Sun so bright it makes you sneeze

I awoke this morning to the sound of a very loud public address system squaking in Spanish. It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on, but after a while, the amplified syllables began make sense. An awards ceremony, marking the end of the Chilean school year, was going on across the street at the middle school. School´s out for summer here in Arica.

And summer it unquestionably is. Yesterday, I laid on the beach for a couple of hours. Today, I bought an ice cream cone and raced to eat it before the sun turned it into a sweet, sticky mess. (I won.) Tomorrow, I´ll travel the coastal route from here to Iquique, four hours south.

Yes, after nearly six weeks in the high Andes, I´ve reached the coast. And damn, is it nice. The sun at 4,000 meters was so bright it made me sneeze. Here, solar rays seem more friendly: they gently warm my face as opposed to immediately turning skin bright red and puffy. This seems like a silly detail, but it was one of the first things I noticed here—I don´t need to fear the sun as I did in the mountains.

But my retreat to the lowlands won´t last long. On Wednesday, I´ll board a night train from the Chilean coast, heading to Uyuni, Bolivia. (I was in La Paz, Bolivia, the highest capital city in the world, just a few days ago. I´ll get to why I´ve made a stopover here in Chile, instead of going direct to Uyuni, in a bit.) Uyuni sits on the eastern flank of the world´s driest region, surrounded by massive salt flats. But how about I write about Uyuni when I get there? All I´m doing now is paraphrasing my guidebook.

The past two weeks have been more about survival than grand adventures. When I last wrote, I was in Cusco, the gringo capital of South America, where I turned down daily offers of cocaine and pot. (´´You like marijuana, cocaine, my friend?´´) The only thing to do was keep walking. I got used to that. The jalagringos (gringo-pullers, literally) where a little harder to avoid: they stand on sidewalks and tout restaraunts, Macchu Picchu tours, and kitschy crafts, generally in memorized English phrases. So what to do? I just said, ´´Ya comí, ya fui, ya tengo.´´ (I´ve already eaten, already gone, already have it.) That seemed to work.

Indeed, Cusco was kind of about surviving. It´s beautiful but absolutely overrun, so I didn´t stay long, opting to head to Lake Titicaca with a (misguided) hope of escaping the hordes. Instead, a different menance arrived (in my gut). Basically, I got really sick. Traveler´s diarrhea, I thought, so I busted out the antibiotics. That seemed to help for a couple days, but then it was back, but with nausea and intense stomach cramping to boot. I initially returned to the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca for medical care, where I was told I was dehyrdated and given IV fluids (the nurse asked for my email address), and that helped a bit with the nausea. But the terrible stomach pains persisted, so I decided La Paz and its modern medical facilities where my best bet.

The four hour colectivo ride from Copacabana (on the Bolivian shore of the lake) to La Paz is memorable for two reasons: the first hour was spectacularly beautiful (I kept thinking we had finally lost sight of the lake, but then it would reappear around another curve), and the final three were the most painful of my life. I just reclined the front seat of the Toyota minibus (much to the chagrin of passengers behind me), and tried to ignore the awful feeling that small, carniverous animals were carving holes in my small intestines. Unfortunately, my magical pain pills (an absolute necessity) were packed away in my backpack, which was precariously positioned on the roof. Eventually, we got to La Paz, I found a taxi (didn´t even bargain it hurt so bad), and made my way to a hotel, where I took a bunch of feel-good drugs and went to sleep for three hours.

Most of my time in La Paz was spent going back and forth between the hotel and the doctor´s office, passing by the which doctor´s market. (They sell all sorts of medicinal herbs, and, most strangely, dried llama fetuses. I felt marginally better so I wasn´t tempted to try either.) Tests for giardia came back negative, but I didn´t care, because I felt better, probably thanks to the fact that I was eating only in tourist restaraunts and sleeping 14 hours a day.

And my health improves every day. I didn´t anticipate coming to the coast, but it´s nearly impossible to recuperate at 4,000 meters (that´s the minimum height of the Bolivian altiplano), and northern Chile is pretty much perfect for getting better. So now, I´m on the mend, and ready to go back into the mountains.

While bits of the previous two weeks have been absolutely, incredibly, awful, I´ve enjoyed most of my time. Lake Titicaca is aaaamazing. The border between Peru and Bolivia on the coast is probably the most beautiful international checkpoint ever. (Well, the Chilean-Bolivian border I crossed just two days ago was pretty spectacular too.) And it is remarkably strange to stand at 4,000 meters, staring out at a lake that stretches to the horizon, while 6,000 meter peaks dominate the skyline to the east. And the sunset! Have you ever seen the sky turn a million colors over Lake Titicaca?

It would have liked to visit some of the islands on Lake Titicaca, but I was worried that seasicknesss might multiply my other symptoms and leave me dying on the deck of a tour boat. So I guess I´ll just have to come back, right?

My time in Arica has been limited to sitting on the beach, reading English-language magazines, and planning my trip. I have six weeks and two days left: no where near enough time to do everything I want. Remember that red line marking my intended route on the map at the top of the page? Well, disregard it. I´m going to return to Bolivia for a while, and then I´ll probably end up in Argentina. Paraguay (?) is a real possibility as well, since I´d like to see the Mennonite communities there and the old Jesuit social missions as well. But I really don´t know: I´ll get my Paraguayan visa tomorrow in Iquique, but my itinerary is still up in the air. All I know is that I´ll be traveling, more or less southeast, until I get to Buenos Aires in December.

Some of the more geographically astute of you have by now noticed that my new route excludes Patagonia. Yes it does. And I still can´t really believe that I have voluntarily given up a trip to a region I have wanted to visit for years, but I just don´t have time. And Patagonia is best explored with other people... the mountains there are not meant to be climbed solo. So once again, another trip needs to be planned.

What else to report: I found a nice café in La Paz that sells real ground coffee. I almost bought some, but when I asked about filters, they said there was no where in the whole city to buy them. That broke the deal. But even better, I bought earplugs yesterday! Remember, future South American adventurers: foam earplugs are absolutely unknown on this continent. People will look at you like you´re crazy when you say you want little pieces of foam to stick in your ears. I am very happy to have a healthy supply of these non-narcotic sleep aids for the rest of my trip.

Well, it´s five o´clock here in Chile, which means I should probably go back to the beach. Hope all is well wherever you are. The traveling life is not always this comfortable... I don´t mind a bit of comfort now and then.