the only gate of its type amongst the houses on this street, and as such, a good sign.  As the group heads up a flight of cement stairs to the entryway, the cabs drive off and the nine of us are left alone in an otherwise empty Bolivian neighborhood.  An Israeli takes the initiative and presses the buzzer announcing our arrival.

Moments later, a window in the door opens and a round Bolivian face peers through, studying the group.  He seems less than pleased about how many people are looking to come in, but eventually gives way and unlocks the gate.  ”Eddie” stands before us in an elegant bathrobe, short, gay and with a surprisingly strong grasp of the English language that he speaks in tones and volumes that fit perfectly with the rest of his image.  Then again, given his almost all-tourist clientèle, maybe his linguistic skills aren’t that unexpected.

“Come een.  Yes.  Please.  Ok.  Come een.  The bar ees over here.  Please.  Sit.”

The lighting is soft and dim — the expected bright lights, mirror balls and loud music are all decidedly absent — and likely to be easy on the eyes of those that’ve been up hours past bedtime in the thralls of a drug notorious for not being associated with having no stopping time.  George Carlin summed it up perfectly with the line “What does cocaine feel like? It makes you feel like some more cocaine.”  There is no last call at this bar, at least not while it’s dark out.  While most of this time zone sleeps, Eddie’s Place is going through its peak business hours.

Patrons take their seats on uniform, blue sofas and love seats arranged economically throughout each room of the house, generally in a circle, while popular gringo music plays softly in the background.  In the center of each circle sits an identical coffee table for passing about the evening’s contraband.  Drinks could likely sit upon its surface as well, but one person’s spilled beverage is a bad time for everyone, so drinks (large 20 oz local beers, or a wide assortment of cocktails are available at the bar — water is most recommended, however) tend to be placed on the ground.   The walls are mostly barren of art or decoration, but the sofas are comfortable and seem relatively new.  Substance trumps style here, in nearly every way.

Eddie’s Place is small; there are three rooms on the ground floor hosting the various daily (and/or nightly) patrons, with a mostly unfinished basement supplying access to a bathroom.  The upstairs is presumably for Eddie, but who can say?  At a place like this, it’s likely not a wise idea to go off skulking about where you aren’t supposed to be.  In the center room, Eddie sits behind his bar impassively.  His low energy stance would clearly imply a lack of sampling of his own product, at least during business hours.

Someone approaches the bar for the first time.

“Hola.  A rum and coke.  coca-cola, that is!  But also some cocaine.  One gram.  Please.”

“Yes,” Eddie replies in only slightly broken English, “You are new here.  Is good.  You are welcome.  But this place.  This place is a secret, ok?  Don’t tell your friends.  Is small.  Is secret.  Ok, so please don’t tell anybody.”

Sure thing, Eddie.  But based on the fact that most of the patrons here told taxi drivers, in English “Eddie’s Place,” and arrived here with little difficulty, the secret seems to be out.

With the drink, Eddie reaches down from a secret stash hidden by the bar and removes a folded packet of paper, then pulls out a silver serving tray from a stack in the corner.  While the gram will last three people approximately an hour and a half, the drink is finished by one of them in just twenty minutes.  Despite that, both cost the same amount of money (~3 US dollars).  Economically speaking alone, cocaine is the obvious drug of choice between the two in this town.  Drinking straws, cut down to about three inches in length, are available as a means of transferring the powdered narcotic into the noses of all of those that have gathered here for precisely that purpose.

The tray is carried back to one of the coffee tables and the small paper packet is unfolded, its contents poured out into a small white pile as bright as snow, even in the dim lighting.  Someone with slightly more experience than the others in this little circle pulls out a credit card and begins to break away portions of the powder into thin, two-inch lines.

“There’s not really much point in doing massive, Scarface-like lines.  It just wastes the blow, makes your heart race uncomfortably and gets everyone all jittery.”

Fair enough.  Two lines are laid out for each person while the bulk of the pile sits hovering at the edge of the tray.  A vaguely medicinal scent follows the drug as it makes its way though the nostrils, but there is little texture to it.  Anyone ever dared as a teenager (and dumb enough to take the dare) to snort a line of salt knows the sensation is thoroughly burning and unpleasant.  But cocaine carries no immediate sensation, unpleasant or otherwise, save for a slight numbing to the nostril in question.

The psychoactive effects of the drug begin to kick in almost immediately.  Energy.  Confidence.  A general sense of pleasant well-being.  Nearly all of the standard descriptions apply, though not to the degree in which Hollywood and the drug’s notorious reputation would have one believe.  No one here is yelling or engaging in any high-energy behavior, other than fairly passive dancing to whatever music softly thrums away in the background.  But the drug does seem to make people talkative.  Cocaine may or may not make one more interesting, but based on the endless flow of conversation, it clearly seems to make people feel more interesting.

Someone makes an observation on the effect: “You know how you’re talking sometimes and you can’t find that word you’re looking for?  I don’t think it’s possible to have that sensation on this drug.”

The level of chatter might possibly be inane and irritating to saner ears, but at least in this room everyone is about on the same level.  The first gram is finished and another is purchased without hesitation, as the conversations continue.  The environment.  Obama.  Travel.  Meer cats.  World politics.  The crumbling markets and the New World Order.  An Israeli and an Egyptian debate Israel energetically, though politely and with no clear animosity.  Most people wisely keep their opinions out of this one (though everyone here has an opinion, of course.  On everything).

Four members of the original group of nine head toward the door around three in morning.

“Where are you guys going?  It’s early, yet…”

“We’re off to Route 36,” one of them answers.

“You’re leaving a cocaine bar to go to another cocaine bar?”

“Yeah, tonight’s pinata night there,” they respond.  The event conjures up fantastical mental images and is, on the whole, a fascinating proposition.  But it’s far too comfortable on these sofas to even consider venturing back into the cold streets of Bolivia in search of a cab.

While marijuana dulls the mind and senses (if in a way many people find pleasant), and alcohol’s slow removal of inhibitions eventually renders partakers down to sub-human states, cocaine seems to leave its users mostly more aware and in control of their facilities than the prior two.  But its notorious side effects begin to show up as dawn approaches and the table nears the end of its third gram.

Where once everyone’s posture and faces evoked energy and confidence, most people now sat in slumped positions, as their bodies accepted the exhaustion that their minds had been clouded into ignoring.  Conversations, once witty and vibrant, now were delivered in choppy bursts.  Eyes, ever indicators of our mental well-being stare out widely, slightly sunken into faces and accompanied by shadowy bags underneath them.  Several people wear sunglasses, despite the already dim quality of the room.

Each line provides less of an effect than the previous one in what has become a zero sum game.  Positive side effects begin to be replaced with the equally hyped negative ones.  Mild paranoia.  A lowering of self-worth.  Nausea.

But possibly the most negative (and most hyped) side effect is the powerfully addictive quality of the drug.  While heroin users say that even a single experiment with heroin will leave a user craving it for the rest of his life, cocaine’s addictiveness isn’t so immediate.  When discussed the next day, most first-time users said they doubted they would ever try the drug again — and surely not for the hyper-inflated price ranges it goes for in their respective home countries.  But here, at Eddie’s Place, with half a gram still piled out on the table, there is no question that everyone is staying until their current serving is finished.

All the logical reasons for stopping were noted.  Everyone at the table is physically tired.  The sharp, witty banter has been replaced by semi- moronic rambling.  The sun is out and the locals are starting to head to work.  Not to mention cocaine’s “upper” qualities will keep its users from sleeping for at least an hour or so past the final usage, despite what would otherwise be extreme exhaustion.  But despite all of these strong arguments to the contrary, Not Finishing is unfathomable.

Worse is the question that follows the completion of the final line:

“It’s a terrible idea but… should we get another?”

The idea is shot down, but not as quickly as a rational mind might expect, and they all give pause to think about it (”I mean, when’s the next time we’re gonna be in Bolivia..?”) before declining.  It would go against all common sense to continue at this point, but the pull is strong.

Eddie opens the door for the three that remain from the original group and they recoil from the bright, high-altitude morning sunlight like vampires.  Eddie politely wishes them well as they say goodbye to him and to the mostly full house he’s still entertaining.  None of those remaining behind seem to be in any hurry to leave.  Many of them had already been there from the beginning.

The North Yungas Road — also known as El Camino del Muerte, or “The Road of Death” — notoriously connects La Paz to the small town of Coroico, 70 kilometers to the northeast.  In the 1930s, Paraguayan prisoners dynamited their way alongside the treacherous route as a means of connecting the remote rainforest region of Yungas with central Bolivia.  It was fairly solid work, as the road’s held up nicely these past several decades, but their decision to rarely blow more than ten feet of mountainside away led to an extremely narrow, steep passage down what would be eventually be considered “The World’s Most Dangerous Road” by the Inter-American Development Bank.

How dangerous?  Well, it used to be believed that 200-300 people died yearly along this route.

200-300?  Impossible!

Two trucks passing (Note that this is a stock photo, and not one I took while attempting to navigate between them)

Not really, if you consider that few cars tended to travel around this route.  People were poor, and as such, the few vehicles that regularly ventured across it were either large trucks delivering supplies or large buses filled with passengers willing to risk the trip to make their monthly visit to the capital.  Combine the enormity of either vehicle with a road that is, in places, less than ten feet between mountainside and a sheer 1000-2000 foot drop, and the possibilities for danger are boundless.

In all fairness, though, the dangers have abated substantially in the past few years.  A newer (and safer) route connecting the two regions has been opened, almost cutting Yungas traffic down to nothing.  Apparently the newer road is slower, so a few trucks still use the death route to save time, but its heyday as a high-traffic/high-death passage through the mountains appear to be over.

Hence, we have Bolivia’s most popular adventure-sport craze: Biking the Yungas Death Road.

Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking

Gravity might not be the cheapest tour company to book with, but they do have a pretty good reputation for being responsible and safe, despite this story.  30 plus years of awkwardness have me more than a little nervous about this particular venture, though I’m told that no real technical skills are needed.  Knowing little about Bolivia and its many (or few) tourist options, this ride is quite literally what I came here for.  So there’ll be no backing out now.

In truth, not too many bikers are wiped out yearly along the route, though two recent accidents give extra credence and weight to all of our guide’s safety warnings.  In April, a girl stopped along the edge to take a quick break, resting her left foot down cliffside on some grasses growing alongside the edge.  Apparently, the brush was more precariously rooted than she’d believed it to be, giving way beneath her feet and sending her, and the bike, tumbling down below.  Despite the unpleasant fall, she did survive.

Not so lucky was a gentleman — English, I believe — that shot over the edge in May, barely a month prior to our own trip.  The vans that trail us as we ride tend to carry ropes and other rescue equipment, and claimed the man was still alive when they first reached him, but died prior to reaching a hospital.  His mistake?  (Well, besides flying over the edge of a cliff on a bicycle)  He held onto the bike while falling, which ended up doing more damage to him than the steep (though brush-covered) descent.

Another picture shamelessly stolen from the internet

La Cumbre Pass (elevation: ~15000 feet) is the starting (and highest) point of our journey, and bikes are lowered from the van’s rooftop while our guide stresses the imminent danger we’re about to face.

“The number one thing that kills, maims or otherwise spoils this road’s adventure cyclists is testosterone.  Even for you ladies.  People come out here, and they don’t respect that this is a very, very dangerous road, and they get hurt.  And some of them die.  There are steep turns, loose rocks and wet, muddy surfaces that are completely unpredictable…”

As he emphasizes safety, slowness and smarts, I tinker with the bicycle I’m given, sizing up how much I trust it to keep me alive for the next six hours and sixty kilometers.  It’s a definite upgrade from the type I’d ridden in Cuzco while descending toward Machu Picchu.  For one, the wheels were nearly twice as wide as typical mountain bike tires, allowing for an incredible grip on the road (which, in this case, is quite nice).  Additionally, this ride actually comes with shocks, which were sorely needed on the previous ride, though painfully absent.

Every fist-sized rock I gracefully slid over left me (and my ass) extremely grateful to Gravity for using higher-end vehicles.  I don’t want to come off as an advertisement for these guys, but I noticed that most of the other bikes we passed were of the inferior type I’d ridden in Cuzco, and I would not have wanted to risk this ride using one of those.  And having a fluent, English speaking guide was a huge perk as well.

“The number two thing that leads to accidents and/or death?  Intoxication of any sort.  If I notice that you are drunk, high or otherwise impaired, I will have you off your bike immediately.  Because if I don’t do that, you’ll just wind up off of it anyway, and much more painfully so.”

“It’s not even 8 am,” one of the others mumbles.  ”Bit early for that anyway, right?”

The last of the pictures not taken by me. I generally like to stick to my own, but I was never attacked by a large bus during my trip, unfortunately

“You’d be surprised,” the guide informs us.  ”Just two days ago I had three British guys that had been up all night and were still clearly wasted from it.  We make everyone sign waivers saying their money is forfeit if they show up intoxicated, but it still happens all the time here.  Actually, one of the worst accidents I ever had was at the bridge — you’ll see the spot later.  The road descends and then makes a sharp turn to the right to cross a bridge.  I had a guy fly down the hill, missing the turn entirely and just jumping the chasm himself, crashing into the other side then dropping down 50 meters.

“He lived, but in the hospital, they discovered crack cocaine still active in his system.  Keep in mind, that most travel insurance policies don’t pay in cases were drugs, alcohol or extreme negligence are involved, so he screwed himself on just about every level.  He ruined his trip, and he’s still paying for it now, probably.  So be smart, guys.”

The Long Way Down

From La Cumbre, at the foot of glaciers and cold, barren landscapes, we begin our trip.  Here, the downhill road is paved, with two lanes of bi-directional traffic.  Death doesn’t tail us at every moment, but it’s a good warm-up for the main event.  Early into the trip, our guide waves us to the shoulder, pointing down below over a steep precipice that really should warrant a guard rail, even here in Bolivia.  Hundreds of feet below, the ruins of a passenger bus sit splayed out amidst the dark, brown rubble, visible evidence of the dangers both here and ahead.

An hour in and a dirt road, barely more than a trail, breaks away from the main, paved road we’d been traveling on.  As we break for water and snacks, the crew examine all of our bikes again, making adjustments on one whose brakes were deemed less than efficient.  We’re given a few more rules before setting off.

“Given the narrowness of the road, there’s a special rule to this road that puts downhill traffic in a less favorable position.  Since the edge of the road is always on the left for those going downhill, it’s crucial that drivers be able to see precisely where the road drops off.  Therefore, all downhill traffic must drive on the left side of the road.  There are parallel tire tracks sliced down the entire road — this means that you guys should always be riding in the leftmost tire track.”

“The one closest to the edge, that is..?”

“That’s right.”

Swell.

A sign that greets us toward the beginning of our descent. Whoever would've thought people could be so happy about hosting a "DEATH ROAD"

The next four hours are filled with some of the most beautiful scenery I’ll never get to experience.  Early on, it’s clear that taking in the sights for even split seconds throws my concentration and pathetic biking skills to uncomfortable levels.  I save the sightseeing for rest stops, which we are granted fairly often.

A lone mistake while riding through a wet spot causes the rear wheel to fishtail slightly, and I barely overcompensate enough to right myself, but this happens during one of the wider points in the road, and at a time where I (against suggested rules) find myself nervously hugging the mountainside.  Other than that, the ride is exhilarating.  There’s never a single turn where I’m not holding my breath slightly as my heart races with adrenaline, desperately afraid a loose rock sending my bike sliding out of control and into oblivion.  There aren’t many vehicles heading up against us, but all it takes is a single one flying around one of the several blind turns to signal my immediate demise.

For much of the ride, the path ahead is clear and manageable.  Sure, there’s the ever-present drop, often with the eventual bottom so far below as to be obscured by clouds and distance, but once you can get past that, it’s smooth sailing.

And We’d Come So Close To Having No Accidents…

Barely 2000 feet above sea level (that’s 13000 vertical feet in just a few hours), and the dry, wintery bluster from above has given way to a hot, dense humidity.  The most dangerous sections are over with, and we’re all competent enough by now to fly down the last few kilometers, letting the wind cool us down a little.

An animal reserve sits at the base, just outside the border of Coroico, and we’re greeted there with food and a complimentary beer.  There’s a swimming pool as well, which I cheerfully take advantage of, despite most of the group opting against it.  The reserve hosts an assortment of various monkeys and other jungle creatures, though by this point I’ve seen nearly each specie that calls this place home.  Relaxed and fed, we re-board the van and begin the last noteworthily dangerous activity of the day — driving back up the Yungas to La Paz.

It happens early on.  As we near a bend, with the dirt road twisting inwards so sharply that it initially appears as though our path cuts off at the mountain’s edge, two 4-wheeler ATVs shoot by around us, oblivious to the obvious dangers of doing so around such a sharp curve.

“Jesus, that’s dumb,” one of the other riders says.

Our driver slows down even more, riding as close to the edge of the slope as possible, now with his hand pressed constantly against the horn to give warning.

Our driver confers with a group of ATVs after sending one of them nearly over the edge

Despite his efforts, it’s not enough.

Halfway around the curve, another rider flies by, riding too close to the mountainside, seeing us in his immediate path too late.  He spins his wheels, almost avoiding the passenger side of the van, but not quite.  Two girls riding in the back of the van scream in unison as our entire vehicle shakes and we watch the 4-wheeler spin 180 degrees, and begin rolling backwards over the edge.  His rear wheels spin without finding purchase in the brush-covered cliff’s edge, and we helplessly watch him fall back with the ATV at a 30-degree angle downwards now.

It all happens in mere moments, frozen in time.  Somehow, his wheels catch and he shoots up over the edge, flying forward toward the van and stopping just before making contact with us a second time.  Shaken, he gets off of the vehicle and we all let out a long overdue breath.

Our driver and guide get out and speak with the group for a few minutes.  It’s uncertain if there was talk of fault, blame or mistakes.  The front of the ATV is damaged, and the van is at least marked.  But no one is dead.

Always a good way to end a trip, particularly on this road.

Loading up at La Cumbre

Bike, protective wear and me

Down the Death Road

I can't remember if I was being really stoic here or urinating

Note the crosses toward the left of the picture honoring the fallen

Looking down out the window during our ride back. I had other shots where we were closer to the edge, but you couldn't even see the road, which actually made the pictures less effective. Fun ride!

Throngs of post-Incans take to the streets for the Incan Festival of the Sun

Thomas (a new Swiss friend I’d met along the Incan Jungle Trek) and I slowly ponder our fates.  Back in Cuzco, the buses we’d hoped would have resumed their regularly scheduled routes by now were still firmly grounded in the many and varied parking lots of Cuzco.  Drivers remained passively on call without the appearance of irritation, despite this weeks-long threat to their livelihood.  Protests over the riots in northeast Peru that had claimed the lives of upwards of 60 indigenous peoples and policemen alike still continued to block all regional traffic coming into or leaving the sacred valley.  Epic adventures near and around Lake Titicaca would simply have to wait, at least as far as my involvement in them would be concerned.

A local agency had found Thomas one of the last flights out of Cuzco to La Paz, Bolivia, this Thursday — the day after the much hyped “Inti Raymi” Incan festival, a celebration of the sun that has occurred semi-regularly for centuries (despite the demise of the Incans close to 500 years back) — and might be able to find one more.

I successfully introduce Beer Pong to the Loki crowd. It's the little successes in life...

Bolivia.  It wasn’t originally on my list, though several travelers here at the Loki have been ranting about how La Paz is home to the much-hyped Route 36, a club that specializes in the (almost) decriminalized serving of cocaine along with its mixed drinks.  More interestingly, “The World’s Most Dangerous Road” sits just an hour outside of town, a stretch of narrow one-line highway dynamited out from the side of a mountain which has in recent years turned into a tourist hotspot for anyone stupid enough to bike down it.  Well, I’m stupid enough.  La Paz, it is.

Lan Airlines, ever pleasant and accommodating, would work out the logistical change of getting me from La Paz to Quito in time to enjoy one last month of ever-looming danger in my favorite, unwholesome city in South America.  Skipping Colombia after spending the past year hearing praise after praise heaped upon the country by nearly every tourist was a difficult decision.  But with a July birthday and just one month left of total freedom before resuming work (of some sort), the familiarity of Quito just feels more proper.

Work, you say?

“Why, I thought you were into being a homeless, shiftless, traveling vagabond?”

This life is no doubt an inexpensive one, compared to say, living in New York City (or Des Moines, for that matter), but a man still has to eat.  I’d been pondering travel in Asia after hearing so many comparisons and contrasts of the southeast Asian countries (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam — I’d probably have to visit Burma as well) with those in South America.  Like our (we, being the United States) southern neighbors, the Asian countries all offer affordable travel and unique experiences (and even more strange and unique food options), and there’s a solid enough hostel infrastructure to make travel feasible despite such different languages.

As fun as the idea of being unemployed might be (if you can pull it off without begging, starving or prostituting yourself in a seedy public restroom somewhere [Note: I have pulled it off without resorting to any of these things thus far]), the pointlessness of it all starts to wear on a person after all this time.  Work, effort, what we invest the whole of our energies into, “the good fight” — it’s generally what defines us as individuals and lends purpose and meaning to what is, essentially, pointless.  If you’re fully engaged in something droll, boring, repetitive and/or depressing, then it won’t be too long before those adjectives begin to be applied to you.  But that doesn’t mean all toil can be broken down eight hours of soulless misery a day for a paycheck.

The Devil and Yancy Davis

With this newfound acknowledgement of the potentially rewarding properties of A Good Day’s Work, I gladly sent in my resume for the position of college lecturer at the University of Chongqing (pronounced “choong-cheeng”) in China.  A friend of mine had put in some time here teaching English on behalf of the Peace Corps (one of their cushier jobs, by the way — nice air-conditioned apartments, hot showers, internet, etc) and one of her contacts was looking for computer science teachers for the university.  Qualifications?  Several years working in software engineering.  Check.

On a Friday, my resume was sent.  By Monday, they began work on my work visa.  If all goes well, I’ll be there in September, teaching the Chinese (in English, at least) how to computer program.  [Note: As I am writing this from Chongqing, it's safe to say that all went well.]

But there will be plenty of free time to talk about Chongqing.  Oh, so much free time…

On With the Festival, Already!

Processions of children, tourists, locals in indigenous garb and strange, barely comprehensible floats (do pigs flying an airplane labeled “H1N1″ really represent Incan traditions in any way?) pour down the hilly streets of Cuzco towards the picturesque main square that dominates so many of the city’s post cards.  Most of us are tired and hungover from celebrating the holiday’s eve nearly until dawn the night before, a seemingly poor choice of behavior the evening before an all-day festival like this one, though based on the raucous energy throughout the city it was clear we had little choice in the matter.

Up the steep hill out of town, we walk to Sacsayhuaman with blankets, snacks and the requisite amount of wine to honor the Incan gods.  Or the sun.  Or Peru — to be honest, none of us were terribly certain what this holiday was about yet.  It’s still early, which means some of the decent free spots would still be available, even for a group of our size.  For nearly two hours, we would sit and wait for the primary players to arrive, as the patches of grass and dirt around us steadily fill up with Peruvians.  There are some tourists here, obviously, but this is definitely not one of those showy song-and-dance festivals that spring up around tourist season with the aim of entertaining (and making a few bucks off of) gringos.  Based on the hundreds of locals in costume, Inti Raymi is a big deal to Cuzquenos (people from Cuzco).

A surprising amout of locals came in groups with prepared dances and costumes -- not just a few. There were easily hundreds of groups like this one

So, what exactly is the holiday?  Luckily, programs are available in English — It’s broken and choppy, but serviceable.  The scene here early on is much like that of the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, replete with vendors of every type making their way through the rapidly diminishing walking space around us.  By the end of the first hour, we’ve all got paper hats, programs and a wide variety of indigenous snacks (read: Snickers).

Apparently, the Incan emperor led this ceremony to honor the sun and the Incan god Inti every year on the winter’s solstice.  Of the four primary Incan holidays, this was the largest with a lead-in of nine days of dancing, finery and various other sorts of revelry before the festival’s close.  This end was typically marked with an animal’s slaughter in the hopes of receiving a year of good crops and whatever other blessings and benefits one might hope to get from divine types.  Not being a particularly Christian holiday in any way, it was banned outright in 1572, effectively killing the holiday except for the few descriptions maintained by historians.

Flash-forward to 1944 and it was time to bring Inti Raymi back in full force.  Peru’s about as Christian a nation as (a Christian) one might hope to find, but a natural urge to follow in the footsteps of one’s ancestors restored the holiday to its current status of being an annual practice, and it’s remained (and thrived) as such ever since.  Sadly, animal rights types have gotten involved in recent years and the sacrifice of a llama has been softened a bit, to the point where the animal leaves the stage unharmed and in one piece (though thoroughly confused).

In sight, though far down below us, the first official players in this ceremony have arrived and begin to line up in formation with one another in anticipation of the “Emperor.”  All free space has now been claimed, to the point where a large Peruvian woman’s knee is resting on my leg.  Slightly buzzed from the wine and the sun, I banter with her and she laughs, sometimes responding.  Neither of us understand one another.

Everyone remains seated, despite the poor view from below.  Quickly, we learn why this is the case, as a Peruvian in what looks like a green football (American football, that is) jersey stands up to watch the procession below.

“Sientate!” the crowd bellows, in short bursts at first and later, in unison, as chants build around those that refuse to bend to the will of the masses.

“Sientate! Sientate! Sientate!!!”

At the time this photo was taken, several of these people were throwing rocks at me

Plastic bottles and small rocks fill the air, meticulously aimed at those offenders that don’t immediately give in and sit back down.  Not all shots hit their marks, as hapless spectators whose only mistake was sitting next to someone that would eventually block sight of those in the back rows begin to get pelted as well.  They turn out, mildly agitated, but not terribly surprised.  Apparently this is not unexpected behavior at these events.

Tall and gringo, a plastic bottle hits me before I even finish standing myself upright.

“Sientate!!” they shout, not with anger so much as with the fervor of those yelling “Olé” at a bullfight.  I turn to address them, as if commanded by the Incan god of wine.

“Que???  Me… siento?”  Whatever could you people be asking of me?  My banter and smile, both alcohol-inspired, are infectious, and while the crowd continues to throw things at me, they laugh as we banter.  A small girl gleefully tosses a rock at me.

“Niña pequeña!  Por QUE?!  Queeee lasssstima!!” She giggles and hides behind what I assume to be her mother.  Ready to acquiesce, I take a final shot of the crowd and then sit back down.  The pelting immediately stops.

Eventually, standing up would be required in order to take in the ceremony as fully as possible, and it seems that the time for standing occurs semi-organically.  People stand, only to be pelted into submission (free reign to throw rocks at people easily being my favorite part of the festival) and return to the ground.  However, over time, more and more of the seated determine that it is time for a better look, until the clusters of standing viewers grow to the point where sticks, stones and names can no longer hurt them.  As if sharing a massive group-mind, the crowd accepts that the time for sitting is over and, en masse, rise to watch the remainder of the show.

Now standing, it’s safe to say I have a better view than anyone else.  I’m taller than most Americans, and Peruvians — especially the indigenous types — are about as short a people are you are likely to find in South America.  Perhaps for this reason, a woman tugs on my shirt and firmly, but politely, offers me her daughter.  Not one to be rude, I accept, and thus end up with a small Peruvian child on my shoulders for much of the last hour of the performance.

With my Peruvian child

“I see you got yourself a Peruvian child,” states and Israeli, returning with some water.

“Yup.  She’s just been sitting here for a while.  I have no idea if she’s loving it or in constant fear for her life.”

“She’s just kind of watching the show.  Doesn’t seem happy or sad.  It’s like, this is a very normal thing for her.”

“Oh,” I say.  I pull my paper hat off and put it on her head.

“Ha.  I think she likes the hat…”  He takes a picture.

The show is almost over — only the “sacrifice” is left.  The program describes an actual sacrifice, with a full description for what is to be done with each of the llama’s various organs.  However, too many people have told us that the sacrifice is “faked” now, leading to a debate amongst the gringos and a bet.  I take the side that the llama will be slaughtered in a large bloody mess for the thousands of gawking spectators (myself included).  I lose this bet and buy several drinks later in the evening.

While the llama isn’t terribly tortured, it is terribly confused, as men in robes tie it down upon the platform and the “emperor” comes at it with a large knife.

“That’s definitely a knife,” I say.  ”That’s a slaughtering knife.  You would only brandish such a knife if you were about to make a real sacrifice.”

“No, it’s an act.  The llama isn’t even afraid.”

“The fuck?  We’re hundreds of feet up and away.  How can you tell if the llama’s afraid?  Look, he’s cutting.  There’s red!  It’s organs… like intestines, or… stuff.”

“Fuck you, that’s a red shirt.  Or a red sheet or something.”

“No, it’s not!  Look, he’s still pulling it out.  That’s definitely blood.  No.  Wait.  Ok, that’s a red sheet.”

And like that, a bet is lost and the festival is ended.

At night, I say my goodbyes, pack my belongings, charge up all the chargeable electronics and plan for the flight to Bolivia the next morning at dawn.  Early morning flights are never pleasant, and I consider staying up straight through before eventually deciding that this is a bad way to start Bolivia.  All of the things I plan on exploring in La Paz will require me at my most alert and aware.

Inti Raymi Eve, at one of Cuzco's many late-night clubs

You could tell this was a special occasion because these people let me take the picture without even requesting any money. Generally, people only walk with llamas down Main Street in an attempt to sell the photo-op

Some of the more interesting floats

Picking the devil's nose

For a relatively small city, the procession flowed by this densely for hours

More throngs

Almost every South American country had its own silly hat. This was Peru's.

Our Loki group, relatively early in the day before the ground on all sides was densely covered in people

I’m not, nor ever have I been a morning person, but I stand slumped outside the moderately decrepit hostel tossing pebbles at the window of the two in our party that are slowest to rise.  If I’m going to be up before four in the morning, prepping a long, slow, uphill march in the dark to the poster child of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, everyone else better damned well be down here as well.  I’m not the only one peeved about the situation, though I might be the most vocally persnickety about it.

In my backpack: Two bottles of water, a Snickers bar, two bags of chips, an iPod, two cameras, a rain slick and a copy of Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume.  I break out the iPod and sit down, my best show of “waiting patiently.”  Too early for chatter anyway.  Eventually the others stumble down.

Waiting for the gates to open

It’s about a half mile out of town to the base of the climb, and we pass the buses, lined up expectantly, along the way.  These are the enemy.  Machu Picchu opens promptly at 6 in the morning, and the first busloads of aged and/or lazy tourists are dumped off at about the same time, with additional full loads of passengers being deposited at five-minute intervals for the remainder of the park’s open hours.  Beating these buses to the punch is well advised for multiple reasons:

1. Avoiding the tremendous lines that build up, especially in the first few open hours.
2. Getting to enjoy the purportedly majestic ruins without having them be filled to the capacity of an amusement park on a summer Saturday.
3. And, most importantly for those with any desire to see it: Wayna Picchu.  The tall, green sister mountain looming over Machu Picchu in most pictures is actually covered with ruins of its own and a fantastic vantage point to take in the primary ruins from above.  The one catch: Only 400 visitors are allowed to explore it daily, and even those are limited to 200 at a time (in groups departing at 7 and 10 am).  As the main gates open daily, Wayna Picchu enthusiasts shoot forward across the whole of the ruins, momentarily ignoring the grandeur to secure their golden ticket at the entryway to the taller mountain on the opposite side of the park.

As undertaking this early-morning trek rather than hopping on one of the first buses really just beats about 100 people to the punch, I suppose it could also be said that those of us making said journey are really just slightly masochistic.  But it’s a better story, if nothing else.

Misty morning mountains

From the start, the small, carved boulders that form the steps of this climb are large and unevenly spaced.  For an hour and a half in the dark, only a single headlamp and the bright, darting circles of white from the flashlights of others light my way.  The morning chill disappears quickly and is replaced by a thick layer of steadily flowing sweat.  After three days of exertion, we’re warmed up, but we aren’t prepared.  Some rocks are as high as three normal steps from the rock below, and the high altitude does nothing to assist in the climb.  The music helps tremendously, and I lose myself to a steady rhythm that guide my steps as surely as the beat of any marching band.  Of the seven in our group, I cannot tell who is ahead or below me, as I pass several people (and in turn get passed) by the minute.

And then the trees simply open up, and I am there.  Backpackers already line the steps, seated in clusters, though there can’t be more than fifty up here yet.  Half of my group sits in a circle and I join them, softly wheezing.  They ask about my climb and I just smile, give a thumbs-up.  Can’t talk yet.  The sky is beginning to light up as we wait, and wisps of clouds gently envelope the mountains around us.  It’s beautiful, but from our spot at the gate no evidence of Machu Picchu’s gloriousness is visible.  After all the Incan relics we’ve been exposed to over the past few days (not even including the treasure trove of history that is Cusco), this place better live up to the hype…

Machu Picchu Lives up to the Hype

Ok, fine.  It’s spectacular.  It’s not overrated.  It’s pretty fucking awesome.

Immediately on the other side of the gates, the early risers all walk briskly into the park, aiming not for the Waynu Picchu ticket area (tickets are required to be one of the 400 daily climbers, but do not actually cost any more money — It should be noted that the park entry fee is around 40 US dollars, though that was included as part of the Inca Jungle Trek package) but to claim some spot of the magnificent complex entirely for themselves.  Within an hour, people from around the world will dot the area like confused, multi-colored ants, but for now it is quiet.  Pristine.  Mine.

Posing in one of the many archways throughout the city

I bear left, and make a gentle ascent to a spot opposite the ruined city from Wayna Picchu’s looming presence, and take it in as though I were the solitary visitor in the park.  From time to time, I hear footsteps or see the motion of a brightly-colored hoodie darting somewhere far in the distance, but for the most part, Machu Picchu is mine.

Freshly meditated, I break out the copy of Jitterbug Perfume and balance it precariously on top of a carved Incan stone.  My friend Liz gave it to me before I left for Peru, despite my warning that she might not get it back for a long time, and certainly not in the near mint condition it was given to me in.  ”That’s ok,” she said, “just take it to some interesting places…”  The plan is to have the picture made into a postcard, but it would turn out that no photo store in Peru, Bolivia or Ecuador knew how to accomplish this.  But I’d at least show her the picture eventually…

Inner peace achieved, it’s time to secure my spot on the other mountain.  Most of our group is already in line, closely to the front no less.  Sweet.  We’re among the first fifty to grab tickets for the 10 am spot, giving us a few hours to let our tourguide show us every nook and cranny of Machu Picchu that his broken English is able to impart upon us.

A pre-dawn glimpse of the ruins

This rock is carved to basically mirror the mountain directly behind it. The Incans did a much better job carving than I did framing the picture, as much of the mountain is blocked...

Lush, green mountains surround the hidden city

Disappearing into the clouds

Waiting for the Sun

It’s barely six thirty and nearly everyone awaits the coming of the sun with fervent anticipation, like concert-goers awaiting the grand entrance of whatever big name act they’re there to see.  The Incans worshiped the sun and, as such, designed their architecture around it.  Sunrise shadows play games with rocks, windows, obelisks and other carvings in the stone, drawing pictures on the large canvas of rock using only the absence of light as media.

Sunrise on Machu Picchu

Our guide isn’t the clearest English speaker, often piquing our interest by alerting us to the presence of something noteworthy, only to leave us baffled as to what he’s actually saying.  From talking to others, I can tell where the key spots are to await the sunrise.  The Temple of the Sun sits up on a hill, though real estate is limited and long since claimed.  The Three Windows is another spot — there’s probably an official term better than Three Windows, but that’s what everyone seems to keep calling it.  Literally, three windows are carved into one of the sun-facing walls, steadily plotting out three bright squares on the floor behind them.  At another spot, two jagged rocks several feet apart form a singular shadow, with only a small triangle of light planted on the ground between them.  And so on.

At this point, it doesn’t matter much.  While some sought early morning solitude upon entry and others ran straight for Wayna Picchu, those “in the know” about the Incan sun light show claimed the key viewing spots, and stragglers like myself were left with the crumbs.  On the plus side, the sun isn’t exactly fast-moving, so it’s unlikely I really missed much…

Separate from the group, I wander to a quiet spot away from everyone else to explore in solitude, only to come upon a group of six Peruvians in a circle around a small basket filled with strange trinkets and totems.  One man wears a fairly westernized suit, though the man everyone else faces is dressed in indigenous garb like some sort of Shaman.  The man in the suit spots me staring and says, in English, “Hello.”

“Hi,” I say, nodding in the direction of the basket. “Are you guys setting something up?”

“No,” the man answers, “this is just my wedding.”  His sarcasm comes out in perfect English as well.

“Ohh.  Oh.  Congratulations.  Bye.”

Awkward.

This was one of the key spots people fought to witness the sunrise at. Apparently the window is significant, but when I finally got a chance to view it, I was fairly underwhelmed.

Temple of the Sun on the left, Wayna Picchu on the right

Our guide is saying something about this rock. Yeah, you're getting about as much information about it as I did.

More Incan sun play

Incan irrigation

The Three Windows

On the left is a rock shaped like half of the Chakana, or Inca Cross. It's the most prevalent symbol in Incan mythology and during sunrise, the shadow forms the second half of the cross.

The terraces in the background were used for farming when the city was at its heyday

More glorious post-sunrise action

Llamas still roam throughout the complex, for a little added livestock flair

Note the back of Machu Picchu in the bottom left. It's a fairly sheer cliff face, dropping hundreds of feet down (not pictured) yet somehow rooms and walls are still precariously built into the sides

Wayna Picchu

By 10 am, we’ve wandered the rocky hallways of the main city for close to four hours, so it’s about time for something new and exciting already.

The climb feels more arduous than the early morning’s ascent, likely because most of us burned through our energy reserves then, combined with the addition of the sun’s heat bearing down as well.  A few people actually give up midway through the climb, though witnessing this for some reason always recharges me.  I am better than them.

I’m a fairly simple person at times.

Another difference here is the narrowness of the steps which, combined with the altitude and uneven steps, gives the hike an enjoyable added element of fear.  At the top, my trepidations are once again dashed; the view is breathtaking, both the local scenery and Machu Picchu, now far down below.  At the very top, a single rock sticks out precariously, and we take turns slowly working our way up for photo ops.  Based on a single day’s evidence, this also seems to be an incredibly popular place to smoke weed.

It’s probably my favorite spot in the park, and well worth the effort.  Machu Picchu was one of the first things I set out to see when madly fleeing the country on what was to be, at first, a three-week trip.  Things changed drastically since that point, but I’m happy to know that the impetus for it all more than lived up to expectations.

Casually hanging over the edge of Waynu Picchu while the bulk of Machu Picchu sits far down below. The snaking road to the left is the bus route up, and if you look carefully there is a vertical path cutting through it marking the steep trail we used this morning to arrive at the site.

More terraces visible from Waynu Picchu. These are much further down than the main site and not accessible to tourists. But their (semi-recent) discovery points to how large the entire city was at one point, and how little we still know about it.

The long, narrow climb up to Wayna Picchu

Sweet. More steps.

The Sacred Valley

The bus is 45 minutes late, meaning I probably could have (and should have) slept in.  I’m the last passenger in our makeshift “Inca Jungle Trek” (their name, not mine) group, with all six of the others pre-loaded onto the bus from the same tour company.  As much is it may look like there are scores of distinct agencies in Cusco, there are really only a few trips of each type leaving daily and all companies access the same ones, mixing and matching spots to make sure every van headed off to the Sacred Valley is filled to capacity.

Four other Americans are on this trip — an anomaly in South America.  One of them has been living here for several months working on establishing a non-profit teaching organization.  The others are his brother and two parents, in town for a thrill-seeking visit, an Englishman of Indian descent (named Deepak, his rap name (a second career in the works) is Deep imPakt) and a Swiss man on his second year-long trip around the world (”I wanted to visit all the friends I made on the first trip,” he explained).

Our plan is to get dropped off in the cold morning hours at about 14,000 feet above sea level, and spend the first day steadily bicycling around 8000 vertical feet down the relentlessly swerving roads over the course of the day.  There are some dangerous curves and dangerous passing drivers at times, but it’s hardly The World’s Most Dangerous Road (that ride, in Bolivia, is still a few weeks off for me…).  Days two and three would be spent hiking our way to Aguas Caliente (literally “hot waters”), a city at the base of Machu Picchu that seems to exist solely to support the thousands of tourists that swing by weekly (expect massive price gouging).  And finally, on the fourth day, we venture up the mountain at the crack of dawn to see the famed ruins.  Our guide’s English leaves much (if not all) to be desired and the meals are sparse and unexciting, but it’s not a bad deal for $140.

Day 1

More than an hour out of Cusco and we’re stopped at Ollantaytambo, an Incan site dating from the 15th century that houses some of the oldest continuously occupied dwellings in South America.  Fifteen minutes gives the hungry (me) just enough time for a quick breakfast, while others shop along the main street for tourist kitsch almost identical to the mass-produced crap sold in Cusco.  An advertisement for Coca beer on the wall reminds me that coca (the plant used in making cocaine) leaves are processed and sold as candies and cookies here, and are not only legal but recommended to relieve the all-too-common altitude sickness that tends to set in on this trip.

A poster on the wall of the restaurant in Ollantaytambo where I had breakfast.

I never suffered from high altitude complications while on this trip, so I can't vouch for how well these actually worked. My tongue was mildly numbed, though that was about the extent of their buzz-inducing properties...

The road snakes its way upwards as we ascend to the drop-off point.  Despite the relative warmth of Ollantaytambo (situated barely 8000 feet above sea level), this altitude adds a sharp chill to the air coming in through the windows, and the mountaintops are now all densely covered in a thick crown of icy whiteness.  Eventually, the road levels off at a large patch of flat land that currently serves as a parking lot for Machu Picchu cyclists.

Pato, our guide, works with the nameless (as far as I know) driver to lower the bikes, while we shuffle about prepping for the long journey down.  Two of the others have iPods on, which is enough to get me to drag mine out; it’s potentially less safe, but a ride like this deserves a good background soundtrack.  In this case, I opt for the Beatles.  We ride around the parking lot in shoddy circles, adapting to the feel of the gears and brakes and then, following Pato’s lead, make our way onto the road letting gravity do most of the work for us.

It’s a smooth ride and enjoyable, if not necessarily adrenaline-inducing.  Passing trucks provide the most awkward moments, but even those are rare and pass quickly.  Two hours in, we stop for lunch and stare out at the zig-zagging of the road ahead of us, knowing we’ll be staying with it until eventually hitting the bottom, some time in the late afternoon.  Paved road eventually gives way to dirt, and the last hour is less smooth than those that’ve come before it, as well as hotter due to the lower altitudes.  All of us, who started the day in sweatshirts, are now down to t-shirts, and sweaty ones at that.

As the road enters a small town, we’re told that the ride is through and explore a local Incan site while the bikes are reloaded onto our van.  No signs explain the age or meaning of the site.  We’ve passed several collapsed structures and walls evoking centuries of forgotten history, but the sheer number of such sites preclude all but the most significant from warranting tourist attention.  It’s ruin overload.

Ollantaytambo

Cloudy, snow-capped peaks towering over the bike dropoff point

Unloading the bikes. I probably could've helped, but at the time I felt it was more important to take this picture.

The view from our lunchtime rest stop. The snaking road ahead is most of the remainder of our trip.

The ruins at the base of our ride. A large, circular mound with no explanation as to its purpose

These monstrous turkeys (the first I'd seen in South America) roamed the streets of the town we stayed in for the first night

Day 2

Uphill we go, barely cognizant of the constant stream of epic vistas that surround us due to the sheer exhaustion of such continuous trekking upwards.  After thirty minutes of ascension, polite conversation has become too exhausting and we amble slowly up the trail in silence (or with mp3 assistance.  Phish, this time, circa ‘98).

Pato stops us at a cluster of evenly arranged bushes most of us immediately recognize as coca plants.  We swoop in and admire them as two short Indians warily watch us from the ground where they work.  Their fingers dart across the branches, ripping out handfulls of leaves at a time only to deposit them in a large, shared plastic bag.  Their peculiar gaze stays affixed to us as we march off, filled with an emotion I can’t easily put into words, though clearly related to “disdain.”

Sniffing Coca...

There are few signs of life or communities here, but the trail isn’t entirely devoid of locals.  At one point, a girl of about 10 dressed in colorful indigenous wear sits upon a rock in the shade with bottles of water and gatorade.  As no homes are visible from the trail for an hour in either direction, where she’s come from or how she’d gotten all the beverages here remains a minor mystery.  No books, toys, games, company, the girl remains on the rock staring forward distantly with little interest in our passing, and I can’t quite discern the difference between spending all waking hours as she does waiting for the trickle of gringo tourists to pass and a day spent by prisoners locked in solitary confinement.

An animal named “Picuro” (the sign says so) greets us at a large shack an hour or so later with a large (for him) bottle of gatorade.  It’s uncertain whether Picuro’s a proper name or simply what this species of animal is called, though none of us have ever witnessed anything like him before.  There’s a monkey here too, and I should be getting bored with the creatures by now, but they always seem to take a liking to me.  The shack serves as a makeshift Andean snackbar and is well stocked in drinks, local candy bars (and Snickers) and, of course, more coca candy.

We arrive at the hot springs at dusk, and spend an hour or so soaking off the days exertions in the expansive, relatively clear waters.  As in Banos, Ecuador, a thick stream of cold water pours down into a separate pool, though I’m the only one to take advantage of its chilly shock value.  We’re given the option of walking to town from the springs or riding in a collectivo (a van that serves as a small bus, despite taking on enough passengers to fit into a normal-sized one) for a few dollars more.  In the dark?  After relaxing in a hot springs for the past hour?  There’s no debate.

Our group, with facepaint (made by mixing berries from a local plant with saliva) freshly applied

Coca workers

Picuro

The camera loves this little guy. I, on the other hand, seem to be enjoying this way too much

Small man in a big valley

Day 3

The last day of hiking feels more like an afterthought than an epic journey through the Sacred Valley.  For one thing, the path is almost completely flat for the four hours of hiking that we do.  For another, it is flat because we are walking along a railroad track.  The great Incan railroad track?  Nope.  Just a generic, Peruvian one.  If it’s still in use, we wouldn’t know — the track remained completely devoid of cars for our long, slow mosey over its monotonous wooden beams.  But it’s a nice day, and the twin mountains of Machu Picchu and Wayna Picchu (the taller peak in the background of most Machu Picchu postcards) show themselves a few hours into the trip, providing both shade and a prominent foreground while covering our final steps into the town of Aguas Caliente.

The peaks of Machu and Wayna Picchu gradually looming closer as we near Aguas Caliente

A large bus parking lot is the first sign we’ve arrived, though the town isn’t far beyond.  Built alongside the river, Aguas Caliente is small and seems to exist solely to support Machu Picchu tourism.  Named for a hot, natural spring, we’ve been advised by guides and fellow tourists alike to avoid the town’s namesake as the water apparently looks, smells and feels foul.  All of us take the advice.

The town is larger than it initially appears to be, but not by much, and nearly half of the infrastructure is hotels.  Food options are better here than in most places in South America (pizza?  burritos??), but there’s a large increase in pricing across the board, from meals to massages to bottles of water.  There’s no shame in price gouging here.  A bridge crosses the river into the other half of town, and immediately there’s a marked shift in its character.  No hotels on this side, and the stores are standard mercados rather than the souvenir stands across the river.  It’s a sharp dividing point between the tourists and those that actually make Aguas Caliente their home.

Our last dinner is on us and we opt for the more expensive route mostly to escape from the monotony of “pasta and tomato sauce”-esque meals we’ve been stuck with for the past three days.  The urge to celebrate with drinks is there, but with a 3:30 wake-up call the next morning to stumble up over a thousand steps to the ruins, no one’s particularly feeling the need to slam anything down.  I’m in bed by ten and out within five minutes; walking along railroad tracks for half the day might not be the most exciting thing we’ve done this week, but it’ll still guarantee you a good night’s sleep when the day is done.

Our first view of Aguas Caliente

Our "Inca Jungle Trek" group at dinner, the night before our ascent to Machu Picchu

Cuzco's main square from above, snow-crested Andean mountains in the background

Of all the cities that put on their daily architectural make-up, batting their stucco’d window eyelashes and sticking out sexy, chisled stone legs at hapless tourists looking for that “real” antiquated atmosphere, Cuzco does it with the most panache and short-term believability. Talk to any of the gringos that’ve been there a while and you’ll hear it’s all just an act with a seedy underbelly that almost comes close to tourist-antagonistic, but to casual passers-by, it’s a happening scene.  In the late autumn month of May, the dry hills provide a rich backdrop of yellows, oranges and a touch of green from almost anywhere in the city of unanimously rust-colored roofs they seemlessly encapsulate. Buildings of wood and stucco complement their natural surroundings with soft earthtones, all wind-beaten and dust-covered after over five centuries of cool, high-altitude Andean weather.

Looking down at the city from Loki's uphill vantage point. Great view, but the uphill walk is killer at this altitude.

Three blocks uphill to the Loki Hostel leaves me far more winded than I’d been in Quito, but again I’m relatively untouched by any real altitude sickness. Loki hostels (there are four of them now) have a reputation throughout the continent, though no one really elaborates on what that reputation is.

“Oh, you’re staying at Loki” with a roll of the eyes. Or, “I stayed at the Loki in Lima for 5 days, but had to switch to another for another week just to recover.”

I didn’t find this entirely to be the case. It’s true that there’s a centrally located bar that charges all drinks directly to your room, making it easy to mindlessly imbibe over the course of how ever many weeks one opts to stick around for (more than one person in the common room had been there for well over a month) without any thought of the cost until moments before departure.  But the bar isn’t really what set Loki apart from its peers — in fact, shutting down abruptly at midnight, even on weekends, it made the hostel far less of a “party” atmosphere than nearly any other hostel with a bar.

The place simply has a good vibe, and visibly puts effort into maintaining it.  Movies are played daily in the common room at 4 pm. Elaborate dinners are cooked nightly for anyone on the ball enough to sign up for them by five in the afternoon.   And most importantly, a giant chalkboard advertises daily activities for all guests: Horseback riding on Mondays. High-altitude paintball Tuesdays. Mountain-biking. Bungee-jumping. Quiz night (a solid win at this on my part won not only a free t-shirt, but prepped me for a job as Quizmaster in the near future). Poker nights. Saturday parties. It’s enough to make almost unemployed backpackers with a taste for the bizarre stick around for at least a week.

And this is a good thing, as it turns out that short of flying, there’s no way I’m getting out of Cuzco.

From outside the window of my room at the Loki. The hostel's one of the largest I've stayed in, despite being a remodeled manor home over 400 years old.

The First Stragglers Arrive

A South African couple walks into the bar.  It’s not the lead-in to a joke, nor do they have anything to laugh about, their eyes glazed over and heavy, their clothes covered in a thin but noticeable layer of filth.  The Irish bartender — a transient, like most of the employees at Loki, he’d enjoyed his stay at the Loki so much that he stayed on for a month to live there — offers them a drink.

“Love to,” coughs the man, exhaustedly in that distinct South African accent.  ”Can’t.  We absolutely are sleeping as soon as our room is ready.  We’re coming from Arequipa…”

“Do people know what’s happening out there?” his female companion (who turns out to be his wife) asks us.

People do not, and are soon informed.

Cuzco town center. Upon seeing the rainbow flags, I asked if it was gay pride week down here or something, and was harshly told that the rainbow flag is actually an Incan sign. Weeks later in Bolivia, I would see the same flags and ask if there was an Incan festival coming up in the city. "Que?? No. Is for the gay!" they say.

It actually all started in northeast Peru when indiginous groups protested new legislation that would’ve allowed oil drilling and loggers onto their land.  The protests grew in size and ferocity until a major clash with police (with many of the indiginous apparently fighting back — successfully — with spears) left as many as 60 people dead.  Major protests took place in Lima when I’d been there just days before Cuzco, but by now, anger had spread throughout the country and protesters aimed to hit the country where it hurt: Tourism.  So long as the national protests continued, Cuzco would be effectively blocked off from the rest of the country by land.

(Apparently, opportunists also were quick to take advantage of this situation.  While some roads were blocked in protest, others were blocked with the option of the block quickly being removed for a small local toll.  Viva Peru!)

“We left Arequipa 21 hours ago,” the couple tell us.

The bus ride from Arequipa to Cuzco typically takes six hours.

Protesters piled rocks in the roadway, pelted tourist buses and filled the streets, making passage anything from slowed to impossible.  The transportation nightmare came to a head on a particularly remote mountain road where a bridge — typically deemed necessary for crossing rivers, chasms and other forms of landlessness — had been inconveniently removed, leaving only its frame.  This gesture turned out to be more than ominous enough for the driver, who stopped the bus and simply walked away without talking to any of the passengers (at least, not to any of the gringos).

Some locals informed the gringos that another bus area was just a few miles ahead on the other side of the bridge and, lacking options, passengers slowly crossed the skeletal remains of the bridge.  Weighted down with backpacks and travel gear, they walked sideways over the rusty metal bar that once maintained the bridge planks, holding on carefully to a thinner second bar above that ran parallel to the one they walked over.  For several hours, low on both water and food, they walked over a mostly barren mountain road in search of a bus station that seemed less and less believable as the time passed until it improbably appeared before them.

No one could accurately tell them when the next bus to Cuzco would be leaving, and so the bedraggled group sat in a state between sleep and vigilence for several more hours until the right bus was finally ready.  They’d be sleeping well tonight.

As days passed, more people came in with harrowing stories like this one and while initially it didn’t appear to affect me past being the recipient of good travel anecdotes, I began to realize that the ongoing strike did have one negative side effect: No buses were leaving the Cuzco region in any direction.  Sure, Machu Picchu and all the local attractions were still widely available, but the two weeks I’d reserved for hiking in Arequipa, flying over the Nazca lines in Nazca, boating around Lake Titicaca and sandsurfing in Ica.  Suddenly my options were limited to simply being stranded in Cuzco.

At least the Machu Picchu condition takes close to a week — maybe the protests will be over by then?  (foreshadowing: they won’t be)

Horsing Around Sexy Woman

The ruins of Sacsayhuaman, as seen from the horse pen

It’s my first day in and I don’t know a soul.  Hoards of Peruvians, grouped together in colorfully indigenous outfits like centuries-old marching bands take to the streets, blocking traffic and making a spectacle.  No, it’s not another protest that just happens to be gorgeously photogenic — Inti Raymi is only weeks away, I’m told, and every perfectly synchronized act of marching, dancing, singing, music playing or performing of any time must be picture perfect.  Troops of all ages pour in after one another, divided only by differently garish wardrobes.

A local group (in red) prepares for Inti Raymi

What is “Inti Raymi”?  Some kind of festival.  I’ll be gone long before it starts, so it doesn’t really matter. (foreshadowing: It’s the Incan Festival of the Sun, and I’ll definitely still be around for it)

Because right now, I aim to see something spectacular.  I’ve got no idea what, but after a fairly boring, insipid week in Lima, Cuzco and all its majesty better live up to expectations.  Bring on the cobweb-covered Incan temples of human sacrifice.  Bring on the adrenaline pumping adventure.  Failing that, bring on a cold beer.  Every street downtown is lined with tourist agencies, all hawking indentical services with drastically varying prices.  Salespeople line the streets reaching out to gringos as they pass (often physically) with offers of every possible service, from Machu Picchu excursions to shoe shining to massages.

I don’t get the shoe shine boys.  Shoe shining is actually huge through a lot of South America, though it does stand out as being a bit bigger in Peru.  The locals seem to love a nice pair of freshly shined shoes, and often give these boys plenty of business.  However, it’s not locals that these boys chase after for blocks down the streets.  No, it is the gringos with tennis shoes or sandals that they decide really need a good shining, despite relentless protestations otherwise.

Now the massages are a different story.  The going rate is 30 soles for an hour-long massage, but they can be talked down to 20 immediately.  That’s about six dollars for a fairly intense hour of full-body — no happy ending — work.  While in Cuzco, I get about six of these.

Machu Picchu is the main event, but the Incas literally covered this place in holy sites cum minor tourist attractions.  There’s Moray, a peculiarly circular terraced site outside of the town of Moras; Ollantaytambo, an Incan site built into the narrow, eastern end of the Sacred Valley (the region that houses nearly every major ruin around Cusco); Pisac: Umm.  More ruins.  Built into the mountains.  Valley backdrop.  Yada yada. Forty bucks gets you a pass to everything but Machu Picchu, though most of them are confusing bus trips, and quite honestly, despite the history and beauty of the other ruins, how many ruins are non-archeological types expected to explore in any given region?  If Machu Picchu doesn’t sate the innate need for Incan culture I never knew I had before, I can always double back and hit up some of its lesser known cousins next week.

One ruin that does bear exploring, however, is Sacsayhuaman (prounced “sexy woman”).  Sure the imposing walls are massive and precise, and sure they were built using no mortar or binding agents, with rocks held together solely by fitting so closely together to one another that they’ve stayed in one piece like a puzzle for centuries now.  All that’s great.  But despite the catchy name, if Sexy Woman were more than 30 minutes travel outside of town, it’s unlikely I’d make the trip.  Happily, the massive stone walls are erected on the large hill overlooking Cusco, providing both an easy trip to the site and a stunning (especially at sunset) view of town.

“You want trip Machu Picchu?” a street hawker asks, standing outside Sunshine Travel.  Or maybe it’s Sunrise Tourism.  Sun Adventure Fun Times?  Every other building is a tourist agency, and every other one of those has the word “sun” somewhere in the title.  It’s an Incan thing.

Horses watering themselves while we set off to explore the Temple of the Moon

“I want Sexy Woman.”

“You want horse?”

“Huh?  No.  Sexy Woman.  Sec-Say hWah-Man!”

“Siiii, si.  You want take horse Sexy woman.”

“How much horse sexy woman?”

“40 soles.”  About 13 bucks gets me a three hour horse ride up to (but not into — like most things around here, the ruins have an entry fee) Sacsayhuaman.

“Si.  40 soles.  Yo voy, yo voy…”

A truck takes me up out of the city; the father drives as the preschool daughter shares the back seat with me, eyes curiously affixed to my face for the entire ride.  Another gringo waits for us at the stable, and we chat (the standard travel talk: where are you from, where have you been, where are you going… permutations on locations and times) as the driver negotiates things with what looks to be our guide.

The stable area has a small (about three feet high) stone wall built around it with a single exit, and we’re instructed to lead our horses through it.  Grandstanding, our guide motions for his horse to walk over the wall, though the pile of stones (clearly not stacked by the precise Incans) collapse immediately upon bearing the horse’s weight, sending both horse and guide fumbling forward awkwardly, and upsetting both of the gringo-laden horses.

“Sweet start, brah.”

My horse, Pedro, is a dick.  Not perpetually so — it’s as though he forgets what a dick he is most of the time, only to remember during those rare times I complacently let my guard down, causing him to venture off in strange directions despite those directions being drastically at odds with what I believe my reins to be instructing.  Generally, enough kicking, pulling and yelling will get him back on track.  During the few uncomfortable times it does not, the guide is usually there to kick a bit harder.  So he gets a tip.

Our indigenous guide stands outside the entrance to the main chamber of the Temple

Trails go through woody areas and ravines, thin mountain passes with sheer drops that the horses don’t seem particularly bothered by (do horses ever commit suicide, and if so, how often do they bring along a gringo or two for the ride?) but leave me more than mildly disconcerted.  After an hour, we stop at large rock formation and jump down to let the horses water themselves at a nearby stream.  Unlike the many other rocky outcroppings we’ve passed, this one isn’t coincidental scenery so much as the Temple of the Moon — deep crevasses run over, across and through it, with intricately carved stone walls celebrating the trilogy of mythological Incan totems: the condor, the puma and the snake.

Respectively representing Uku Pacha (the underworld), Key Pacha (our plane of existence) and Hanan Pacha (the heavens), snake, puma and condor play tremendous roles throughout both Incan mythology and Cusco tourist gift shops.  A stone archway guarded by one of the many snakes carved into this chunk of rock leads us into the main chamber of the temple, and a local indigenous girl explains the rituals and symbology in broken English as we make our way in.  The innermost room is small and made up of a single large slab of rock with a surprisingly smooth horizontal surface.

“This is very spiritual room.  On full moon, look there…” she says, as she points at a large hole in the rocky ceiling directly over the long slab.  ”Moon is over stone and shaman come here for holy ceremony.  Every month he go here…”

“…and makes a ritual sacrifice!?” I interject.

The stone slab where all the hot, ritual action once took place with each full moon

“Um.  No.  Is not for sacrifice.  Every month he come here on full moon and with a woman they make love.  Is very sacred.  Celebrate fertility.”

“That’s good too!”

“Yes.”

She walks us around the outside, explaining further in detail the rituals and religious carvings throughout the temple, and upon leaving I make my ritual donation of five dollars.  The horses, now properly watered, await our return sullenly, and with a swift kick, Pedro is off once more.

Close to two hours later, my ass is raw and battered and I want no more of this.  These horseback riding tours only seem like a good idea for the first hour or so, and even most of that time is spent wondering what the point of such an activity is all about.  Hopping off, I thank the guide and, less enthusiastically, Pedro, before making my way down the long hill back into Cusco for a much needed six-dollar massage.

Sexy Woman

Despite being dropped off at Sacsayhuaman just a day prior, the ride had been thoroughly exhausting enough to limit any further exploration of the ruins I might’ve otherwise made.  I knew the walking route this time, and had little else to do other than lumber up the long walk back into Cusco’s hillsides.  The ruins are most well-known for being comprised of rocks held together solely by their perfect fit with one another, thus requiring no mortar or other adhesive to keep them together for these past several centuries.  They’re impressive, but by this point the major structures are no more, leaving just a series of well-designed walls and the occasional archway for tourists to gawk at.  While standing before one of the larger stones, a long-haired backpacking type with an American accent approaches me.

An apparently broken portal stone

“That’s one of the portal stones,” he informs me.  ”See how it’s, like, shaped like a door almost.  It’s a portal.  The Incas believed in portals like this.”

“Where’s it go?” I asked.

“Well…” But he doesn’t answer, instead walking away.  Maybe it was a stupid question.  I walk up and put my hands on the rock, but if it functions in any way like Platform 9 and 3/4, it does not do so for me.

Upon walking out, an old indigenous man approaches me.

“What did you think of our ruins?” he asks me.

“Good stuff.  I really dug the.. the portal.”

“Yes, yes.  This is a very important place to us.  Look, look…” he pulls out a looseleaf binder filled with laminated pictures.  I’m curious, but my teeth grit as I wait for the request for a donation with every word of knowledge he imparts upon me.  ”See these stones…” he says.  I look at a section of wall from one of Sexy Woman’s many segments with mild curiosity, as it looks no different from any other part of the complex.  He turns the page.  ”Now look…”

“Well, sonofabitch…”  It’s the same segment, but now an outline of yellow traces over twelve or so of the joined rocks to clearly show the outline of the Incan condor.  ”Now here,” he says, flipping another page, and then another.  Fourteen rocks meet to form a snake.  Seven make a man with a sword.  Others form a fist.  A puma.  The sun.

“Man, I wish I’dve talked to you before going in.  This is Great!”

“Yes, I am glad you appreciate it.  If you would like, I am having an ayahuasca ceremony later tonight…”

“Heh.  Yeah, great stuff, ayahuasca.  But I think I’m good for now, thanks!”

“Take care.”

Sacsayhuaman

Nice Tour Peru

I like a nice tour as much as the next guy, and the proximity of “Nice Tour Peru” to the Loki hostel makes them an easy choice.  I still shopped around, though their price was comparable or better to that of any other agency in the city that I spoke with.  There are four main tours from Cusco to Machu Picchu, each taking 4-6 days (note that it’s possible to do a one-day trip as well, but where’s the fun in that?)

1. The Inca Trail - Beautiful scenery, majestic springs and lakes, relentless Incan ruins.  It’s the most popular hike in South America.  It also books up more than six months in advance and still costs 2-3 times what the other tours cost.  Peru put limits on the trail of no more than 500 tourists a day, making it even more sought after.  I had the opportunity to reserve a spot back in November, but the free-form nature of my post-Antarctica travels didn’t go for the idea of forcing me into Cusco on any sort of schedule.  So no Inca Trail for me.
2. Salkantay - Six days, including one night on cold, high-altitude Salkantay Mountain.  Honestly, I just didn’t feel like hiking up to 17,000 feet above sea level at this point.
3. Inca Jungle Adventure - It’s a fairly lame name for the option I ended up going with.  A day is spent biking close to 7000 vertical feet downhill, followed by two days of hiking through the Sacred Valley and the final day spent in Machu Picchu.  Food included, it’s not a bad deal for $140 (though his original price was $160 — they’re all about bargaining here in Cusco…)

The bus would pick me up at six in the morning on Thursday, and, as an added perk, we would be at Machu Picchu on the 21st of June, the longest day of the year — Not a bad day to celebrate a culture whose entire religion revolved around the sun.

Shameless Self Promotion

Llama, taboot...

Less than four hundred dollars, round trip, nets me a ticket home and I jump on the deal.  I miss my family, my friends, creature comforts, live music with songs that don’t inevitably use the word “corazon” somewhere, Taco Bell, good pizza, having more than three beer options (all of which are Pilseners) and being in a land where the dominant language is (at least currently) my own.  My friend Flynn grabbed up a ticket to see the newly reformed Phish, Jeff’s handling a crabfest on the MD side of town and Jessica’s wedding at the Mandarin Oriental in NYC warrants a weekend of its own.  Nothing like a vacation!

Since A) a picture’s worth a thousand words, B) it doesn’t have much to do with travel and C) I’m lazy and trying to get caught up here as fast as I can, I’m just going to describe the rest of the week in pictures:

Friday

My friend Pete greets me at the door to his apartment, topless.  Maybe some people would find this sexy, but it’s not exactly my scene.  He’s just waking up.  Despite this, he listened when I’d told him I wanted to get the most out of my ten days in America, and planned out an exhaustive trip through Manhattan’s east side, covering much of Chinatown and Little Italy.  Dim Sum was my one specific request, so we started there.

I'm not sure what the name of this Dim Sum restaurant was, but it was this full on a Friday at 1 pm, and had a wide assortment of live entertainment. This was only about half the room, too, and yet we still had to wait for some open spots at a table.

Dim Sum. I'd love to say this was prepping me for my upcoming year in China, but apparently this is a very different style from what I'll be getting in Chongqing.

This jerky place is all the rage right now with many of my NYC friends. Tasty, and unlike anything else I've ever tried, but not as mind-blowing as the hype might've led me to believe.

If there's ever a type of candy you're looking for, there's a better shot of finding it at this place than anywhere else on earth.

Ordering knishes.

For dinner, I chose Mexican and got mildly mocked for it. Look, Mexican food is actually in short supply through most of South America and I was honestly missing some quality burritos.

Trying out some Argentinian dulce de leche liquor with Louise. I've got pics from this night with lots of people, but since she's a semi-regular reader, she gets posting priority :)

Saturday and Sunday in Boston

Besides scoring floor tickets to the opening night of Phish tour at Boston’s Fenway Stadium, Flynn was also gracious enough to both drive and provide lodging as well with his Bostonian friend Laurie.  Following the four hour drive to her apartment, Saturday was mostly a calm uneventful exploration of Boston’s rooftops and Oyster bars.  Sunday was the main event.

A pre-show party at our friend Mark's place. Perfect weather.

Just a few blocks from the main event

Me, Laurie and Flynn

Flynn and I are circled in red, though good luck finding me. He's easier to spot with the signature green jacket, though I'm looking off to the right.

Monday and Tuesday

Knowing I’m in town for only a week, my Virginian parents make the trek up to the big city to get a little Yancy time in.  For two days, we venture around through parks, museums (cheap ones, at least) and pizzarias making the most of our time.

At the world-famous Lombardi's Pizzaria

The brick pizza oven at Lombardi's. This guy does this pose for tourists about 87 times a day.

Wednesday Night

Despite their never really learning how to sing that well, The Disco Biscuits still play my favorite live music on the planet, and it would’ve been a shame to catch Phish — a band I’m only connected to nostalgically at this point — three times while in town, and never get to see the Biscuits even once.  Wednesday night offered up a show in Providence, Rhode Island and after weeks of sweet-talking all of my employed friends into giving in to wanton irresponsibility, I finally succeeded with my friend Brittany.  Along the way, we picked up her friend Joy at the halfway point in Hartford, CT, which would also serve as our home for the evening, post-show.

Joy, me and Brittany. Complete fun -- not awkward at all!

At one point Joy mentioned her eccentric landlord kept chickens in his basement. It was crucial that I investigate!

Thursday and Friday: More Phish

The gracious Lazars of Long Island offered up their two condos to our assortment of misfits (yes, two — they bought a larger unit in the same building, but haven’t sold the first one yet) for two more concerts at Jones Beach Theatre in New York.  With only ten days stateside, there would be no rest for me.

The lovely Lazars of Long Island

Stay back, Brendan -- they're all mine!

2/5 of this night were hilarious. Sadly, only 2/3 of this picture are awesome. (Sorry to pretty much anyone reading this for all the obviously private jokes that make no sense without context)

MunchkinJess’s Wedding

On very little sleep after two hedonistic nights of Phish, i put on my finest (and only) suit and made my way back into the city for a rendezvous at the Mandarin Oriental (apparently, it’s quite the swanky establishment — you can’t even enter the main lobby without a suit on) for my friend Jess’s wedding.  As she’s of Chinese descent and he’s Jewish, the wedding was a tasteful mix of both heritages, with some contemporary elements thrown in for good measure (”Here Comes the Bride” replace by a Yo La Tengo number, for instance).

Jess and Dave. Note the chuppa in the background, a traditional cloth covering over the ceremony, colored in a dark red, the Chinese color for good fortune.

Melissa ended up being my unofficial date for the evening, such that I never went without a dance partner. The photographer apparently liked us.

Sunday: Maryland Crabs

Argentinian King Crabs never quite did it for me, and I was quick to mention to traveling companions how superior our Maryland variant of the crab was, regaling all that would listen with tales of the Maryland crabfest: picnic tables covered with newspapers, wooden mallets, a bushel or two of crabs and multiple large piles of Old Bay seasoning.  Thanks to my friends Jeff (for picking up the crabs) and Liz (for hosting), I got my wish.

A quality MD crabfest

Crabs!

Monday Mimosas

Lisa, possibly one of the best people ever, picked me up early after arranging a mimosa brunch at our friend Rachel’s house.  Luckily all of these people seem to have night jobs!

Though I've recently started to tolerate Bloody Marys, I think Mimosas still win out as the number one morning beverage

Lisa and me. Something funny was apparently happening here.

Tuesday: Back to Peru

And just like that, it was over.  I spent the last of my time with my Mom; sure, I’d just seen her in Santiago, but mothers never can quite get enough time.  I let her get even more time with me by driving me to the airport.  When you’re only in the country for ten days of the year, you’re a celebrity — a walking party.  One more week in the States and I’m sure coming across people, the reaction would return to “oh, you again…” but as it stood, no greeting was anything less than a bear hug, and for an attention whore such as me, that’s enough to keep me out of the country for 51 weeks per year for a long time!

Mom and me, just before heading off. I miss those glasses. They'll be stolen the following week in Cuzco...

On to Cuzco…

I chose Buenos  Aires.

The college couple in the room next to mine. She's Brazillian, he's Argentinian.

With a little over a month’s time to spend integrating myself into the heart and soul of the city, I used my first few days apartment-hunting on craigslist (it’s as big down there as anywhere I’ve seen in the States) and meeting an assortment of landlords.  Prices ranged from 220-500 for the month for single rooms in shared housing, and eventually I settled on 290 for one of four rooms offered by an Argentinian music producer named Guido who lived in the downstairs basement.  To the left of my sparse (but wifi-included) room, a young Argentinian/Brazilian couple in college; To the right, an Israeli magician named Dimago.

Dimago was friendly and enterprising, and while he still relentlessly haggled and made deals all around the city so much that no one would confuse him for anything but an Israeli (at one point he pushed a sushi restaurant on us really hard, then ate for free as he’d worked a deal out in advance with the owner that he could do so any time he brought three or more people along), he was far friendlier than his younger compatriots that were fresh out of the army.  His magic focused on sleight of hand, card tricks and mentalism and were almost unanimously phenomenal, and he’d actually convinced two clubs to pay him to wander about performing.  It was interesting to watch him at work the one time that I did, though dimness and excessive noise from the music probably caught his nightclub act from ever really taking off while I was in town.

His one great weakness, though, was a monotone Borat-like delivery that make the strange, one-liner attempts at humor he attempted to throw into his act tend to fail confusingly.  For example:

Dimago, in the midst of a trick:  ”So it’s a good thing… that I am good at magic… you know?  Because it is better than my old job…”

My friend Nicole and I wait out the pause and then look at each other.  Does he want us to probe further on this one?  Ok.

“Uh…  So what was your old job?”

“Well… I sold drugs… to kids.”

Nicole and I look at each other, perplexed.  It’s a joke, right?  I mean, even in Israel it’s probably not cool to sell drugs to small children…

“Oh,” we say. “Ok.”

To his credit, the trick is outstanding.

Couchsurfing

There’s little more to say that wasn’t covered by my first visit here.  Avoiding clubs entirely, I opted to semi-successfully figure ways to meet and bond with the local populace.  The most fruitful of these attempts involved the website couchsurfing.com.  Ostensibly a way for people to travel on the cheap while meeting fun and exciting new foreign strangers, its users in Buenos Aires pride themselves on being the most social couchsurfing community on the Internet.

One of the cooking lessons: An Irishman and an Argentinian making empanadas. Said meat pockets are ubiquitous throughout the country, cheap and generally always pretty good.

“Events” take place on a nightly basis: cooking lessons, concerts, English/Spanish practice groups, parillas (Argentinian barbecues) and, ostensibly, orgies.  I’m not sure if the last one ever happened or not.  Most of us were sure it started as a joke, but as many as twenty people of both sexes put their names down as potential orgy-goers, and Dimago was one of them.  Utterly fascinated, I regularly asked him how the plans were progressing, though participants had hit a roadblock upon realizing that none of them lived in a large enough (or possibly squalid enough) house to accomodate twenty people simultaneously copulating.

What’s more, the “sexually liberated” women that had initially put their names down with the intention of experiencing a mature, respectful, carnal romp, suddenly came to realize that such a thing is nearly impossible from nearly 97% of the male population on the Internet.  I’m not sure whether it was the guy excited about bringing his camera or the slew of users publically expressing their aversion to “fat chicks” (the message board was equally made up of English and Spanish writers), but as of my departure from Buenos Aires the list was down to two girls.

In general, the couchsurfing boards focused more on traditionally wholesome fare, though.  Monday night in Buenos Aires hosts a weekly show of heavily choreographed drumming called La Bomba del Tiempo.  Rain or shine, the large outdoor venue (comfortably located only two blocks from my apartment) fills up with drummers, young Argentinians and a dense cloud of marijuana smoke.  A conductor maintains a steady rhythm, keeping the 20+ member percussion orchestra playing in unison while throngs of concert goers vibrate to the Latin-influenced beat.

For a month, I did nothing but live in Buenos Aires.  Why not?

My final night in BA, I purchased this tenderloin for under four US dollars. In terms of both quality and price, Argentinian steaks are the best on Earth.