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If you're looking for my daily contemporaneous writings, I've moved locations. Click HERE to get to the new blog. I'm going to keep this blog as the site for my Peruvian travelogue.

"Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art."

--Freya Stark

Thoughts and Feelings On the Cusp of Evening

Estoy muy cansado ahora mismo, no estoy acostumbrado a trabajar. He bebido un rompecalzón, y mis memorias venido inundando en mi corazon. Si, tengo un poco conmoción a mi corazon con la cambiado de cultura y lugar. Todo esta diferente aquí, la comida, la gente, todo.

Coming back to where I have all my "things" stored, I discover I have too much. I had been living out of one piece of small luggage for the past three months, and I had everything I needed, minus Chartreuse and my stereo and my drums, of course. But all this other crap, what do I need it for? All I really need is a floor to crash on, my sleeping bag, some food cooked with love, some good music, and a little glass of whisky or vino. I don't ask for much, really.

I have to admit that this "peak oil" thing really freaks me out. I've been realizing lately just how much the thought that we are quickly approaching the dawn of an apocalyptic era of reckoning has been lurking in the back of my mind and changing the way I look at everything. Everytime I think of anything remotely related to the future, I think--rather selfishly, I might add--of what I need to be doing now to be able to survive during a time in which I can no longer be dependent on corporate super-structures to supply my every need. Before I ever became aware of the idea that the world as we know it might come to an end, I had already been thinking along these lines, simply in terms of sustainable lifestyles and being less dependent on power structures which rely on inequality and suffering in order to make my life numb and complacent.
Whatever one may think of the "peak oil" thing, I think it isn't really a big secret that the world as a whole, and we in the United States in particular, will have to drastically alter our habits if we wish our grandchildren to realize the potential that many have been squandering so greedily in pursuit of fleeting comfort and rapid growth.
That is not to say that I am pessimistic in any way for the future of humanity. But I believe that if we are to face the future and its challenge to our existence, we must face it with full awareness of what the worst to come may be.
Just as I must face my own future head-on, and seek to realize what potential I carry within my heart. All of the events and people in my life have served to bring me to the point of now. There are constant decisions that I must make in order to decide who I want to be. I have been waiting long enough to be told. And now I must learn myself.

Home

Well, I'm back in my mountains, where it's cold and there's snow--although not very much this winter. I'm sick as a dog right now, inevitable I suppose after the multiple shocks to my system of the flight back, the dancing all night and drinking too much in San Francisco, and terminating my malaria anti-biotics.
It is strange to be back at work, but I don't feel any kind of "culture shock," at least, not yet. It's hard to say what I feel right now, which perhaps is due to aforementioned shock. The trip already feels very distant, almost like a dream. It's amazing how quickly the self that I was there faded into the self that I am here. It seems to have something to do with not being able to speak in Spanish any longer--my mind has quickly reverted to it's standard English thinking state. I've been writing emails in Spanish at least.
As I was driving down the 50 back from San Francisco, and ascending into thickets of pine and rocky passes, I realized how fucking beautiful it is here. Everytime I come back from somewhere else, I am always amazed. This is a truly gorgeous place and I am lucky to live here. As much as my hearts yearns for city life, I don't know how I could ever say goodbye to the crisp blue skyline punctuated by pines.

Roses for the Stone

I sunk into your love like a stone, diving to the darkest pressure-filled depths of what might become. Inside of this place I discovered the space of what we are, of what life is--all of everything a form sheltering stillness--all of everything a construction pointing to the heart of silence--all of everything a song sung to express what can never be said.
Entry into your love was like entry into the earth´s atmosphere, burning away all of what I couldn't shield. You burnt away everything that you could, razing parts of my heart, my mind--but you could not take away my future.
Love is a like a game in which you try to take away everything that the other person is so that you have something to keep, something to hold onto. Except when you approach the end with their pieces in your heart, you find that you've taken everything of yourself and thrown it out the window. As if you were sitting before a mirror, steadily and exactly destroying yourself. When you get to the peak you realize that you have been looking at yourself the whole time--and that you knew all along. Are you some kind of monster, tearing the world to pieces to find your existence?
The circles circling toward themselves can never find completion. Coming to where they think they once were, they find instead the space of the future.
Is it monstruous to seek love, and not simply to seek it, but to seek it in its fullest expression? Because love in its deepest incarnations necesitates a form of death, a scraping of the insides to mold out a hollowness that could cradle divinity.
We create fantasies to shield our minds from the burning that comes from our hearts.
I knew all of the fantasies that you created in me, and I led you through them knowing that I was leading you to your disillusion. It was in suffering that I loved you. I knew it then, and you will know it now. My heart was filled by your presence. Now you are far away, and I am empty again. I knew that I could never keep you. I gave you everything that I could in the moments that we were together. That was true, that was real. That is all that we can ever really hold onto. This knowledge of what we once had, the faith that it can and will come again. Not me, not you. What passed between us. What is passing from the base of my navel through my wind-pipe on the disposition of my tongue through the arrangement of my lips. What is flowing from the tip of my spine across the spaces of nerve endings to my fingers.
I loved you. And when I see you again,
I will love her too.

Esperando para mi vuelo

Wouldn't you know it, my flight was cancelled, so I've got another day to kill, and then I leave at 2 in the morning. If you ever make plans to fly down to South America with Lan Peru, be aware if you buy your tickets in advance that Lan Peru changes their flights constantly (my flight to Perù was also changed), and you might not find out because they don't apparently maintain much contact with travel agencies or other international airlines. Annoying as hell, it's a good thing I planned my return with a bit of leeway before I need to get back to cleaning toilets.
So I've returned to Miraflores to kill some time and enjoy some more Peruvian food before I leave for good.

Coming Home

Tonight's my last night in Perú. I'm trying to get the few people I know here in Lima together for one last meal at Pardo's Chicken. I'm sure as hell gonna miss the food here, not to mention the beautiful women, the discotecas, the exchange rate, the fruit, the jugos frescos, the warm weather, the cold showers, the pisco sours, the ever-present cheap taxis, the drivers with a death wish. . .Well, the latter one I won't miss so much.
However, I do admit to looking forward to going back to the culture I know so well and usually dislike. I'm looking forward to eating a phatty burrito and throwing some hot sauce on that shit. I'm looking forward to not having diarrhea for an extended period of time. I'm looking forward to a dark, heavy, bittersweet microbrew. I'm looking forward to articulating myself in English using big, complicated words. I'm looking forward to being able to throw my toilet paper into the toilet. Yes, all of these things. But most importantly, I am looking forward to seeing YOU--my family and my friends--again and sharing what I have been through with you and seeing your beautiful faces again and drinking some wine, or whisky, or Chartreuse with you. Oh, and yes, I have tons of pictures that I am going to make you suffer through as I describe each and every one in excruciating detail. Look forward to seeing you soon.

I was just on Google looking to see if I could find out what kind of insect bite I've got on my arm--it itches like beejesus and trails down the length of my arm, ending in a sizeable bite that seems to be steadily increasing in size. I didn't find anything on the web about it, but I did find this cool BBC site with lots of interesting facts about the jungle.

Un Beso No Es Solo Un Beso

Un beso no es solo un beso para eses personas con consiensia de la luz; un beso es lleno de sentimiento, es una extensiòn del corazon, una forma de algo no puede definir. Porque amor esta afuera todo, esta dentro de todo, esta incontenible, movimiento a travès de todo, afuera palabras, se bastado solo con manos, con contacto de cascaras--palabras se amoldado de bocas sino allende de sonidos. Amor es un creacion de la luz buscando sì mismo. En aquel momento de unidad, no es nada sino una fuerza fuerte penetrando todo, desterrando el oscuridad. Por supuesto, el oscuridad volverà, cubriendo los espacios lejos del corazon. Necesite crear amor incesantemente para su vida, para que el corazon puede recordar por que se existar, se existar solo para amor, para respirando la luz afuera sì mismo al dentro del mundo. ¡Mantena su respirando, divida la luz! ¿Que mas es en vida que cual esta dentro de su corazon?

Summation

I'm back in Lima once again, four more days until I'm home, this is the homestretch. I ate my last bit of home-cooked jungle food, cecina, platanos fritos, arroz and ensalada de cebolla, palta, y tomate, con jugo de papaya, with Rosa and then hopped onto my plane, saying goodbye for now to humidity, charapitas, and mosquitos. Iquitos was like a kind of wonderful summation of my trip to Perú--love, food, exotic drinks, and dancing. The night before I left Rosa's sister took me around the town on her moto. The wind in my face, gripping the back handles, half-assedly trying to understand the things she was saying, I felt a kind of peace settle over me as I thought about my experiences here. This trip has turned into everything that I would have wanted it to be had I scripted it out. The fact that I didn't at all makes it all the better. Without any kind of direction, it has evolved into a very balanced and full experience--I spent a good chunk of time in three very distinct and different places in Perú, representative of the 3 main types of climates here: the mountains (las sierras), the coast (la costa), and the jungle (la selva). I met incredibly hospitable people and tried all kinds of different foods typical of each region. I danced frequently and drank little (comparative to my normal alcohol intake). I gained a functional ability in the usage of Castellano. And ten million other little things that make up the stars in the sky. Because these memories will light up whatever darkness of solitude I may suffer in the year to come. Did I say memories? It doesn't seem like the right term. Memories are something in the past. I feel like there are things on this journey that I picked up that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, that will grow inside of my heart because they dug out a little space for themselves there. Anyone who can burrow their way into love will stay there forever if this is where they would like to be. The doors are open and here wine is served 24 hours. Why go home again when you can be drunk all the time with the friend?

Salsa de Cocona

I think I'm starting to get the hang of the salsa beat, a little bit at least. You've got to get one cheek of the buttock swinging forward on the cusp of that double conga swat as you move the foot up, then conversely step back and hit the next conga swat with the other buttock. Of course, I might be totally wrong on that one, but it felt a lot better for me, as if my ass was finally starting to make it's first forays into a fuller understanding of the rhythm. I just went out for what may prove to be my last dancing stint in Iquitos, I'm really going to miss these damn discotecas here with their live orchestral groups. I'm so fond of the local music, in fact, that I'm going to see about getting me a disco compacto of some of that shit. Once you've got you're ass shaking to it, you forgive a lot of whatever aspects of cheesiness there may be to it's little jumpy synthesizer licks.
I discovered that cocona not only refers to the fruit, which is delicious, but also to a certain female body part. When I was in the jungle, the 70 year old cook (who made some great basic typical foods (always with the required side dish of platanos fritos of course)) was asking me if I liked cocona, when I had said that I had tried jugo de cocona, and I didn't understand why they all started laughing when I avidly replied "¡sì, mucho!"
I also learned from my guide the meaning of rompecalzon, one of the tragos (local drinks mixed with aguardiente that double as aphrodesiacs). It refers to the forceful removal of underwear, suggesting that to drink of this potent elixir is to be infused with sudden and intense sexual energy. I don't know about that, it is possible it has that effect, although I just thought it was the hot women and the extreme humidity. I just kind of like the taste. It's funny though because I'd been ordering this drink for a while here without knowing the meaning. Now I feel a little weird when I order it, like I'm asking for a viagra or something.
Just one more night and day to enjoy this little slice of jungle life and then it's back to the big city.

Cosmic Cookbook

My friend Ank just finished a cookbook, and I highly recommend you obtain a copy for yourself and spread the love.

The Promise

Laying in my hammock in the jungle, listening to the gallìnas crow and the insects whirring and feeling my blood slowly draining through the continuous multiple straw sucks of the mosquitoes, I began to think of my journeys in Perù and of how these experiences have changed me. I really do not feel like the same person that I was when I came here. The windows opened to the vistas of a new world have shed light onto another person dwelling inside of me--there all along, of course. Once I return to the habits and customs of my nation of birth, I wonder how long these changes can persist. But that is perhaps not so important. What is important is that I have seen these new horizons at all and that I know now that they can exist.
I have been so blessed on these travels, given so much by so many people, that it would be impossible for me not to be changed. When one's life has been filled with blessings, there is nothing to do but try to find some way to fufill the promise and opportunity these blessings have bestowed. Because I know that there has to be some kind of karmic payment for all of this wonderfulness. Maybe some of this debt has already been payed and this is the reward, I don't really know, but what I do know is that I am humbled in the face of gifts that are beyond anything that I could have expected. All I can do is try to find a way to give this love back to other people and spread the light around.

Amor Como el Ocèano

Love is like an ocean, somehow keeping you afloat in the midst of continuous swelling and ebbing change. Like an ocean, it accepts everything, the only rejection coming from the mind that fears the heart that is opening to suffering like a flower. Yes, love comes from all places and goes in all directions, dependant solely on the circumstance of placement, the happening of a moment in time when skin contacts skin and knows again the truth that it is one, has always been one, and with this can be prepared to break again in two. Breaking breaking to know the source.
The mind always strives for eternity, to make this thing last forever. The heart knows that tomorrow isn't really all that important, not when the beloved is right here next to you and inside of your heart. Tomorrow, yes, of course, will be full of suffering. But what would be the point in attainment of ecstasy if it could be retained? Simply hollow echoes resounding without resolution. You reach a point where you are outside of yourself, watching yourself become what you are, a piece of human history reenacting the drama of life.
Dive in headfirst, because then at least when the cold hits you it will be complete, without fear, and met with grace.

Back in the Rubber Boom Town

In the jungle, during the night (well, all the time, actually, but it's more prominent in the night-time) the insects weave patterns and textures of sound so sinuous, repetitive, and geometric that it's almost visible to the eye, these frequencies crafted of the wing. The air is so dank it's hard to breathe, and you feel as if you are in the midst of a dream as you walk through the dense growth of neon green trees ripe with bananas, anonas, pijuayos. Apparently I have sangre dulce (sweet blood), because I was needled into by so many mosquitos that my feet look like they've broken out in hives and my arms look like the tracked up veins of a junkie. Of course, this is what occurs when you are not from the jungle and you do not slobber on repellent. Yes, I elected to forgo the repellent, mainly because the one time I did try putting it on it had no effect whatsoever, probably because I sweat it right back off. I figured that I needed to put these anti-malarial pills to work anyway, and the bites aren't so terrible as long as you don't scratch them (impossible, unfortunately, with the feet, which are rubbed constantly by my sandals as I walk). So at the lodge I stayed at, I basically laid around in my hammock sweating and eating different jungle fruits while watching mosquitos draw pints from my blood like it was happy hour.
Some new vocab for ya: Caimito--a yellow/green fruit with very sweet, refreshing, and extremely sticky fruit. After you eat it, your fingers and your lips almost stick together. Mamey--actually a pomerosa, but called Mamey anyway, this tree bears these shockingly pink spinal flores that scatter in a heap beneath it, providing a stark and beautiful contrast with its green surroundings. Maracuya--another fruit, somewhat like my beloved granadilla--I tried some of its juice, very refreshing on a hot sunny day en la selva. Anona--green in appearance until it is ripe, when it turns slightly yellow, this fruit looks exotic with little tendril hooks curling from its rubber-like surface, and it tastes like pudding. In fact, the taste and texture and seeds of the fruit of the anona is very similar to that of the chirimoya, another of my favorites. I ate like 10 of these things while at the albergue. It's like dessert. Mata-mata--a prehistoric jungle turtle, it's head looks like a hammerhead shark and it's got a very long neck. Pijuayo--a tree growing in the jungle that bears two wonderful gifts--chonta--the heart of its trunk--is delicious and served commonly in salads with limòn and salt, and it's fruits--also called pijuayos--are like little tiny sweet potatoes ready to eat--you pry them open and then dab a little cocona salsa on them. Tasty.
Like I said, this place is paradise as far as I'm concerned. Now that I've made a few friends I'm going to stick it out for another 5 days, giving me only 3 days more in Lima before I head back home.

Un Otro dìa en Paraiso

Another day in paradise. Today I met up with my friend Rosa and she and her friend Judy cooked me up some pescado with aji and arroz, with cocona salsa and platanos fritos, served with some jugo de cocona as a refresco. There's nothing quite like getting comida tipica cooked fresh for you by beautiful women. Then Rosa took me to Lake Quistacocha, a beautiful laguna a little ways outside of town, where they've got all sorts of various jungle animals such as pumas and monkeys stuffed into tiny little cages. I felt sorry for the animals, but it was nice to see them since it's pretty rare to see much in the jungle unless you spend over a week venturing deep into the heart of it. So tomorrow I'm off to la selva--you won't hear from me in four days.
The jungle term for hot peppers is charapitas. This term could also be used to denote the Iquiteñas. It also refers to small turtles.
Last night again I went out to dance, apparently in Iquitos there are a couple of big orchestral groups that play mostly the same songs, and they've got their own large dancehalls as well. The first group I saw was called Kaliente; last night the group was Explosiòn. Both groups have a trio of dancers up on stage wearing next to nothing and swinging their asses as if they've got prehensile buttocks. Last night I was too tired to really shake anything too much, however. I was feeling heavy and 100% gringo as I feebly tried to step in the appropriate time signature to salsa music.

Letting yourself go makes everyone happy

Wow, tonight has to have been one of the most interesting booty shaking experiences I've had in Perù thus far, mainly due to the fact that in the midst of a crowd of Iquiteños I was the only gringo in sight, and I was dancing my little white ass off. This girl Lorena and her little sister took me out to a local joint where there was a local group playing live cumbía, merengue, salsa, chincha, etc. I love it when Peruvians look kind of dumbfounded when they realize that I can shake my hips like there's no tomorrow to musica latina.
I'm impressed with the people in general here in Iquitos, they are amazingly laid-back and accepting. In other places that I've been to sometimes I get the "what's the gringo doing here?" kind of vibe (to other places' credit, not very much of this) but in Iquitos, I just get hot eyes from a few of the chicas and smiles and maybe just a little bit of query in some looks but not in an unfriendly way. People here don't seem to have many hang-ups other than driving their mototaxis like they think they're in Ben-Hur. It's got to be the year-round heat that makes people so laid back. Iquitos really is another world apart from the rest of Peru, which is not all that surprising I guess since it's only accessible by boat or by airplane. And did I mention that the women are phenomenally beautiful here? It's almost obscene. It's somewhat perturbing because many of these Iquiteñas seem to be deliberately looking to bag themselves a gringo husband. There seems to be a kind of expat Texan scene for that kind of thing--you know, get yourself a hot young Amazonian wife and buy a restaurant and drink cervezas all day.
So it's 1:30 in the morning now and I guess about time for me to head back to the hostal. Man, I love shaking the booty, I always feel so damn good afterwards, like I just wrote a cohesive thesis on the half-lives of diaphanous insects or something. It's just one of those pure expressions of being, of being alive, of being filled with the light, of passing and sharing this light with everyone around you. What I love most about it is how you can almost visually watch the dynamic of the whole crowd change with the influx of positive vibes from an individual dancer who is letting loose. Letting yourself go makes everyone happy.

Belen

Booze, Aphrodesiacs, and Intellectual Conversation

Yesterday I took a boat out to a butterfly farm, where they also had a bunch of rescued jungle animals such as a jaguar, giant rats, a tapir, a manitee, an anteater, and several monkeys--one of whom, Tommy, kept jumping onto our shoulders and licking the sweat off our necks. I met some guys from New York at the farm, they work in the independent film industry. We ended up running into each other again later at a bar, where I was trying all the different types of jungle concoctions that double both as alcholic beverages and aphrodesiacs. There´s uño de gato, rompecalzones, uva-chado, 7 raices, 21 raices, and chuchuhuasi, all rather medicinal but interesting tasting drinks that consist of aguardiente, a potent rum made from sugarcane, mixed with different types of roots or bark or whatever, depending on the drink. It definitely gave me a little heat on the inside, coupled with my already sun reddened face. Unfortunately my malaria pills make me even more sensitive to the sun than my pale skin of scandinavian heritage already curses me with, and it's basically pointless to use sunscreen because I'll just sweat it off within 5 minutes.
Anyway, so we met up with a friend of the New Yorkers who has been living in Iquitos for 6 months and doing medical work, and we made our way over to another bar that he knew about that was right over the water in a little jungle shack kind of structure--perfect for boozing it up in the midst of shirt drenching humidity. I think it was last night when it really began to dawn on me that I may be in some kind of paradise here.
Of course, being with New Yorkers, we had to have involved conversations about things like David Bowie, films, relationships and DP, and other random tidbits of intellectual cultural topics, the sort of which I hadn't had in quite some time--let alone any extended conversations in English. We got pretty good and smashed. We ended up returning to the first bar where I talked until 1 in the morning with the bartendress. You know, I had been thinking that my spanish was getting fairly good, just moving past the 'hablo un poco' level, but now that I'm in a new place, my ability again has gone back to the 'hablo muy poquito' level because they speak differently here--much faster without anunciation, usually while some kind of radio music is blasting in the background.
I just scheduled this morning to stay for 4 days in a lodge in the Amazon. I'm going to head out on Sunday, I wanted to give myself the weekend to go out and shake the booty.

Jungle Juice

Iquitos is definitely a different world than the Perù that I've seen thus far. It is much more laid-back here, and the tourist feeding industry is not quite as rampant and savage as it was in Qosqo, maybe because it is a dead season for tourism here right now. The only other English speaking tourist that I've seen thus far was a girl from Wales who cornered me when I got off the plane to take a taxi with her into town. I accompanied her to her backpackers hostal to see if I wanted to stay there too, took one look at the room, and peaced out. Why would you pay 17 soles per night for a room with ten other people when you can pay 20 soles per night for a room and a bathroom to yourself?
People warned me about the women in Iquitos before I came here. Yeah, they are kind of aggressive. I go to eat lunch and the waitresses will linger next to my table making small talk and then try to set appointments to meet later on. I don't mind the attention though.
These malaria pills are kind of zoning me out when mixed with cervezas. I'm contemplating terminating the pills, because there's not really any mosquitos in Iquitos. I suppose it will come in handy when I venture into the jungle. I was just talking to a lady (who seemed to be quite honest because I talked with her for an hour) about staying in her lodge in the Amazon for 20 dollars a night. Seems like a pretty good price to me.
The interesting thing about Iquitos is that it still kind of retains that feeling of the rubber boom era, I feel like I'm in a Joseph Conrad book when I walk around here, other than for the everpresent roar of motorcycles and mototaxis through the streets.
I just went walking around looking for a bar to sit and quaff a few at, and found a little joint playing some of that sad kind of romantic music that Cesaria Evora sings. I ordered me a siete raices, an alcoholic beverage made with 7 roots that I believe also serves as an aphrodesiac, and that tastes like the wilder, stronger cousin of a bloody mary. Some older ladies came and sat at my table. This one lady kept saying slurred things to me in Spanish that I couldn't understand, and then she was trying to get me to dance with her. Did I say the women are aggressive here? This old fat lady with missing teeth was tugging on my arm, not to be denied. But I had to turn her down, even with the siete raices coursing through my system.