Bolivia

A party hostel can really suck you in. There are good, wild times to be had at any given hostel but certain places really specialize in them. They have everything you need: good food, games and entertainment, fun guys, cute girls. And a full bar with a tab system. That part's dangerous.

At night these places are sheer craziness and during the day they provide a comprehensive survey of youthful human ruin. Half-naked men in wayfarer sunglasses passed out in the sun; bedraggled refugees from the previous night's cocaine bender drinking the shakes off; other cadres already back at it, taking whisky shots before noon.

My party hostel of choice in La Paz was Wild Rover, where the core of the Milhouse group from Buenos Aires was already assembled. I wouldn't see much of La Paz outside that hostel, which is a bit of a shame because the city has a certain chaotic charm to it and features beautiful views from almost anywhere in its Andean valley setting. But this crew was just too damn fun. I hardly knew them, at least in terms of length of acquaintance, and I already loved them. And hey, sometimes it's nice to lose yourself in a bar for a day or two. At least I like it. But when that day or two stretches into four or five it's time to flee.

The town of Sorata had been recommended to me by a girl I met back in Buenos Aires. It was little-known, small, and remote. A perfect escape. I crammed into a "collectivo," a minivan in which I was the only foreigner riding with 14 native Bolivians. Sorata lies in a valley and when we arrived at the road down the mountain we found a protest going on. I later learned that the mayor had been embezzling funds meant to restore the decrepit central plaza. The road was blocked to cars and the driver of the collectivo told me my only choice was to walk. I approached the occupied bridge. Aged campesinos with skin like creased brown paper stood shoulder to shoulder and would not let me pass. To come all this way jammed in that godforsaken van only to have to turn around would be one hell of a setback. But then a young guy at the end of the picket line motioned me over and let me through. Some of the old men shouted at me to stop but I just kept walking and didn't look back. Nobody came after me. The driver had told me it was fifteen minutes to town on foot. Forty-five minutes later I reached the main square and checked into a hotel.

The last day Kyle and I were in Buenos Aires there was an afternoon outing to an English pub to watch the Premiere League and play pool. We were joined - thirteen dudes that we were - by a Danish girl who had just arrived in BA. I'm not really into blondes myself but all the guys were drooling over her. She was admittedly very pretty and also turned out to be an awesome chick. I got quite the nerd-thrill when I learned her boyfriend lived in a Copenhagen apartment once inhabited by the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. By the time I was in Sorata it had been a month since that day. I was writing inside a little cafe on the main square of this Bolivian backwater, nearly devoid of gringo tourists, when who should walk across the open door but this girl. I went out and flagged her down and she joined me for lunch. She'd come to Sorata to do a three-day trek up to a mountain glacier and was looking for someone to split the cost with. I was just planning on doing some day-hikes, no camping. But follow the beautiful European girl into adventure. I signed up.

We were joined by an English guy we met later that night, plus a local sherpa who acted as our guide. It was to be a very difficult climb, but still I did not acquit myself in the most heroic fashion. Especially the first day - there were times when every ten seconds I was bent over gasping for breath. (It was the altitude, guys.) But my performance improved as I acclimated and for the final ascent to the glacier on the third day I was right there with my companions. The scenery was breathtaking, of course, as was the feeling of accomplishment when we reached the top. It was hardest physical challenge I'd had since high school football practice, since August two-a-days. I was really glad I did it, but once was enough.

After Sorata we all went on together to Copacabana, a little town on the shore of Lake Titicaca. The lake is stunning - it's renown for its sunsets and on the clear day I was there it did not disappoint. The Englishman departed for Arequipa Peru and the girl and I were left alone. We went out for dinner and then played pool against two Argentines in a rock bar. It was all platonic.

That was it for Bolivia; I was on to Peru. As a parting gift protests shut down all the major roads in the country the morning I left, including my road to Peru, and I had to walk five miles with my backpack from the town to the border. But that's how it's solved, isn't it.

Late that night I would arrive in the ancient Inca capital of Cusco Peru.

Valparaiso

I was on the bus from Santiago to Valparaiso when I heard someone playing his ipod without headphones so we could all have the pleasure of hearing his music. I got up to ask the guy to turn it down. I spoke in English for some reason, probably because I was annoyed and didn't feel the responsibility to look up the Spanish expression. He didn't seem to understand and a girl seated across the aisle translated and he did turn it down after giving me some look.

I found myself next to him waiting for our luggage after the bus pulled in. Likely I was regretful about saying something that might have come off as rude to a local so maybe I apologized to him. Maybe I didn't though, I honestly don't remember. He looked at me.

"You wanna smoke a joint?"
"Yeah sure," I said.
"Ok, come with me."

I almost lost him. He got ahead of me and I had to jump up on a moving bus I saw him board. He was in his thirties, traveling with a woman that age or a bit older and her teenage kid. Through a mix of English and Spanish conversation I found out he lived in Santiago but was from Valparaiso originally and was here visiting. We went to their hostel and bought beer and drank it in their room. No weed was produced and I started wondering what was going on. Finally I asked him and he said he didn't have it and we'd have to go get it. Great. Whatever, I'd let it unfold. He had some errands to run first though.

After the hostel the four of us headed down to the street. My new acquaintance was carrying a duffel bag he had with him on the bus. We walked into a tienda off the main road. Dude made warm greetings to everyone in the store. He seemed to know everyone in Valparaiso. A fat lady behind the register appeared to be in charge and he heaved the bag up onto the counter in front of her and began to take from it all manner of store-bought goods, bottles of liquor and packaged meat and razorblades and cans of insecticide, to name a few. She questioned him on the price of various items and then they completed what business they were able to agree upon. He repeated this bit in several other stores until I finally asked him, in earnest, if there was some price difference in goods sold in Santiago versus Valparaiso from which he hoped to profit. That was naive. He then unashamedly pulled out some woman's credit card with which he'd bought the items.

He really wasn't a bad guy. He did force me to wait even longer after the fencing while he and his family went out to lunch in some disgusting restaurant but then finally we got a cab and were on our way. Valparaiso is on the Pacific Ocean but the land on which it was founded quickly rises up to surrounding hills and into these we drove. We went higher and higher and I was starting to worry. The property was getting shabbier, as it tends to in Latin American cities when you climb, and I had my ipad on me. Eventually the cab came to a stop at the end of a dirt alley that terminated at the edge of a cliff. I gave him twenty bucks and he ran inside a house. He came back five minutes later and got in the car and tossed me a handful of tightly-folded paper wads that contained maybe half a gram of shwag marijuana each. He'd bought some too and did the courtesy of rolling one for the ride down. The cab driver had nearly crashed head-on into a truck on the way up, while sober, so it made me nervous when we pulled over at a roadside vista and he smoked with us. But what the hell. And thus is the story behind the below picture:


When we got back into town he tried to fence the rest of the goods. Finally he led me back to his hostel and I collected my backpack. We said goodbye and I walked off toward my own accommodation. I got his number and told him I'd call him. I never did.

Neruda's house was a joy, and Valparaiso lived up to its vaunted reputation. I took some great pictures there, had some great walks. Now I was leaving the Southern Cone, and its relative wealth and development. Parts of Buenos Aires could be mistaken for Europe, parts of Santiago for a North American city. That wasn't going to happen where I was headed. I was going to Bolivia.