Back to wandering around

After spending two days in Guayaquil I knew it was time to move on. Guayaquil is nice but it just really held no attraction for me. The problem wasn´t in making that decision, the problem was move on to where. It´s strange I´ve noticed my last few months of travelling oscilate back and forth between hanging out with great friends who I feel will be around for a lifetime and just wandering around aimlessly on my own.

My friend Robert who started this whole mess by convincing me to go to Colombia the first time sent me an e-mail. He was heading to Lima and wanted to meet up. I thought about it. 20 hour bus ride from Guayaquil to Lima and another 28 hours to get to Quito. It would have been fun to see Robert again but I was going to have to pass, schedule is a little tight and even I couldn´t imagine flying from Lima to Havana to Guayaquil back to Lima in the span of 3 weeks.

Then I thought about heading to Cali, Colombia to meet up with José the guy I met in Rio. He offered me a place to stay and I know he´d show me around. Plus maybe I could finally actually learn some salsa in one of the dance capitals of the world. And I came close to hoping on a bus and crossing the border, but for some reason I decided not to. I felt like I´d be running away from Ecuador and I wasn´t quite ready to do that.

Instead I caught a bus to Salinas. I heard Salinas described as Ecuador´s answer to Miami Beach. And apparently for 6 months out of the year that´s exactly what it is. June is not one of those six months. The Ecuadorean coast right now is a little chilly, kinda overcast, and pretty deserted. It´s still nice, quite nice in fact, but a far shot from the Cuban beaches I was lavishing in only a few days ago.

But Salinas has a beautiful calm bay perfect for swimming, the people are a little reserved but friendly, and there´s lots of time to relax and do nothing. I hear the hump-back whales can be seen not too far off-shore these days and the sea-lions are hanging out on a rock only a bike ride away. In 3 days here I´ve met exactly two foriegners and that doesn´t seem too bad.

In the hotel I´m staying at they have a map of the Ecuadorean coast line. The Ruta del Sol runs parallel to the coast passing little fishing towns, quite beaches and major surfing hubs like Montañita and Puerto Lopez. This seems like a fine path to take towards Quito, I still have almost two weeks before I need to be there and not a damn thing to do. Somehow I´m convinced this won´t be a problem.

I´m famous!

Ok not really, but my Dutch friend Joost wrote about some of our Cuban adventures together on his blog (http://juice.zinloosverteld.nl/) and now all the Dutchenese, Hollandens and Netherlandeans will be aware of me. It´s kind of cool to see someone perspective on the same events. But he doesn´t really write about me, it´s actually about my other personality.

It´s strange, right as I started this trip someone gave me the advice of ¨it seems like you´re trying to find yourself, you might want to start by pronouncing your name the right way.¨ And that made a lot of sense. So Ka-sheef went back to KAH-shif.

But the problem was the rest of the world wasn´t so accomodating. See I met Bill in Colombia long before I made this decision. And Bill always knew me as Zak. Don´t ask me where Zak comes from, it´s a long story that I can´t even begin to explain but I think it´s better than my last made up name of George.

And when I went to Cuba to meet up with Bill the first time everyone all the new people I met were introduced to me ask Zak. Which at some point became more like ¨San¨ because you can´t actually pronounce Zak in spanish.

So here I am, trying to go back to the name my parents gave me and I´ve found it´s harder than I thought. At some point in Argentina I became just ¨Cash¨, and then I realized that was a bad idea because everyone took the name way too literally.

Regardless on Joost´s blog I´m Zak and there´s a post about Zakisms which I think is really funny. I do love a great one-liner after all. And I guess that really isn´t too bad, although one of these days I really do think I should become KAH-shif.

I´m here, now what?

As the last leg of my travels, the flight from Panama City to Guayaquil began it´s descent, I looked over the customs declaration form I was just handed. One box confused me. Address in Ecuador? The truth of the mater was I had no idea where I was staying that night or what I was going to do in Ecuador.

My sisters are going to meet me in Quito in two weeks and I was flying to Guayaquil. I don´t actually remember why I told them to meet me in Ecuador anymore. Originally just my sister Asma was going to come to Buenos Aires but with her school and all she wasn´t free until July and I wasn´t going to stay there that long. So I looked at a map and somehow came up with Ecuador. I think it might have had something to do with that crazy guy from Quito I met on Mt. Aconcagua who planted the idea in my head. But I heard about great beaches and islands and the Amazon river and active volcanos and it all sounded like fun.

The truth is I´ve actually kind of gotten to the point where I´m getting really really close to being done with this adventure. If it weren´t for the fact that my sisters are meeting me in Ecuador in a couple of weeks I might just have gone home. Well technically I don´t have a home, but back to the US. But as things are I´ll spend two weeks here waiting for my sisters and then another three weeks with my sister Asma. Samira will only be here for a week and after that...well actually I need to go to Medellin to collect the $200 that my buddy Bill owes me. And then I gotta see how somethings unfold, well just one things really. I might have one more stop to make before heading back to the states.

In my months of travelling I´ve learned just a couple of things. One is that it´s a really bad idea to show up to a new country late at night with no idea of where you´re going to stay. Last time this happen Joost and I came about 2 kms from sleeping on the beach. I was planning on doing a little research before I left Cuba but somehow that just didn´t work out.

Yanet and I spent the day before hanging out at the Playas del Este and it´s so hard to leave the beach even when you know you´ve got to go pack your bags. Everyone was waiting for us back at the casa for dinner since we were extremely late. But like always no one worried too much or if they did they didn´t complain.

Queque grilled me up some lobster, he knows it´s my favorite. The goodbyes were hard and take so long. Joost was awesome and presented me with his set of juggling balls he had just bought, I guess that answered my question of whether I was going to keep practicing. He gave me the 4th ball too and told me he wants to see evidence that I get that down. Be patient Joost, this might take a bit.

Somehow between all of this I never managed to get to the internet and find a hostel in Guayaquil. After I claimed by bags and made it through customs I looked around to see if there was a tourist booth open at the airport that could help me out. No such luck, especially not at 11 PM. So I did what I try to avoid doing as much as possible, I turned to my Footprints guide book and found a place to stay, flagged down a cab, negotiated a price and we took off. Luckily they had availability and it turned out to be clean and seemed relatively decent.

As I settled into Guayaquil I wondered again what I was doing here. I didn´t know a soul in this country, had no real idea of what to do and was already missing Cuba and everything it held. I suppose this is as good a time as any to figure out what the hell I´m doing. Oh yeah, that´s what I was supposed to be doing for the last 5 months.

Dropping Balls

Joost, the crazy Dutch guy, and I were hanging out on Playa Santa Maria, the closest beach to Havana. It was a wonderfully relaxing day, we finally got outside our comfort zone of Havana Centro and explored a little more of what Cuba had to offer. Joost has become famous around the casa for trying to teach everyone and anyone to juggle.

Last time we were in Cuba Alicia was complaining about how all of her oranges wound up crushed and Yanet said she didn’t want to smell like onions anymore. But this time Joost brought his own balls with him.

So while we were lying on the beach Joost asked me if I’d like to learn. Learning to juggle has been on my list of things to do for quite some time now, sure it’s something like number 35 at the moment, but what the heck I had an eager teacher, time to kill on the beach and a set of juggling balls nearby.

I’ve noticed myself kinda of getting antsy in the last couple two months or so. I haven’t done an honest days work since December and truth be told for several weeks (ok months) before that I had basically stopped being reasonably productive.

But I do think I’ve channeled some of that into a desire to do some other stuff that I’ve never found time for before. My Spanish has gotten pretty damn decent if I do say so myself, I learned to swim which was a big deal for me, I climbed a couple of mountains and done some trekking, met some fascinatingly wonderful people, sure my salsa skills are still barely existent but that’s next. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and pondering and imagining what could be and what shouldn’t be.

As we hung out on the beach Joost took about 10 minutes to explain the basic concept. I struggled dropping the balls for a while and a couple people looked on. A Cuban guy walked up, asked for the balls and took off without a hitch. A Mexican guy picked out three oddly shaped rocks out of the sand and started throwing them up with frustrating ease.

The more I watched everyone succeed at something that I just couldn’t seem to grasp the more obsessed with the idea of juggling I became. I spent another hour or two that night throwing balls on the floor and picking them up. At some point Joost just looked at me and said “dude, you’re just trying too hard.” I don’t think he used the word “dude” because that doesn’t sound very Dutch, but the point was the same.

And that made sense. And I’ve noticed that sometimes when I really want something the OCD part of my personality kicks in. I just can’t let some things go, I obsess over them, even when there’s something else I’m focusing the majority of my attention on my mind is working on the background handling this latest preoccupation.

And it’s true. Sometimes when you try too hard you just set yourself up for failure. You forget about the patience you need to let something just click. You try to fast forward through the rough, awkward phase where everything is a little strange and not quite comfortable because you already know the end result you’re shooting for. The second time to Cuba has been like that for me.

There’s some middle ground, I’m sure, between persistence and obsession. I doubt you can achieve and thing that’s difficult and worthwhile unless you’re willing to invest the time and effort required to pursue it. But if you obsess about it, if you don’t let yourself relax and take some space, if you refuse to wait for whatever will happen to happen it seems you’ve also got a pretty good chance of failing.

At this point I can kinda sorta juggle. Well enough to fake it at least. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it or not, it seems like a reasonable way to kill time but I don’t think it really impresses chicks and thus it’s coolness factor drops. And I didn’t really come to Cuba to learn to juggle, I’m still working on number one on my list.

You gotta be tough if you’re gonna be dumb

I had been in Havana for 12 days straight. This was extremely disappointing because Havana is officially one of my least favorite cities in the world. It’s dirty, it’s smelly, everything is broken and as a tourist you’re constantly being hounded. There are nice things in Havana but they are mostly off-limits to Cubans, strictly for tourists only. And I find that lack of freedom and liberty amazingly sad. Of course there are some things about Havana that I'm really enjoying, and that explains why I hadn’t as of yet managed to escape the city.

Before I came here Joost and I traded e-mails with the idea of doing a little traveling in Cuba and exploring this island. Everyone needs a plan B you know. My priority, like always was finding a beach and doing some snorkeling. Joost is from Holland or the Netherlands, I forget which but I think they might be the same place, go figure. And apparently they bike a lot in Holland or the Netherlands or where ever.

So as we were talking about heading to Varadero, the most touristy resort in all of Cuba, Joost suggested biking there. Varadero didn’t really appeal that much too me, mostly because I’ve decided I hate tourist and hate acknowledging that I am one, but Joost is a ceritified dive master and assured me that Varardero is world famous for it’s diving and I would love it. Varadero is also something like a 140 kilometers from Havana and the mid-day sun in Cuba during June is deadly hot.

As we started telling our plan to people around the house they looked at us with the same look I’ve come to know and love over my 5 months of traveling…”silly gringo, what are you thinking?” After the 10th Cuban we told this lovely idea to told us we were nuts I decided I really really liked this plan and I think Joost started having second thoughts.

We changed things up a bit and decided instead of taking two days to head to Varadero we’d only go half the distance (about 65 kms) to Playa Jibacoa and wait an extra day. Sunday night we got a group together and closed down a salsa club. Fun was had by all. Monday night the Irish girls wanted to go out again, and I said I was going to bed early. Joost decided he would go out for just a little bit and we were meeting up bright and early in the morning to head out on our journey. I understood, it's awfully hard to say no to Irish girls.

Before I took off Yanet asked me if I was sure I was going to do this. I’ve noticed that every time in my life that I’ve done something stupid that’s gotten me into trouble there was always a moment where a little voice inside of my head said “are you sure?” It’s usually not external but I wondered if this was an exception. Regardless I headed to the casa for breakfast and found out that Joost hadn’t woken up yet. Then I ran into Xiomara who told me they were out till 6 in the morning partying the night before. I warned him was going to happen.

I woke Joost up and waited for him to tell me the words I was expecting, “dude, I’m sorry but I’m gonna bail” I know if I was in the same situation that’s what I would be saying. But I must say, Joost is a trooper. He looked like death and wasn’t anywhere close to being ready, but he said give him 5 minutes and he’d be game. 5 minutes turned into almost an hour but Joost was not going to drop. He let me know that if I wanted to cancel plans he wouldn’t be offended. But I had no sympathy for the devil and we were heading to Playa Jibacoa today.

We eventually managed to rent our bikes which turned out to be in a woeful state of disrepair. Such is life in Cuba. As we headed to our first destination, the ciclobus stop which we needed to take to get around Havana Bay we saw our bus pull out. Joost and I looked at each other and decided we could still catch it and we took off, fast. I don’t know exactly what happened next but I saw Joost go down, hard, in the middle of Havana traffic. I will say this for him, he got up real fast but the bailing wire and duct tape that was holding together his bike needed some attention so we forgot about taking the bus. Instead we headed for the ferry terminal.

After getting off the ferry we learned why everyone told us to take the bus. It turned out our journey was going to start by climbing a series of hills for the next 5 kms go get ourselves up to Via Blanca, and the bus avoids all of this. Such is life and we troopered on gallantly, every Cuban we talked to pointed us in a different direction but somehow we found our path.

The ride to Jibacoa was damned hard. Harder than Mount Aconcagua, harder than Machu Piccu. It the middle of the day and ridiculously hot. Something was obviously lost in the translation that told me the trip was “mostly flat” because we just saw slopping hills the entire way. We stopped plenty of times to re-hydrate and ask ourselves who came up with this brilliant idea. We tossed the idea of stopping around but neither one of us was going to be the guy that bowed out first.

I started out feeling great but ran out of gas as the day wore on. Joost started out really slow recovering from his hang-over but by the end of the day I could barely keep up with him. I guess he was right about the Dutch and their biking skills, although I always caught up to him on the hills. I guess you never go up much when you’re country is mostly under water.

Both are bikes were barely holding together but we actually had to make 3 seperate repair stops for Joost's winner of a bike. The bolt that held the baggage carrier in place got lost along the journey somewhere and we almost decided to quit right there and then. But we decided to stop by a nearby farm and ask for help and it's true, Cubans are lovely people. Not only did they find us a bolt that fit but they gave us cold water and refused any offer of payment.

As we passed by a beautiful beach with corals right off the shore. Joost looked at me and said how about a dip? I said let’s wait for the next one. We spent the next 30 kms riding past ugly refineries spewing out smoke. And then at about 8:30 PM we pulled into Jibocoa Playa. I thought about the nice lady at the bike store and how she told us not to ride our bikes on the sand and I sailed on off the road and dumped my bike on the beach as we watched the sun dip down.

I still have no idea why we went on this ridiculous trip, the bus takes an hour and costs $0.40. But sometimes it’s about the journey and not the destination. And it felt damned good to be able to say we were able to do this, when everyone told us it was a crazy idea. Go ahead, tell me what else I can’t do and watch as I prove you wrong.

Just like I knew it wouldn’t be

Expectations are deadly things. The world we live in is seldom as perfect as we dream and imagine it to be. And when we plan and chart out how something is going to go, a trip, a reuinion, a new beginning, the fact is we are almost guaranteed that what will actually happen will have little to no resemblance to the picture in our heads.

The real world isn’t perfect, it doesn’t consist of fairy tales. Life is complicated and full of nuance. The highs can be high and the lows can be low. And I suppose we’re all just trying to hang on and enjoy the ride as long as possible.

The real problem with those expectations of ours is they set us up for disappointment. We play out how the act is going to progress before the curtain even rises. And when, invariably, things do not follow their laid out script we set ourselves up for a crisis of epic proportions. The more time we spend dreaming about the future the more likely we are to consider those dreams real and be shocked and surprised when we are faced with the world as it is and all the complications it brings.

Fairy tales are nice and simple. Everyone always lives happily ever after. Throughout the whole story you always have a sense of calm because you know in the end things are going to work out just as they’re supposed to. The real world is made up of the full of fear and loathing that comes from the not knowing.

But I’m starting to realize that the real world is a pretty wonderful place. No things don’t unfold quite as wonderfully as they do in the movies. Life is far more complicated than that. And there is great beauty in that subtlety and detail. And there is also anxiety and longing, and I suppose one set cannot exist without the other.

And when you allow yourself to actually capture the moment you’re in, you realize that those images in your head really don’t add up to anything other than what you think you might want. And then you realize what you actually need is something entirely different and it consists of being and not dreaming.

Cuba is great. The city is still falling apart and Havana still resembles a barely functioning toilet. But after spending most of a month traveling from town to town, taking planes trains and busses across 4 international borders, sleeping in a different bed or bus every night, and just passing casually by all the faces I saw, it was a refreshing to be greeted with open arms.

Change isn’t always for the better

Queque and his brother Nelson are completely un alike. The two of them are only separated by a few years and grew up in the same crib, but you couldn’t imagine two more completely different brothers. Queque embodies the typical MacGyver-esque attitude of the Cuban people. There seems to be nothing he can’t put back together, lately he’s been trying to figure out how to jump the meter on the electricity that the house uses to avoid the escalating costs of energy in Cuba. But the only time you see a book lying around is if a passing tourist left it behind.

Nelson on the other hand is a language professor at a nearby university and not only speaks English fluently but seems to be the only one on the island who doesn’t have the Scarface-like accent. He seems to be interested in just about everything, full of questions about abstract ideas.

This works out great for me because Nelson supplements his typical paltry Cuban government salary by teaching Spanish to foreigners. In 4 short lessons with Nelson I got a far better understanding of the subjunctive tenses in Spanish than I did in two months of class in Buenos Aires. Of course we never covered the subjunctive in our class in Buenos Aires but that’s beside the point.

But the other day Nelson, Joost and I were sitting around in-between our lessons. Lessons might be too formal a description for what typically happens, which is that we shoot the shit for a couple hours in between refreshing beverages and intersperse a good amount of learning randomly throughout our meandering conversations.

We started talking about what was going to happen to Cuba after Fidel finally dies. And the truth is, no one has any damn clue, but everyone expects chaos. 47 years have passed by since the Triumph of the Revolution and I think at this point Castro has outlasted 11 US Presidents.

But we all could agree on one thing, it’s pretty likely that the US Marines will be involved. That saddens me deeply because I’m pretty sure that’s the worst possible outcome for just about everyone involved. If you think Iraq is bad just wait until the US forces head 90 miles south of Key West, Nelson assured me. Cubans don’t particularly seem to hate the US, and they certainly, on average, seem to have no love lost for Fidel. But I’ll be god-damned if I can imagine any Cuban who wants the US to invade except for about 1.5 million zealots in southern Florida.

Cubans, while generally brainwashed by their governments’ propaganda, know full well the history of US – Cuban relations. And it’s fairly true that nothing the US has ever done has helped the Cuban people. After Cuba finally gained it’s “independence” and the Spanish were vanquished, a series of successive regimes in Cuba were subservient to the power of the US. And of course we treated it like a tiny little island to be taken advantage of which also happened to make a great vacation destination until Castro and Che finally triumphed.

Yeah if they had just played nice they probably would have wound up like Puerto Rico, second, make that third, class citizens but still enjoying the highest living standard in all of the Caribbean. Instead their national psyche seems to be embodied by that guy on the street corner heckling “my friend, cigars, girls, casa particular?” to all the passing tourists.

Really the US trade embargo is the best thing that ever happened to Fidel Castro. The blame for all the problems that Cuba is facing right now can easily be deflected from their own government. Castro has never faced a hint of a real threat of an uprising from his own people. He controls everything that comes in and goes out of this island and points the finger for all its problems squarely at the White House. And most people seem to agree.

Since you hardly ever see any Americans in the streets of Havana it’s impossible for Cubans to cut through the propaganda they’re fed and understand what the reality of the country that they’re taught to hate and despise. Nelson told me that if only Cuban people could talk to Americans and see that their not the 3 headed monsters that we’re taught to believe maybe we would start to question everything else our government tells us and wonder why we don’t have the same standard of living.

The rest of the lesson didn’t go over so much politics, but I did learn about how to convert the passive voice in English to the 3rd person in Spanish. Now if someone would just teach me to dance salsa I’d be all set.

Of towards Lima

Cusco is a wonderful city. It´s full of history and surrounded by beautiful mountains. It happens to be at the perfect spot to explore Machu Piccu or the Sacred Valley, close to wonderful rafting and mountain biking and has become one of the major gringo capitals of South America and a center for those trying to learn spanish. So I decided to head to the dirty, loud and dangerous capital of Lima.

It´s not so much that I wanted to go to Lima but I had to get there at some time to catch my flight to Cuba. And I figured I´d go a day early and take at least a little bit of time to see what everyone was complaining about. I was planning on taking a Omnibus and not looking forward to the 22 hour journey. But I tought it would be cool to say I travelled all the way from Buenos Aires to Lima in bus. But the English lass I met rafting the other day planted the idea of taking a plane instead, she told me it wasn´t that expensive.

So I woke up on monday, packed my bags and went to the airport. I hadn´t bought a ticket as of yet but it turned out that wasn´t too much of a problem. Within minutes of getting to the airport I realized that I could get a ticket fo rhte 1 hour flight to Lima for only about US $100. Not too shabby, the flight left in two hours and I was ready to go.

As I passed through security they stopped me and questioned me about the metalic container in my carry on bag. It had been a while since I flew anywhere so I forgot about how this always happened. But I took out my flask and showed it to them. They asked me if it was full of rum. ¨No vodka¨ I replied.

The nice lady running the x-ray machine asked me if it was strong. She had a glass of Sprite sitting next to her and I told her she should try some, it goes really well with Sprite I assured her. She unscrewed the cap and smelled it, then poured a bit into her glass. I also made the other guard pour a bit into his bottle. They both seemed pretty content with their newly spiked bevarages.

The Peruvian security officer then asked me what the script on the flask meant. I told them it was a riddle. I recieved that flask in what seems like another life time. ¨May the dreams that drive you be the passions that guide you¨ it reads.

I never really knew what that meant or what I was supposed to take away from it. But it always struck me as a cool thing to have written on a flask. Every once in a while I stop and look at it and think about what I should be thinking about when I look at it. And once in a while, usually after I have emptied the flask, it feels like I might kinda have a feeling about what it is supposed to mean.

The two security officers wished me safe travel and I passed through the gate towards the boarding area. And I beamed as I thought about those passions and where they were taking me and reflected on those dreams of mine.

The Road I have taken

I had heard a lot of peoples stories about hiking the Inca Trail and they all sounded wonderfully painful. Four days through the Sacred Valley before arriving at the ruins of Machu Piccu. Unfortunately given my schedule there was no way I had four days to spare. So instead I took the four hour train from Cusco to Aquas Caliente instead.

The train ride was long and arduous as well but somehow I managed to survive. I think it was because I broke down and paid the 5 Soles they were asking for a Snickers bar. As we neared the last stop my excitement built. Machu Piccu was one of the few things I knew I wanted to see while I was in South America. Everything else I had mostly just stumbled across.

They say that when you hike the Inca trail and you get up early on the fourth day and pull through the last 3 hours and come around the Sun Gate early in the morning an hour or so after sunrise, before the trains and tourists roll in, that you get a view of Machu Piccu that is humbling unlike any other in the world. Well it turns out the view when you get when you hike up from Aquas Caliente and stand in line behind the 15 person tour group from Idaho is fairly amazing as well.

As I looked out on the mostly intact ruins of the Incan the one thought that kept running through my head was ¨what the heck where they thinking???¨ The Incans had built Machu Piccu over a period of a 100 years on top of an incredibly steep mountain surrounded on all sides by other sacred majestic peaks, completely out of painstakingly carved stone. Meanwhile at the bottom of the hill lies a lush valley with a flowing river.

But, Luis, my Peruvian guide I met the other day at the ruins outside of Cusco explained to me that Machu Piccu was a retreat for the Incan royality. And the location was thought to be chosen because it was centrally located around several sacred mountains. He said the Incans believed that mountains were the children of mother earth and Machu Piccu was special because if you look it at with your head turned on its side the profile of the mountain looks like a face staring up towards the heavens.

As I looked out towards the magnificent rolling city that was once Machu Piccu I thought back to the set of ruins I had visited in the previous days. They had all been raized by the invading Spanish conquistadors and brought down to their foundations as a demonstration of the power of Catholicism and Spain. I thought if the remote retreat of Machu Piccu was so awe-inspiring what must all those other ruins have looked like before they were ruined.

I find it odd that throughout history the most devout Christians are generally the most un-Christlike people. Of course Christianity is not alone in this, I can´t think of anything in the history of the world that has caused more human misery and suffering than organized religion. It´s been true as long as anyone can remember and continues to this day.

The Incans seemed to have a wonderful religion from what I understand. It was truly egalitarian with a respect of all things natural with an welcoming of outsiders and their influences and a deep emphasis on personal excellence. Sure there was all the ritual sacrifice but no one said it was perfect. Besides, it`s so much easier to love a loser that has been wronged and think of what might have been than to look at the course of history and accept what actually did occur.

I thought again about my camera that I left in that cab in Buenos Aires. It would be nice to have at least one photo of Machu Piccu, but I´m still hoping the English guy Mark I met hiking around will hold true to his word and send me a couple snaps. I´m not really too concerned about it, I feel like I´ll be back. This is the kind of thing I´d like to see again with someone by my side so I can say things like ¨look how perfect the stone work is.¨ I know the poet tells us that one way leads to another and doubts that he´ll be back to retrace his steps, but we always come back to the things we truly care about.

So long Bolivia, I hardly knew ya

After a couple days enjoying the sights of Lake Titikaka (yeah I know, I like saying it too) I crossed the border and headed to Peru. This wasn´t my original plan. I was thinking of taking my time and slowly working through Bolivia and seeing all the sights and enjoying the terrible shape the Bolivian economy is in.

But for reasons that I still don´t really understand I´ve got to get to Lima faster than I originally thought. And that means running through Bolivia and Peru. Bolivia is truly a beautiful country, well atleast the parts of it that I´ve seen. It´s stuck right in the middle of the Andes mountain range and the Amazon jungle, and is home to the birthplace of the once great Incan Empire.

But even with these things going for it, Bolivia is the poorest country in South America and there is evidence of that everywhere you look. The people are generally pretty nice, which has actually been true of just about everywhere I´ve been. And based on the people I talked to they seem a little more optimisitic these days since they elected their latest President, Evo Morales.

Morales´ election is interesting for several reasons, but I find myself happy for the Bolivians because for the first time since the conquistador Pizarro ordered Atahualpa to be strangled an indigenous Andean is the head of state of this land. Given that something like 60% of Bolivia is ethnically categorized as indigenous I find this quite fascinating.

Actually Morales is the 2nd head of state in Latin America of indigenous ancestry, after his only real ally Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. And like Chavez, Morales rode to election victory by appealing to the downtrodden populus of his country and promising to defy the will of the latest would be conquistadors, the United States of America and especially our President George W. Bush.

Morales has already halted the coca erradication programs that Bolivia previously participated in and has nationalized his countries oil and gas supplies, although it remains to be seen what exactly that means. Given Morales´pedigree as a former coca-grower and current socialist none of this is too suprising.

And given my long standing history as a believer in the innate goodness of the free-market I initially felt disdain for all of this. But after talking with several Bolivians it´s hard not to sympathize with them.

They say that coca is a form of life in the harsh Andes. It helps the locals deal with the altitude, hunger and harsh weather or the this region. And just because the western world seems to love putting a refined by-product of a mostly harmless plant up their nose they don´t want have to have their lands poisoned and their way of life taken away from them.

They point to the ¨liberalization¨ of the 80´s forced upon them by the IMF and WorldBank, two institutions basically controlled by the US Government, and wonder how someone can justify the fact that the same conglomerate that forced their country to put all it had of value up for sale came and bought it that stuff on the cheap. So when Morales talks about nationalization, it resonates with the people. Even though they know they don´t have the money or expertise to truly control their own energy suplies.

Of course it´s tempting and even politically correct to point to the evil imperialists as the source of all the problems in South America, especially countries like Bolivia, but that neglects the fact that the people themselves seem to keep putting these charasmatic strong-men in charge, who lack any idealogy and inevitably degrade to being corrupted by their own power. Like most things I think the answer is not so simple that it can be summed up in the time I´m willing to devote to thinking about it.

I still believe in the power of the free-market. But sometimes I forget the inherent assumptions that underlie liberal economic theory. Economists tell us that the free-market leads to the most efficient distribution of goods assuming that all the players act rationally, perfect information is available and capital is readily available. Of course none of this holds true in the real world, and even less so in Bolivia.

Ultimately I think capitalism is a lot like democracy. The worst form of economy that exists, except all the others. I´m not sure where this leaves us, but as long as one sides continues to exploit the advantages they have, there will always be a backlash from the otherside who resents this and that will lead to what we have today. While Bolivia might not have any real ability to harm the mighty empire of the US of A, grudges last a long time and the death of a thousand pin-pricks is not any more desirable than going out with a bang.