Coffee and Ancient Stones

So the coffee man never showed up to take us to the coffee farm. A harrowing taxi ride took us to the sultry jungle-town of Caranavi, but the second leg of the trip never quite connected... This is actually pretty par for the course for Bolivian logistics--with more time, of course, we could have figured out how to get there eventually, but with only eleven days until The Return to "Reality" (AH) we just didn´t have time. We did, however, get to spend an interesting 24 hours in the metropolis of Caranavi, which was nothing like any Bolivian city I have encountered. There were no gringos whatsoever in this green, hot, sporadically rainy crossroads, but there was infinite fried chicken. Like, really. Nathaniel and I were astounded. Next to the fried chicken, there were also ladies selling pure un-sugared hunks of home-processed chocolate on the street. I crumbled this delicious jungle-fruit into my espresso while Nathaniel and I read aloud from Philip Pulman´s His Dark Materials series. (A note: I think that the quality that makes both coffee and chocolate delicious is exactly that which tastes like dirt. Coffee and chocolate are delicious dirt.)

After Caranavi another harrowing taxi ride brought us to Coroico, another jungle town (during this particular harrowing taxi ride, Nathaniel and I shared the back seat with an entire family of four). Coroico is mind-bogglingly positioned on top of a sheer jungle cliff, and it was inside of a cloud for most of our time there. Occasionally, though, I glimpsed the world and realized that I have a deep, semi-rational desire to learn to hang-glide. Nathaniel and I had one of the best fondue experiences of our lives at a little German-run fondue restaurant, I glimpsed a firefly, and I picked a coffee berry and observed with wonder and it changed from deep scarlet to brown over the course of a day.

One (final?) harrowing taxi ride later, we are back in La Paz. Today we saw some spectacular pre-Incan ruins with an amateaur archeology enthusiast, and I was reminded how much ancient civilizations baffle me. The ruins were up on the plateau (at about 4000 meters). One of the men with whom I was exploring the ancient rocks, a British-turned-Bolivian writer, was convinced that you could see stars at mid-day at that altitude... I couldn´t see any stars, so I ran my hands over the impossibly smooth masonry and thought about the scope of time. Fifteen hundred years? That´s how old these stone blocks are? What about three months? That´s how long I´ve been in Bolivia. And I´m leaving tomorrow for Peru...

La Paz

So I have left the Sucre universe behind in exchange for the for the airy mountain city of La Paz. "The Peace." The city has been somewhat quiet due to the resurrection of Jesus, but I ate a chocolate bunny and got ridiculously lost while jogging uphill with limited oxygen. I have enjoyed good food,  helped Nathaniel pick out an increasingly large stash of fine knitted alpaca "gear" for re-sale in the States, and planned out the few remaining days of "This Trip." (You know, this absurd-kaleidescope journey that's gonna be reduced to a label just like that in 16 days.) I've also purchased a strange array of cheap earrings, some of which involve colored feathers... and discovered that I have a weakness for knit leg-warmers.

Before leaving Sucre I had the immense pleasure of hiking through the mountains (my mountains?) one last time. The moon was full and deep yellow--Henrry, a guide for Condortrekkers who has come to be a dear friend, told me that the moon flickers golden like that when it's sad. I dunno... The stars were out of control before they were eclipsed by the melancholy moon, I saw silly rainbow caterpillars, I bathed in a waterfall, and I talked with Henrry about the way in which people re-interpret and express the intangible beauty of the universe. The mountains simply Were, still secretive, monolithic, just out of reach, almost breathing. And I said goodbye.

On the way back from the hike we rode in the over-packed camión. I had space for one foot on the floor of the truck, the wind whipped my hair, and a lady made my Australian friend hold a box that turned out to contain a live chicken. Then I got back to my home in Sucre, where I've lived for almost three months. I bid farewell to a beautiful community in that white-washed city and packed my life into a bag again. Movement: a beautiful, exhilarating exercise in serial heartbreak. I am addicted.

Next Nathaniel and I are planning on visiting a small organic coffee farm in the Yungas, the high altitude jungles a few hours outside of La Paz. We met the owner of the farm today--he served me a steaming delectably foamy delicious cappuccino and talked rapid-fire about his passion for coffee. His eyes were exactly the color of coffee. As a coffee aficionado, I am brimming with anticipation

Freedom=Licking Flamingoes

So I´ve left Sucre behind to be a tourist for a little bit. In particular,  I am going to roam over great expanses of salt in central Bolivia. I´m currently in the bleak, flat, high altitude town of Uyuni--we got here last night at 2 a.m. and had to wander the frigid streets with prowling dogs to find a hostel. We found one eventually, and today I enlisted, along with Nathaniel and our Swedish friend Sara, to spend the next three days voyaging across alien, salty, geyser-filled landscapes in a Jeep. Ostensibly there are flamingoes, and a glaring question has arisen in my mind: are the flamingoes salty? Clearly I am going to need to lick the flamingoes. Also, I am looking forward to learning all of the lyirics to Aladdin´s "A Whole New World" in Swedish and taking cheesy pictures of undescribable geology.

Leaving Sucre was weird. I mean I have to go back there to get my computer and my passport if nothing else, but it hurts to gradually dislodge myself from a place that has an unquestionable flavor of "home." I´ve learned to play Settlers of Catan. I´ve decorated my room, I´ve given my soul to the mountains, and all of the ladies in the market recognize me and call me mamita linda or querida caserita. The fruit lady even gives me bites of crazy exotic fruit for free every time I buy from her. And the other night we cooked a fabulous three course meal for Lidia, the secretary for Condortrekkers. It felt so much like family that it was almost uncanny. So it´s weird not to be there, but that´s how it goes, I guess: things arise and things pass away, like the ocean lapping the shore, or like huge salt lakes that evaporate over millenia and turn into enormous piles of table-salt. I will console myself by chasing incongruous pink birds through the desert in an effort to determine their flavor.

Back in Sucre

Life in Sucre continues. I recently got back from a trek with 10 French clients... One of them had a birthday during the trek, and I managed to break one of the two celebratory bottles of wine all over my sleeping bag. Henrry (the Bolivian guide) and I had to consume countless gourd-fulls of chicha (fermented corn beverage) that were given to us by a subsistence farmer because the clients didn't like it and we didn't want to offend anyone. I marveled and this one particular rock that crumbles like snow, and I think I began to better understand donkeys. I got up before five every day to prepare breakfast. I noticed the moon.

There has always been a fascinating parade of characters in the apartment where I´ve been living, but now, for various reasons, everyone has dissappeared. This means that I have been prancing about the large empty space listening to loud music and lighting candles at random. Yesterday I washed trekking dishes for hours straight--I think I may have been enlightened there for a second when I was scrubbing the stove with hot sudsy water.

I have also been reading a ridiculous amount of poetry, and thinking with some apprehension about the... (gah) future. I even got so far as filling out most of a fellowship application, but then I accidentally deleted it. Today I made a rough list of experiences that might comprise a resumé of mine and I laughed at myself a bit. The sunlight is reflecting of the white-washed walls of Sucre, and my solitude is poignant and optimistic. All is well.