Latin America Diaries Read Online Free PDF Page A

laborers had our tongues on the ground by the time we arrived.
    At Puno I had a hell of a fight with customs, because they took a Bolivian book from me, claiming it was “red.” There was no persuading them that these were scientific publications.
    Of my future life I can tell you nothing, because I know nothing, not even how things will go in Venezuela. But we have now got the visa through an intermediary […]. As to the more distant future, I can say I haven’t changed my mind about the US$10,000, and that I may do another trip through Latin America, only this time in a North-South direction with Alberto, and this might be by helicopter. Then Europe and then who knows. […]
    In these days of waiting we have exhausted Cuzco’s supply of churches and interesting monuments. Again my head is full of a motet of altars, large paintings and pulpits. The simple serenity of the pulpit in the Church of San Francisco was impressive, its sobriety contrasting with the grandiosity of nearly all the colonial buildings here.
    Belén certainly has nice towers, but the brilliant white of the two bell towers here is stunning, set off by the dark colors of the old nave.
    My little Inca statue—her new name is Martha—is authentic, and made of tunyana , the Incan alloy. One of the museum staffconfirmed this. It’s a pity the vessel fragments seem bizarre to us, considering they represent that former civilization. We have been eating better since the payment.
    Machu-Picchu does not disappoint; I don’t know how many times I can go on admiring it. Those gray clouds and purple-colored peaks, against which the gray ruins stand out, are one of the most marvelous sights I can imagine.
    Don Soto received us very well and then only charged us half the cost of our accommodation. But despite Calica’s enthusiasm for this place, I’m forever missing Alberto’s company. Especially here in Machu-Picchu, I’m always remembering how well our characters complemented each other.
    We’re back in Cuzco to take a look at a church and wait for a truck to leave. One by one our hopes are dismantled, as the days pass and the pesos and sols dwindle. We had already found a truck, just what we needed, when, with all the bags loaded, there was a huge row over two pounds in weight we honestly did not have. If we had been willing to compromise, we might have come to a deal, but as it was we were stranded until the next day, Saturday. Our first calculation suggests it would have cost us 40 sols more than the bus.
    Here in Cuzco we met a spirit medium. It happened like this: In a conversation with the Argentine woman and Pacheco, the Peruvian engineer, the talk turned to spiritualism. We had to suppress our laughter, putting on serious faces, and the next day they took us to meet him. The guy pronounced he could see some strange lights within us—the green light of sympathy and that of egoism in Calica, and the dark green of adaptability within me. He then asked me if something was wrong with my stomach, as my radiations were fading, which left me thinking as my stomach was definitely churning from the Peruvian peas and all the tinned food. A pity I wasn’t able to have a proper session with him.
    Now we have left Cuzco behind us and after an endlessthree-day bus journey we reached Lima. For the entire trip from Abancoy, the road followed the ever-narrowing ravine of the Apurimac river. We washed in a small pool barely deep enough to cover us, and the cold was so intense that for me it was no fun.
    The journey became interminable. The chickens shat all over the place beneath our seats, and the smell of duck was so unbearably thick you could cut it with a knife. A few punctures dragged the journey out even further, and when we finally reached Lima we slept like logs in a small dive of a hotel.
    On the bus we met a French explorer who had been sailing on the Apurimac River when his boat sunk and the current