a rich man eats when he wishes; a poor man whenever he can

dateline - sucre, bolivia. known as la ciudad blanca owing to the colonial-era tradition of painting all the buildings in the city's center white. sucre's also where bolivia's declaration of independence was written, it's first national capitol and home to the country's supreme court. they make some killer chocolate hear, too (dark chocolate with pistachio cream is a fav.)

it reminds me a lot of oaxaca - alyssa and i's first travel destination out of mexico city all the way back in january. the food is incredible, the climate a great balance of dry mountain coolness and the people are really friendly. but more than that, it feels like sucre's a start to a new trip.

as y'all know, alyssa headed back to nebraska a week or so ago. since our english friend, who we'd met on the farm in ecuador, were both going south from cuzco we've been travelling together since then. after getting into sucre we've gone our seperate ways with rosie staying with some friends and yours truly officially flying solo. i've got a single room and can now officially walk around my hotel room naked.

parte uno.

so, yesterday morning i was sitting in the park yesterday my mulling over my first morning alone and listening to a nice mix of wilco, gang of four and my morning jacket. after a bit this shoe-shiner kid, looking to be about 14, posts up next to me on the bench. i pop my ear buds out and ask him what's up. he wants to know if i need my shoes cleaned. i tell him no, my canvas tennis shoes are fine the way they are. usually a polite brush off like that sends shoe shiners on their way, but this kid was persistent.

"well, how about you buy me a book instead?"

this took me for a bit of a loop. words like 'libro' don't usually come up when kids are asking for money. "¿como?," i said.

"how about you buy me a book for school. it's only 7 bolivianos (about ninety cents). i need it for school."

ok. i'd heard him right. he wants me to give him money so he buy a book for school. i think, bullshit. so i call him on it. "if you need it for school, why are you in the park bothering me on a tuesday morning instead of actually being in school?"

"school's not until the afternoon," he says.

ok. i'll bite. "so, what's the name of the book you need for school?" he tells me, but i can't quite understand him. i ask him to repeat it and i'm still not getting it. so he asks for a pen and paper so he can write it down. he scribbles for a second then hands me the scrap with "La Cabaña de Tío Tom" written on it.

it took a second.

la cabaña de tío ... holy crap. this chico is really asking me for a dollar to buy a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin for school. that's right. harriet beecher stowe. the best-selling book of the 19th century. that whole "american civil war thing."

i was so taken aback i hardly considered it. "yeah. i'll buy you a copy of uncle tom's cabin." "vamos," he said.

we walked about a block and a half off the square, with me still a little weary and walking a few feet behind in case this was some sort of elaborate scheme. but sure enough we walked into a libreria, he asked the lady at the counter for the book and from a shelf labelled "libros de escuela" she pulled a 40-page, large print, condensed and translated version of La Cabaña de Tío Tom. I smiled a sec and looked up at the kid. he didn't seem to have any interest in actually reading the book. but he did have that "i don't really care, but my teacher'll get on my case if i don't have it" attitude about him. so yeah. i bought it for him, said goodbye and went on my merry way.

part deux

a couple hours later, munching peanuts and listening to jeff tweedy singing about bandaids, touchdowns and other such things i sat down in the parque bolivar to do some people watching. it's a pretty nice park. lots of grass and pretty fancy landscaping given Sucre's dry climate. in the middle of the blocks-long park is a miniature eiffel tower built by some tin-baron who thought he was something special. it's red, cast-iron and has a spiral stair case that takes you up to the top of the 10-meter tower. pretty cool in a rusted, jagged metal sort of way.

so there i am, alone on a bench munching peanuts staring off into space when i notice there's someone standing in front of me waving to get my attention. i tried not to huff when i took my head phones out. "¿Si, señor?"

the guy in front of me was older, about 50ish and had the dark brown skin, round face and wide nose characteristics of the indegenous natives (genetic relatives of the incas, actually). he had on a well worn, but clean, pair of olive drab pants, dark brown sweatshirt and a dark green, heavy coat. on his feet he had on a pair of black sandals. his feet had a here-to-eternity look to them with callouses as thick as you'll ever see.

"Hola," he said. he had a friendly smile, albeit missing a few teeth. he had pretty severe cataracts in his right eye and obviously couldn't see through them.

i don't remember exactly what i said to that. it was most certainly something polite without being overly friendly. after all, i was just sitting around thinking. i didn't have any reason to be rude but i didn't want to be too enthusiastic, either. so we exchanged pleasantries. he asked me where i was from. what i did. if i was a student. what i studied. etc. after a bit, he sat down and we kept on chatting.

turns out his name is roberto and he's a campesino (essentially means rural, poor farmer) who lives between Sucre and Potosí, a large, former mining town to the west. his dad had worked in the mines for 29 years before passing away at the age of 79 a three years ago (life expectancy in bolivia is about 63, the lowest in south america). we talked (well, actually he talked and i listened) about life out in the rural parts. it's dry, education's crap, health care's even more crap, climate's crap. basically everything's crap. i brought up bolivia's presidente evo morales, who is a former campesino himeself and campaigned on a pro-rural platform. roberto likes the guy, but hopes evo can speed up change in bolivia like chavez is doing in venezuela. especially with health care and schools for the rural areas. kids in roberto's area have to walk two hours to the nearest school.

while he was talking, i could tell his bad eye wasn't the only thing roberto was dealing with physically. his fingers seemed short and swollen. he could bend the fingers of his right hand, but his left wouldn't move at all. as we talked i could tell the pitch for some money or help was coming and it did.

roberto had made the trip from the campo to sucre to find someone who could help him with his hand. sucre's home to a lot of universities, including a very reuptable medical school. roberto had hoped he'd be able to find someone who could help him find some help. he had managed to find a clinic that prescribed him some antibiotics but he didn't have the 75 bolivianos he needed to buy it. he had to make it back to the campo the next day and wanted some help.

i was standoffish at first. in the last year i've met some sincerely destitute people. so many that it's impossible to be able to help them all. alyssa and i've debated whether it helps or hurts to give money and never really came up with a good answer. i eventually decided to not give on the argument that it's more fair to not give than to try and make the on-the-spot decision about whether someone is poor enough for a handout.

but something about roberto made think differently.

the conversation went pretty circular from there on out, focusing on the medicine he needs, the problem with his hand, etc. while he talked i thought about three things: his sincere fear that he was going to lose his hands, what 75 bolivianos meant to him, and what 75 bolivianos meant to me. it's a little more than twice the cost of my single hotel room with private bath. it's dinner for two at one of the nicer restaurants in sucre. it's about 9 american dollars.

near as i could see it, there was no way i could not help him out. "ok, roberto. what kind of a person would i be if i didn't?" i told him in my broken spanish. he didn't react in any big way, but he seemed grateful. we walked up to the pharmacy about two blocks up the street, he handed the woman at the counter his prescription (he hadn't stop fingering it since i started talking to him) and i bought him his antibiotics.

roberto was reserved about it, but very grateful. we stepped out onto the sidewalk and he offered me his right arm in lieu of his hand to say thanks. i told him it was nothing offered a "va con dios" and went the other way, trying to not think about the obviously poor man in the pharmacy waiting area trying to get my attention.

you can't help everybody. and i don't which is better: helping some people knowing you can't help them all, or not helping anyone knowing you're treating everyone equally.

tomorrow i'm going to Potosí. it was formerly the heart of the spanish mining for silver. the mines are mostly dry now, but there are still local miners working what's left. not sure what i feel about third-world living and working conditions becoming tourist attractions. it promises to be eye opening. my guide book suggests bringing cigarettes, coca leaves, medicine or dynamite as small gifts for the miners. updates to follow.

mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning

top ten, and change, from our trip to machu picchu. in chronological order.

14. eating oreos at the bus station with rosie and alyssa while getting to know our new australian friends sam and nadie; a married couple from australia finishing up a months long trip in south america before taking jobs in london.

13. a very local bus trip through the very steep andes mountains mountains to the town of santa maria. even better? leaving at 8 p.m. and arriving at 3 a.m. only to catch another bus at 5 a.m.

12. waking up at 6 a.m., as the light starts to peek through, only to find we're on a one-lane road with a shear, hundred meter drop on one side and a whole lot of loose rock on the other.

11. riding a tiny platform on a zip line 50 feet above the raging (literally, raging) urubumba river.

10. a four-hour hike through the sacred valley over road and railway track in pouring rain as only the peruvian highlands can bring it.

9. not minding the rain one bit.

8. the bottle of wine shared at a bar in the hotel town of "aguas calientes" after hot showers and relatively dry clothes.

7. gladly waking up at 3 in the morning to hike from the base of machu picchu's mountain to the top in time for the day's first light. (ended up waking up the night watchman).

6. being the first people at the site and taking pictures of the ruins without the hundreds of tourists.

5. an incan city so large you can sit in one place for an hour completely on your own.

4. ernesto, the super cool guide who taught us all about the sun temple, incan sun dial, electromagnetism and the bastard spanish.

3. the beer that afternoon after 7 hours of exploring and hundreds of stairs climbed. as nadie said,"it always tastes better when ya've earned it."

2. the two days spent visiting other ruins in the sacred valley. and more importantly, the many meals spent with great company, great conversation and great food. (with much thanks going to the people at cuzco's hemp mundo cafe for their incredible smoked alpaca sandwich).

1. having expectations met and far exceeded by the most awe inspiring place i've ever seen.

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at the moment i'm sitting in an internet cafe a few dozen meters from the southern shore of lake titicaca in southern bolivia. rosie and i are going out for fresh trout. hard to beat fresh caught fish. mmhmm.

-k

this blog post is dedicated to a fellow coworker, travel compatriot and, most notably, best friend alyssa schukar. as i write this she's getting ready to hop a plane to miama, dallas then omaha where her mom's apple cider waits.

hard to say from this side of the equator which is better - leaving for a south america adventure or going home to mom's cooking.

guess i'll find out in july. happy birthday mom.

voulez-vous dancer avec moi se soir

we´ve busted out of trujillo. and it feels damn good. it definitely had its charms - awesome colonial era architecture, republic statues and some damn fine grilled chicken. we even visited pyramids with sacrificial altars and the whole lot. it´d be much cooler if it weren´t for the traffic. not only were the narrow streets packed to the curbs with thousands of agressive taxi drivers but a lack of traffic lights and turn signals made street crossing nothing short of Frogger en vivo. but we survived, saw a couple movies (go see Iwo Jima, don´t go see that new hilary swank flick) and made it to lima early sunday morning.

next to quito, ecuador, lima is one of the cooler big cities we´ve been too so far. we spent the morning touring an enormous franciscan monestary. the library was straight out of a discovery channel special. there were colonial era paintings everywhere, including an enormous room with a dozen life sized paintings of the last days of jesus´ life. the tour finishes with a walk through the catacombs - the underground, public cemetery home to at least 25,000 sets of bones. eerie and a touch macabre, but cool as hell.

just down the street we happened on the grand cathedral where easter sunday services were being given by the arch bishop. the ceremony was attended by dozens of tv and news outlets, the president of peru, his family, a contingent of the royal guard and yours truly. not a bad way to spend easter sunday.

from lima, alyssa and i took the night bus from the arid plains of the western flatlands east to cuzco and the andes. i can´t begin to describe what it was like to wake up just after sunrise and see the peaks of the andes out the bus window. incredible. we´re doing a short version of the hike up to machu pichu tomorrow and saturday and i promise to try and get a picture or two up. if only to prove that i´m really here and not, like, delivering pizzas somewhere in arkansas.

oh, and last night i went out dancing with a french girl and her belgian friend. the dj played ace of base. life does not suck.

-kris

you hung with me when all the others turned away

well, our arrival in lima's been delayed as we're stalled in trujillo. this week is a huge travel time here, despite the lack of easter bunnies or that fake green grass that stains the jelly beans. the busses fares are more expensive and are all booked solid through the weekend. luckily there's a lull on saturday and we were able to get the night bus. so we'll be spending easter sunday on a double decker bus. it isn't new hats and glazed ham, but it'll do.

also, as a point of clarification. later this month, alyssa'll be heading back to the states to kick start her photo work. i'll be heading out on my own to go through bolivia and then onwards through chile and argentina to patagonia. the tentative plan is to fly out of buenos aires in mid-july.

i haven't bought my plane ticket yet, so the plan's still up in the air. so if any of y'all have some frequent flier miles gathering dust...

-k

oh, and as a post script, a tip of the hat goes out to my buddy andrew moseman who was just accepted to the MIT graduate program for science writing. i didn't think it was possible for his ego to get any bigger, but i'm excited to watch it happen. cheers moseman.

i didn't move to the city, the city moved to me

i have wielded machete and ho. i have hauled hundreds of pounds of water and earth. i helped build a little dam out of rocks. i am officially tough as nails.

well, as tough as a few weeks of chores on a farm can make ya, anyways.

alyssa and i have finished our stint on the rio muchacho organic farm in ecuador and just this morning added peru to our visa collection. we´re on our way south this week passing through the cities of Piuru, Lima and eventually to Cuzco in the south of peru. as you know peru is not a small country and bussing across its length in a week is a helluva task. why would we bring such a hellish bus trip upon ourselves in such a short amount of time.

two (three) words - machu freakin´ pichu.

alyssa has a plane ticket out of lima on the 19th so we´re gonna spend the rest of her time here hiking up to the lost city of the inca empire. along with this really cool english girl we met on the farm we´re gonna do the 3-4 day hike up through the cloud forests to one of the seven wonders of the world.

we´re excited as hell, lemme tell you. now that we´re out of rural ecuador i´ll be making an effort to keep this space updated a little more often. i still love and miss ya all to death.

stay cool up there in northern hemisphere land.

kris