Can't hide.

Yesterday I was at the airport in Lima, Peru. A guy walked up to me, "Schmiddy". Who the hell is this? Don't you remember me from Coroico (Bolivia)? No, can't say that I do.

Walked into a hotel in Panama, a thief from Bocas del Toro knew me. Then I ran into a woman from Rurrenabaque.

Salar - Bolivia

The Cast

Adam - aka Canadien

Twenty three year old accounting student hailing from Toronto. Our resident polyglot, speaks English, French, Spanish and is learning Hebrew.

Braydon - aka Aussie

Twenty four year old park ranger on Christmas Island, an Australian possession in the Indian ocean, closer to Asia than Australia.

Jose - aka Guide, Dickhead

Big for a Quechuan owns the car we are using. Not capable of understanding the meaning of the song "Keep the Customer Satisfied." Only called us chicos (boys) although I am probably 15 years older than he.

Lior - aka Israeli, Uzbekistani, Borat

Twentyseven year old electrical engineer. Athletic and buff. The physique one would expect from a boxer and one who mixed cement by hand for years. Energetic and contagiously goofy. Spent months trekking alone in Chile's Patagonia, sleeping in a tent.
Yn????
The cook by title.

Day 1 - Jul 22

Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Headed down to TODO tours at 8:00, paid the balance due, had a cup of coffee and waited. At 9:30, an hour late, my car showed up. My backpack was lashed to the top and I got inside. We made introductions. I found myself very glad that our group had four people, a fifth would have made things very tight.
We headed out, during the first hour the scenery was very pleasant but soon turned drab. After three hours of driving we had lunch. Cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, ham of sorts, more like head cheese and cheese were provided for us to make our own sandwiches. Lior and Adam registered as Vegetarian although they are not, it just makes it easier to eat kosher food.

We saw a rhea but Jose did not concern himself with our desire to photograph it.

We passed town after town Jose gave a brief description of the town most were mining towns for Tin, Antimony and / or silver. Adam translated for us. As we ascended the rivers were icy, sometimes we drove over ice, sometimes through the river where the ice had been broken by previous traffic. At one point we approached a spot at which three 4x4s were sitting, unable or unwilling to cross. We all got out of our car. Jose drove as far as he could and then monkied out the door onto the roof, got a pick axe, scrambled to the front bumper and worked the ice ahead of the vehicle, got back inside and drove up the far bank.

I was unwilling to walk accross the ice. Although others in our party had crossed, I outweighed them by at least 80 pounds. I managed to secure a seat in a Lexus that had been waiting. This was a comfortable vehicle. Upon reaching the far side I got out and rejoined our party.
Llamas were everywhere, with colored tags on their ears to indicate ownership. We were told each family had 500 llamas, which were traded in town for staples. A truck comes out once a week with supplies. The area was desolate and freezing.

We arrived at the entrance to the park and paid the 150 bs entry fee. We were told to keep our tickets as we would have to show them on the way out. We were admitted for four days or less.

Dinner consisted of vegetable potato pancakes, ground meat and mashed potatoes. Shepards pie, the unimaginative English staple. We discussed the worst experiences of travels, thievery, medical emergencies, food poisoning and the like.

The crude accommodations had no heat. We played bullshit until just before ten. The lights were to be off at ten so we went to our room furnished only with four concrete beds with mattresses on them. We all put on as much clothing as possible. Those with thermal underwear put them on, extra sweaters, gloves, hats and got into our sleeping bags.
Huge balls of bloody mucous congealed in my nose as I slept fitfully. At two o'clock I laid in bed, my heart pounding rapidly as I panted, unable to get air. Braydon and Lior were experiencing altitude sickness which I ministered with large amounts of strong Coca tea. Fortunately I had a pound of leaves with me. Adam found the cold unendurable, strangely enough only the Canadian was profoundly affected by the cold.

At 3 o'clock Braydon inquired if anyone was cold. We were all awake. The door to the room was shut and the four guys in the room had consumed all the oxygen. I stepped out into the hall, my heart pounding and told Braydon to come. He shuffled out inside his sleeping bag and collapsed on the floor with his back to the wall. I went outside and panted, contemplating the fact that we were at least 16 hours from medical care and that I thought I was in arrhythmia primed for another cardiac arrest. After tweny minutes I felt better, I opened all the windows and saw Braydon still collapsed. I went into the room, got his mattress, threw it on the ground and told him to move, which resulted in a very rude response. When he saw that I had brought his mattress he clambeed onto it; I then fetched his blankets and my bedding and went to sleep in the the hall under an open window.

Day Two - July 23

We are the last group up. We were advised that the two small boxes of tea were to last us for four days. One meal into our trip and we had consumed half of our supply.
We had passed the night in Cotena and then drove through Cotena Grande, which ironically is smaller than Cotena. The only industry is llama raising and substandard lodging for tourists. These were formerly gold mining towns, gold was panned in the river but the supplies had been depleted. In the process of taking pictures of these grotty towns I managed to lose my lens cap.

11:00 Jose stopped the truck, turned around and backtracked 100 meters. He spotted a truck wheel with a tire on the side of the road and directed us, not asked, to lift the heavy wheel onto the top of the truck where it was lashed over our back packs. He figured his find was worth $100.

We arrived at the hot springs. Our group, exception Lior bathing in the warm water. Most of the other arriving groups did not care to expose themselves to the frigid dry strong wind in order to partake.

For lunch we had cold fried beef, more cold veggie patties, various vegetables that had been boiled and left overnight to get very cold. Although we had been there for an hour before eating and there was plenty of opportunity to cook or reheat the food we were to find that the cook liked to cook everything in the evening and then serve it cold the next day.
We headed out to the geysers, which continously burped mud, some watery, some the consistency one would use when making pottery. Most was grey, some reddish. Sulfurous fumes added to the ambience.

3:30 We arrive at Hospeje Las Rivas. We finally arrived at our hotel at around 3:30 and walked the last couple of miles across the cold barren plains, taking pictures of the vicuna, a smaller relative of the llama. The tables were crowded with Japanese and English tourists travelling south from Uyuni.

For dinner we had fried chicken and vegetable, three kinds of potatoes, soup and some fried eggs for the vegetarians.

9:30 I was advising adam on places I had been to in Bolivia one of the brits came over and asked me what I thought of the jungle. I am sure you can figure what my response was like, although I spoke highly of Rurre.

The house has only solar power and DC lighting running off deep cycle 12 volt batteries.
We played a russian card game that is impossible to win. There is no winner, one person is "fool" the loser. Interesting perspective on life.

Adam translated our request to Jose. We did not want to waste a bunch of time look at lakes that were all little shallow splashes of water and looked the same. Let's blast through to the salt flats and catch some sunset photos. For dinner we had something the cooked called lasagna.
We burned things in the little franklin stove to try to keep warm. Scraps of paper, books we had finished reading. Adam considered burning all the sections of his South American travel guide that he had already visited or did not plan on visiting. We went to bed at 11 I fell asleep around 3.

Day 3 - July 24

I was awakened to the smell of bacon and eggs at 4. A guide from another group knocks to wake up his party. We were served cold pancakes, cooked the previous night and delivered on a serving plate, no individual plates or utensils were provided. Around 5:00 we woke up and we headed out around 5:30

At 8:03 we arrived at Piedra Arboles, a tree shaped rock.

Just before 9 we encountered the strange vehicle we saw driving across the flats the previous night. The tent was up and people were milling all about inspecting the home made vehicle and chatting with the couple, Chris and Elaine, that owned it.

The man, a design engineer built the car in six months at his house in Australia. Theengine was bought on ebay for $210, a four cylinder diesel truck engine. This beast has awesome suspension, two wheel drive and no heating or air conditioning. The seats are very small, this is not luxury transport. Once the beast was completely submerged in water and Chris had it up and running again in an hour.

For lunch we were dished up macaroni, shredded lettus, tomato, potatoes and peas with chicken. We consumed our meals using the back of the truck as the buffet and rocks as our tables and seats.

We arrived at the salt flats at 3:30 at which time Jose decided that he was done with his day. Despite his promise the previous night to take us to the salt flats. If I haven't mentioned this before (this part is being written 10 days after the fact and I don't review anything I've written) , Jose is pretty worthless as a guide, very sparing with the information and refusing to stop at the requested locations for photo shots. By this time I was pissed and started a confrontation with the big Quechuan but stood down at the request of my travelling companions. They wondered if he understood what a "fucking worthless piece of shit, a waste of flesh utterly devoid of the concept of customer service" meant. They assumed that by my pitch, volume and physical demeanor that my extreme displeasure had been conveyed.

Our "hotel" was built of salt, the walls were blocks cut from salt, mortared with salt. The floor was crushed salt. The tables, chairs and beds were made of salt. We placed our stuff in the room, locked the door and headed out.

Despite having been told that it was too dangerous to cross to the salt flats without a guide we headed out anyway. It was impossible to judge the distance, the featureless terrain extending to the horizon. An hour later after a three mile walk (as indicated by my GPS) we arrived and dicked around, posed for silly pictures and launched a few flares.

When we returned we were told that the door lock was broken as the key wouldn't work. We were in room 1, they were trying the key to room 9. One of the hotel employees tried to shim the door, but it had a dead latch. I started to pop the latch on the window to the room but they told me it was better to shim the door, which was not going to happen. After 15 minutes our guide, Jose walked around the corner and popped open the window.

I paid 3 bs to charge my computer and then tried to swap pictures amongst the 4 of us, each of the three others continuously issuing instructions that contradicted at least one of the others, each desparate to get their own copy or subset before the lights went out or the computer lost all charge. Some interesting people from Argentina thought that our group was a whole lot more fun than the people in their group. I was given a couple emails and asked to contact them if I made it to Buenes Aires.
Finally we went to bed.

Day 4 - July 25

We left the hotel watching the moon setting over the mountains, an awesome display and wanted to take pictures. Half an hour later Jose consented to stop when the moon was but a sliver. We all agreed he was just being an asshole. We drove for another half hour and he asked if we wanted to watch the sunrise from the flats or from Isla Pescado. What the hell kind of question is that? Why would you offer us the choice? We went to the island, climbed to the top and took a bunch of pictures, came down, had breakfast and headed out.
After an hour at some random spot in the middle of the flats Jose stopped so we could pose for more pictures with eerie backgrounds. He told us he would give us half an hour. We agreed we really didn't give a flying shit what he wanted and that we would spend as much time as we wanted.

8/31 I guess I am never getting around to finishing this, I'll just post as is.

Tupiza Day 1

Ten thirty in the morning found me in bed, well rested. That was a hell of a good sleep. Sleeping but one hour in forty will put one in state of readiness for a deep sleep. The lights did not turn on. What the hell? I would not have suspected that a town this large has only evening power. I stepped outside and had no doubt what the problem was. There was no sky, the mountains were gone. Visibility?... maybe fifty yards. Gusts of wind which I later found out to be in excessive of seventy kilometers per hour created a huge sandstorm and snapped branches off of trees. Nothing like what was happening in West Lafayette, IN, where my son is attending Purdue, but real enough.

I wandered around town with my camera. Alexandro Adventure, my prospective tour company was shuttered as were almost all the other businesses in town. I got a little shopping done, procuring a large bar of laundry detergent for 1 b, a six pack of pocket sized toilet paper for 6 b and a pound of coca leaves with 8 grams of bicarbonate of soda for 22 bs. At the video store I picked up three movies. It is not possible to buy movies down here that are not flagrant ripoffs. Maybe sometime I will explain how to chew coca leaves, but not here.
Tiring of the sandblasting I was receiving, I ducked into a locals eatery down the street from my hotel with a book I was reading about Lebanese hostages, Terry Waite and Oliver North. The huge skylight probably300 square feet, made reading possible indoors. I lunched and served as door man, bolting and unbolting the door as other customers came and went. The latch was insufficient to resist the door slamming open in the wind.

A succession of backpackers came and went. It grew dark, I went back to the hotel and got my head lamp. I finished the book and gave it to some American kid who expressed interest in it. I have five books left in my backpack, so I should be good for a week or two depending on how much idle time I have.

The lights came on to great cheers on two ocassions, but failed again within a minute. At 11 the power was restored. Glancing around the room I saw that there was nothing to pursue at this locale and headed back to my room.

La Paz to Tupiza

I have been advised that the worlds largest salt flats are best visited from the south for two reasons. The first being that the three day tour includes the salt flats and if one starts from the north, in Uyuni, the salt flats are seen on the first day and everything else is anti-climactic. A more important consideration for me is that the sites are visited at different times for those coming from the south than those from the north. As Uyuni is much closer to La Paz, the largest city in Bolivia and the seat of government, though not the capital, it is hugely more popular as the termini TODO for the trip.

So I set off to make my way from La Paz to Tupiza.

The Travel Plan

My intention was to take a bus from La Paz to Ururu (3 hours) and a train from Ururu to Tupiza (9 hours).

Plan versus reality

10:13 I had a greasy omelette and checked out of the brew hotel. My bill for four nights including a dinner and two pints of stout was 345 bolivianos. I strapped on my backpack and my day pack which was jammed full of electronics, walked down the street one block and turned left to walk several hundred meters up the hill to the bus terminal. Many bus companies that displayed trips to Oruru were unoccupied or just told me no. There was a very long line in front of another window. By the time I got the front the woman pulled out a fresh ticket book and stamped the date three times on each page one for the ticket, the stub and the office copy. Stamp in the ink pad, stamp, stamp, stamp on the page. Next page, repeat. The clock rolled past 10:00, I guess I was buying a seat on the 11:00. This is why I arrived an hour early. A Bolivian aphorism is "In Bolivia all things are possible but nothing is guaranteed." I purchased a semi reclining seat for 30 bs for the three hour trip and 2 b terminal tax and sat down to read for an hour.

I walked slowly, this was embarassingly arduous. I felt better when I read in the Lonely Planet that one should just take a taxi, the high altitude and the steepness of the road combine to make this a challenging walk with a back pack.

11:07 The 11 o'clock bus left very shortly after the scheduled departure time, after the cookie hawker and terminal tax inspector completed their rounds I am clad in shorts, a shirt, a guide vest and a rain jacket.

15:42 I inquired about the location of the train station and was advised to take a taxi. The train was sold out. It is not possible to reserve tickets over the phone or buy on the internet. Even on days the train operates the ticket window is sporadically attended. Great, now I have to take a frigging bus, the more scenic route but certainly not nearly as pleasant a journey, so I taxied back to the bus terminal. Window after window I was told it was not possible to buy a ticket to Tupiza even though it was displayed as one of their routes. I finally found a company that sold me a ticket and told me it was no problem. I have no idea why they said that, although I was to find out later that it was a hell of a problem. The bus leaves at 5:00 pm and arrives at 6:00 am. Well anything beats sitting in this shit hole of a town. Maybe I should take the 3 hour ride back to LaPaz and take the overnight tomorrow with my bud from Pittsburgh. No, just press on. I bought the ticket and went out to the lot to wait for the departure. Busses drove by and fogged us with exhaust every five minutes.

18:08 An hour late our bus shows up. I present my backpack to the luggage guy who was busy rearranging the current cargo, jamming his back against boxes and with a leg press jamming luggage bags and boxes into spots too small to hold them without deformation. I sure as hell hope that these bags only contain rice and beans. I board the bus and take my assigned seat. An extremely weathered tiny, thin ??? Indian woman took a seat next to me after padding it with an enormous blanket that she carried in a bag that was a foot thick and 30 inches on a side, the label said the blanket weighed 6.7 kilos, that's a lot of blanket.

20:08 We stopped at a restaurant on the side of the road, the only building within many miles. I bought a "hamburger" for 4 bs. The hamburger was a fried egg, tomato and french fry sandwich. A bowl of soup was another bs and a cup of jello was 1.5 bs. An hour later we finally moved on. I don't know if the driver was taking a conjugal visit or what the deal was but this was a long stop.

2:23 Another stop in the middle of nowhere, I don't know what is here, most people just stayed on the bus.

3:41 We finally resume our travel, what is the deal with these stops?

4:21We stopped again. Most people get out of the bus, the guys piss everywhere. The sky is clear and the stars are bright. Cigarettes and pot are consumed in large quantities. I look at the stars for a while and go back to my seat. The bus is turned off. I guess the driver is taking a nap. Cruz del Sur in Peru had two drivers that alternated one slept while the other drove.

7:46We are still stopped. Lots of protests as we are charged 10 bs apiece. I have no idea what the charge is for.

7:55 The bus starts up and turns around. So much for my 6:00 arrival time.

8:54 On the south side of town vendors sit on the dirt or tarps selling all manner of wares including building supplies, produce, plastic bowls. We reach a field littered with plastic bags to the horizon.

11:46 We stop in a town everybody gets off. By the time I disembark from my seat near the rear the bus driver and the attendant are nowhere to be seen and my backpack is locked in storage.

12:52 The bus driver is lunching. I want my backpack. He opens the storage area which is completely packed and then shuts it without giving me my backpack. As I insist on getting my pack I am assaulted in Spanish by the driver and a dozen people who try to make things clear to me by speaking very rapidly and loudly in Spanish. Just as an American will explain to a foreigner, a louder tone makes things easier to understand. The crowd takes turns as two or three people blare out incomprehensible sentences. I finally understand that this is not Tupiza, this bus is not going to Tupiza and that there is no way to get to Tupiza from here. The road to Tupiza is closed. Now I understand why this was "no problem". It just can't be done, I am being routed to far South East Bolivia, passengers are bound for the hottest city in Bolivia, well east of my destination. It is another eight hours to the destination of the bus and from there I can get a bus for a three hour ride to Tupiza. F**k me in the a** with a stick.

13:30 The bus heads out, now I have my backpack and board the bus. I have no place to put the backpack. A very cute young thing gestures to the seat next to her so I place my backpack there and take my seat. She then gestured that I should put the back pack in my seat and sit next to her. Beats the hell out of the old lady I was sitting next to; she had propped herself so far forward that there was next to no room in front of her. Every time I wanted to stand up to get something out of my daypack she refused to stand so I had to press my way in front of her. On one ocassion, as a manner of expressing my discontent I gave her a faceful of gas.

16:47 Yustina gasped as we wound our way down the ugly near barren East Andes. The west Andes are granite, this side is shale, sedimentary mud. "Carro!", sure enough around the bend we just passed deep down the side of the mountain is a bus, smashed, I'm sure nobody came out of that alive. "Condor!", sure enough, a big Andean Condor soared on a 12 foot wingspan, on the thermals of the valley a dozen yards from our window.

These girls are bound for home, Rio de Janeiro. Ahh Argentine, no wonder they are so friendly and much better looking than almost all of the Bolivians. I contemplate the masterpiece of a perfect form.

I pulled out my computer and showed them pictures of my travels, they loved everything in Peru. A man got out of his seat and took a picture of the old lecher flirting with two very young women.

16:52 Piss break. Most guys just piss on the road. One particularly modest man walks down the road around the bend and uses the road down the hill. The women use a stone roofless building that must be particularly nasty inside as most leave the building and go behind it apparently prefering the open ground.

17:15 We are stopped behind a gas truck. The bus is turned off. Everybody got out. I walked for 15 minutes past a score of vehicles down the road several turns and saw a backhoe clearing large amounts of shale from the road. As I examined the rock it was clear to me that this was not an avalanche; this rock had not cleaved of its own accord; it had been pulled from the face by the backhoe. As I went further down the road I saw the backhoe in action and the situation became evident. The shoulder of the road had collapsed and they were widening the road to accommodate the width of a vehicle.

I noticed that the shale layers lay at a sixty degree angle to the horizontal. I surmised that this was not tectonic subduction but rather volcanic in origin. I must be right as there is no knowledgeable person to dispute me. I'll have to look it up when I get an internet connection.

18:25 We are off.

18:35 More road repair. Another stop. Yustina tells me that the town in which I got my backpack out was Huanuco.

20:30 The girls want my email address I can't imagine why, they speak next to no English and I next to no Spanish. TODO Tells me that "Your house is here." I replied "Mi Casa no aqui." She laughed heartily again, I had been keeping her laughing for about seven hours now. Watching here firm ample breasts shake as she laughed was all the payment I needed. "Your hotel here." Oh, I should get off, get a hotel and find a bus in the morning. I said "ciao" but they insisted on giving me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and I said "Nuestro Hotel." (Our hotel) but they laughed and said I should see them in Rio.

As I started to walk across the street looking for a taxi an Indian women came running over to me "Tupiza, Tupiza, Tupiza, Tupiza, Tupiza" and pointed at a bus on the other side of the road. I asked the attendant next to the bus in my spectacular spanish, "Este bus hasta Tupiza?". "Si." I gave him my backpack which he placed in storage without giving me a claim ticket. I boarded the bus and stood on the stairs with nowhere to go, others came behind me forcing the people ahead of me to move. I finally made it up to the top; the bus was moving. I must have made a hell of a face as people started laughing trying to be discrete about it. There were no seats available, I couldn't even make my way down the aisle as it was jammed with passengers. I put my daypack down behind me and grabbed the rails as the bus lurched. The aisle was too narrow to put my feet shoulder width apart, the huge indian woman ahead of me sat down, most of here enormous bulk spreading into the area near the spiral staircase down to the door. I had about 15 inches of room for my feet which were eight inches apart. This is how I was to spend the next three hours, presuming this damn bus ran on schedule and the girls knew what they were talking about.

22:56 Tupiza. Thank god that is over with. Thirty eight f...ing hours. I went to a hostel recommended by Lonely Planet but it was locked up and nobody answered the buzzer. I had the driver take me to Hotel Mitru, the premier hotel in town. There was but one room left in the Cactus Region, the renovated part of the hotel. My room was 100 bs, damn expensive for Bolivia, around 14 USD. When I got to my room I saw why they called it the Cactus region, the shelves, desk, chair and headboard were all built out of cactus wood. The very expensive room was about the price of a twenty foot square piece of dirt in the camping site of a state park in the US. The room had excellent beds, a private bath, hot and cold water and a TV. Hard to complain.

I headed out down the street for dinner, grabbed a veggie pizza came to my room and collapsed in bed to tired to care that I was alone.

The Jungle

The cast

Elad

Elad is a 24 year old former Israel Paratrooper commando with but five jumps to his credit, all training jumps. He has "only child syndrome"; the world is his. If there are 5 eggs and three people he "needs 2". He and Zohar started out with 4 water bottles between them. Leaving camp the second day he claimed the three water bottles on the bench. With the two in his tent they now had five and I none. The longest machete, the sharpest machete had to be his. He and Zohar talked non stop in Hebrew.

Zohar

Zohar is a 23 year ex Israeli air force officer. In this case the office represents her work station, she was never in the field. Soft spoken but certainly not quiet. Talked incessantly.

Miguel

Miguel was our guide, he is hardcore Indian, 25 years of age and was raised in the jungle. His whole tribe went naked and without metal tools until they were discovered in 1990.

Santos

Santos is a 48 year old Indian who served as our cook. Short in stature but incredibly strong. His backpack was a large sack with cloth tied to it for straps. In this he carried 20 kilos of food and the pots, pans and dishes.

Day 1 - June 30, 2010

TODO went to Mogli at 7:00 left not about my laundry, returned at 8:15 with Laundry. We were each issued 15 kilos of food, a sleeping bag and a bed roll. Walked to river, took boat across. I went to buy gum, everybody was gone. A moto driver told me that they had left, I got one to take me to there destination. The ride was 2,5 Bs.
Boarded bus, was kicked up front, high behind the wind screen, no leg room, the sun beat down on us. Five hour bus ride.

Finally got to Iaxtama, got 5 mototaxis to take us on a one hour ride across the Pampas and through the jungle then we hiked to our camp. The hard dirt floor, bamboo walls, monkey reaching through, lost sleeping bag, pigs. The shitter from hell. Went down to the river for a bath gathered firewood. Four fish in the gill net. Bed.
Miguel's father.

Day 2 - July 1

Woke up, had fried batter, fried eggs, put on my 60 pound pack and we set out into the jungle. Miguel in front, closely followed by Elad who never let Miguel out of his sight. At one point yesterday Elad was left at a fork in the trail with Miguel well down the trail. He was not going to allow this to happen again. Zorah followed Elad and I was content with the final spot trailed by Santo.

At one point Miguel indicated that he had spotted a very dangerous snake, a large bushmaster, the most dangerous snake in the western hemisphere, a huge viper up to 12 feet long with a head the size of a softball. Nobody saw the snake but Miguel, who pointed out the hole it had crawled down. He reported its length as four meters, an hour later he said it was five meters, which would have made it a new record.

Spotting a hole in the side of a hill Miguel figured that a tarantula must live in it. Using a small stick he teased her out of the hole which he then blockaded with his machete. He then lit a cigarette and blew smoke over her five or six times which he said sedated them then gently picked it up and we posed for some pictures with her. She was about as large as a dinner plate, one really big spider.

By this time the Israelis were getting very tired and Miguel and I pressed onto camp. After throwing our plastic sheets over the horizontal poles we had our make shift tent. Our mosquito nets were hung and our sleeping bags placed inside.

My backpack and hat were covered with flies two to three layers deep. Apparently they relished the salt; everything was soaking in perspiration, I had sweated at least two liters; I was thirsty, had consumed two liters of water during the hike and had never urinated.
We went down to the river to wash off and fish. I dropped my camera into the water when a chunk of the log on which I was standing broke off. Fortunately it was in a waterproof bag and came out none the worse for the experience.

Miguel found a bow and some arrows, hand crafted out of wood. It takes a full day to make a single arrow. I produced some paracord, 550 pound line used in parachutes and the bow was strung. We took turns shooting the arrows at a plastic bottle. Elad had never shot a bow and amused us with his profound incompetence. Miguel shot at something very high in the trees and the arrow rested horizontally 50 meters above the jungle floor. He pointed it out to me, I have no idea how he could discern it from all of the other sticks, but once pointed out it was obvious that this was the arrow. Half an hour was spent trying to get the arrow down, throwing large sticks at it and shaking the tree, to no avail.

For lunch we had a magnificent salad, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, onions followed by canned salmon and rice.

For dinner we had spaghetti with vegetable (lentils and bean) tomato based sauce.

Pachamama and the story of the necklace

Miguel then led us in a Pachamama ceremony, burying some coca leaves, smoking cigarettes and blowing on the leaves and drinking whisky made from cane sugar. According to the Lonely Planet, the famous travel series drinking is usually to a stupor or unconciousness, our ceremony was much more moderate with each person consuming a little more than an ounce of liquor.
When Miguel was seven years old he went hunting with his father. They took separate trails looking for wild pigs. Miguel got lost and spent seven days wandering by himself, subsisting on wild fruit. Finally he reached a lake at which he had fished with his father and decided to wash himself off. When he was three meters from shore a large black camain attacked him, biting his leg at the knee and dragging him under water. Miguel escaped with a large section of flesh stripped from his leg and swam to shore, crawled twenty meters up the bank and passed out. His father discovered him several hours later and thought he was dead. With the aid of four companions they shot the camain with poisoned arrows. The giant beast disappeared beneath the waters but surfaced an hour later, dead. He was dragged up and placed next to Miguel. The hunters then left, Miguel regained conciousness, screamed when he saw the camain next to him and his father picked him up and carried him back to the village. He was tended to using natural medicinces, skin from his neck was grafted to his leg and secured using the powerful jaws of ants who were coaxed to bite and having done so had their heads pinched off. It took a year for Miguel to heal. The three camain teeth on his necklace are from the big black camain that nearly killed him. That's the story, how much of it is true is unknowable.
While sitting around the fire a wasp landed in front of me. Miguel yelled that it was very dangerous and I hit it with a rock. Miguel picked up its detached abdomen, the stinger kept thrusting against his fingernail. He said that the sting would kill in ten minutes and that there was no cure. Are we having fun yet?
TODO describe tent structure.

Day Three - July 2

I got out of bed shortly after six; I don't think I got any sleep. Santo was up making breakfast and boiling water for coffee. I went for my morning constitution and was disgusted to see that my fellow campers and littered the woods with toilet paper. I buried all of it using my machete. We left our heavy backpacks at the campsite and went for an unladened walk.
Elad continued his thrashing and slashing with his machete. I showed him the proper technique; down on the stalk or up at an angle never perpendicular, most of the force is wasted bending the stalks. He hacked down a five inch tree inviting me to help him. I told him I don't take any pleasure in killing things just for the sake of it. We heard a loud banging and walked through the jungle to find Santo on a massive ficus tree which Miguel estimated to be one thousand years old, but more about Miguel's estimates later. After admiring the roots which were ten feet tall and several feet thick, Miguel banged on one and it resonated, the telegraph of the jungle. Elad proceeded to beat the hell out of one root with a massive stick and then started slashing at it with his machete. "What the fuck is wrong with you, you come to the jungle admire a massive 1000 year old tree and then start fucking it up?" "You're right, too much coca I guess."

We were shown one tree, which when shaved smelled just like garlic and is used in cooking. I found a cat's claw vine and asked Miguel to demonstrate. He slashed off a section and held it upright, sweet water flowed down and we all drank it. One vine can hold up to ten gallons of water and the water is sterile and sweet, unlike the vile water from the river where were chlorinating or boiling.

Down by a river we cut down a balsa tree and took the strong fibrous material that lays directly beneath the bark and used it to lash a stick to a vine and swung around for a bit.
After dinner we went for a night walk, but didn't see anything other than spiders and insects.

Day Four - July 3

I advised the Israelis not to use the area around a medium ficus tree as there toilet as I had seen a large number of bullet ants in the area. They didn't know what bullet ants were, I described them and Miguel called them viente quatro, as a bite will incapacitate you in throbbing pain for twenty four hours.

We broke camp and headed to our next campground, hiking for three hours. Small palms covered our camp site. The trees were one to two inches in diameter and the bark was covered with very sharp brittle spikes the diameter of boar's hair. Brushing up against one the skin would be pierced and the spike break off in the skin. We cut down hundreds of them and cleared the earth of the smallest stick so that nothing would puncture our tarps. An hour of machete work later we had the ground cleared and went to go find trees appropriate for the uprights and crossbars of our tent. After laying the plastic and tying it down our camp preparation was complete.
Later we encountered another of the lethal wasps.

Fishing was productive; we caught five fish. Santo caught a large sting ray; I explained the sting ray shuffle to the Israelis. When one is in water with sting rays, one should shuffle along. If you kick a ray, it will swim away, if you step on one, it will jab its poisonous barb into you. At dinner time Elad helped himself to two large fish bodies, I had a small head. I found more satisfaction in my moral indignation than pointing out what a greedy twat he was. I had left my glasses case down by the river and fashioned a new one from a section of balsa wood. Wood carving with a machete.

Day 5 - July 4

For breakfast we had deep fried mini pancakes, about as close to donuts as you can get. Elad used up all the boiled water, hoarding some for the evening and wanted to know why I wasn't ready to hike. I decided I could get by on one liter for a two hour amble. We saw one monkey, that was pretty much it other than the three days dead pig.
Miguel found a brown stick ten feet long. He flailed it and it TODO check brachiated into scores of thin reed like layers as it delaminated; He wove it into a fan.

Miguel braided a couple of carry bags for water bottles out of fronds. They were heavy, stiff, large and hugely impractical. I told him not to make me one, I'll stick with my Inca made cloth ones from Machu Picchu.

Lunch was bead pasta with oil. I went down to the river to wash the pus and blood out of my clothes. I picked up my pants from the river bank, they were covered with large black ants.
I made another sunglass case out balsa as the one I made the day before was too small.
After dinner I took out my bedroll to sit on leaving room for others. Once again Elad came and laid down on it when I stood up. This time I had to call him on his outrageous behaviour.
Miguel fashioned a ring out of a cocoa nut (the nut from the tree that produces cocoa as in chocolate). Using a candle he burned Elads name in Hebrew characters into the ring, amazingly fine detail considering the tools.

Taking inventory I realized that I was down one pair of pants. I couldn't find them on either side of the river. I asked Santo to help me. He walked to the ridge over the bank and pointed upstream beneath a branch at the pants. At 48 he can see unaided far better than I can see with glasses.

I picked up a piece of 140 grit sand paper and put a fine edge on my machete. Elad told me that the paper was only for wood. I responded with "what kind of abrasive is this paper made of?" He didn't know. I told him it was aluminum oxide and that I have a pretty damn good idea that I know a lot more about abrasives and knives than he will ever know. When Miguel picked up my machete he cut all of his fingers and said "Machete Gringo". Elad then had to sharpen his machete usimg the sand paper. I showed him how to use a piece of wood as a sanding block.

I hacked a cocoa nut and sanded it on 140 grit, then 400 grit then 800 grit paper and tied it to a bit of nylon string, making a pendant for my son Mark, who is going to visit me in Panama at the end of the month.

I started grilling Miguel about his tribe. Fascinating. I'll write a Wikipedia article and link to it here. TODO.

Day 6 - July 5

Woke at daybreak again. Broke camp, trekked 6 hours back to Miguel's father's house.
Zohar got stung on the ear by a bee, the ear swelled up and became very red. Miguel burned some green leaves found the hive, killing the bees, extracting some pupae and wiping them on the ear. After a couple of minutes Zohar said that it helped. TODO spelling Psychosymatic... after several minutes bee stings stop hurting.

I asked to see the snake antivenom that Mogli said that we would have. Nada. Miguel said that you kill the snake within three seconds of being bitten, then skin the snake and wrap the skin over the puncture site. Now I have absolutely no faith in his healing knowledge. Just kill the animal the stung or bit you and use its powers to heal. Kind of like killing your enemies and eating them, oh they did that too 20 years ago. Trespassers were sodomized, Bonga Bonga joke was not understood.

More boredom. Miguel gave Zohar a temporary tatoo using plant extracts. It took a mixture of
three plants applied consecutively but it is now a strong tatoo that will last for weeks.
Elad insisted that we go gather more firewood, I was reluctant but said I would do so until dark. At dusk he wanted to get more but when the indians were afraid to gather more wood after dark because of the probability of being stung by bullet ants he calmed down.

Day 7 - July 6

My ears are clogged I am near deaf.

Breakfast was as bad as it gets, plantain was deep fried, ground in a pestle mixed with cheese and fried yet again. Yucca was double fried but ended up like a giant potato pancake, with ketchup it was pretty good. The fried banana was like eating kitty litter. I scratch with sand, bark, knives, machetes, bleed and ooze pus. Flies feast on the wounds. This sucks. The spikes from the palms have created 30 inflamed volcanoes on my right hand alone. The chitri ( sand fleas) are unbearable.

One Israeli got lost in Madidi very near here for quite a while and wrote a book about it . Now every Israeli that comes to Rurre (Rurrenabaque) feels compelled to build a raft. Today we started on one.
We chose ten large balsa trees and wacked them down with machetes. Elad took the longest one, of course; I sharpened the 18" one with my CRKT stainless steel knife. Yes Elad, you can sharpen a knife with a knife.... the CRKT was so hard that I could actually remove stock on the Tratonia Brazilian made machete as well as dress the edge.

Peeling the bark from the felled trees significantly reduced their weight maybe by as much as 20%. The bark was saved for lashing material. We carried the ten meter trunks to the embankment over the river and tossed them down to dry for a day.

Elad was thrashing on an eight inch fallen balsa tree when I yelled, "Bullet Ants" and ran to a clearing. The ground was swarming with ants. I had never seen more than five at a time, here there were thousands. Elad ran behind me and I spent five minutes examining his pants and boots, removing at least twenty ants from him. According to the Schmidt pain index, look it up on Wikipedia, a sting from a fire ant is like walking on burning coals with a rusty spike in your foot, excruciating. In Costa Rica I was told that four ants could kill a german shepard. The indians here say a bite from ten is no worse than a bite from one. Having seen a national geographic show in which a rite of manhood is to put ones arm into a glove filled with bullet ants, I have to go with the Indians. After a certain amount of pain, nothing else can make a difference. Take this from a man who has stepped into a pot of boiling water and who has been defibrillated while concious.

Miguel went into the jungle and found a strong spiky leaf which he used to extricate the two score palm spikes that had broken off beneath the flesh of my hands. He was delicate and I could barely feel as he separated the sub-epidermal flesh that covered the spike.
As I was pumping some water into a bucket Elad came back from the river and thrust his filthy pants into the stream from the pump. TODO describe

The well

The pump for the well was broken.
TODO describe house construction
Above ground a pole extended from the ground notched at the top to take the pump lever which was afixed as a fulcrum by a 3/8" 12 TPI Hex head 8" bolt screwed into wood. I removed the bolt then disconnected slid the 30 feet of 3/4" hose out of the shaft. On the end of the hose was a coursely threaded steel fitting which was twisted into the hose. On the other end was a 3/8" threaded shaft with a single nut on it. I pulled the sleeve out of the shaft, removed the check valve and found the other nut. A washer was fashioned out of an old sandal and affixed between the nuts. Elad dropped the sleeve into the shaft without affixing to the tee and it fell a meter down the hole. Attempts to snag it with a fish hook affixed to the stiff bow were unsucessful. I wittled down the mud stop on my Leki walking stick so that it would just fit into the pipe hoping it would flare out but I determined that too much force was necessary and that I would just push the sleeve further into the well. I left it alone. Elad jacked with it until he had pushed the sleeve 10 meters down the hole, beyond any hope of salvation. The only hope at that point was to push the sleeve out of the shaft completely and buy a new sleeve and check valve. Nice work peckerhead.

That night near dusk Elad told me that Miguel wanted us to gather some firewood. I went off and got a couple of large pieces; when I returned Miguel told me that he had not asked us to gather firewood and told us that there were a large number bullet ants in the woods here and that you couldn't see them in the dark. Nicely done Elad.

We played a little bullshit and I went to bed while Elad and Zohar rudely chatted away in Hebrew.

Day 8 - July 7

We notched the giant bamboo trunks, affixed two tranverse sticks and lashed them into place with strips of the sub bark balsa. A platform was constructed of bamboo and lashed to the top of the raft. A tarp was laid down and our bags wrapped up in it. We floated down the shallow lazy river, pushing the raft over obstacles and poling our way down. We found a spot on the bank, covered with massive camain tracks and made camp there. We started a fire which gave very loud pops every now and again from the green bamboo. Miguel caught a very large fish and we had dinner and played bullshit. I suggested that we just hike all the way back the next day and to just get this trip over with.

Day 9 - July 8

We hiked in the rain for three hours then another couple of hours in the jungle followed by four hours in the hot son on the Pampas. Our total trek on this day was 36 kilometers. We arrived in Iaxtama and tried to schedule a ride back to Rurrenabaque. A man was waiting to take a mini van if he could sell 14 seats. I suggested we just cough up 70 Bolivianos ($10) apiece but the others thought the price extravagent. After a couple of hours it was clear that 14 tickets would not be sold so we returned in the van I preferred. I sat in relative comfort for three hours. When I returned to my hotel it was populated with Europeans and we chatted in English well into the night.

July 10

I was supposed to meet Elad and Zohar at Mogli at 10 o'clock but I failed to wake until 11:00. By this time that had got to Mogli, tipped our guide and cook and went to look for me. Mogli didn't know where they were staying and didn't have their email address. I knew they had a 2:00 flight but when I went to Amaszonas they were not listed on the manifest. To make a long story not even longer I ran into them a couple of days later and we settled up accounts. Elad wanted my facebook account but I lied and told him I didn't have a pen.