Huacachina..

I am now in Huacachina, Peru (close to Ica on the western coast), the king pueblito of sandboarding. It seems pretty interesting. White water rafting was a bust (long story that I won't get into). I spent one night in Camana, Peru, which was a pretty dirty little town that gringos obviously don't pass through. Miss you all - after this I'm heading into Lima, then up the coast to buy a surfboard, and I've been thinking about attempting to just camp on the beach somewhere by Trujillo for a good long time alone and out of civilization. We'll see. I've been keeping a journal, and instead of writing on the blog about all the stuff I've been doing, I'm putting this excerpt from an entry in Camana, instead.

"...The streetlights are in need of repair: those that are not out are either weakly flickering or so yellow in color that the light is disorienting and not helpful while passing through its buttery glow. I keep my pace brisk, creating my own breeze over the inconsistent patches of dirty sidewalks, interspersed with cobblestone (laid primitively; someone didn't know what they were doing) and earthy, dry patches of dust. I keep my head down and covered with a hood. My eyes dart back and forth, and every minute or two I check my back to be certain I'm not being followed in these dark, yellow streets. With my pace, my heart rate quickens and my adrenaline rises to abnormal levels. This is the process I must partake in for the sole purpose of a quick stop at a street shop. Before pulling out my wallet to pay, I first look around. I stand with my back guarded against the wall so my pack is not accessible to passersby.

This is what South America has degraded me and so many others to. Poverty, greed, and petty opportunity have melted together to produce two new gangs: those that have (defense) and those that don't (offense). Society is broken here, and those that have must precaution themselves against those that will take every opportunity afforded them. This, as I play this game with all the other night owls on the prowl, is what South American society has brought on me. New nerves, new senses, new cautions, new fears. They will never be reconciled as long as life continues under the societal dirt and grime of the flickering yellow light. This is a case where some of the animals have shit upstream from where they drink. The streets covered in trash, mangy dogs, bums, and dilapidated buildings will never clean themselves up alone... South America must help itself, and to have widespread understanding and concurrence with such a broad goal is a dream that has long burned out in the hearts of these lonely souls, these people who live for themselves and a strong faith in Catholicism, but it is only Jesus, Mary, and Dio (God), three characters in a book but not physically present here, in these streets, except for a picture on a dirty restaurant wall, or a crucifix hanging on a neck; it is not a faith or belief in Mother Earth, or Mama Coca, or Pacha Camac, the Earth Maker. This is an unattainable future solely because it is predetermined in their minds to be so, and thus the trash continues to multiply, along with the bums and breeding packs of dogs and broken street lights; this is the dilemma of the third world: unless everyone can see and participate in the brighter, progressive future, it will always be unattainable and even regressive, plummeting itself into a black hole of poverty, crime, and disorder, constantly reinstating itself as the gutter of society, the ones that were kicked to the curb and never arose.

It is here I walk with lowered head, and my hood is to cover my identity as much as it is to cover my shame for knowing a better life based on the pure luck of the country I was born in."

-Brian

You Know You're In South America When..

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm in Peru. For those of you just getting to your seats, I've already been through much of Chile and Bolivia (check past blogs by clicking links on the right hand side of the page).

Shoeshine boys in La Paz hide their identities, but it's a little shady.

So I'm writing this from Arequipa, Peru. After the Amazon, I took a 20-hour bus ride to La Paz, Bolivia (not that pleasant, I had a seat but it was standing room only, a lady with a monkey, and plenty of crying babies). I spent one night in La Paz and headed off West to Copacabana, Bolivia, which is right on the beach of Lake Titicaca and close to the Eastern border of Peru. I'm pretty sure it's not what Barry Manilow (Yeah, come on, you know you thought it) was singing about - I've been informed that it was about a club in Rio, I wish I could be his biggest fan but I'm not - but it was definitely as pleasant as it could have been without Lola.

Copacabana: Just like Barry said.

Lakshore.

I rented a kayak and went out on the lake for a while, then rented a mountain bike and rode an offroad path next to the lake. The path wasn't the easiest, as there were huge rocks on it and there was a drop off the side to the beach, which isn't sand, just giant rocks. But what made it difficult is the bike I was renting for 8 Bolivianos per hour (about a buck) was the most dilapidated piece of metal with wheels that ever attempted to call itself a bike, let alone mountain bike. I had met some English friends at the rental and was riding with them. Luckily we made it to where we wanted and started heading back without a hitch - then I ate it right over the handlebars. I was mostly ok, and we made it back even with my pedal actually snapping off about 100 meters before the rental place.

Don't be fooled, this was the easy part. Copa in the background.

After Copacabana, I grabbed a bus over the border into Puno, Peru. I stayed there a night, and had a pretty good vegetarian lunch for cheap (made by the Hare Krishnas..!). I learned that there was rioting in La Paz for something or other - labor or police corruption or something - and I had missed it by 2 days.. good job, me. I ended up not really liking Puno. In my opinion it's a poorly planned town (I was constantly getting disoriented and there are almost no street signs) and it just really didn't have much to offer; it seemed like every other little pueblito and nothing unique stuck out. Maybe that's just me being an ignorant tourist and not searching things out - but I read up on it and didn't find much.

Puno: Same ol' same ol'.

So in the morning I cruised on out and over to Arequipa, (which is where I am now) but not without a hitch. You know you're in South America when your bus is stopped by three men holding large guns in the middle of the street. Luckily they turned out to be police, but two of them weren't in uniform so it was a bit of a scare at first. Confusion took over everyone in the bus as 6 or 8 more uniformed police showed up out of nowhere. Spanish was flying and a couple people were forced off the bus, but basically, long story short, the bus was carrying a couple large bags of cocaine (according to those that translated). We were stopped for a while, then had to stop at another checkpoint and be searched, adding more than 2 hours onto a 5 hour bus ride.

Non-uniformed guy with big gun.

Uniformed guy holding something suspicious.Goodbye, ''cocaine,'' (who really knows if it was). Throwing it in the truck. Only like half these police are uniformed, very professional indeed.

Finally I arrived in Arequipa, which is a pretty cool city so far. I had dinner a while ago, and here's what I ate (I had to try it):

If you can't tell, it's a whole guinea pig, feet, head and all. And of course, it tasted like chicken.. just like everything else you're afraid to try.

My meal wasn't complete without begging from these two the whole time:

Hope everyone at home is doing well. I will be whitewater rafting on the Rio Majes in Peru in a day or two, and after that I'm headed toward the coast to buy a surfboard and grab some waves.

Miss you all, and thanks for the love in emails and comments.

Hasta mañana,

Brian

Tons of Pictures, Finally!

So here are some of the better pictures that go along with the last two or three entries. I can´t post them all, it would be too much, so I tried to pick my favorites. Most are from Rurrenebaque, Bolivia, where I trekked into Las Pampas (Wetlands) for 3 days, and then trekked into The Madidi Jungle (National Park) for 3 days. Basically you have to give up any sense of cleanliness and all those little fixes you do every morning (''Is my hair the way I like it? Do I smell good? Are my hands clean?'') and take a cold shower and just suck it up when yoú're dirty again, sweating, and scratching bug bites 15 minutes later.

Enjoy and leave me some love in comment form.

P.S.: Pictures are in roughly reverse order that I took them, they start with La Paz, Coroico at the bottom, then move up through the Pampas and then up more to Jungle Pics. If you want them in order start at the bottom..

More crazy mushrooms - these aren't magic though.

Frog - there were lots of really big ones, but they were quick and too hard to get a good picture, like a lot of animals in the jungle (mainly pigs, monkeys, and high-flying parrots/birds, rabbits, possums..).

Jungle coconut. Small, but edible. The big ones you've seen are grown in farms but don't exist in the jungle (according to the guide).

A few good jungle vines to swing on, this one over a dry river.

This river crossing is higher than it looks in a tiny picture..

Even the trees'll getcha. Giant spines. There were others that when cut, tons of Currare poison spilled out, indigenous people use it for spear tips and fishing.

Saw this guy on the night hike, he was probably trying to find someone's bed to chill in. Bigger than my hand, and had super large fangs.

Jungle Tortoise.
Tough to get perspective, but this ant was about the length of my index finger and had chompers to match.

There are tons of different types, colors, and sizes of mushrooms everywhere. These ones are hallucinogenic drugs - ''Ongos Magicos.'' The guide prohibited us to touch any.

Giant sneaky leaf that´s really a huge praying mantis the size of your hand.

Madidi: This vine, when cut, has tons and tons of safe water to drink inside. Forest survival 101 (the guide is on the right, crazy-looking member of group drinking water on left).
Madidi: The trek to camp. Take off your shoes, watch for gators.

Other big non-poisonous but spiny spider waiting for your face.
Big dangerous termite, waiting for your unsuspecting toes.
Big spider. Lots of these guys waiting to get in your hair.
Madidi Jungle: There´s a thousand captions I can put for this picture. I´m going to stay away from most of them, but yes, these grow out of certain trees, some are long, some are short. The tree is unofficially referred to as ''El Arbol de los Hombres'' (The Man's Tree).MADIDI JUNGLE PICTURES ABOVE, PAMPAS PICTURES BELOW (Both are parts of the Bolivian Amazon)

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Me swimming with Alligators, Dolphins, and Pirhana in dark brown river water..

River sunset, Pampas.
Favorite picture from Sunset Bar, on the river in the Pampas after sunset.
Pirhana teeth.

Pampas guide, Bismar, and the 10 Pirhanas he caught. I caught zero, but ate 4. Generous?
This guy wanted my hand. He was on the shore while we swam next to him.

Las Pampas marshland crabs.
Me and wild Anaconda, small one. I look funny because I had been walking and sweating for 3 hours already.
Las Pampas grasslands..

Butterfly in an internet cafe.

Giant pig in the restaurant.. this guy had gnarly teeth.
Hungry monkeys eating out of our hands.
Pissed off Capybara.
Las Pampas, Rurrenebaque, Bolivia: Muddy shoes.

La Paz: Old School drums in the Museum of Musical Instruments! Rock on, 1907!

La Paz: Llama fetuses and potions in the Mercado de las Brujas (Witches' Market).
Coroico, from a quick hike I took. Rainforest, mountains, and rain.
La Paz, Bolivia: Che, something similar to ''All of our action is a rebel yell against imperialism.''

Llamas stop for nobody. Road to Coroico, Bolivia.

Hope you enjoyed all those and that they didn't take your computer 7236 hours to load. Now I'm off West from La Paz towards Peru, heading up the coast. Much love and hope the luck is turning better with the Southern California fires.

(La) Paz, (thanks Jean-Marc)

Brian

Los Amazonas (2)..

So I'm back from the second trek into the Amazon. I'm keeping this short too because I can't post pictures here (too slow!) but tomorrow or the next day probably. I'm hopping in a bus tomorrow morning for an 18-hour ride back to La Paz for one night. Then I'm headed from there towards southern Peru.

The jungle I camped in (Madidi National Park/Reserve) was crazy. It was hot, wet and sticky, and basically you can't get away from just sweating all day, even though the sun is mostly blocked by trees. We took a 3 hour boat ride to get to camp, and the first thing we had to do while hiking to our site was remove shoes and socks (while carrying all our gear and equipment) and slop through a knee-high river that I know for a fact had more than one hungry alligator and probably several parasites. Camp was nice and a cook made us some pretty dank forest food. If I haven't said it already, I was there for 3 days and two nights. Pretty much all we did the whole time was hike places with our guide (who was super cool, by the way, and I was the official translator because I knew the most Spanish.. and I don't know much).

We went on a few shorter hikes (3-5 hours) and one long hike (8 hours), and I got 2 night hikes in. I saw the most animals I've ever seen in my entire life. I also got eaten and attacked by the most bugs I've ever seen in my entire life (and fire ants.. not pleasant). It's too long to list all of the coolest things ever that I got to see, but definitely at the top of the list were all the crazy plants: some move when you touch them, plenty of medicinal cures, poisons, fruits, a vine that our guide cut that holds tons of water you can drink - better tasting than drinking water - tons of crazy colored mushrooms... there's too many. I almost feel like I could survive in the rainforest with all the information he gave us. The animals and insects are too infinite to name.. you'll just have to check out all my pictures when I post/come back.

I'm sorry for no pictures and super interesting stories. Soon..

To all those in San Diego, Orange, and Los Angeles counties who are dealing with fires, I hope you all are ok. I read and heard about it, and I'm a bit worried, but I know all my friends and family all have the best luck, and that you'll all have no problems. Be safe.

Hasta Mañana --

Brian

Los Amazonas..

(I´LL POST PICTURES AS SOON AS I CAN)

So, since the last post, I´ve traveled from Arica, Chile, into Bolivia. I spent 2 days in La Paz, the capital. It´s a huge city at 11,000 feet (give or take). Walking around, it was difficult to breathe. There were a good number of tourists and a large majority of the women in the city dress traditional Bolivian style. I stayed in a hostel in the middle of the Mercado de las Brujas (Witches´Market), where among normal tourist-y things, they also sold potions, coca leaves, and preserved bird and llama fetuses to ward off illness, fight curses, and things like that. No I did not eat a llama fetus. I did happen to meet a cool Peruvian couple and a pretty nice French guy, and I may end up meeting up with the Peruvians later on..

After La Paz, I went north in Bolivia to a small town in the Bolivian rainforest called Coroico. It was beautiful, but small and in the middle of the mountains.. hence nothing really to do besides hike, so I spent only one day there. I took a quick hike (I´m alone, I can´t go too far without some kind of company) and had some good eats (3 course meals, breakfast/lunch/dinner all under $1 USD).

The next morning I took a 3-hour taxi ride from Coroico to Caranavi, Brazil. The taxi ride, which I paid about $2.50 for, ended up being 10 people in a 5-person car. I shared the front passenger seat with a very (very) large traditional Bolivian woman for 3 hours on bumpy, unpaved, rainforest mountain roads (I now know more about traditional Bolivian women than I ever wanted to). I wouldn´t have minded spending the extra buck or two for a bus if I had known what I got myself into. Once in Caranavi, I had planned to not stay there, but rather take a bus to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia, more north. There you can access the Amazon. Looking in my wallet, I realized I had almost no money on me. Caranavi was a very small town, and the bank there couldn´t process my card. Great.. To make it short, I ended up waiting for 6 hours in an extremely hot, dusty, and noisy bus station for a bus to ¨Rurre¨, and got on the bus ONLY because the lady at the ticket window thought I was lindo and charged me much less because she felt bad I had little cash. A $10 bus ride (no, I didn´t have that much) ended up being $6.. A big discount in Bolivia.

The bus to Rurrenebaque was overnight, 12 hours of bumpy unpaved roads. Some bumps literally threw me out of my bus seat, not the most pleasant ride of my life, but better than the taxi. Arrived in Rurre at 6:30 AM, and at 9:30 I was in an offroad Jeep on my way to the Bolivian Amazon for 3 days.

It rained incredibly hard for the first day, and we trudged through mud to our canoe, and then had a two hour ride to camp. Luckily once in the boat, the rain subsided. In an attempt to keep this short, I´ll try to just post pictures of some of the stuff I got to see up close (tons and tons of alligators, cayman, river dolphins, capybaras, different birds, monkeys, pirhanas, anacondas...). We went animal watching on the river a few times, trekked in the swamplands and jungle, and fished for pirhana (and ate them for lunch). I even swam in the river with dolphins, huge alligators, and cayman. I´m alive, and tomorrow I may possibly arrange to go into a different, thicker jungle tour, but I´m not sure yet, and I´m still in Rurrenebaque.

As above, I´ll try to post pictures as soon as I can.

Yes the pirhana was tasty. No I don´t have malaria.

Paz,
Brian


UPDATE: I am going into the jungle for the next three days. I´ll post pictures and more info when I get to a bigger city. Paz y Amor to you all.

Puedo Caminar..

I´m in Arica, Chile, a northern port town whose main claim is a few buildings designed by Eiffel (yes, the Eiffel Tower guy). This post is more of a story of what happened today and requires some actual reading.

I woke up to my dusty shoes shuffling clouds along the Northern Chilean coastline. The sky was gray and a cold marine breeze blasted my tired eyelids to a squint. An ominous smell from what looked to be a deserted fish processing plant wafted into my nose, guiding my view to rusted, darkened silos below me. The ocean´s consistent noise prevented me from recognizing the familiar sounds of a passing engine (they were few and far between, and each one emitted its own brand of spew-black exhaust trails behind muddy, rusted bumpers and windows clouded with years of untended grime) until it was too late to put a thumb out. Hunger tormented my stomach, despite the stale odors of rotting fish. My feet were swollen and panged with each step in my fading boots, and I had no idea where or how much farther I was headed.

For one second the peaceful war of waves and sand let up, enough for my right ear to detect the backfiring of a sadly maintained engine (my left ear was thoroughly busy waging battle with the steady breeze now, giving my eyes and the muscles in my forehead a break). I turned and a blue car, paint peeling, rambled toward me down the empty highway. The horn sounded a bleak, high-pitched dying sound - beeoonk beeonk - and slowed its half-flat tires next to me in the middle of the highway.

Inside sat four Chileans: the driver - a middle-aged woman, looked immensely like a prostitute and was missing a front tooth. Her hair was ragged and dreading from lack of a wash, and a soiled cigarette hung out of her mouth like it had been there for years. In the passenger seat sat a pirate of a man if I had ever seen one. He wore a denim vest over a black t-shirt, both of which were covered in grease of some sort. His hair was black and short except for a small part in the back, which lengthened itself into a fine mullet to his shoulder. An earring made from a rusty fish hook, two tabs from a soda can, and a few other various shiny objects dangled from his left ear as he turned to look at me with a hideous smile and yellowing eyes.

I won´t further try to justify my decision to get inside this car, because it was a terrible decision.

The two men in the back were also middle-aged and as grimy or more than the two up front. They both wore stupid grins, like the cronies of some evil high school arch-nemesis-coolguy in some bad 1980s film teen-angst film. The car tore down the highway back towards town with me in it, coating all my belongings with a fresh blend of urine-manure-fish smell. It soon became evident to me that these Arican pirates were all blind drunk, including the driver, as they slugged gulps of cheap bagged wine from a black liquor store bag, offering me some. They all resembled Meth addicts. Not surpisingly, I had immediately regretted my decision to hitch a ride with this wild bunch. The car sputtered, barely able to hold the speed that the woman gave the accelerator with an unsteady foot - we swerved on both sides of the road (luckily there was no traffic) and edged the curb more often than my nerves could take.

At once a million thoughts crossed my mind. They were going to just mug me and drop me off somewhere obscure with no clothes, no map, and no money. They were going to take me to their dirty coastal lair somewhere and I was going to be their pet the rest of my life. They were just going to drive right past the city and into the ocean and kill us all. Could it really get any worse? Yes.. As they were asking me questions in slurred, rapid Spanish over the roar of the tortured engine, I was discreetly fumbling around in my pack for my knife - and I couldn´t find it. Great. I wasn´t going to use it, but I´d feel a hell of a lot more comfortable at this moment in time with it in my hand or pocket. Although they looked menacing and smelled like a urinal at a rock concert, they were surprisingly nice to me, which scared me more. They were polite as I lied to them that I had friends in town that I was going to meet, so they wouldn´t kidnap me. The wine had run out.

As we pulled into town (to my relief, now we were in a populated area where I could yell for help if I needed it) the woman chose the steepest street to get to my destination. The hissing tires and sputtering engine couldn´t handle it. Halfway up the narrow street in downtown Arica, the engine stalled, and the car begin rolling down the hill backwards. The drunk driver couldn´t get it together quick enough to change gears and hit the brakes, and meanwhile the rest of the three drunk pirates howled and laughed, not a care in the world. I desperately tried to see what we were going to hit, but the back window was so covered in dust that it was hopeless. Somehow we made it to an intersection and the car stopped. My heart started again. After a few failed attempts (and me failing to convince them that letting me out here would be fine) the driver started up the sad engine, and proceeded to fly over a curb and slam directly into a parked SUV. Everyone in the car went ¨Sssssssss!¨ and she quickly backed up, redirected, and passed the SUV, flying through another intersection to my street. We nearly hit every single car, no exaggeration, along the way.

Once we had unsafely parked near my hostel, I paid them for the ride (the money was cleaner than they were) and the two in back immediately got out to use it at the liquor store across the street for more wine. I was alive.

It had been a bad decision. For those of you that worry about me, I apologize. I guess I had to learn the hard way, and it ended well. I guess I was lucky they meant no harm and just needed more money for booze. I wanted terribly bad to snap a photo of them all, but it wouldn´t have been a great idea to take out my expensive digital camera for them to snatch from my hands.

I learned my lesson: walking ain´t so bad.

Here´s for the lazy ones: The pictures that I walked for so long to get.

The caves were amazing, nobody was there, and these few pictures do them absolutely no justice. Some of them were incredibly scary, especially alone, as I didn´t want to 1) unlikely, get eaten by ogres only to somehow cut my way out of their stomachs and survive unscathed with no one believing me, or 2) more likely, trip in the dark and break my ankle alone.

South of Arica, Chile. Playa Corazones: