I should have known better.
Wednesday: in which a plane is struck by lightning and La Paz is fucking freezing
I arrived in La Paz feeling like crap. I really shouldn't have been surprised. A contact at CIDDEBENI had said we should fly through Santa Cruz, as La Paz is unfit for human habitation. He was not joking.
La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, with an elevation of nearly two miles. (Suck on that, Denver.) The low levels of oxygen mean you're constantly gulping for air, always feeling like you're not getting quite enough. You get headaches and vertigo. Night terrors are common. So are isolated hiccups.
It's also freezing. Apparently it was the first day planes had been allowed to land in about a week, due to snowstorms.
Also, our plane was struck by lightning. It was...exciting. Professor slept through it. Mark my words: he will be the first man down when the zombies come.
We flew from La Paz to Trinidad in a wee little propeller plane manufactured by Fisher-Price.
Actual size.
It was so small that you could not walk to your seat, but were obliged to hunch over and shuffle. The extent of your crouch depended on your height: being short, I got away with Cro-Magnon Man, whereas Professor had to resort to Quasimodo's Brother Who Broke His Spine.
I sat at the front of the plane, near the open cockpit. I could see the pilots, and despite my initial concerns over the size of the plane, I was reassured that I was in good hands - not the pilots' hands, of course, since just then they were somewhat occupied making obscene hand gestures, but someone's. Also the pilots kept laughing hysterically, which I believe should be outlawed. If I am not allowed to bring toothpaste on the flight, the pilots are not allowed to cackle. It's only fair.
I was willing to cut them some slack, though, since it was obvious that they were just filling in for the nine-year-old boy who normally steers the plane via joystick. Anyway, I soon forgot to worry about them, since I spent most of the flight willing myself not to vomit. I had a very vivid image in my head of all the cells in my body, halfway through mitosis, gagging their little cellular brains out.
Thursday: in which I write a letter to the bats in my ceiling
Turns out that we arrived in Trinidad right in the middle of a cold front. The temperature hovers around fifty degrees during the day, then plummets at night. The hotel has no heating, and each bed is equipped with a single cotton blanket. Luckily, I'm alone in a three-person room. I do most of my writing and translating in bed, and at night I pile the three blankets onto one bed and sleep in my clothes. Still not as bad as Paraguay!
The water at the hotel comes in two varieties. Most of the time, it is delivered directly from an ice floe in the Arctic. In the early morning, though, the shower water is clearly piped in from Hell. Not the frozen, ninth-circle sort of Hell, either - I mean skin-scalding, blister-raising, pagan-incinerating Hell. Needless to say, there is no happy medium. Anxious to avoid third-degree burns on some fairly delicate areas, I ended up soaping up and sort of throwing water at myself, scalding my hands in the process. Real cute.
And now, a few letters.
Dear Professor,
One of the things which I don't really like about the way that you have, in the time that we have been working together, written the text of the book that we are producing, considering the variety of elements that go into our work and the time it takes for me to translate said text into elementary Spanish, is the tortured and grammatically implausible way in which you structure sentences.
Standing to the side so that the god of clauses may strike you down with precision,
M
ATTN: Family of bats, c/o my ceiling
You are SO LOUD. Quit the freaky bat sex or whatever and come down to eat some of these mosquitoes.
ATTN: Professor, c/o the Department of Redundancy Department
It is not okay to use the word "develop" three times in one sentence, no matter how long that sentence may be.
Dear young man who drives around and around Trinidad late at night with his car stereo turned up to 11,
You are going to Hell.
Regards,
M
Friday: in which we head to San Ignacio and somehow manage to not get ourselves killed
Today has been an exciting day. We left Trinidad about 8:30 this morning, taking a camión to San Ignacio. I have taken some fucked-up forms of transportation in my life, but this one is definitely up there in the ranks.
The truck is outfitted with a series of hard wood planks laid across the interior, creating makeshift benches. The only way to get on is to scale the side like a monkey (Professor's choice) or to haul yourself up the one little ladder and side-step along the edge like a suicidal stockbroker until you find a place where you can squish in with everyone else (mine). The "floor" is piled high with mounds of luggage and there are knees everywhere, so it's hard to find a place to put your legs, which is bad news once they start driving and you need to brace yourself. Most of the road between Trinidad and San Ignacio is extremely rough, and every time the truck hits a bump, everyone goes flying up into the air and then comes crashing down. Sometimes the planks fly up too, which is an adventure. My shins are ripped up and bruised from being braced against the bench in front of mine; I think I may need to have one of these splinters surgically removed. Needless to say, my ass hurts like hell.
Also, I'm covered in dust. It hasn't rained much lately, so the dirt road was relatively dry. Every time we passed another vehicle - truck, bus, car, bicycle, especially large lizards - we would all duck down and cover ourselves as a massive cloud of dust rolled through the truck. Ah, the many wonders of open-air travel!
The trip from Trinidad to San Ignacio is supposed to take three and a half hours; it took us nearly seven. You have to cross three tributaries of the Mamoré River on the way. Everyone gets off the truck, they stick it on a big floating wooden platform (powered and steered by a wee motorboat tied to the side), and you sloooooowly make your way to the other side of the river. This strategy worked well the first two times we tried it, but the water level in the last tributary was especially low due to the drought, so the ground was wet and the trucks kept getting stuck as they tried to drive onto the platform. They had to dig and construct a new ramp, meaning that we were stuck on the riverbank for a couple hours.
We eventually got to San Ignacio, where Professor and I fell out of the camión and took a couple taxis to a hostel. I suppose I should mention that all the taxis in San Ignacio are motorcycles. I tossed my bag on the handlebars, climbed on the back (side-saddle, because I am so ladylike and all), and off we went. I had a white-knuckled grip on the back of the seat, but mostly I was at the whim of gravity, my own balance, and the mood of my driver. It was fucking terrific.
The hostel is a nice little place with a pretty courtyard. The owner is a chatty old man who gave me chicha (a maize-based drink often fermented into alcohol) and, after a few minutes of conversation, asked if I was española. Not gonna lie: I love getting that question.
Saturday: in which Professor and I are not married, people like me better, and six men fall from the roof of a church
Apparently birds in the Amazon are fucking LOUD. Some of them sound like screaming children. That's not terrifying, or anything.
At lunch today, Professor was talking about how he's never received so much "positive attention" as we've been getting. He mused that perhaps it was because he's usually by himself, and loners tend to get left alone. I joked that maybe people just liked me better, and he laughed.
Dear Professor,
I was not really kidding.
Regards,
M
I keep getting addressed as Señora, which, okay - AWKWARD. It's pretty obvious that most people assume Professor and I are married, which is just...gross. When Professor obliviously introduces me as his ~*~student~*~, I actually feel guilty, like the two of us have run off to Bolivia to have a forbidden tryst under the guise of "research." Just typing that last sentence made me a little queasy.
Meanwhile, I'm proofreading the draft and the accompanying letter that Professor wrote to the subcentral [i.e., the local government], and I have to say, there's an awful lot of yo this and mi that.
Dear Professor,
Consider yourself warned: if you attempt to take sole credit for this book, there will be a throw-down.
Regards,
M
We went by the church, which was fascinating. It's the original Jesuit mission church, as far as I know, so it's at least four hundred years old. The roof is held up with huge mahogany poles donated by the Territory. Apparently they redid the roof a few years ago, and six people died - by falling, presumably. I didn't really press the subject, but I get the impression they're not huge fans of professional scaffolding here.
Saturday night: in which I sprain my ankle, or fracture it, or something equally stupid
Continuing in my fine tradition of falling down a lot, tonight I stepped the wrong way on a broken sidewalk and went down like a ton of bricks, spraining my ankle in the process. I've never actually done such a thing before, but I'm making an educated guess that such is the case, since my ankle is swollen and I can't walk or move my foot without incredible pain. Looks like I'm pretty well crippled for the time being. I guess I just have to take it in stride, since I seem to be a walking punchline these days, but in the end it comes down to this: if you didn't laugh at any of the jokes in this sentence, you have no soul.
Sunday: in which I hop everywhere and ow ow it HURTS
Okay, I'm less happy about this whole thing now. It hurts really bad, and I'm starting to worry that it's broken. I'm also worrying about how I will possibly get around for the next few days, never mind back to the U.S. I can't put any weight on it - how will I climb up the ladder of the truck and clamber over to a seat? Once I'm on, how will I brace myself? How will I get off and on and off and off and off and on and off again, like the trip demands? How will I climb the stairs at the hotel in Trinidad, or the steps of the plane? How will I navigate La Paz? How will I run through O'Hare to make our extremely tight connection? We'll make it work out of sheer necessity, of course, but it's going to be humiliating and extremely painful.
I can't put any weight on the ankle, so I'm reduced to hopping everywhere. Going to the bathroom or changing clothes is a major undertaking involving foresight and ingenuity. I have no idea how I'm going to bathe.
Professor brought food back for me, and we ate at the table in the courtyard of the hostel. Of course, the table is across the courtyard from my room, a distance that covers maybe sixty feet but felt like eight billion trillion miles as I hopped along, clinging to Professor's elbow. It was one of the more humiliating walks of my life. We finally got to the table, where we were joined by the hostel's owner. The three of us had a pleasant conversation, including a discussion of how Professor was going to have to abandon me here and I would become ignaciana. The owner offered to marry me, so I guess I'd be set.
Professor says I have very much endeared myself to the staff here, but I don't know how much I personally had to do with that. Everyone loves a gimp!
Monday: in which I bore myself to death
I am so bored. Other than translating - a pretty thankless task in itself - I have approximately fuck-all to do. There are a couple Internet cafés in town, which would undoubtedly help kill some time, but I can't get to them. The fact is, laid up as I am, I can't leave the hostel to do anything: attend meetings, get food, wander the town. Instead, I've finished reading two books, re-read The Economist about a million times, and played innumerable games of Solitaire and Minesweeper. It's starting to screw with my head. Last night I dreamt I was playing poker in an airport with Gordon Brown. I don't even play poker.
Wednesday: in which we might be trapped in San Ignacio
I woke up to rain this morning, which is not a good sign. A little rain will tamp down the dust, but if it really gets going, the roads will be wiped out and we'll be trapped. Such is the capricious nature of the Amazon.
Thursday: in which we ARE trapped in Trinidad
We made it out of San Ignacio yesterday, due to a bit of luck and a very capable driver. I managed to secure a seat in the cabin of the truck, which was fortunate, as it would have been hell to ride in the back with my ankle still acting up. I was squished in with another woman and her sick baby. It sounds terrible, but it was actually a very pleasant 3+ hours, all things considered. The woman was actually a girl, a very pale 17-year-old from the upper crust of Puerto San Borja who got knocked up at a young age (15, if my calculations are correct) and married her boyfriend, as you do. She was taking her daughter to a doctor in Trinidad. The two of us made friends, then chatted and played with the baby for the rest of the trip. What can I say? I love talking to people.
My new friend was obviously afraid of the water crossings. Apparently a friend of hers was on a truck that rolled off the back of the platform, nearly killing everyone on board. (Aaaaand I just realized why they make everyone get off.) Also, I mean, she was 17 and had rarely left San Borja. Not exactly a seasoned traveler. She clung to my arm and hid her face in my shoulder for all the crossings.
So anyway, we're back in Trinidad. In a couple hours, we'll leave for the airport, where we'll catch our flight to La Paz and then back to the States.
15 minutes later:
HAHAHAHA. Oh my God, I am like a bad-luck token. It turns out there's a paro here in Trinidad today, a work-stoppage, and so everything is shut down - including the airport. And all other forms of transportation. The paro doesn't end until 6:00 PM. Professor and I are going to try to take an overnight bus to Santa Cruz and fly out from there.
Friday: in which I ride my last motorcycle
Turns out that the mototaxistas in Trinidad are even crazier than the ones in San Ignacio. Or maybe it's just that they have more competition. Either way, there were many moments on the way to the bus station last night when I thought, Well, I guess I'm going to die now. MD is going to lord this over me forever. Of course, when I jumped off at our destination, my first thought was: Let's do it again! My brain is trying to kill me.
We had to wait at the bus station for a few hours last night. The mosquitoes were out of control, grouping in numbers so high I believe the scientific categorization would have been "plague." They were vicious, too. I woke up on the bus this morning to find the evidence of their handiwork: big, red, swollen bites all over my wrists and, weirdly, my palms.
Friday evening: in which we get stuck in Chicago and my foot has swelled to the size of my head
Our flight from Miami to O'Hare was randomly pushed back an hour, so we'll miss our flight to Cedar Rapids - apparently the day's last flight into Iowa. Professor and I have won the fabulous prize of staying overnight in Chicago. I normally like staying in hotels, but (1) Professor and I are going to kill each other soon, (2) I want to be home, and (3) if there were a hierarchy in Airport Hell, O'Hare would be the gigantic tri-mouthed devil snacking on Judas Iscariot. Finding your ticket counter, finding your terminal, getting to your gate: it really is the epitome of going around your ass to find your thumb, as MD would say.
And it involves so much walking. I hate to complain - okay, who am I kidding, I love to complain. If God did not want me to complain, He would not have made me so prone to bizarre twists of fate. Anyway, I pretend to hate to complain, but I've been stomping on my sprained ankle for a couple days now, and it hurts like fuck. My whole ankle and foot are swollen and throbbing. My other leg hurts, too, from the way I've been limping. It got to the point today that the thought of taking another step made me want to vomit. Professor magnanimously offered me some migraine pills, which ironically have helped with the pain but given me a massive headache.
Early Saturday morning: in which asdfjkdhjsjkfds
God be praised, we did eventually make it to our hotel, after a series of events so miserable and infuriating that I dare not recount them for fear of sending myself into a suicidal/homicidal rage.
I finally got the chance to unwrap my ankle, after two days of stomping on it, and...wow. You would not believe how swollen my foot and ankle are. I don't believe it, and I'm staring right at them.
You would also not believe how utterly blanketed I am in mosquito bites - angry, vicious red spots surrounded by white circles. They are everywhere, in the most unlikely places, including my eyelids and the palms of both hands. I counted 53 on my left calf alone. Between the swollen foot, the rash of red spots, and what are starting to feel like swollen glands in my throat, I'm frankly amazed that Customs allowed me back into the country.
Saturday: home sweet home
Made it home. Time to die.
Oh wow. I didn't realize your project was abbreviated TIM that summer. No wonder we had an ornery living situation.
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