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.

potosí and the temple of doom (aka cerro rico)

I mean no disrespect by this title. I will admit I had misgivings about visiting the mines of Potosí, having had several discussions with travellers along my ways about the pros and cons of such turismo: ¿irresponsable o no? In hindsight I don´t think the tour was like the "watching monkeys work" that one backpacker described it. At no point did I feel like I was in a zoo, behind a glass window watching the workers perform. This was their workplace and there was no forgetting this. And what a workplace!! As I struggled to breath in the hot dust filled air, inhaling the same toxic gases, crawling through (and sometimes sliding down) the same narrow tunnels they worked their fucking arses off. And while I lent my hand at unladdening a rubber basket of rubble that contained zinc and lead (the mountain´s main offering to the cooperatives now that the silver was drying up) and I helped to clear a track to make way for one of those iron trolleys from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, so they could dump more ore. I felt like passing out. The hard work that these men and boys do now renders the term meaningless when describing anything I do in the future. I would die down there, taken away from my office and my phone and computer and climate controlled airconditioning.

But the I guess they do die down here. While Pedro, our guide, never gave us numbers, accidents did happen, which was not supprising when the technology many of the miners were using came straight from the nineteenth century. The others, well they contracted silicosis pneumonia: la pulmón negra. Our guide himself worked in the mines for five years from when he was teenager. It was only night study and luck that got him a job in tourism and his stairway out of hell. And they call it as much, with little statues of el diablo, the god of the underground, strewn through the complex of tunnels of Cerro Rico. They offer alcohol, coca leaves, cigarettes to the devil on Fridays, asking for safework and a plentiful bounty from his domain. The devil incidently looks like the whiteman.

Pedro said his father had been working down there for 30 years and his grandfather now bedridden, was dying from his life spent down there. Patting his chest, Pedro said he himself had the black lung. Tellingly there is a street, a very long steet in Potosí lined with lawyers´offices and I am told that the demand from widows to get some recompense from the mine cooperatives is quite high.

But barely any of the miners wear gas masks, too expensive, too hot and hard to breath, Pedro said, preferring to chew huge wads of coca leaf that bulge from their cheeks, working anywhere between eight to twelve hour shifts, pushing trolleys that weight several tonnes, shovelling and digging and exploding dynamite (I´ll get to that). The workmen we were talking with, were bemoaning that a trolley had broken down somewhere in the upper levels and had delayed work. They told us that they could be there until ten or even two AM to finish the job and they would still have to return the next morning at nine to begin it all again. Just another day in their six day week.

What choice did the men of Potosí have? Poorly educated, some who spoke only basic spanish (their first language being quechua), Pedro said, and with Bolivia a very poor country, employment was not plentiful and the mine is Potosí´s primer form of work. Without it the town would likely cease to exist. Tourism too was dropping, our guide saying he only took two groups down a week now, which was nowhere near peak.

The miners liked gringitos, Pedro said, getting their cut of our tour fees plus getting the gifts we brought, soft drink, dynamite, smokes and coca leaves.

The experience is not an easy one. I don´t recommend it for claustrophobes or asthmatics but the guidebooks say as much. I do think it is worth it though, for two hours down there it will be a while before you will complain about your job again.

Oh did I mention dynamite? Yes there were the explosions. Pedro at the beginning of our tour told us at the conclusion of our tour we would get to detonate some TNT. Handing different sticks of dynamite at the miners´market, he told us that in Bolivia you can buy and explode it without a license or even giving a name at point of purchase. Children buy it, certain "social groups" in Sucre buy it, pointing to the current unrest there. He laughed, asking whether any of us were married. Perfect solution! Bring your mother-in-law to Bolivia and buy some TNT. KaBOOM.

He shook my stick of dynamite, explosive powder falling down my vest onto my shirt. I winced. Bolivian miners, he said preferred the Bolivian TNT and not the powdery substandard Peruvian stick that I held. Note to anyone thinking of entering the mines of Cerro Rico to strike it rich; buy Bolivian dynamite.

The images of Jesus, the mother Mary and various saints are all over the shop in South America. You cannot ride in a taxi or a bus or walk into a corner store without the some holy visage hanging from the rear view mirror or the cash register. And I now think I know why. They need all the help they can get. A few days ago on the road between the Jungle town of Puerto Maldonado and Cuzco my bus broke down in the middle of the Andes and refused to start. It was approximately ten-to-one and pitch black and freezing cold outside. Now my spanish is bad at the best of times but at this time of morning with no coffee the only word I was understanding was "gringo" and since I was the only foreigner on the bus I guess they were talking about me.

As passing trucks stopped, passengers in small numbers gathered their things together and disappeared into the night. I attempted to have a broken conversation with the driver about the prospects of a pick up. He did not seem optimistic, at least as far as I could understand. Maybe around 3 am a man entered the bus and asked me if I was going to Cuzco. As soon as I answered yes, my backpack was flung onto the roof of a petrol tanker with the words peligro emblasoned across it, and I was invited with a helping hand to climb up. Once aboard I was handed a flimsy blanket, too small for my large gringo frame and with a few moth eaten holes in it.

I was coughing and splurting phlegm like a machine and I seriously thought I might contract pneumonia or something. As I mentioned my spanish is bad at the best of times but I must admit I was supprised at the concern the other passengers showed me. As I understood it one of the older men riding up front near the cabin, who seemed to command some sort of seniority and respect instructed one of the younger passengers, maybe in his 20s to huddle up against me to keep me warm. He then handed me a few sheets of toilet paper to wipe the snot from my face.

The sight of sunrise over the Andes might have been a little more spectacular had it not been for the bighting wind and cold but as we arrived in a small town called Urcos, perhaps 5 hours after the pickup and still a few hours out of Cuzco, the same men helped me with my bags from the tanker and escorted me to the main square to ensure I got on the right bus.

I don`t know their names or where they`re from but if there is God in the heavens above let He/She bless the fuck out of them.

Don`t get me wrong Cuzco is a swell town. It`s touristy yes, when every second local is trying to sell you something, yes. There is even this five-year-old-kid who wanders round Plaza de Armas at 3 am, approaching drunk grigos saying "mis amigos, ¿como estan? Buy my candy." The cusceños seem so willing to sell everything. I mean plastered over every boleto turistico (tourist ticket), a ten day pass to various cultural and archeological sites, is a warning that Peru does not support sex tourism. It may not support it but it`s there.


I was in a bar called UpTown a few days ago with a friend enjoying our free courtesy drink, watching the gringos gyrate up against local cusqueña women. It has been explained to me that these women are not there for a good night, the dancing, the music or just to meet a nice gringo man to take home to introduce to mamá. No they are there working. Called Bricheras, these women sidle up to single (well) gringo men and do almost anything and everything to get drinks out of them. You see, these women are paid commission for the drinks that get sold and some are willing even to go home with these gringos if it means a few more drinks. There is actually graffiti plastered all over the hostel that I was staying at that warns heteros to watch those "Brichera bitches" who`ll take you for everything you`re worth.

But this assumes that these poor gringos are innocent in these transactions. They know exactly what they want and all to happy to take some Peruvian chick for a ride, god forbid they should be exploited. Nothing is ever equal in love and war. And these locals are not just stupid yokels.

And I think this is why I respect the cusqeños and I suppose any population that live in a tourist trap. My friend from New Zealand, Shaun would get pretty irrate whenever some hawker approached us in mid conversation trying to sell us her wares, "you buy, yes", "massage for you hansome," but as I see things they`re just doing their job.

I think Cusco is kinda like an Apartheid state, you have the gringos on one side and the locals on the other and there is a big wall that divides them. There are gringo bars, restaurants and hospedajes and while I am getting this second hand, the local bars here have a general no gringo policy. Sort of like that infamous colonial sign "No dogs and gringos allowed."

Side note: On 31 October my hostel "The Point" hosted a Halloween party. I went dressed as "the death of free speech", with a piece of paper stuck in my hat that read "FREE PRESS" (spanish translation on the opposite side) and wore a noose around my neck. "So it`s metaphorical?" an American called Mike asked me. Yes, I guess so, I replied. "I think you`ve missed the point of halloween, my friend. Halloween isn`t supposed to be subtle or witty". Mike for his part was dressed as an indigenous woman in brightly coloured hat and dress and a baby doll strapped onto his back. There is a fine line between being funny and offensive and he was definately teetering over to the offensive side. A Canadian named Misha entered the room wearing almost exactly the same costume. I slapped my head.

The hostel was opening it`s doors to the general public and as a consequence bumped up it`s drink prices. "Fuck this, let`s go drink on the streets."

So as it transpired it there were two gringos dressed as local women wandering round the streets of Cusco, drunkenly asking kids for money and candy in bad and very loud spanish, another American called Cody dressed as GI Joe, shooting strangers and trying to handcuff them and Joseph dressed as a Robot and I standing back drinking our vodka.

At first I was worried we would be taken the wrong way (or should I say the right way). But no the locals really seemed to find us funny. They were laughing and taking photos, wolf whisting at the boys in drag. We were drawing a crowd and there was even a guy with his handy-cam filming us.

This was great. Cusco the tourist mecca of Peru were being given the opportunity to turn their cameras back on us.

el camino Inka

Everyone has to sacrifice something to walk through the sacred valley of the Incas, and on the last day racing the daybreak to the Sun Gate, the entrance to Machu Picchu, I sacrificed a bowel movement and clean teeth in order to wake at four and had to rely on instinct to shove my shit into my backpack.

These four days of hiking through the path have possibly been the most physically exhausting thing I have ever done. Not only did we need to walk between four and eight hours a day but the altitude made me huff and puff at even the slightest exertion. As we climbed close to the summit of Abra Warmiwañuska (also dubbed Dead Woman´s Pass) on the second day we reached of around 4 200 metres above sea level. Then there was the steep climb down on narrow steps which was made increasingly dangerous as the rain was pelting down. It´s funny how such a little people the Quechua were/are (Incas) could make such big fucking steps.

The tour that I took followed the old path built by the Quechua over 500 years aho, and curved like a rainbow through a variety of ecosystems and archeological sites. Being from the great flat that is Australia, I could help but stop and just stare around me at the glacier capped mountains that just seemed to rise and rise into the clouds. When I use the word sublime, I mean it in the sense that I was belittled by nature to the point of insignificance. I can see why the old Quechua worshiped and sacrificed to these mountains or who they called Amu, the mountain gods.

Walking through dense subtropical jungle, following the path, I came across a clearing. As my eyes drew up I beheld the ruins of what was once a Incan agricultural centre, the terraced farms that rode the mountain up, topped by stone buildings with their doorways that inclined at 13 degrees. I felt like I was in some pre-adolescent boy´s adventure novel, where the hero discovered a lost city in the heart of the jungle.

And in typical colonialist fashion, while we were beaten down by rain and wind, every lunch and dinner we found our camp laid out by an army of faithful porters, 19 in number. They had our dining tent set up, with tea and coffee (with popcorn) available while they prepared our dinner, the best food that I´ve eaten in South America and possibly sometime before I left Australia.

The porters never ceased to amaze me. No more than 5foot5 they carried possible two to three times the weight I carried (they carried possibly between 20 and 30kg) yet they were able to bound up and down steps in sandles or ripoff converse allstars, passing us on their way to set up our camp. This disparity took some getting used to, as I pushed my body to exhausion each day only to reach camp and be treated like some honoured guest. We must have appeared as oddities to them. What the fuck were we doing there? Paying their wages I suppose.

As a side note, our first guide Carlos told us that their were two paths to Machu Picchu from the capital Q`osco. One was a trading route that ran supplies and messages between the capital, Machu Picchu and the various stations between. This was the short and direct way. The longer path that we were walking was the pilgramage. Carlos said that it was a way of cleansing oneself and it was the path that the Inca himself would have taken.

Addendum: I sit on a rock eating a mandarin beside a mountain lake, placing the skin and pips in a side pocket of my backpack. Being neither the fittest or the slowest of the group I`ve found myself hiking alone. Sipping water diluted gatorade I look about me. I watch the tiniest of birds flitter about the water chasing each other as cloud slowly rolls down off the moutain. All I can hear is their songs and all is good.

Further Addendum: On the last night I sat and talked with our second guide Raul as we waited dinner. I asked him about the problems facing the trail. He said that numbers on the trail had been reduced and hikers had to go with an approved tour company and that laws had been introduced to encourage responsible and sustainable conduct. He said that once a year in February the path was closed for a month so that cleaning and restoration could be carried out. Was this enough? I asked. No. Combined with natural erosion and current levels of use geologists, he said, had calculated that the Inca Trail would be gone in approximately ten years. There was a law introduced by the Peruvian government that prohibits porters from carrying more than 20 kgs. When I first heard about this law I thought it was there to protect the welfare of the porters. I was wrong, apparently the porters are happy to carry more weight, as more weight means more money in which to feed their families. No, the law is there to protect the trail. "You saw how the porters run down the mountain?" It is only one of the problems.

Closing the trail to preserve it is not an option. Fundamentally Peru needs tourism. Cusco makes a lot of money off us gringos and this wealth means education and health and public works.

The question is, had I known all of this would I have still gone on the trek? Would others? Should I have known?

I left Arequipa yesterday with Sarah, seen off my Lindsey and Wayra. The first of many farewells I suppose. Wayra, before we left to catch our bus to Cuzco, said to me that while we had only known each other a short time, he could tell we were all good and pure people. He said, as I understood it with my bad spanish, that he knew this from when we first met at Cruz del Condor, as we sat about freezing our balls off waiting for the sun to rise and the condor to fly us by. He said we were different from the other tourists that he meets in Chivay and along the Canyon, and that with my bad spanish, Lindsey`s better spanish and Sarah`s amusing mistakes, we were able to exchange jokes and laughs and eventually email addresses. He said that while we were from different cultures and beliefs, what was important that we felt, pressing his fist to his chest.

We hugged and he kissed me on the cheek saying "hasta luego mi hermano" and we saluted each other, fist to heart, fist to sky.

I think this is my first real connection here in South America, life is about feeling something I guess. I just wish I knew what that something was.

seventy bottles of beer later

I am in Chivay, a small slightly touristy town at the mouth of the Colca Canyon (the world`s second deepest canyon. The first being located somewhere close by) is something of a ghost town as I write this entry in my moleskin slightly hungover, sitting in the shade of what is usually a bustling market. Today, the 21 Octubre 2007 is El Censo Nacional. A day where Peruvians are required to remain in their homes from 6 am to 6pm while Census Officials go door to door counting the people as police parade the streets enforcing the curfew. Tourists are exempt to this of course and I can see a few about taking photos and looking for somewhere to eat and drink while some tourist restaurants that have received excemptions from this enforced closure. Well at least this is my understanding. As I sit here in the shade however, writing, more and more locals appear from closed doors having, I assume been ticked off by officials, and the police themselves seem to have regressed to milling about outside their station chatting.

Later today Lindsay and Sarah (an American and Brit who I met in Lima) are supposed to meet up with some locals we met at Cruz del Condor yesterday, while trying to catch a glimpse of some big fucking bird with a wingspan of 4.3 metres; members of a Peruvian folk band. They invited us back to their place for a fiesta last night, which as it turned out was a small room with only a matress and a TV, out back of a souvineer shop. We drank, smoked and chewed coca leaves as they entertained us with guitar, pan flute and singing. This is one of those experiences I suppose that as a tourist you can only dream of, practicing my spanish and learning (and subsequently forgetting) words in Quechua. This night symbolised if nothing else by our passing through the curtin at the back of their shop.

I would like to claim credit for last night but truely the draw card of the night was the two girls I was with. Lindsey was quite comfortable with what can only be described as Wayra`s (one of the senior members of the band) less than subtle come-ons but Sarah was let´s say, less comfortable with the advances of Edgar, who stuck his arm around her continuously asking me how to say she was beautiful in english. Saying te quiero, te quiero (I love you, I love you). As Sarah spoke no Spanish and Edgar, no English, it was up to me to turn him down, explaining to him that she had a boyfriend.

As the beer passed around, hand to hand, and we became increasingly drunk, talk turned to sex and in particular my sexual preferences. "¿Quieres las mujeres? ¿Te gustan las peruanas?" I stumbled, unsure how to answer this question to a group of drunk men who came from clearly muchismic culture, who were already talking about having sex with beautiful curvacious women. "Sì, yeah, um sì." Fuck, why did I say that? Should I have been honest and said "no me gusta, yo prefiero hombres"? But I suppose there in lies our problem.

Apparently tonight I am to go to some discoteca with two of the younger members of the band, Chi Chi and Eduard who want to find a Peruvian lady to have sex with me... oh my. What I am I to do?

on the toilet in Arequipa

It was those god damn chicken empanadas that I´d ate in one of Arequipa´s main terrapuertos (bus stations). We were hungry and bored waiting for some fellow Australianos who had got the bus from Lima after us. Two hours we had to burn and while preparing a welcome sign had taken all of 2 minutes, we found this dingy cafe at the back of the bus stop. I jumped at that choice on the menu, having had such wonderful experiences with empanadas in Santiago. Those crisp pastries, wrapped over flavoursome insides of meat, tomato, mushrooms and a variety of other choices, only to find a floppy, damp, microwaved imitation slapped down in front of me.

Now I am sitting hunched over, shitting my guts out with a mild bout of food poisoning. Perhaps the gods are telling me something with their usual ironic mirth, laughing at my expense, that I should´ve stuck to my guns and stayed a vegetarian. Their joke on me is I suppose that I get food poisoning from eating chicken when all those around me (a total of seven) are all vegetarians (save one other) and my arguments for breaking fall on deaf ears, that vegetarianism was too difficult and restrictive in South America, when some of them have been on the continent for more than six months. None of them have had food poisoning by the way. Bastards!

on the road to Arequipa

It´s all class , pure 100% class riding Peru´s top line Coach service Cruz del Sur on my way to the white city Arequipa. Treated to dinner, including a detailed description of the cultural and geographical origin of each component of our dish. Swanky you say? Yes, well as swanky as any airline food is I suppose: microwaved and a little plasticy in consistency.

As we ate the hostess played a turistico video about the Southern region of Peru, around a city called Tacna, which was presented by a bikini clad Limeña, giggling as she listened to leathery old fishermen hawking tours. As the film wound on she took off more and more clothing, finishing in this g-string number that rode right up between her pert buttocks. Dios mio!

After dinner we were treated to an en route Bingo game. I could barely believe it as our hostess began handing out the game cards. My travelling partner, Lindsay couldn´t help but laughting, yelling out to a friend a few seats back, asking if we were really at a Catholic church fundraiser. The prize was a free (non-transferable) ticket between Lima and Arequipa. When a man finally yelled out BINGO, he was invited to the rear of the bus and asked to say a few words into the microphone: "Thank you señora, for your good service and the fun game." Gracias señor, gracias, she replied.

Stopping about five hours into our journey we picked up a couple elderly nuns in full penguin regalia. By this time we´d finished with the tourist video, which I was relieved about. To be honest I am not sure I could have withstood the collective shame regardless of my own sexuality. It would´ve been comparable to seeing breasts on TV as a teenager when your mum was still in the room.

the trouble with Chilenos

Valparaiso, about an hour-and-a-half out of Santiago, is all bright colours and has an arty/bohemian vibe that makes me feel like I could settle in here quite nicely but then again it also has fifty percent unemployment and packs stray dogs mauling and fucking each other. So I guess it´s not all blue skies and sunshine.

Regardless I am convinced that there is a gay/lesbian etc scene here in Valpo. I can smell it, sense the vibrations, like the rattle of the ancensor Espiritu Santo that I climbed to see Matta´s street mural. On my wanderings through the winding colourful streets I found this small bar near Plaza Ambal Pinto that had had pro abortion poster on the door. Inside behind the bar, were two women hugging and kissing. Now I don´t wish to jump to too many conclusions here as it is infinately difficult to tell in the country the difference between simply affection between friends and romance.

On my first night I hung out with some of Adrian´s Santiago friends. We went to what was supposed to be an after party for some Mexican hip-hop crew called Molitov, with Adrian´s friend Olga, a crazy but very cool Chilena, got our names on the dorr. The club was located in the upstairs of the arthouse Cine Alameda which seemed to be hosting a gay film festival (if I get time I´ll have to go see a film). The music was great! They were playing the clash, Smiths, the Cure, Depeche Mode and heaps of other cool musica both International and South American.

Why I mention all of this is because one of Olga´s friends, I think his name is Mauricio, was very very friendly with me, almost to the point of pushing his crotch into my leg. Thing is I think this is how straight chilenos act when they are drunk. It´s very confusing, yes, as he was rubbing his face against mine and telling me that we were very good friends.

But then if I hoped to see a rainbow sticker or something or the sort I think I am going to be disappointed. If I am going to discern South America´s gay life from the background radiation thrown up the continent´s overpowering muchismo then I am going to have to retune my gaydar.

Anyway folks ciao for now.

*While I am typing this there is a techno beat on the radio repeating the words: "I want to be a cowboy/ no soy gay."

I woke this morning barely able to roll out of bed. I seem to go through these cycles of intense dreaming where for a week or so the neurons in my head fire like some crazy electrical storm and I wake feeling like shit, tired, irritable, etc.

Last night I dreamt that I moved into a new place with a few friends, an old terrace apartment in some innercity suburb. While moving furniture, one of my friends called me and the other housemate over to show us what he'd found. In the centre of the living room, hidden under an ancient dustmite ridden rug was an ornate iron manhole that was covered in these geometric lines. A design that you might expect to have seen in blueprints to some 19th century timepiece.

Failing to open it, I began to beat my fist against it, and as a joke began yelling at the top of my lungs, asking if anyone was down there. We froze, silent as the sound of splashing could be distinctly heard from the bottom of whereever that hole led. Silence.

At first it was just the one voice that cried out. If you could call it a voice I suppose: high-pitched but guttural if that makes any sense, inhuman to say the least and then it was followed by more, three, five or ten frantic cries. What the fuck had we stirred up? I asked myself shitscared. What the fuck had we signed a lease to?

Returning from the supermarket that day, I walked into the living room to find a couch over the hole and my friend sitting there watching television. I tried unsuccessfully to broach the topic but no one wanted to talk about it.

What's all this hoo-har about Pol Pot winning "Britain's got Talent"? Firstly I thought he was dead and secondly I didn't know he could sing and if he could, what the hell!?! Nessun Dorma for christs-sake! And what the fuck does ITV think it is doing, having a genocidal dictator on its programme? Seriously, they're exploiting the deaths of more than 3 million Cambodians for nothing more than a few rating points! Geez! Someone should do something about this.

fear of the werewolf

By day Wolf became Man. He would only recall this other life like one remembers nightmares. Flashes of strange and great things, of electric lights and cars and office buildings that rose so high they pierced the sky. But the traffic and noise, the flickering of his computer screen was unbearable and encroaching on his waking life. It was like the beating wings of an enourmous hornet, buzzing buzzing so loud that it became deafening. Wolf felt something dying inside of him. His senses dulled and he lost his joy in the hunt. Wolf could no longer smell their fear, hear their desperate footfalls or taste the blood, sinews of the flesh, feel the texture of broken bone. Not like he could before. It had all become bland and colourless.

Wolf feared he was becoming Man.

He breathed deep as he slept, my arm interlocking beneath his, held tight as I smelt the nape of his neck, the perfume, sweat, hair and product. I drew it in as I listened to the sound he made, slightly nasal, blocked, forced and as I too began to fall into sleep swore that in it, I could hear the calls of sea birds and the rush of the ocean....

...I woke with his hands brushing gently along my arm, wishing that things would not go this way, that I could just lay against him as the daylight faded. Maybe all I wanted was to feel his warmth, hear his heart beat and hold him for just a while longer and know that I am needed and wanted and loved. But then I heard the clink clank of his belt buckle and I reached down to help him remove his jeans.

This rather dark clip is from a film called The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) and is a "feature-length Claymation fantasy [that] follows the adventures of Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and Huck Finn as they stowaway aboard the interplanetary balloon of Mark Twain. Twain, disgusted with the Human Race, is intent upon finding Halley's Comet and crashing into it, achieving his "destiny." It's up to Tom, Becky, and Huck to convince him hat [sic] his judgement is wrong, and that he still has much to offer humanity that might make a difference. Their efforts aren't just charitable; if they fail, they will share Twain's fate. Along the way, they use a magical time portal to get a detailed overview of the Twain philosophy, observing the "historical" events that inspired his works."

Plot summary is from IMDB

I can't help but think now that there is a cafe in Brunswick that I can no longer walk into. A cafe that when I walk past, I'll have to drop my eyes awkwardly and increase my step. There'll be no more red lentil dhal for me.

I went home with the barista on Wednesday night and he hasn't called. He said he'd call me as he left Thursday morning with a kiss and that'd we'd hang out tonight, Friday night but here I sit alone with just my second wine a little to my right, keeping me company.

He did say such nice things, oh such nice things. He told me all about what we would do on future dates, a trip to the zoo to meet his orangutans on Saturday and then waking in each others' arms and the morning sex we'd have that he so enjoyed; he bemoaned my leaving to South America in a month and talked about hooking up when I got back. He told me emphatically that this was not a one night stand and I believed him.

It seemed to go all so well, surprisingly so, well until I suppose he didn't call.

***********

There is a voice in my head that tells me that the nice things he said were all true. That he meant every word of it. That I was engaging and intelligent, that my eyes had both depth and insight beyond my years yada yada.... and then he saw me naked. There is a voice in my head that talks about the economy of beauty versus intellect, that if you are lacking in one, to attract a mate you must compensate with the other. However this voice reminds me that in all my sexual encounters no one has ever called the next day or returned that text that is doing its very best to hide its disappointment.

Sebastián

Cuando Sebastián era un joven, vivía en San Miguel o como es conocido mejor, Debajo de la Loma, el suburbia de los muertos en nuestra capital. Debo poner de relieve sin embargo, cuando yo digo no lo digo "vivía" porque de la costumbre, no. Como todos sabemos que nadie no viven en este lugar por decirlo así, solo los muertos andan los calles. Pues excepto Sebastián quien fue todavía en la flor de la vida.

El mundo de los muertos no es tan diferente que el mundo de los vivos. Trabajan y pagan los impuestos como nosotros que respirar. Sebastián trabajaba allí y aún jugaba en un equipo de futbol. Él fue trabajando en una empresa de contabilidad en el norte de Debajo de la Loma. Le gustaba allí aunque no estaba seguro de que quería trabajar por el resto de su vida. Le gustaba su jefe y sus colegas, y el trabajo le pagaba suficiente, con horas que podría dedicarse a las interés afuera su empleo.

Sin embargo los padres de Sebastián no le parecían con sus elecciónes. Le llamaron una noche expresar sus sensaciones exactamente, pues más o menos.
–¿Es esa chica tuyo? ¿Qué se llama?– Su madre preguntó, aunque lo conocía.
–Alejandra mamá.
–Sí Sí, eso es. ¿Le cohabitas con ella todavía?– A la madre de Sebastián el olvido fue una arma retórica.
–Sí mamá, todavía vivimos juntos.
–¿Comó puedes decir "vivimos" cuando ella no tiene un latido de corazón?– Su madre dijo por lo bajo.
–¡Mamá!– Sebastián suplicó. Entonces para Sebastián conversación con su madre hubo llegado a ser así.

Hace un año Sebastián conoció Alejandra. En aquella tiempo no sabía que Alejandra ha muerto, no. El primer tiempo clavó los ojos en ella fue en lugar que se llama El Cuervo Cabido, un bar pequeño que jugaba el jazz para los aficianados. Ya sabemos que haya unos días del año cuando los muertos estan permidado caminar con los vivos. Generalmente guardan las distancías, pues excepto cuando deben realizar sus ritos ancestrales pero eso es una vez al año. No importa, para Sebastián estuvo el amor a primera vista, pensó que hubo mirado una angel y se le acercó al lado y trabó una conversación.

Sebastián fue tratando de callarse porque Alejandra estuvo en el cuarto siguiente.
–Mamá, por favor. No quiero discutir contigo.– Él dijo en voz baja, oyendo un supiro desde su madre.
–Hable con tu padre.– Dijo bruscamente. –Aquí Jorge, hable con tu hijo.
–Hola Seb ¿comó estas?
–Hola papá, estoy bien, ¿y tu? ¿Comó va el barco? El padre de Sebastián construía los barcos modelos escalas. Estaba construyendo un galeón español. Fue el gran amor de él y Sebastián sospechó a veces que su padre lo enamoraba más que su madre.
–Va lentamente pero es mejor tener cuidado que romperlo.
Sebastián podría escuchar su madre en el fondo.
–¡Digale! Digale nuestro hijo que el sobrino de Luisa me preguntó el otro día si él fue un necrofilo. Me da vergüenza pensar lo que le digan de él. ¡Me moriré de vergüenza!
Su padre sonaba cansado. –Tu madre me pedió....
–Yo le oí.– Sebastián dijo bruscamente.
Después hubo un momento de silencio en cual Sebastián pensó que oiga un ruido, un zumbido, talvez hubo alguna humidad en la linea.
–Digale adiós a mamá y quedate bien papá.
–También Seb. Hasta luego.– Después colegó el teléfono.

"Twenty-six degrees and still winter," my work colleague raised his head over the partition to talk to me. "You know, I think you might be right about with what you were saying the other day."

I paused to think. "What, you mean global warming!?!" I replied with incredulity, realising only too late that he was taking the piss.

"Yup," he said, smiling mischievously.