Wednesday, August 28, 2013

The Gringo, the Native and the Spider on the Wall


The Gringo can be spotted, usually, from a modest distance.  He or she has a certain gait, typically characterised by a swift haste, mechanical movements - a general air of needing to be elsewhere than where they are.  Another name I have come across, from a different cultural context, is 'honky tonk motherfucker', which seems to capture, linguistically and semantically, quite a strong but nonetheless jovial sentiment. The gringo, in male or female form, is unequivocally distinct from the local, or 'native' if you will (even 'local').  Often, the two types make contact.  Gringos seem to have a strong interest in the world of various natives and as such have collectively decided to tour such places with the aim of observing, recording and perhaps more rarely, interacting.  The gringo, generally speaking of course, reacts in a vastly different manner to the native.  He or she will bring up a smile; they will act according to some arbitrary etiquette as it's difficult to apply conventions from one's own world to a completely 'other' one.  As such, superficial acts of kindness, or 'niceties', clash comically with the native world.  The gringo will smile or wave or some such thing, while the other feels in a less superficial manner and will respond to the gringo's actions with genuine animal curiosity, waiting to see what else 'it' does.  How strange this apparition must have seemed in the early days!  A robotic being, marching through the dirty streets, photographing everything, even when certain things don't want to be photographed (how could I forget the utter stupidity and rudeness of the cackling gringo in the marketplace, laughing and taking photos while a local woman cowered from view, not finding it all quite as funny...).  To the gringo, often, respect is not a factor.  One must capture the moment, says the gringo; how else will I remember this?  Silly little monkey gringo.  Oftentimes, the gringo receives his or her comeuppance, and all hell breaks loose because the savages have acted badly.  The price of exotic tourism.  And the gringo that survives has many stories to tell; many gringos tell of strange ideas, people, places - all of which are ultimately flawed because of a lack of order, which the gringo understands fully (at least he thinks he does).  Sort of like a psychological researcher visiting a mental hospital.  And as such, the gringo collects his datum, discusses the results and waddles off onto another bus to see the various aspects of this strange land, enduring the discomfort for the sake of knowledge and experience.  Always, the gringo is going somewhere; a rapid pace follow him or her like the trail a boat makes speeding through the ocean.  Jump here, stop there only to wait to go here, see that, then once the seeing has finished, move across to this and then over there to photograph that; march, march, march!  The gringo will often grow hungry on its travels.  Some choose to eat familiarly, while others risk the savages food - again, occasionally, stomach-related problems will arise from this.  It is a common syndrome and has become quite well known: beware of the savage food.  All in all, the gringo and the native get along.  However, this is vastly complicated due to the political background supporting this relationship, whereby the gringo's elders have exploited to the ends of the earth the elders of the natives, so much so that monetarily the relationship is reciprocal and so, despite the superficialities, the gringo is sort of on top.  Alas...

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Trail of a Lonesome Gringo (X): Reacquainted, Fever, Floating



I am sitting in a park in a city I am unfamiliar with and I am hot and cold and my stomach is cramping, I don’t know where to go or what to do because I have booked a bus that leaves in six hours (foolishly).  There are dozens of pigeons in the tree above me and although I have sat across from them, something tells me that the wind or this sea of brown luck might send some bird shit my way, so I limp off elsewhere, searching my body for the ‘off’ switch; alas.  Being back in the mountains brought back some soul, an intricate influx of feeling.  Even crossing over into Bolivia felt different.  I think often of regarding a mountain.  The tours are a little odd that way; they sort of drive, stop off at certain spots so all of us, the tourists, can get out and grab half an hour of experience before moving on.  Most folk snap as many photos as possible, try to take it in.  It’s a tough one.  But regarding a mountain; what a thing.  Taking for granted the obliteration of the subject-object thing, I tend now to look at it and almost feel like waving; or smiling at it, myself.  Manifestation of life.  Mountains are so alive.  Such powerful beings, so many in number—gods without a doubt.  There is nothing not holy about a mountain.  And so endless lumps of earth, vast flats of salt and sand, rocky escarpments, snow-capped everything.  The thing about everything touristic is that it’s generally material based.  Like most things, it is backed by a material mind-set, which sort of reigns over most humans.  So, when I go on a tour, I tend to tour alongside the actual tour, because I appreciate a lot about the material side of things, but I also like to listen to mountains and rivers, to rocks and empty spaces, because if you kneel down and prick your ears up, everything speaks.  But if you speak back, the tour can get awkward.  Nonetheless, I had some good chats, probably deeper than anything said amongst the tour group, seeing as all four of the others were French and Spanish –speaking.  Another nice aspect actually: I got to partake in one of my favourite pastimes—listening to languages I don’t understand.  French, to me, is a nice sounding language; they have nice rhythms, pitter-patters and what not.  It’s so lovely just to listen to words and tones and to feel emotions, without being involved.  We spend so much time either speaking, thinking, or pensively waiting to speak, that ‘just listening’ seems almost an impossibility to many people, in their mother tongues.  If you haven’t, give it a go sometime.  When it’s another language, you can’t intellectually grasp it, so you are sort of cornered into just listening—but there is so much there to pick up and experience!  Before I left, I remember listening to the fluttering exchanges between two Chinese women at a massage parlour; it was beautiful, like listening to birds sing to one another.  Anyhow, from the poetic back to the realism-ic: I skip the bus because my body is screaming at me not to go on an eight-hour bus trip overnight when I feel this way.  Some dodgy food at the end of the tour, which is weird because the last thing those of us who got sick ate was a plain cake for breakfast.  Who knows, I suppose.  The French girl got it worst: I have a funny graphic of her calling out to the tour guide, asking where a bathroom was, before puking in the middle of a busy car park.  And the other French guy was sitting with his head in his hands for almost an hour.  Mine seems to have saved itself for the night.  Back here at the plaza de armas (the central square they seem to have in most cities in Latin America) I can hear some pretty guitar and I turn to see an ancient man with a younger man playing some sweet latin-sounding tunes; they’re sort of like buskers, I guess.  A story of some kind drifts through my disoriented mind: a street group, in a country like Bolivia, playing every day; they get money from the public but this all goes to the fines they receive for playing in unlawful locations; but they play anyway, because they are not playing for money, but for themselves and the people, and so the cycle continues whereby they are fined and the fine is paid by the public and neither party cares because it’s the music that matters.  The story will perhaps continue in a bad way, with the antagonistic and power-hungry arm of the law shutting down this harmless cycle, or perhaps, in a good way—though I’m not sure exactly what the good way might be.  Anyhow, feeling fairly shit, I ask if I can change my ticket and of course this is Bolivia, so no, but again, because this is Bolivia, I am more than willing to sacrifice six dollars to go lie down in my own misery for eleven hours.  It was worth it, too.  A horrid sleep in which I felt like my kidneys might explode out of my back several times, on a bed of rock, with lots of laughing strangers in the hostel room.  And it’s always as though they’re laughing at me…anyhow, it was still worth it.  I felt it would be, too; generally, a long period of rest/sleep/feverish paroxysms winds up being a good counter to the condition.  I wake up refreshed, but lacking in sustenance.  Stomach is still a bit seedy (and will be all day).  I hit the bus and off we go, one of my favourite parts of traveling: cruising the countryside listening to music.  Especially in landscapes like this.  I can just go album after album, soaking in this wonderful place.  Llamas bolting from the road, not quite heeding to the warning honks of the maniac driver.  At one point, I see an image of immense humour and greatness: a standalone vicuna (like a llama) standing on a little hillock, right on top of it.  The thing looks like it’s just triumphed over something big stands proud and full atop this little hill.  King Vicuna of the Bolivian hills, I name it.  Excellent.  Little pueblos, the bus always stopping to pick up locals; everything is so impromptu.  I love it.  Crazy old Bolivian women with gigantic sacks of items, or cute little kids tied to their backs with blankets of the most beautiful colours.  I always think, wow, back at home someone would probably reproach a woman for carrying a child on her back in a sheet of material.  But man, it’s the most natural thing.  So many simpler, naturalistic aspects of life remain in this part of the world.  It’s sort of a weird mix of residual traits and modern influences.  You see a mud-brick pueblo amidst the mountains in the middle of nowhere, and then an advertisement for a mobile company on the side of one the buildings.  Tis the way she blows, they say.  And so onwards and upwards across and between mountains, the sun falls, the stars appear, the bus grows dark and the music envelops me.  Often, I feel like staying on the bus longer.  Alas, a town has arrived upon my doorstep, and thus I must address it.  Farewell dear friend, fare thee well dear brother.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Trail of a Lonesome Gringo (VIX): The Stars…and What They’re ‘Actually’ Called



This episode begins and ends in the same way, the serpent finding its own tail.  Like everything.  Nonetheless.  Figure why not, might as well, the tours aren’t too expensive and despite the fact that I will ask what I’m doing over and over, it was worth going.  Always is.  Had a big beer beforehand because apparently that helps with symptoms of isolation and what not; and also, it was fun doing quizzes about the Spanish language in a foreign bar away from all the locals like a weirdo.  Waiting for the tour bus to arrive.  The sheep herded in; it always feels this way, no matter what.  It’s not an altogether negative sentiment.  I mean, tours are tours.  They aren’t going to suddenly become individualised, the tour guide addressing each individual personality as per their subjective experience in regards to the topic and environment at hand.  Dreaming on.  So off we all go, me, my mates from all over the world, on what will be the most rational astronomy tour imaginable.  I suppose it is a very scientific field, I just didn’t really think about that.  Lots of research out here.  Two things I picked up on about the whole thing, which I found funny.  First, telescopes are phallic.  Second, the land out here is so alien, so extra-terrestrial, that I find it very ironic that this is the ideal place for peering out into the universe to discover things.  Two awesomely interesting things I think.  Phallic.  See, because they’re like big male apparatuses pointing into the sky to discover things.  Big dicks, man!  Very masculine and very paternal.  Don’t worry honey, I’ll look through this telescope and tell you what’s going on.  And the fact that it’s such an alien land; well, this is just off tap, because in searching for alien lands and information regarding the great vastness of space and the sky and what it contains, we must set up in places which more or less resemble what we’re looking at.  Not exactly, I know; way too simple.  But the general idea is there.  Looking at Mars from Mars.  Looking at the Moon from the Moon.  They even call them things like the Valley of the Moon or the Valley of Death.  And with these awesomely huge big-dick apparatuses tell us what’s out there, despite the fact that it’s in a sense beneath our feet.  Almost literally.  Probably literally.  Bunch of monkey looking through a hole to see a graphic representation of what is deemed reality.  I know I sound sour but man…there’s just something in these sentiments.  I’ve been concentrating lately on my posture; what the madre said effected me and I understood it because I learnt something like it in my first ayahuasca ceremony.  In fact, without my posture, I may not have made it out of that ceremony alive.  Breathing too.  Epic aspects.  Anyhow, the astronomy tour.  Really interesting despite my devilish opinions.  Haha.  Truly though.  Run by a Canadian fellow named Les.  Guys, this is Les, the most rational man available tonight.  Great sense of humour though.  He told us all what we were ‘actually’ seeing.  Because apparently what we see isn’t...well, what we see.  And he also named all the stars for us, thank god.  Though at one pointy I took a small moment to consult the stars and they all, not one excluded, were of the opinion that this guy was a little on the lost side.  They claimed they were exactly what they were, rather than a lot of Mesopotamian and Greco-latin names.  Les pointed this out himself, though I don’t think he quite understood.  He also recommended downloading the iPhone applications to allow us to, again, see what was ‘really’ up there.  I know, I have a hang up, but nonetheless.  I love the astronomy stuff.  It’s great and really interesting and the names are awesome.  But poor Les was stuck in the sky!  Se           rj from System of a Down always warned me: don’t ever get stuck in the sky.  I try not to.  Les was stuck.  But he has a lot of cool things to say.  He also wrote off astronomy and all other interpretations of the sky.  He also poked fun at indigenous interpretations.  All in good humour.  He also…well, you get the picture.  Les was just that kind of guy.  Scientific, like the Herald Sun.  What first got me about Les’s spiel was that the world was round.  I know, silly, but I still have a strong inkling based on my own experience that it is, in a sense, quite flat.  Have you ever experienced walking upon the earth in a curve?  Other than on hills and such.  I mean, for the most part, I find myself on flat ground.  I understand that it may ‘be round’ in that sense, that formulaic sense, that sense from the heights of an airplane window.  But.  I walk on flat ground most of the time.  And the shapes in the sky, how stupid Les made them out to be.  How vague.  Oh poor Les; he was unaware that what he saw in the sky, rational as it was, was more or less astrological too!  Because it is himself that he sees in his astronomical worldview up there.  Les in the sky, no doubt.  Haha.  I doubt I make sense, but Les my man, they’re not such silly notions.  He mad good jokes though and I did enjoy the rhythm of his speech.  He tried to involve all previous worldviews in the tour, but wound up just taking the piss out of all of them but his.  Lovely enough guy.  It’s so lucky that Les knows exactly what’s going on though!  I mean, when death touches his shoulder, he will surely be able to face it with no fear in light of modern astronomy.  A star is a star.  Fascinating, but not magic.  Not magic.  So after the words we all got to look into a whole bunch of telescopes, which was very interesting.  They showed us what was really happening!  Haha.  But in all seriousness, personally, I found it quite dull.  I looked through all the different phalluses, took in their meanings; but nothing compared to the vast night sky I saw with my own two eyes.  In fact, a lot of the visuals seemed like CGI or something.  Not in the sense that they weren’t impressive, but that I felt that what I saw naturally was more real.  He even qualified a lot of what we saw through the telescopes as ‘just the atmosphere distorting the image’ or something like that.  Inside I was all like Les, my man, isn’t what we’re all seeing right here and now on the money?  But I didn’t say anything of course, because there was too much to say and not much point in saying it.  One telescope showed me an awesome sparkler-like effect, two stars next to each other which look like one with the ‘naked’ eye (naked ain’t real?).  It was a mad display, but it felt like I was watching something from a video game.  Others just showed magnified sections of stars, which was cool.  He pointed out the research centre a few miles away and I thought long and hard about what exactly they were doing over there.  Big projects out here.  It’s clear so much f the year that here is where a lot happens.  Oddly, Les mentioned magic mushrooms and weed a few times, in reference to what ancient peoples must have done during the night without much else to do (Riiiight…).  I did find this interesting though, and was on the verge of commenting to Les about these things.  But alas, I held back because I often feel that these actions would be akin to throwing water at a wall to knock it down.  I wondered long and hard about whether Les had tried these substances he used to parody ancient experience.  Not sure.  Doubt it, but I do think people can take these mind-opening substances and still remain in a very stable, concrete, narrow worldview.  In fact, I’m of the opinion that that very thing, ego-based and sure in its ways, can be magnified to endlessness with these things.  Only to suggest itself, though not everyone gets the punch line.  So after the telescopes we had question and answer time in which I just sat there in my newfound posture and wondered if anyone had anything provocative to say.  I also wondered about my own ideas.  I’m not sure of them; but that’s probably what separates me and Les.  Off we went back to town where I had some wine, spoke to folk and had a smoke; and all was well and there was no hell, no epic logical blokes.  Stuck in the sky, Les.  Serj tried to tell you.  Keep a foot down.  Keep a foot on the ground.  Otherwise, when the aliens do come, you’ll be the first they probe, anally, because that’s where all your fear lay.  Much love and sorry for the tone.  To the skies and beyond, lovers.

Trail of a Lonesome Gringo (VIX): The Stars…and What They’re ‘Actually’ Called



This episode begins and ends in the same way, the serpent finding its own tail.  Like everything.  Nonetheless.  Figure why not, might as well, the tours aren’t too expensive and despite the fact that I will ask what I’m doing over and over, it was worth going.  Always is.  Had a big beer beforehand because apparently that helps with symptoms of isolation and what not; and also, it was fun doing quizzes about the Spanish language in a foreign bar away from all the locals like a weirdo.  Waiting for the tour bus to arrive.  The sheep herded in; it always feels this way, no matter what.  It’s not an altogether negative sentiment.  I mean, tours are tours.  They aren’t going to suddenly become individualised, the tour guide addressing each individual personality as per their subjective experience in regards to the topic and environment at hand.  Dreaming on.  So off we all go, me, my mates from all over the world, on what will be the most rational astronomy tour imaginable.  I suppose it is a very scientific field, I just didn’t really think about that.  Lots of research out here.  Two things I picked up on about the whole thing, which I found funny.  First, telescopes are phallic.  Second, the land out here is so alien, so extra-terrestrial, that I find it very ironic that this is the ideal place for peering out into the universe to discover things.  Two awesomely interesting things I think.  Phallic.  See, because they’re like big male apparatuses pointing into the sky to discover things.  Big dicks, man!  Very masculine and very paternal.  Don’t worry honey, I’ll look through this telescope and tell you what’s going on.  And the fact that it’s such an alien land; well, this is just off tap, because in searching for alien lands and information regarding the great vastness of space and the sky and what it contains, we must set up in places which more or less resemble what we’re looking at.  Not exactly, I know; way too simple.  But the general idea is there.  Looking at Mars from Mars.  Looking at the Moon from the Moon.  They even call them things like the Valley of the Moon or the Valley of Death.  And with these awesomely huge big-dick apparatuses tell us what’s out there, despite the fact that it’s in a sense beneath our feet.  Almost literally.  Probably literally.  Bunch of monkey looking through a hole to see a graphic representation of what is deemed reality.  I know I sound sour but man…there’s just something in these sentiments.  I’ve been concentrating lately on my posture; what the madre said effected me and I understood it because I learnt something like it in my first ayahuasca ceremony.  In fact, without my posture, I may not have made it out of that ceremony alive.  Breathing too.  Epic aspects.  Anyhow, the astronomy tour.  Really interesting despite my devilish opinions.  Haha.  Truly though.  Run by a Canadian fellow named Les.  Guys, this is Les, the most rational man available tonight.  Great sense of humour though.  He told us all what we were ‘actually’ seeing.  Because apparently what we see isn’t...well, what we see.  And he also named all the stars for us, thank god.  Though at one pointy I took a small moment to consult the stars and they all, not one excluded, were of the opinion that this guy was a little on the lost side.  They claimed they were exactly what they were, rather than a lot of Mesopotamian and Greco-latin names.  Les pointed this out himself, though I don’t think he quite understood.  He also recommended downloading the iPhone applications to allow us to, again, see what was ‘really’ up there.  I know, I have a hang up, but nonetheless.  I love the astronomy stuff.  It’s great and really interesting and the names are awesome.  But poor Les was stuck in the sky!  Se           rj from System of a Down always warned me: don’t ever get stuck in the sky.  I try not to.  Les was stuck.  But he has a lot of cool things to say.  He also wrote off astronomy and all other interpretations of the sky.  He also poked fun at indigenous interpretations.  All in good humour.  He also…well, you get the picture.  Les was just that kind of guy.  Scientific, like the Herald Sun.  What first got me about Les’s spiel was that the world was round.  I know, silly, but I still have a strong inkling based on my own experience that it is, in a sense, quite flat.  Have you ever experienced walking upon the earth in a curve?  Other than on hills and such.  I mean, for the most part, I find myself on flat ground.  I understand that it may ‘be round’ in that sense, that formulaic sense, that sense from the heights of an airplane window.  But.  I walk on flat ground most of the time.  And the shapes in the sky, how stupid Les made them out to be.  How vague.  Oh poor Les; he was unaware that what he saw in the sky, rational as it was, was more or less astrological too!  Because it is himself that he sees in his astronomical worldview up there.  Les in the sky, no doubt.  Haha.  I doubt I make sense, but Les my man, they’re not such silly notions.  He mad good jokes though and I did enjoy the rhythm of his speech.  He tried to involve all previous worldviews in the tour, but wound up just taking the piss out of all of them but his.  Lovely enough guy.  It’s so lucky that Les knows exactly what’s going on though!  I mean, when death touches his shoulder, he will surely be able to face it with no fear in light of modern astronomy.  A star is a star.  Fascinating, but not magic.  Not magic.  So after the words we all got to look into a whole bunch of telescopes, which was very interesting.  They showed us what was really happening!  Haha.  But in all seriousness, personally, I found it quite dull.  I looked through all the different phalluses, took in their meanings; but nothing compared to the vast night sky I saw with my own two eyes.  In fact, a lot of the visuals seemed like CGI or something.  Not in the sense that they weren’t impressive, but that I felt that what I saw naturally was more real.  He even qualified a lot of what we saw through the telescopes as ‘just the atmosphere distorting the image’ or something like that.  Inside I was all like Les, my man, isn’t what we’re all seeing right here and now on the money?  But I didn’t say anything of course, because there was too much to say and not much point in saying it.  One telescope showed me an awesome sparkler-like effect, two stars next to each other which look like one with the ‘naked’ eye (naked ain’t real?).  It was a mad display, but it felt like I was watching something from a video game.  Others just showed magnified sections of stars, which was cool.  He pointed out the research centre a few miles away and I thought long and hard about what exactly they were doing over there.  Big projects out here.  It’s clear so much f the year that here is where a lot happens.  Oddly, Les mentioned magic mushrooms and weed a few times, in reference to what ancient peoples must have done during the night without much else to do (Riiiight…).  I did find this interesting though, and was on the verge of commenting to Les about these things.  But alas, I held back because I often feel that these actions would be akin to throwing water at a wall to knock it down.  I wondered long and hard about whether Les had tried these substances he used to parody ancient experience.  Not sure.  Doubt it, but I do think people can take these mind-opening substances and still remain in a very stable, concrete, narrow worldview.  In fact, I’m of the opinion that that very thing, ego-based and sure in its ways, can be magnified to endlessness with these things.  Only to suggest itself, though not everyone gets the punch line.  So after the telescopes we had question and answer time in which I just sat there in my newfound posture and wondered if anyone had anything provocative to say.  I also wondered about my own ideas.  I’m not sure of them; but that’s probably what separates me and Les.  Off we went back to town where I had some wine, spoke to folk and had a smoke; and all was well and there was no hell, no epic logical blokes.  Stuck in the sky, Les.  Serj tried to tell you.  Keep a foot down.  Keep a foot on the ground.  Otherwise, when the aliens do come, you’ll be the first they probe, anally, because that’s where all your fear lay.  Much love and sorry for the tone.  To the skies and beyond, lovers.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Trail of a Lonesome Gringo (VIII): Montanas por la Noche, Cochiguaz and the Infinite Beyond

This adventure, I think, starts the night before.  It is late and I feel uneasy; there are couples hanging around the hostel and I don’t particularly feel like attempting to socialise in Spanish, though I know it is always good for me.  Instead, I drink some beers, hack away at the computer which seems to be intentionally and continuously shitting itself just to spite me (sometimes even attempting to eat my writing, the bastard; though I guess for three-hundred bucks I can’t ask for much).  Anyhow, I decide that climbing a little way up that mountain in the dark is a grand idea; and it turns out I was extremely correct.  With a plain old bread roll, a pack of nuts and a beer I head up, in the pitch black, not really waiting for my eyes to adjust.  It’s a challenge but I feel my way, I see the shadows that represent the paths meandering up and gauge the loose soil beneath my feet, all the while managing to stargaze at the same time.  Walking in the dark can be surprisingly easy, if you get a feel for it; I think you can kind of extend yourself out into it, feel for safety rather than think for it.  I stop several times: once to eat the peanuts, which proved to be an amazingly noisy activity in that extreme tranquillity; another time to lie down and stargaze; and one last time to meditate.  What seems like tiny noises emit from the little town below.  Barks, laughter, conversation; some car and bus noises.  It’s a magical feeling being in total darkness on a mountain, sitting above a town listening to bits and pieces of noise float about, while the galaxy hovers above, stars shoot across the sky.  I feel a bit like everything, actually.  The presence of the mountain is more evident, too, in this stillness.  I see it in a different light, so to speak.  It shows me new things, this time; it is I and it, together in a more intimate way.  Sort of like going home with your lady-woman, as opposed to being with her in a social situation (excellent analogy, Chris).  Getting closer.  And we’re all together actually, She the mountain, She the infinite sky, She the endless cordilleras; She the All.  Paz.  And a lot of it.  And then that little voice: So here you are, old boywhat did you want to do now?  My mind stills and the slight breeze which would normally seem freezing is a soft hand, falling over my being.  I feel the soft dirt with my hands and can hear it avalanching down, a miniature landslide in the cold silent night.  Everything is shaded with a blue, not from the moon, but from all those fucking baffling and beautiful stars in the sky.  Estrelllas is the word for ‘stars’ in Spanish; I really think it’s one of those words that sounds like it should mean stars anyhow.  One of the ones which, if it sat amongst other Spanish words I wasn’t familiar with, I could pick easily as meaning ‘stars’.  After eating the peanuts I’m kind of glad this oaf has stopped interrupting the peaceful night (there’s something about the crinkling sound of a wrapper that just doesn’t fit in here…).  I lie on back and watch, because my neck is getting sore from being unable to take my eyes from the sky and its uncountable sexy bits.  So many shooting stars I feel guilty for seeing them all. Cool mountain dirt.  Blissful.  Thoughts come and go as they do; things pop up.  In a deep moment of meditation I am awesomely interrupted by the boisterous squawking of some mountain birds—they must nest nearby.  My heart bursts through my chest, veins and bits and pieces still connected, and tries to make its way across the mountain and back down; but I pull it back, like reeling a fishing line in.  Lucky, there is something on the end.  I re-settle as the noises of the birds echoes, fades.  Passes.  Something more comes to me after some time and I take it as the thing I came up here for.  I stay forever, but get up and leave to go back down.  My eyes are stuck in the sky but my feet have pre-organised this with my soul so I can amble down safely, thoughtfully, empty.  Tomorrow, I will go to Cochiguaz.  I’ll get up early and despite my concerns, hitch a ride.  I sleep peacefully and dream about lots of things.  Mejor.


I’m sweating already and no one seems to be acknowledging my existence by the side of the road.  Except a friendly dog; but after a while it frightens me because it’s eyes are red and it keeps howling at nothing and quite frankly there is a part of me trying to remember the symptoms of rabies.  It drooled on me.  Or did it?  Do I have any open wounds?  But it is friendly; and it doesn’t seem to crazy, just a little weird.  I know heaps of weird people who don’t have rabies.  Hmm.  I am still thinking of Rodrigo’s words: something bad could happen to you; or something good.  Pretty ambivalent, right?  But it was more the way he said it.  Far more there than the surface buns.  And here I am, failing a bit; but it’s still early and I am determined to get to Cochiguaz; I can’t leave this place without getting there.  I think of the quirky restaurant in the centre; the weird healing aspects of the place and the strange people.  I will be surprised, however.  Finally a ute stops.  The old man yells something and I go to open the door to hear him and realise there’s an old lady in the passenger seat and she’s probably terrified that some dude is trying to open her car door, so I assume he said ‘Cochiguaz’ and jump in the back.  My first hitch!  I feel as safe as a child in a pram being pushed by some unknown Chilean people.  Actually, I’m not as afraid as I thought I’d be.  The old hitchin’ has been built up a bit for me; much fear, but in reality, if you get a ride with some peaceful people, and it feels right—todo bien!  And so we tumble on down the road and I gaze at the mountains slack-jawed.  Blissful sighs.  We stop—not in Cochguaz.  O well, only five kilometres more.  I start walking.  I go past some hippy-lookin’ Chileans and ask how much further and the chick one speaks real slowly, like a Chilean hippy probably does; she mentions the restaurant and the spa.  Hmm.  Not much more.  I say hola to the dude who smiles and we have a little mutual laugh at our respective situations: he and her waiting for a ride in the dust, me charging on through the dust.  Nice.  Onwards I go and eventually there is the sound of a car, which I didn’t expect this far out.  I was set to walk.  I stick my thumb up and the ute pulls over and so begins my day.  A young man is in the drivers’ seat, though he doesn’t look that young; he’s chewing something and a great bulge protrudes from the side of his mouth and his teeth are all caked with something green, but his smile is very friendly.  There appears to be an entire family in there.  He asks where in Cochiguaz I want to go and I so no se, no se!  Because I don’t actually know.  So after a few seconds of non-communicating he gestures for me to just jump in the back, which I happily do.  We go through the town, which seems pretty dull really; oddly, we don’t stop, and this concerns me initially, but then the feeling passes and I feel fine.  He’ll probably just drop me somewhere at the top, so I can walk back down.  He does stop.  But he gets out and approaches me and after establishing that I speak English asks me whether I want to go with him and his family to their place, chew some coca leaves, some natural tobacco and some Argentinian tea.  I mumble in hesitation, pensive, thinking and ask him about the town.  He says all there is is a big rock (gestures toward the mountains) and some restaurants and spas.  Which is I guess what was expecting.  So I say yeah I’ll come with you.  It’s six kilometres further on.  Mother, you would surely kill me; but when you get a feel for someone, especially a feeling they won’t murder you, it’s okay to go ahead with things like this.  It felt fine so off we went, rough-and-tumbling it up the road.  More scenery, slacker jaw.  Dogs chase the ute.  Where am I going?  Something bad could happen to you; or something bad.  Hmm.  Or something beautiful.  We get out at a property right at the top of what seems to be a poorer area.  There is a grand-looking half-construction atop a hill, next to which appears to be a small camp.  Which it is.  A man is atop the construction, which is something like hexagonal with a smaller protruding second story in the middle—almost ceremonial.  I help unpack all their things.  I was half-expecting to arrive at a camping ground, but alas, it’s just a camp next to a home-in-progress.  The guy’s name is Emmanel.  He is twenty-five.  Up on the second story is his step-father, Pato (Patricio).  Out of the care come his two sisters and his mother.  I will later learn that these people are infinitely warm, interesting and skilled in various ways.  After we unpack the gear I feel sort of awkward, but apparently I’m the only one feeling that way.  Emmanuel shows me around the house.  It’s been under construction for two years and they hope to have it done in another year.  Pato, at around fifty-five years, has built this house more or less single-handedly.  I’m later told he is an amazing man in varioous, freakishly strong for his age (stronger then Emmanuel), self-educated in­—apparently­­—building houses, and almost anything else.  Except driving; that he’s only just learning now.  Emmanuel’s mother, whose name slips my memory, is a Kundalini Yoga maestra who has been practicing and teaching for something like twenty-five years.  One of her daughters, Ser (which means ‘to be’ in Spanish) is following in her footsteps, and will soon return to the United States for a second time to teach Kundalini.  The other daughter, Cielo (which means ‘sky’) is very little and it practicing her English skills for a spelling bee.  I help her at one point, reading out English words so she can spell them back at me.  Am I in an awesome dream?  So, initially, after saying hello to everyone and having a quick look at the house, Emmanuel starts work.  I am not obliged, but he invited me to help, which I’m more than happy to do.  It all interests me quite a bit.  The house is primitive by some standards, but extremely well-built away from those standards.  The methods are just different and there are a few things I learned which were really interesting.  It has a concrete base, above which is a wooden frame, with posts running up the main corners.  Wire grills run across the walls, between which long sticks are placed, some horizontal, some vertical, some diagonal.  Later, mud-brick will be applied to consolidate the walls, as well as so foam insulation at some points.  The roof is corrugated iron.  Parts of the house needed to be bought, obviously; but much of it was gathered around the property, which is surrounded by nature, beyond which the Andes lay until Argentina in one direction and vertically up and down Chile in the other directions.  Emmanuel first takes me up an improvised ladder to the second floor, where this amazing native-looking fellow works tirelessly.  They move some corrugated iron together while I take in the view up here.  Emmanuel rolls some cigarettes and insists on some coca leaves, both of which I accept.  Before I know it I’m charging on natural tobacco and coca.  He prepares the coca using a white powder which I initially speculate could be cocaine; but I doubt that would even make sense.  I ask him about it and he says that the coca is acidic while the powder (like flour) is alkaline and that the reaction between them is good for chewing coca.  I’d heard that people mix growth from rocks with coca for the reaction so it seems to make sense to me.  He chews a tonne at a time and apparently I’m obliged to chew his way.  It’s pleasant and the charge is pretty darn evident.  I sit for a while longer.  Pato loves old rock music and Pink Floyd’s Money screams from a small player.  Awesome.  He has a kind soul, this old man; and an air of deep mystery, kind of like them all actually.  After he starts cutting the corrugated iron I descend, using a rope to guide my light-headed self back down to the ladder.  Emmanuel then gives me a spade and takes me a few metres from the house, down some stones and into some bushes (where luckily, he doesn’t kill and bury me).  All the while I can’t keep my eyes off this whole scene.  What a place!  So over next to the fresh water stream, from which fresh mountain water comes, there is a big pile of stony sand and a large frame with wire mesh.  We talk a while between shovelling the sand through the mesh, which filters the bigger stones out and makes a fine powdery sand which is going to be used to make a cement for the walls of the house.  This comes free of charge, from the mountains up above; it is washed down the stream and shovelled out and then put through the mesh.  Endless supply.  I’m more than happy to help shovel it through, collect the finer sand and carry it up to the house in a bucket.  It feels good to do this work.  It doesn’t feel like work.  We go slow and stop and chat all the time, drinking mate, chewing coca and smoking tobacco.  Emmanuel tells me a lot about himself.  He used to take a lot of psychtropics, as he terms it; and smoke a bit of weed (there is a green leaf on his shoulder).  But not any more.  He comes across as a very hard-working man, fairly rational—but the more I speak to him, the more I see his rationality is counterbalances by a thick spirituality, an all-pervasive spirituality which is not really named anything but is just the way it is.  He talks of the energy of the mountains and the water around us; we speak about religion and how what he partakes in is not religion, but gnosis, or learning of all different types of wisdom.  Pato is apparently very Hinduistic in his ways, like his wife; but they are not religious.  They seem to breathe the spirits of this natural place the same way a lot of us breathe the dirty air in the city.  He talks of his addictive personality, admitting a pretty heavy propensity for coca leaves, but only in the last seven months.  He talks of other types of addictions, always referring back to his addictive personality.  He talks like someone older and I often find it hard to accept that he’s my age.  He lives with his girlfriend who teaches Arabic dance and has a child from a previous relationship; together, they have two kids.  He tells me about how Pato built their house, again single-handedly, and how Pato is his best friend and an amazing man (at this point I really wanted to have more tools in my Spanish tool-kit, because this Pato guy was not only giving off an air of brilliance, but seemed to have affected Emmanuel in some pretty heavy ways—and he looked like Miagi from The Karate Kid!).  I ponder it all and ask a thousand questions.  Now, he says, he lives his life for his family, for work—he is a very hard worker.  But not in a senseless laborious way; he has passions.  He has worked in agriculture, has helped with various houses in construction, works presently at the biggest observatory in the region (where they do ground-breaking scientific research) where he gets paid quite a lot for what sounds like odd jobs, even when he isn’t actually at work (awesome).  He wants to start preparing land he has at his home further south, growing chillies and fruit trees.  But all this slowly, he says.  Poco y poco.  They’re all vegetarians here, except him, but he only eats a tiny bit of meat, he says, and only fresh.  We have lentils for lunch, but not Emmanuel because he chews coca all day and eats in the afternoon.  I sit with the family for a bit and we talk in broken English and Spanish for a while.  Ser needs to learn some English for when she goes to the U.S but she seems reluctant.  Amazing goat cheese from down the road and an off-tap lentil dish with dried fruits.  Amazing meal.  Earlier, Emmanuel took me to a little lake nearby which he said had immense healing powers; it was water from the icy mountains and was extremely cold.  I wasn’t going to go in, but he insisted and I felt like I needed to for some reason.  He assured me it would cleanse me.  So we stripped down and in he went, not seeming to feel the cold.  I was about to jump in when he mentioned casually that it’s best without ‘my boxer shorts’; and just now I remember his earlier comment about killing off the ­e­-go (the ego), which clearly remains somewhere beneath my underwear.  Oddly, it feels perfectly natural to take them off.  He literally does not blink an eye lid; it’s like bathing with an indian.  But fuck, that water was cold.  I have never, ever felt such coldness.  My bones ached.  I felt the cold slither through my soul and into my brain and every internal organ.  Gasping uncontrollably he tells me I have to go under the water three times, so I do, very dementedly.  Christ, I will never forget that feeling.  Something certainly happened when I entered that water.  Such intensity.  I didn’t feel the same all afternoon.  I still don’t.  So I helped him a while longer before sitting down a bit, gawking around the property and at the machine-man up there on the second story, smashing together a beautiful house like it ain’t no thang.  What a family.  The sun slowly falls and I’m told that Petro needs to practice his driving, so they’ll drive me all the way back to town.  Such people.  We all sit together at their little camp and I ask Emmanuel’s mother about Kundalini and she says one thing that sticks in my mind because it’s something that makes endless sense to me in many ways.  It has to do with posture.  She put her hands on my head and my back and straightened me out and pushing her chest out in demonstrations said, most important is HEART FIRST.  So many levels run through me.  Heart first.  Straighten the fuck up and put your heart first.  I’m keen to learn more.  We wait by the fire for Petro to finally descend but he seems to be enjoying air-guitaring to rock music instead of coming down.  What a guy.  Finally he descends and we sit around a while more, chatting.  I speak to Petro quite a bit, despite not understanding him.  Such a kind man.  There is so much peace here.  It makes me think of a lot of things about myself and my life (how could it not?).  They start the car and Emmanuel’s mother gets me to translate some lyrics from a beautiful Kundalini-inspired song by an English singer.  The littlest sister, Cielo, reads it easily.  Clever folk.  I thank them vigourously and me, Emmanuel and Petro get in the car.  They invite me back when the house is done and I get some contact details.  We drive bumpily off into the night, Petro fumbling through gears across unsealed mountain roads.  I am tired but I feel great and am happy to be silent the whole trip while Emmanuel directs Petro in operating a manual car—the car is Petro’s mind you, but he hasn’t yet learned how to use it.  Amazing for a man who seems so adept at everything else!  We say some serious goodbyes and they both have a sincerity to them which saddens me a bit to leave.  As I wait at the bust stop to catch the bust one town across, some dogs come and sit with me; I think they just like the company around here.  Then the father of the family that owns the hostel I’m staying at pulls up in his car and like clockwork the days ends with a free ride back.  There are butterflies flying about inside my head and I feel rejuvenated.  Something bad could happen to you; or something good.