the taxonomy of travel

Most travellers you meet enjoy offering their opinion to you on other travellers, critising anyone from tour groups, gapsters, israelis, backpackers (generally), anyone who spends less that six months in anyone given place, someone that rides anything but local transport like colectivos or doesn`t hitch-hike their way around. The list is endless and I guess they`re all trying to me that most travellers haven`t really experienced South America; they don`t know the place; they have managed to travel for six months or so and haven`t picked up rudimentary spanish. They`ve followed what is known in the biz as the gringo trail and never left it; drinking with gringos, eating with gringos and sleeping with them, barely having left the hostel to partake in said activities.

But then surely to claim to know a place is also folly: a town, a city, a country, let alone an entire continent. By learning the language and leaving the hostel yes, I agree, you might end up having a richer more diverse and colourful experience. But what is South America? I`ve been told that on more than one occasion that Santiago and even Chile is not really part of South America. It`s too expensive and the kids wear designer clothing and their parents drive european or japanese cars on sealed roads, I am told. There are no crazy stories about riding on the roof of a petrol tanker in this country, no. One Australian,Adrian and I had the misfortune of speaking with, told us that he had felt like he had left South America as soon as the graffitti had changed from political slogans (Viva Eva Morales etc) of Bolivia to the tagging of the Chilean middle class. But what are we saying here, that South America is all chicken trucks and poverty and illiteracy and Jesus shrines in taxis. That you haven`t truly been South America until you`ve bribed a cop or had a gun pulled on you. Christ the worst that`s happen to me here is a kid threw a banana peel at me in Arequipa (it missed too). Is getting to know a gay Chileno a waste of my valuable time, since being gay is not particularly South American? How can South America have only one story? How can Santiago have only one story for that matter?

Besides all this talk about Santiago being more European than South American disguises not only the self interest of your average tourist but also the fact that Chile is expensive for Chilenos too and that the wealth here is actually concentrated in the hands of very few. According to this guy I met in San Pedro de Atacama (I know great research), Chile has the second biggest gap between rich and poor in all of South America.

All this talk about knowing a place seems to me as problematic as only leaving your hotel to visit Macchu Pichu; it ringing of colonialist adventureteering.

But what is all this about: this travelling thing? Why do we feel compelled to leave our sunny shores? Is it something noble, like the desire to expand our horizons, explore strange new lands etc? Or something more base, like the freedom to act up, drink and have sex when one feels that mummy can`t see you? Maybe it`s just about saying I did it, pointing to a map and saying I`ve been here so we can say we didn`t waste our lives.

Really when you think about it, being a tourist is kind of problematic in itself. There are extremes of course such as sex tourism, but on the whole what purpose does leaving your home to seek that of another the sole purpose of your entertainment? I mean seeking out the exotic, seriously? We are truely the direct descendents of those colonial explorers, that those in camp left deride so. Is a traveller no different, sticking our fingers into everything and ruining whatever we touch?

Is there a good way to travel?

green-go

Maybe it is getting a little late to be having these thoughts, asking these questions and then ranting them at you all through what is likely to be some messy and drunken prose.


I`ve been in Santiago a week now and I find myself getting a little too comfortable. I`ve got friends here and I`ve met this chileno called Julio and well, I am not so sure what to make of that. I am supposed to hang out with him tomorrow and part of me hopes that he`ll end what I think is just a elongated one night stand.

I am just so used to rejection that it has become the less scary of the two paths.

He doesn`t speak very much english, in fact I speak more spanish, but this has so far proved less an obstacle and more of a source of amusement as he both ridicules and compliments my attempts, between our kissing como los peces.

He explained to me the other night the origins of the word gringo. Apparently at time of the conquest of Mexico, the spaniard conquistadores were wearing the colour green in their uniform and the word makes reference to that: GREEN-GO. Fuck off foreigner!

As Kermit the Frog said: "it`s not easy being green."

As the Clash said: "should I stay or should I go."

salar de uyuni

"I´d heard bad things about this Tour company, I´d been told this driver was bad and that this has happened before."

I snapped finally, "Your right Thomas, fine, you predicted this all but how does that help us? Seriously? How does this help our current situation?" The arrogant bastard finally went quiet after carrying on the entire two days with smug self satifaction, lecturing us every topic imaginable. I had clashed with him a few times, coming up against his soft fascist opinions but had generally pulled out, avoiding a front on collision. Dylan was driving the jeep now but only after Margot had confronted our driver Roberto, and we had argued between us for over half an hour in the middle of the desert 4,800 metres above sea level. Our driver was so drunk, he was swaying side to side, his eyes blood red.

Now I´d like to tell you all about the sheer desolate beauty of the Salar and the drive to the Chilean border but I am afraid the last day is likely to dominate most of my memories of it. Bolivia has such beauty and I think they are very proud of it, but what do they do with it?

"I am not getting back in there with him. I don´t care if I have to sit in the desert and wait for another jeep." She sat on the side of the road in the sand. "I am not playing with my life," she yelled at the driver in spanish. Thomas intervened, only making the situation worse as he explained how because Margot was Belgium she had higher expectations.

"You don´t like Bolivia," Roberto began to get heated and I pulled Thomas away, saying that Ruth who was Peruvian was better at talking with him.

Roberto had been up all night with several other drivers and guides drinking at Laguna Colorada, our stop for the second night. According to the guy I am sharing a room with in San Pedro de Atacama and has been travelling through South America, on and off, for more than twenty years, there has been a major problem with tour drivers for years now. He said that on one occasion an Israeli tour group fresh from military service actually tied an intoxicated driver to the roof of their jeep, taking over the driving. He is now working with one tour company to install a satellite dish and a TV in one of the major stop-offs in the hope of distracting the drivers from the drink.

"You are all stupid," he said to us, reddening in the face. I began to fear that he might actually drive off with us leaving us in the middle of nowhere with our bags still on the roof of his jeep. Now at the time I was prepared to get back in the car and risk it rather than wait in the desert, but I could understand where Margot was coming from and chose to keep my mouth shut. I was confused and totally out of my depth and my nerves were beginning to fray. Neil, the pasty redhead who burned through clothing approached me while I was standing in front of the car, hoping to disuade any drive off.

"You seem to very laid back about everything."

"Oh no," I replied, my voice shaking. "No I am not." Right then I felt like crying.

Finally another jeep arrived and that driver was able to talk Roberto down and convince him to let one of us drive. Dylan, the amiable and hyperactive Alaskan took the wheel, having some experience with mining vehicles. He actually proved best at calming Roberto, reassuring him that he liked his car and responded positively to the directions the were given between changing CDs, singing and passing in and out of consciousness.

On our way to the Chilean border we encountered another jeep, the driver knowing Roberto, agreed to take those not heading to Chile back to Uyuni. I think the reality, Roberto now awake, had started to sink in as he began to apologise to us all, his mouth full of coca and still slurring his words.

This left Dylan and myself in the jeep alone with Roberto for maybe another ten minutes to the border. Tears began to well up in his eyes as he told me that his wife was going to kill him and how his dreams of owning more jeeps and expanding were seemingly destroyed.

Now I was not angry. I actually felt sorry for him (and suppose I still do). He has a problem, a very human problem but what happened was very unprofessional and from all I hear this activity is likely to continue. The Salar de Uyuni was one of the most beautiful things I have seen since arriving here in South America and the companies in Uyuni that run these tours do a disservice to a Bolivia that hopes tourism will improve their lives.

"All it takes is an international company to come in and steal away what truely is a tourist goldmine from these small short sighted companies who do nothing but bicker amongst themselves and change nothing, improve nothing," said my room mate.