So now I have hit the end of the road. Tonight I am flying back to the States. As expected, Rio has been great these past few days. Went out a couple of times to the great samba bars, got rid of the snoring yank, watched the Copa America final (won by Brazil through sheer luck), got myself a new friend, a sweet German guy (free ride to the airport tonight), and a job offer to consider. 

I am considering writing some sort of epilogue, but I am too tired for that now. Or maybe I just won´t stop writing - I would miss it I think.

Back to civilization

I celebrated my last night in La Paz and my return to warmer climates with a very good Mexican dinner. It was one of the posh places of La Paz, expensive by local standards and frequented by wealthy locals and tourists. I couple of days ago I had written about how everyone gives up on learning even a few words of Hungarian after finding out how to say "cheers" - well, one of these wealthy locals, a middle-aged man who sent over drinks to our table actually knew how to say it! I was pretty impressed, because "egeszsegedre" is not an easy one to remember. He had been to Hungary some 20 years ago and loved it, naturally. I never found out what this man did for a living for example, but from  reading through a local "VIP" magazine and hanging out at these posher places it seems that a. the upper classes are almost exclusively non-Indian (or if they are, then they have plastic surgery to not look it), and b. they mostly are executives of oil, gas and other companies dealing in natural resources, so they are probably the friends and relatives of the current powers that be. I also chatted to a very bitter, London-educated public finance expert, who evidently was sacked by the current government, because every government change entails a total rehaul of public officials. This man had nothing good to say about his government (or his country for that matter), and was very curious to find out about job opportunities in London.

Anyway, now I am back in Rio, and everyone says that it is cold (about 22 degreed celsius), but for me it is almost boiling! I am staying at a very friendly little hostel in Ipanema. The owners are a cool, attractive couple, who like to travel around and they rent out a couple of rooms to tourists. The only downside is that I have to share my room with a fiftysomething American guy, who looks like a lame version of Jack Nicholson, is short and pudgy and snores so loud that I have been on the hunt for earplugs all day today.

Otherwise the city is still beautiful, the restaurants are still great and I have not forgotten all of my Portuguese yet, so I am pretty happy. Leaving on Tuesday though.  

 
I guess it had to happen sooner or later: I finally got robbed. I did not even realize it at first, although I did find it strange that two women sandwiched me between them on a  not so crowded street...but by the time it dawned on me that I was being robbed they were long gone. It was only some cash, and not that much (although quite a bit by Bolivian standards), but it felt pretty horrible.

Otherwise things are cool and there is something interesting about coming back to a place that you did not expect to visit ever again. (Apart from the fact that I ran into a guy that I had stood up a couple of weeks ago in the firm knowledge that I would never see him again...) Kathleen, the Canadian woman and I have been hanging out, last night we got to go to the one fancy bar everyone goes to and she even convinced me to buy some "good luck and happiness soap" from the witch market. Will update on how that one is working.

I have a confession to make. When my friend, Andrea, and I started travelling together our primary motivation was to find those handsome, Australian surfer guys who roam around the world in search of adventure. We have been to the four corners of the globe; including Rome, Lapland, Africa, Cyprus and Bolivia but they remained elusive. Now last night I found them in a pub here in La Paz and...what a disappointment. Perhaps the it was inevitable: we invested a lot of effort into visualizing the encounter with these perfect creatures - they could not possibly live up to the expectations. Still...it would have been nice if they had had any other topic of conversation than rugby and grunge music (neither of which I can or would wish to contribute to at any length, or at all, really). Oh well, such is life.

On the upside, it is sunny in La Paz and I went to see a place called Moon Valley, which are really cool rock formations that had remained from the time when the entire area was still covered by the ocean. I also visited the local zoo nearby, which is the saddest zoo I have ever seen. In the beginning I thought that there are no animals in it at all, because I could only spot a couple of llamas locked up behind a fence (why, I wonder, considering that they hang out everywhere anyway...) but after a while I found the jaguars and a couple of snakes: all kept in pretty dire conditions. I also befriended a very pretty and pretty cool Canadian woman. This is good because I am not a typical guys' girl, but I found it hard to befriend girls since I have been travelling and I miss female company. She reminds me of one of my good friends from Hungary and we got along pretty well so at least I have company for the remainder of my stay here.

Oh, just one more thing. As I was having a coffee at the one cafe where you can get semi-decent coffee in La Paz (isn't it strange? they produce the stuff but they can't make a good one), I was overcome with nostalgia. They played "Nothing is gonna change my love for you" by Glenn Medeiros, a cheesy one-hit wonder from 1987. His name will mean nothing to the Americans reading this, but the Europeans (the ones as old as me, at least) might; I danced my first slow dances to this song in sixth grade. In fact, I must have danced the first 35 slow dances of my life to this song because the boys in our class lacked imagination...which probably is why I will never forget this song!

After a day in Tacna, where other than the earlier mentioned military parade and folk dancing the only interesting thing that happened was being befriended by a 70 year-old (only moderately toothless) Peruvian man, who told me his life story. I really did not mind, because he started chatting to me as I was sitting on the main square, crying so at least he stopped me from carrying on with that. He was a former soldier and told me about the many women he had seduced in his time; actually, he still behaved like a bit of a stud, despite the fact that he was ancient and only had one arm (what is it with me and one-armed people?), but I guess as we get older, our self-image does not necessarily change according to the changes in our appearance...anyway, I also got aggressed by a gypsy woman: she thought I gave her too little in change. This has not happened to me yet, and I must have given away at least a hundred dollars in change in the past three months. This is so not PC, but... what is it with the gypsies everywhere? They are despized even by the poorest of the poor in a country like Peru (as my old friend was keen to explain). The liberal, human rights conscious lawyer in me wants to get to the roots of why this is the case and be tolerant and helpful; but when this woman started yelling at me and cursing me, I got really frustrated and just took the money back and told her to f*ck off.

Anyway, I gave salmonella another chance: ate some of this Peruvian specialty that consists of raw fish and seafood marinated in vinegar and then took a night bus to the border. Of course, I was misled as to the destination and route of the bus so I ended up at the border at 4 am, which meant that I had to overnight in a rathole and then rough it through the border on foot the next day together with the scary ladies, all their animals, and hundreds of the toothless friends: a scene which I now observed with the arrogance of those "in-the-know", rather than the shock of the novice tourist...now I am back in La Paz, unfortunately until Friday morning, which is when my flight to Rio leaves. Initially I planned on taking a plane to another Bolivian city and then going to Brazilia overland, but I chickened out and decided to pay the 350 US dollars to the great Llyoyd Bolivian Airlines. I am not too happy about spending this extra time here, but it is all due to my stupidity so I am trying to stay cool.

So it seems like there will be no yummy steaks, tall and attractive men or tango for me...Instead, I am going back to the land of the toothless, short men and the ladies who p*ss in the middle of the street (Bolivia, of course), and will make my way back to Brazil that way. After extensive research this seemed like the best option. This little town is not so bad after all: I even got to see a military parade and a lot of folk dancing. And it is pretty sunny!

I AM AN IDIOT! Officially. I showed up at the airport of Tacna to take my flight on to Argentina only to find out that the plane had left last night - shortly after midnight. Which is why it was the 17th already...duh. This sucks because not only am I stuck in this Peruvian town on the border with Chile where, according to my Lonely Planet there are the best hospitals and schools in Peru but not much else, but I will also have to devise an alternative plan to get to Rio. And I was just regaining my good mood.
 
The rest of the canyon trip was lovely - I saw more beautiful scenery and a lot of condors (a huge bird, which is also a big Inca symbol) cruising above the canyon. It was still very very touristic, about 50 people attempted to cram into the one 2 square meter viewpoint where the buses dropped us off so I ran away and went on a short hike on my own. I do not really understand why most people feel so much more secure in masses and do not even contemplate venturing a couple of steps farther from the prescribed places. It is not like the birds only fly over that one spot...then again, those people probably do not miss flights stupidly like I do. 
 
But they also do not get to hang out with the "locals" like I did in the village that we overnighted at. There was some big catholic fiesta (the one for the Virgin Mary that I already wrote about) and a nice older Peruvian man, who seemed to be some sort of local godfather chatted me up and introduced me to his son, admittedly trying to hook me up with him. To his credit, the son was pretty much the first Peruvian man that I have met who was above 160 cm, but I still had to pass. Instead, I made friends with a very sweet 17 year old girl, who even gave me an ugly little necklace as a memory gift (by the way, her grandmother also mentioned something about taking the girl with me to a better place after she has learnt to speak English...). In any event, these were very nice people, who were clearly relatively well-to-do and educated and just visiting the village for the fiesta: they were fun and they even protected me from the toothless, scary Peruvian man trying to grab me for a dance.
 
Ok, I will do some thinking now. Maybe I will have no choice but to go back to Lima and try to organize an exit strategy from there because the next flight to Argentina is on next Friday and I sure as hell will not stay here for a week.

I made it to my first football game in South America! The Copa Americana is being played in Peru and thanks to a slightly irritating English woman that I met in Cuzco, she and I and a bunch of other girls went to a Brazil-Paraguay match. Sadly and unexpectedly, the Brazilians lost and it may well be that they are out of the tourmament. It was a lot of fun though, especially because the only football game I had ever been to in my life prior to this was a Division III match in London  (which was also fun but more because of the dear friend that took me there about two years ago).
 
Now I am visiting one of the world´s deepest canyons, called Canyon de Colca, which is near Arequipa.  I lost my touch: cannot really be bothered to be friendly with the people that I am on the tour with. The scenery is beautiful though, this valley is surrounded by amazing volcanoes, some of which are still active. I also have got proof that altitude sickness exists; an older Argentinian lady had to be taken to the hospital and given oxygen because she became so ill as soon as we reached about 4000 meters. It is pretty scary how quickly and randomly the sickness can overtake you.
 
After all these months of hearing how I am the only Hungarian that people have ever met, I  ran into a large group of well-to-do Hungarians on an organized trip to South America. After some hesitation I started talking to them; they were all well-dressed and the women all looked like the female partner at the Budapest office of my former employer: attractive and well-groomed in that boring nouveau riche way.  They were pretty shocked that I am travelling on my own around South America (as was the Peruvian hostel assistant that I chatted to earlier - seems to be the theme of the day.)
 
Anyway, I am still more or less in unenthusiastic mode. Missing the comforts of a home (any home really) and feeling the "end-of-July-sadness" coming over me, which is related to the anniversary of my mother´s death and her birthday (just realized this morning that she would be 60 on 28th July).  I am not feeling too sorry for myself  though and I am on my way to a home in a bit.

Nazca

It is the first time that I feel like I would quite like to stop carrying around a backpack and chill in front of a TV...I arrived here this morning after a very long bus ride and went to visit everything there is to see here - ie the Nazca lines and a bunch of Nazca mummies in a cemetery - so tomorrow's general strike permitting I will be able to get out of here. These huge lines, depicting birds, snakes, spiders and the like, that you can only really see from an airpane are impressive, but I felt like seeing a good documentary on them on National Geographic would have been just as good...(Perhaps this was because I was really tired and misled as to what was included in the price of my little tour, not sure.) Anyway, these Nazcas apparently did the lines sometime between 300 B.C. and 700 A.D. and nobody is really sure how they did them and what teir purpose was. Several archeologists and anthropologists (and the obligatory UFO experts, of course) have devoted a lot of time to thinking up theories but none of them are fully convincing.

Defying political correctness, a middle-aged Spanish guy (and an Ibiza dweller at that...) that I met a few days ago next to some Inca ruins espoused the theory that these indigenous cultures, including the Inca, are inferior to European (and other) cultures because they centered around the life of their god'like leaders, there is no evidence of writing, the art is really primitive, etc, and anyway, it is easy to blame the Spaniards for everything - they just happened to be superior. I, of course, disagreed with him and pointed out that the culture suited their environment and their way of life and they were pretty good at architecture, astrology and were getting by just fine until the colonizers came. I still think that is true, but I also have to concede that there certainly are more "impressive" cultures out there.

Back in Cuzco again but only for a day. I am going to Nazca to see the lines. I spent the past two days in an unbeliavably cold village, which specializes in sunrise and e summer feast in honour of the Virgin Mary, of course. The two Californians, Luke and Dave, and me went to see the sunrise only, the fiesta will be next week. We were practically the only tourists there and although the 3000-odd person village was buzzing with excitement in anticipation of the feast, it became quickly evident that most tourist establishments only open for that and most touris perks (such as hot water) are likewise only available in that 5-day period.

Every time there is the opportunity to watch a sunrise I am pretty sceptical, because based on my cost-benefit analysis most of the time it is not worth the hassle. This one though was definitely worth it even if we had to get up at 1.30 a.m. to get to the place in time. It is difficult to describe, but for some reason you can see all sorts of unusual lights and colours as the sun gets up over a valley that is already in the Amazon region. And though I was convinced that this will be the only day when the sun will not fully appear above the clouds, the satisfaction was double when it finally did.

So now I splashed out on a private bathroom with hot water, which I am looking forward to. I will also have to find new friends again, as my Amrican friends are doing the Inca trail next. It was very comfortable to travel with them, because they are both educated, worldly, well-travelled and well-mannered middle-class guys, so it is easy to get along. Familiarity has its advantages. They also happen to be quite interesting, which is an added benefit...

One of my Israeli friends lost his passport so we parted because they had to go to Lima to get a new passport. It is so bizarre: you travel with some people for a certain amount of time, spending basically 24 hours with them doing things that you do not usually do with your "real" friends and then you just never see them again in all likelihood. I stayed here and found two American jewish guys to replace them, who are very smart and interesting, but it is not quite the same...It is though a great opportunity to watch myself adapting to new people. My sister and brother always make fun of me for being like Zelig, the Woody Allen character who morphes into whoever he is with, and I must say that they do have a point. Maybe I should be a politician after all.

So now Cuzco is turning into what Salvador was for me, I cannot seem to be able to leave it just because it is so easy to be here. I am at a nice hostel and the sun is shining all day. And I meet cool people. Today I bonded with a Chilean young man whose father spent 5 years in prison under the Pinochet regime and we shared our experiences of living under a dictatorship as the child of an opposition leader. The guy, Miguel, knows perfect French because his family eventually got asylum in Belgium, so we talked in French about these things. The Chilean military dictatorship of the 70s and 80s was much more brutal than the Hungarian communist equivalent in the 80s: I was never kidnapped or questioned by the police as a child, and noone planted bombs in our apartment, but still, there were similar situations, experiences and emotions involved, which were interesting to share.

I will fly back to Brazil via Buenos Aires in the end because it was much cheaper this way. So I have another 10 days in Peru to explore the rest of the south - better get my act together!

Cuzco - Peru


My alone time did not last very long; in the name of my newfound love of Israelis I chatted up a very cute one in Copacabana (Lake Titicaca) about a week ago and have been travelling with him and a friend of his since then. The lake is beautiful, there were hardly any tourists and after crossing the border we even got to visit the famous floating islands on the Peruvian side. After arriving to Cuzco it quickly became apparent that there is no chance that I will be able to do the actual Inca Trail, a three-day trek leading up to the Machu Picchu because I should have been organized and booked a place about a month ago. Instead, at the suggestion of a nice English guy, who came over to our hostel for a schnitzel and mash potatoes lunch enthusiastically cooked by the Jewish boys, we all booked an alternative trek that also ended at the Inca site. So we set off for the mountains at about 5 am five days ago: four guys (Ofir and Roy, the Israelis; Andrew, the Brit; and Arnaud, the Frencgman), a little peruvian man as our guide, a couple of horses and their caretakers (to carry our stuff), and me. The trek involved all sorts of challenges: walking uphill in the burning sun; climbing over a 4500 meter high snow-capped peak in a snowstorm; and then fighting the continuously pouring rain for the last two days. This latter fight we lost: every single piece of clothing and equipment I had got soaking wet, which did not make for pleasant nights...It was fun and by the time we arrived to the goal the rain had stopped so we managed to visit Machu Picchu in semi-decent weather. It is truly an impressive site, you get an especially beautiful view of the old Inca city from another peak close to it (Huayna Picchu), which I climbed despite the fact that by that point my knees and feet were killing me. I was duly proud of myself and looking forward to going down and not having to climb another Inca step for a long time, but the local boy with the machete guarding the peak was feeling funny I guess, so he suggested that we descend on an other, shorter route, which, of course, turned out to be another two-hour climb...I was slightly upset, but with hindsight, it was just another challenge (and more fat burning for me).

These Incas and even the pre-Inca cultures that existed here were amazing. They were so good at technology, architecture, astrology and arts: I had already been impressed in Bolivia when Andrea and I went to visit Tiwanaku, a village in Bolivia, which was the centre of one of the major pre-Inca cultures, and now that I have visited Machu Picchu and the Inca museum here in Cuzco I am even more amazed. In Europe we learn almost nothing of these cultures; South America (and Africa as well) only make it to the map once they have been colonized, and even then. And when you think about what was going on in Europe around the same time (ie in the 13th-16th centuries)...

I am trying to recover from the physical exertions of the trek and I am enjoying hanging out with myseld for a bit because on the trip I served as universal translator: being the only one who could communicate with the guide I had to translate to the others the (very vague) instructions reluctantly shared with me by the guide (who was evidently weirded out by the fact that he had to talk to the only woman around); plus, I was the main facilitator of the "let´s learn each others´languages" movement that somehow began on the first day. French, English, Spanish and Hebrew (which I am getting good at...); of course everybody gives up on Hungarian after finding out how to say "cheers".