Parting Thoughts

As I departed Afghanistan for what I intend to be the last time, I felt a little frustrated that I had left my job undone, my mission unaccomplished.  Though I had worked hard and traveled extensively to support units across southern Afghanistan with training and maintain the equipment they used, I was departing with nearly every unit going through a relief in place and most of the equipment needing software updates installed.  Though I don't feel my work was all for naught, the constant rotation of personnel and transitions in technological war-fighting methods, has left me feeling like I just ran in place for a year.

  

Afghanistan is America's longest war, and the marathon has been run like a relay by the soldiers fighting on the ground, each one-year deployment like a lap around the track handing the baton off to the next unit at the end of their rotation, sometimes knowing they will be taking the baton right back when they come round the last turn of their twelve-month rotation, sometimes looking back and wondering what they really accomplished other than another lap, and often wondering what the next unit will accomplish, or carry forward, in their absence.  As soldiers continue to return again and again, their sprinter mentality slowly shifts to a long distance mentality; and from a competitor looking for the prize, to a participant just looking for the finish; to hand off and move on.

On one of my final trips to visit with units before I finished my last lap, I spoke to one soldier who is on his sixth deployment in ten years.  He thought his fifth rotation was his last, and the Army had agreed, assigning him to train the next generation of young sprinters.  He was suppose to have a three year assignment at the school house, what has been termed a 'stability' assignment, where he could go home every night for three years and get to know his family that has grown up without him at home for five of the last ten years. 

He and his family moved to the new post and were almost settled in when he was reassigned, his 'stability' cut short, and his family uprooted once again to move to a new post, where they would be left alone in a new community, while he deployed again for another year.  Exhausted, but back in the starting blocks, he is determined that this will be his last lap and he will submit his retirement papers before the deployment ends.  He, like many others I spoke to, are getting out of the military, some before they reach their retirement, some before their marriage is ruined, and some losing both.

Meanwhile, our competitor has ran this race as a marathon from the start.  Like the tortoise he started this race setting his own pace, running only when he felt it was necessary to survive. As the coalition runs its laps he watches each runner charge ahead and meets them again at the turn.  He nips at their heels as they reach the hand off and throws hurdles in front of the next runner.  He knows he doesn't have to win.  He just has to stay on the track, keep the spectating populace from rooting against him, and scramble to claim a place on the winners podium when we leave.

As we approach the end of the race everyone is watching the finish line come into focus on the horizon.  The western media has lost interest in the race and only provides updates if a runner stumbles and how it might affect the outcome, or to provide updates on the latest developments of where each partner country will draw their finish line.  2014 is only a few laps away and the pack is breaking apart.  Although the coalition and Afghan government have run most of the race together it is clear the Afghan government will be the one fighting for a place on the podium.  The Taliban is another runner with an eye on the podium, and then there are the many tribal groups and warlords that may want to claim a spot on the podium as well.

2014 also marks the finish of another race: the race to see who will lead the government after Karzai.  The next presidential election comes right as coalition forces begin their final draw down.  Corruption tainted the second election that Karzai won, but western countries backed his victory and the populace didn't try to refute it.  Karzai cannot run for office again unless he amends the constitution, which would cripple the document setting a precedent for future leaders to modify the document to fit the whims and fancy.

However, Karzai is also making moves to weaken the Election commision by removing two foreign commissioners from the board of the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), which suggests he wants to ensure the next elections turn out in his parties favor.  The fact that the coalition withdraw and the elections will occur in tandem, and the fact that the Karzai government is limiting foreign oversight, puts the elections more in the hands of the current government, which could rise to the occasion and ensure fair and open elections are held, or use it to their advantage to maintain power.

Arguments over the date of elections, 5 April 2014, also have an interesting geo-polictical spin, like a new kind of environmental gerrymandering.  The majority of the population is Pashtun, as is Karzai and his government.  They hail from the south and eastern areas of the country where winter weather has less of an effect on getting to the polls.  However the northern region and mountains are made up of minority ethnic groups who could be weathered in during election season.

The Taliban also remains a wildcard in the elections and could attempt to gain further influence through politics, legitimately or through coercion and ballot stuffing.  They are already building shadow governance in the provinces as coalition forces withdraw, establishing their own structures of provincial and district leadership, and establishing their own Sharia judicial system.

However, the security bubble in Kabul - provided by Afghan National Security Forces and the coalition - has kept the locals optimistic.  According to Dawn News, "Faheem Gul Wardak, a small-business owner and social activist in Kabul, argued that the focus on the number of Taliban attacks — mostly involving improvised explosive devices in roadside attacks — obscured a more complex reality of the insurgency. 'Yes, the Taliban are active in the countryside everywhere, but it’s not very organized and there’s little coordination across villages and districts. That kind of activity is hard to eliminate but neither is it consolidated enough to overrun the country,' Wardak said. 'Let’s say after 2014, the Taliban do try and overrun the country. They’d have to mass somewhere and then they’d be vulnerable from the skies, even if Western ground troops depart. There’s just too much firepower now for the Taliban to win,' Wardak argued."
 

Wardak's comments highlight a concern I addressed in a previous blog.  As coalition forces withdraw, pulling out the majority of our air power that Wardak is counting on, we are also planning to reduce the financial support to the Afghan government, which is paying for the Afghan security forces.  Without western funding, the Afghan government will have to find ways to pay for it on their own, or reduce the number of local security forces across the country.  This could lead to unemployed, but well trained, fighters, ripe for recruitment into the local insurgency or Taliban shadow government and security structure.

In the same article, Dawn News also interviewed Shahid Safi, a Kabul-based businessman, who said, “The insurgency has grown stronger, but the government forces are giving the Taliban a tough fight. I don’t believe the Taliban will succeed in taking over again,” The businessman continued, “It’s not the Nineties, the situation has changed. Many people have invested their money and have large businesses in the country. They will definitely stand with the government for peace and stability.”

Safi's sentiment highlights another sentiment and factor in Afghans future: capitalism.  One of the analysts I met on my first deployment pointed this out as well.  He said, "We may have come with political goals of establishing democracy, but more importantly, we have given them a taste of capitalism, and that is something they will fight for."  Not only do you have political leaders struggling to maintain power, but you now have business leaders who want to maintain stability to protect their economic interests.  Free and fair trade may prove to be a greater motivator than the ideals of democracy in Afghanistan's pursuit of stable governance.

I feel we are now in the hurry up and wait phase of the conflict.  The stage is set and all parties are aware of the 2014 timeline.  Western forces are tired and looking for ways to hasten the withdrawal timeline.  Afghan political leadership will be interested in asserting their power prior to elections, which means they too may look for ways to speed the coalitions departure.

The people of Afghanistan do not seem interested in a Taliban resurgence, but the government may not be able to prevent it on their own.  If the Taliban try to enter the fray politically, they would most likely lose a fair fight, so they will most likely try to do it by force just like they did in the 90's.

Will the population and government prevail?  Will western nations continue to support the government and their security forces if corruption continues at its current rampant scale, or if the elections turn out in the favor of an unsavory party?  Will the new government want our help, or will they ask us to leave by changing the Status of Forces Agreement, like Iraq in 2010? These and many other questions are on my mind and likely on the people and politicians of the nation.  The answers lie somewhere in an uncertain future, which we all must patiently await. 

To dream or not to dream, that is the pursuit

I’ve stalled in my writing about Peru… and maybe my dream of becoming a writer is something I shouldn’t pursue, or at least that is what Phil Cooke believes based on his article “Please, stop following your dreams!”  A friend of mine posted a link to the article on their Facebook page, and thought he might be onto something.  Curious, I read the article and have to say, I agree with the premise... but only about as far as the author agrees with it.  And on that note, maybe writing is not his thing.  If you want to read his thoughts, before I corrupt them with my spin, here is a link: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/04/please-stop-following-your-dreams/?intcmp=obnetwork

The first issue I had with the article is the fact that he is an 'inspirational/ self help writer,' FROM HOLLYWOOD, promoting his self help book, “One Big Thing:  Discovering What You Were Born to Do,” and yet, to make his point about not pursuing your dreams, he says this to his reader: "But Hollywood, the self-help industry, the esteem movement and well intentioned friends have led us down a far more romantic, but ultimately destructive path." Since he has just described himself at this point, I guess I should have stopped reading, and noted the fact that I should NOT buy his book as well.

But I continued to read, maybe because the article was like a car wreck and I couldn’t look away, or it could have been that deep down, I know good material when I see it, or curiosity as I claimed up front.  In the end, I finished the article, I reflected on the fact that I read the article, and still I can’t explain why I wasted the time, and continue to commit to this car wreck by describing the carnage here.   

He continues his sales pitch with a list of 'four steps' on how you can stop following your dreams and find that ‘one thing.’  Typically self help like to narrow the task to ‘three easy steps.’  Or, they go for a nice round number like a ‘Top 10 List.’  Phil probably should have stopped at number one, his one thing, but he chose four.  The first step is on point with his thesis that you should determine what you are good at and pursue it. Well done Phil.

I suspect his publishers came back and told him a one chapter book was not going to cut it, or maybe he came to this conclusion himself.  At any rate, he decided to move on to step two and that is where he starts to stray.  He doesn’t outright say ‘What is your dream?’  Instead, number two is, “What do you love?”  He asks, “What if you could actually make a living working at a job you love? If you consider the whole working world, only a tiny minority of people are actually pursuing a dream they’re passionate about."

Are you kidding me?! His thesis was not to follow your dreams, and now he is right back to his self help/motivation roots telling us to pursue the dream!

Number three is really just number two in different wrapping paper.  Instead of inspiring you to pursue the dream you love, he now wants you to pursue the thing you hate, as your 'destiny' of what you should fix. Not what you could fix, or are good at fixing, but 'destined' to fix.  Sounds like your dreaming again Phil.

And finally number four, again he is telling you, and I quote, "if you have a dream, what foundation are you laying today for success"?  I thought I wasn't suppose to pursue my DREAM Phil!!!! I was suppose to find what I was good at.  My 'One Big Thing.'

Maybe self help is his thing, in so far as he should really start with helping himself. 

 

The bottom line is, if you don't think making your dream a reality is going to take a lot of hard work and dedication, with a foundation of raw talent, then you truly are only dreaming.  

Nazca - Geoglyphs and Mummies

I woke up early in Huacachina with hopes of capturing a photo of the Oasis - just like the one depicted on the 50-sol note. I’ve always enjoyed visiting the sites highlighted on a nation’s currency, and I think this is a great tourism campaign strategy. Sadly, I don’t think the US has really caught on to the concept, since our currency tour could be completed with a visit to Washington DC, and a quick trip to Philadelphia if you want to see Independence Hall, which is featured on the 100 dollar bill.

I suspect most readers don’t read my blog for political ravings, but if I was President, I’d recommend we represent more national sights on our currency than just government buildings in DC. At least our quarters are catering to tourism with the states and parks series. Even if they don’t cater to the tourist, who have to figure out how much are coins are worth, since none of them have their numeric value specified. I can imagine a tourist struggling to understand English, who now has to figure out how much a dime is worth, and why this small coin is actually worth more than the larger nickel and penny.

But I digress, back in Huacachina I awoke to fog! I should have suspected it, since fog is a daily occurrence of winter days on the Peruvian coast, but I was moving inland, and I’d had such good luck avoiding it on my trip. Unfortunately, this time it kept me from my goal of capturing a shot of the Oasis, so you’ll just have to Google ‘Huacachina’ to see photos that mimic the view depicted on the 50-sol note.

As the city slept, I took a quiet stroll around the Oasis shrouded in fog, and then caught a cab into Ica. Unlike Huacachina, Ica was awake with morning commuters, and the coughing, sputtering exhaust of diesel commerce. The bus terminal was just off a main road and vacant, except for two other groups of travelers. One was a group of four guys representing the classic ‘ugly Americans’ as they loudly recapped clouded memories of drunken brawls and struggles to get back into their hostels after hours. The one that had started the fights had a nice shiner developing, and proudly noted that he couldn’t remember any of the details. The other travelers were a quiet pair of young ladies that looked like a gap year duo doing some back-packing before they entered the 9 to 5 life. We’d all just came from Huacachina, but the groups kept to themselves, and then loaded the same bus for Nazca.

Our bus took us south and higher into the rolling foothills below the high plains of the Andes. We broke out of the coastal fog, as it was being burned away by the rising sun. Also left behind was the sand; the rolling hills were now covered with more iron-rich red gravel. The hills were barren of vegetation and any other signs of life, but, when we descended into the valleys, they were alive with agriculture and villages.

I had read up on the Nazca lines before departing, so I knew we would drive across the Pampa Colorado (Red Plain) where most of the geoglyphs were located, and I wanted to take note of what it looked like at ground level so I’d have a reference from the airplane during my fly over. The geoglyphs are large drawings that stretch over the 500 square kilometer plain. They were made between 900 BC and 600 AD. The most shocking thing to me was that that the drawings are still visible and undamaged by weathering , which means the plain has changed very little in the last 2000 plus years. To create the lines and drawings, the Paracas and Nazca people simply moved the surface rocks to the sides, exposing the lighter gypsum-rich soil below. At ground level, the minute change is hardly noticeable, and the plain and natural gravel are so consistent and level that it looks almost like it was man-made, as if someone had leveled a construction site and put down gravel for a mega-mall parking lot. Rain has broken up small sections with some drainage gullies, and a few small outcroppings of hills break up the plain, but it still doesn’t look natural.

From the sky, the full scale and design of the man-made artwork can be seen. And, with the modern conveniences of satellite photography and online mapping sites, you can actually the geoglyphs from right where you’re sitting. I did just that before my trip, and to be honest, I probably could have called it good with that online tour alone, but thought it would be a shame to have driven past and not checked it off my life’s to-do list.

There are many theories on why the geoglyphs were created, but the most commonly accepted is that they were religious symbols and part of a large open ‘temple’ covering the entire plain. The Nazca culture and religion was fittingly focused on water, as the desert society would quickly perish without it. Evidence of offerings have been found at small altars across the plain where the geoglyphs are found. Also, most of the drawings are of animals, since nature-worship is common throughout Peruvian cultures. Typically, each animal represents a particular element in nature (i.e. snake or fish for the sea, cougar for the land and condor for the air). Conspiracy theorists like to tie the geoglyphs with attempts to communicate with extraterrestrial visitors; other theories have tied them to astronomy, but most of these theories have been discounted.

We arrived at the Nazca bus terminal and, since I had booked my tour in advance, a company representative met me as I got off the bus. We hiked down the road, and I waited in his office a few minutes before catching a ride to the airport. The airport was tiny, but you could tell that tourism was bringing in a lot of money because the airport was very nice and filled with foreigners. Their system of moving tourists through started with paying a ‘departure’ tax, even though we all come right back. From there, we moved to the first waiting area where a NatGeo special about the lines played on a loop. After seeing the video at least twice, we were ushered through airport security and into the final waiting area.

I was flying in a single-prop, four-seat bird with a woman from Germany. She spoke impeccable English, with a slight Californian accent (Valley girl, not Schwarzenegger), and had been in Peru teaching English, but was about to head home. After our pilots gave us a small graphic map of the geoglyphs we would fly over and briefed the route and plan, we boarded and quickly departed. We flew over the majority of the plain and did a figure eight over ten of the animal geoglyphs so we could take pictures and view them from each side of the aircraft. Fortunately, neither of us was prone to airsickness.

After our return to the ground, I had lunch and then met up with a new guide and two other tourists to head out to the ancient Nazca cemetery. The Chauchilla Cemetery was in use from around 200 AD to 1000 AD and then largely ransacked by looters over the years; the site is still littered with bones, shards of pottery, and fragments of other burial trinkets. It was ‘rediscovered’ in 1920, and further excavated in the 1980’s to illustrate their original burial layouts. The site has a series of burial sites with mummies, skulls and trinkets set up in each grave. Each mummy is wrapped in a seated fetal position, arms crossed over their knees, facing east to the rising sun. Beside them are family members and/or possessions, offerings and provisions for the afterlife. Plus, any extra bones and trinkets that were found on the cemetery grounds and were in good shape, but weren’t part of a ‘display’ grave.

What is most impressive about the cemetery is the fact that the graves and mummies have been on display in the open air ‘display’ with nothing more than over-head cover for fifteen years without rapidly decomposing. Apparently the desert air is so consistently dry that they aren’t decomposing any faster due to the exposure as they would in a climate controlled display case in museum. As the Lonely Planet says, this site “will satisfy any urges you have to see ancient bones, skulls and mummies” so, after visiting half of the tombs, I was ready to go. Interestingly, since Peruvians have a history of ancestor worship, each city actually has a ‘mascot’ mummy. These mummies are brought out and paraded around town on special occasions, and some people believe the remains of the first Inca were moved from Cusco to Machu Picchu for religious ceremonies. I would be visiting Machu Picchu in a few days, but at my next stop, Arequipa, the local mummy - Juanita, the ice princess - is the highlight of the local museum.

However, before I headed out on my overnight bus, my tour made a few more stops at local back alley shops/museums. This part of the tour reminded me a bit of tours in India, where you often get dragged to shops, where the tour operators get kickbacks for bringing in tourists. The first shop was a pottery maker, who uses all the original methods and natural dyes, paints and polishing methods that the Nazca use. The family has been recognized by the Peruvian government for their efforts to identify and preserve the ancient traditions and techniques, and tourist can buy the work in the neighboring store.

Tourism is Peru’s third largest industry, after fishing and mining, and in Nazca it is the economy. This was made very apparent as I wondered around town before grabbing dinner and returning to the bus terminal. The central plaza pays homage to the Nazca Lines, another small plaza near the bus terminal has a long mural highlighting all the tourist sites that surround the city, and each bus stop on the main drag has one of the geoglyphs carved in the walls. The only other industry in the valley is farming and even the ancient karez network (underground canal system), which still supports irrigation today, is a tourist attraction. The pervasive advertising had me convinced I should have stayed longer, but I had a bus to catch.

When I returned to the bus stop I ran into the same two groups of tourists that had left Ica with me in the morning. Buses are dependably late in Peru, so as we all waited for our bus to Arequipa, I chatted with the two girls and learned they were from Canada. We compared travel notes and besides their start on Easter Island, before arriving in Lima, our itineraries were pretty close to identical. Our route is so popular in fact, that it is often referred to as the ‘Gringo Trail.’ I was scheduled for a bus departing two hours earlier than theirs, and I was mocking them for their long wait; until their bus arrived before mine. Then, I was apologetically asking if they could use their Spanish skills to find out if my bus was coming at all. Fortunately, it arrived shortly thereafter, and we were all off for the next stop on the Gringo Trail.

Sand Boarding Huacachina

In a guise of being helpful, and an effort to sell me another tour, the owner of the Pisco Travel Agency asked me to stop by his office before I left, because he ostensibly had information on transportation options to Huacachina (pronounced WHAC-a-CHEEN-a, and fun to say). Although I was hoping to leave on the first thing out of town, I figured meeting at nine wouldn’t set me back too bad and he might have some useful advice. First, he told me about the most complicated option of taking a taxi to Pisco, a bus to Ica, and another combi into Huacachina. Then, he told me about a bus his tour company works with that goes directly to Huacachina. It was leaving in two hours, he could reserve my seat for 20 sols, and this led into his sales pitch for the tours he offered for Dune Buggies and Sand boarding. Finally, he told me there was a direct public bus that I could have caught at seven that morning. If he’d really wanted to be helpful, he could have told me about the seven o’clock bus the night before.

After being let down one last time by Pisco Travel, I headed for Huacachina. The drive impressed upon me yet again how expansive the coastal desert is. As we climbed into the provincial capital of Ica, I began to see something even more impressive: farms. Somehow, the natives of Peru managed to tap into the mountain drainage systems in order to establish farms and grow crops under the most inhospitable conditions, and the locals continue these traditions today.

On the outskirts of Ica, the crops are planted in infertile sand, and manage to grow in a patchwork of farm plots stitched together with barbwire and thorn thickets. And where this blanket of green abruptly ends, the desert encroaches and quickly reclaims any land that isn’t nursed to life by the dedicated farmers.

To further accentuate nature’s efforts to reclaim the farmland, massive sand dunes rise up on the horizon and look as if they have amassed and are now waiting for one final storm before they overtake the farms and city that sit in their shadow. We passed briefly through the city of Ica before turning west into the dunes and driving deep into canyons of sand on our way to Huacachina.

Huacachina is an oasis in the middle of the dunes and was once a getaway for Peru’s elite, who used to swim in the natural spring and bathe in the ‘curative’ mud. Today, the site has been overrun by back-packers, and swimming and mud baths are not recommended. Instead, tourists head for the dunes for dune buggy rides and sand boarding, which is what I came for as well.

The oasis has both a surreal and relaxed feel. Around the springs, they have built a garden/park with palm trees and a walk that wraps around three sides of the pond. Those three sides are also surrounded by hotels, restaurants and shops, and the last side has been left in the natural state with dunes descending all the way down the water’s edge like a mountain beach. Along the edge of the garden, there are also the remains of old changing rooms and outdoor shower trees from a bygone era of mud baths and swimming. They stand in a long row of wooden doors with broken shutters, some wired shut while others still have door knobs that are locked. Through the broken shutters, you can see the small changing rooms littered with trash and graffiti.

The atmosphere, inviting gardens, and assortment of poolside restaurants and bars, could have kept me in town for a week, if I vacationed to relax. However, I was here for the sand boarding and before I even found a place to sleep, I sought out a tour for later that evening. My tour group met outside one of the many hostels in town, and was made up of mostly young Israelis with a spring break vibe. A discussion unfolded in a mix of Spanish and Hebrew debating how extreme the ride would be for each buggy. The guys all loaded into one buggy, and the girls climbed in the other. I assumed the ride would be more adrenaline filled with the guys, which was confirmed by one of the girls who said, ‘What are you crazy? You’ll end up with a broken arm riding with them!’

What we failed to account for was the added weight of all the guys in one vehicle. Instead of a wild ride, we ended up bogged down and couldn’t build up any speed for the hills. Our driver even backed up to get a running start on one of the larger dunes, and ended up getting stuck momentarily. So our promise of ‘Driving more crazy!’ turned into more ‘Driving Ms. Daisy.’ Meanwhile, the ladies were having a great time in the other buggy, screaming and laughing as they flew past us and across the dunes with ease.

Our first boarding stop was at a high point of the dunes, which gave us incredible views of the city of Ica, with the dunes encroaching from the west, and pinned against the foothills of the Andes to the east. The sun was setting, accentuating the lines and ripples of the dunes as they slowly faded to gold and orange.

Everyone poured out of the buggies like clowns out of a car, energized and babbling in many tongues about the wild ride and amazing views. Our guides began to offload our sand boards as everyone began taking pictures of their groups, the buggies and the 360 degree panorama.

I had upgraded for the dune boarding, so I had snowboarding boots on and strapped into a regular snowboard with proper bindings. Meanwhile, the novices were studying their pieces of plywood with Velcro straps trying to figure how they were supposed to ride them down the mountain.

I stood up on my board at the edge of the first dune, tipped my weight forward and slid over the precipice. Once I was moving, I found that sand boarding was very much like snowboarding in heavy powder. I had to lean back toward the dune to keep the nose of my board from digging into the sand. I did a few turns and, just as suspected, the nose of my board began to sink, stop, and I did a slow roll head first down the mountain into the soft sand. Fortunately, sand is a little less startling than snow as it runs down the back of your shirt, but my shorts also grew heavy as my pockets filled with sand. I recovered quickly, brushed off the sand, and finished my first run.

As I worked my way back up the dune, the rest of the group was beginning to come down on their boards. Most were sitting on their boards, or lying on them and riding down face first. Some of the Israeli girls would scream in terror as their friends gave them an initial push over the edge, but as they descended, the screams would change from terror to glee.

A few brave souls decided to try strapping into the Velcro and stand up on the basic boards, some survived, while others ate sand. A girl from Texas probably had the most spectacular wipeout. She strapped in and barreled down the dune without trying to slow down. At the base of the dune, her edge caught and threw her head first into the sand like a scared ostrich. I would have laughed, and many did, but it looked like it hurt. In an effort to save cool points, she recovered quickly and said she was fine, but took it easy the rest of the tour.

The dune at the first stop was fun and good training, but a very short run. At the next two stops on the tour, the dunes got progressively taller and the last one nearly took my breath away. The dune’s slope was about 70 degrees, which seemed like an impossible pitch for the sand -- as if any disturbance would have set off an avalanche of sand -- a ‘sanvalanche’ if you will. Now add that to the fact that the hill was over 500 feet tall, and we had a recipe for a great final run.

I had been hanging out with a German all afternoon, because he was the only other boarder that had upgraded to good boots, board and bindings. He had blonde dreadlocks that hung nearly to his waist and a scraggly beard. He had the look of the quintessential hippy backpacker, and I assumed he was a long-term globe trotter with no aspirations beyond the moment. However, he was also the quintessential example of not judging a book by its cover. He was only in Peru a few months doing volunteer work before returning to Germany to finish his thesis for a Mechanical Engineering masters degree.

We were the first ones down and looked back up the mountain just in time to watch a board fly down the dune without its rider. Since zee German and I had such a good run, we decided to hike back up for another one, and I grabbed the lone board to return it to whoever had lost it. As we hiked up the mountain, and the sand gave way under our feet, we lost one step of ground for every two steps we took. Now the mountain literally was taking my breath away, and if I hadn’t been returning the runaway board, I probably would have given up before we reached the top.

Even thought hiking down would have been easy, the owner of the runaway board was very grateful for its return so he could ride instead. The Texan had recovered from her tumble on the first hill, and set a possible sand speed record with her final descent. The sand at the base of the dune was rippled like a rough sea and she was rattled again as she bounced over the wave tops before finally coming to a stop. My final run was fun, but too short to make up for the strenuous hike up. However, the German wanted to get as many runs as possible and ascended one more time as dusk settled in over the dunes.

We returned to the Oasis in the dark with only the dim headlights of our buggies illuminating and exaggerating the rolling terrain in front of us. The dunes looked like walls of sand as we approached them and then disappeared into a black abyss as we rolled over the top of them. Though it still lacked the top speeds we had hoped for, the reduced visibility made the return more thrilling and had my stomach in my throat a few times.

I finished off my visit with a barbeque dinner at my hostel. It was served family style with a few free drinks and extra wine brought in by some of the other guests, which made it a very fun and social event. I met a pair of sisters from England that had quit their jobs to travel the globe for a year. One had developed a strange case of claustrophobic tourettes from sleeping in too many hostel bunk beds. She now wakes up cursing, kicking and punching, fearing that the bunk bed or roof is collapsing on her. Unfortunately, this also happens when she shares a double bed, so her sister often gets kicked or punched out of bed. And, when they are in dorm, everyone in the room is woken up in a panic wondering what just happened in the dark corners of the room.

After dinner, I happily retired to my private room, where I could get some tourettes free sleep, before my early morning bus to Nazca to fly over the famous Nazca lines.

Paracas

It was day 3 of my Peruvian adventures, and so far I had a taste of cosmopolitan Lima, relaxed at the beautiful Refuge de Santiago, and re-energized on the rapids of the Canete River. I was now entering Paracas, a small, ocean-side town famous for its wildlife. I was visiting to take a tour of both the Ballestas Islands and the Paracas National Reserve, a desert peninsula protected for its fragile desert ecosystem. Pisco is the gateway town for Paracas that had once lured tourists with its colonial architecture. Unfortunately, the town has yet to recover from an 8.0 earthquake in 2007 that destroyed its architecture, and left 500 dead and many more homeless. Therefore, I leap frogged past Pisco and stayed in Paracas instead.

The heart of Paracas consists of a single main road, which parallels a beach-front road two blocks away. After about four blocks, on either road, you find yourself in the sparsely populated outskirts, so if you blink, you could miss it completely. Within this small downtown, it seems Paracas is scrambling to fill the void for tourism in the region. In the town center almost every other building was new, being built, or under renovation.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like the tourism demand was keeping up with supply, because at every meal I ate, the restaurants would only have one or two other tables with other patrons. The ocean-side road was lined with restaurants and the hostesses tried to lour in customers from the empty pedestrian street. A German couple I met noted the same thing as we shared the only occupied table in a street-side café enjoying some afternoon sun.

When the bill came, we noted another trend in Peru: no one has change. Similar to the lost-sock vortex in laundry machines across the globe, there appears to be cash register anomaly that swallows Peruvian coins and small bills. Even in businesses where providing change is a requirement of the trade, they didn’t have change. Since my new German friends didn’t have exact change to pay their bill, and evidently the entire restaurant staff couldn’t come up with change, the staff simply had to knock a few sol off the bill. I noted that this must be why Peruvians are so fond of Obama -- they must have took his promise of ‘Change’ literally.

While I was in Paracas, I also experienced my worst tour experience ever. I had arranged the tour before leaving Lima. My main concern was that tours would be overbooked before I arrived and I didn’t have time to stay longer at any of my stops. However, the company recommended by my hotel was overpriced and under organized. I was supposed to meet my tour operator at his office, but he never arrived. Fortunately, my hostel owner knew the tourist routine and escorted me to the docks just in time to catch the boat for first part of the tour.

The tour of Ballestas Islands was highly recommended and well worth it. The islands are referred to as a ‘poor man’s Galapagos,’ although a more fitting name would be a bird man’s Galapagos. The islands are home to thousands of birds of many species that use the islands as a safe haven, since there are no predators, and fly to the main land or out to sea to feed. With thousands of years of life on the desert islands, and little rain, this meant a whole lotta droppings piling up. In places the droppings were up to 50 meters deep and guano mining became a major industry in the 1800’s.

As you can imagine, our tour guides discussion of the mining industry led to some colorful comments like, ‘And you thought you had a shitty job.’ ‘These miners were really in deep shit.’ ‘White gold, shit that is.’ (A play on the Beverly Hillbillies: ‘black gold, oil that is.’) However, the comparison to gold is slightly accurate since the Spanish even fought the ‘Guano Wars’ in 1865-66 over the mining rights on some of the islands, and Guano was the number one export from Peru in the 1800’s. Seriously, you can’t make this shit up.

Our guide for the boat tour did his best with English, but often left us scratching our heads. A few times, I flipped open my ‘Lonely Planet’ (Lonely Planet, I expect a product placement check!) to answer questions from the crowd or fill in the blanks for myself. After touring the islands for the morning and watching the daily migration to shore, we headed back to the mainland ourselves. I was kind of surprised the tour was over, since I my Lima hotel had said it was a day tour and included a chance to go swimming. However my tour company rep was nowhere to be found, so I returned to my hostel and changed out of my swimsuit.

A few minutes after I changed clothes, my tour rep came to my hostel and said I needed to come with him to catch a bus for the afternoon portion of the tour. I grabbed my camera and followed him out. We went back down to the beach-side road, and he told me to wait while he rounded up the rest of the guests. He came back a few minutes later with some additional passengers and then led us all around the block as he talked frantically on his cell phone. We followed him around for a while. He had us wait in the town plaza a while. Eventually two vans arrived, but instead of starting the tour, we took another detour for gas first.

After all the delays and organizational missteps, we were finally off on our tour of the Paracas National Reserve. Except for a few additional glitches: First, like most tours in Peru, admission fees to the park were not included. Second, no one had change when we tried to pay, so they had us pay on the way out. And third, our English-speaking guide only spoke Spanish. Luckily another group had a bilingual so we tagged along with them.

The first few stops went smoothly, but just before we stopped for lunch, we reached our swimming stop. Unfortunately, none of us had our swim gear at this point. After the botched swim stop, we proceeded to lunch. As we traveled to a small hamlet of restaurants set in a small fishing cove, our guide recommended the last restaurant and said they gave the tour free Pisco Sours. We took his advice and sat down in the restaurant, only to watch him switch from guide to waiter. Apparently this was his family’s way of drumming up business for their restaurant and bringing in extra cash… have Ricco get a job as a tour guide and then bring the tourist directly to the restaurant. The food was alright, we never got our Pisco Sours and, shocker, they didn’t have correct change.

On the return to town, our guide attempted to break the land speed record in our beat-up van. I had heard that Flamingoes winter in the Reserve, so as we flew down the dirt road, I asked if we could stop and to his credit, he did. However, he stopped on the opposite side of the bay from where the Flamingoes and lookout point were located, and proceeded to explain that they spend summers here not winters… so either the guidebooks were wrong on both accounts, or he simply didn’t want to take the time to stop at the right location.

After staring at the empty stretch of desert plain and shimmering bay in the distance, and listening to our guide explain all of this in Spanish for five minutes, we loaded back up and returned to town to conclude the worst tour I’ve ever had. What was the company you ask? That would be Pisco Travel, located in Paracas, I highly recommend you look for other options and bring plenty of small bills.

Incahuasi

On my second day in Lunahuana, I went white water rafting and toured Incahuasi, the ruins of an Incan military camp and prison, which was established in 1438 by the Inca Pachacutec. I was a little hesitant to go White Water rafting because the water levels were so low, but Fernando was passionate. He said the river is powerful and even if it is low the energy will still be the same. His enthusiasm sold me on the plan and he coordinated the trip.

Just as promised, the river delivered and the rafting was invigorating. I was glad I had done quite a bit of rafting in the United States, because the introductory briefing would have been a complete loss to me, if I had not already heard it before in English. After the brief, the guide wanted to place me in the front lead position of the raft. In my worst Spanish, I tried to explain to the guide that I would probably fare better in the second position, since I wouldn’t understand the commands he would shout from the back of the boat.

We got it figured out and by the time we finished the trip, I had learned the only two commands our guide used… ‘All Forward’ and ‘Stop’ ('Todos Avanzar' y 'Alto'). When we got back into town, the group helped carry the rafts back up to the shop in the middle of town. However, we were delayed by a large religious procession with a band and a group carrying a statue of a saint. The Spaniards brought Catholicism with them from Europe and it remains very strong throughout Peru, though slightly spiced with local traditions of worshiping the earth and elements. Although I assumed this parade was for a significant local holiday or event, it is actually a common occurrence, which happens every Sunday in most towns, and some towns even have daily parades.

For my last meal at the Refuge de Santiago, I had the duck with purple corn sauce. Delicious. If I was a food writer, I might have been able to articulate the mouth watering flavors: the sweet flavor of the corn sauce that hinted of a plum sauce, but with a hint of salt, to bring out the flavor of the duck, and how nicely the quinoa complemented it. But alas, I’m not a food writer.

After lunch, I headed to Incahuasi for a few hours of exploring. Incahuasi was the first Incan ruins of my Peruvian tour, and highlighted the conquest and expansion that defined their kingdoms rapid, but brief, expansion to control the majority of the Andes. In Lunahuana they established Incahuasi as a military garrison and prison camp in preparation for their expansion north along the coast.

My host, Fernando, explained that the Huarco Kingdom was the primary obstacle for the Inca, and they had a significant settlement at the base of the valley in the present-day city of Canete. The Inca recognized that they could attack a key fort at the mouth of the valley and establish control of the canal network, which would cripple the Huarco kingdom. It was fascinating to learn about the Inca’s military strategy. I was impressed that this small military city was built with the primary intent of preparing for an attack. It made me wonder what the Huarco people were doing in Canete as this camp began to grow and their pending doom grew clear. Did they make similar preparations to strengthen their defenses? Unfortunately, the current residents of Canete do not let tourist wonder the ruins of the old Huarco fort, so I did not get to see the remains of the other half of the conflict.

At Incahuasi, the main ruins are situated in two adjacent draws, or small canyons, just south of the main road that leads up the Lunahuana valley. However, the main road actually cuts through the ruins and the ruins that remain, on the north side of the road, have been overrun by orchards.

My visit began with a bilingual discussion with the gate keeper, and by bilingual I mean I spoke mostly English, he spoke Spanish, and we sorted the rest out with sign language. The gatekeeper was a short, wiry old cowboy with a somber and leathery face under his cowboy hat, both worn from years working under the desert sun. After establishing the hours, admission, and cost of a guidebook, I paid for each and was given free rein to roam the ruins.

For the majority of my visit I was the only tourist on the site, and the only employee that I saw was the gate keeper, who quickly retired back into his shack after I paid my admission. In the center of the site was the Temple complex with a large courtyard in front of what remained of the Temple of the Sun and Incan Palace building with a back drop of barren and jagged stone hills.

 

Since the canal system of the valley is the only thing that supplies the agricultural area with water, the division from the orchards on the north side of the road and the barren desert ruins on the south is stark. Although the limited rainfall has helped preserve the ruins, little else is preventing them from falling apart, and several sections of the walls look like they could tumble at any moment.

From the temple, I headed east, over a small but steep hill to the prison and markets section of the settlement. The two areas had similar layouts, with buildings built up against the mountain wall and wrapped around a central courtyard area facing out to the modern highway and larger valley below. These ruins were in better condition and you could see some of the classic trapezoidal and triangular ‘windows’/shelves that the Inca built into their walls. Although they look like they were windows that were later sealed off with the outer layer of stones, the openings actually served another purpose. In the earthquake prone region, the Incas established this design to make their buildings more earthquake resistant, and many Incan buildings still survive earthquakes today while more modern structures tumble down around them.

From the prison I returned east, back over the hill and past the temple, to the military side of the camp. The camp once housed the military’s armory, grain warehouses, and barracks. As Napoleon once said, “An Army marches on its stomach;” it seems the Inca’s recognized this as well, because the remains of the warehouses were the largest section of the complex.

The afternoon sun was unforgiving, and I was running out of time in Lunahuana. I returned to the beautiful Refuge, picked up my bags and began my arduous journey to Paracas. Todos avanzar!

Buses in Peru

As I mentioned in my last blog, I spent a lot of time on buses in Peru, and bus travel is the most common mode of transport for Peruvians. This was highlighted to me when I first arrived in Lima and asked my hotel staff how I should get downtown. They provided me with a map that noted bus stops along a main thoroughfare that led to the center of the city.

This would have been expected, but when I got to the bus stop, I found it was actually running on a separate set of lanes down the middle of the highway and had platforms just like you might expect to see on a subway or rail transit system. And like a rail system, the buses also had multiple cars attached with accordion style sections. 

The accordion style buses were part of a formal city transit system, but there are also a multitude of private companies in the game as well, from start ups, like the local combi’s, to major national bus chains. And the quality and variety of service is just as extensive. For instance the combi and ‘mom and pop’ local buses sometimes look as if they’ve been on the road since the early 70’s, or 80’s. They cough and spew smoke like they are burning as much oil as they are gas, and the owners probably pray every day that they break even before they break down.

These local buses are an adventure to ride and the transport comes with entertainment as well. It starts with the door man, each one has his own style, but most sell the routes in the same sing song fashion of an auctioneer. I never knew what they were actually saying, but they say it with such flare, I’m convinced there are a few passengers that hadn’t planned on the destination, but were talked into as the bus pulled up to the curb. At one point I think I saw this happen. A man was standing at a stop and didn’t flinch when our bus pulled up, but our door man broke into his song of stops and rock bottom prices, and just as we were about to pull away, the man jumped up and hopped on like he’d had a change of heart… 'why wait for the bus home when this bus is really going places.'

Now the door man is responsible for more than just selling the route. He also collects fares and issues change, often one handed, while tearing and issuing tickets with one smooth motion of his thumb with the other hand. And, he is rarely stationary, hopping on and off the bus at each stop, wandering up and down the aisle to collect fairs between stops, and hanging out the door as the bus approaches the next stop. I often wonder how they can keep up the momentum and energy all day, everyday.

In addition to the door man, you also get the salesmen, who hop on the bus between stops to sell anything from paper clips to snake oil, like infomercials on wheels. At one stop we pick up a paper clip salesman who has a colored assortment attached to his demonstration piece of paper. He glides his hand down the side of the paper to note the various colors available, then demonstrates the clips uncanny ability to be removed and re-applied. The crowd is unimpressed, and he bails at the next stop to be replaced by the candy man selling individually wrapped candies. It’s a hard crowd and he jumps off with out a sale as well.

Combi’s lack the salesmen, but still have the tag team of driver and doorman. The combi's are also often decorated with lights, trim, and religious ornaments. Since they are smaller, they often are packed much tighter, and compete with other combi’s for passengers and the road. On one trip out of Puno, our driver had been battling another combi for position and every time he took the lead the other driver was laying on his horn, so that he could pass. Horns are very popular here and are used to say, 'Hello.' 'Watch out.' and in this case 'Get the HONK out of the way!'

At one point our driver finally cracked, stopped the car in the middle of the street.  He got out, proceeded to walk back and punch the other driver through his open window.  This was followed by a short verbal argument as other drivers drove by, and Mother Mary looked on from the dashboard. A nun who had been on board with us got off at the next stop. I’m not sure if it was her stop, or she simply didn’t want to be involved in the next case of road rage.

On the other side of the coin you have the major national chains that cater to tourists. These are new fleets of large, plush, air conditioned tour buses. Some have tour guides and make multiple tourist stops between major city destinations, while others are equipped with wi-fi to lure the 21st century traveler. I tried nearly all of them on my visit, and like the movie, Trains, Planes and Automobiles, I'd have to string multiple modes of transport together to get to some places.  Getting to my next stop, Paracas, would require a combi, bus and taxi, but before I left Lunahuana, I was going to do some rafting and tour Incahuasi.

Lunahuana

In pursuit of new ramblings, I recently visited Peru for my mid-tour R&R from Afghanistan. After a jet lagged day in Peru’s capitol, Lima, my road trip began with a bus journey south to Lunahuana. As I travelled out of Lima, I was struck by the dry and barren landscape of southern Peru's coastal desert. It is strange to see such a vast and lifeless desert hugging the vast ocean coast, especially after traveling through so many tropical coastal regions. My first bus took me to Canete a coastal garden city built on the delta of the Lunahuana River as it breaks out of the Andes onto the coastal plain. At the bus stop, I transferred to my first ‘combi,’ a shared taxi van, which are packed with as many passengers as they can carry before racing along their route up the canyon, swapping out passengers along the way.

As I departed the lush delta lands of Canete the valley closed in, and we climbed the winding valley road into what looked to be a barren desert canyon. The view, from the combi window made me wonder if I was going the wrong way, until we broke out on the outskirts of Lunahuana, where an extensive canal system turned the desert into a tiered garden of Eden tucked in among the barren desert walls of the valley. Lunahuana is a lush agricultural valley, which was carved out of the desert landscape over the centuries by pre-Incan societies, and further refined by the Inca as they expanded north. Now it is one of Peru’s wine and pisco regions, and according to my guidebook one of the top spots to chill-lax in the country.

Before I left Lima, the hotel staff had coordinated my arrival at Refugio de Santiago, and they told me to ask for Fernando or Pedro, when I arrived. I met Pedro first, but he spoke limited English, so he quickly introduced me to Fernando. Fernando was very welcoming and showed me to my room, so I could drop off my bags, and then quickly led me out for a tour of the property and gardens. He warned me that I should wear pants, and I was quickly convinced it was sound advice as I developed a twitch swatting gnats away from my legs, arms, and really any exposed skin surface. We stopped among some fruit trees where workers were busy harvesting what looked like a giant snow pea or flattened green bean that was about a foot long. Fernando picked one up, introduced it to me quickly, and then cracked and peeled it open along the pod seem to reveal black seeds covered in what looked like cotton. He handed it to me and said, ‘you eat the cotton,’ so I plucked a chunk of cotton out and tried Guaba for the first time. It had the consistency of a wet cotton ball, but almost melted in your mouth like cotton candy and had a light sweet taste. I don't know how much more Fernando may have been planning to show me, but as I continued to slap at my legs and arms, he turned us around so I could change.

Having learned my lesson, I changed into both pants and a long sleeve shirt. I met back up with Fernando in the courtyard/dining area, and he asked if I'd like to have lunch. Since I had been on the road all morning, I was ready to eat and he brought me a menu. Now this may make some readers cringe, but a famous Peruvian dish is Cuy (pronounced coy), which is more commonly known as Guinea Pig, although the animal is actually native to Peru, not Guinea. When I told my receptionist in Lima that I was going to Refugio de Santiago, she quickly told me their Cuy was the best she had ever eaten in Peru. Armed with this knowledge, the Cuy was on the top of my list; however, as I looked over the menu, I found almost every option sounded very tempting. My stay included three meals, but I found myself planning for at least four before I had even eaten my first. Now in most restaurants around Peru, Cuy is prepared in the 'classic' style, splayed out head and all, with sockets, once filled with doey-eyes, looking up at you from the fried skull. It can be a bit off putting to say the least. However, Fernando explained to me that his kitchen prepares Cuy boneless, so presentation is more appealing and you don't have to pick the meat off the tiny bones, which would make it a bit like eating lobster, which is more work than sustenance.

I ordered the Cuy and started with a glass of Tuna juice. Now before I lose everyone, the Tuna juice is not fish oil, or a blended sushi. It is a cactus juice, commonly known as prickly pear in the English speaking world. Its only similarity to the fish was the pink color of the juice, which was sweet and refreshing. As for the Cuy, it was quite tasty, and to avoid the age old cliché of everything tasting like chicken, I thought it tasted a bit more like very tender, juicy pork. I guess that is why it is called Guinea 'Pig.'

After lunch, I told my host that I was also interested in doing some wine tourism while I was in the area. In planning this trip, I had visions of renting a bike for a leisurely ride through the village and vineyards, stopping at tasting rooms and maybe dining at an onsite restaurant. Unfortunately, it seems Peru's wine country has not caught on to the idea of wine tourism, and the winery my host recommended ‘just down the road’ turned into a two mile hike. I had hoped I might stumble on a few other wineries along the way, but instead, I had a hard time finding the one my host recommended.

There were no signs or ornate gates to mark the estate, but I took the grape vines near the road as my cue that I had arrived. My visit began with a wander around the compound’s buildings, the most prominent of which was a two story complex that looked like a work in progress with rooms in various stages of completion. With no signs of life in the large central building, I continued my search in a smaller building near the road that looked insignificant at first but on closer inspection appeared to the owner’s home.

After several inquiring ‘holas?,’ which I found challenging to say in the form of a question. ‘Hello?’ sounds like a I’m asking if anyone is home, while ‘Hola?’ sounded more like I was questioning whether ‘hola’ was a word at all. Eventually, an older gentleman came out, either to let me know ‘hola’ was indeed a word and I could stop asking, or to see why or how someone could pronounce it so badly.

Before leaving the Refugio, I had asked Fernando how to ask about tastings, and had repeated the phrase, like my mission mantra, as I wandered down the road; but now that I had someone to ask, the word escaped me. I was left playing charades, tipping my hand to mouth like a drunk looking for his next fix. He nodded, and slowly led me to a small room the size of a closet with shelves of Pisco and wine and a few shot glasses.

We began with his Piscos, which went down about as smooth as Tequila. Each one would induce an involuntary wince, and then I’d comment approvingly on the drinks kick, in English of course, so the comments were probably lost on the proprietor. After Piscos, we moved into some of his slightly weaker and pleasantly sweeter dessert style wines. They were quite nice, and I ended up buying a bottle because I felt bad for invading his home, and drinking his wines uninvited. I finished my self guided tour by taking a few pictures of his distillery and vineyard and then began the long walk back to the Refuge.

I met back up with Fernando, and learned he wasn’t just an employee, but was actually the owner of the Refuge. He was an older gentleman but still approached life with a youthful curiosity that helped disguise the years. He had started out as an Industrial Engineer, making industrial pumps for the mining industry of Peru. He made several innovations in slurry pumps, and established his own business, before growing tired of the industry.

Like John Laroche - the orchid enthusiast/activist that inspired a book and then the film Adaptation - Fernando seemed to be a man driven by strong passions, which he only pursued until his interest waned. In 2000, he walked away from engineering and his pump business to dive into a completely new industry: Eco/Gastronomic Tourism. He bought an old republican style country house, and began two years of renovations to create Refugio de Santiago. However, he didn’t open the restaurant until 2005, and spent an additional three years studying his new passions: the hospitality industry, horticulture and the biodiversity of his native land of Peru. He said he wants to become an expert in these fields, and he had established a small library of reference material that he stores behind the bar.

As Fernando notes on his website, he has created an Andean orchard, reflective of a lost paradise. However, one could also argue it is reflective of Peru, which is a microcosm of climates and biodiversity, with 35 different types of corn and thousands of potato varieties native to the region. Fernando has researched both local and introduced plant varieties, and has collected over 450, which he grows in his gardens. As we discussed the various ingredients of the meals I would be eating, he would pull down references from his shelves, and at one point even made corrections to some of the photographs noting the non-native fruits and vegetables pictured in a book about Peru.

His pursuit of gastronomic tourism has been just as intense, and has piqued the attention of food writers in a country known for its innovative fusion cuisine. On my visit, I dined with four ladies visiting from Lima. Several worked in the medical field, but one was a food writer and had heard about Fernando’s refuge. They had come to Lunahuana to escape Lima’s famous fog - which hangs heavy and gray over the city throughout the winter - but stayed at the Refuge for the food.

I found it interesting to dine with a food writer, because everyone seems to lose their own sense of taste and opinion of food, in the presents of a ‘professional.’ Rather than commenting on their own meals they all turned to the expert, awaiting her assessment of the meal, as if her judgment could sway their own taste buds and over rule their assessment of the food, even though each of us brought over thirty years of dining experience to the table. Although her opinion was not going to sway my assessment of dinner, I did find it interesting that the Spanish language has no equivalent to describe a food or flavor as ‘rich,’ which leaves her and other critics with the challenge of finding another description for rich foods.

In my humble opinion, dinner was delicious and the food writer agreed. We capped it off with the dessert wine I had bought earlier in the day before retiring to the courtyard outside our rooms for a bonfire and scary stories about chagas before bed. I had learned about chagas just before my trip, but only knew that it was being called ‘the AIDS of the Americas’ and that it was a blood-born disease carried by an insect in South America. As I itched my bug bites from earlier in the day, I wondered how much longer I had, and counted on my new-found medical friends to give it to me straight. As the darkness encroached and our shadows danced on the walls like monsters, the doctors told me… to stop being a baby, and that I was more likely to contract tuberculosis on the bus journeys during my visit. Turns out TB is a common and often untreated disease in Peru, and it spreads among families and on long bus journeys in Peru. Chagas, on the other hand, is actually a disease of poverty and the bugs that carry the disease-causing parasite, typically live in the thatch roof tops of slums, biting and infecting people as they sleep…. Whew, thank goodness I could sleep soundly knowing I only had 20 more days of bus travel ahead of me.

In a recent survey...

People love statistics, even though I've heard up to 47 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.  It's And now, Google, and their blog site (blogger or blogspot.com), provides all kinds of statistics to their blogosphere.  It's great fun and provides me all kinds of information that is largely useless, but endlessly entertaining with the pie charts and bar graphs.

As a matter of fact, you might just be my 1000th blog viewer.  Congratulations, with that and a lottery ticket, you might just win something.  Seriously though, I now know that in the last month:

52% of my readers accessed my blog using a Windows Operating system

31% used a Mac

10% used an Android

I also know what web-browsers were used.  These are interesting facts, but I'm not sure how they apply to me as a blogger?  I guess I know the Android users are probably reading on the go, so I might be lite commute reading for someone, or killing time waiting in line at the DMV maybe?  Should I change my writing to meet these reading preferences?  Do you think I really considered that? I didn't, and I think these statistics probably help Google more than they help me.

I also have learned that I have International Readership, and I feel that is significant enough to capitalize.  Again for the last month:

53% US

24% Russia

6% each from Australia, UK and Netherlands

And just showing up on the radar are readers from Hong Kong, China, Germany and Latvia

I'm impressed I have such a wide readership, though I suspect it is mostly just my international friends on Facebook that were curious about what I might be blogging about.  The one that stumps me is the 24% readership in Russia. I don't think I know many people in Russia, and I'm curious how they may have stumbled on my blog.  Also, it makes me wonder if the numbers can be skewed by one person visiting the blog multiple times.  I'm sure Google is crunching my statistics as well, which makes me wonder what they make of my international appeal. 

All these statistics remind me of a few lines from Don Henley's song 'Garden of Allah.'  I like the song, and I thought it was a dark commentary on banking and politics of the 80's and it still applied to the political/banking situation of today.  However, in writing this blog, I learned 'The Garden of Allah' was actually a famous apartment complex in Hollywood, at the end of the Sunset Strip (also a Don Henley song). 

Anyway, with regards to crunching numbers Don says:

I will testify for you,

I'm a gun for hire,I'm a saint, I'm a liar
Because there are no facts, there is no truth
Just data to be manipulated.
I can get you any result you like
What's it worth to you?

I'm not sure I have enough stats to 'get you any result you like,' but I'm sure Google's manipulating the data right now to get you the result you will like... on your next search.

Don also mentions a Fitzgerald and Huxley in his song alluding to their writing.  Since I was writing a blog, I was also curious who Fitzgerald and Huxley were, so I did a little more research, and learned F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in the Hollywood apartments for a time in the '30's. According to Wikipedia, he wrote himself a postcard while there: "Dear Scott -- How are you? Have been meaning to come in and see you. I have living [sic] at the Garden of Allah. Yours, Scott Fitzgerald."

More wine Mr Fitzgerald?  Evidently the apartments had many famous guests and tenants like: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Buster Keaton, Harpo Marx, Humphry Bogart, Ernest Hemingway, George Kaufman and others; and it was known for all the debauchery one might associate with Hollywood.  You can read more about it here:  http://www.waltlockley.com/gardenofallah/gardenofallah.htm

But I digress.  Getting back to my Google statistics, they also let me know which posts have been read the most, or not read at all.  My top three posts are:

1. The Great Wall

2. Free Press in a Counter Insurgency

3. Random Ramblings from Afghanistan

I think posting the links on Facebook has given the second two an edge, although I was surprised my commentary on Free Press was so popular.  Also, of all my posts, I'm not sure why the Great Wall has become number one, but now that I have announced it's popularity I suspect it will remain at the top, trends become self promoting at some point... while others are just promoted by their author.

However, what I would really like to see is some traffic on some of my unread posts.  In particular, these two posts were some of my favorites to write, and yet they have never been read according to my google stats:

Shirt Shopping India Style:
http://randomramblingsofanamericanabroad.blogspot.com/2009/03/shirt-shopping-swindlers.html

Train to Maduri:
http://randomramblingsofanamericanabroad.blogspot.com/2009/03/train-to-madurai.html

So give them some love, I think you will enjoy them.

Run for the border: China to Vietnam

Our adventures continued in Guiyang, which really wasn't a trip stop, but just a transition point from bus back to rail.  We had a few hours before our train departed so we wondered down the road from the train station to get something to eat and buy snacks for the train journey.  The town has grown significantly in the past 10-20 years and has a history a bit like the United States 'Wild West.'  Originally it was occupied by minority tribes and the Chinese only had small garrisons established in the region to protect trade routes.  However, after the Mongol invasions pushed through China and onward into central Asia, China grew more interested in occupying the region and began settling in the area. 

Today it continues to be a major hub/cross roads for transportation and trade, hence my stop, and has also become a significant industrial hub for both raw material mining and production of iron, steel aluminum and further refinement into rail and aerospace parts and technology.  Of course I didn't really know any of this during my stop and probably would not have noted the town at, if the town's folk had not gone out of their way to take note of me and my travel companions.

During our stop at the local grocer, we unwittingly became celebrities.  The store looked like it was some sort of chain location, similar to a Safeway. It even had a similar color theme of red and white, but stores in Japan feel more European in their layout... somewhere between grocer and corner store.  Just inside there was a little deli that served noodles and wonton, so we sat down for a light supper.  Although we seemed to be an enjoyable oddity as the only white patrons, the meal passed pretty uneventfully. 

At the end of the meal, some of the staff built up the courage to ask if they could take pictures with us.  We agreed finding it a bit amusing ourselves, but we had also grown use to the fact that in China the tourist often is the attraction.  However, when we posed for the picture they also added a member of the staff dressed in a customary outfit of the local minority group.  She seemed almost like a store mascot, because we noticed a similar character on some of the advertisement posters around the store as well. 

Then, when we wonder into the store to buy some snacks, the staff was very attentive and followed us through the store like shopping assistants, carrying our shopping baskets for us, offering recommendations on products, and complimenting us on our final selection, whatever it may be.  We proceeded to check out and the entire staff gathered around as if fascinated by what these white people were buying in their grocery store.  As each item was rung up one woman would read off the current total, which was clearly displayed for us on the monitor, and really, since we had no idea what she was saying, I can only assume her commentary was for the larger local audience: 'Five, ninety-five ladies and gentlemen, and the next item is a fine selection of instant noodles. Beep. Seven, twenty-five. Next up, instant coffee.'

Finally, after the items were bagged and and the crowd dissipated, we shook hands with our friendly bagging staff and headed for the doors.  However, our exit was predicted, and the camera-man ran to the exits to film our departure with groceries in hand and a few friendly staff trailing a short distance behind.  So, if you are ever watching grocery store commercials in Guiyang, watch out for me picking out a fine selection of junk food perfect for a train journey to Kunming.  (Below: Even the statues at the train station were kind enough to offer new visitors advice and directions in Guiyang)

I really can't say much about Kunming, it was a short 24 hour stop and we just wondered through downtown and visited a local Green Lake Park.  The park was interesting in that it was a bit more like a Chinese Garden.  Laid out very precisely with artificial lakes, shrubs and tree trimmed and manicured for visual appeal.  We had hoped to lay out on the grass somewhere and enjoy the sun, but the grass was for looking at not walking on.  They had some paddle boats and inflatable clear plastic balls, which you could climb in and run around the lake like a Hamster 'Run-About Ball.' We wanted to try that but I guess they feared our western girth would sink the balls, and we were turned away.

The next morning we departed for Vietnam on a grueling 12 hour bus ride through the mountain passes of the border.  The terrain leaving Kunming was rolling farmland broken up by rich red clay earth and a scattering of white limestone rocks.  Initially the roads were straight and our pace was quick, smooth sailing, but then we began to climb into the mountains and the terrain closed in, the valleys grew steep and narrow and the road began to wind, hugging the contour lines and occasionally switching back on itself.  The scenery was enjoyable but the combative driving in a large bus on narrow roads, with steep banks, began to make some of the crew sick.  Before the final climb, and last pass, we stopped at a 'rest stop' for a breather and final bathroom break.  The setting was picturesque, with a small gazebo sitting on a embankment above a stream that snaked up the valley beyond.  However the facilities were just shy of a slit trench.  A cement stall with an area to squat over a gutter that ran through the three stalls. The strategy was to use the stall on the uphill slope otherwise you had to deal with everything in your section of the trench as well as what ever was flowing past from the other two.

In the late evening we finally arrived at our border crossing point.  The two nations are separated by a river and the two border towns face off across the river like to peacocks displaying their grand plumage to win a mate.  We were welcomed into town by the warm glow of Vegas style display of street lights and neon signs, as the Chinese and Vietnamese boarder towns faced off across a river. However, just beyond the riverfront on both sides of the river reality sets back in, and you left asking yourself, is there really occupants on each side of the boarder staring longingly at the other thinking, 'Man it sure looks like they've got it made over there.'

All the bright lights, and displays of wealth and power, were distant second in the minds of our group, as we were busy trying to look unfazed by the long and nauseating bus journey, so we would not be held up at the boarder crossing on account of being 'ill.'  We kept our distance from the guard points and fanned our friends that were feeling the worst, while our guide had our passports and immigration papers processed.  Fortunately, we didn't raise any alarm and successfully made it through immigration and hiked across a footbridge into Vietnam.  Enjoying the cool evening air before repeating the process successfully with the Vietnamese immigration team.  Then, we boarded a pair of small vans for a final winding hill climb into the town of Sapa, a French Colonial Hill station, minority tribal region, and our first stop in Vietnam.  As long as we survive the journey, which is dependent on our new drivers who have made this run too many times to believe the twisting road calls for any measure of caution, or even concern for oncoming traffic, or livestock in the dead of night...  As my grandfather recalled of his voyage to America, 'Many travelers grew sick. I did not.'