Day 1 at La Posta de Salud en Urubamba

When the first day includes an abortion, examining a cadaver for foul play, treating a spurting head wound, fainting teenagers and a boatload of sick babies who scream bloody murder when getting injections you know the summer is going to be exciting and educational.

Ollantaytambo

The best way to get to Ollantaytambo from Cuzco is minivan. I made it to the minivan station at 3pm. Bad idea. School had just gotten out. The ayudante squeezes me and 40 giggling, groaning school kids into the van. It was a tight fit for the next half hour till the kids emptied out and I found a seat.

The landscape around here is mountainous dotted with small shrubs, rock slides, Incan ruins and dusty switchbacks trailing off into the distance. Eventually this valley, the Sacred Valley, takes you to Macchu Pichu. Since the late 70's villages in this valley have become towns and towns have become little cities thanks to tourism dollars.

Ollantaytambo, my town till August 25th, is the last stop on the train before Macchu Pichu and boasts its own beautiful ruins. Geographically important to the Incans because it's easy to defend and has plentiful rich agricultural land. Good reasons still, the ruins and agricultural land are propelling the Ollantaytinos into the 21st century. Many tourists stop here and many townsfolk have businesses catering to them. Woodfired pizza ovens? Italian espresso machines? Is this San Francisco?

Getting to town and settling into my family and life here for the next two months is exciting. I cannot wait to get to the hospital and get to work.

Peruvian Home

Home, sweet Peruvian Home.

For the next two months I'll be living here in Ollantaytambo, Peru. It felt good to arrive and finally meet the family and see the town that will have me as a guest till August 25th. Exciting and relieving.

My room at my host family's home in Ollanta, looks out to dry mountains, dotted with Inkan ruins and dusty horse paths. A river runs below them, carving out the valley, dirtied with pollution from the all towns in the valley. A beautiful beach with grey sand, ideal for sunning, would be ideal for swimming if the river was clean. The growth rate and lack of environmental awareness/education is a horrendous combination. The people of this land are rapidly and unconsciously destroying it, along with corporations. All in this mad dash to profit from tourism and the globalized economy we share. Glimmers of its beauty are apparent from a distance: snow capped mountains, terraced hill sides and fingers of blue wood smoke reaching for the sky early in the morning. But the beauty of my host mom's smile, my host sister's excitement about Lady Gaga or the camaraderie that comes from drinking beer with my cousin can only be felt from a few inches away.

The host family is wonderful and the house a shambling collection of bits and pieces. The kitchen and dining area are adobe with tarped ceilings and dirt floors. Currently visiting the dining area is a Virgin and a daily prayer group at 5pm. Cooking to the sound of old women reciting Ave Marias is novel and slightly creepy. In the kitchen you'll find about 40 guinea pigs running around, squeaking and eating alfalfa. Called "cuy" here there are source of protein; fatty, gamey and totally edible. Guarding the cuy is dirty little white kitten who spends it's days napping near the fogon - a wood fired stove. The fogon sees the most cooking action, soup, rice, potatoes, but we occasionally use gas. Nearby the family has farmland with peas, alfalfa, a grumpy old cow, more cuy and plenty of wood for cooking fuel. Just outside the kitchen is the chicken coop and the yard. 9 hens freely roam under the sun and rooster's watchful eye while laying an egg every few days or so. Three, small in size but bursting with bravado, dirty white dogs - Yogi, Oso and Pelusa - guard the complex, barking late into the night at every moving shadow. They chased a huge pig out of the yard last Monday and I laughed so hard as they did. The living quarters are two stories high, cement and rectangular. Cool during the hot days and cold during the cold nights. I'm on the bottom floor, in the largest room that I've ever called home. Such a change from the tiny SF boxes people call apartments.

The family is Ana Maria(mom), Alejandrina(neighbor), Margarita(sister), Katy(sister), Abrahm(adopted son), Rueben(cousin) and Goyo(adopted son). Ana Maria is the president of a 2,000 member women's association that formed to fight injustices happening to women in Sacred Valley. In addition to being politically rad, she farms, runs the family, operates a store downtown and is great to simply talk with. Alejandrina cooks and cleans but lives up the road. A bit surly, but with a deep, fleshy laugh that warms my heart. This leads me to do silly shit in an attempt to make her smile. Margarita works for the municipality but spent 6 years in Italy studying to be a nun. Realizing she wanted a family, she kicked the habit and returned home. We bake cakes together and generally act like brother and sister, punching, stepping on each other's toes and teasing each other about enamorados. Katy is in high school and literally jumped for joy when I busted out the Lady Gaga. Abrahm is 8. He spends his time spinning tops, playing in the dirt and complaining about doing chores. We have much in common. Rueben drives a combi, collective van, between Ollantaytambo and Urubamba. He just broke up with his wife and is living with us for a while. Goyo is working on a local political campaign and the national literacy effort. He is in and out of the house. The mix of people is well balanced, woman led and pleasant. The time we spend in the smoky, squeaking kitchen drinking mate, eating and joking is comforting, healing. I feel at home.

Fireworks and Urine

1:30am Cuzco arrival time. Hail a cab. How much to Hostal Royal Frankenstein? 20 Soles($1 = 3 Soles). Ha, no, 5 Soles. Silence. Well? Ok.

Welcome to the Gringo Capital of South America. Where the local culture is trampled and foreigners are walking dollar signs. Quite different than Bolivia, where tourism is still establishing itself. Here, and throughout Peru, tourism helps many, many people bring home the bacon.

My week in Cuzco coincides with Inta Raymi, a month long celebration of Cuzco's history replete with fireworks, traditional dance, reenactments of ancient battles, platos tradicionales, lots of drinking, and day long parades. My first night in town was marked by a light and sound show - luz y sonido - in the plaza de armas which was packed shoulder to shoulder with locals and foriengniers. Not being a fan of crowds, I grabbed a bottle of Chilean red wine and climbed a few hills looking for a quieter spot. Roof of an elementary school? Perfect. Up I went to wait until the fireworks began. Unbeknownst to me, the school roof was located just below the launching zone. What followed was ten minutes of exploding heaven. Being an early July baby, I've long associated my birthday with fireworks. Thus my deep love and need to watch fireworks at least once near my birthday. If not, I get really cranky, just ask my old partners. Watching the sky explode with flaming rainbows and glittering silver willow trees while drinking red wine on the roof of a Cusqueno elementary school made for a damn good, if early, birthday celebration.

The rest of my week in Cuzco was passed wandering around the touristed and untouristed parts of town. Geat conversations with an older chap about Peruvian, American and international politics. All politicians are greedy and will do whatever they need to do to increase their power was the consensus. Yup. Got sick for a few days. Bound to happen. Watched a lot of World Cup games. Soccer doesn't have any where near the appreciation it should back home. Mid-afternoon drinking with a random assortment of internationals and everyone hollering at the TV screen is fun.

The night before the Cuzco's big reenactment of its was una locura. The little plaza right near my hostel was packed with people selling caldo de gallina, pollo asado con papas, chicha, rum and coke(pre-mixed) and beer. The smallest beer being sold was a 40 oz, so I bought one, grabbed a cup and sat down to drink and people watch. A guy, Mario, invited me to join his drinking circle, so we shot the shit about art, philosophy, the USA, Peru, travelers and girls, as boys are wont to do. A woman came by selling beer and we bought a few more 40's, a large drunk man then got right into her face for a second and Mario whispered in my ear that they are married. Large drunk guy hears this, fills a cup with beer, throws it Mario's face and kicks him in the stomach. Taking that as my exit cue, I step away, thank everyone for the good time and leave. Walking away I noticed that the streets were sopping wet. Walking past a set of port-a-potties, the men were using them, just not as designed. They simply urinated on the outside of them and created a rapidly flowing river of urine down the street. It was as if a storm drain had overflowed with urine. Chuckling to myself, I noted that Black Rock City's human waste disposal system is better organized than Cuzco's.

Tomorrow the city reenacts ancient battles and I board a combi to Ollantaytambo!

A lot of bus

Thursday night, 10pm: Leaving Cochambamba for La Paz, then Lake Titicaca and Copacabana before the border at Desaguadero, afterwards lies Puno and finally arriving in Cuzco at 1:30am on Saturday.

A lot of bus.

A lot of beautiful scenery, particularly the terraced hills ringing Lake Titicaca. Incan terraforming visible everywhere on gentle slopes and dangerous descents. Blue water and fierce sun at 3,800 meters above sea level gave me the worst burn of the trip yet. Well worth it.

After getting stamped and processed at Desaguadero, the Peru-Bolivia border, 7 additional people joined the already full bus that brought us there. Naturally this created a scramble for seats with 7 people, not all of them new, having to sit in the aisle for the next 4 hours. During musical chairs an American woman, the last to re-board the bus, was told that she was going to have to sit in the aisle. Her response, in English, "I'm not from the third world, I don't have to deal with this shit," hung heavy in the air for a few minutes till a young man from Colombia gave her his seat. Would I have given her my seat? Not at all, this is part of the party. I gave the man from Colombia my seat half way through the ride because he shouldn't of had to bear the privileged traveler's burden alone.

Is this cold of me? No. Traveling is hard, you have to constantly adjust to new situations and decipher implicit norms on the fly. This experience changes you, softens your straight lines and wears down those mental rough edged expectations you carry. That is exactly why I travel. For the metamorphosis it induces, however large or small.

Phew. That has been demasiado bus for me. May my primary form of transport for the next two months be ambulation or bicycle.

Starry Nights

A bus filled with 29 sleeping souls and me rumbles across Bolivia's dirt roads. Listless, I stare out the window and notice the stars. Stars unseen from the north. Stars kept invisible by the light pollution. But here, as if I was lounging inside the Hubble telescope it is just darkness, stars and myself for miles around. Crystal clear pin points of light create a glowing spider web of fantastical shapes in the sky and I stare, giddy like a child with my secret prize. A quick glance around the bus confirms it's mine as I nuzzle up to the window, pull my blanket tighter and wonder what stories the Incans shared with these stars.

The White City

A dusty, bumpy, crowded, stinky midnight bus from Samaipata to Sucre reminds me that not everything is a small, peaceful mountain town.

Sucre, the White City, shares the capital role with La Paz and is a historically wealthy town, packed with colonial buildings, ornate, well preserved churches and a large, shady central plaza. Why the moniker? Because the buildings around town center are maintained in their original colonial paint color. The effect conveys power, cleanliness and purity, but that posturing falls apart two blocks off the plaza. You'll find mangos, queso criollo, chicken feet and beef heart next to each other at a gritty everyday food market where lunch is a buck and taking in the scene is free and comfortable.

Cochambamba next! Then on to Peru!

Samaipata

In SF life is non stop. Work, choir, school, bike coalition, jam making, farmer's markets, dates and friends. Before the volunteer job starts in Urubamba, I have a single goal: relax. Samaipata, 3 hours southwest of Santa Cruz was the perfect place to do that.

Buried high in the mountains Samaipata is the closest town to "El Fuerte", an Inca Fortress cum ceremony site cum intersection of Andean and Amazonian cultures. The dark green hills are dappled with fog and the climate is comfortably cool. Abandoned ruins, a not oft touristed town makes for a tranquil hideaway. You run away to Samaipata when the world's tide comes in too fast. Thus the preponderance of ex-pats here. Voluntary refugees from Europe who open tour agencies, french bakeries or bars called "La Oveja Negra". Making finding a good croissant easier than a good internet connection in this Andean mountain town.

Not just a town for Incan fortresses, cheap produce, and french pastries but also a beautiful street dog population. No flea ridden, dread locked, dirt covered, scabbed, pus dripping and drooling mongrel curs roving the streets. Instead Dalmations, Saint Bernards, chocolate labs, poodles, and golden retrievers. Is this were all the beautiful dogs of our childhoods run away to?

Bus Stations!

It's been three years since Latin America was my everyday. Slipping back into those sandals should be easy, ya? Wrong. Bus stations = complete chaos:

"Hey! Im on the 5:30pm bus to Santa Cruz. Where does that leave from?"
"Ok, Its that bus there, Trans Copacabana in Gate 3."
"Thanks!"

I get on the bus, put my stuff in my seat, check in my bag. An attendant shouts, "Hey, wrong bus!"
"What? It says Santa Cruz and Trans Copacabana."
"Yeah but this is Trans Copacabana 1 Em and you want Trans Copacabana S.A."
"Oh. Right. Sorry."

Five minutes later, a Swiss kid and I are chatting and the exact same thing happens to her. I point this out and she gives me a seriously suspicious look. Im like yeah, you want Trans Copacabana 1 Em. This is Trans Copacabana S.A. Trust me.

Informal information distribution a success. High five!

It's 5:25pm. Im staring at gate 3 like a possessed person, willing the bus to arrive. I check with the ticket company. "Is my bus here?"
"Yeah. Its at gate 5."
"Oh. Right. Sorry."

Forgot how deep the informality runs.

16 hours later we arrive in Santa Cruz. Easily the longest bus ride of my life, punctuated by the same cell phone ringing every 20 minutes, the driver changing the movie three times, passing like this was Nascar and in a vain attempt to sleep I take half an Ambien which turns out to be half a Prednisone. Slick, Demetrius, way to give yourself headaches for 2 days. Sigh.

Wouldn't be anywhere else but here right now.

Sausage, marathons and shiny skirts

Travel makes me a different person sometimes. Is it the different sets of longitude and latitude coordinates or the living under foreign cultural norms that produces a novel set of behaviors? Quien sabe? The amazingness is noting how these subtle differences translate into the default world. A kink there, a bit more freedom here and slight tweak to the entire color scheme. But if the changes translate back home, are they actually changes in behavior? Or just behaviors that receive extra emphasis in certain moments?

Did I feel different walking around La Paz? Engaging in one of my favorite traveling activities: walking around with no plan, no destination, just observing what is. Like how the American Embassy, with its high walls, barbed wire, video cameras and armed guards, is different than Spain's Embassy, with a facade reminiscent of a large brown and white victorian house. Maybe I felt less encumbered.

Passing the time strolling from the top of La Paz, down El Prado, on a Sunday morning, a guy passes me wearing a number like one would see in a marathon, then another, then another and another and all of the sudden I'm swimming in marathoners freshly finished with a race at 12,000ft. Impressive. Wandering through the red faced, huffing and puffing throngs I found my prize: street food. The popular post marathon snack in La Paz? A deep fried sausage sandwich! Opting for just meat and bread, as my stomach is still adjusting to the local flora and fauna, it was an excellent mix of hot, crunchy, juicy and spicy. A perfect pick me up after a long morning walk, or a marathon, at 12,000ft.

Nibbling on my sausage I found a public health and environment awareness fair! Booths for local activist groups, NGOs, government offices, people passing out free seedlings and presentations about a vast array of topics, including global warming. Demonstrations by kung fu groups, a performance by the local goths, Bolivian punks pushing pamphlets and an aging dirty English gutter punk hippie preaching veganism. There was a fair amount of graffiti denouncing meat eating around town, so was it just him or is there a local interest in veganism? The health fair and the marathon were great snippets of La Paz life.

Oh, ladies, if you are ever wondering what to wear on a sunday in La Paz, a shiny, multi layered ruffled skirt is the correct answer. I'll happily bring one back for you, if you'd like.

La Paz

Flying over Bolivia the thing that strikes you is how brown it is. Light, medium, dark brown and gray must of been the only available colors the day the goddesses painted this land. There are jungles here but you couldn't see them from the plane. It was almost depressing for a second but then my sheer giddiness overcame me.

La Paz is also the highest capital in the world at 12,000 feet. Catching your breath here is hard, just a few stairs will take the breath out of you and the hostel has me accommodated on the 3rd floor. So far no altitude sickness though! Upon arrival at the hostel, a cup of instant coffee inhand(welcome to South America!), I climbed to the roof for a gander at this marvelous city. While staring at La Valle de la Luna, in the distance, a beautiful Siamese cat danced along the roof, dark paws padding along the rusty tin roof and cream colored body contrasted beautifully against it's background. The cat didn't heed my call, no shock there, and dashed off to chase a bug and disappear amongst the rows of tin.

On the flight to La Paz I sat next to a woman who is going to be shadowing pediatricians in La Paz all summer through Children's Health International. Their programs looked interesting during my research but were too expensive, not interaction based, lacked a practical focus and were devoid of the commitment to strengthening the community that Awamaki prides itself in does. The biggest question bouncing around my head is how is Awamaki going to shape up compared to their promises and my expectations? The later can be checked but the former is out of my hands.

La Paz rests inside a perfect half circle atop this mountain as if Pachamama finished her soup and walked off without her bowl. The walls are lined with red brick houses and winding cobblestone roads that drift down to the center of town. At night they light up with white and blue lights. The city was originally divided by the Rio Choqueyapu, the Colonialist Spaniards settled on one side and the indigenous people were forced to the other. I explored the indigenous part today, checking out Catedral San Francisco, originally built in 1567, the Museo de Coca, which gave a fascinating cultural history of coca and then the Witch Market, where Llama fetuses were available for purchase.

Grandmas from South and Central America are my favorite people in the world. The grannies selling veggies at the market today were shocked that 1. Spoke Spanish and 2. was buying vegetables and 3. knew how to cook them. The produce was beautiful. Purple, white, yellow and pink potatoes, chard, carrots, quinoa along with a picante chile went into a soup for the next few days. And where there is milk there is cheese, in this case queso criollo, farmer's cheese, salty and moist, delicious spread on bread or crumbled in pasta or atop a soup. They had hard cheese, queso para freir, too but I'm not the largest fan of fried cheese. Those grannies had a pretty solid laugh at and with me and they'll definitely have my return business if more veggies are needed this week.

Tunderclouds above Miami

JFK airport at noon on a Thursday is a dull place to be. American Eagle to Washington DC is the first leg of the trip to La Paz, Bolivia and this terminal was clearly an afterthought. The ceilings are 20 feet lower than the main terminal, the chairs ripped and worn, the fluorescent lights flicker with a need to be replaced and the faded navy carpet has a mixture of potato chips, gum and baggage claim stickers ground into it. Here I wait to board the smallest plane ever. My ticket says group 3 which means there will be space for my bag. With increased fees for checking bags, everyone and their mothers, especially their mothers, are trying to pass off monstrous bags as carry-ons and my wee little messenger bag has to fight for dear life for just a spot in the over head bins.

JFK to DCA is a success. The 3 hour layover should fly by with books, delicious food from home and tons of writing to do. Walking up to the gate there I see Katherine, a Peace Corp volunteer from Nicaragua, and we last ran into each other at an ecoturismo project outside of Esteli. Apparently we have a knack for running into each other unexpectedly. Good thing too, cause not an hour later our flights were canceled due to thunderstorms in Miami and DC.

Sweet. Stranded in DC. Just the way things should be going. Luckily Katherine and I managed to get rebooked and caught up over beers and burgers that night. There is a silver lining in every thundercloud.

The following morning after more conversation and yummy oatmeal, along with the last good espresso for three months, at Northside Social, I headed to muggy DCA, managed to get a flight to sweltering Miami and finally boarded a plane to La Paz at 1:45am. 48 hours after the journey started I am taxi bound to my hostel.

Goodbye!

Goodbye SF!

It was a whirlwind wrapping up SF this time. From finishing a nutrition final just before departure, getting everything moved and stored, drinking that last beer with a friend and fixing all the loose ends dangling around. It'll be a challenge to see if the bay feels like home by the end of August.

Goodbye NJ!

Time with family and friends. Many great meals cooked and shared with people I love. And this strong sense of being completely done with NJ. Reassuring yet frightening. Where is home if where I grew up no longer feels like it?

Goodbye NYC!

Consistently giving the bay a run for it's money NYC - mostly Brooklyn - did not fail to deliver this time. A wonderful meal at Fatty Cue, delicious coffee at Blue Bottle and stiff drinks and good talks with friends at Union Pool. My last night in SF I met a man on the bus who said NYC can devour a person whole, while SF can be devoured. An apt description.

Looking forward to the next legs of this journey. The flight down, La Paz and how I manage to arrive in Cuzco by the 25th of June.