The Quest for 52

I'm taking a break from talking about my experiences this summer in South America to tell you about one of my two 2009 resolutions. Don't worry, I have plenty of stories to keep putting on here. I haven't written in a while due to final exams, but over my break I should be able to catch up. Things to look forward to: Cuzco, Machu Picchu, Philadelphia, the world's best milkshakes, the naked waiter, and much more.

In addition to some goals that I set for every new year, I had two resolutions for 2009. One was to run from the top of the island of Manhattan to the bottom in one shot. It didn't happen, and you could know this just by looking at my gut: I'm pushing two bills now (200 pounds)! I'm not there yet, but getting close. I started on my goal a few times but suffered a few setbacks: bruised ribs (which made it painful to run across the street when a car was coming), a nasty cold, and lots of homework. A similar goal will carry over into 2010: the chest should come out farther than the stomach, and that is what needs to happen this new year!

Goal number 2 was to read 12 non-law school books. I had read an article about a competition that George W. Bush and Karl Rove have each year to see who can read more books. I wanted something to do to help me relax while dealing the stresses of law school and figured that this would also help me become more well rounded. I figured that a book a month would be perfect. Things went well, and I read 9 between January and the middle of May. It really helped my studies, mind, and psyche in general because it became a release from school.

When I left for South America, I took 3 books with me. Within a few weeks, I had read them and so I purchased and read a few more and read some more in bookstores all over Brazil. My main blog entries that deal with books in New York, Brazil, and elsewhere are here and here. When I came to the end of the summer, I had read 29 books total. I thought about the possibility of reading 52, one for each week, but figured that a busy semester would prevent me from reading 23 books. I kept reading on the subway every day, when I had free time here and there, and before going to bed. I started to realize that 52 was a realistic goal and kept working toward it.

Today, with a few days to spare, I am happy to report that I finished my 52nd book of 2009. Some of you who I have told about this goal have requested a list of the books. Here's your list, along with my general rankings of the books and a few cool little experiences with some of the books. Enjoy.

The Best
1. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (incredible)
2. Notre-Dame of Paris by Victor Hugo
3. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
4. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The Great
5. The Accidental President of Brazil by Fernando Henrique Cardoso (read this in Brazil)

6. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

7. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

8. The 39 Steps by John Buchan

9. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

10. Bourne Supremacy by Robert Ludlum

11. 1808 by Laurentino Gomes (history of the Portuguese royalty's exile to Rio de Janeiro, read this while in Rio!)

12. Dracula by Bram Stoker

13. 20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne

14. Rip Van Winkle, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving (read this while on the train going out to Sleepy Hollow, NY!)

The Very Good
15. A Death in Brazil: A Book of Omissions by Peter Robb
16. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

17. The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez

18. Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum

19. An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography by Paul Rusesabagina

20. The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

21. Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

22. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

23. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

24. His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle

25. Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone by Larry Devlin

26. Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw by Mark Bowden

27. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

28. Greenmantle by John Buchan

The Good

29. Political Order in Changing Societies by Samuel P. Huntington

30. Journal of Christopher Columbus by Christopher Columbus

31. The Search for El Dorado by John Hemming (read this in Colombia and Brazil, potential sites of El Dorado if it exists or existed)

32. Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
33. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

34. Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America by John Charles Chasteen

35. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

36. Polyarchy by Robert A. Dahl

37. Francisco de Miranda: A Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution by Karen Racine

38. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild
39. No One Writes to the Colonel by Gabriel García Márquez

The Boring

40. Lost City of the Incas by Hiram Bingham (read this while in Cuzco and Machu Picchu)

41. Doing Comparative Politics: An Introduction to Approaches and Issues

42. Comparative Politics: Rationality, Structure and Culture by Mark Irving Lichbach

43. Nail Your Law Job Interview by Natalie Prescott

44. Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics by Todd Landman

45. Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy by Ronald Inglehart

46. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America by Adam Przeworski

47. Area Studies and Social Science: Strategies for Understanding Middle East Politics by Mark Tessler

The Disappointing

48. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

49. Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image by Michael Casey

50. Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War by Che Guevara

51. Back on the Road by Che Guevara

52. Guerilla Warfare by Che Guevara

When I am able to force myself through The Last of the Mohicans, that will also appear in the disappointing list. Maybe for 2010. It's funny that I had to read three books by Che Guevara to realize that they never met my expectations. Fool me thrice, shame shame shame on me. They're good, but just not as exciting as I think they will be. Motorcycle Diaries was good, but these others did not meet my expectations. Well, here is the list, reading these books has been great, have a great finish to 2009.

Clint vs. Peruvian Immigration, Part III (of III)

It was around 11:30 or so when the immigration officer told us that we had to be back by noon in order to get my passport stamped. The consul told him not to go anywhere and we literally ran outside. We had to get up the street to the bank and get back as soon as we could because, if you remember correctly, this guy basically told us that--while the office would be open--he wouldn't be there in the afternoon. It was Friday and if I didn't get this entry fee paid at the bank before this dude left, I would be out of luck.

Here is a map of the street in Cuzco where all of this was taking place. El Sol is the street where both the immigration office and bank are. You can see the immigration office in the lower right part of the picture ("Oficina de Inmigraciones"). I am not exactly sure where the bank is on El Sol, but I think it is probably near the street called "Afligidos" on the top of the picture. It wasn't that far, but things were complicated by the fact that we had less than 30 minutes to get to the bank, pay the fee, get back to the office, and get this guy to put the stamp in the passport.

Oh, and maybe you'd like to listen to some music while you read. If so, listen to this song by a Brazilian group called Skank.

We ran outside and flagged down a taxi. There are signs all over Cuzco telling you how to distinguish between legal taxis and illegal taxis. I don't think this one was legit, but it didn't matter! We jumped in and headed up the street. On the way, the consul was telling me that sometimes this bank is packed while other times it is not so bad. When people say that a bank is packed in a Latin American country, they mean it. I'm not sure what it is exactly that causes these banks to be so full of people, but I've never seen anything in the U.S. like it. These banks are often bigger, in terms of physical space and tellers, and there are tons of people.

We arrived at the bank, went inside, and saw lines of people. These were not your 5-pm-Friday-get-your-paychecks-in-before-the-bank-closes lines. These were Disneyland lines. At this point we were beyond being knee deep in trouble . . . we were neck deep! She told me to get in line and she would look for some way to get to a teller. I waited a minute or two, moving along with the line. Then I saw the consul motioning to me. She had found her way to the front of some line. After a brief encounter with a security guard, we got the fee paid and got the proof of payment to take back to the office.

We ran outside, hopped in another cab, and hurried back to the office. On the way, she told me a little about Coricancha/Qorikancha, which is on the same street as the bank and immigration office. See the map above. It was kind of funny because we were in the middle of this stressful situation, but she started telling me about this Incan temple (Temple of the Sun, pretty big deal) and how the Spaniards tore parts of it down and built their own church on top.

Shortly after we passed Coricancha, we were back at the immigration office. We ran upstairs, showed the dirtbag everything we had, and he looked over everything with a level of scrutiny that I am sure he had not used in years. He silently and slowly looked over my documents and the receipt from the bank. Finally, he unlocked the drawer underneath his desk and pulled out the stamp. It was under his desk the whole time! All that talk from the other guy about not being able to and then this guy saying he couldn't do it and it was right there in the same desk across which I had told him my story hours before! The consul told me in English that he was just trying to save himself in case any problems came up when I left the country a few days later. With the email from the national immigration office telling him to do it and all that, he would be guiltless. But if he had given me the stamp without all this brew-ha-ha, he would have been on the hook.

He took out the stamp, carefully put it in the ink pad, and then slowly put it on the passport. Though his face was trying not to tell it, it seemed as if every move required overcoming the anger stemming from the realization that he was doing for free what he wanted to get paid for. He put the stamp in the passport, wrote the date, and signed it. It was done!

He gave me some advice as to what to do if anyone in the airport in Lima (didn't happen) asked about my special stamp (not from an airport or a border town). Ahh, more altruism from he who just wanted to help me. What a guy. Throughout the time in the office with the consul and the immigration officer, I frequently smiled knowing that I was turning the tables on the guys who tried to pull a fast one on me. I wanted to say a lot of things to them. One that almost slipped off my tongue more than once was "She (the consul) works well, doesn't she? Yeah, and I don't even have to pay her!" I figured that I shouldn't rock the boat and just let things work out with the consul making the calls. Really, though, what a great lady the consul was! Now I left the office as a legal visitor in Peru and had the rest of the day to enjoy Cuzco.

Clint vs. Peruvian Immigration, Part II

So these two immigration dirtbags have just told me that unless I want to go all the way back to the border and get a passport stamp, I'll need to show up after hours to illegally acquire my special stamp. This, as you can imagine, was slightly disconcerting.

By the way, while you're reading, you should listen to this song by Milton Nascimento. Saw him live recently here in NYC and he has some great stuff. He's Brazilian and Paula e Bebeto is the name of the song. And after that, have a listen to Jorge Ben's Quem cochicha o rabo espicha. Never seen Jorge Ben live, but he has great music. No pictures in this post, just music.

I left the immigration office feeling a little worried. I didn't know what to do, but I knew that I wasn't going to pay these dudes anything. On my way in to the office, I had seen a piece of paper with information for all of the embassies in Lima. After leaving the office, I remembered that information and decided to take advantage of my American citizenship! I had also noticed that there was a U.S. consulate in Cuzco. I wrote down the information for both offices and went to make a phone call. I told the guy at the phone place that I needed to make a local call. We called, no one answered, and then he told me that the consulate was just a few blocks away. I made my way over there, met the security guard out front, explained everything to him, and was happy to hear that the consul was on her way over as we were speaking.

The consul arrived and I quickly realized that I had made a very good decision. She is Peruvian, but lived in the U.S. for a while. Great lady. She rolled her eyes at what the immigration officers told me and immediately called the national immigration office to get authorization to give me my passport stamp. She talked to someone, got the authorization, wrote a letter for me, and took me back to the office where I had just left. I was so relieved that things were going well.

It was great getting back to the office and seeing the looks on the faces of the guys who wanted to cheat me out of my money but were now realizing that they wouldn't get a dime! The consul went to talk to someone, the person in charge of the office, but we found out that she was out sick. The dude who kept telling me he wanted to help me was the guy in charge. His assistant was next in line. They acted like they were cooperating but were actually giving us a lot of hassle. At first, the guy in charge was out of the office deporting some South African for dealing drugs. Meanwhile, the other guy said he couldn't do anything because the other guy had the stamp.

The guy in charge came back and seemed happy to help. In reality, he just wanted me to pay him a little money, and now was being a real annoyance while acting as if he was helping. He said he would give me the stamp, but he needed a verification from the national immigration office. Fair enough, that made sense. He said that a phone call would not be ok because it could anybody on the phone. Only fax. Well, idiot, it could also be anyone on the other end of the fax line, but whatever. We called and the office said they would fax. Something weird happened, which seems to be the axiom of faxing, and instead they emailed the office.

All of this took a while because we were waiting for the fax, and then the email, and then there were also other people coming in and out with their own issues. The consul told me that if the boss had not been sick, we would have been in and out. So this guy finally got the email, sat down to read it, and said that it was enough for him to give me the stamp. However, I would have to pay the entry fee at the bank. This was legit; I wouldn't be paying them, it was at the national bank and everyone who enters has to pay. It may have been a good thing that the bus left the border without me getting out because I had no money and wouldn't have been able to pay there.

All of this took us up to about 11:30 am. I had been working on this stuff for over 2 hours. The dirtbag officer told us to go to the bank and then bring back the receipt for the payment of the fee, and then he would give me the stamp. He then said that he was going somewhere at noon. The consul asked if he would be there in the afternoon. I can still remember the tone he used to say "A veces atendemos, a veces no." Dirty! Basically he was saying "Maybe we will, maybe we won't." So the consul told him not to go anywhere and we ran out of the office to head up the street to the national bank, hoping to pay the fee and get back to the office before he left.

Clint vs. Peruvian Immigration, Part I

Even arriving to Cuzco did not remove all of my concerns, because I knew that I was still in Peru without a passport stamp. But talking with the police officer at the Plaza de Armas made me feel much more comfortable. If you remember correctly, when I entered Peru in the same bus Francisco Pizarro used when he traveled in when he conquered the Incan empire, the bus was in a hurry and left before I could get out to get my passport stamped. They told me it would be no problem, that I could take care of it in Puno or Cuzco. I know they aren't the authorities on the issue, but I didn't really have a choice. P.S. buses didn't exist when Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incas.

The immigration office opened at 9:30 or so. I did a little looking around in Cuzco and made my way to the office by around 10. I explained to someone what my problem was, and they told me to go upstairs to talk to some guy. I continued to feel assured that it would be no problem, because everyone talked as if what I was doing was easily done. I got upstairs, the guy was there alone at his desk, and I sat down to explain to him what had happened. This is essentially what he said: "Well, this is a problem. We want to help you, but this is a problem. We used to be able to do stuff like this, but not anymore. When you try to leave Peru in two days, they won't let you."

He then told me that there were a few options. One was that I would have to return to the border and get a stamp. I definitely did not want to do this because I was tired of buses and also I would lose all of my time in Cuzco. Also, what if the same thing happened as the last trip I had just finished 2 hours earlier? I could miss my flight home. The only other option, according to this guy, was to get an entry stamp at the Cuzco Airport. He said he had a friend who could get me a stamp saying I had entered the country. However, in order to do this, he would have to get me a fake boarding pass from AeroSur, the Bolivian airline, that said I came from La Paz. Even more ridiculous, it would have to be printed for a Sunday flight (the day this all went down was Friday) because planes don't come from La Paz on Fridays or Saturdays.

This didn't seem like a great option. Fake boarding pass, no guarantee that I will get it in time and the immigration office isn't open on Saturday or Sunday, etc. I was thinking about it, and the guy kept saying the same phrase over and over: queremos ayudarte! We want to help you! I said that I really wanted to not go back to the border. He then said: how much do you think it would cost to get back to the border? I said I imagined 100 soles or something around there. He said, "Well, I think that getting all of this arranged through the airport would cost around 100 soles." At some point during this conversation, he called up a friend at the airport, but the friend was not there. He then said that he would have another guy from the office there go to the airport that day and get the stamp to give me the stamp. This guy came up and agreed to do it, and all I would have to do is pay around 100 soles and come a little after the office closed. What a convenient coincidence that my arbitrary estimate and the "fee" for the services were "around" the same price.

Wait a minute! I smell corruption. All of a sudden, I had to go to the bathroom. Absolutely had to. I told them I needed to use it and the guy took me to a bathroom and said "Usually we don't let people use this bathroom. It's only for workers here, but we'll let you use it." Dirty man. Well, I swear that this bathroom break was evidence of divine intervention because it gave me time to think about what was going on. I decided that I would rather go back to the border, miss out on my time in Cuzco, and make sure I did it all the right way than pay these dudes to do what might turn out to be nothing and what was probably illegal.

I came out and asked him what the 100 soles was for. If this was a legitimate fee that people paid for this type of service, then maybe I would consider it. I said, "Now this 100 soles: is this for you guys, for the government, for the airline....who is it for?" He said, "Oh no, this is for the government! But if you want to pay us a little extra, that's fine too!" Then I responded, "Well, that's why I ask, because I don't believe in doing that." He told me to come back at 5:30 if I wanted the stamp.

Part II is next.

Puno to Cuzco?

I made the title of this post a question, so as to not give away the ending before you get to the end of the post. If you remember correctly, the last time you were reading one of my posts, I was walking through the dark streets of Puno (Peru) as an illegal visitor on my way to the bus terminal to try to catch a bus to Cuzco. If we didn't catch one that night, we would have to spend the night in Puno and catch a bus in the morning. Because this was an 8 or 9 hour bus ride, we (my recently acquired Bolivian friend Germán) wanted to do it overnight so that we were in Cuzco early in the morning instead of in the evening. You can see Puno near the bottom of the map, near Lake Titicaca, and then Cuzco to the northwest of Puno. You may notice that this map says "Cusco." They are the same thing, just two different spellings.



We got to the bus station and went down the rows of ticket booths looking for a bus agency that had a bus going to Cuzco. It was late and the chances were slim. Despite the odds against us, we found one! It was the last bus going out that night. We were so relieved! They didn't take credit cards and we had no Peruvian money (soles), but fortunately there was an ATM machine. The bus was leaving with a few minutes of us arriving. We made sure they wouldn't leave without us, and only had one thing left to do before we got on the bus.

I hadn't gone to the bathroom in hours. We went down the terminal hall until we arrived at the bathroom. When we got there, there was a lady at the front of both bathrooms who was there to make sure that people paid in order to use the bathroom. I didn't happen to have any céntimos yet because the bus ticket purchase worked out in that way. I had bills, but no coins. No stores were open for me to break a bill, and so we had to go back to the bus agency counter. I don't remember why, but it seemed that for some reason we couldn't get change from them either, and so Germán asked them if they would just give us the one sol or whatever it was to get in because this had to happen. The people behind the counter thought that was real funny for some reason, and gave us what we needed.

We got into the bathroom, took care of business, and got on the bus. This bus was nicer than the last two, which wouldn't be difficult, but it was packed. It had the same kind of feel as the others. These weren't tourists, they were Peruvians just taking the bus from one point to the next. Germán and I found our seats and had a great time talking about all that had gone on and other things such as Boy Scouts (not sure how that came up), religion, Bolivia, the U.S., and so forth. We kept joking about how we were going to hear someone hanging out the door of the bus yelling "Cuzcooooo!!" like we had heard during that wonderful bus ride from Copacabana to Puno.

For all I know, this may have been the case. When we left, the bus was full. We eventually went to sleep, and I woke up with people sleeping in the aisle! I usually like the aisle seat because there is more leg room, but this was always based on the assumption that the aisle wouldn't have a huge Peruvian lady sleeping in it. And I mean huge. I was blocked in, with people on both sides, but was happy at least to be on the bus.

At about 7 am, we arrived in Cuzco. Things were great. The air was fresh, the sun was coming out, and we were just an uphill walk away from the Plaza de armas. We made it there, but it was a tough walk (see previous post about walking/running uphill at 12,500 feet with backpack!). Plaza de armas:

Too big/awesome to get in one picture. Germán waited there for his friends and I saw down on a bench to wait with him. Some guy tried to get us to buy some tourist package, which I found a little annoying. Just the tip of the iceberg. I heard a girl complaining about it on the bus from La Paz to Copacabana and thought she was ridiculous. She said Cuzco was cool, but way too touristy. Well, kind of true, and I realized this when I got there. But still amazing. I will be posting more about this next time or the time after.

Germán's friends came. He went one way with them, I went the other to find my place for the next few days. On my way, I told a police officer about my predicament with the border and passport stamp. She said it would be no problem, and that I could go to the immigration office after it opened. All of my problems seemed to be resolved, but oh was I wrong. Next post: the battle of the century with the Cuzco immigration officers.

Punoooooo!

When last we spoke, I was on the shores of Lake Titicaca. I had just crossed in a little boat, while our boat had crossed the lake on a small ferry. We finally got back on the road after waiting on the other side of Titicaca for about an hour. Like I said before, I wasn't in the best of spirits. I had had a headache all day, I had no more Bolivian money, I was hungry, I had been needing to go to the bathroom for like 5 hours but our bus had no restroom, babies were crying, and the bus was really warm. We wound our way down the road surrounding Titicaca, stopping at certain small houses on the side of the road where some people on the bus lived. I think it was around here when the people carrying the goat got off, but I do not know for sure.

After a while, and after the sun had set, we made it to Copacabana. This is Bolivia's Copacabana, not Barry Manilow's or Rio de Janeiro's. But, because Rio's Copacabana is pretty amazing and I did see it this summer from the heights of Cristo Redentor and Pão de Açúcar (not to mention seeing it while walking on the beach), I'll throw in a picture.

Unlike the Copacabanas of Barry Manilow and Rio, Bolivia's Copacabana is not the hottest place around. Figuratively and literally. In the middle of the southern hemisphere's winter, at 12,600 feet, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, Copacabana was cold. Those of us continuing to Cuzco had to get off the bus and find the connection, but we had no idea where that was and the driver of the previous bus was no help. And we were at least an hour late.

A Colombian guy, a Bolivian guy, and I looked for the connecting bus. No luck. We made our way through the narrow streets that were packed with vendors, and eventually found the office of the bus company. The lady there told us that our bus had left already and that we would have to wait until the next day. They had been waiting for two people (the Bolivian and me apparently; the Colombian was going somewhere else but also had missed his bus), but the bust took two other people instead. We were pretty upset, as you can imagine, and told her to figure something out for us. She refused to help. There were no more buses to Cuzco, and so I was going to have to spend the night there in Copacabana and lose a day in Cuzco (I was only going to have a few days there to split between Cuzco and Macchu Pichu).

The Bolivian kid, Germán (great kid, by the way), called the bus company on a phone down the street while I stayed at the place and watched everyone's stuff. I always love how people ask me to watch their stuff. People do it at school all the time. How do they know I'm not wearing a disguise and am going to take their stuff? The bus company told him to tell her to give us our money back so that we could at least look for another bus, even though there appeared to be no other buses en route to Cuzco. She was gone for a while, came back, and then wouldn't believe him, so they went to find a phone and call. She finally agreed to give us back our money after talking to the company, but all of this took about an hour. Germán and I left the place and started frantically searching for a bus that was going to Cuzco.

We were told that the buses all left from a place up the street a few blocks, so we started to run. I had forty-five pounds on my back and this was at 12,600 feet. I think it's obvious that Germán and I had a hard time running to the bus. We ran about a block and then both stopped and replaced it with speed walking. We were hurrying though, and we found some buses that were going into Peru but not Cuzco. Arequipa would have been cool, but no way, wrong direction. Puno would be ok because at least it was in the right direction. We found a few buses that were going to Puno, but nothing to Cuzco. We figured that there was nothing to Cuzco that night, so we decided to go with the Puno bus.

Bus is probably a slight overstatement of what this vehicle was. It was a glorified VW van, with slightly more height and length and a few extra rows of seating. The seats were very close to each other, had no padding, and the road was . . . Andean? Bumpy is probably the best word. This was a family operation, meaning the dad drove while the wife and others sat up at the front taking money and looking for more passengers. It took us a while to get going because the bus was looking for more people (more business). One of the people at the front would hang out the door and yell "Punooooo!" This went on for 30 or 45 minutes, and then we finally got going on the four hour ride to Puno. It wasn't the best scenario, but it was at least a little closer to Cuzco.

It was hard to sleep because of the bumpy road, my headache, and my inability to find a bathroom. I did fall asleep though, as we crossed the checkpoint at the border. This was bad. It was only at the Bolivian side, which was not as bad because now I was out of the country and wouldn't have to explain why my passport didn't have an exit stamp. The worst part was missing customs at the Peruvian side, which was not caused by my being asleep. The bus was in a hurry and the driver kept saying that they only wanted Peruvians so that they wouldn't get held up at the border by any paperwork. My friend and I are not Peruvian, and when I told them that I needed to get out to get my paperwork done, they kept driving! They told me to do it in Puno or Cuzco. This was really bad. I was now an illegal visitor in Peru. More on that in the next post.

We made it to Puno at 10:30 pm or so. Germán and I had some good conversation and rested a little on the ride. We got out of the bus at one part of town, and had to walk a few minutes to get to the bus station. It was nice to have someone else with me while walking through the dark dirt roads of Puno late at night, and we had now regained a little bit of hope that we would make it to Cuzco by the morning. Now all we needed was a bus leaving from Puno.

Lamento Boliviano

As you read my sad but exciting story, you can listen to this great song by Los Enanitos Verdes called "Lamento Boliviano." When I last posted, I was surprised to see how small our bus was for the first leg of the journey from La Paz to Cuzco. In any case, I just wanted to get to Cuzco, so this was going to be fine. There were only about ten people, and the bus had capacity for 25 or so. This lack of passengers quickly came to an end within an hour of the time of departure. We stopped at the outskirts of La Paz, waited for a while to find passengers (the driver or someone else will just yell the destination out hoping people will come), and picked up some more people. This included people with children, people with lots of baggage to sell, and two people with a goat. A GOAT! I couldn't believe my eyes. I was really hoping that it was a llama, but it was only a goat. It wasn't full sized; it was just a little baby goat, but a goat nonetheless. I stole a few pictures while the owners weren't looking. I apologize that the pictures are out of focus, but this is the best I could do.

The goat is inside that blanket.

There you can see its head on the right of the lady, who was one of the people who brought it on board.

The goat made some noises here and there, and they did their best to keep it quiet. It wasn't nearly as loud as some of the kids on board. As the trip went on, my headache got worse and worse. The sun was shining on my side of the bus, and so I had the window open a little. I usually get warm easily, especially in vehicles. But for other people, I think it was a little cold. Or noisy, because the guy in front of me reached back and slammed my window shut while he was trying to sleep. I was in shock. The roads aren't that great, the air is thin, I can't read in vehicles because it makes my head hurt, and I was steaming hot. Oh, and I really had to go to the bathroom. I was wrong to assume that this bus would have one. I don't mean to complain, but it was a rough little trip.

On our way to the border of Bolivia and Peru, we passed by Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake (12,500 feet). I was pretty excited about this because it was one thing I wanted to do in Bolivia but did not think I had time for. This lake is huge, and so I had plenty of time to see as much of it as I wanted. Really a beautiful lake; enough to make me forget about my throbbing headache! Here are some pictures.

After driving by the lake for a while, we started stopping in a little town on the edge of the lake. I thought it was just a break, and so I asked the bus driver how long we would be on break. He told me to go buy a boat ticket to get across the lake. I was really confused, but then figured out that the bus was going across the lake too, but in another boat. Another boat! The bus was going to cross the lake in a boat! The lake is too big to drive around. I couldn't believe all of these things that were happening. It was turning into a pretty eventful day. As you can see on this map, there is a small part of the lake where it is not too far to cross. It is between Copacabana and Huarina. I think it was there that we crossed, but I am not positive. This is a French map, which explains the weird looking spellings of Bolivia and Peru.


This is the boat that we were crossing in. It was only a minute or two, but we were packed into the little boat. If we hit another boat or something, we were all going to be taking the plunge into the cold Titicaca without life vests. But we made it across without a problem. Here is our mighty boat.


While we were doing this, our bus was crossing in a mighty barge of its own. It took a little longer to get over and off the boat, and for some reason we waited almost an hour in the bus to start driving again. This delay will come back to haunt me. I think that literature people would call what I just said "foreshadowing."

It was during this delay when the goat starting making noises. We started again for Copacabana, dropping people off here and there at little houses on the side of the road near the lake. I still hadn't found a bathroom, I still had a headache, I didn't have any Bolivian money because I was waiting to get to Peru to take out more. But all I had to do was wait a few more hours until things really got stressful in Copacabana. Here's our bus crossing Titicaca on a boat.

Preemptive Strike

The next 24 or 30 hours involved a lot of adventures, and so I am going to break it all down into separate posts. It will be like one of those mysteries that people write in the newspaper, a piece of the puzzle each week.

Like I mentioned in the last post, I arrived in La Paz early on Thursday morning. My plan was to spend the day there and head to Cuzco, Peru that night in an overnight bus. After I got my bag from the airport, I got into this little bus that took me to the bus terminal where I could leave my bag and get a bus ticket. These buses are tiny. There were no buses like those you would see in most big cities. These buses are like minivans, and when they come up to a stop at an intersection, someone in the front seat yells where the bus is going and, from what I can remember, the price. They had the same thing in Bogota, Colombia and other cities. I think the main reason here is that the streets, for the most part, aren't wide enough for normal-sized buses.

The guy put my stuff on the top of the bus, which kind of worried me a little, and we headed into the downtown area. The airport is located above the city, and so you descend on a highway into the city. The view was amazing. The city is at 12,000 feet and in something of a valley, and there are houses packed on the hills on all sides. There are mountains on all sides, obviously, and it was a clear morning. It was one of the coolest scenes I have ever scene. Did you catch that intentional misspelling of "seen"? Not bad, if you ask me.

I arrived at the bus terminal and started looking for a bus ticket. Unfortunately, all of the tickets to Cuzco left in the morning or the afternoon. I wanted an evening ticket, but it was impossible. So I bought a 2 pm departure or something like that. La Paz to Cuzco is about a fifteen-hour bus ride over the Andes, or so they told me. More on that below. Once I had my ticket, I was able to drop off my bag and visit the city. It's incredible to see cities like this, built in the mountains. The streets are narrow and everything is on an incline--or a decline, I guess, depending on how you look at it. This gives it a small-town feeling, even though the city is a big city.




La Paz doesn't have as much history as some cities in Latin America because it did not exist before the Spaniards colonized the area. Well, I can't say that for sure; there may have been something, but definitely not an important city. Places like Cuzco and Mexico City were important capitals for the pre-colonialism civilizations, and so there is where you can really see the ancient mixing with the modern. But La Paz is still really great, mostly because of the scenery. I walked around the city and checked out a lot of the streets and the markets. While the architecture doesn't show the meeting of old and new like in other cities, La Paz still presents an interest contrast of new and old traditions and customs that you can see in how people dress, their professions, their appearance in general, and their language.

One thing I noticed while in the taxi in Santa Cruz the night before was that there were a ton of chicken places. It seemed like everything on the main drag was a chicken place. I decided to try some here in La Paz, and needed to eat anyway before going on the bus. What I got was a big greasy plate of fries and chicken, and I was scared that it was going to make me sick. If I remember right, I think I had a few pepto-bismol pills that I took right after I ate. I call that my "preemptive strike." You gotta hit the enemy before it hits you. Luckily I didn't have any problems.

I went back to the bus station to get ready for the long bus ride. I found out that I would have to change buses at some point and also started to develop a headache at some point during the day. I was not sure if it was altitude sickness or what. I never have felt it before, and so I didn't have anything to compare it with. Being in Bogota never caused me any problems, but this is more than 3,000 feet higher. I didn't have any medicine and just figured that it would go away.

The bus came late and the people who were waiting piled in. I was expecting a nice bus like the ones you usually have on long distance trips. This one was a poor man's fifteen seat van. And I mean poor man's....the seats were hard and close together, the luggage went on top, and there was definitely no air coming in unless it was through the window. This was only supposed to be for three or four hours, at which point I would change to something else. The adventure continues in the next post.

Curitiba + Capital Inicial

OK, this is the first time I have ever made one of these videos on iMovie. I used my own pictures from Curitiba, Brazil and a great song by a Brazilian band called Capital Inicial. Since I own the song and the pictures, this is 100% legit! The song is "Tudo que vai" and it is one of my favorites. Curitiba is a great city. It is in the southern part of Brazil, where a lot of European immigrants have come from Italy, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and more. Many of these pictures come from the older part of town where you can see the European influence in the architecture. Since this worked, there will be plenty more where it's coming from. I hope you like it.

Paraguay --> Bolivia

After a few hours waiting in Asunción for the plane and then the short flight, we landed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. This was just a layover for me, en route to La Paz. However, this flight landed late at night, 11 or maybe midnight, and the flight to La Paz was leaving early in the morning. I have a mission companion from Santa Cruz, but I had no way of getting a hold of him. I once had an email address, but I never was able to communicate with him either because I never emailed him or he never emailed me back. The details are fuzzy.

This is Bolivia and Paraguay. It is hard to see, but Asunción is on the bottom of the map. This is a map from Brazil, so Asunción is written as Assunção, and Paraguay is written as Paraguai. You can see Santa Cruz on the east of Bolivia and then La Paz on the west. As you can see, the distance between these cities is not great. The flights are only an hour or so. But driving takes over 10 hours and sometimes longer because of underdeveloped roads and a few other things.


I arrived late at night into Santa Cruz. A lot of South American countries require Americans to get visas because they want to get back at the United States for making these countries' citizens get visas in order to come to the U.S. And they always make them the same price as what a visa to the U.S. would cost. I think it is ridiculous, but that is probably what they're saying! I tried to get this visa done in Rio de Janeiro, but they wouldn't let me. After almost an hour, I got through the line and they got the visa put into my passport. I went to find my bag, but it was not there. I went to ask a representative of the airline why my bag was not there. When he found out that I was only making a connection there, he took me to the ticket counter and called some guy on his walkie talkie.

This guy came up and told me that the airline was providing a hotel for me because of the layover. I was happy to hear it because I was planning on just staying in the airport until my flight left. But I was also a little skeptical because it just seemed too nice. And once I started talking to this guy, things seemed really weird. We were talking in Spanish at first, but he insisted on speaking English because he said it would never get better unless he practiced. I was fine with that and he proceeded to fill out the form in order to get me into a hotel.

He started to ask me the basic questions, such as my name and age and so forth. After a few of these, he started to ask some really weird questions. The one that stuck out the most was "Do you want to live forever?" I couldn't believe that he asked me that. What a bizarre question! I thought maybe he had been listening to Alphaville or something. P.S. this song might be the best worst song of all time. Same for the music video. The lead singer looks like a younger version of my brother-in-law Mark, aka Cry Boy. When my sister dumped him in high school, he sat in our house and cried, which gave him a name that he has never lived down. I'm glad things worked out for them.



I told him that I was planning on living forever. He asked me briefly about what religion I belonged to and I talked about it with him for a second. Then he took me out to get a cab. The conversation with him had been so weird that I wondered if I was stepping into a drug deal or something. Maybe his live forever question was some kind of code. And then a free cab ride on top of everything just seemed too weird! But I felt like everything would be fine, so I went with it. Oh, and he told me it was a 5 star hotel. I said to myself that I would be the judge of that.

The cab driver took me to the hotel. By the time we got there, it was probably around 1 am. It was nice of them to do all that, but it was kind of useless to get a hotel for 4 hours or so. But I was not complaining. My room was pretty nice. There was a front room with two small beds, a couch, and a small kitchen, and then a bedroom. The only weird thing was this really small iguana that was dead. That was gross.

I'm getting ready for bed in the bedroom when I hear a noise. Someone was trying to open my door! And he was whistling. It seemed a little bit weird that someone trying to break in would be making a lot of noise. I figured that he was just at the wrong room, but it was so bizarre. I went to the kitchen and looked out the window. I couldn't see anyone, but I was a little weirded out. I put the couch in front of the door, which may seem kind of silly but I was really uneasy about all of the weird things going on. I did that once too in Nashville, TN when I went to visit Vanderbilt Law School. The dead bolt wouldn't work on the door, and I had looked out the window a few minutes before only to see a dude across the parking lot looking right at me! Anyway, maybe it's baseless fear, but I like to keep it safe. I went to bed eventually, but did not get much sleep because I had to wake up early to get back to the airport. Other than this person trying to open my door, nothing bad happened and I made it back to the airport.

The flight was fine. The only weird thing was this guy who was whistling on plane. It caught my attention because I had heard a guy the night before whistling outside of my room! It was really annoying in the plane, and eventually someone made a really loud "Shhhh!" at him. Didn't stop him. Luckily it was on the descent and we were getting out of there. I finally made it to La Paz, the world's highest capital city. 12,000 feet! Things were a little crazy up until this point, with the hotel situation and all, but nothing like the next 24 hours. I will tell you all about it in the next post.

Misiones

I left Iguazú on Tuesday morning headed for Posadas. Posadas is in the same province as Iguazú, but on the opposite side of Misiones (the province's name). See for yourself here on this map. Posadas is on the left (the west, if you will) and Iguazú is up near the top of the map (north). Posadas is where my mission president lives with his wife and son. I had not seen them since I left my mission in 2004. The bus ride took about 6 hours and went by very fast.


I arrived at the station and within a few minutes found my mission president. It was great to see him! He is one of the most influential people of my life and I was happy to get a chance to see him. He was kind of like a father for an important time in my life. He even looks like my dad. And he remembered a lot of details about me, which I found to be incredible. I am sure that he remembers a lot of stuff about each of his missionaries, and he had something like 400 or 500. He is an amazing man. He has these great attributes that I feel are a reflection of what God is like.

He took me on a small tour of Posadas and then home to his house. I knew that he was going to ask me a few questions. Well, two things at least: am I married? And then the next question, why am I not married? He hit those in the first two minutes, and then he asked me a lot about what I was up to in life. It was fun to catch up, especially since I never was able to talk to him for long periods of time as a missionary. I never worked in the offices with him and only talked to him in interviews and sometimes on the phone when problems came up. I was always jealous of those who worked closer to him, but now I had a night to myself. We ate a great dinner, talked about the mission, life, my family, and all sorts of stuff. I spent the night there and then he took me across the river to Paraguay in the morning so that I could catch a bus to Asunción, Paraguay.

A few weeks ago, I bought a plane ticket from Asunción to La Paz, Bolivia. If I had more time, I would have taken the bus. But since I was going back early for a family reunion, I had to speed things up, especially since my flight home was leaving from Peru. A ticket from Asunción to La Paz was not too expensive and saved me a lot of time. I was going to spend a day in Asunción but I wanted to see my mission president instead. I figured I would still get some time in Asunción before my flight.

My mission president dropped me off at the border. I had already gotten my visa at the consulate in Rio de Janeiro and just had to get my passport stamped. Then I got on a bus and went into the little city of Encarnación to catch a bus to Asunción. It is incredible to see the difference that a border can make between two countries. Posadas is not the nicest city on earth, but it is pretty nice. Encarnación, on the other hand, seems to have more poverty and way less infrastructure. I noticed the same thing when I was in Iguazú. The Argentine city (Puerto Iguazú) was not bad, the Brazilian city (Foz do Iguaçu) is bigger and nicer, but the city on the Paraguayan side (Ciudad del Este) is just like Encarnación: poor and full of cheap goods. Ciudad del Este is notorious for having tons of really cheap electronics (and drug deals), and Encarnación had a lot of markets that sold all sorts of stuff. Paraguay as a whole has a hard time. It is sad to see, and you can see a big difference between Brazil and Argentina (even with their problems) and Paraguay.

I arrived at the bus station in Encarnación at 9:30 or so. There was still a little bit of doubt as to whether I was going to make it for my flight. I had 12 hours or so, but a 6 hour bus ride in Paraguay could take who knows how long! I got to the terminal, checked some times on some of the bus agencies, and realized that I had just barely missed a big group of buses that were leaving for Asunción. I was not overly worried, but it would have been nice to get on one of those. Then I realized that Paraguay is an hour behind Argentina! I had not missed the buses, but was almost an hour early. I bought a ticket and got on. The ride was cheap, but not so great. It was really warm in the bus and my side has the sun on it. I get hot easily to begin with, and you know what they say about the sun in Paraguay!

The scenery was prettier than I expected. Paraguay is greener than I thought it would be, but is also pretty sparsely populated. We made a ton of stops, but eventually made it to Asunción. By the time we got there it was too late to go visit the city. I didn't want to risk missing my flight, so I just went to the airport. I was a little early, but I have had some bad experiences missing buses and almost missing flights, so it was a good idea. And I was glad that I went, because if I hadn't then, I never would have heard this terrible but great song in the taxi. Make sure you read the next post or two, because this flight leaving from Paraguay was the beginning of maybe the craziest 48 hours of my life!

Face Lift

I've been told that my blog needs a little bit of a face lift, as in it needs more pictures. An ordinary blog author might be upset finding out that his blog needs some improvement, but I've always been all about reaching out to my readers and hearing out their concerns. Making my blog prettier shouldn't be a problem because I have around 2000 pictures from this summer. So, I am happy to post a few pictures here, and even a little bit of video later if I can get them to upload, from my trip to Iguazú. For my next post, I won't be able to post pictures. I am going to write the next post in a few minutes and I don't have the pictures after Iguazú on my computer. They are on my camera and there are some issues with getting them from my camera to the computer that I can resolve, but not right now. I will get on here later. But starting today, I will make my blog a little easier on the eyes (except for my next post).

The next few pictures are from the Devil's Throat/Garganta del diablo/Garganta do diabo.

From the bridge on the way out...you can already tell that this is going to be a pretty big deal.


This is the only spot where I could see the bottom. The rest is covered by falling water or rising mist.






Mullet