Hasta la Muerte, asi o asi

I really, really didn't want to do it. I mean, it's called the Death Road...why in the hell would I put myself back into a Kashmir situation by slinging my body at the mercy of an unknown driver on the side of a one-lane, two-way traffic dirt road skirting cliff sides of thousands of feet? Why?

But you'd think for all the adamant dedication to avoid a trip down the stupid tunnel to the final light, I would have looked a little more closely into where the stupid road was. I didn't. And that, my friend, means that after we walked for 7 days over the cordillera real (after breaking the cardinal rule of ¨no guides¨ to find ourselves with a Bolivian who hates altitude, hates the cold, and who left us with his shy, semi-incompetent ¨cousin¨ because he had a championship soccer game that he had to make on day 1 anyhow) past high altitude glaciated lakes and down into first the vegetation, then the buzz of life as jungle bugs overwhelmed, then the humidity and must, and finally into the yungas - the beginnings of the Amazon basin - we found ourselves in the dusty hillside town of Chusi camping on the soccer field, as we didn't have enough money for a room. Runon sentence, eat your heart out.

And later, in Guanay, we continued without money as the bank refused to offer any type of useful service. We hopped back into the back of the pickup truck to continue our already 8 hour journey in the dust of the midday beating sun. As passengers hopped in and out, we stayed true with the only other passenger who boarded in Chusi - a 58 year old man with the appearance of an 80 year old man, whom they called Rambo. We bounced through the dust through the afternoon and into the dark of the night.

At the roadblock, I put it all together. You see, because people had in typical third-world style lined both sides of the street with their vehicles to wait for the block to open. Thus, when it opened, no one could pass in either direction. Idle annoyance by participants got me kicking, and I soon found that the drivers in the left-lane refused to back up because on the Yungas Highway we drive on the left. "So truckers can see the cliffs." "Oh...wait....what....NOOOOOO!" The Death Road.

Soon enough, reminiscences of that northern Indian nightmare returned as I stood looking over the truckbed at thousands of feet of abyss as oncoming truckers honked for us to make way. I found enough rationality to let Jenny revel in ignorance as she sat oblvious out of view of the impending danger. I arranged my last thoughts in my mind, lay down on the bouncing steel, and remembered in my buddist way that there is no movement that I choose not to feel. Thus, with head pounding against steel, I slept...

Magically, I awoke to La Paz where the magical ATM both paid the bill and baffled the truck owners with the ease of access to funds. La Paz proved trap as transportation strikes turned buzzing metropolis to 100 percent pedestrian mall for 24 hours; while in the rest of the country bloqueos by disgruntled workers blocked highways (as is the norm, of course), and mining disputes between sindicates and cooperatives led to dinamite wars and 19 mineros dead. Those protests would fill the streets the following day. If there is a latin american pasttime, it is surely uselessly protesting the government.



Unimpressive ruins in the middle of the world's highest navigable lake under shadows of distant snowcapped peaks set the scene for a dusty ride to Cusco (Qosco, mejor), a bus on up to the Sacred Valley cum tourist heaven, a train to Aguas Calientes, and a dehydrated march up mountains to round out our travel portfolio with another picture in front of a location no one would fail to recognize.

Macchu Picchu's pristine backdrop entices as its mysteries boggle the mind. Stones perfectly carved to fit without mortar insinuate just how ideas can evolve over time - workers forging Buddha statues on the streets of Mandalay, when I was there, forced me to recognize what a little work can accomplish. Now, while I stand amongst faces of touristic awe, I am swept in once again. They marked the solstice, the stars, the equinox with this stone...wow! Except it's not so incredible. They just paid attention; without the distractions of South African highways of light.

Nevertheless, underground plumbing mazes, temples carved from solid granite, and agricultural terraces on HuaynaPicchu 600 meters above the valley floor dazzle and amaze as we marvel at just how many of our acquaintances have sat upon the same sacred stones, and at just how different our paths to the Lost City of the Inca have been.

With that on our minds, a little Aguas Calientes soak, a little train ride past mocking snowy peaks, a little bus, and we're in Cusco. Q'osco - that most sacred town, the longest continously occupied city in the Americas (depending on who you talk to, of course. How is it, by the way, that the highest bungee jump in the world is in both New Zealand and South Africa? And on a totally unrelated note, how is it that BERMUDA has the highest PPP per capita GDP on the planet?) and the city lost to backwater nothingness until 1911 (or 1879 depending, again, on who you talk to) when Macchu Picchu was uncovered by an American (or German, depending on who you talk to) and the floodgates opened for international tourism. Thus, we are here, recovering from dehydration and debating whether we should actually attend mass tonight in an effort to avoid the entrance fee to marvel at at least one of these massive churches.