SO now Im on a bus, travelling over the Andes. Well, these bus rides are famous for a reason. These are the most sketchy ass roads, an easy 1000 ft drop on one side, literally inches from the tires, and sheer cliffs inches from my face on the other side. I thought I might die at any second. Needless to say, I see some things. I see skinny starving cows, pigs on leashes tied up, sheep spraypainted pink....I see little towns on the hi8llsides, and farmers fields sprawled all the way up these huge mountains..using any land they can find. It's a desert here. No one in NA works as hard as these people. I don't care, they don't. I see a cross on the side of the road, further on a huge twisted piece of metal at the bottom. The craziest part is when another truck is coming the other way...hopefully it is a slightly wider part, and not on a blind corner like the last 2 were. No one even slowed down, just blew by and crossed our fingers..hoping there was room. Crazyness. We're at 4000 m now, i'm not sick anymore, but mom and alex both had to get off the bus to upload. people here cut thousands of clay blocks from the ground, let them dry in the sun, then build their houses from them. They have electricity though, hard to believe, but they do. It's desert here, but it's freezing cause it's so high up. I have a touque and gloves on, hoping it will warm up. The bus we're on is actually an old Russian army personnel carrier.
We're on the road again....if you can call it that....after stopping for breakfast of coco leaf tea, fried eggs, and fried bannanas....I ate 5 eggs, 2 banannas, and 10 cups of coca leaf tea. I feel sooo high...it's like drinking 20 cups of coffee. I saw some dance festival in the town, little kids dancing, it's Teacher's Day today. the 'road' is getting worse as we head towards the Amazon rainforest, and these 10 cups of tea are making me want to piss out the window. This is the worst place I could possibly be, my bladder's not happy..... I bought some monster avacadoes mmmm, I'm gonna take it back now, back to Lima. It took me a total of 14 hours to get my first Spanish phone #...a cute honey across the street from where I was saying. She wanted to hook up, but I was leaving..oh well. I got her email. The sidewalks there are polished from so many people walking on them. The waters here are unbelievable. The river is a dump..literally...the water is full of every sort of shit you can imagine.....and there's people searchiung through it, and dogs eating whatever they can find.......it hit me hard. So...back to the road...He just ate lunch on the bus descending into the Cloud Forest. The trip was too perfect...no problems...but as soon as I thought that, the truck stops, and we see that the road is out. So we walk. I go off on my own and come to a rangers station. After the 'hilarity' of my 'no comprende espangol', I take off, leaving them with their laughter.....bastards....we all continue and get to some small waterfalls that go down into the headwaters of the amazon. I remain behind after everyone is gone and lose my mind. I balanced rocks and made some pretty technical balances. A guy in vancouver told me once that you could balance any rock on any other..I have yet to prove him wrong. So the tour is 2 hours ahead of me, so I start to walk. I can hear and smell the rainforest calling..I have waited for this my whole life. Earlier, some people found a wild strawberry, which is as large as our regular ones. I wanted to eat it, but there were tons of people..and they just took pictures. As I was walking, I thought how much I wanted one, and I stopped. Something I've learned....if all of a sudden you remember you're missing something, stop. and look 360. 90% of the time it's in your field of vision. So I look. I turn.....and I smile. Sure enough, a single strawberry, perfect, for me. Good ol life, takin care of me. It wasn't quite ripe, but that made it better for some reason. i took a good 20 min to eat that strawberry. It was good. So I'm walking, and my back really hurts. I am reminded of my mushroom trip at Geoffs and the theory that the reason human's backs always hurt is because we are still in a middle evolution stage, still not evolved enough to stand upright. It's a primal calling for us to go gorilla. So I focus my ape energies do some of the little Wing Chun I know to help, overlooking the cloud forest on a outcropping of rock..looking down 100 feet. I figure it's time to catch up to the group, so instead of taking the road, I cut through the forest and pastures, cutting switchback after switchback...and soon Im iun front of everybody. ha. and they were worried about me.
till next time.
Shawn.
The more you want something, the less likely it will happen.
stealin and dealin screamin semen like a demon
My going rate is 25$
LICK MORE MOOSE!!!!
GROW MORE TREES!!!!!!
Opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one.