45. I see Lima

I See Lima

I visit Bad Vibe Central, the dungeons of the Inquisition—now livened up with wax museum effigies of torturers and their victims. The museum guard is a misshapen man who seems to actually enjoy his job! The local chapter of the Masons donated some of the torture tools that are on display here. I don’t know how THEY ended up with them! Nearby is an old church, which houses the library of the Venerable Third Order of Franciscans. I’ll bet there is some fascinating reading in there!

Pizarro’s dried-up body is on display in a glass coffin in the National Cathedral. I pay my dime, go in and stand in a dark corner watching some aloha-shirted overweight gringo tourists do their thing.


PIZARRO

So, this is the machine that carried you, old horse.

I see they’ve wired your jawbone to your eye sockets—good thinking!
And some dried brown skin is holding on, drumhead tough.
But the hero’s lion on that touristy coffin looks damned heavy.
Was it all worth it?


“I’m bigger than he was!” Gloats the porky man in the pink shirt.

But it ain’t the machine, Bub, though you’d better stick to taxis.

It’s the driver!

...

44. Lima, Peru

44.

Lima, Peru:

There are three and a half million people in this ghastly town. Most of them seem dedicated to self-extermination.

Apparently there are no anti-pollution regulations and trucks and busses make the air blue with poison carbon monoxide gas. I breathe in shallow gasps. The common people seem to survive on a diet of coffee and bread, morning, noon and night and since I am living like the common people, I subsist on their fare. After a few days my energy level descends to new, undreamed-of lows. As always in big cities, prices are high and quality is low. Why do people choose to live in big cities? For the work? For the cultural advantages? For the thrills and excitement?

Maybe Lima should be demolished and started all over again. I really don’t see any other way to change the disastrous trending of this city. To me it seems that only the dead can live in Lima.

At its apogee of power, Lima must have been a delight of Baroque architecture, statuary, silver and gold; now it is a super-bummer! The people need to go in a better direction fast. They are killing themselves—and me!

...

43. Aqua Verde, Peru

43.

Aqua Verde, Peru:

A miserable assortment of cheap concrete-block buildings and wooden shacks.

Since I have no ticket OUT of Peru, I expect to have trouble with the border police-- but they pass me through with the greatest of ease.

A taxi from the border drops me at the wrong end of town, so I hike a mile in the noonday sun, and am not in the best of moods when I reach the bus terminal.

I have a “thru ticket” to Lima, but the station people claim there will be no seat available on a bus until next week.

I raise hell until they put me on a Lima-bound bus late in the afternoon—but good grief, what a seat they put me in! They sure do get their revenge! I am next to the toilet in the back of the bus and sitting in the seat beside me are a fat lady and her three children.

As soon as the bus starts moving, the toilet starts overflowing and people keep coming back to be sick in it. Every time the bus takes a curve the lady squashes me against the toilet door.

There is no fresh air—the windows have been sealed shut and the bus is jammed with women and crying infants.

Twenty-plus hours of this torture and the bus rolls into Lima. I fool them all and stumble off the bus alive!

...

42. Follow the Flow

42.

Follow the flow
Wherever I go
Sunshine or snow
High times or low
Follow the flow
High times or low
Sunshine or snow
Wherever I go
Follow the flow

At sunset the bus pulls out of Quito—another city that looks better from a distance.

Between snowy peaks there’s a pink sunset and a silver moon. A baby cries behind me. The fat man beside me crowds, but I don’t give an inch of space--I’m learning.

I sleep soundly and wake riding through a desert with a few dried trees wearing Spanish moss. The houses we pass are made of faded clapboards and I have a stiff neck.

I’ve reached another frontier.

...

41 Poemitos and Quito

41.

Riding in a bus toward Quito in Ecuador I write this poemito:

A blue Indian sat next to me,
Wooly cloak from neck to knee,
In brown hands a bag of mystery—
His black eyes, what could they see
When they met mine
What could they see?

Well, the man WAS dressed in blue and I like to imagine that there was something more interesting than a few bananas for lunch in that bag!

Quito, Ecuador:

Walking through this lonely town
I was feeling kind of down,

But in a tiny café, sure,
I found myself the sovereign cure:

In a bowl of green and white
Some soup of chili made it right!

Now when I feel my spirits droop,
I have myself some chili soup—

Made with rabbit, cat or game,
Down here its chili all the same,

And eaten with a fresh-baked roll,
It makes my body hale and whole.

Let others see the doc for shots,
Just give me chili soup—and lots!

...

40. Communicating With The Future

40.

Communicate with the Future?

Polly tells me that the people she sees living here in the high Andes are similar to those she saw in East Nepal, near Tibet. Both groups of mountain dwellers have thick, straight black hair and glowing bronze complexions. The women wear their hair braided and wear mostly woolen clothes of somber colors. She says both peoples exude a wholesome aura and that neither locality has cars, advertisements or glass in the windows of their houses.

After four years of exploration, Polly lists her four “best places”: Kabul, Afghanistan, Ben Nevis mountain in Scotland, the island of Bali and Katmandu, Nepal. Ben Nevis is the best, she says. If we ever meet again it will be there.

Partly hidden behind an old statue in the little town church is a portrait print labeled in Latin: “A true likeness of Jesus Christ from the Holy Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican City, Rome”. The countenance in this picture resembles the face on the famous “Shroud of Turin”—the same long nose, forked beard, receding hairline and solemn expression, for example. It is so difficult to locate reliable artifacts from the past about this or any other person—and what is available is almost impossible to interpret. This face probably is the nearest we will ever come to a portrait of the “historic” Jesus, if indeed He ever existed.

Indeed, I wonder if any of the most famous people living today will leave the slightest trace for people living in 2000 years to admire, that is if any people at all are left to admire anything.

If I should return in 2000 years, what relic might I find of this previous me? Would anything of my present understanding be worth communicating to that future person? Or if I had lived in some past life on this planet, as some believe, what would I do to communicate with my present life? Build pyramids in Mexico? Sculpt big stone heads in Columbia?

...

39. From Polly's Diary

39.

From Polly's Diary

Polly allows me to copy from her diary:

“It is best, of course, that I go it alone, for life’s sake alone and for other lesser sakes which I can’t congeal into thoughts, patterns or sentences. I MUST go on. There is nothing else for me anywhere right now; anything else would be escapism if I give up now.

England is too easy for me now. I like to think of it as the reward—the pot of gold at the end of my rainbow.

I am not halfway over my rainbow yet. There are all shades of the spectrum: the blues of sad times, the indigos of times when all is beyond me —my endurance, my comprehension, greens of calmer, earthy times, yellows of golden, mellow contented times, oranges of effervescent times and reds of the times of the heights of excitement of intensity, yet to be lived out.

Sure, these variants are going to be in England or my chosen land, or my life after traveling, but I need South America or Africa so I can KNOW these good and bad times, can acknowledge them as they rise, can accept and appreciate them. In a sane, sedate organized environ I could not do so. I would be a victim of past conditioning of societies opinions and of its conscience dictatorship.

I can only GET TO KNOW MYSELF by living out these experiences in a strange, unpredictable environment. I can only learn what my limit of endurance or powers of comprehension can be when put to the test. I can only realize the depression of sadness to its deepest extent—then only can I realize the extremity of its opposite emotions.

I can practice the calmness, acceptance appreciation of earthy times HERE more. I can know the pleasure of unplanned surprise times of relaxation, of golden mellowness, of content HERE more—because HERE only it can be unexpected, unroutined. I can be childlike and uninhibited in happy, fun and effervescent times HERE, not restricted by “proper” behavior patterns. I can seek; maybe find, my capacity for joy, for passion, for supreme emotion, supreme experience HERE more honestly, more poignantly than THERE.

I must try to continue crawling the length, the full arch of my rainbow. I must try to BECOME a rainbow. If I succeed, if I become the personification of all the variants—when I AM a rainbow, then maybe I will find the pot of gold at the end. Maybe I will BECOME the pot of gold too. That would be “enlightenment”—“liberation”."

...

38. Solar Observatory?

38.

Solar Observatory?

It’s my birthday.

My present from The Flow is a perfect day.

A gentle, warm rain keeps us three travelers on the wide porch of our pension all morning engaged in contented talk. We lunch together at noon and, since the rain has stopped, take a walk in the archaeological park. Pooly and I exchange views while Polly sketches the monuments. I suggest that one of the large tomb complexes is designed to be a “solar observatory” like the pyramids in Guatemala. Centerlines carved on an enormous triangular stone head seem to be in a direct line with the center of a stone creature “guarding” the entrance to the tomb. The “tomb” is a circular mound of earth surrounded by stone monoliths. I decide to stay until March 21 to test my theory.

March 21 dawns cloudy and rainy. I have been hit by a severe case of “Montezuma’s Revenge”, as they call diarrhea down here, but with Polly’s encouragement I manage to stagger down to the interesting tomb and take some time-lapse photographs of the sun setting behind the stones—the clouds breaking up just for me!

But, alas, the sun sets few degrees off center, which may show that the earth has shifted its axis slightly since the monument was built or that the restorers of the park monuments were careless or that the constant movement of these mountains shifted the stones or, most likely, that my theory is wrong. Well, at least the exercise took my mind off Montezuma for a while.

...

37. Pooly and Polly

37.

Sharing my adobe room in San Augustin are Pooly, an Englishman and Polly, an Australian.

Pooly is an architect/traveler from Great Tew, England; Polly is an athletic, clear-headed young woman from an outback sheep ranch.

Pooly’s father, an Anglican Vicar, is finishing a book in which he defends his theory that prehistoric cosmonauts from somewhere beside earth, “the Sons of God” mentioned in the Bible, had intercourse with the “Daughters of Man”, which he claims were some apelike earth animal, some 6,000 generations ago, producing Homo Sapiens. He suggests that we are the fruit of this event and are still in the testing stage of a cosmic genetic experiment.

Pooly is on a globe-encircling cruise. His boat is moored in the harbor at Cartagena while he investigates some of the most interesting places ashore in Columbia. San Augustin is his last stop before returning to his boat. He tells me that: “The master traveler masters traveling.” By this me means that he thinks it is not necessary to travel all the time. He works at his trade for several years and then travels for several years gathering experience.

Polly has been on the road for four years. She says that making a “walkabout” is considered normal for young people from her part of Australia and since the Australian continent is so isolated, these youthful adventurers are expected to be gone for several years. I don’t think I have ever met a more alert or clever young woman. She shares a lot of useful travel lore with me and lets me read her diary, which is a fascinating “treklog” of her journey through Asia and Europe—she is going around the world in the opposite direction from me. She has a lot of literary talent and illustrates her diary with funny or serious felt tip pen cartoon drawings. It is especially interesting for me to read her descriptions of the days we are together while she reads my diary of the same adventures. We may describe the same basic experience but we write from very different points of view.

...

36. San Augustin, Columbia

36.

San Augustin, Columbia:

This is a tiny village situated in the tropical high Andes of Southern Columbia. The unpaved road in to the village is a hair-raising bit of highway technology, which is often closed by avalanches since these mountains are never as still as mountains should be.

I am here because I have heard there is a “Parke Archaeologico” here where tombs, monumental heads and animals carved in stone by unknown ancient artists are preserved.

On one of the park’s lovely footpaths I meet a local boy with a white dog. He guides me to the “Pre-Hispanic Fountain” which is a group of carved faces and animals hidden deep in a valley streambed. He points at the central colossal face of the group and exclaims “El Rey! El Rey!” I flash on the similarity of the sound, “El Rey”, which means, “The King” in Spanish, to the name of the Hawk-god of ancient Egypt, “Ra”, pronounced similarly. (Ra: Horus Hawkhead.) I enjoy pondering these coincidences and, standing here in this dripping jungle garden, it doesn’t take a huge mental leap for me to imagine the old people of the pyramid making it over here somehow to check things out maybe 120 human generations ago. I realize that my Spanish/Egyptian/South and North American fantasy is too imaginative to be true, but sometimes I like to let my thoughts run wild and this is a marvelous place and time to do it!

And anyway it seems to be a very difficult thing to communicate with future generations since almost everything is forgotten and civilizations-- even ours--come and go. (Mostly go, as they say.)

...

35. Dead Bulls and Eyes

35.

So here goes one of the world’s bloodiest sports. The first bull races in and right away gets in three good licks to the matador’s body. The killer is down, but his assistants haul him back onto his feet, dust him off and send him back for more. Two more licks and the matador is down and out! I think I’m seeing my first bullfight where the bull wins, but the next killer in line comes out and takes over. This second matador looks to be about seventeen years old. He has little bells sewn down the sides of his pants and flaunts his crotch in a very macho sexual way at the bleeding, tired bull. The bull charges a few times while the killer plays with him before he stabbing the animal to death with the shiny sword he carries concealed behind his cape.

As the defunct bull is being dragged out of the arena by an old horse, the victorious butcher parades around the arena while the enthusiastic crowd throws everything handy to him; shirts, hats, leather wine bottles, (the killer and his assistants cool their throats) scarves and flowers. The matador keeps only one red rose, placing it in his bosom as the crowd goes berserk. The people around me pass me their bottles and soon I am feeling too drunk to care.

After the bullfight I mosey along to the nearby city art museum where an eye freak has hung his huge paintings of eyes—bodiless eyes the size of kitchen tables—floating in space. It is bizarre but since I am sort of an eye freak myself the show suits me. (As I write this, for example, my own eyes register some lovely sunset colors glowing on my diary page.)

...

34. Bull Fight

34.

In the morning I am up early and out walking the city streets.

Here is the Science Museum where I learn that “Columbia has more species of plants and animals than any other country on earth.” There are some wonderful butterflies in their collection and I learn that both A and B Centauri are stars in the ship constellation. (That gives me a “starship” flash!) A Columbian flag which was carried round-trip by the American astronauts visiting the moon is on display along with a replica of the medal bearing good-will greetings from the leaders of 73 countries which was left by the astronauts on the lunar surface.

The planetarium building next door looks a bit like the planet Saturn or maybe a flying saucer.

Continuing my walk, I soon arrive at the modern “Plaza de Toros”. It is almost time for a bullfight to begin so I buy a cheap ticket and go in. My seat is number ten on the sunny side, which is not so bad since the weather is not hot, in fact there is thunder and a light sprinkling of rain. Most of the spectators buy flimsy plastic rain capes from vendors. The people around me are fairly well dressed—the young women wearing “Cosmopolitan Magazine” denims decorated with silver studs, and the usual modish platform-soled shoes. The young men are dressed about the same plus denim jackets and minus the platform shoes. The older people wear Sunday suits and dresses. Most of the people are tan in skin color, stout of build and about five foot four in height.

I feel tension in the crowd. A fistfight breaks out across the arena, but a security check at the entry gate probably stops most of the lethal weapons. There is a lot of drinking from leather wine bottles. Classy, curving, brick and glass high-rise apartments loom over the arena, every balcony overflowing with non-paying bullfight fans with binoculars. The teenager beside me holds his transistor radio under my left ear tuned to broadcast the bullfight commentary so I can enjoy the sport more fully.

“Classic bullfighter” Manolo Parma is the cool-looking dude whose likeness appears on the cover of every patron’s program. The kills of the day are dedicated to him.

Bullfighters are brave as hell and I wouldn’t like to do what they do—but in fact, slowly and painfully murdering a bull for the amusement of a huge crowd does not seem so much an artistic sport to me but more like a sadistic crime. .

...