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Heading towards the Japanese Alps

I’m sitting on a train, my head leaning back against the headrest, my body being rocked gently from side to side as the glisteningly clean train slices its way through the Japanese countryside. The bright sun is streaming in through the large window to my left. We’re reaching the end of the day, and heading south from Nagoya into rural Japan, into the Japanese Alps. I have finally managed to create some distance between myself and the group and am feeling quite alone. They’re bonding; enthusiastically sharing tidbits about themselves. I needed some quiet time. Andy has handed out clear plastic containers of food, which I have piled up on the fold-down food tray in front of me.

I don’t really feel like eating. There’s so much of it and even though I hadn’t eaten since the dry, disappointing breakfast at the hotel, the sheer volume of food makes me feel full and nauseous. I also feel too awkward to eat this unfamiliar food in public. I just know I’m going to dribble and spill and the polite Japanese people are going to have to pretend to not have seen, not to notice the greasy smear on the polished floor. I also have a can of disgusting tasting sake, which has a plastic lid, so that I can seal it between careful sips.

A youngish Japanese man sits next to me, staring out the window and neatly eating what looks like the Japanese version of Pringles crisps from a small can. He turns to look at me and sees the sun shining in my eyes. He gestures towards the curtain, indicating that he can close them if the sun is bothering me. I shake my head and smile, quite urgently – I don’t want to miss out on a thing. It will soon be dark and then I won’t be able to see the countryside anyway. He turns back towards the window and we continue to sit in silence. He has finished his can of crisps and is sitting very quietly, just staring out the window, deep in thought. I still have the containers of food quivering in front of me, glaring at me.

I don’t know what comes over me, but suddenly I tap him on the arm. He spins his head towards me, lifting off his seat in shock, his eyes wide, mouth open. I hold the open container towards him and offer him some of my food. He nods vigorously, smiles and takes a piece of whatever it is. Thank goodness! I would have wanted to fling myself from the moving train in embarassment had he refused!

And so, as it grows dark outside, we start talking. Him with minimal English, me with no Japanese. We gesticulate, we enunciate carefully, slowly, clearly, and we finish the one container of food. I ask Nina for her Japanese-English dictionary, and we continue to talk, drawing pictures on a sheet of paper and pointing to words in the dictionary. I learn that friendship, companionship and conversation are not dependent on a large vocabulary.

He points to the can of sake and says ‘You like Japanese sake?’. ‘Yes!’ I say. Well, I wasn’t going to tell this nice man that the contents of this can was ‘Ee-eugh!’ and that the warm sake I had had in Nagoya had left me cold, now was I? He proceeds to tell me that they make sake in the area where he lives. ‘Good sake?’ I ask. ‘Yes, yes, good sake.’

‘Better than this?’ I ask, pointing at the can.

‘Oh …’ he laughs, shakes his head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Bottles or cans?’ I ask.

‘Bottles,’ he says.

‘Then it must be better,’ I decide.

Suddenly he looks at his watch, jumps up, and rushes from the compartment. Geez. What have I said? I figure he must be close to his stop, or something, and then notice that he had left his wallet lying on the windowsill. I quickly grab it and hurry after him, only to find him talking quite urgently on his cellphone, leaning against the wall at the door. I give him his wallet, wave goodbye and head back to my seat, a bit sorry that he was leaving.

And then he’s back. Smiling, talking, as if the whole incident hadn’t happened at all. We settle down and resume our conversation. He tells me about a castle in the area, draws a picture, tells me he is married, has a small child, loves soccer. I ask if he will have more children. ‘That is up to god,’ he tells me, pointing upwards. I give him my details and tell him he must come to Cape Town for the 2010 World Cup.

Suddenly, he jumps up again. ‘One moment,’ he says, putting his hands up, pushing both palms towards me, showing that I must wait. ‘One moment!’ Out he rushes again. My word, the fellow must be in trouble at home, or something, I think. The train comes to a halt, and I see him get off and talk to an elderly couple on the platform. They both look at me and smile. Well, they kind of stare at me actually, looking quite curious, but they’re friendly, keep smiling, looking at me. ‘Oooh’ I think. ‘I hope they don’t think he’s up to no good with this westerner with the crazy red and black hair!’ They exchange parcels, and he gets back onto the train.

Down the aisle he comes, beaming, carrying a paper bag with string handles in front of him. He sits down again, puts the carrier on the floor, peers inside, looks sideways at me, then picks it up again, and presents me with it. ‘For you,’ he says, his smile luminous. I’m taken aback, don’t know how to react. I want to cry. I look inside the bag … it is a gift pack of six glass bottles of different kinds of sake. ‘From here,’ he says, pointing out the window, indicating that it was sake from the region.

I worked out only much later that he must have gone to phone his parents when he dashed off the first time. Called to tell them that he had met a tourist on the train, someone who likes sake. And so they had taken the trouble to come out in the cold and dark to deliver a gift of sake to the next stop.

He had given me such a large gift already: our conversation, the time we had shared, this small pocket of real Japan that I had experienced. I was overwhelmed. And I had nothing to give him in return.

My movements wherever I travelled through Japan for the next two weeks would be heralded by the chink-clink-chink of little glass bottles dancing against each other. I couldn’t bring myself to break open the pack and put the bottles individually in my suitcase, which would have made more sense than dragging my red suitcase behind me with the one hand, carrying my heavy black camera bag over my shoulder and schlepping the white carrier bag of sake in other hand. But schlepp it I would, all the way back to Cape Town.

Once home, the sake did, eventually, get drunk. The little bottles were recycled. But the memory still makes me smile. And it reminds me that simple random niceness, for the sake of niceness, does exist, and that little gestures can alter someone, possibly forever.

Bulleting through Peru

We’ve been herded back to the car, bundled into the back with our bags.

Speeding. Speeding. Running with the clock. Time is money and time ticks on.

Lunch … quickly. Back in the car. Speeding towards the town of Ica. Quick drive-through. Browns and reds blur with faces as we pass. Awesome light. Indescribable. My hands itch as they wrap around my camera. I want to get out of the car. I need to. I want to walk, soak up the light, the place, the people, the colours, the smells. But on we speed. Earthquake damage everywhere. Total devastation. How does one begin to pick up the pieces? Start over? How do you go to sleep at night, wake up in the morning, tend to children, carry on with the business of being? Weary, blankfaced people selling food from makeshift stalls, perched amidst the rubble. Their homes have caved in and they’re living in tents, but the everydayness of life wears on. People with spades shovelling bricks and dust from road. No rush. Just keep moving. There’s so much to do, it will take forever with just a spade anyway. Just keep moving. It’s better than just sitting.

Taxis, cars, scooters, all criss-crossing one another, hooting incessantly, the evening light glinting off them. Brightly coloured three-wheeled scooter taxis charging everywhere, blurs of red, yellow, green.

The sun is setting over the desert. Big deep red-orange-amber sky with palm trees silhouetted against it. Photo opportunities whizzing by as we overtake two trucks at the same time. Bulleting ahead on the Trans American Highway.

You have to paddle them both

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You have to paddle them both, originally uploaded by deirdre16.

Reed boat and rowing boat moored at a floating reed island on Lake Titikaka, Peru.

Cusco Revelry

It’s been a long, long day on a coach, traveling from Cusco to Puno, Lake Titikaka. Ranj was horribly hungover from last night’s revelry. He’s really quite pleasant when he’s hung over, I think.

 

It all spun out of control in a heartbeat last night. Not something I could see coming when trying to get out of going to the dreadfully dull folkdance display earlier in the evening. Ranj had got a bit miffy when I said that I thought it was a silly idea to sit through one of those touristy things when there was a city to explore. So I went. And continued to think that it was a silly idea. Then, foolishly, I said that I wanted to have some more of that very nice wine that I had had at Tupanachis Restaurant the night before. I felt I deserved a treat after sitting through folkdance after folkdance. So, off we went and ordered half a bottle to share. Not very clever. Because we ordered another half a bottle after that one.

 

Sitting deep in the low black couches at the back of the trendy restaurant, the lovely red liquid was truth serum for my good friend Ranjit, who decided that this cozy spot of bon homie was a good time to tell me that I had been a tad irritating at times. Not that he could remember exactly what it was that I had done, or when I had done it, or where, but he distinctly recalls flags going up. Par for the course, I suppose. We’d been together, non-stop, for eight days now and barely knew each other before we left OR Tambo airport. And I had thought of him in somewhat unflattering terms a few times too, but couldn’t for the life of me remember when or why. ‘What is it about wine and about travelling together that amplifies the slightest flaw?’ I ponder as I watch him swig back the wine at increasing speed.

 

Thus bonded and assured of everlasting friendship, we head back out into the cold, back to Los Portales for sleep and another early rise. But just before the hotel, a dodgy dark doorway winked its temptation at us. We peered up at the shabby steps leading upwards and darkwards. Time to explore …

 

The dodgy doorway delivered on its promise. At the top of the staircase was a small, crowded pub. About the size of a small garage, the walls painted red, the bar counter, chairs and tables black, with low red lighting, dense with smoke, and packed, wall to wall with young, dark-skinned, dark-haired, rough looking Peruvians, it throbbed with a life unlike any we had seen on the streets so far. The locals seemed rather unenthusiastic about our uninvited entrance. In fact, they looked quite ready to ask us to leave.

 

Diesel, paint stripper and brake fluid must have been what they were serving.

 

And right there and then, Ranj lost the plot. Tequila! A quart of beer! The good humour he had found inside the Chilean wine was coming out to play – big! The barman took one look at these stupid gringos and smacked the shot glasses on the bar counter. Did I say shot glasses? Make that vases. Shot glasses big enough to hold about five shots of gut stripping, brain imploding firewater.  There was no way I was taking that down. Ranj, full of crazy energy, schlucked his down and reached for the oversized no-name brand bottle of beer.

 

I put my vase of liquid hangover down on the bar counter, behind the back of my new best friend, Miguel – Miguel, a not-very-attractive Peruvian who kissed me on the cheek and spoke a steady stream of unintelligible Spanish straight from his heart into my ear for the entire time that we were there, pressed together in the dank darkness of a tiny pub in the highest city in Peru.

 

Ranj was delirious, manic, couldn’t keep still, bobbing and weaving like a welterweight boxer. Bumping into an aggressive, moody looking, low-browed fellow at the edge of the bar, he ordered more beer, leaned his back into the grumpy chap, and swigged back with gusto, eyes glinting and grinning like the devil himself. Where is he putting all?

 

In an act of political diplomacy I sidled up to Agro Gloom to make friends. ‘What are you drinking?’ I asked, jutting my chin at the glass jug filled with liquid tar in front of him. Rum and coke. So I had some. And swilled the beer down. What else is a girl to do? I’m in Cusco, Peru, high on altitude, cocoa leaf tea and photo opportunities. A bit of tar and coke on top of all of that is hardly going to make a difference.

 

And suddenly Ranj and I were amigos. He had moved from polite avoidance to arm-draping in a gulp of cheap beer. Then my eyes locked on something I simply had to have. My life would not be complete without it … No, not Ranj! A steel sculpture, hulking in an alcove behind the bar. It looked like something from Lord of the Rings. It was powerful, beautiful, an unbelievable creation. It had to go home with me. Ranj, my mate, my pal, my oldest friend and saviour would get it for me. A quick negotiation with the barman and the deal is clinched: it could be mine for one hundred American dollars.

 

Ah. But I had not a single note left. Not even a fifty. It would have to stay in Peru, in its dark, red crypt, until I visit Cusco again one day. Later I would realise that the Inca gods were taking care of me, though, as there would be no way that I would have been able to travel with it on two buses and three aeroplanes all the way back to Cape Town.

 

Agro Gloom was moving closer, becoming uncomfortably fond, while Miguel kept up his stream of soft, earnest Spanish, his lips against my ear. I was being sandwiched between two intense men half my height and twice my girth. It was time to retreat. Without a word, we finished our drinks at the same time, put our glasses down, and headed back to Los Portales, Ranj with his arm over my shoulder, happy amigos just for the moment, and me without the incredible steel sculpture. 

 

And then my lugubrious young friend was back. Ranj would skulk inside his dark glasses and iPod, leaning his throbbing head against the window and grunting not a word, for the duration of the bus ride to Puno …

 

Ah. But it was a pretty fun night!

Who’s the Old Bitch now?

We found a really nice little spot on the main square of Machu Picchu village. A small place, with tables outside. Ranj is in an uncharacteristically good mood. Very upbeat. Kicking the smoking habit has finally become easier, I think, and we’re both feeling quite good after a day’s exercise.

Wooden tables and chairs. Small little space, about the size of a small lounge, painted green inside, with the fragrant food appearing from behind a lacy curtain. Woven wicker lamps, dim, hanging low over the wooden tables covered with brightly coloured Peruvian cloth. Fairy lights strung in rows in the window above. Vinegar in glass bottles, in which whole bunches of grapes float, on each table.

A small, smiling, Spanish speaking waitress takes care of us, dilligent and careful to get the order just right, despite our broken communication.

Our food is delicious – proper vegetarian stew with lentils, potatoes and beans, a mound of rice, a side salad and a slice of lime, which I squeeze over everything on my plate. The lime aroma hits my nostrils, fills my head, and I’m filled with the smells of cool mountain air, food from various restaurants, the wine, the wood from the tables, the smells of Peru.

Our conversation is light and fun. The glass of wine is excellent. I’m feeling really good after the day’s hike, the things I’d seen, the quiet time I had had with my journal, the shower. And now, sitting here in the village square at night, so beautifully lit, everything taking on an orange hue against the dark night, music floating across the square from a small community centre at the far end, the whole world seems just perfect. Children are playing around the Inca statue in the middle of the square, and I remember what a treat it was to be playing outside after dark when I was a child. My face smiles without my permission.

I ask Ranj who the sweet girl is who had sent him the carved wooden heart that he carries around with him. His eyes light up. She’s a girl he had met in France. They had spoken only once in person. Since then they had been on Facebook and sms, Skype, webcam – wow! When I was dating we had the telephone. Or we had to wait for the week-end.

She had wanted him to come to Europe, he says, but he had already made arrangements to come to Peru with me. She was miffed. Put out. Not too fond of me, apparently. To appease her, he must have reassured her that we were just friends, that I’m married, that I’m ten years older – no, actually, fifteen – than he is. Which, in turn, inspired her to refer to me as the Old Bitch and, later, as the full name clearly took to much time to key in, the OB.

Whooph! Boy! There goes a perfectly good evening!

‘But … that’s horrible!’ I say, feeling quite smacked in the face, the stew doing a little squeaky twist in my stomach.

‘Yeah,’ he laughs. ‘It is a bit mean. But it’s quite funny!’

I’m not sure. I think I have a pretty good sense of humour but I’m battling to find the punchline here. I had thought that we were friends, and friends shouldn’t be hurtful, if they can help it. Okay. Reality check. This is about her, not about me. And, I suppose, if you’re only twenty five, then forty six is pretty ancient.

I’m not the bitch in the story, I decide somewhat later, as I burrow down under the hunter’s green tartan bedspread in our snug hotel. Up early tomorrow. Five o’clock. A veritable lie-in by this holiday’s standards!

That was two days ago, and I’ve been walking the early morning streets of Cuso since six o’clock. Ranj is still motionless, somewhere in dreamland. Spaced-out and light-headed from the altitude, I am walking around with my camera in the morning light. Few things could be better. Six-thirty in the morning, and the people of Cusco are busy. Very busy. They are sweeping the brown streets, opening shop doors and windows, putting up their hand-painted signs, carrying their stock outside. Old, small people, bent over under their load, are running across the road, dodging the anarchic traffic. I wonder if they manage to stand upright, ever, or if they bolt through life with their bodies tipped at ninety degree angles. They’re all heading into the market square, where they will unpack the huge sacks of produce they are carrying, unroll their cloths of food, and spread it wherever – on tables, on the floor.

Great big hunks of meat are being carried out onto the pavement and leant against the wall. Chickens, whole, plucked, with huge yellow claws tracing spiky patterns in the light, are stacked on top of one another, waiting to be bought.

Men standing quietly backlit at a juice vendor’s tricycle, steam rising from their icy cold cups of freshly squeezed juice. They see me approach, and I don’t have the heart to lift my camera and take a picture, invading their space and disturbing their peace. Now there’s a picture that got away!

And then we’re off. River rafting on the Urubamba. Grade five rapids, they tell me. Who’s the old bitch now? Kicked the young fella’s ass all the way down the river. He was gasping for breath, grateful for each stop, while I was manic, yelling ‘Why are we stopping’ each time the river guide called a halt.

‘Because you must rest,’ says Jimmy/Santiago.

‘I’ll rest when I’m dead,’ I say, exhilarated by the rush of water, feeling alive and vital. One of my favourite places in the world is paddling a down a river, speeding along a rapid, feeling the spray of cold water on my face, feeling my muscles wake up and serve me.

‘It can be arranged,’ wheezes Ranj through clenched teeth, leaning on his paddle, his body still aching from our walk up Machu Picchu.

Yeah.

Old. Old Bitch. I’m ready for more – where’s the next rapid, Jimmy/Santiago? Let’s go! There’s only one old bitch on this boat, and it’s not me! 

Flying over Sao Paulo

Sunday morning, on the plane to Lima. It’s probably 6:30 or so.

Sao Paulo from the sky in the morning. Incredible. Massive. Dense. We’re flying over the high-rise area of the city. The sun catches the lego-block buildings at an angle, illuminating them, giving them a dimension beyond 3-d. They rise through the mist, glowing, like crystals in a cluster.

We’re moving through the clouds and mist now, so the city is almost invisible. I wish I’d been able to photograph the city from the sky. I’m becoming more and more interested in aerial views. There is such art in the view from the top. The textures, the light. Seeing the world as a whole, from a vantage point, instead of up close, nose-to-nose, getting only a macro view. Well, micro view, really, as in a small, narrow view, a tiny piece of the whole, yet a macro view nonetheless, as in a small view, enlarged, to take up the full area of vision, which obscures the bigger picture. Obscures how it all fits together, losing its sense, losing its context.

Seeing Sao Paulo from the air turns it into a work of art, a sculpture. And each day it will be a new sculpture, as the quality of light changes, as it’s approached from a different angle. And so it is with life, isn’t it? Approach it from a different angle. Get a different view. Change the light – shine it from the side; from the other side. Think about it from a different angle.

Ranj showed me a story in a book he’s reading. Three blind men are sent to find out what this strange creature is outside their village. One comes back and says that it’s like a giant vine. Another says it’s like a pillar. The last one says that it is long and flat. Each one is correct, but not one of them is completely correct. They argue, cannot agree, and end up never speaking to one another again.

Each one saw only a small part of the elephant, and so couldn’t comprehend the magnificence of the entire beast. But we all see the world differently, and so struggle to comprehend the vision of another. We need to lift up, rise above, look down at the whole picture, dip a wing and tilt slightly to the left, then a little to the right, marvel at the picture from an angle, see its art. Paint the torch across its flanks, illuminating areas we don’t normally see, allowing new forms to tease our sensibilities. Maybe then we can comprehend each other’s view of the world.

And then Sao Paulo slips away. Clouds and mist shroud the world below. We’ll be flying over Peru soon.

View onto the ruins of Machu Picchu

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View onto the ruins of Machu Picchu , originally uploaded by deirdre16.

The terraces, the ancient buildings, and the profile of the sleeping Inca of Machu Picchu

Yomping up Machu Picchu

Today I patted a llama and climbed to the top of Machu Picchu. How cool is that? How completely, totally, amazingly awesome is that?

I suffered, though. Suffered like a dog. Hauled my camera bag with two cameras, lenses, wallet, notebooks, change of clothing and toileteries up the mountain on my back. We left our suitcases in Cusco, and were told to take only a small daypack. Not realising that we would be going straight from the train up the mountain, leaving our daypacks with the porters to take to the hotel, I used my camera bag as a daypack, and ended up having to lug all my stuff around with me all day.

And so I suffered. At an altitude of 2 400 m, Machu Picchu is not as high as Cusco, but still my lungs were teeny-tiny, and yomping up the side of the mountain with seven kilos of kit on my back was unbelievable. ‘Wheeeeze,’ I went, sweat glueing my t-shirt and my bag to my back, stopping every few paces to bend over, lean my hands on my knees, as if to take the weight of my legs, and catch my breath. My chest just would not expand, just would not take in enough air.

By the time I had staggered three quarters of the way up, I decided that I simply wasn’t having fun at all. This was just silly. It was time to ditch my hunchback-handicap, and I started scouting around for some thick undergrowth in which to stash my bag. It had to be thick enough to conceal my large green and black backpack, but identifiable enough for me to not walk past my own bag, never to find it again.

I must have been completely shattered and delirious to leave my babies in a bush while I clambered up the side of the mountain. Ranj, being a guy, taller and ten years younger, went on ahead, and was nowhere to be seen – out of sight, out of earshot. By now I was thinking of him in terms of four-letter words, and they were not ‘love’ or ‘dear’ or ‘nice’. Not that I wanted, needed or expected him to be around – it just wasn’t right that he wasn’t also feeling the pain!

I met only two other people on the path. The first one was a very smiley, sweet Japanese fellow, who offered me water and told me that my friend was up ahead. As I saw him approaching, I searched my oxygen deprived brain for a Japanese word. ‘Thank you’ would be a good one, I figured, after swigging lukewarm water from his bottle. ‘Arrigato,’ I say, grateful for this small offering from the inefficient filing system in my head. I had learnt a few Japanese words a lifetime ago, way back in May, for my trip to Japan. My blunt brain couldn’t come up with ‘kernichiwa’, and so I just smiled wearily, nodded sweatily, and waved him on his way. At least I know he won’t steal my camera, I figured, even if he does see it. My experience of the Japanese people was that they just don’t take something that doesn’t belong to them.

My next new best friend on Machu Picchu was a hopping, jumping, bouncing, singing, long-haired fellow from who-knows-where, who also let me know, in some flourishing sign language, that my friend was up ahead. I hoped that he wouldn’t see my bag in the bushes as I watched him do his elf-dance down the path.

There’s fynbos on Machu Picchu, I noticed. Really. Fynbos-like bossies and pretty pink and white flowers. And I suppose it would make sense. Standing here, somewhere near deepest, darkest Peru, we were almost in line with Cape Town and, once, long, long ago, had we existed then, we would have been able to walk across solid ground from Table Mountain to Machu Picchu.

The last few metres seem to be vertical but the light, the sense of space, the smells, the strange giddy feeling that altitude causes, all add to the exhiliration and feelings of exhaustion give way to the anticipation. And then I am at the top. The view of rolling mountains in shades of green, the ruins and the one thousand or so tourists far, far below knock my newly recovered breath from my chest. It had been worth it. I was standing at the top of the world … with no camera. Yep. I had climbed to the top of Machu Picchu, and had no camera with me. I am hardly ever without my camera. And today I had left it behind amongst the orchids on the slopes of the Andes. As any number of British tourists would have said: ‘What a plonker!’.

No matter. I would remember this. Undoubtedly, this would stay with me for a long, long time. In three days I had looked down onto the ocean from Lima, flown over the Nazca lines, walked the streets of Cusco and now I was standing in the footsteps of the Incas, looking down on the remains of their pure genius. I didn’t need a viewfinder to remember this moment. 

 

Machu Picchu from way up high

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Machu Picchu from way up high, originally uploaded by deirdre16.

Climbing above the ruins of Machu PIcchu, before I ditched my bag.