I thought about thinking about washing my hair.

."Take it easy", I tell Ryan, even as saying the words accounts for a sharp increase in physical and mental exhertion.

We´ve now been in Mancora, a small surfer village on the north coast, for four days. Generally, we tell ourselves we ought to be doing something in between extended periods of absolutely satisfying idleness. Waves keep on rollin in, we keep chillin. Writing this blog will be the most productive thing I´ve done all day.

Last night, after showering off the day´s sun and sand, Ryan and I stopped at one of the numerous cafés along the strip of the Panamericana that they call Mancora and cracked a couple of beers. Cans of Pilsen (La Cerveza de Peru. La Cerveza Mas Cerveza) were perfect. I had not only donned a clean shirt for the occasion, I even made the effort to put on some boxers - Mancora is too chill to muss up clean undergarments. We sat in red plastic chairs (I can´t remember the last time I ate a meal sitting in a chair that wasn´t plastic) around a round plastic table advertising Cuzqueña Beer, toasted, and sat back.

I felt at that moment that there was absolutely no stress in my body. I was as ooze in the plastic chair. I sat with clean clothes, a spectacular sandle-line tan, and a complete abscence of hurry. A little red in the face from the day´s sun, I found that the nasty nappy hairstyle that comes with an almost-weekly shampooing schedule is excitingly and entirely obedient. That is, I can fashion my hair at any time as if I were wearing a permanent heavy hold gel. I entertain myself with these thoughts in Mancora.

We eat two dollar two course meals for lunch, sitting under umbrellas on the beach. We read (in spanish, though, so the mind gets a bit of a workout), we play chess, we wipe our sunglasses, we make sorry attempts at body surfing. The only "work" we do is of the type done "on a tan", where the term "work" is grossly misapplied. We watch passers by, we chat with children selling bracelets and chiclets, we apply and reapply sunscreen. We discuss nonsense and reflect on reflection. We realize how cool it is to be here.

The sun sets here between sillouhettes of fishing rigs, and clouds roll at dusk to add appropriate texture. Two nights ago bits of magenta topping waves of clouds reflecting those of the ocean gave way to a clear mango sky around the sun and something of neopolitan pastels to the north and south. Last night streaky zigzagged dark blue clouds cut through something like peach tones. These colors would give a paint-mixer fits, as they do a (clearly very exhausted) blogger trying to do them justice with words. Point is, I´ve no problem sitting on the beach in the evening and doing absolutely nothing but appreciating.

I´ve contented myself with the exertion of a couple of spectacular runs along the beach after rising late in the morning. My lungs feel great after spending a month 12000 feet above sea level, but my legs feel like they are coming back from vacation. It´s a nice feeling, to sweat. Breeze, sun, and nobody else anywhere after five minutes. Smells like salt, and a little west of town I passed by a large lagoon. Just me, a few dozen pelicans, some cormorants, and a flock of flamingos looking pretty. All enormous birds, their colors blended together as I looked through heat waves rising off of the sand. Returning, soaked in sweat, I´m actually glad our hostal doesn´t have hot showers.

Somehow a head that was too full of thoughts in the mountains overflowed right into the wide open space next to the ocean. I´ve no problem thinking about nothing, or concentrating (but only when absolutely necessary) on ideas profound or simple. With palm trees around and waves breaking always in earshot, I feel absolutely content, satisfied. A good time to stop and think about where I´ve been and where I´m going, both short term and long term. A good time. Period.

A belated update on trek completion, dispatched discomfort, and deserved drunkenness.

(To finish up describing the saga of the trek through the Cordillera Blanca, five days later...)

Trek Day Four

The sun woke me up - or, rather, being awake I noticed the light returning, and quickly began packing up, the donkey who had eaten our bread the night before hovering annoyingly over our tent. Some donkey-chewed bread with ham and cheese quickly consumed, three intrepid mountaineers headed off on what we had been told would be a 2-3 hour easy walk downhill to a town called Vaquería, where we planned to sit down and have a nice hot lunch.

2 hours later, after giving the last of our little candies to the first two of 35 under-age-10 shepherd children who asked us for "caramelos", we found ourselves at the foot of a very long uphill climb in dead heat. Everywhere I go, things take longer than I am told. I thought that in the mountains things would be different. No luck. Another day of dirt, sweat, and "I think I can"s until we hit what we thought was the final switchback and the road to Vaquería and a cheap Menú del dia. Two women hanging laundry on the side of the road indicated to me that Vaquería was back the way we´d come. Ouch.

Backtracking a short way, we soon realized that the metropolis of Vaquería actually consisted of roughly 4 structures. As far as I could tell, the population was roughly 2 humans, 7 chickens, and an occasional transient population of donkeys or donkey-mushers, what we had taken to calling "Muleteers". With the 2 sol in change the three of us were able to scrounge together, I managed to haggle with the owner of the one "store" in town, coming out with 6 rolls, 3 bananas, and a chocolate bar, which was to tide us over for the hour and a half until the collectivo was supposed to have come...

Two hours later, the collectivo rolled by, stuffed on the inside and 5 people on the top. Crap. A few people hopped out to spend some time in Vaquería or head out to the fields, and we tossed our bags (and Danny) on top of the vehicle and hit the road, not realizing that we were still very far from home - and showers, and food. A quick pee and Ryan and I stuffed ourselves in the middle of the back row of the van, holding four men across a width of somewhere between four and five feet. We´d ride one leaning forward and one back, then switch, so as to fit our shoulders in, knees buckled against the seat in front. This collectivo had seats for about 12 or 13 people. At one point i counted 23 humans in the vehicle and 3 on the roof. Later, those 3 stuffed in for a brief period.
We expected the ride to Yungay, a larger village where we would catch a connection collectivo to Huaraz, to take about an hour, and were quoted an arrival time 3 hours from departure. 3 hours of incessant Peruvian folk music, which invariably involves a synthesized harp sound sung over by a whiny peruvian woman and a couple of slightly off-key backup singers. 30 minutes into the ride I mentioned to Ryan that I expect in the future to have nightmares exactly like that ride, and that was only the beginning.
The first two-thirds of the journey were along mountain switchbacks on bumpy dirt roads. To some extent, I envied Danny on top of the van, as he could jump off to safety should we go over the edge, though I suppose the human contents of the collectivo may not have been hurt rolling down a couple of hundred meters, as we were packed in together so tightly. About an hour or so (I really had no concept of time) into the journey, it became evident that our front left tire had been punctured. We all squeezed out of the van while the operators of the collectivo (too many people, 4 or 5, I think, smushing in with the rest of us) discussed what to do. The spare we were carrying had even less air in it than the tire with a slow leak. The decision was made to go ahead, I suppose, until we were actually riding on the rim. Imagine, an old, square van, carrying twice its load, riding on a mostly-flat tire along death defying mountain roads, passing slow dumptrucks. Though, I´ll admit, death didn´t seem like such a bad option at that point. Eventually, a passing trucker was able to offer us an air pump, so we filled up the tire with the slow leak and limped into Yungay in somewhere between 4 and 5 hours.
Along the way, we were supposed to stop off and pay a $20 fee to the park service, for having hiked for 4 days. We made a deal with the van driver to not stop at the control station and tell them that we had come from the trail. Paid him $10, his asking price, though we should have paid less. The crook.

Finally in Yungay, starving, we hopped the first collectivo heading to Huaraz, whose teenage sliding door-operator told us we would be in Huaraz in 40 minutes. An hour and a half and a shady switch into another collectivo in some podunk town later, we finally arrived in Huaraz. Immediately bought some avocado for quick sustenance and a bottle of rum for subsequent relaxation purposes and shook the stank of a four day trek in a hot hot shower. Very nice. We made quite a night of it, too, a 7 sol menu, Lomo Saltado for me (sauteed beef with veggies and rice.. very tasty...) and bar hopping, ultimately ending up in a bar called 13 bujos (owls) with a nice belgian girl, a couple of danish chicks (who we railed about the cartoons), two very "friendly" and drunken british girls with surprisingly nice teeth, a french canadian lass, and a couple of dorky american dudes. Danced the hell out of that place. They even put on "the sidewinder sleeps tonight" for me, one of my favorite REM songs ever. I remember I requested it for our junior prom. They put on "Lady in Red" instead. ouch... And to sleep, rest, and the bus out to Trujillo.

And now recovery. What a trip.

How to Pick up a Hooker in a Blackout.

We arrived in Trujillo (affectionately pronounced True-Jillo when mildly drunken and True-Hee-yo correctly) yesterday morning at 6am. I handled the aggressive cabbies as we blindly searched for a place to stay in our Loneley Planet guide. Our dependence on this heavy little book is frustrating - quite often the "LP" is better than nothing, but very little more than that. Anyhow, the cab brought us to someone´s house, which we thought was La Casa de Clara, listed in the LP, but which turned out to be La Casa de Clara´s sister. We napped and hopped a collectivo out to some pre-Inca ruins outside of the city, wandering around in the desert for a while before stumbling upon the remains of a mud city which housed some 60,000 people during the 14th century.
We split a cab back into town with a couple from North Carolina, and then received some unsolicited advice from our cab driver regarding how to properly hire a hooker, a "Lolita" or "Lola", as they are called here. He also recommended some discotecas for the upcoming everning.
We hopped out of the cab, relaxed in the Plaza de Armas, internetted, and picked up stuffs for dinner at the central market - olives, peppers, onions, bread, and at the grocery store, where we shamelessly flirted with the meat counter girls for more free samples. I was in a great mood, ready to cook and go out for a crazy Trujillan saturday.

After a half bottle of Ron Limón, Ryan showered and I fell right to sleep after promising not to do so. I knew I had to rally, so I hopped downstairs to hit the shower, finding myself naked when the lights went off. Thinking Ryan was playing a trick, I hollered, only to find that 50 year old Luis Mejía, a resident of the home, was outside the bathroom. He informed me that the entire city was out of power. No matter, I dressed and we hit the street, looking for trouble. We took a cab towards one of the discotecas our previous cabby had recommended, driving through some parts of the city that still had power, when all the lights went out. Surreal, a few roadside trash fires the only light apart from headlights. For some reason, the cab driver stopped and dropped us at a different nightclub, called Burbujas (bubbles). We asked the bouncer if there was light in the club. He nodded affirmative, and when we entered we found that the light in the entire bar consisted of exactly one candle behind the bar.
Ryan and I ordered a couple of beers, which we got free with our 10 sol entrance, and one minute later the following conversation ensued:
R: So I´m pretty sure we just ended up in a Peruvian strip club.
Z: Why do you say that?
R (motioning with his head): The poles and the mirrors on that stage were the real tip-off.
Z: Huh. Holy shit. There did seem to be a lot of scantily clad girls lying languidly on leather sofas when we walked in.

So there we were, in a strip club completely by accident, the visibility extremely limited. I made friends with a cute mini-skirted employee who told me initially that her name was Acira. After we discussed our respective families, she told me her real name was Berta, and she was third of eight children from near Cuzco. I bought her a drink, a very expensive whisky, because, as I told Ryan, that is what you do in a strip club, I suppose, buy a stripper a drink. As I was chatting with Acira/Berta, a very aggressive blonde was waving her tits all over Ryan´s personal space, asking him what his favorite dessert was (hers was chocolate cake), calling him "Bonito", and complementing his sexy lips. He was very uncomfortable and wanted to leave, but I was having a very nice, civil conversation with the stripper at the barstool next to me. She liked to dance to Michael Jackson, she told me. Eventually, Ryan somehow got his stripper to leave him alone, and we decided to wait it out at the club until the lights turned back on. It was my first time in a strip club - his too - and we thought we ought to actually see somebody strip. Besides, we were guilt free, as we were, after all, there by complete accident. Soon enough, the lights returned and a bassy voice announced the first performer, a curvy-hipped young lady wearing a see-through white nighty. She had chosen "All for One" to dance to, the perfect choice, I thought. A classy dancer, she was. Bryan Adams, Sting, and Rod Stewart would have approved, for sure. I laughed heartily, and we nursed our beers until the second performer came on a few minutes later, girating herself out of a pair of leopard-print panties to the tune of some latin american rock. Two was enough for us; I kissed Acira goodbye on the cheek, and she told me to take care of myself as we headed out the door.
We took a cab to the central plaza, where a multitude of scantily clad teenagers were populating the streets. Later on, I was told by a boy selling cigarrettes, the older girls would come out of the woodwork and the young ones would go home to their watch-watching parental units. I had a sarcastic argument wit the 15 year old cigarette (and anything else) vendor about his asking price for a porro (trans: joint) and then we met Gónzalo, a 31 year old Trujillan who was celebrating his friend Marcelo´s birthday in the plaza. We joined the party after finding that no beer stores were open, and I handed over 10 sol to Gónzalo to pick up some Pisco (the quintessential Peruvian Liquor). They returned with the booze and some fruit juice, and Ryan and I went to town, trying to get our fill before the others drank up our limited funds. Two guys were playing a guitar and recorder and singing. A great atmosphere in which to booze a bit and chat up some locals.
Ryan and I left the plaza in a cab with two girls, Karina and Vanessa, and got out God-Knows-Where at a drive-in club out of town called "La Barra". Teeming with Peruvians, it was a Grease-like atmosphere, with people making out in between hot rods and volkswagen bugs. A huge dance floor was set up in part of the compound, and various stands sold beer, only in big 600mL bottles. Part of the club was a lit up pub with chairs and tables and a pool table, but most was just open space for people to bump into one another, drink, and dance. While buying our first beer, the guy in line was adamant about telling me to watch my step - apparently the place was dangerous, and Ryan and I made up the entire white population of La Barra. Ryan danced most of the night with Vanessa, leaving me to entertain Karina, a very sweet 25 year old surgical assistant who may join us at the cinema this evening. Plenty of girls in that place, though, and Ryan and I certainly felt like the exotic catch, getting eyes from everywhere while making beer or bathroom trips.
We made the most of the night at La Barra, dropping the girls at Vanessa´s place right after we learned that she was married to a German fellow and arriving at our casa even later than we had arrived the previous day from the bus station - around 6:30am. People were jogging in the streets, and the Señora who owns the house was just waking up. I tossed my old contacts across the room and shut my eyes until after noon, having been up more or less for 24 hours.

Today the emptiness behind my eyes must have been painfully visible. Accomplishing very little today was no trouble at all, though we did consume our healthy breakfast of banana, mango, yogurt, and granola and spend some time hanging out in the plaza later this afteroon. A peruvian film, "La Mujer de mi Hermano", and a good night´s sleep is about to treat me just right.

As Freedom is a Breakfast Food.

Wearing the beardery and soreness of a man (yes, a man. feeling virile) just off of a four day trek on the Santa Cruz trail through the Cordillera Blanca, I´m again realizing the trouble in translating real life into blog form, even as my "real" life is sometimes hard for me to believe. The mountains, for instance, they looked like pictures, like you could touch them. Cracks of glaciers cracking, the sun hikes out of the valley, leaving only a pink trail on the snow-capped peaks visible all around. Incomprehensible, really, that kind of nature. Visceral. Simple living, a Man vs. Nature adventure. Nature is a formidable opponent.

Our Team: Ryan, my aforementioned friend from Wisconsin, boyishly good looking yet an avid outdoorsman and expert firemaker. Well read, laughs at my jokes, a dude. Often slipped, calling our third companion "Billy" instead of

Danny, a red-bearded brit with a floppy hat and a propensity for allowing gas to escape loudly from various orifices, which he blamed on the previous day´s overconsumption of eggs. A social outreach worker, Danny has something in common with many of his herion-addicted clients in that he struggles to find words and his speech is so ridden with tangents-connected-to-tangents that a listner almost invariably wonders "how did we get here?" by the end of a Danny Diatribe.

Ryan, Danny and I headed out on our own at 6am from our hostal, without a guide, proper map, any sort of pack animal, or any real idea what the trail held in store, and fortuitously jumped a collectivo to Caraz, three hours north up the valley from Huaraz. At Caraz we filled up on last-minute supplies: chocolate bars, pasta, tarps, and a quick breakfast of bananas and bread, 5 peices fresh baked for about 30 cents. We hopped a cab for a cheap 30 sol up into the mountains, at Cashabamba, where we began the trek.

(Vocab break: A collectivo is the term used for the square-shaped vans that teem about all South American cities, manned by a loud-voiced young man wearing a fanny pack filled with change. He hangs out of the sliding door and shouts out the vehicle´s destination at every street corner, as individuals squeeze in and jump out at the appropriate occasion. They don´t leave their initial or final destinations until they are "full", which means that all of the seats are taken, so the initial fill-up involves a lot of hawking people on the streets. They must know that when I walk past a collectivo waiting to depart, I am not going to want to go to some random place just because they yell the name of it in my face several times. When the cars are full enough, they take off and inevitably become more full. Most have seats for roughly 13 people. I´ve seen upwards of 20 in the car at once, including construction tools, rucksacks of vegetables, babies, empanadas, etc.)

Trek Day One

Immediately headed up and up on a sunny day, we began feeling the weight of our packs, laden with food, water, and camping gear. The first two and a half days are a hike up through a valley, mostly along a river. Absolutely beautiful. Tranquil. After an estimated 12km, all uphill, we set up our first campsite, accompanied by a few wandering horses and donkeys. We set about some card playing, in which Danny tought us a game called "shithead" in which there are no winners, only a loser, the shithead, and Danny was quite shagrinned to immediately find himself the shithead in his own game. A small propane tank connected to a regulator was our fire, and we boiled some maté de coca in our one pot before firing up dinner: noodles with tomato sauce for Danny, the vegetarian, and some cut up hotdogs added later for the two carnivores. The sun sets early in the valley, and it made some amazing colors in the clouds that were headed in for the darkness, along with reflections in the puddles along the river. Come darkness, we heated up some more water for hot apple cider mix with Rum, and hit the sack shortly after 7, a long night in store for me.

Ryan and I exhanged some jokes, the inevitable tongue and cheek conversation about the homoeroticism of two dudes sharing a tent, and some clever commentary on the day´s events, and turned over in our sleeping bags. I could not sleep. I was a bit manic, and I´m not sure why. My sleeplessness may have been exacerbated by other factors - the full moon, which lit up tha valley and can make people crazy - hence "lunatic", Danny enlightens us. And the fact that I was taking a series of pills given me by the doctors at San Pedro Clinic; then there was my bruised rib, making certain positions uncomfortable, and the sizeable hole under my groundmat, making for difficult sleeping topography. The cold condensation collecting on the inside of the tent and wetting the end of my sleeping bag and top of my hat certainly didn´t help any, nor did the incessant roar of the nearby river, relaxing in the daytime but loud as hell through the night. However, I suspect my insomnia was mostly due to the lack of a place for my thoughts to go, way out there in the wilderness. They swam around and tumble over one another and left me gasping for air. I had looping thoughts and about lost loves and discomfort and loneliness, I found myself cursing being in the mountains and wanting to go back to Huaraz, even home to Harbor Springs; crazy stuff, anxiety wrapping itself around me like my uncomfortable sleeping bag. I couldn´t get out, and I couldn´t sleep, and I was miserable.
Ryan lent me his Ipod, for something to think about, concentrate on, and it helped. I put on Beck´s Sea Change, and then the Jayhawks. I would have preferred some Iron and Wine, but the Jayhawks were about right - positive, something of folky, harmonies. I relaxed eventually, though this may have had more to do with the long hike and the time - it was past midnight when I fell asleep, to get about 3-4 hours before the next day´s hike.

Trek Day Two

Rising after the sun around 7, we boiled and mixed a hearty breakfast of porridge with raisins and crushed almonds after our morning maté, washed our dishes, dried our condensated tent in the sun, and hit the "frog and toad" (Cockney slang for road. Danny tought us a lot.) at 9, no idea where we were headed. We lost the trail at some point and headed over a large soggy flat, an adventure which saw me sommersaulting after hopping a stream and then giving up, trudging through the river with boots full of water. I squish squashed on for another mile or so, until we hit a campsite which we thought was the one mentioned by a brit passing the other way, roughly 2 hours from the mountain pass we would hit the next day. I put out my shoes, socks, and pants to dry as we lunched on bread, ham, cheese, and tomatoes and set up camp, under a phenomenon like none I´d ever seen: a circular rainbow, surrounding the sun in the middle of a cloudless sky. Happy Valentines Day.

Danny had taken to collecting the oversized magic mushrooms he was excited to find growing in cowpies along the trail, and he set them out to dry as well. They were eaten soon after by a passing cow who must have been looking for a trip, munching on a full kilo of wet mushroom caps. It seems that the mushrooms were more appetizing to the cow drying in the sun than they were growing out of the cow´s own shit. Either way, that must have been some intense bovine hallucination. (No worries for Danny, he replenished his collection and finished the trail with quite a stash.)

With a whole afternoon ahead, we went for a day hike towards one of the nearby peaks, Alpamayo, and I left Ryan and Danny halfway in to return to camp for reading and guitar strumming. I even managed to scribble some pretty decent lyrics, which I have half a mind to post on this forum. My companions returning, we boiled some tea (with filtered water) and made a two course meal, eaten and cooked one at a time. First, cream of mushroom soup with mushroom raman - and cut up hotdogs, of course; Next, having a soup to spair, we combined a cream of asparagus soup with the second packet of mushroom raman, which seemed to work, but perhaps that was just the altitude.

I slept much better the second night, largely due to danny lending me a sleeping bag liner and having a flat sleeping surface, and I experienced some fairly spectacular dreamworks at 3700meters.
DreamLog (I immediately wrote this down upon waking...): I began playing basketball against Pellston, but the rules obligated us to always play two of their players. They gave us the worst ones, we got killed, and I didn´t even play. I left the gym, hungry, and experienced some awkward high school moments involving Grady Nulph and Seth Beat, something involving Seth dating Katrin Kreiger, who was visible in the dream playing volleyball, wearing braces and what looked like a midriff tire under a navy blue shirt. I walked into the Pizzeria, which was actually somebody´s house, clearly the day after a big party. Gabe Smith was making me a pizza in the filthy kitchen. Next, I entered some sort of church, a multileveled amphitheater affair, with a stage divided by glass partitions into several sections, each one containing a display of a different latin dance. I was chosen to go backstage and pose in the "mixed latin dance" part, but I missed my entrance and sadly walked into the hallway, where Randy Quaid (dressed as the crazy guy from Independence Day, with the floppy-eared pilot hat and glasses) was plotting to steal an invention that I had worked on with my friend Parker Lewis. The invention involved making poop dissappear. Turned out later that Parker Lewis wasn´t too upset, the secret ingredient was simply NHO3, (which my wakeful research indicates is nitric acid), and it didn´t matter, because Parker Lewis Couldn´t Lose. Seriously. Anyway, I speak to my dad about going to meet some big shot hotelier in a hotel downtown, and my dad takes off on my bike for no reason and doesn´t return it. I walk downtown to the meeting with the hotelier, who I am planning on calling out for being a real bastard with labor practices. He is waiting for me in a sidewalk cafe in front of the hotel, disguised, wearing a cloak. Turns out he is a really nice guy, and I decide not to ruin him. He offers me a job, but I get up to go to the bathroom, in which there are three stalls, the one on the right occupied by a woman. I take the middle one, and then two guys from Beverly Hills 90210 enter, Jason Priestley and the guy with the curly blonde hair. The blonde guy takes the left stall and begins yelling at the girl in the right one, across my stall. I felt awkward, and I hated the blonde guy, who was some bigshot businessman in the dream. Next thing I know, I´m a kid in this little house surrounded by scary houses with gothic architecture. I fly out the window, knock down some gargoyle or something, and return to my house. I lock the door as I enter, with a lock like that of a bathroom stall, and my mom yells at me to let her in when she gets home. She is mad at first, but I tell her I was scared and she says a prayer about Jesus and puts me to sleep. I drive out of some city and realize that I missed my turn and all of the roads lead out of town at rush hour, so I pull over to pass the time in a park between the two freeways, and Anna Rose Kessler More is there walking dogs with her friends. Huh. Anybody want to interpret that? Dad?

Trek Day Three

One of the hardest things I´ve ever done in my life was scaling the heights to Punta Union, the mountain pass at 4800 meters. Not being able to see the pass while hauling 30 some pounds up switchback after switchback for hours was mentally defeating. And I had done a couple of difficult hikes in the past couple weeks. Danny was having a harder time even than me or Ryan, having just quit smoking. The views were incredible, but there wasn´t a lot of smiling going on. We finally reached the pass around 1pm, soooo relieved. Danny gave me a "biscuit", an Oreo cookie. Eating that Oreo cookie at that mountain pass, I´m sure, instantly made one of the top 10 moments of my life, though I certainly haven´t named the others. A good friend of mine recently wrote that she wished she was back with mother nature, every day seeing something that made the "best thing I´ve ever seen" list. I was revising my list daily, and wishing that a lot of people were there with me. I was missing a lot of people along that trail, despite the awe that never stopped for four whole days. Making that pass, seeing the valley we´d hiked up and the one we were to hike down, well, I now see there are a lot of metaphors to be drawn, but suffice it to say it was like no other viewpoint, no other point in my life. A rest. A relief. A high. A beginning.

We hiked down - beautiful, merciful down - and lunched around 2 on the same lunch we had every day, each day lightening our load by some hamcheesetomato sandwiches, and rested in the sun next to some small lakes, danny drying his mushrooms, all of us feeling like conquerors. After the brief nap, we continued down to a campsite where there were actually other people - a couple of canadians, a couple germans, a brit, and two peruvian guides. They were on a tour, mules carrying their gear and people cooking them amazing meals - treatment even better than my Inca Trail experience - and we were jealous and salivating. To make matters worse, our gas ran out and a wandering donkey, a true nuisance, managed to take a nasty donkey bite out of the remainder of our loaf of bread. The guides, Olly and Cesár, were nice enough to let us cook in their tent on their very nice stove after they were finished serving their soup and fried trout with rice, fries, salad, and red wine. We had a great time hanging out with them as I cooked up some cream of tomato soup with noodles - and, you guessed it, cut up hotdogs. They even offered us some spices, some fish, and some fries. We repaid them the next morning with half a bottle of rum that Danny had grudglingly carried over 4800 meters.

Heading to bed later than the previous two nights, around 9, we had our only clear night of the the trail, and a million stars were visible. It was incredible. I didn´t sleep too well, as it was also the coldest night of the trail, and being fully clothed inside the liner and sleeping bag in the tent with Ryan was no match for the cold. Crazy, as it was upwards of 80 degrees in the daytime.


I´ll leave off here for now - much more adventure to be described, as this entry has been a lot to write here near the Plaza de Armas in Trujillo, and it has probably been a lot to read wherever the reader finds him or herself. Before signing off, I will update on something I have received several comments on...

My digestive problems have all but vanished thanks to the doctor, the drugs, and the bland sort of diet that comes from having to carry one´s food for four days; I did come dangerously close to brushing my teeth with my hemmerhoid cream the other day, however. (I like to think that the reader cringed rather than laughed at this near-disaster. Which were you??)

It is not worthwhile to go around the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.

A day of rest before setting out on the four-day trek on the Santa Cruz trail in the Cordillera blanca, around a series of 6000m+ peaks that look imposing even from a distance. In the mornings here in Huaraz, from the rooftop patio/poor kitchen of Jo´s Place backpackers´ hostal, one can see several snow capped peaks. In the afternoon, the clouds and the rain make it seem like the upcoming hike might be miserable. At least in the afternoons.

It will be less miserable now that I´m recovering from yet another stomach sickness, which I will do the reader the service of not describing. Yes, I´ve learned my lesson. I did make a trip to the hospital today, to make sure I didn´t have pneumonia or a brain aneurism or chlamydia. Sure enough, check check and check. I was admitted after a 20sol entrance fee, and the young interns poked around my veins for a bit before pumping me with some intravenous solution which did return me to relative normalcy over the next 3 hours or so. José, a poor blood-pressure taker with a friendly face, wheeled me into the X-ray room for some photos of my left ribcage, which has become increasingly more painful ever since a particularly intense impact at the bottom of a sandune in Huacacina. The lights and power shut off halfway through the civi-dressed doc´s developing process, but an emergency light shown on the poster of Jesus with unnamed cherubs on the wall, making me feel right at home. We redid the photos, and it turns out I´m just bruised, not broken. I was also asked to give a sample of a little something; however, there was apparently some miscommunication, as José was not looking for urine, but rather a liquidy substance from the other exit. (This mistaking illiciting a good deal of chuckling from the group of young hospital workers, including the mustachiod man playing Tetris on the computer behind the counter.) Before heading to the hospital, I told Ryan and our new English traveling companion, Danny, that I should have no problem providing the hospital with a stool sample should they need one- as long as they had a funnel to aid in collection. However, after three days of rushing to the head, I was unable to come up with anything on cue at la Clínica San Pedro. No worries, the blood sample would be enough.

I´m now armed with a rehydration fluid, some eating instructions, and a series of pills to be taken along the way, and I hope to be recovered soon, as I was sad to miss two nights of debaucherous weekending here in Peru, laid up in bed. Ryan and Danny returned at around 4am last night (I´d been sleeping for roughly 10 hours at that point), Ryan with a belly full of a street vendors "Sex Burger" - this consisting of 2 fried eggs, 2 sliched salchichas (a hotdog type meat item), french fries, a great deal of mayonaisse, ketchup, and mustard, all in a bun. I hypothesized that he would have a hard-on for an hour after awakening; he admitted he´d hoped the burger would increase his stamina.

Huaraz hasn´t been all bad, however, as I was able to get some cheap replacement glasses and a cheap guitar with a nice little softshell case, which should be nice for passing the time. I´m not at all pleased to be back up at altitude in the cold, but the people of the Andes are noticeably different in demeanor than the costeños living along the Pacific. They are more soft-spoken and move at a slower pace, perhaps as the temperature slows down the movement of molecules. There are fewer hawkers and more folks willing to help. The elderly ones generally have those lines that make you ask "you´ve done a good bit of smiling now and then, haven´t ya?" The man we bought our camping stove from actually lowered his asking price without us asking him, and threw in free stuff to boot - with a genuine grin. And it seems like sturdy equipment. I´d expect to get gauged for this kind of service along the coast.

All for now, I´m thinking about some soft food, soup perhaps, a spanish movie in the hostal, and a little more R&R. Early to rise tomorrow.

With my suitcase in my hand.

Somewhere I´ve got a clean Karma slate. Bad luck and blues. Found myself saying "today is not my day" a few times - but not to worry, nowhere near self-pity. Illnesses, bad news, robberies, even run-ins with exotic hoofed mammals.

Following my last (substantial) blog entry, I became violently ill, up until dawn, as some bad bit of food smuggled some insurgent bacteria into my lower intestine that ordered everyone to evacuate. Find the nearest exit. Freezing cold in Cuzco at night, without heat (my guess is mid-40 degrees Farenheit), I sat on the john and held a plastic bag in front for multi-directional purgations, shivering. I turned on the hot water in the shower to warm up the bathroom a bit, which worked for the temperature but also filled the room with steam. The skin slaps and heavy breathing coming from the bathroom next door made for a very upsetting (from my end) juxtaposition, and I felt well enough at one point to switch bathrooms so as to turn off the "fucking" soundtrack and puke in peace.

The following morning I was to set out on a two day white water rafting adventure with my three Canadian friends, but could barely walk 30 feet. I slept all day and did manage to make the second day, which was amazing. We carried the raft down a steep cliff and tossed it 15 feet down into the rapids, climbing down to jump into the raft ourselves and immediately hit rapids rated 4+. Extreme. Men. At one point we were in a hole for several seconds, the raft flipping and righting again. I was sure I would die. Somehow that equals a lot of fun. I still didn´t feel incredible, but a little adrenaline goes a long way.

I stayed in Cuzco a couple more days, until I was back on "Team Solid" and well enough to hit the road again. I was sad to leave my new friends, the three Canadians, two awesome Swedish girls named Sara and Ellie, and a fine Irish (and Irish-speaking) bastard named Osgar. An overnight bus trip 12 hours to Arequipa was incredible, as I was on the second floor of the bus in front, a huge window displaying a million stars - there isnt much light pollution where there isnt much infrastructure, turns out.

Arriving in Arequipa at 6 am, a 6000 meter snow-capped volcano towering over the white-washed cathedral in the main plaza was a spectacular welcome. I found the hostal my canadian friends had recommended, napped, and checked out one of the town´s main attractions, the Monastery of Santa Catalina. Love was in the air - or perhaps that was just the ubiquitous pair of 30-something Peruvians who were making out in some former nun´s kitchen when I walked in. Something about a few hundred years of (supposed) celebacy that must have turned them on. Mildly disturbing. I did run into the Irish couple from the Inca trail, a great pair who I lunched and later drank with; I also met a nice american girl, a twenty-five year old vegetarian from Minneapolis who was to be my sole companion for the next four days.

Katrina and I happened to be the only two people staying in the dorm in a very out--of-the-way hostal, the Casa de Yael. She was considering trekking in the Colca Canyon, but had no one to accompany her. After some drinks, a very predictable movie (Amor en Juego - Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore falling for each other during the Red Sox miracle run... the only english film they were playing, and Katrina doesn´t speak spanish) and some wandering around with her, I decided I enjoyed her company enough to join her on the trek, which we did over 4 days, the two of us and our very accomodating 22-year-old local guide, Mirta. We were unable to catch an early bus into the canyon, as throngs were grabbing the local transport to attend the festivals in the small towns in the canyon the day we were to begin trekking. Upon arrival to Cabanaconde, a town at the top of the 3000+ meter-deep Canyon, we learned that half the town- the half in which we were lodged- was not receiving water due to some rain-induced water main breakage. No worries. Filth was to ensue.

You know you are living a good life when you get deja vú while turning the corner on an amazing mountain path. The hike was incredible. We stopped in one pueblo, Tapa, to appreciate the festival of the Candlabra Virgen. A very kitchy alter/float, a speech by the town´s priest, a dance around the plaza by elaborately dressed old women (of the family that had contributed the funds for the party) and a competition between two brass bands kicked off the party. The bands, one clad in red, the other in blue, were all men, playing mostly baritone-like instruments or trumpets - with limited percussion. The two groups played very similar renditions of upbeat traditional tunes while failing to dance in unison, vying for the 500 sol (about 150 dollar) prize, decided by audience applause. Ultimately, the competition was declared a tie (though I think the blue team was clearly better), and the 500 soles were split, to be converted into bottles of beer for the participants over the next several hours. Ultimately, the holiday in Colca canyon on February 2 was far cooler than our custom of groundhog-watching. (I did check in on Phil. More winter, eh? I´ve no stake...)

We finished our hike to the bottom of the canyon at a riverside oasis, at the Paradise Lodge, in the cold and pouring rain. We were supposed to arise at 3am to ascend 1000 meters in altitude and catch a bus back to Arequipa, but I wanted to see Paradise when it was nice outside, so I opted to stay another day. Mirta lied to another guide in the canyon, saying I was too sick to climb, so that he would call the travel agency and postpone my bus ticket to Ica (which I had somewhat foolishly bought beforehand) for the next day. I made a series of ridiculous puns involving our stay in Paradise, and Katrina and I exchanged a few hours of sarcastic commentary before hitting the sack at 11, when the men of the family that runs the lodge returned, drunken, from the party in Tapay. I slept soundly, despite continuing difficulties between my knees and nipples and the pouring rain. It was amazing, though, sleeping in the thatch-roof shack with a dirt floor, listening to the river and the rain, writing by candlelight. I set my alarm for 3am so that we could wake up and pat ourselves on the back for deciding not to leave then (a playful pair, we were...), but I didn´t wake up until the mornin´ come. Atean entire, fresh, amazing Avocado for breakfast, with my daily Maté de Coca and bread/butter/strawberry jelly combo.

The next day morning was paradise, lounging in the pool and fishing in the river with Sebastian and Carlos, who I had met (drunk) the night before. I cought the trout I ate for lunch and ate, feeling like San Francisco, as I was surrounded at the eating table by several chickens, a dog (named Jean Claude VanDam), a donkey, a kitten, and an Alpaca. Later, I attempted to interact with the Alpaca, fittingly named "Alpaca", for a photo-op. Do not look an Alpaca in the face while he is chewing. He spit a mouthful of grass and ruminant saliva all over my face. Me and Alpaca are not friends. Cantankerous andean asshole. Anyhow, I digested and hiked out of the canyon into the clouds. Grimy as hell, we were not pleased to find that all of Cabanaconde was now without water. Ouch. Everything I had was crusty, sweaty, filthy dirty. I smelled. And yet it was somehow satisfying.

I will take this interlude to mention two problems - thinly veiled - I was (and maybe still am...) having that one should most certainly not talk about on a blog.
1) Because of the most prolific pooping period of my life and having to Hold It on a few long bus rides, I had to leard the spanish word for Hemmerhoids. It´s a cognate, should you be curious. A nasty little problem, involving blood Down There, a phenomenon a man is certainly not used to. I now have increased sympathy for those who might go through something similar on a monthy basis. And my body chemistry wasn´t all changed up - or at least not through something resembling a menstrual process.
2) I have been master of my domain for far too long. Dormitories. Misfortune.

I was happy to reunite with my friend from Wisconsin, Ryan, a couple of days ago in Huacacina and head out for an amazing dune-buggy and sandboarding excursion. (yes. men. Extreme. my virile meter is rising...) The desert was amazing. And there was a lot of sand in my pants. We hit the town near Huacacina, Ica, for dinner and bars, but nobody was around.

On the bus trip from Ica to Pisco the next day, a clever bastard theif managed to lift my Ipod, Digital camera, and eyglasses out of my backpack. I checked it and realized it upon arriving at our destination and chased after him, but with no luck. To make matters worse, I didn´t realize we were in Pisco at the time and got back on the bus. The driver made us pay 2 more soles a piece for the half hour trip to the next town, Chicha, where we had to buy another ticket to get back to Pisco. I swore a bit and hit the seat in front of me, but settled down in time. Nothing I could do. And its only stuff. And the camera was broken, as was the Ipod (damn battery. wonder what that is worth on the black market...). Glasses should be cheap to replace here in the developing world. Ryan and I then got ripped off in Pisco trying to use internet and make a phone call, respectively. And the in-your-face attitude of peruvian menu or product-hawkers was pushing me to extreme annoyance. I´ve given myself three whole days to be as cynical as I want to, due to the crappy things that have consistently been happening. After that I´ll just be cynical now and then.

The main reason for heading to Pisco was as a set-off point for the Paracas wildlife reserve (the "poor man´s Galapagos") and the Islas Ballestas, which was a worthwhile excursion. Slapping on the sunscreen, we headed out early to the coast where we boarded a rickety old boat which only stalled a couple of times on the way out to the islands. Hundreds of Sea Lions lounged about making a horrible ruckus, and all kinds of unique birds - Humbolt Penguins, Cormorants, Terns, Vultures - were clucking about and diving for fish. At one point we were surrounded by hundreds of boobies, and I made about five wisecracks. Thats all. Paracas itself was not as instantly spectacular, mainly a bunch of desert knocked up against the coast, but a walk along the beach with huge yellow cliffs diving down onto the black beach had me thinking I was strolling along one of the most beautiful spots in the world. After the trip, we packed up and got the hell out of Pisco, en Fin! An 11 sol bus trip up to Lima, passing the time with some Jennifer Lopez movie. Monster-in-Law. Heartwarming.

Now in Lima, crappy latin discoteca pop on the radio in this fine internet cabina, Ryan and I are awaiting a bus up to Huarez, where we´ll do some trekking in the Cordillera Blanca with the tent we bought at the flea market for 20 dollars this afternoon. A good night of drunkenness at our amazing hostal on the cliffs above the beach (kitchen, grasssy patio, bar, ping pong, pool, laundry...) was healthy for me, and my first run in about a month has me feeling pretty good about things. The flea market this morning was also a trip; all kinds of ripped off consumer products: apparell, toys, electronics, there was even an entire hallway of exotic film dealers, everything from "Ass 5" to "Snack Bar Budapest". And yet, I was unable to find what I was looking for: dental floss and some cool band pins. I always feel more alternative with a couple of lapel pins in my possession.

After this day, though, I should be good and tired for the overnight bus up to Huarez. And with any luck, there will be a Jackie Chan movie or two. They love Jackie Chan here. They put some classics on these inter-city busses. Rambo III was on when my Ipod was stolen...

Whoever said "parting is such sweet sorrow" was too concerned with alliteration and not concerned enough with reality.. I´m not actually missing my Ipod that much. Really. Until next time.

Mustachioed Mayors. Misspellations.

Trekking through the Colca Canyon, home of Andean Condors, surprisingly boistrous brass sections, and amazing vistas (when not distorted by torrential downpours or myst mountains that really do seem to sneak up on you), my mind went a thousand miles an hour. It seems that when I am not charged with producing anything on a daily basis, my mind trips over itself, thoughts running into one another as they have no specific alloted time period (post-work, or post-run, or pre-nap, etc.) in which to have their piece. Seems that composing a remarkably insightful and poetic blog entry would be a good use of all that mind-energy, but sitting down to pound out something here on a side street in Arequipa, nothing special springs to mind. A relatively eventful past week, with digestive difficulties, counterfeit currencies, and midwestern connections, which I´ll try to expound upon when I have more time and more wits about me.

Note: my digital camera has been acting up. Its something like the weather here, which is entirely predictable. They say the weather is like the women. Often ugly in the morning, but it usually gets sunny later on. Anyhow, I´m depending on friends to provide me with some good pics of my trip, should any blog-reader be interested enough to see me doing something lame, like descending into the world´s (second) deepest canyon, chillin´ with llamas at Macchu Piccu, eating cow heart, or guzzling cheap rum on unidentifiable south american plazas.I bought a disposable for when my digi fails, but promptly left it at a hostal in Cuzco in the hysteria and hype of an impromtu blues jam.

And so, a haiku. when my mind settled with the canyon rain.

Sometimes, I am wet.
But not when I wear Gore-Tex.
I love you, Gore-Tex.

There is great meaning in this. Dryness is not a subject matter which I take lightly. Nor is dampness. Don thy gore-tex, weary traveler.

So the super bowl is on right now. ho-hum. And I hear Bush made a decent Clinton Joke the other day. And gillete now has a 5-blade razor. the world keeps on turnin.