Why Travel?

The following posts recount my recent travels in Colombia and the long return—via land and boat—to Bolivia, where I joyfully arrived "home" on February 17^th. This present post is dated today in real time.  The following posts I will backdate, according to the time they were scribbled in my travel journal, from Dec 25^th thru Feb 17^th.

One of my trip highlights: Sunrise in the Cordillera Huayhuash in Central Peru

I recently spent nearly 8 weeks living out of a backpack.  After 120 hours in bus, 4 days in boat, 12 hours in plane, and 14 days on foot -- one asks one's self: Why on earth am I doing this?  What is traveling?  What is it for?

The natural human desire to explore?  The fascinating (albeit brief) encounter with new and different cultures?  The filling of Facebook with flashy fotos?  The attempt to orient oneself in the big big world–like a large experiential cultural map?

A month into traveling, set to head the following day to the Peruvian coast for rest (from the exhausting, privileged "work" of travel), I asked myself: will I actually know anything of the people and culture of Peru—or of Colombia—after all this?  How will it affect my perspective of Bolivia?  How will the mere time away or even the books I'm reading play into my perspective?

Parque Nacional de los Nevados (glaciated mountains) in Colombia

After saying goodbye to my parents in Colombia, traversing its high mountains in the "Parque Nacional de los Nevados"  and boating several days up the Peruvian Amazon, my travel partner Karl and I found ourselves in the northern mountains of Peru, in the pueblo of Chachapoyas. Tours in Chachapoyas are affordable but obligatory, as all the sites are 1-2 hours away, accessible only by organized bus (save those who have their own vehicle).  But without regret! Our minibus filled with mostly Peruvians, including Eduardo, Lisset and Nando, an Argentian Family and an Italian-Egyptian-Argentinian who became "family" for our brief Chachapoyas stay. We even when out for family style Peruvian-Chinese (Chaufa) dinner. Reason to travel:  connections, family—a little bit of home on the road.  Makes one wonder why one leaves home if the goal is to find it.

I have never been so excited to see a border.
Welcome home.

Amidst the green northern Peruvian Andes we saw Kuelap, the great "Macchu Picchu of the North" (except without the lines of tourists); maybe 30-40 people pass through everyday.  It's "tranquilo" as though you could have come upon the massive ruins—this pre-Incan city—on an afternoon mountain stroll.  Along with our "family" we hiked to Gocta, (supposedly) the third tallest waterfall in the world.

I don't like tourist crowds: anywhere where the tourist dynamic is so overwhelming that it feels unlikely to make genuine connections with others, where the tone of a place is so defined by tourism that it's the only kind of relationship possible.  When it consumes the character of a town, a place, a people.

Celebrating Snow Day in the Cordillera Huayhuash.  Summer
means the Rainy Season in the Andes; means snow at 16,000ft.

In a Bogotá afternoon that began as lunch and lingered into a long walk, coffee, and enough intense conversation that my Spanish-brain fried out, my new Colombian friend Ella said something that struck me:  Everyone should travel.  Everyone (should). Europeans and Americans should come to South America, and Latinos ought to go the opposite direction. And to Asia. And to the Middle East. And.

I doubt she meant as mere tourists, which is a form of never leaving where you are, just doing so in a different place.  The same conveniences and expectations, pre-packed in a safe hotel room and (in my case) gringa-ized cafes that excuse the tourist from vulnerability.  Or, as my friends at Maryknoll might call it, from cross-conversion. 

In this wide world, what a wonder to be able to exchange and interchange with others.  The best of spirituality and food and politics and literature from one family, one pueblo, one region, one country—can be shared with another.  If her arms are open and her ego's closed, a beautiful exchange is possible.  Obviously it's not all objective.  I would never exchange my diet for that of Cochabambinos, nor do I think they'd be too keen on adopting my (what has at times been called) "rabbit food" as their regular culinary fare. 

One a hike to the next pueblo over from Tocoli on
Lake Titicaca, this fishing family gave us a row back 

Eight weeks of travel outside Bolivia upped the irony that I had never been to the Bolivian tourist hotspot, Lake Titicaca. Last week after the incredible blessing of a quick 2-day rendezvous in La Paz with my dear friend Kate, and working observing a La Paz sister-school of the colegio in Cochabamba where I am now employed, I decided to head to the Lake.  By luck, after our observation of Colegio Kurmiwasi in La Paz, my friend Heidi (leading a group of 20 study-abroad students) was headed to a tiny pueblo on the lakeshore, where the students home-stay with the local indigenous families (while Heidi housed up in the one-room schoolhouse, grading papers).  Knowing the hospitality of the community and my desire to avoid a stuffy-touristy encounter with Titicaca, Heidi extended the invitation to Tocoli.

Helping grandpa fish (or clear the water from the
leaky boat) and sizing up the gringa

So early Friday morning we headed up the 4000m "hill" to El Alto, caught another, then another micro-bus, and finally disembarked in the middle-of-nowhere altiplano.  Backpacks on, we crossed the highway to the dirt road noted by the small sign: "Tocoli."

The community of Tocoli is in a long struggle, much like many campesino communities.  The pressures of globalization, colonization and "development" have forced them to make accommodations to the ever-invading outside world.  It began before--but certainly most distinctly--with the Spanish, who forbade the speaking of the native Aymara tongue, forced Aymara peoples to change their dress, their religion, and in general meticulously fulfilled the requirements of heartless, oppressive colonizers.  

Fields of quinoa overlooking Lago Titicaca

Yet Tocoli managed to keep much of their culture alive.  Today they face tremendous pressure from within, as many members of their small twenty-family community leave the campo pueblo for the opportunities to be found in Argentina, in the United States, in El Alto.  Some find work in La Paz's high sister-city El Alto and "do quite well for themselves," others do not. They can't find work, or the found work is a misery and exploitative.  And even though they're surrounded by the "luxuries" of urban, civilized, modern living, suddenly they find themselves stretched by the pressures of paying rent, utilities and buying food.  With money tight, and no potatoes nor quinoa, nor barley, onions, wheat or fish right outside their door, for the first time in their lives they find themselves in a world where no one cares if they go hungry. 

The blend of permanent pueblo inhabitants and Tocoli community members who return from the big city urbanized, defined more and more by capitalism and individualism causes degrees of tension.  Tocoli isn't naïve about the realities of our changing globalized world, to which they know they must adjust.  But they're striving to do so gracefully, maintaining their cultural system and rejecting a world measured by individualism and profit at the cost of health, of nature, of tradition, of well-being. 

Ceremony celebrating the end of the students' homestays,
and recognizing the openness of the Tocoli families

"No one knew poverty here" Calixto, the Aymara Shaman/Catholic Deacon, explained to me. "There's always potato, barley, quinoa, maiz. Our economic system has always been communal, so no one ever knew hunger while others lived with plenty."  But inequality is attempting to encroach on the community. It's one of the reasons Tocoli is not interested in tourism.  The bawdy scene in Copacabana—the most-visited Lake Titicaca site—serves as a glaring reminder of what they could become if they neglect to hold tight to their communal values, their faith, their agriculture, their language, their culture.  But nor does this mean Tocoli wants to close its doors to the outside world.  On the contrary, they're quite interested in attracting visitors – they're even seeking funds and investment to make it happen.  But no tourism. "Tourists come, they pay money, they make demands: Coca Cola, fried food, wi-fi." The community of families in Tocoli is seeking inter-cultural encounters, with the expectation that both cultures will and must learn from one another. 

While the pueblo meets to discuss proposals, some play with rocks

After a potluck lunch attended by the entire community (comically, nearly all the plates were potatoes–not surprising of course, it is the altiplano–but nonetheless amusing to me—it was like an embarrassing Midwest church potluck), we sat among the entire village for their community meeting.  We were privileged to be there, chewing coca and reclining – men on one side, women on another – listening in.  They spoke mostly Aymara, but slipped into Spanish now and then, enabling us to follow the proposal of a Spiritual Center and other proposals for the community to improve the water, the soil, and attract "non-tourist" visitors. As I watched them discuss the proposals, my mind drifted to the World Bank "charla" I'd attended earlier that week.  The World Bank in Bolivia is particularly concerned about rural poverty.  I wondered if they would consider Tocoli a typical "target rural community" worthy of World Bank development, so as to save them from poverty—which the World Bank measure in dollars in cents—not in pounds of papa, harvests of quinoa, nor in community involvement, the captivating constant view of Lake Titicaca, nor the volume of laughter at a pueblo-wide potluck. 

Another sentence in Spanish.  Tune in.  Back to Aymara.

Sitting there, to the tune of Aymara discourse, I realized I was one of their first non-tourist visitors.  

In inter-cultural encounter.  Finally, I was traveling.

As the rainy season comes to an end, I don't take a single drop or cloud for granted

Praise be to God for a Cloudy Day

Praise to be God for a cloudy day!
Praise and thanks and relief from Her brightness

She knows, how deeply She knows

we are but human

the eyes of our broken souls cannot take 

such glory

In compassion she clouds us even from Herself

Absorbing the gentle warmth of her Existence

in the softened life

Till that day

When our eyes are more Her eyes

Ready to gaze in the face

Light Light And more Light

Andean Dawn

In the shy Andean light I ask, "Hay quinoa?"

Busy lives.  But if you have a moment, before the rush of the day begins or as it ends and the busy world is hushed by your quiet sitting with a cup of tea, a glass of wine or milk, maybe you will add my story to your silence, without breaking it.

"Sí. Hay quinoa."

"Uno, por favor."  The cholita pours it into a tall glass.

Standing awaiting the departure of our 6am bus, I warm myself with the thick drink, and ask for my yapa.  I feel an incredible privilege to be greeting the cold dawn in this tiny pueblo at the gate of the world's second highest mountain range.

This morning the quinoa is particularly good, thickened with apple, sugar (but not too sweet as it always is in Bolivia), chuño, and maca--one of the Andes' magical high-altitude everything roots. "It's like Viagra--but viagra for everything" my friend Wilson assured me, as we shopped for our hike breakfasts.

 I give thanks for the hot, liquid, nutritious meal and this woman who woke early to soak the quinoa, to cook the apples, to carry her table and goods to the street.  For no Andean bus can depart or pass by without food sales.

My fellow passengers fulfill the Andean peoples' impressive ability to sleep on any bus, including winding, rocking, bumping, 12,000ft up, antithesis of smooth buses.  I try to decide:  stare at the steeply carved rock walls, or at the mountain view on the other side--with the cliff. 

                                  

15 Cholitas fill the aisle.  All selling the same, but repeating the ritual phrase: "Hay manzana, hay pan, hay palta," as they fall atop one another and passengers with each jolt of the moving bus.  The sun rises to warm the cold cordillera dew.

A few passengers run out the bus door:  another mini rockslide.  They throw stones aside, walk alongside or ahead of the huge rolling machine, toss aside a few more.  No one wants a flat tire on a narrow mountain road in a vehicle so large.  Nor do we need to veer any closer to that impressive Andean dropoff.  Throw a few more stones aside.

We cruise along at 2-10mph, descending through almost every possible climate.  First quinoa and maca.  Now apples, avocado.  Soon sweet cactus tuna.  Then, ultimately, ceviche.  When the conductor asks everyone to file out of the bus (bad road, sharp edge--no one complains about it), I take the opportunity to strip off my layer of down and long underwear.  I know the heat is just around the switchback.  I use the "baño ecological" -- one last time for squatting -- and climb back into the bus, now past the steep danger zone.

As we descend from 14,000ft, 13,000ft, 12,000, 8,000ft, eventually to arrive at zero, Lima, I try to receive the invitation to let my ego descend too--to quit needing to be important, valuable, known.  Rather, let myself be caught in the overwhelming privilege of being human, here among 40 bus passengers, in the friendly chaos of Andean transport.  This is gift: to be here, to be human. 

Baby cows run from the bus, then squeeze against the stone wall on a tight corner.   The driver passes with care.  We encounter a truck climbing what we've recently descended.  One backs up: a spot wide enough for two.  Human beings, working together.  Figure it out. 

I almost forget how pleasantly unique this bus is.  Not cursed by the "luxury" of a television as many buses have (along with their slew of pre-selected terrible, usually violent--despite all the children on board--movies which, at high volume, one becomes obligated to watch). On this bus of campesinos and me, only music plays from 6:00am on, evolving with the radio stations as we descend through altitude-distinct cultures.

Perhaps it is the slowness that I love.  Surely I could descend faster by bike (though the bumpy dirt road doesn't inspire a ride).  At this pace we are not merely traveling together but living together.  I am here, more human than ever.  
We arrive in Lima at nearly dusk.  I search out the bus station (unsuccessfully) for my ultimate Peruvian ride: to the Bolivian border.  I buy an OJ on the street, and catch Lima transport--hauling my big mochila on my lap--to my destination.  Bright lights, packed streets, urban music.   I ask myself if I'll ever return to hike the 6-13 days through the Huayhuash, if for no other reason than to arrive ultimately in Cajatambo and wake the next morning for quinoa and the bus down the mountains with other humans beings—to remember that I am one of them.

All images in this post from the Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru.

Las Amazonas: Days on the River

"Cuantos años tienes?"

The sway of the hammocks 

nearly touching

and definitely touching.

Hammocks in every possible suspended inch of air.

The London-Peruvian-Gringo, surrounded by niños—telling stories?

No.  Teaching a card game? Or was it a magic trick?

And is he charging them?  Or beating children a poker?

Largest gathering of niños I've seen on board.

Long lines wrapped around the 1st floor deck hall,

plastic bowls and tupperware in hand, awaiting the meal

meat and rice, again.

If you're lucky early, you might catch a little lentil, vegetable or sauce to accompany the meat and interminable rice.

The casual bathrooms: men, women, children.  Wash your lunch plate, take an Amazon shower, go poop:  the 3-in-one.

"Quieres probar esta fruta?"

Sharing fruit on our deck with the families headed to Yurimaguas.

Zapote: the sweet pumpkin-evoking fruit.

Throw the rinds and the pits overboard.  Feed the fish.  Just like

the fruit-dropping trees are doing now, many submerged in the rising river.

The rainy season is hard on fishing, the fish

already have plenty falling Amazon fruit to eat.

The woman who shared her fruit listens in on our conversations,

never joining in, except for her smiles and gentle silent laughter

curious and attentive.

The men who gather on the decks of the boat just watching.

Thinking? Sometimes talking.  Mostly 3½ days of watching.

The men who flipped their tops when I walked by in a swimsuit and towel -- I, hoping to swim in not too crocodile or pirana or snake or eel or any bity-itchy-electrocuty-infested waters.  I wasn't particularly human to the crowd.  I became pure body.  They became pure animal.

The Captain who fell for the clear blue eyes, like those in storybooks, and bought fried beatles for me to try.  Who heard my Bolivian Artist story and lowered our pasaje to 80 soles.  "I like you."

The two German friends we made: the Writer-Director (who knew the Amazon was such a thespian hotspot!) and the Pharmacist, who destroyed my natural assumption that all pharmacists belong to the most boring possible class of human beings.  His passion for drugs and the human body nearly enrolled me in pharmacy school.

Patricio, who spied on me from his hammock until we began a face-making game:  read a paragraph, entertain the child.  Read my book, find new contorted configuration with my mouth.  Smile at the dear niño.

These were our neighbors.  In our bedroom of 160 swinging people. 

I've never been so glad to get on a crowded boat--300? or 400? people, plus animals and cargo—boarding the river to leave loud, obnoxious Iquitos, where I was little more than a female, a gringa, a tourist, surrounded by piranhas of tour guides and taxis.  On the 3 day boat to Yurigmaguas I could be what I have forever most wanted to be.  Even in those 3½ days when I failed to shake off my femininity, my gringinity, my blue eye-inity.  More than all those definers, for 3½ days I became (only) human.

Those 3½ days we sat and ate and laid side-by-side and caught each others eyes and when we overcame our shyness we spoke, and we shared those 3 sunsets, those 3 sunrises, and we were our best curious simple selves.  Human.

The 5am cell phone, unconcious of his roommates (160 of them), the assumptive man with the stereo we're all inevitably "blessed" to enjoy.  The quiet mornings before the 6am bustle.

"Tienes un novio?"

A pregunta I've decided I'm done with. You're not going to be my 36 hour Peruvian boyfriend, nor does my dating status have much to do with my quality as a person, so the next gets a north american biting response.

Too many Peruvian men certain they want to find a gringa wife.  No, you don't.  After 3 days in Iquitos Machisma, I couldn't handle "letting it go" on the cab ride:  there are exceptions, but that machismo crap makes most of us vomit, as I explained to my driver.  We're not interested in insecure, desperate, I'm-so-afraid-of-seeming-feminine-that-I-can't-even-hug-my-male-friends-and-I-succumb-to-the-peer-pressure-of-treating-women-like-objects version of "masculinity."   Trust me, you don't want a gringa wife.

I pull out the stash of avocados, fruits and vegetables that we brought on board to supplement another boat meal of meat and rice, which I find surprising since neither seem particular native to the Amazon.  Despite one of the most proliferous ecosystems in the world, the jungle buds with malnutrition.  But many residents assert that no ever goes hungry: "There's always chicken, and there's always rice."  But bellies bulge with malnourished want: for the vitamins and minerals crowding the immediate land and water.  Western influence pulls the natives away from centuries-old culinary, nutritional and medicinal practices. 

A dear friend who recently stayed in one of the villages I passed while heading up-river felt the crisis of conscious during her jungle stay: health and medicine being taught to those living in the richest natural medicinal area in the world. Western doctors visit and medicate rural jungle inhabitants.  Reinforcing the system of western-dependence, a line of patients eagerly awaits the all-knowing doctor's diagnosis and prescription drugs.  "Could I have some more to bring back to my brother too? He is also sick."  The western medical patient-doctor system is new to them—why shouldn't a doctor visit include a handout of drugs for the entire family?  They have no idea what the small pills do, really – the risks involved, the chemicals, the side-effects.  Just give me something to fix this. Do your magic, medicine man. 

These good-intentioned service trips are rarely done in partnership with local traditional medicinalists, even though these local healers lead tours of hotshot New York researchers visiting the same jungle for botany tours to learn about the healing jungle plants.  They carry plants back to their pharmaceutical labs.  Perhaps in 20 years they will sell them back in pill form to sick jungle communities.

Dinner number two on the river:  meat and rice.  Like lunch.  I wait till the end of the line, so I miss the paltry serving of vegetables.  But there's still plenty of processed white rice.  Good news that we're two days in and I almost feel that time on the slow-boat is going too fast.  This peaceful slow boat, crowded pleasantly with regular people on this endless river.  Endless river.  Endless jungle.

The upper deck crowds at sunset, todos attentive to the sun.

3½ days by boat in the Amazon, with nothing to do but

to make sure you pay attention 

to sunsets.