quito,
ecuador

july
26, 2003

we’re
bussing and bumping along. we know the routine by now. we’ve tried to
shorten our distances. not bus for ten hours at a stretch. make more stops.
banos. amato. latacunga. still on l’avenida de los volcanos.
in central ecuador. cotopaxi having replaced chimborazo as
the volcano de jour. it’s one of the pleasures of bussing for me –
watching the scenery change out the window. while wati tries to snooze her way
through these trips – that she sees more as unpleasant, time-consuming ordeals
– i soak up the countryside — the constant turnover of local travelers, the
quick assault of vendors at each stop – hawking sandwiches, drinks, tamales,
weird fried pork things, lots of other unhealthy-looking food substances, cure-all
remedies, and hand made trinkets to consume. it’s a constant smorgasbord
for the eyes, ears, stomach, nose, and imagination. what are the daily lives
of these poor people like? do they think or feel that they’re poor? yes,
i think so. but just as i’m on the bus dealing with its bumps and bruises,
so are they. of course i get off and go to the next hostal or tourist attraction,
but they get off too. go to work, market, home, church, wherever. we’re
all on and off the bus of life. money doesn’t insulate you from pain,
loss, hunger (okay, maybe for food it does), emotional duress. comfort, luxury,
and the familiar are not the goals or rewards of travel, nor should they be
of life.

we’ve
spent several days in quito, ecuador’s brilliant jewel of the andes. nestled
in a valley of surrounding volcanoes, she’s tourist friendly and a real
city at the same time. millions of everyday ecuadorians eating, selling, shopping,
living, dying – amidst the still glorious spanish colonial history of monumental
but dangerous “old town”, and the vendor-lined streets of trendy
“new town”, with her global village of cyber cafes, high end and
backpacker-friendly gift shops, and an entirely enclosed artisan village where
you can buy in one hour what it would take you over a month to buy traveling
todo el ecuador. we’re staying at the little h’othello
at the top of rio amazonas in new town, once again recommended by our
danish friend from the train to el nariz del diablo. we get the plantos
y blancos discount, even though we forgot the promotional card. carlos,
the friendly desk clerk, is taking care of our every need, and we’ve made
a little arrangement with him to leave our bags at the hotel for several days
at a time as we bus in and out of quito. he warns us of the criminal elements
on the streets after dark, even here in new town, but we often find ourselves
walking home late at night past the prostitutes on amazonas, the same
street teeming with tourist trade during the day, now emptied out and abandoned
except for some late night local restaurant fare, these late-night street walkers,
and their johns.

so
we’re bussing between quito and mindo, the little town in the
cloud forests northwest of the capital. the town reputed for her butterfly farms,
raging rivers, and orchid fields. the roads are winding back and forth in a
hypnotic rhythm of interconnecting switchbacks as we climb the roof of the andes
into the misty and magical cloud forests. it’s not quite the same as the
new jersey turnpike sometime between midnight and dawn (the densest fog i’ve
ever seen), but it’s completely surreal and disconcerting all of its own.
young wati’s fast asleep. i’m trying to stay awake to soak up the
faerie tale-like scenery, but the rhythm of the road and the fact that the bus
isn’t making any stops at all are overcoming even my most willful efforts
to do so. and as i’m nodding in and out of one of those disturbing transcontinental
bus-induced comas, i feel myself sinking into a strange south american magically
realistic, never-ending nightmare. i’m seeing, i’m experiencing
the places i’ve yet to be. a little like an ayahuasca or san pedro-induced
visitation by the ghosts of my ecuadorian future.

we’re
staying in un pocita cozy casita somewhere off road in the
cloud forests of mindo. there are hummingbird feeders all around us on an outdoor
back deck of brown forrest wood and swinging hammocks. the humming birds are
in their perpetual feeding frenzy, their wings and beauty as delicate as –
insect wings in furious, life-sustaining motion. we’ve just come back
from a two hour trek where we never quite find the elusive mindo river for our
elysian swim. but we’ve had a foot race to the death, where somehow my
arthritic hip has beaten out her youthful, but not yet fully dedicated speed,
leaving her sulking once again in a youthful cauldron of pride, spite, anger,
and revenge. she’s like one of these active volcanoes all around us, but
she’s more predictable, and more – prolific. it’s just a matter
of time before she erupts again.

and
then it happens. like a page out of our all too familiar book. but this time
– it’s a magazine. en espanol of course. being the magazine addict
she is, she’s flipping the pages – looking at fashion, advertisements,
beautiful bodies – en espanol – when suddenly she asks me, “were
any of your ex-girlfriends ever famous?” i think a moment, not suspecting
anyone, and i answer pretty confidently, “no, i don’t think so”.
she says, “are you sure?” i figure something’s up and i run
through my back pages. nada. “yeah, i’m sure.” “okay,”
she mutters, blithely burying her head back in the magazine. i’m practiced
at this passive aggressive approach, and even in my magically realistically-induced
bus coma, i manage to instruct myself out into the yard to take a walk.

the
bees are being and the hummingbirds are humming, but my sweet princess from
indonesia is stewing. in her magazine. i can see the look on her face. it’s
the pre-eruption volcanic look. “i’m going back to the house”,
i say, trying to avoid the inevitable tremblor. but it’s too late. “what
about ‘so and so’?” (i withhold the name to protect the innocent.).
oh no. i forgot about her. she’s not exactly famous. but she was peruvian.
and she made a few films. and her family is pretty well connected in the peruvian
economic and social hierarchy of things. enough perhaps to get her picture in
this magically realistic magazine in mindo, ecuador. “do you
want to see?” my honey asks me, all smiles and spite. “no, i don’t
want to see.” “why not? you can see her breasts.” oh my fucking
god. here we go again. why can’t we go anywhere – and i mean anywhere
– even on a magically realistic comatose bus ride fantasy – and
not have another petty squabble? is this the price of a new marriage on the
road? i mean, it’s enough for any twosome – couple or otherwise
– to survive two and a half months of constant roadside companionship.
but a 56 year old gringo and his 25 year old southeast asian bride! maybe it’s
too much to expect from a journey. or a marriage.

in
any event, erupt she does. and erupted on, am i. but being the mature partner
in the relationship, and not wanting the bus to kilter off road altogether,
i bite my tongue and try not to respond to the bait. this infuriates her even
more. and off she goes…

have
you ever noticed? that turning the other cheek basically doesn’t work
in life? i mean, for example – one time i was accosted by a mad yuppie accountant
outside the streets of raleigh studio in LA. we were both late for a big peter
brook festival concert, and the mad yuppie determined i had stolen his parking
place. i indicated to him in sign language that there was another spot right
behind me. but this did nothing to divert his rage – at me – for
“stealing” the parking place he had his eyes on. so the yuppie double
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at me in my car, having just finished a well-made parallel park. his wife follows
the yuppie out of his car, screaming at him to control his anger, “get
back in the car, stan. get back in the car!” but stan, defying all civilized
logic, seeing entirely red, comes running up to my parked car, screaming at
me. i, applying the good christian principle of turning the other cheek and
not engaging the mad bull in escalating the conflict, roll up my driver’s
side window and just sit there. this, as i said, apparently doesn’t work
well, and mad stan proceeds pounding on my window with enough force to shatter
both the glass and his hand. but before he does either, he shifts gears and
starts kicking my car with enough force to dent the metal or break his foot.
then, suddenly responding to his still-screaming and panicky wife, he goes back
to his car to handle her. during which time, i get out of my car, walk over
to the back of his car, run back across the street, take off my shoulder bag,
kneel down on the sidewalk, and start writing down his license plate number.
the next thing i know, the left side of my face is greeted by mad stan’s
infuriated right fist crashing into it from above. mad stan has rushed back
across the street, and unbeknownst to me, punched me in the face while i was
kneeling and writing.

i
bounce up like a deer just released from a headlight and start screaming at
stan in a maniacally wounded fury. even mad stan is taken aback by this, and
this, along with his wife’s ear-piercing screams, “oh my god! oh
my god! stan! stan!” perhaps pierce even his invincible shield of rage
at this point; because the next thing i know, mad stan has jumped back into
his car and left the scene of his crime in quite a rubber-squealing, tear-ass
exit. i make my way to the mahabarata concert, but when my jaw swells up to
twice its size, i decide to take myself to a hospital. i discover that mad stan
has broken my jaw, and left me no means of identification. soon after having
my jaw wired, my two wisdom teeth pulled, and hiring a lawyer and detective
to track down mad stan by his license plate, stan, his wife, and i find ourselves
in front of a country sheriff’s deposition. during which, stan, the upholding
society accountant once again, swears under oath that i attacked his wife and
kicked her, and that he hit me in self defense. this enrages me, but his wife
corroborates stan’s testimony, and the whole megillah plays itself out
with an eleven thousand dollar settlement stan pays to me for dropping criminal
charges, forty per cent of which goes to my lawyer and detective for navigating
our way through the very realistic american criminal justice system. oh yeah,
stan’s last name is markham (not withholding the name to protect the guilty),
and he lives in brentwood, not far from his soon to be famous brentwood neighbor,
oj simpson.

anyway,
the cheek thing doesn’t work. yet i still try to practice it. in reality.
trying not to match anger with anger. trying to bite my tongue. trying to go
to my room for a time out. but here in ecuador? on a bus? on a twenty-four hour
a day, magically realistic trek thorough rain forests, deserts, jungles, and
andes. it’s… what can i say? challenging. and now, trying not to
set off another wave of volcanic eruptions here in paradisiacal mindo,
i go back to the jungle cottage and swing. in my hammock. try to read a book.
swat mosquitoes from my neck. wait for the indonesian volcano to die down. but
the mosquitoes have little blood-engorged indonesian faces. and they’re
buzzing and biting. and talking and swearing. in indonesian and english. and
i don’t understand a word. but i get their intent. and they sting and
they hurt. and my heart is sunk. and i have no defense. and i can’t live
another moment in this perpetual, unresolved emotional conflict. so i get up
out of the hammock — with all my sisyphusian patience — and all the love in
my heart…

until
the next thing i know we’re on another bus, on another cloud forest climb
into another comatose fantasy. this time to otavalo, the artisan and shopping
capital of ecuador. and this time, amidst our blatant gringo consumerism of
stuffing two more giant bags full of ceramic chimes, wooden don quixote wood
carvings, animated alpaca wall hangings, and various and sundry gifts and house
decorations, we’re railing against each other in a small hostal in otavalo.
she’s taking off her wedding band and throwing it across the room, and
i’m dissolving into a heap on the floor and crying. and begging, and screaming,
and begging some more – and we’re going through endless rounds and
volleys of rational argument, and childlike accusations, and hurtful threats,
and tearful apologies. apologizing for what i never know. and i always know.
and what does it matter who’s right. or who’s wrong. because…
because – the ayahuasca — the san pedro — the huachumba
– has made for a bad trip. and here we are in a little hotel room –
in a magically realistically bus-induced fantasy. and our marriage is dissolving
in front of our eyes. our sweet, beautiful, brief marriage is over. here in
otavalo. high above the pristine beauty of quito. in the volcanic cloud forests
of mindo. of otavalo. over……….

four
days later we’re back in LA. we’ve flown out of quito, stopped in
panama city, and arrived back home at one in the morning. it takes us quite
a while to get through customs – maybe another two hours – wati’s
gotten something called “advanced parole” from the BCIS (formerly
the INS) to leave the country while her adjustment of status and permanent residency
application is pending. (quite a name, eh? “advanced parole”. quite
clear how we treat our immigrants, legal or otherwise). but it takes an additional
two hours to get the right customs officer to check her through and stamp her
passport. pfft. pfft. by then it’s three a.m., and our promised
ride doesn’t show up (turns out he thought we were coming in the next
day, the after midnight/am-pm, calendar day thing proving a little too confusing),
so we taxi home for the price of maybe four days of touring in south america.

yeah.
we’re still together. yeah. we still love each other. that was just a
lot of bus-induced, centrifugal paranoia. we open the door and are greeted by
our half wolf dog, clay, while our student house sitter, kevin, sleeps through
our next two hours of looking around the house, seeing what’s still alive
and what’s still in place. miraculously, all is pretty good. the plants
are still green and there are only a few chips and scratches on the pictures
and pottery. a small price to pay for two and half months of travel and adventure.
after all, we’ve seen the mythical “nazca lines” on the southeast
coast of peru. we’ve been to machu pichu and titicaca,
to the islas ballestos off the pacific coast of pisco, peru,
where we saw sea lions and iguanas, and a whole range of darwinian splendor
in what savvy travelers call “the poor man’s galapagos islands”.
we’ve bussed from northern bolivia to northern ecuador, flown to the amazon
jungle in northeast peru, and been baptized in the hot volcanic baths of the
andes. we’ve even survived a magically realistic breakup in the cloud
forests above quito.

so
now – back to reality reality. american style. los angeles style. new
yawk and indonesian style. maybe my friend marcie was right, we just should
have stayed home and been a little easier on our new marriage.

but
then again……………….

your
man in lala land,

don
enrique de los viajes