Thursday 30 June 2011
Tuesday 28 June 2011
Peru
Though there there were shiny places. And we drove between them. Looking out the window of another taxi going to another mall, and down onto a six or seven year old girl, sat on a traffic island, four lanes of cars on each side.
Though the grey mist of a Lima sky let the sun cast not a shadow on the tarmac concrete dusty ground, a single extracted sheet of a tabloid newspaper rested on her head. I had only to recall my experiences of cycling in Peru to realise that the girl was sheltering, not from the penetrating rays of a tropical sun nor the light thin drizzle that fell from the sky, but from the spit and cigarette butts, plastic cups and endless other kind missiles that fly from the windows of buses and cars.
...
Her mother, we assume, is one of the women or girls walking between the vehicles selling newspapers or cigarettes. Part-time workers, given the restrictions of red and green lights, but twelve hours spent still, in the fumes and the noise, and maybe never days off.
...
It is an unremarkable scene. A boring scene. Children crying and selling sweets, dirty little feet and no new ploys; could make you fall asleep, this tear stained theatre. Nothing happens in the humming, boring, roundabout day. What first you took to be a simmering, buzzing, energetic boiling was really just a drone. It was you that gave it song. Because still, somehow, for all of it, you think you love the city. And will. With every sight of every coming next.
...
The girl is doing maths homework. It will be a thing if she gets out of here with that, I think. Quite a thing. Quite an impossible, wonderful thing.
We look sad out the window.
"Pobrecita." we say. Poor thing. Said in sincere tones, heartfelt tones; all those tones that make us human.
The light turns green. The car drives on.
...
Perhaps it is no accident that the mountains in Peru are so high. A breathless escape in a staggering sky. For days and weeks and years you could escape.
From grapes, to oranges, to sugar cane, coca to coffee, to nothing, to snow. It is the most beautiful country I have ever seen. I must say it. It is a vast, breathtaking beauty, a wonderful symphony of contrasts. Above the clambering hum, the steady human drone, it is remarkable. Fragile and majestic both, this none anthropocentric space.
In my entries on Peru it has undeservedly commanded few words. But what words? What words for it?
Sunday 26 June 2011
Friday 24 June 2011
Thirteen degrees south
Still, in the sand, the sun´s heat. And from the rocks, all around, that prevented the pitching of a tent, a warmth is felt that makes them feel living; as creatures that every night die in their sleep, unwaking and cold in the frozen dawn.
Sandflies bite, have bitten all day. I count the swollen white bumps on the inside of my right knee. Eleven. And my left. Six. And on my ankles and arms many more.
I lie on my back and count the stars, in an attempt to get to sleep, but can´t. There are too many of them, and they are not in good shapes for counting, and every time I look away or blink I lose my place.
A dog starts to bark and doesn´t stop.
Two hours later, footsteps, voices, a torch shines upon my face.
"Turista. Solo un turista. We thought you were a theif."
"I´m not a theif," I say. "I just want to sleep. Perdon, no queria molestar ustedes."
And they tell me not to worry, I´m not bothering them. The men wave over the children who had evidently stayed a little way behind, in case I really was a theif or other dangerous person.
The chubby, smiling face of a boy. A chubby half-laughing face, with bright and giggling torch shining over scene. "Esta dormiendo en el suelo no más!" he tells his father. He´s just sleeping on the floor! Light moves from face to bike and bags and back, "¿Adónde vas?"
"I´m going to Argentina. But not now. Now I´m sleeping."
And the search party takes the hint, wishes me a good night, and I watch the torches bob away, floating in the night, in the shape of steps.
The dog barks, torches shine out across the river, sandflies bite, and I don´t sleep, but wait until dawn to leave.
The next day I stop at a dirty cafe and eat lomo saltado which tastes like an old dead rat, fried to death and unsuccessfully disguised under half a bottle of soy sauce. This will be case number three of food poisoning in Peru.
Trees stop growing, and now just a harsh and barren grass, and alpacas, and the descending herds of cows, escaping the evening´s chill. A woman asks where I´m going, and calls after me "Vas a morir en frio! You´ll freeze to death."
And all the sun´s heat evaporates as the warm yellow light climbs the thin blades of Andean grass and leaps from the frosty dusk and shadow, to the undersides of clouds, and up again till all is a lightblue grey.
As I push my bike to camp there is a feeling that I have climbed too high too fast. From sea level to 4500m in one and a half days with no sleep and, a biting, stinging wind. Hand in armpits, and sitting and shivering in a thoughlessness. Just put up a tent and sleep, and tomorow will be better.
But I have forgotten how to sleep. The wind beats the walls of my tent, and slowly sting, then feeling return to my hands, but my mind races, trying to remember what you have to do to get to sleep. What I cannot realise is that I´m one person. I fight at an impossible speed to make my legs sleep, and it works, and I feel them dead and heavy. And my arms, and a feeling of accomplishment fills me. This is how you sleep. And still my mind races with impossible useless nothings. Eyes tight, to block thought, and still a turning over, and the long and windy night. Twice I wake up, elated that I have slept. And each time a glimpse at my watch betrays less than twenty minutes have elapsed.
The huge blue light of a full moon rises half way throught the night. And slowly I watch it grow grey and yellow with the rising sun.
A worse, exhausted wakefullness, and an inability to eat, and a slow puncture.
In the yellow light of a morning not quite warm, I spend two hours trying to replace a tire. Only I can´t remember what to do. I curse the tire for being too small, and all the time the press conference scene from Notting Hill repeats itself in my head. From the start to the word "indefinitely" and the flashing of cameras, and back again, for two whole hours till I remember how to mount a tire.
Breathless to the extent I can´t stand up. And dull, and tired, and stupid. I crawl around on the floor taking down my tent. The sky all blue and crisp, and the sunlight forever warmer, I lie on the floor to sleep, and again the excercise is futile. I´ve forgotten what to do.
A whole day of cycling on the altiplano and 12 miles covered. Every half mile I drop my bike to lie on the ground. And will myself to get up. I have a bag full of food I can´t even look at without feeling sick. And well before the sun´s light leaves the yellow blades of grass, I have spent another two hours putting up my tent. Crawling breathless around it and rolling my panniers inside because I don´t have the energy to lift them.
I lie outside and sleep blissful exhausted sleep for the first time in 60 hours, and half an hour later I wake and crawl to my tent and sleep for half an hour again.
A night of sleep, but with the onset of food poisoning waking me every two hours, as I run outside the tent, and shiver in a sideways sleet.
Nothing left in the morning. 12 more miles. I lie outside a lady´s shop in the afernoon heat. Three miles above sea level, still struggling to stand.
After two hours she comes out. "Are you okay? Are you just resting, or do you feel bad?"
"Feel bad. But okay. Just resting."
The hospedaje costs $3, is a dry mud box, with no windows, a corrugated plastic roof, and a candle on a plywood shelf, and appears as some sort of paradise. The next day I eat for the first time in two and a half days, and strength enough returns to ride to Ayacucho.
Sunday 12 June 2011
Coastal Peru
From the mountains I looked down; to the slate grey desert and the slate grey sea. Lineless at the shore, like watching the world through a gauze, and the sky grey and hazy too. Neither cliffs, nor birds, nor crashings of waves, nor now glints of rippling sunlight on the surface of the sea. So I watched, unsure whether what I was watching was the dull and motionless ocean or another dead desert plain. Then the darkened shapes of rocks, far along the coast to the south, and in the shallow water the whites of waves, lightly breaking over rocky, jagged edges. Though from this distance the white looked grey.
Miles later the rocks and the crashings of waves would appear more clearly: as an abandoned house; the crumbling or half-built walls of out buildings; lifeless, skeletal shrubs, black and hawthorn-sharp; spindly, hopeless plants, and on their branches the whites of waves; old carrier bags and nappies, blowing in the desert wind.
The ocean stretched away before me, a flat expanse of litter-strewn sand. And beyond that somewhere the real ocean, dull grey and litter strewn too.
The town is worse. The town was born from the litter in the sand, and the strips of plastic, and empty bottles and broken glass that have always been part of this desert. And from the rotting carcasses of dogs that no-one will ever move, and the days-old stink of fish that clings to every corner of every building, and wafts through every broken window into every dirt floored room, and is carried on the wind that whips sand down the streets, because no-one will ever tarmac them, but will piss on them and fill them with the bottles, the plastic and the broken glass, from which this town first rose.
Scrawled across walls, election cries, in huge orange capital letters: "KEIKO: Siempre Con La Gente. VOTA ASÍ..." and the correct box is crossed, so that even if you cannot read you will know which way to vote. "KEIKO: Always With The People." And here, stretched out for pointless dirty miles are... The People. Not to be confused with people, The People fill the spaces between the dirt, corrugated iron, and thin wooden walls that cover the coastal plains of Peru. The People have calloused hands, and down trodden stares, and are unhappy because they work too much for too little money, or never work for nothing at all. The People, too tired, from doing too much or too little, or too stupid, or too drunk, are powerless to remedy their state directly, but instead write the name of the ex-President´s daughter, who studied business in New York, and hope that she will come through with what her posters promise, reading elusively: "Opportunities for everybody."
Though the posters don´t specify exactly what kind of opportunities, they seem to give The People the general impression that if they vote for Keiko they can become people, just like her. Although then the president won´t be "with" them anymore, as she was in the beginning.
There is another option. The People can rise up, and kill or imprison the people who don´t agree them, and rename their country The People´s Republic of Peru. But then, like all the other People´s Republics there will always have to be many more The People than people, which means they will have to stay in their dirty, tiny houses, with their giant families, sewer filled streets, and back-breaking poorly paid work, and not have any of Keiko´s opportunities. And the government and other positions of power will have to be occupied by people, not The People. But it will, at least, be their country. Their filthy, stinking Peru.
Miles later the rocks and the crashings of waves would appear more clearly: as an abandoned house; the crumbling or half-built walls of out buildings; lifeless, skeletal shrubs, black and hawthorn-sharp; spindly, hopeless plants, and on their branches the whites of waves; old carrier bags and nappies, blowing in the desert wind.
The ocean stretched away before me, a flat expanse of litter-strewn sand. And beyond that somewhere the real ocean, dull grey and litter strewn too.
The town is worse. The town was born from the litter in the sand, and the strips of plastic, and empty bottles and broken glass that have always been part of this desert. And from the rotting carcasses of dogs that no-one will ever move, and the days-old stink of fish that clings to every corner of every building, and wafts through every broken window into every dirt floored room, and is carried on the wind that whips sand down the streets, because no-one will ever tarmac them, but will piss on them and fill them with the bottles, the plastic and the broken glass, from which this town first rose.
Scrawled across walls, election cries, in huge orange capital letters: "KEIKO: Siempre Con La Gente. VOTA ASÍ..." and the correct box is crossed, so that even if you cannot read you will know which way to vote. "KEIKO: Always With The People." And here, stretched out for pointless dirty miles are... The People. Not to be confused with people, The People fill the spaces between the dirt, corrugated iron, and thin wooden walls that cover the coastal plains of Peru. The People have calloused hands, and down trodden stares, and are unhappy because they work too much for too little money, or never work for nothing at all. The People, too tired, from doing too much or too little, or too stupid, or too drunk, are powerless to remedy their state directly, but instead write the name of the ex-President´s daughter, who studied business in New York, and hope that she will come through with what her posters promise, reading elusively: "Opportunities for everybody."
Though the posters don´t specify exactly what kind of opportunities, they seem to give The People the general impression that if they vote for Keiko they can become people, just like her. Although then the president won´t be "with" them anymore, as she was in the beginning.
There is another option. The People can rise up, and kill or imprison the people who don´t agree them, and rename their country The People´s Republic of Peru. But then, like all the other People´s Republics there will always have to be many more The People than people, which means they will have to stay in their dirty, tiny houses, with their giant families, sewer filled streets, and back-breaking poorly paid work, and not have any of Keiko´s opportunities. And the government and other positions of power will have to be occupied by people, not The People. But it will, at least, be their country. Their filthy, stinking Peru.
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