Ancient Lego

Day 3 in the Bolivian highlands and my breathing is better but there is still the feeling of a small (involuntary) fist in my brain. I joined a minibus tour to the ancient ruins of Tiwanaku with a guide that oozed spite for the group. As a general statement, I'd say that the current inhabitants of this land treated the remains of this forgotten past like bad tenants with white carpets. Or monkeys in an art museum. The government had other issues and the significant discovery for the locals seemed to be that tourists would pay to look at these old rocks.

The culture was ancient, the records were lost and the theories were sketchy. Indeed, many of the walls had been rebuilt since the original stones had previously been used for churches for the new spiritual flavour on the block. That applied to the smaller stones, the larger pillars were too hard to move.



Tiwanaku was the site of a pre-Incan civilisation that had their shit together. Never mind the human disembowling and beheading rituals, these people somehow moved, shaped and arranged stones over 100 tonnes from, at the nearest, a mountain on the horizon with a huge lake inbetween. This place is too high up for trees to grow, so the proposed theory is that reed rafts and clay water slides were used. Icallbullshit! The guide's canned narrative failed to incite wonder. Failed like a gelding in a sack race. (Haha, I'm still laughing at that one.)



A topic that I've weirded out many a conversation with applies here - Artificial Cranial Deformation. The ancient cemetary at this site features skulls squished into coneheads. The technique to shape the cranium requires a commitment (from dedicated others) at an early age. It was a privilege of the ruling class and was also all-the-rage with Egyptian pharaohs. The sparse museum here had a broken example of an alien-imitating head but photos were prohibited. I know there are better examples in Peru.

On the way back from this day tour we stopped at Pumapunku. This site was my main reason for putting Bolivia on the itinerary, though we spent only around 15 minutes. Here lay the shattered and neglected ruins of a remarkable megalithic structure. Blocks of stone were finely cut to interlock in H-shaped patterns. In this way, they fit together like a puzzle without that weak link in the chain - mortar.



The age is speculative, as radio carbon dating can only apply to organic matter. Although only pieces of the precision-cut stonework have been unearthed, it's enough to demonstrate that the technologies demonstated here are far in advance of that shown by the land's Inca successors. There was an archaeological dig taking place at the time, but didn't seem very professional.



On the way back to La Paz, I realised I'd finally acclimatised.

Llama Land

My day at Lima airport isn't worth more than this sentence. I slept all thru the night flight to Bolivia and even my trained food trolley ears didn't wake me up. Landing at El Alto airport, I was still 4000 metres above sea level and could feel it.

Only a few minutes into the taxi ride, we dodged a late night llama and then descended into the canyon through which La Paz is built. The night lights of the city were quite a sight. Here, the poor live along the highlands and the rich at the bottom.



As I found my accommodation I acknowledged a bit of a dehydration problem as I was now in a don't-drink-the-water country, nothing seemed available at this time of night and my last sip was a nation ago. Survival priorities rate shelter before water, so I tried to take comfort in this and slept. In the morning I found bottled water then breakfast, then started exploring.

Because La Paz is built into the sides of mountains it's Stairmaster City. Combine this with a 4km jump in altitude and it didn't take long to feel dizzy and short of breath. This was combined with a feeling in my right temple like I was being haunted by an angry woodpecker. I took regular breaks and decided not to get too ambitious with my exploration on this first day.

I felt safer here among these polite and little Bolivian people. Police and military officers stood on most corners in the city with ready-to-go barricades. I'd looked into the common types of crimes and they were theft (eg. pickpockets) and deception via fake police (also leading to theft). I did see a store where I could buy the full police outfit.

Bolivia day 2, I ate some llama lasange then did a less-commercial city tour with what turned out to be my personal guide, Jorge from Banjo Tours. We walked past the signicant buildings and places that told the story of Bolivia's suppressions and revolutions, and the repeat of this cycle until it became the landlocked nation it is today. Some uprisings have been more recent as evidenced by machine gun hole ventilation.



The tour included the satellite city of El Alto, where a police presence was much more absent. Jorge explained that here the law was governed by the people, with hangings and burnings on the menu of punishments. The scarecrows here detered a different species.



We made our way to the "real" witches market (as opposed to the tourist-themed version in the city below). Now if you have an eye for fashion when it comes to llama fetuses, this is the place to be. Dead llamas galore hung from each store in all manner of contortions. Apparently, the Earth mother just luuurrvves these twisted animal corpses. That seemed like quite a coincidence to me, in that llamas were abundant in this part of the world.

We returned to La Paz to see the infamous St Pedros prison which is run by the prisoners. In the not-so-distant past, an inmate used to offer tours to the public but that was shut down a few years ago after the inevitable. A bit of online research suggested that there was still a way to get in by meeting up at a place in the park across from the jail at a certain time but it sounded dodgy and I wasn't jumping at the opportunity. I later talked to someone who said there was a tear gas heavy police intervention the day before. He had filmed it from the same place I was standing, but an officer had snatched his camera away to delete the footage.



I now had a good idea of how to navigate the city, but pushing thru the altitude effects had turned the volume up on the migrane woodpecker.

The wall less travelled

Here, Brazil nuts are just nuts and street drinking is just drinking. Lapa is the nearby nightlife area, and I walked there one night with some new friends from Organic House Hostel, including the manager, Omar. We bought large capriosas and moved from place to place in a disorganised group of 9, though most drinking was between venues.

The next day I needed to move hostels, but that proved easy with one around the corner. I had considered elsewhere in Rio, but now I was familiar with the buses and subway trains, so Catete made a good base.

At the new hostel I made some enquiries as to where I could watch the live UFC event that night at 1am. It seemed Lapa was the closest place and some Brazilians from the new hostel were keen to come with me. My plan then was to get a meal and rest beforehand, as I had around 20 scheduled hours of activity the next day.

While finishing dinner at a corner shop, a grinning Philipe from my new accommodation came to join me. He ordered a beer and I did also as we talked in broken English. He seemed excited by the UFC and that I was from Australia. A couple of his friends came to join us and I excused myself when I finished my drink to head back to base. He told the owner he'd pay my bill as he ordered more beers and I didn't have the Portuguese to argue otherwise. I left a little unsure if this was a generosity to appreciate or a 'no free lunch' deal. Back at my dorm I discovered that a tall, leggy Brazilian girl was to be in the bunk above mine. Things could be worse.

An hour or so later, the group to head into Lapa was ready. There were 8 of us, including the model for mini shorts. Most were just planning a night out. Philipe was getting transformatively drunk and leaning on everyone he talked to. I suspected a "here we go again" vibe from his two friends and by the time we got to Lapa they were fine to leave the drunken extrovert with me and head to the nightclubs. I was unable to convince Philipe that leaving me alone is not a tragedy as I took up a position in front of a screen showing the event that had already begun.



There was a crowd of keen UFC viewers including me, and then there was the intoxicated liability next to me, reaching out for girls as they passed. Style-points were not awarded.

He was excited to have an Australian "friend" but was treating the situation like an unsupervised toddler with a pet koala. He wanted to reenact some moves he saw onscreen and when he grabbed the back of my neck I put him in a wristlock and explained that that shit wasn't going to fly. In hindsight, I missed an opportune moment to use a Portuguese line I'd learned "Vai se foder" (go fuck yourself). Instead I just made sure I communicated with the universal language of pain. Transmission received.

A little after that he disappeared for a bit to piss/spew and/or get another drink, but like a nasty rash he came back. At least now he either understood that I was going to watch the main event without further pestering or he had to devote more attention to holding himself up with environmental assistance. When the fight ended, I turned to see him on the other side of the busy road, sitting on a kerb with his head between his knees and looking a bit wobbly.

My first thought was that this would make an easy exit, but then I reconsidered knowing that this was the type of area with street prostitutes and hungry homeless just a few blocks away. He wasn't an enemy, just a dick that tried too hard to buy friends.

I went over and told him he needed food, "agua" and to togetherize his shit. I then made my way back to the hostel as he planned to find the others.

Lightly sleeping with one eye half open I noticed that a grinning Philipe entered the room. I was in somewhat disbelief (say, a bleary-eyed 5am version of disbelief) at this guy's pathalogical persistence as he jumped in the bunk above. He had somehow organised to change dorms and swap beds with Hottie Legsalot. Stalker alert!

Around 8am, I woke and steathily got my gear ready for a climb of Sugarloaf Mountain. This was with Omar and a handful of others from the previous hostel. The presence of a big rope indicated that this was going to be a literal climb away from the general public method of steps and cable car.



This was definitely a highlight of Rio for me and the view from such a high vantage point on the ocean just kept getting better.



Mini monkeys shared the mountain. We caught the cable car back down.



That took most of the day and we stopped for a meal on the way back. I had time for a quick shower back at the hostel ("don't be there, don't be there, don't be there, yes!") before navigating the 90 minute bus ride to Cidade de Rock.

My arrival at Rock in Rio 2013's last day was in time for Slayer. I was very far from the stage and there wasn't much of a way to advance through the chanting horde, but I knew there would be opportunities when the chaos began.

After a wait the stage lights changed and Slayer's intro was heard. Go!

I made good progress forwards. Then I started making great progress forwards and realised it wasn't all my own doing. I was in a rip tide 20 people wide that swarmed to the front.

This was improving my position but there wasn't much say I had in the matter. Like waves smashing on rocks we compressed as far as we could. Any movement now was up to the flow of the tide. In random directions the crowd surged - torsos first, then legs catching up. I recalled, "that's right - people do die at these things". It would have been a mass trampling, if only there was a space to fall down. Any gaps to trip into were likely death traps. The temperature shot up significantly from crushed human friction. I acknowledged that the situation required full attention to survival and none to the stage. Not ideal. But I was a veteran of this - surely others must be suffering more than me. It was then I noticed the first unconscious bodies being passed overhead to the front barricade. Some people near me started freaking out, shouting something I probably wouldn't understand if I could hear. It was time for a tactical retreat. I was 10 squished humans from the front and there was a tighly packed wall of literal thousands behind me. This was going to be tricky.

At first I just followed a convoy of meat grinder refugees that were snaking their way back to a safer area. That was going well until - shit! - another rip tide of fresh recruits caught me up in their charge. I lost valuable metres of escape before I could swim to the side. The convoy was scattered.

It was time to improvise. I slipped through what gaps I could and then when the wall was about to push me back I created an angle on a forward shoulder and rotisserized. It worked better than expected as I not only swapped positions but created some momentum to my exit. I also caught a ride in several mosh circles (NASA scientists would call this a 'gravitational assist maneuver' when launching space probes). It took some time, but I found my way to the front of the mixing desk. An excellent spot. From here I enjoyed the rest of the set.

Iron Maiden were the headline and they delivered an inspired show. Brazilians are mental for Maiden, but that Slayer crowd was something else.



My last day in Rio, I visited Ipanema with a Norwegian musician and another guy from "Meh-he-co". The weather threatened a thunderstorm and just as we arrived a dolphin beached itself. If it took any joy from being tagged on facebook, then that would have been well catered for by the number of people who's prime response was to stick a smart phone in its face. A few seemed to know what they were doing and around 25 min later it was rushed away by some official-looking people.

At 3.30am this morning I left my hostel to the airport. The taxi passed an organised soccer game with uniformed teams, which was interesting to see at that hour. I've now flown across the continent to Lima airport while I wait for my 10pm flight back inland to Bolivia. It's time to switch languages again and test my Spanish skills. I finally get to say...

Hasta la vista.

Too much security

For a change of pace, the main activity today was inactivity, and the setting was in a beach chair at Copacabana. This was with 3 people from my hostel as we took turns waving off the endless supply of hawkers selling everything from prawn kebabs (a highly questionable choice after they'd been paraded up and down the 30 degree beach) to large wooden figurines (floaties?). The beach wasn't as crowded as expected, so there were only a few iconic bikini bodies and their budgie-smuggling couterparts.

I arrived in Rio de Janeiro a couple of days ago like a combat ready paratrooper trying to create mitigation strategies for 100 ugly scenarios. I knew it was paranoia-fuelled, partly due to the language barrier (the last airline and airport taxi only seemed to be accepting grammatically correct Portuguese), but better to err on the side of caution until I got my bearings. The sun was being snuffed and I was out of the taxi on the street of my unsigned hostel. The numbers indicated that I enter a gate to a very long laneway and it was at this point I was regretting not doing some prior Google streetmaps voyerism. A guy walked through and I followed a few steps behind. Ahead, 3 men spilt into the lane (code red!), walking towards. I was carrying all my gear on high alert and made the decision to be explosively uncooperative unless they presented a weapon. A hand reached out and stopped the person ahead and I took a sudden sidestep to get one of the 3 in front of the others. It was then I saw the look of suprise on the middle guy's face as he was about to greet a friend. Ease down Ripley. The hostel was uneventfully at the end of the lane (still with no sign).

I've got my twitch under control since then which allows me to enjoy this place. I don't plan on losing it completely though. A German couple I've been talking to were recently daylight mugged in Chile via knife threat and rock to the head.

That first night in Rio i discovered a downside to my literal last minute packing. I put some cash in my pocket and the rest of my gear in a locker then followed some directions to food (the urge to ninja shadow jump was holstered). It was when I returned that I was bestowed with a nugget of wisdom that - Having a lock and the key that fits isn't enough. The key needs to be able to actually open the lock. It wasn't a golden nugget.



Last night, Rock in Rio was headlined by the consistently great Metallica. The festival had a few differences to others I'm familiar with. Firstly, the sea of people was spastically massive. A huge flying fox spanned 4 cables over the crowd with an endless supply of targets for the flashing LED wrist bands that seem to have been given out in abundance. Weaving through the crowds were people selling water and beer (via keg backpacks), an excellent alternative to waiting in lines. Sepultura in Brazil is an experience to itself. They began with fireworks over the crowd. These were worksake-be-damned shrapnel-in-your-face fireworks followed by an atmospheric tribal drumming group. I was with with a few people I'd just met, including a guy and his first-metal-gig son, Vitor. We'd taken up a somewhat conservative position. Chaos AD led to a whirlwind of humans with the edge a few metres ahead. That was a storm worth flying into. I looked at the group for anyone on the same page. Vitor just needed someone to say the word, although all it took was a sideways head nod and minutes later we'd progressed much deeper towards the frontlines. Fun indeed.

Getting back to base via a disorganised post-event bus system took until 5am. I'm going to plan more beach rehab after my next and last "Hock in Hio" day/night on Sunday.

How wet can a passport get

If there is some universal law of balance, then the awe of natural wonders is offset by hordes of tourists that visit them.

Iguassu Falls is a network of waterfalls in a 3km wide arc on the border of Brazil and Argentina. That = Big. Although Niagra gets more press, it's like the difference between an Ewok and a Wookie.



While walking the path along its edge, the thundering roar of water is constant. The closer you get, the wetter. While taking measures to keep my phone dry, I seemed to forget that other items in my pockets were made of paper. The walkway ends with an optional platform that spans out over the "Devil's Mouth" where a perpetual mist makes it more of an experience than a photo op. Very impressive, although complete saturation and cold conditions enforced an appreciation time limit.



I visited a bird sanctuary where I enjoyed the exclusive privelage of being swooped by toucans and macaws. Luckily they didn't have the kamikaze attitude of magpies nor the bombing payload of tartare-filled seaguls. Perhaps my recent neglect of shaving makes my bald head look like a nest.



Tomorrow morning I'll explore the falls some more if the rain subsides, and then midday I fly to the warmer climate of Rio.

A familiar chaos

After a 10hr delay at Buenos Aires airport, I arrived at my first intended destination - Sao Paulo, Brazil. I was picked up by Cian (an accomplice from Hypercenter infamy) who drove me thru hectic traffic where more than one driver seemed to be in a playstation simulation. Along the way he filled me in on the latest crime trends. Some of the methods were cunningly ingenious and most were backed by the threat of new bodily holes. We passed some decrepid slums, including houses made from trash to a nicer part of town where he lived with his family. This is where I'd be staying for the next few days. Each house is fronted by a big fuck-off gate and neighbourhood watch is a paid off vigilante.



Jetlag only had little teeth, so we caught a train downtown were I got to sharpen some neglected Portuguese (under supervision). Now it would seem from the previously informed paranoia, that we'd be less likely candidates for Darwinism, but not so. While looking for a bar which was a murder scene from 2 days ago (maybe I did have jetlag) we found ourselves climbing stationary esculators in a building where we were the only gringos among a staring black neighbourhood. More than one store here had a sign with "Niggaz" in big print, but the mood wasn't right to pull out my phone camera. At a mutual point of realisation, our conversation stopped (the conversations of others had already stopped) and we hastily backtracked to daylight.

My time at Cian's was useful for learning the language from his daughter who used effective teaching techniques such repetition and emotional engagement. She later told me that i was her best amigo.

From Cian I was keen to gain some insight into his manic productivity in writing several books since the start of the year. The best I can summarise is that on the shoulders of a father's heightened protective instincts sat aggressive misanthropia.

Brazilian bbq is delicious.



It was good to walk the 3 dogs around the streets and we even found some grasslands where they could run free until a local urgently advised that it was infested with poisonous snakes.

I have now flown to Iguassu where I'm about to check out the falls.

It's mostly gravy...

Ready or not, the journey to the other side of the planet begins. I've learnt a few hundred Spanish words with caveman-level proficiency. The phrase that comes easiest is "Mi aerodeslizador es lleno de anguilas" although it may be tricky to weave "My hovercraft is full of eels" into conversation. I still can't count to 10 without prompting though. These are the virtues and pitfalls of being self taught.


It was just minutes before heading to the airport that i first tried to squish my selection of items into my backpack. This rushed and haphazard approach meant that half the boxes of gravox had to be jettisoned, but it is probably a good thing that less packaged powder to shows up on the xray scanners.

The next 20+ hours I'll be doing rubix yoga as i try to solve the puzzle of how to sleep in chairs.