I am in a town called Espinar nestled in the altiplano between Cusco and Arequipa. After getting hailed on the last two days, I decided it was time for a break so here I am. I have rain gear and a helmet to mitigate the effect of the hail but it is still not any fun to deal with. I have also learned that a good 30-minute hail storm will decrease the temperature significantly.
With all that said, I am extatic to report that my tent is functioning well and that my engineering solution seems to have done the trick. All I can say is that if you need epoxy putty to be pliable use the stuff that is an actual putty instead of a paste before it dries. I am hoping that my tent will not require any more fixes but, if it does, I have an extra pole to fix it with. I have so far used my tent for every night except one since I left Cusco and it has rained almost every night. Staying dry and warm when it is cold keeps my spirits high.
I went through the usual remote rural areas to get to Espinar. The people here don't have a lot of material possessions but they eat well and they have electricity. This was evidenced by the numerous hydroelectric power stations and ample flocks of cows and sheep. This doesn't stop children from begging me aggressively for money. As I ride by, the children beg me incessantly for "propinas." Considering that the word propina means tip, I wonder what they expect to be tipped for. I have been able to leave these kids behind but their aggressiveness is worrisome. Some of the kids were carrying shovels which could readily be used as weapons. I have also read stories from other cyclist about the kids throwing rocks when they don't get their "propina." It is a small step to go from aggressively begging people for money to assaulting them. Rest assured that I have no qualms about beating one, or several, of these children mercilessly if they became threatening in any way. When I am on my own, I have to follow the law of the jungle instead of any ethical code. Fortunately, I have been able to avoid having to do that but I have definitely heard stories about large groups of adolescents who roam around looking for people to assault and steal from. They are colloquially called "piranas" because of the nature of their attacks.
I am continuing on but I am weary of others as I am definitely an outsider here. I hear Quechua more commonly spoken here than Spanish. One of the aggressive panhandlers seemed to barely speak Spanish at all. He first started speaking to me in Quechua and, when I asked him if he spoke Spanish, said in broken Spanish, "What a pretty bike. Sell it to me." When I politely refused he started asking me to give him money and even ran aside me while begging. I left him behind but I am questioning whether my policy of civility towards all needs a little revision. I think that instead of meekly saying, "I am sorry. I don't have enough money for you." I should say something like, " I will not give you any money and if you don't want any trouble with me you should leave me alone." I am inherently a nice person but I also have a mean, vicious side and I not afraid to flash my teeth if necessary.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Stuck in Cusco, Watching the World Collapse, and Jamming Out to Some Amazing Cumbias
The road from Nazca to Cusco is long, desolate, and spectacularly beautiful. It transitions from a dry, hot, and mostly lifeless desert ecosystem to a cold and wet mountain ecosystem filled with vicuñas, vizcachas, and alpacas. After riding in an oven for so long, I now had to ride through a giant refrigerator. The top is particularly beautiful. I passed by dozens of small, natural lakes filled with fish and exotic waterfowl and backed by snow-capped mountains. Except for the obvious exception of the road, most of this area is untouched by man, left to the whims of nature.
The road keeps climbing and climbing and then climbing some more after all of the previous climbing. When I finally topped out I rolled over 14,900 feet only to discover that the top was a actually a large rolling pampa and I topped out over 14,900 feet four mour times over some 40 or 50 kilometers. It was sleeting and snowing at the top but the frozen precipitation didn't stay frozen so I didn't get to travel through quite the winter wonder-land that I wanted to. Being that the pampa at the top was so large, I ended up camping at 14,600 feet which is most definitely cold.
The next morning something disastrous happened: my tent broke. Like almost all tents, my tent has collapsible poles which form an exoskeleton to the structure of my tent. Without the exoskeleton intact the structure fails and this was, alas, exactly the problem that I faced. I was still in the middle of nowhere when my tent failed but I thought that I could McGuyver a solution to this problem so I wasn't too worried about my situation, yet. That day, I finally reached the point where I descended more than I ascended after only 250 kilometers of mostly uphill riding. I still couldn't reach civilization though. I was still at over 13,000 feet with a little more climbing to do when it started to rain so I decided to figure out how to make my tent stand. I ended up doubling over a bicycle spoke and a piece of fence I had clipped off and inserted them into the broken pole with the hope of erecting some semblance of a shelter from the cold rain. Inside the tent, I covered my sleeping bag with a large plastic tarp I had acquired and hoped that the tent wouldn't collapse from the wind that was making it lean to one side. Getting wet and getting all of my winter gear wet in this kind of environment would lead to disastrous consequences.
I was able to tough out the night and stay dry but I knew that I was going to have to do something about my tent soon or I would have to catch a ride to the nearest city and try to find a solution there. When I made it to the small town of Challhuanca, I finally made it to a place with ferreterias and internet, let alone electricity and plumbing. When I was able to check my email after a long absence from civilization I discovered some very unpleasant news. Someone had, somehow, stolen my debit card number and was using it to make cash withdrawls in Virginia, unbeknownst to me. The bank had, in response, frozen my bank account and filed fraud documents so I could recuperate the money that was taken from me. This was especially worrisome to me not because of the identity fraud but because my debit card is my only convenient access to my bank account and I was running low on cash after going for a long time without having access to an A.T.M. machine. To make matters worse for me, the simple hardware solution I had devised for fixing my tent only made the problem worse and rendered my tent completely non-functional. I had encountered a problem which I couldn't fix on the fly and I had to do what I least like to do on this trip which is hitch a ride.
The ride from Challhuanca to Abancay was mercifully cheap, only costing $3 for almost 150 kilometers of road. Defeated by the force of entropy, I had to accept the boxed-in view of beautiful mountain scenery from inside a cramped van instead of the panoramic views I was so used to. In Abancay, I was able to contact the bank and my mother and clarify exactly what was happening with my bank account and whether I could still use my card in A.T.M. machines. Fortunately, I was able to get more cash out of A.T.M. machines. I just couldn't use my card for credit card transactions. As Abancay is not a good place to deal with the ongoing banking and tent issues. I caught another ride to Cusco since it has more developed tourism infrastructure and is the location of a U.S. Consular office. I have been stuck in Cusco for about a week and a half now, impatiently waiting for a new debit card and replacement poles for my tent. I can't wait to get back on the road again.
As a tourist who has had the unique opportunity to pass through parts of Peru with absolutely no tourism infrastructure, I have seen what I think is the authentic Peru. All the tourist areas like Cusco, Huaràz, Nazca, Huacachina, and parts of Lima have these superficial façades of luxury that are hard to find elsewhere. Moreover, the people in these areas seem to smile at you as if their smile were only part of an elaborate mask. In all of my travels thus far, I have discovered that one is much more likely to be assaulted, robbed, or conned in these areas than outside of them.
The tourist areas stand in stark contrast to the countryside. The people in these areas are poor but they seem like they are but a stones-throw from sainthood because they are so honest, friendly, and uncorrupted by civilization. I saw many people dressed in indigenous clothing and living a way of life similar, no doubt, to how they have lived for thousands of years herding alpacas. When the herd would get to close to the road the alpaca shepherds would hurl a rock towards the edge of road with a sling weapon which they have probably used for thousands of years. The people in the mountains are mostly bilingual, speaking Quechua amongst themselves and Spanish among strangers. There were places I stopped to eat something where large groups of children would come stare at me in amazement. This was annoying but in all fairness to the kids, I was probably the first blue-eyed devil they had ever seen in their lives. Now that I am in Cusco, I miss travelling through the countryside. I have to worry that people I encounter are just masked conmen trying to liberate me from my money.
I don't mean to say that Cusco is a shithole or anything. There are some very nice restuarants that are very cheap compared to the U.S. or Europe. There is also a small measure of authenticity to the city. One can go to the central marketplace and purchase not only San Pedro cactus but also pure powdered mescalline and ayahuasca. I haven't found any fresh milk yet but I am still looking for it. In the countryside, the milk is so fresh and unprocessed that Bessie is mooing out back and you can see curds floating in the top. Once I, finally, hit the road again I hope to pass through more places that are similar to the small villages between Nazca and Cusco.
My thirtieth birthday is fast approaching at the end of this month. I am not exstatic about the prospect of turning thirty but aging is a fact of life. Like many thirty-year-olds I am taking stock of my life and the world around me. So many of my friends are getting married and having children that it is kind of alarming. I remain blissfully single. I have come to several conclusions about what kind of paths I am going to pursue from this point in the road. Since I generally prefer travelling of the Odyssian variety rather than the wam-bam-thank-you-mamn variety I have decided that I don't have enough time to get married, have children, and get a soul-crushing job in corporate America and a house with a white-picket fence. I will never work more than 40 hours a week from now on. All the time wasted while working is better wasted travelling or pursuing your passions. In some ways, I am a little boy who refuses to grow up. In other ways I am a fully mature grown man. While America was spending money like a junkie with a stolen credit card, I was saving money. I paid off my college debt a week before I graduated from the money I earned while working the entire time I was in school. Yes, I have no personal career ambition but I don't have to since I have no debt at all. My ambition is to live as stress-free a life as possible and to spend as much time as possible pursuing my passions. The American dream was never a dream to me but always a nightmare even before it was exposed as the sham that it is. Rather than focus my energy on consuming resources I am going to pursue leisure and savor every last moment I have on this planet. I am only hoping that the prolonged recession that we are going through helps people realign their priorities away from consumption and towards leisure. It would be nice to feel like I am part of a community rather than feel like an outsider as I do now.
One of the things that I am extremely passionate about is music. For me music is a holy, sacred thing. To me, all of the modern commercial pop acts aren't just making bad music. They are committing blasphemy by soiling the airwaves with the audial flatulence that they have the gall to call music. I love the way good music inspires people across borders. It has no respect for the artificial boundaries that humanity has created. I love it when someone in some far-flung corner of the globe hears music from another part of the world and wants to recreate the sound and then make it their own. Rock and roll may have been born in the United States but it, in no respect, belongs to it. In that same respect, I have to say that I am completely inspired by Latin music in general but more specifically cumbia. I think I am going to make it a point of mine to spread my love for this beautiful music as much as possible. I am even thinking of trying to start a cumbia band when I return to the states a couple of years from now.
My minor obsession with cumbia has caused me to spend countless hours online trying to find out information about my favorite cumbia bands and the evolution of its sound. Sadly, there don't seem to be a lot of good sources for information about cumbia online. I have, nonetheless, been able to get to the point where I feel that I have a pretty good understanding of the roots of cumbia and I would like to share that with all of my loyal readers. In the interest of brevity, I will shortly discuss some of the better known pioneers of cumbia through the 1970s.
Cumbia had developed over centuries on the northern coast of Colombia but was considered a lower class music until the great maestro Lucho Bermudez recorded in the early 40s what was the first comercially successful cumbia named Prende la Vela. It was through the efforts of the first generation of cumbia bandleaders and composers that cumbia became more than just a regional music. Besides Lucho Bermudez, other noted musicians and composers from this first generation of cumbia include Jose Barros and Pedro Laza. I think I should point out that Colombia was an important center of Latin music at the time and still is. Lucho Bermudez was from Colombia but he lived in Mexico and Cuba where he met such Latin music greats as Perez Prado and Celia Cruz. Sonora Matancera, the famous Cuban group where Celia Cruz got her start, recorded at least one composition by Jose Barros.
Cumbia was still relatively isolated to Colombia until the sixties when groups like Sonora Dinamita and Los Corraleros de Majagual toured Latin America, spreading cumbia's popularity. I like the name of the Corraleros so much that I want my band's name to be Los Fumaleros de Ganjamual. By the end of the decade, Peru had taken the cumbia and created a very new sound. As far as I know, the Peruvian cumbia bands were the first such bands to use an electric guitar in cumbia. The sound of Peruvian coastal cumbias sounded like a fusion of surf music (The Ventures and Dick Dale not the Beach Boys) and cumbia. Los Destellos is probably the best known of these Peruvian cumbia pioneers but there were many other bands providing their contributions to cumbia.
In the eastern part of Peru, there was yet another sub-genre of cumbia that was created during the sixties. It is the cumbia amazonica of Juaneco and Los Mirlos. I still can't verbalize the difference between their music and that of the other Peruvian cumbia bands but it is definitely different than the rest.
Cumbia, to this day, continues to grow and branch off into new music but its sound still has links to the early days of the cumbia. Discos Fuentes, which was responsible for the recording of a large majority of early cumbias, is still in operation today. Like all music, there is a lot of bad, commercialized cumbia out there but there are also many groups that are still producing a lot of good music.
The road keeps climbing and climbing and then climbing some more after all of the previous climbing. When I finally topped out I rolled over 14,900 feet only to discover that the top was a actually a large rolling pampa and I topped out over 14,900 feet four mour times over some 40 or 50 kilometers. It was sleeting and snowing at the top but the frozen precipitation didn't stay frozen so I didn't get to travel through quite the winter wonder-land that I wanted to. Being that the pampa at the top was so large, I ended up camping at 14,600 feet which is most definitely cold.
The next morning something disastrous happened: my tent broke. Like almost all tents, my tent has collapsible poles which form an exoskeleton to the structure of my tent. Without the exoskeleton intact the structure fails and this was, alas, exactly the problem that I faced. I was still in the middle of nowhere when my tent failed but I thought that I could McGuyver a solution to this problem so I wasn't too worried about my situation, yet. That day, I finally reached the point where I descended more than I ascended after only 250 kilometers of mostly uphill riding. I still couldn't reach civilization though. I was still at over 13,000 feet with a little more climbing to do when it started to rain so I decided to figure out how to make my tent stand. I ended up doubling over a bicycle spoke and a piece of fence I had clipped off and inserted them into the broken pole with the hope of erecting some semblance of a shelter from the cold rain. Inside the tent, I covered my sleeping bag with a large plastic tarp I had acquired and hoped that the tent wouldn't collapse from the wind that was making it lean to one side. Getting wet and getting all of my winter gear wet in this kind of environment would lead to disastrous consequences.
I was able to tough out the night and stay dry but I knew that I was going to have to do something about my tent soon or I would have to catch a ride to the nearest city and try to find a solution there. When I made it to the small town of Challhuanca, I finally made it to a place with ferreterias and internet, let alone electricity and plumbing. When I was able to check my email after a long absence from civilization I discovered some very unpleasant news. Someone had, somehow, stolen my debit card number and was using it to make cash withdrawls in Virginia, unbeknownst to me. The bank had, in response, frozen my bank account and filed fraud documents so I could recuperate the money that was taken from me. This was especially worrisome to me not because of the identity fraud but because my debit card is my only convenient access to my bank account and I was running low on cash after going for a long time without having access to an A.T.M. machine. To make matters worse for me, the simple hardware solution I had devised for fixing my tent only made the problem worse and rendered my tent completely non-functional. I had encountered a problem which I couldn't fix on the fly and I had to do what I least like to do on this trip which is hitch a ride.
The ride from Challhuanca to Abancay was mercifully cheap, only costing $3 for almost 150 kilometers of road. Defeated by the force of entropy, I had to accept the boxed-in view of beautiful mountain scenery from inside a cramped van instead of the panoramic views I was so used to. In Abancay, I was able to contact the bank and my mother and clarify exactly what was happening with my bank account and whether I could still use my card in A.T.M. machines. Fortunately, I was able to get more cash out of A.T.M. machines. I just couldn't use my card for credit card transactions. As Abancay is not a good place to deal with the ongoing banking and tent issues. I caught another ride to Cusco since it has more developed tourism infrastructure and is the location of a U.S. Consular office. I have been stuck in Cusco for about a week and a half now, impatiently waiting for a new debit card and replacement poles for my tent. I can't wait to get back on the road again.
As a tourist who has had the unique opportunity to pass through parts of Peru with absolutely no tourism infrastructure, I have seen what I think is the authentic Peru. All the tourist areas like Cusco, Huaràz, Nazca, Huacachina, and parts of Lima have these superficial façades of luxury that are hard to find elsewhere. Moreover, the people in these areas seem to smile at you as if their smile were only part of an elaborate mask. In all of my travels thus far, I have discovered that one is much more likely to be assaulted, robbed, or conned in these areas than outside of them.
The tourist areas stand in stark contrast to the countryside. The people in these areas are poor but they seem like they are but a stones-throw from sainthood because they are so honest, friendly, and uncorrupted by civilization. I saw many people dressed in indigenous clothing and living a way of life similar, no doubt, to how they have lived for thousands of years herding alpacas. When the herd would get to close to the road the alpaca shepherds would hurl a rock towards the edge of road with a sling weapon which they have probably used for thousands of years. The people in the mountains are mostly bilingual, speaking Quechua amongst themselves and Spanish among strangers. There were places I stopped to eat something where large groups of children would come stare at me in amazement. This was annoying but in all fairness to the kids, I was probably the first blue-eyed devil they had ever seen in their lives. Now that I am in Cusco, I miss travelling through the countryside. I have to worry that people I encounter are just masked conmen trying to liberate me from my money.
I don't mean to say that Cusco is a shithole or anything. There are some very nice restuarants that are very cheap compared to the U.S. or Europe. There is also a small measure of authenticity to the city. One can go to the central marketplace and purchase not only San Pedro cactus but also pure powdered mescalline and ayahuasca. I haven't found any fresh milk yet but I am still looking for it. In the countryside, the milk is so fresh and unprocessed that Bessie is mooing out back and you can see curds floating in the top. Once I, finally, hit the road again I hope to pass through more places that are similar to the small villages between Nazca and Cusco.
My thirtieth birthday is fast approaching at the end of this month. I am not exstatic about the prospect of turning thirty but aging is a fact of life. Like many thirty-year-olds I am taking stock of my life and the world around me. So many of my friends are getting married and having children that it is kind of alarming. I remain blissfully single. I have come to several conclusions about what kind of paths I am going to pursue from this point in the road. Since I generally prefer travelling of the Odyssian variety rather than the wam-bam-thank-you-mamn variety I have decided that I don't have enough time to get married, have children, and get a soul-crushing job in corporate America and a house with a white-picket fence. I will never work more than 40 hours a week from now on. All the time wasted while working is better wasted travelling or pursuing your passions. In some ways, I am a little boy who refuses to grow up. In other ways I am a fully mature grown man. While America was spending money like a junkie with a stolen credit card, I was saving money. I paid off my college debt a week before I graduated from the money I earned while working the entire time I was in school. Yes, I have no personal career ambition but I don't have to since I have no debt at all. My ambition is to live as stress-free a life as possible and to spend as much time as possible pursuing my passions. The American dream was never a dream to me but always a nightmare even before it was exposed as the sham that it is. Rather than focus my energy on consuming resources I am going to pursue leisure and savor every last moment I have on this planet. I am only hoping that the prolonged recession that we are going through helps people realign their priorities away from consumption and towards leisure. It would be nice to feel like I am part of a community rather than feel like an outsider as I do now.
One of the things that I am extremely passionate about is music. For me music is a holy, sacred thing. To me, all of the modern commercial pop acts aren't just making bad music. They are committing blasphemy by soiling the airwaves with the audial flatulence that they have the gall to call music. I love the way good music inspires people across borders. It has no respect for the artificial boundaries that humanity has created. I love it when someone in some far-flung corner of the globe hears music from another part of the world and wants to recreate the sound and then make it their own. Rock and roll may have been born in the United States but it, in no respect, belongs to it. In that same respect, I have to say that I am completely inspired by Latin music in general but more specifically cumbia. I think I am going to make it a point of mine to spread my love for this beautiful music as much as possible. I am even thinking of trying to start a cumbia band when I return to the states a couple of years from now.
My minor obsession with cumbia has caused me to spend countless hours online trying to find out information about my favorite cumbia bands and the evolution of its sound. Sadly, there don't seem to be a lot of good sources for information about cumbia online. I have, nonetheless, been able to get to the point where I feel that I have a pretty good understanding of the roots of cumbia and I would like to share that with all of my loyal readers. In the interest of brevity, I will shortly discuss some of the better known pioneers of cumbia through the 1970s.
Cumbia had developed over centuries on the northern coast of Colombia but was considered a lower class music until the great maestro Lucho Bermudez recorded in the early 40s what was the first comercially successful cumbia named Prende la Vela. It was through the efforts of the first generation of cumbia bandleaders and composers that cumbia became more than just a regional music. Besides Lucho Bermudez, other noted musicians and composers from this first generation of cumbia include Jose Barros and Pedro Laza. I think I should point out that Colombia was an important center of Latin music at the time and still is. Lucho Bermudez was from Colombia but he lived in Mexico and Cuba where he met such Latin music greats as Perez Prado and Celia Cruz. Sonora Matancera, the famous Cuban group where Celia Cruz got her start, recorded at least one composition by Jose Barros.
Cumbia was still relatively isolated to Colombia until the sixties when groups like Sonora Dinamita and Los Corraleros de Majagual toured Latin America, spreading cumbia's popularity. I like the name of the Corraleros so much that I want my band's name to be Los Fumaleros de Ganjamual. By the end of the decade, Peru had taken the cumbia and created a very new sound. As far as I know, the Peruvian cumbia bands were the first such bands to use an electric guitar in cumbia. The sound of Peruvian coastal cumbias sounded like a fusion of surf music (The Ventures and Dick Dale not the Beach Boys) and cumbia. Los Destellos is probably the best known of these Peruvian cumbia pioneers but there were many other bands providing their contributions to cumbia.
In the eastern part of Peru, there was yet another sub-genre of cumbia that was created during the sixties. It is the cumbia amazonica of Juaneco and Los Mirlos. I still can't verbalize the difference between their music and that of the other Peruvian cumbia bands but it is definitely different than the rest.
Cumbia, to this day, continues to grow and branch off into new music but its sound still has links to the early days of the cumbia. Discos Fuentes, which was responsible for the recording of a large majority of early cumbias, is still in operation today. Like all music, there is a lot of bad, commercialized cumbia out there but there are also many groups that are still producing a lot of good music.
Monday, December 29, 2008
The Plight of the Palestinians; Santa Claus; and Lima, Peru
I was cut off from the news for a couple of days but, when I reentered civilization from the desert again, I was horrified to see that the Israeli government had unleashed a massacre against the Palestinians in Gaza in what seems to me to be a typical Israeli overreaction to Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens. They responded to the Palestinian's firing of mortars, which are essentially high falutin bottle-rockets compared to the Israeli weaponry supplied by the U.S., by launching a full-scale air assault on the Gaza strip. Seeing the typical pro-Israeli bias in the U.S. press I can't help but ask a question: if a child walked up to a full-grown man and started punching him and the man responded by stabbing the child in the throat, who is more culpable, the child who did the provoking or the man who did the stabbing? The fact is that Palestinian actions are a nuisance while the Israeli actions are far more serious and far more worthy of condemnation.
Let's have some fun with numbers. First off, according to The Economist, about 420 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli operations in the Gaza strip before the current slaughter of its caged inhabitants. Of those 420, about a fifth of them are believed to be civilians. The current death toll of Palestinians during the last couple of days is about 390 and rising. Does anyone want to guess the number of Israelis killed by these rocket attacks all year? The number of Israeli deaths comes to a grand total of five, four of those being during the current Israeli offensive. According to an article in MSN, about 700,000 Israelis live within range of Hamas's homemade rockets. So that means, for the year, the chances of an Israeli being killed by rocket fire is about 5 out of 700,000. I thought to myself, "That is funny, the population of Austin is about 700,000." and I couldn't help but wonder what the murder rate of Austin is. With a quick google search, I found out that, in 2003, there were 27 murders out of a population of 682,316 people. That means your chance of getting murdered in Austin is higher than your chance of being killed by rocket fire in Israel. Austin's murder rate in 2003, by the way, was about half of the national average. It is a tranquil city. I could probably walk up to a crack-head at 12th and Chicon, slap him in the face, and live to tell about it. I doubt that all of the Israeli citizens are as terrified as the stock Israeli citizens the American press interview as the average citizen of Austin isn't too worried about being murdered.
I hope that one day the Israeli government will realize that the only military solution to Palestinian problem is the final solution of turning the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into giant death camps, marching all the Palestinians into gas chambers, and threatening nuclear anhilation to anyone who challenges them. I would hope the Israeli people haven't developed the cognitive dissonance required for such an atrocity. To bring about real, lasting change, the onus of responsibilty lies on the shoulders of those who are more powerful. I think that more carrot and less stick is in order. If the Israeli government did the grown-up thing and starting easing the economic blockade by allowing food and medical supplies into the territory and promising further enticements for the Palestinians provided that rocket attacks cease or, at least, slow considerably, I guarantee that it would be more effective than the current slaughter which is bound to lead to more tit-for-tat recriminations in the future. The fact that the U.S. government is again towing the official line that the Palestinians are the culprits and the Israeli government is blameless and angelic is not helping anything. The U.S. government should immediately end all support for the Israeli military and demand a cease-fire because it is the only nation the Israelis will listen to. For some reason, I doubt that is going to happen. The incoming Obama administration is probably not going to bring real change to this conflict as he has been silent about this conflict and his incoming Secretary of State is a war hawk.
In other news, the U.S. has had its first official Santa massacre. This seemed like such an inevitability to me as the U.S. is the only country that, individually and collectively, makes Israel seem like a model of self-restraint. I can only imagine what was going through this guy's head. He must have thought something like, "I can't believe that evil bitch is divorcing me. I know what I can do. I think I will kill her and every single person I can who was invited to her Christmas party. I can dress as Santa so I stay in the holiday spirit." He was a laid-off aerospace engineer (read military subcontractor) so I can only guess that he was probably of the Fox-News-watching, jingoist variety of person that plagues American society. I predict that in the future there will be more Santa massacres, so much so, that they will probably compete to be the deadliest Santa killer ever. Right now the bar is set at nine. Maybe the Easter bunny and Jesus can get in on the act, too.
I am in Lima, Peru right now, staying at the apartment of a friend of mine. Lima is massive and hot during the day right now as it is summertime. This place abounds with beautiful architecture and lovely graffiti. My friend, his name is Marco, lives in one of the nicer parts of town and, I can tell yall, it is a completely different world than most of Peru. The area of town he lives in is like a nice neighborhood anywhere in the U.S., except you still can't drink the water. After not seeing a white Peruvian in all of Peru, I see them on a daily basis here. The streets here are well paved and there are lots of parks. I am going to spend the New Year here and explore the city after my bike is fixed.
Let's have some fun with numbers. First off, according to The Economist, about 420 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli operations in the Gaza strip before the current slaughter of its caged inhabitants. Of those 420, about a fifth of them are believed to be civilians. The current death toll of Palestinians during the last couple of days is about 390 and rising. Does anyone want to guess the number of Israelis killed by these rocket attacks all year? The number of Israeli deaths comes to a grand total of five, four of those being during the current Israeli offensive. According to an article in MSN, about 700,000 Israelis live within range of Hamas's homemade rockets. So that means, for the year, the chances of an Israeli being killed by rocket fire is about 5 out of 700,000. I thought to myself, "That is funny, the population of Austin is about 700,000." and I couldn't help but wonder what the murder rate of Austin is. With a quick google search, I found out that, in 2003, there were 27 murders out of a population of 682,316 people. That means your chance of getting murdered in Austin is higher than your chance of being killed by rocket fire in Israel. Austin's murder rate in 2003, by the way, was about half of the national average. It is a tranquil city. I could probably walk up to a crack-head at 12th and Chicon, slap him in the face, and live to tell about it. I doubt that all of the Israeli citizens are as terrified as the stock Israeli citizens the American press interview as the average citizen of Austin isn't too worried about being murdered.
I hope that one day the Israeli government will realize that the only military solution to Palestinian problem is the final solution of turning the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into giant death camps, marching all the Palestinians into gas chambers, and threatening nuclear anhilation to anyone who challenges them. I would hope the Israeli people haven't developed the cognitive dissonance required for such an atrocity. To bring about real, lasting change, the onus of responsibilty lies on the shoulders of those who are more powerful. I think that more carrot and less stick is in order. If the Israeli government did the grown-up thing and starting easing the economic blockade by allowing food and medical supplies into the territory and promising further enticements for the Palestinians provided that rocket attacks cease or, at least, slow considerably, I guarantee that it would be more effective than the current slaughter which is bound to lead to more tit-for-tat recriminations in the future. The fact that the U.S. government is again towing the official line that the Palestinians are the culprits and the Israeli government is blameless and angelic is not helping anything. The U.S. government should immediately end all support for the Israeli military and demand a cease-fire because it is the only nation the Israelis will listen to. For some reason, I doubt that is going to happen. The incoming Obama administration is probably not going to bring real change to this conflict as he has been silent about this conflict and his incoming Secretary of State is a war hawk.
In other news, the U.S. has had its first official Santa massacre. This seemed like such an inevitability to me as the U.S. is the only country that, individually and collectively, makes Israel seem like a model of self-restraint. I can only imagine what was going through this guy's head. He must have thought something like, "I can't believe that evil bitch is divorcing me. I know what I can do. I think I will kill her and every single person I can who was invited to her Christmas party. I can dress as Santa so I stay in the holiday spirit." He was a laid-off aerospace engineer (read military subcontractor) so I can only guess that he was probably of the Fox-News-watching, jingoist variety of person that plagues American society. I predict that in the future there will be more Santa massacres, so much so, that they will probably compete to be the deadliest Santa killer ever. Right now the bar is set at nine. Maybe the Easter bunny and Jesus can get in on the act, too.
I am in Lima, Peru right now, staying at the apartment of a friend of mine. Lima is massive and hot during the day right now as it is summertime. This place abounds with beautiful architecture and lovely graffiti. My friend, his name is Marco, lives in one of the nicer parts of town and, I can tell yall, it is a completely different world than most of Peru. The area of town he lives in is like a nice neighborhood anywhere in the U.S., except you still can't drink the water. After not seeing a white Peruvian in all of Peru, I see them on a daily basis here. The streets here are well paved and there are lots of parks. I am going to spend the New Year here and explore the city after my bike is fixed.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Cheap-ass, Motherfucking, Piece-of-Shit, Chinese Innertubes
This last week, I learned that rain at 10,000 may be unpleasant but rain at 13,000 feet is downright hellish. It freezing cold and usually mixed with hail. Yesterday, I had had my share of rain and was very happy to find a building that was under construction where I could pitch my tent. Having a roof is a luxury which I don't always have on the road. It was nice to let all of my gear dry.
I had formerly had a high opinion of Peruvian roads. That was before I did extensive riding in the mountains of Peru. The roadway I rode on today was under construction, to put it politely. There were long stretches where the road was nothing more than a mud pit. Fortunately, I was wearing all of my rain gear as a precaution from my unpleasant day yesterday. I managed to become completely covered in mud which happens more often than one might think.
While descending, I couldn't help but think, "At least I'm not climbing this road." Sure enough, I met another cycle-tourist going the other direction. She was Ani from Switzerland, the first solo female cyclist I have met thus far. Girl power, bitches! I warned her about the lovely road conditions that lay ahead and we parted ways.
Neither the Chinese or Indians seem to know anything about making innertubes. The Indian innertubes that I have used almost always have a bulge somewhere which drives me fucking crazy. While annoying, the Indian innertubes, function, at least. The Chinese innertubes don't have the bulge but they have an even more annoying problem. They slowly leak air and when you try to pump them up, the valve snaps in half. I had this happen to two different innertubes within days. As I had used up all of my cheap Chinese innertubes, I actually had to jump on one of the colectivos with my bicycle and all my gear.
The first few colectivos didn't stop. It seems that they didn't want to carry my bicycle which is unusual since I have seen hog-tied sheep riding on the top of them. As I had descended into the desert, this was a somewhat worrisome development. Finally, one of them stopped for me and we were off to the coastal city of Barranca, Peru where I am now.
By some Christmas miracle, I managed to find some new innertubes. I got them at the bike shop right across from the collectivo station. They are shraeder valve innertubes, not that cheap Chinese presti-valve bullshit. Tomorrow, I am going to start heading the next 200 kilometers to Lima where I have a friend waiting for me and I should be able to find a replacement for my ailing rear rim. Hopefully, Santa will give me a shitload of weed this year instead of the diarrhea I got last Christmas.
I had formerly had a high opinion of Peruvian roads. That was before I did extensive riding in the mountains of Peru. The roadway I rode on today was under construction, to put it politely. There were long stretches where the road was nothing more than a mud pit. Fortunately, I was wearing all of my rain gear as a precaution from my unpleasant day yesterday. I managed to become completely covered in mud which happens more often than one might think.
While descending, I couldn't help but think, "At least I'm not climbing this road." Sure enough, I met another cycle-tourist going the other direction. She was Ani from Switzerland, the first solo female cyclist I have met thus far. Girl power, bitches! I warned her about the lovely road conditions that lay ahead and we parted ways.
Neither the Chinese or Indians seem to know anything about making innertubes. The Indian innertubes that I have used almost always have a bulge somewhere which drives me fucking crazy. While annoying, the Indian innertubes, function, at least. The Chinese innertubes don't have the bulge but they have an even more annoying problem. They slowly leak air and when you try to pump them up, the valve snaps in half. I had this happen to two different innertubes within days. As I had used up all of my cheap Chinese innertubes, I actually had to jump on one of the colectivos with my bicycle and all my gear.
The first few colectivos didn't stop. It seems that they didn't want to carry my bicycle which is unusual since I have seen hog-tied sheep riding on the top of them. As I had descended into the desert, this was a somewhat worrisome development. Finally, one of them stopped for me and we were off to the coastal city of Barranca, Peru where I am now.
By some Christmas miracle, I managed to find some new innertubes. I got them at the bike shop right across from the collectivo station. They are shraeder valve innertubes, not that cheap Chinese presti-valve bullshit. Tomorrow, I am going to start heading the next 200 kilometers to Lima where I have a friend waiting for me and I should be able to find a replacement for my ailing rear rim. Hopefully, Santa will give me a shitload of weed this year instead of the diarrhea I got last Christmas.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Sarah Palin
CHORUS
I don't buy the religion that other people sell.
I don't care if I go to Heaven or if I go to Hell.
I don't pledge allegiance to one nation under God.
I won't just sit there like a puppet, acquiese, and nod
when you try to cram your religion down into my throat
those lies and superstition that you memorized by rote.
I won't drink the Kool-aid even with a gun to my head.
I'll take a couple of you fools with me before I'm dead.
CHORUS:
AMERICAN TALIBAN, GO BACK TO AFGHANISTAN.
YOUR LIES AND HYPOCRISY DESTROY OUR DEMOCRACY.
NEANDERTHAL CHRISTO-FASCIST, REDNECK PSYCHO SADIST.
KEEP YOUR RELIGION AWAY FROM ME AND JUST LET ME BE FREE.
I think I'll start a new religion. I should give it a try.
If Jesus and Joseph Smith can do it than so can I.
We'll spend all our time smoking ganja and worshipping the moon and sun.
Every day, all day long, we'll be having feasts and fun.
We'll worship the gods of music by dancing until dawn.
The party will never stop it will go on and on and on.
The only marriages we'll allow will be the gay ones.
We'll give free condoms and abortions to every one.
CHORUS
I don't buy the religion that other people sell.
I don't care if I go to Heaven or if I go to Hell.
I don't pledge allegiance to one nation under God.
I won't just sit there like a puppet, acquiese, and nod
when you try to cram your religion down into my throat
those lies and superstition that you memorized by rote.
I won't drink the Kool-aid even with a gun to my head.
I'll take a couple of you fools with me before I'm dead.
CHORUS:
AMERICAN TALIBAN, GO BACK TO AFGHANISTAN.
YOUR LIES AND HYPOCRISY DESTROY OUR DEMOCRACY.
NEANDERTHAL CHRISTO-FASCIST, REDNECK PSYCHO SADIST.
KEEP YOUR RELIGION AWAY FROM ME AND JUST LET ME BE FREE.
I think I'll start a new religion. I should give it a try.
If Jesus and Joseph Smith can do it than so can I.
We'll spend all our time smoking ganja and worshipping the moon and sun.
Every day, all day long, we'll be having feasts and fun.
We'll worship the gods of music by dancing until dawn.
The party will never stop it will go on and on and on.
The only marriages we'll allow will be the gay ones.
We'll give free condoms and abortions to every one.
CHORUS
From the Desert to the Mountains
I just arrived in the town of Huaraz, Peru. It is a lovely place indeed. There are about a dozen snow-capped peaks just outside of the city to the east. Getting here was not the most pleasurable experience as I had ascended a height of 13,877 feet (a new personal best) on a dirt road with a badly cracked rear rim. I passed through a number of villages that didn't have any places to eat other than stores that only sold cookies, potato chips, cans of tuna, soda, and coca leaves. I pretty much had to force myself to suffer food rationing and I went to bed with hunger pangs a number of times. Coca leaves are known to have a hunger repressing properties and I took advantage them because of the lack of food.
I also left the wonderfully dry desert for the cold rains of the mountains. The rain actually turned the road into nothing more than a mud pit at a number of places. I even had to get off my bike and push it for a small stretch. Descending into Huaraz during a torrential downpour was downright hellish. Just outside of the city, I was trapped between a bus and a semi on a road that could best be described as a mud cascade since it was unpaved and had no gutters. When I finally got to the city, I had to change out of my wet clothes so I wouldn't get sick. I am now happily dry, comfortable, and well fed at a hostel where I plan to relax for the next couple of days.
It is amazing how much contrast there is between the mountains and the desert here. When you are high in the mountains it is lush and green. The coastal deserts are almost completely devoid of native plant life. I went through long stretches of road where there is nothing but miles and miles of sand. Fortunately, because of the strong Antarctic wind coming from the south, it is not the hottest desert I have passed through, at least not until the coastal mountain ranges near Casma, Peru block it off. Camping was easy as there are almost no areas that are fenced off. I would just go about 100 meters off the side of road and camp behind a sand dune or some other obstruction. The stark emptiness of the desert is quite incredible. I can only describe the moments where the sun strikes a wind-swept sand dune as moments of perfect beauty. I took some pictures but, as usual, they don't do any justice to the beauty of the places where I was.
Even though the desert is devoid of native plant life, there are parts of it where they have used irrigation to grow rice. I was completely astounded by this as rice is one of the most water intensive crops that one can grow. It seems to me that a country that has managed to grow rice in the desert shouldn't be so poor. Despite the cultivation of water intensive crops in the desert, Peru still manages to consume less than six times less water per capita than the United States. I protested this fact my not showering for a month. In the desert, unlike the jungle, I don't get skin rashes when I don't bathe. I love being dirty. It makes me feel like I am embracing my caveman roots.
I encountered one of the very first locals I have happened upon which didn't seem too friendly to foreigners. As I rode by and said, "Buenas tardes." to indicate my friendliness she said something in Quechua to here dog which then started chasing me and barking at me. Her tone was aggressive which made me think that she was saying, "Sick him, Sick him." and she did absolutely nothing to restrain her dog unlike most people with over-exuberant guard dogs. I just ignored her dog until it went away but I almost sassed her for her rude behavior.
If you have any kind of phobia of dogs, you should not ride a bicycle through Latin America. There are legions of dogs which roam the streets in every part I have passed through. As there are no leash laws, domesticated dogs and stray dogs mingle at every corner, often chasing passer-bys on bikes and motorcycles. I am not afraid of dogs at all. As an animal who travels upright, humans have an evolutionary advantage over dogs. Not only do we scare them because we appear bigger to them but we can pick up rocks and throw them. Since I carry a large buck knife, I know that no dog is my match in a fight. One of the funniest moments involving dogs, that I have seen, was in the city of Sullana, Peru. There was a large pack of about 10 dogs roaming the streets and fighting amongst themselves to establish dominance. It seems that a bitch had wandered into their midst and they were fighting for the first dibs to enseminate her. The locals just laughed at this and shrugged as if it is an everyday occurence.
I also left the wonderfully dry desert for the cold rains of the mountains. The rain actually turned the road into nothing more than a mud pit at a number of places. I even had to get off my bike and push it for a small stretch. Descending into Huaraz during a torrential downpour was downright hellish. Just outside of the city, I was trapped between a bus and a semi on a road that could best be described as a mud cascade since it was unpaved and had no gutters. When I finally got to the city, I had to change out of my wet clothes so I wouldn't get sick. I am now happily dry, comfortable, and well fed at a hostel where I plan to relax for the next couple of days.
It is amazing how much contrast there is between the mountains and the desert here. When you are high in the mountains it is lush and green. The coastal deserts are almost completely devoid of native plant life. I went through long stretches of road where there is nothing but miles and miles of sand. Fortunately, because of the strong Antarctic wind coming from the south, it is not the hottest desert I have passed through, at least not until the coastal mountain ranges near Casma, Peru block it off. Camping was easy as there are almost no areas that are fenced off. I would just go about 100 meters off the side of road and camp behind a sand dune or some other obstruction. The stark emptiness of the desert is quite incredible. I can only describe the moments where the sun strikes a wind-swept sand dune as moments of perfect beauty. I took some pictures but, as usual, they don't do any justice to the beauty of the places where I was.
Even though the desert is devoid of native plant life, there are parts of it where they have used irrigation to grow rice. I was completely astounded by this as rice is one of the most water intensive crops that one can grow. It seems to me that a country that has managed to grow rice in the desert shouldn't be so poor. Despite the cultivation of water intensive crops in the desert, Peru still manages to consume less than six times less water per capita than the United States. I protested this fact my not showering for a month. In the desert, unlike the jungle, I don't get skin rashes when I don't bathe. I love being dirty. It makes me feel like I am embracing my caveman roots.
I encountered one of the very first locals I have happened upon which didn't seem too friendly to foreigners. As I rode by and said, "Buenas tardes." to indicate my friendliness she said something in Quechua to here dog which then started chasing me and barking at me. Her tone was aggressive which made me think that she was saying, "Sick him, Sick him." and she did absolutely nothing to restrain her dog unlike most people with over-exuberant guard dogs. I just ignored her dog until it went away but I almost sassed her for her rude behavior.
If you have any kind of phobia of dogs, you should not ride a bicycle through Latin America. There are legions of dogs which roam the streets in every part I have passed through. As there are no leash laws, domesticated dogs and stray dogs mingle at every corner, often chasing passer-bys on bikes and motorcycles. I am not afraid of dogs at all. As an animal who travels upright, humans have an evolutionary advantage over dogs. Not only do we scare them because we appear bigger to them but we can pick up rocks and throw them. Since I carry a large buck knife, I know that no dog is my match in a fight. One of the funniest moments involving dogs, that I have seen, was in the city of Sullana, Peru. There was a large pack of about 10 dogs roaming the streets and fighting amongst themselves to establish dominance. It seems that a bitch had wandered into their midst and they were fighting for the first dibs to enseminate her. The locals just laughed at this and shrugged as if it is an everyday occurence.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Trujillo
I have spent the last three weeks in Trujillo trying to transcribe my blog. The desire is just not there to do this task. You can tell when you don't want to do something when you can find almost anything to distract from the task at hand. Anyway, I came to the decision that I would write less and try to focus on quality over quantity.
Walking around the streets of Trujillo is like walking around the track of MarioKart, except the battlecarts have been replaced with a whole bunch of little taxis. By an unofficial count, I would guess that close to 90% of all vehicles on the streets are taxis, colectivos, and buses. The taxi drivers are, of course, a menace. I have no doubt that they would run over their own toddler or grandmother if they got in their way. The other day I was impressed by the method that a man in a wheelchair used to cross the street. When he wanted to cross the street, he blew a whistle. My faith in the taxi drivers' bloodthirstiness was shaken when they actually braked for him. Most of the time, the taxis are empty but not in the morning when they bring people and their goods into the market to sell their wares. I even saw a taxi with a whole bunch of 2X4s strapped to the top and a cement mixer hitched to it. In Latin America, you have to hustle for your money in any way that you can think of.
The place where I am staying is close to a large number of different schools. Their students flood the area dressed in the various uniforms that indicate where they attend school. The other night, when I was sitting at an internet cafe, I witnessed an interesting urban phenomenon that I was previously unaware of. I saw about 40 kids all dressed in one uniform run past the front door while be chased by another group of equal or larger size that was wielding large rocks the size of my head. Outside, there was smashed glass everywhere. It turns out that Trujillo is filled with adolescent soccer hooligans. When I asked the lady who worked at the internet cafe how often this happens she just shrugged and said it happens "daily." All the street vendors outside kept on selling what they were selling as if nothing happened. The cops were able to break it up pretty quickly so I guess it wasn't to bad.
Walking around the streets of Trujillo is like walking around the track of MarioKart, except the battlecarts have been replaced with a whole bunch of little taxis. By an unofficial count, I would guess that close to 90% of all vehicles on the streets are taxis, colectivos, and buses. The taxi drivers are, of course, a menace. I have no doubt that they would run over their own toddler or grandmother if they got in their way. The other day I was impressed by the method that a man in a wheelchair used to cross the street. When he wanted to cross the street, he blew a whistle. My faith in the taxi drivers' bloodthirstiness was shaken when they actually braked for him. Most of the time, the taxis are empty but not in the morning when they bring people and their goods into the market to sell their wares. I even saw a taxi with a whole bunch of 2X4s strapped to the top and a cement mixer hitched to it. In Latin America, you have to hustle for your money in any way that you can think of.
The place where I am staying is close to a large number of different schools. Their students flood the area dressed in the various uniforms that indicate where they attend school. The other night, when I was sitting at an internet cafe, I witnessed an interesting urban phenomenon that I was previously unaware of. I saw about 40 kids all dressed in one uniform run past the front door while be chased by another group of equal or larger size that was wielding large rocks the size of my head. Outside, there was smashed glass everywhere. It turns out that Trujillo is filled with adolescent soccer hooligans. When I asked the lady who worked at the internet cafe how often this happens she just shrugged and said it happens "daily." All the street vendors outside kept on selling what they were selling as if nothing happened. The cops were able to break it up pretty quickly so I guess it wasn't to bad.
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