Chachapoyas, Peru

i feel like i belong as i trudge the muddy street in the soft sifting rain, my little body disguised in a thick boxy wool poncho.with my form shifting, i feel my movement is just the way i see the walk of the locals. all i´m missing is a pair of muddy rubber boots and a long black ponytail.
this morning i woke 10 minutes before my alarm was to go off, at 5:30. got a knock at my door at 5 to 6. i was in the bathroom. ¨un momento!¨ ¨para kuelap¨.
i paid for a tour to the kuelap ruins the day before, supposedly the runner up in ruins of s.a. to machu pichu, which i might not visit. in fact i´m leaning towards a no.
my group consisted of only 2 others, a friendly peruvian couple from lima. i felt alive and awake in the dawning blue, cool air as i stood at the side of the taxi waiting for them to arrive. the drive was about 2 and a half hours i think. we stopped for a breakfast of dry buns, cheese and coffee in the town 20 minutes from the ruins.
it comes to my attention now and then the way it seems i´ve been travelling in some kind of bubble that repels other backpackers. and it seems a little odd to me, that most of the people i meet are local, even in the most touristed, gringo frequented places. i suppose i sort of feel special that my path has been crossing those of these people, that it is much more interesting.
it seems like so long ago since i was expressing )or trying, that is) things like my feelings, perceptions, my relationship with my self, with my world. perhaps this is for the better.i think that being emersed in a new language is becoming a very good lesson in communication for me. i even think, partly, the reason i have been feeling good, is because that frustration that i have always felt, of not being able to express through language what i felt i so urgently needed to, has been relieved .
i have so much space now to let grow and gestate those things which require time to bloom.
by the way, the cheese here is absolutely awful. it´s like this white, supersalty moist spongy substance that, if one weren´t aware that it was cheese, they would never guess it. sandwhiches are also disappointing to say the least. a sandwhich at a typical cafe might mean a bun with a slab of cheese and nothing more. mayo, mustard, forget it. anyway
the drive felt good. this is a new thing for me. hence i stress this word. life,like the beingalive part, actually feels good. its as though the skin of my body, what divides my internal to the external and interprets it, is happy and dancing.
i have been discovering that i understand so much more of the language when i dont attach myself to it. when i´m not straining my mind by trying to grasp each individual word. when instead, i observe it from a sort of distance, and just listen, instead of translate. and i think this morning, because i was so alert, and unusually so at such an early hour, and connected to myself, i found myself surprised and delighted at how well i was understanding the conversation passing back and forth from the backseat to our driver.
we were met by our guide at the site. a shining young boy who seemed remarkably articulate for his age. the ruins were truly spectacular. behind the fortress, the remains were mainly the crumbling foundations of the different structures, what had once been homes, meeting places. ancient stone pathways eroding away in pristine cloud florest, overlooking a breathtaking mistfilled valley. while we stood at the edge of the fortress when we first ascended the structure, i noticed the icey looking dew on one of the plants, like someone had bejewelled each leaf in an array of crystals. when the boy noticed my gaze he ripped off one of the leafs, revealing a white substance goozing out the raw vein. glue! he spread a dab in his palm, folding over his finger, snapping hand like a crab claw, to demonstrate it´s stickiness. incredible! i think. at another point he picked some green herb clusters that had a lemony scent, placing one in each of our hands, and told us it could be used as tea leaves. this ones good for the cold, he said. it is rainy season in the mountains now, and it is chilly cloudy skies, but it only rained very lightly while we were there. and i was so glad i decided to go with a guided tour, because not only did it make transport a hell of a lot easier, but i actually learned some interesting things, and the couple were genuinely interested and asked a lot of questions, so that was helpful.
in chiclayo i bought a little point and shoot camera, because my digital camera, that i debated buying to the point of exhaustion before i left )its always those stupid little decisions that make me crazy) is now broken. this is completely my fault for neglecting it, not having proper case for it, and it having been banged around countless times in my bag as i´d toss it into the sand to rest my head on while on the coast in ecuador. i´ve never handled such a simple camera as this, it almost feels like a priviledge. i´m a little doubtful of the quality, but i´ll find out soon enough if it´s worth purchasing another digital.
on the way back we stopped for lunch at the same basic restaurant we had breakfast at earlier. each one of us had a tea, and in our mugs we put in the leaves from the ruins to soak in the hot water. i wondered if it would make me feel like a powerful inca warrior
i am finding it difficult to form sentences at this time, though i wanted to write more.
i have a good feeling about this country, and i am looking forward to being further south, where there is so much more to explore, and people to meet.

dear cynthia

awoke to a new day. felt like a free day, the way the sun shines a certain way, when i dont have to go to work. i can roll and stretch and kick the blankets off the bed. get up, the sound of a my body on bare feet, shifting weight creaking floors. dizzy moment of good morning blinded by sunlight in our bare kitchen window. we never did buy curtains for it. glinting green of fruit bowl and my rotting pear. hairy couch mis-strewn blanket and cluttered coffeetable of the kensington flea market remember your tiny fingers pulling the bill from your wallet your cds iggypopdevils face loosening spinesof rolling stones books dusty covers my tea bags always forgetting them chai spice soaked through rippedopen packets and attached to surfaces forming brownsticky patterns of india through the night. running tap water, minutes before its cold. stroke sylvans back as she jumps up, whiskers shedding hair damp nose glittering eyes voicecode of cataffectionate language coos. sticks her tongue under the running water, slapping breaking up the stream like a drill. pick up a dirty glass from the counter, there never were clean ones the day after they got washed. the ugly fraying carpet and dirty painted white floors. rice grains and some lostspaghetti stiff and dry litter hidden corners. i swept once.

fill the glass, turn off the tap. gulp it down with one hand gripping the counter swirls of faded retro orange, sylvan jumps thump scampers away. i miss that cat. back into bed, i can lay my head at the other end, next to the window. and let my feet climb the sloping ceiling my hand slap against the wall and touch eggshell paint sigh fingers gingerly tracing the window sill flop. and feel the silent motion of all things illuminated. my chest rising and falling, snowflakes of light of skin. vibration between my lips, hum a line sigh. free day. look. sometimes i would see all the things like they were alive, the air space like god particles vibrating open pores of my physical senses and searching no response.

probably, my favorite thing in this whole world.

is light.

and the way i remember our house, my home for those 6 months, is in all the different forms it took in different light, shifting scenes, in varying forms lamplight and sunlight. all your different vintage lamps, the moodsemotions felt. what conversations we had moodemotions displayed on face and soulspirit in your eyes.your twisting hand on lens when it felt right and looked good.



today my free day, perhaps it feels so because i´ve really got no home. wonder why then, every other day it feels like i´ve got stuff i´m obligated to do, things to be found, mind to be mastered. my backpack is being stored in a dark room locked with a key and i am floating around town. my bus leaves at 730. 10 and a half hours overnight to chachapoyas. into the highlands.

celebrated myself last night, sure, at least those were my intentions. the cake was dry crumbling black from a box. thick icing licked off my fingertips. she didnt include a fork. more and more made me stomach feel bad. cheap wine that cost me oh, around the equivalent of 3 dollars i think. watched some fireworks being set off somewhere on balta probably, past the plaza. sizzling red and gold. lingering smoke hanging in the air at the finale. ghost stuck in the sky wanting to see more of this life before it all gets blown away. in quito jackie taught me how to say i´m learning to love myself. never did have to use that phrase, forgotten it now. later i found a better way to express what i felt. i figured out how to say i´m scared. translated exactly its i have fear. same with hunger, in spanish, you´re not hungry. you have hunger. so i´ve learned that to love myself means to love the fact that i am, really, nothing more. and every moment i am awake i can love. intuition, it always seemed, was that ´thing´i was missing, that link to the external world. but now i´m beginning to think, that for me, intuition is being able to sense different directions within my mind. knowing which attitudes lead where. the roads are all becoming better defined. i can feel my way through the maze to find the light, the perspective of love.

i

am

being experiencing being.

its incredible, the mind.
and so is this journey.

Chiclayo, Peru

tonight i will celebrate
my hands
the points in my palms
that tickle with heat
together as in prayer, i connect the circuit
wow, paul said. his hand, my hand, in the yellowyellow light
the gold, the light, the glow all around it
my things all packed up in boxes
wow
what do you feel?
like heat in my body, crackling skin of body rising, falling, heartbeat connected
to my breathe that connects
to spirit

heat
of my palms

electricity

tonight i will celebrate
my heart
my centre
the connector
the conductor
interpreter


my heart, my centre,
a box of wine
and a piece of chocolate cake
you are
amazing

Huanchaco, Peru

ahhh, back at the beach. the beach towns have always got a good vibe. that is, una buena onda! unfortunately, the highway separates the beach from the town, and the zooming traffic and horn-enthusiastic taxidrivers sort of robs it from a potentially intimate feel, but i think this will be a good place for me to be the next few days to sort of get back in check. i´ve just been feeling so low on energy these past few days, and it´s as though my mind is on speed. in moments i realize it and i say to myself, shhhhh but my attempts to relax myself are met with resilience and difficulty. perhaps it is all these words in my head draining me of my energy.

i arrived yesterday. at the bus terminal in trujillo i had a good selection of taxi drivers to choose from, lingering around the entrance with hopeful eyes. i went with my drivers recommendation of hotel on the way here instead of diving into my backpack and frantically flipping through my book to find the page of hotels for huanchaco while in the back seat.
first thing i did after i unloaded my pack and filled out all the usual obligatory info at the desk, (i have my passport number memorized now) and recieved my key, i walked along the long curve of the beach stip. i noticed a small bohemian looking circle of people on the beach, (it´s kind of strange how even from such a distance my peripheral vision detects a silouette of cascading dreadlocks) a minute later one of the bodies rises and i recognize gasparin as he jogs toward me. i let out an excited laugh and threw my arms around his neck, mucking up the kiss he was trying to politely plant on my cheek. gasparin, a darkskinned native of bolivia whom i met in montanita, with a smattering of faded tattoes, and a beautiful head of long black dreads. his eyes are benevolent and inquisitive, but there were times i saw them glazed over and distant. the vacant look that tells when someone is no longer really there, lost to an excess of alcohol or drugs. and that is when, i learned, it is best to stay away from a man.

he invited me to join the circle of boys for a smoke, and i obliged, still sort of floating from the coincedence. i recognized another of the boys from montanita as well. the boy i was facing was beautiful. tall, lean, brown, long thick dreadlocks pulled back into a fountain on top of his head. he spoke with so much energy, rising onto his knees, his longsleeved woven shirt rippling against his body as gusts of wind ripped through the beach.
at the speed at which the people often speak at with each other, it´s rare that i really get anything unless being directly spoken to. when i had anticipated this fact back at home, my thoughts were that it would be a good opportunity for me to develop my less obvious senses, to become sensitive enough to understand someone not by their words but by how they feel to me. but, well, it hasn´t exactly been that way. so i laugh when i think someone is saying something humorous, but it is sincere! who says i need to understand the joke to laugh at it? but sometimes i think i get it wrong. and they probably wonder...i know i shouldn´t be but i feel embarassed that i dont understand so many things. and that i still can´t speak as intelligently as i wish. this makes me shy to speak and communicate, and i realize that i would get a lot more out of those oportunities, and have more fun with them, if i could be more bold..i´m working on it..

i don´t know how it is possible for them to smoke the amounts of pot that they do. it is unfathomable to me. hooting with hand banging at the bowl like an indian call, sucking it in short breaths, smoke puffing out the sides of the mouth, and the moment where the pipe leaves the mouth and they can´t speak, holding it all in. and then the lungs protest, you can hear them expanding, as the chest juts out and the throat lurches, and a little cough. smoke leaks out the nostrils. then the big one, followed by a few applauses of its own, and the smoke all tumbles away.
we watched the sun go down on the rocks overlooking the beach. every color was vivid as i tried to relax myself. the wind was strong. while birds floated past the sun, the clouds were completely illuminated, parting and shifting forever slowly, in hues of gold and pink and violet. the sun cast a stream of gold running all the way from the edge of the horizon to the edge of the sea, where waves were folding themselves over into fringes of foam, licking the beach, and coating the blinding gold light with soft shimmering glass. and the boys on the rocks joke and banter in strange language.
and i try to see god.

this has been taking up alot of space in my thoughts recently. mainly thinking of how i would respond to an email i got from my grandpa the other day.
based on what i share here, he wrote to me, ¨it seems to us you are searching for God. Or maybe you are running away from God. Paradoxically, the two attitudes seem to get mixed up with each other for a lot of people.¨
and i have been tossing and turning over this, because i do have a concept of god that i want to express. but in trying to articulate these things i seem to run into paradox after paradox, leaving me exhausted. i feel it is impossible in this form. and if i follow my intuition, i can feel that it is not necessary, and unimportant, to define my beliefs.
but i could respond with this: i am the expression of god. what i seek is awareness.

so if i say, ¨and i try to see god¨, does that mean i am looking for god? well i suppose it would have to, but not in the religous context i percieved coming from my grandfather. (and then i get confused thinking, but do we not speak of the same god? what difference does it make?). so for me to say ¨and i try to see god¨ it is the same as if i were to say, i try to become aware.
so is god awareness? i think maybe in a sense yes and in another no.

my dreams have been obscured, dark, and choppy. the symbols i sense do not seem to be of myself, images i cannot interpret. but usually there is at least one thing that is vivid to me when i wake up, like a color, or a shape, or a number. and in the past week or so i have had many death themed dreams. first i had a few dreams where there would be a woman who looked alive, was talking, moving around, whatever. but then they´d tell me that they were actually dead. then i dreamt the same thing happening to me. i realized that i was, somehow, at the same time, conscious, and dead at the same time. the other night, i dreamt that my parents told me that i was going to die of a brain hemorrage. they kept saying, the doctor said. you wont live past january. and i thought, but how could it be possible? i´m going to live for a long time! i´m travelling! but i believed my parents. and i began thinking about what it would feel like as i was slipping into death. last night i dreamt of walking skeletons. one had grass it´s mouth
and so i have, because of these dreams, brought my mortality to mind. someday...maybe even before february...i will die. we all learn that we are going to die someday at a young age. but i have never been able to think about it as more of an accepted fact. so maybe now, to contemlate this, is sort of a step forward in my path to awareness. because it forces a decision before me, to look at the way i want to experience life. why would i want to experience life preoccupied with what is temporary?
but these questions have only just arose.

i did go to that museum. i saw many things in class cases, and got a headache from translating all those big words into english. i saw the remains of the skeleton of the lord of sipan. and it was mildly interesting. but what i liked best, was the small mural representing the religion of that ancient civilation. there were three worlds. at the top, heaven was the stars, the cosmos, ruled by a giant serpent god. in the middle, life, with people carrying out their everyday tasks. weaving, carrying jugs of water, etc.. on the bottom was the underworld. not hell. but a place where the ancestors lived. portrayed as warped, almost animal looking humans.
there were many gods of their culture. these dieties were shaped into their pottery. there was a crabmangod, octopusmangod, iguanamangod, fishmangod and many more. each ruled a different part of the world.
these things are interesting to me.
if i were to paint a mural to portray the universe, how would i paint god, or the afterlife?
i wouldnt separate it from the earth.

now i must go in search of a meal, which shouldnt be difficult. there are about 40 seafood restaurants to choose from. sorry if i´m not responding to emails quickly, it takes me so long to write my entries, and then i get tired of the keyboard.

Lambeyque, Peru

so the next day i did end up taking a car to the next city, squished door to door with people, where i was able to catch a bus right away to piura. my first impression of it was, chaos. am i in china? the road is clogged with rumbling mototaxis (which are like motorcycles with a carriage attached to the back) and yellow taxi cabs, black bus fumes, and so so many people. honestly, its only every fifth car you see on the street that isnt a taxi.
this part of peru and i think most of the coast? is desert, so i had not seen anything quite like this in ecuador.
i only spent a night in piura, since its more of a transportation centre than a place with anything of interest, and yesterday arrived in chiclayo. my impression of chiclayo, judging from my balcony view, was, wow. ive never seen so much brick. but the big bubbling towers of the several colonial churches and cathedrals give it some character.
i am relieved to be sleeping in noninfested bed sheets in a room with a bathroom. (though no toilet paper leaves me regretting i didnt listen to the advice in the book to bring my own) and no towel means when i do shower (which is usually only a few times a week) i am drying myself off with a dress i bought in otavalo, which because of its fabric, actually works as a pretty adequate method for this purpose. but i wont be spending too much time here.

my life feels like a revolving door of restaurants and hotels
was this what i had envisioned? how could it be different? i think of eva. if she were here, now. what would she be doing? it would have to be different, i thought. this is the way my life goes. i sit on a bench in a park and what passes is only reflections of myself. an old slow moving man with a rattling cane in his hand lowers himself next to me. we are inches apart, but i am someplace else. eva. if she sat down here, i thought, birds would swoop down from heaven with a song, voices of trees would ecco her presence, she would be guided by a force that seems to allude me.
i suppose i have not yet found my way to travel. i try doing things i think im supposed to, but usually, i think, these activities only serve as a temporary illusion to enrich my experience.
for example, there are several very important museums and sites surrounding chiclayo.
so today i felt i was finally doing something i was supposed to be doing. i was proud of myself for setting an alarm and not sleeping in. i even thought to bring my dictionary with me so that i could translate some of the information at the museum. i wrote down the intersection where i would have to arrive to by taxi, and from there take a van 20 minutes to lambayeque, where i am now, to the famous museum.
there are tons of these vans that serve as shared taxis for short destinations outside the city. and they get packed . children piled on top of one another and an elbow jabbing into the sensitive spot on my arm made for kind of an awkward ride. when we arrived here i was confused, and later felt really dumb, for thinking that lambayeque was just the name of the archaeological site. its actually the name of the city, so i ended up missing the stop where i should have gotten off to see the museum, thinking maybe the site lay ahead of the city a bit. but later the lady asked me where i was going and let me off after the van looped all the way around back to the main road.

well, of course, the museum was closed because its a monday. and i knew this but i thought today was tuesday! so im thinking, maybe im just not cut out for this kind of thing. it never seems to work out when i make efforts to do these kinds of things.
am i really interested in seeing the reconstructed tomb of some famous dead guy? and viewing all the treasures that were unearthed during the discovery in glass cases? i dont know. i dont know if these things interest me.

i think what i am looking for in my travels is something sort of in between the predictable well worn tourist path, and the hours spent in solitude in musty hotel rooms, reading, thinking, writing. listening to my breathe. the fact is, i dont want to be a tourist. i still havent gotten used to all the staring. it still makes me self conscious sometimes. i dont like the label i carry here. my skin is white, and i have money. and because of this i am treated differently. even in montanita, within the circle of people i was hanging around with, i felt like they expected me to buy their jewellery, to pay for the case of beer, etc. because im foreign, and i have money. i understood this but it bugged me. i get honked at by every taxi driver that spots me, hey senorita, taxi! taxi! ughh i dont need a taxi. tour guides on the sidewalk proffering tours and thrusting out pamphlets to me as i stroll by. a woman asks me to fill out a survey titled : what is your favorite hotel in cuenca? while resting in the park. i felt annoyed.
but what can i expect? i know, i know.
so what do i really want to do here?
i think i imagined myself expanding my mind and discovering the culture and its history through relationship. by meeting local people, with stories, passionate about the literature, art, and past of the country. i imagined myself in a dark quiet bar, sipping on a beer, seated at a big wooden table, listening intently to a man who tells me how these things have shaped the psyche of the people. i imagined myself listening to performances of the andino folklorica, dancing and clapping my hands to the beat of the drum. i imagined myself in the homes of the people, being tucked in to bed by a fat latino grandmother, a part of the family. and i saw myself feeling at home somewhere, maybe working a bit in a restaurant, in a small town where i felt energized, where i would meet many people travelling with similar mentalities and intentions as my own, or ones that i could perhaps learn from.
its kind of funny to me though, the way im sort of aware that i often get two things mixed up. what it is i really want to do and what it is everyone else does.


it has been 2 months now.
i feel strong, and since the ceremony in saraguro, i have felt positive, but still attentive to my shifting states of mind and mood. i am not expectant of anything. but there is, as there always has been, even at the lowest points in my life, a sense of optimism that swirls deep in my soul. behind everything, there has always been a knowing of all things.
i will find happiness, truth, and purpose. these things will not be denied me. in a sense, all of my dreams are becoming and will become true. but it is up to me to see this, and not foolishly chase after what is already present in my life.
its difficult to see this knowing, as it is invisible and often only detectable after it has been filtered through the gates of the conscious mind, but i can feel it. and it is difficult to see which beliefs, which while may be rooted in this eternal knowing, have been distorted at the surface, at eye level, by limited vision.
sometimes my mind frantically jumps around, thinking something is missing in this moment. it lunges forward, thinking the answer lies ahead of me in time. but i sense this and i try to bring it all together into one point that is now. whatever i become, whatever i want to become, i already am now. whatever i wish to happen in my life, is already happening now.

and sometimes i know i believe that. and sometimes i feel like i dont.

suyo, peru

i am going to start titling my blogs with my location, how about that.
well, today i find myself in an unpleasant situation, in a tiny muddy town just past the border of ecuador and into peru. woohoo peru!
i found out i could buy a ticket in loja, ecuador, from a bus company that runs internationally, into Piura, Peru. an 8 hour journey, i read, and the bus will wait for me at the border while i take care of border formalities, and then continues on. easy! well, turns out i couldn´t have picked a worse route for my journey into peru.
when we stopped in macara, the closest town to the border, the driver informed me first, that it would be about a 15 minute wait there, i could go to the bathroom, get something to eat, whatever. 5 minutes later he turns off the engine and tells me that we can´t go any further. it was hard to understand him, it took several tries for him before i got it. there was some kind of protest happening and no buses were allowed to pass through. he fished in his pocket to return the 3 dollars as refund for my ticket, and walked off. so i was totally confused, and had no idea what i was supposed to do. no one seemed the least bit interested in helping me out. i had to poke around, finally another man lingering around the dusty bus told me i could take a truck to the border, from the park. so i found a ride right away for a dollar, and then PERU on a big wooden sign painted as the flag, came into view. the border guy was a total jerk, i waited for a family ahead of me to fill out their paperwork, ´hey you´ he said, in english, in an ugly spanish accent. i´ve gotten used to the whistling, that´s how everyone gets each other attention here, but hey you, that´s just rude. so i took care of things there, than walked across the bridge to peru. it was hot my clothes sticky with sweat. i wiped the sweat dripping from my upper lip on my sleeve as the peruvian border guard inspected my face with my passport photo in his hands. i took my glasses off and smiled. i thought they´d at least look in my bags or something, but it was all very straightforward and easy. easy except for being totally confused about what to do next. it was like no one knew what was going on with the buses. i was able to change my american cash into soles with a lady that ran one of the ´restaurants´on the highway, where i also had some lunch. a big blue tarp hung over some table and chairs on one side, and a mishmash of big metal pots and containers and a grill cluttered the other half. when there were no other free tables, a nice older couple sat with me at mine. the man warned me not to trust anyone in peru, that there are bad people, and to keep my money hidden. he also explained the situation slightly better. the protest isn´t dangerous, it´s over a water privatization issue. i´m thinking, water-buses. what do they have to do with each other.
i got another ride in a car with a family to suyo, the closest town on the peruvian side. i guess when this happens there are usually plenty of cars or trucks running to and from places where buses aren´t running. they´ll wait at the side of the road and shout out their destination until someone hops in. i arrived here around 1 or 2 and, based on what little information i got, decided it would be best to stay for the night and catch a bus the next day. well, today, i experienced more or less the same thing. lady at the highway side restaurant tells me, yes, i can take a bus to sullana, the next sizable town from here, where i can catch a bus to piura. great.
well i´m waiting at the side of the road where a bunch of other people, all men, are standing around or seated on a saggy wooden bench that i guess constitutes as the bus station. but there are no buses passing. i ask the guy next to me if there are buses running today. nope. there are not. cars go by, mostly packed, and pick up one or two people on the way to a town who´s name i don´t recognize. tomorrow, i ask. doesn´t know. maybe tomorrow. maybe the day after. so i went back to my hotel and paid for another night. i suppose i could pay for the expensive car ride to piura if i wait long enough at the side of the road for a car going that way, but i chose to stay because i´m more comfortable taking a bus, and it´s far cheaper. but i dont want to be here. it´s like i´m in purgatory! not quite here, not quite there. nothing to do but wait. sleep. well at least that´s not a problem for me...
my room..brick walls. corrugated metal roof. rain pours, roof clangs. i feel protected by the sound. my sweaty skin looks healthy and brown. i love the way daylight illuminates skin, softly filtered by a piece of fabric draped from a piece of string accross the barred window. when it´s grazed by the breeze the light wavers, i feel life in slow motion. wearing nothing but a pair of panties i am stretched out on the sheet, gazing up, gazing down at my body. back and forth, i ride a wave of words streaming through my mind, then descend into the sound and feeling. all night it pours and pours.
and i have plenty of friends to keep me company here...this is the land of giant flying crickets and beetles. they like to say hello friend, by jumping off the ceiling and into my hair, on my body, or surprising me in the morning by jumping out of my shoe!
ugghh.
well, i´ve got lots of time to kill, so i thought i think i´ll do a little recap of ecuador.

quito. i was totally freaked out. both my head and body felt unoccupied. i felt i had left all of me behind in canada. i interpretted everything as possible danger. as soon as it got dark at 630 i was in my hotel. i took 20 hours of spanish lessons. i felt like scarlett johanssen in lost in translation, wandering in and out of museums, cathedrals, and colonial buildings. i bounced between the extremities of hope and desolation.

otavalo. my first bus ride through the country. 3 hours. shocked when i saw that it was perfectly acceptable to throw garbage out the window onto the highway. enthralled by the market. my past felt like a dream. nothing felt real. i was lost.

peguche. hiked to the waterfall. met a man who tried to speak english with me and showed me to his home above a little store near the waterfall. claimed to be a shaman and wanted me to spend the night there so that he could do a ceremony for me the next day. wanted us to drink special tea together. told him i had to get back to quito...

banos. disappointed by the little cement hole thermal baths. hiked up a mountain to a view of the volcano that erupted years earlier wiping out the entire town. astounded by beauty. sat in a tree. went out for dinner with 3 ladies i met at my hostal. tried the infamous canelazo drink, and had a wicked dejavu experience. later thought i was going to drive myself insane. wanted to rip out my brains.

latacunga. made peace with myself in a 4 dollar hotel. watched a wierd parade of little children in custumes varying from indigenous dress to bunny rabbits and witches.

zumbahua. breathtaking bus ride through the andes. packed and holding on to the overhead railings in the aisle. admired the woman in front of me maintaining her balance while breastfeeding her child wrapped around her belly in a shawl, while the bus bumped along.
got pulled into a circle of men passing around an old beat up guitar and cups of beer, singing traditional songs in a little tienda. got many offers for an ecuadorian boyfriend.

quilotoa lake. got harassed by children trying to sell me a 5 dollar donkey ride back up to the top of the crater. i hid from them behind some rocks. for hours gazed into the lake, hypnotizing blue and green. shivered in bed, wondering about the future.

chugchilan. felt i was in some other world, or that i had found the real south american andes.

ibarra. loved the flat city and it´s ethnic diversity. became addicted to icecream. chatted with an old polaroid photographer in the park. someone tried to pickpocket me.

san lorenzo. whole different ecuador.

la tola. took a boat ride through the mangroves. felt tiny and misplaced. slept in funny smelling sheets. woke up with over 20 spider bites on my body.

atacames. the beach. disgusted by the tacky bamboo style beach bars playing obnoxious latin disco tunes. life did not feel good. wondering when i would actually feel like i was ´here´

sua. similar to atacames.

canoa. my world fell apart, and i looked in horror at the pieces that reflected my mind. felt i had wasted years of my life avoiding what really ´is´. everything felt meaningless. totally isolated within myself.

playa escondida. got a ride down the 10km road wedged between two boys on a motorcycle. took long walks along the beach. spent a lot of money at the overpriced restaurant. still unsettled.

puerto lopez. felt a buzzing electricity. given salsa dance lessons by a boy on the beach. kissed him on the rocks as the red sun sank behind the sea. he wanted more, i made it difficult for him by pretending i didn´t understand. felt like i was at a point from which many other paths sprouted. felt good.

montanita. i loved the street performers and artesans. everything was buzzing. i walked barefoot every day, felt like i had come to a place inviting me to be myself. took many walks along the beach. christmas dinner at luna´s, danced with her in the street. martin built a mini machu pichuu out of sand for me on the beach. braza pursued me with his hypnotizing eyes and smile that seemed to belong to another time and place. new years. confused by sexuality. frustrated at the persistent conflict i encounter when interacting with people.

cuenca. relieved to be alone again. totally disoriented. caught my breath. searched for peace within me. got excited about my blog.

saraguro. hiked to a waterfall. spent the night in a healing ceremony with a shaman. things connected. thought about my path. meaning came back to me that i had doubted and shoved aside a month earlier.

vilcabamba. so quiet. hoping i would find a friend. life becoming perceptible in a different way. went on a 4 hour horse back ride around the area. many thoughts, but things feel good.

loja. couldn´t sleep. reading the peru section of my guidebook. overwhelmed by all the things to do. map doesn´t make any sense. nervous about crossing the border. thinking, i´ve had enough of this now. i dont want to be alone in peru.

that´s about it. now i´m feeling tired of this.

so, back to that friday afternoon...
i made my way up the steep muddy barelythere trail up the hill to the caves, where i just sat for a bit, on a wooden stump. i could tell by some remaining remnants of a fire that this was a place used for some kind of ceremony at one time or another. the spray from the fall made a shimmering silky screen from which behind i looked out onto the valley. my mind raced with ideas and pictures of what i´d imagined i´d be experiencing that night. i´ll be in a cave? i saw faces and skin made red and orange with fire, a man with a tribal necklace, banging on a huge skin drum, chanting. what will i be given to drink? will i hallucinate? or will i feel a familiar calm connectedness, grounded? i imagined, as it is difficult for me not to, that this would be an event that would give me answers, make me aware of something i´d missed...i walked over to the small wooden bridge beside the waterfall, and stood at the edge, my face inches away from the rocks. i looked at the little world before me, inspecting each growth, formation, leaf, and drop of dew. an insect crawled up a dark vine. nature is absolute perfection, i thought. and i remained standing there, leaning in as though if i could just get my face that little bit closer, i would be extended an invitation to enter within the rock, within the moss. why do i feel seperate? i wondered. i sat down on the bridge and watched the spiders dancing up and down their webs like kung fu tight rope walkers, the butterfly exercising it´s wings as it perches on a rock, then flutters away. the long trees swaying on the hillside. i am different. but why? why don´t i feel a part of this world before me...i closed my eyes and felt my body. surely my body must not feel much different to me than that of a tree does to it? there is this perfect harmonious system here, and i feel like all i can do is stand back and watch, appreciate it.
after about an hour of sitting and observing, i walked back down to town.

around 7, i took a taxi up the hill. i was greeted at the house by a young man who i assumed was the son, who then handed me over to the wife. she was kind, but i sensed some apprehension in her manner. why do i feel like no one what´s me doing this, i thought.
ï would like to participate in the ceremony tonight,¨i said
she asked me how i had heard about this. i told her about the woman in town. ahh, she smiled and understood. she told me that the ceremony wouldn´t be starting until around 830. i could wait there, or come back, so i told her i would go for a walk and then return. the sky was almost completely dark as i slowly walked farther up the hill. it´s a full moon...it shone. and a thick fog was moving over the valley, creeping into town.

i was back at 830. there were several others now, waiting in the room the woman had showed me earlier. we waited for almost another hour, i think, before paulivio entered the room. i observed the shelf to my right stocked with bottles of varying sizes and shapes, filled with varying questionable looking liquids. there was a sort of fire pit in the centre of the room, and before it, the wife had layed out numerous different objects on a woven blanket, including a cactus head, a human skull, a cross, a crystal, various rocks, a shell, a large feather, a small circuler drum, and a rattle on a long stick. the small wooden benches hugging 3 of the walls had completely filled up with people. and still several more were seated on the floor, which was natural of earth, not constructed. i looked around at everyone. mostly they were older people, and indigenous, based on the way they were traditionally dressed. there were a few couples with small children, who were put to sleep wrapped in a woolen poncho on the ground, at their parents feet.
i feel like i cannot, in detail, describe the entire ceremony from beginning to end, and i feel that my voice lacks a certain tenderness and sensitivity to write fully of the beauty i experienced that night, or perhaps it is not my voice that lacks, but words themselves, the way their sharp lines cut up this blank page.
but i´ll give it my best.
besides paulivio, who i suppose is considered ´the´shaman of the village, were his wife and several others who assisted with the healing during the ceremony. i felt drawn to the other main healer instantly. he had kind sparkling eyes, a long black ponytail, and a large handsome nose. he wore a rainbow colored woven band around his head, with a type of star centered on his forehead. he tended the fire for the duration of the ceremony, arranging the fallen embers into an eventual symbol within the fire circle, and throwing sage and another herb, that i could not recognize, (but noticed a reaction of my own spirit to it) onto the fire. he also prepared the servings and handed out the medicine. paulivio smoked tobacco as the ceremony commenced. tobacco is considered sacred in this practice. first we were given the san pedro mixture. 3 gulps of a thick, green, vile tasting mixture. the cactus is ingested to invoke a spiritual healing state, and has been used in traditional andean medicine for over a thousand years. several people vomited, there was a good supply of plastic bags handy for this purpose. next, and twice more throughout the night, we were given a different mixture, one that had an alcoholic content. paulivio spoke quite a bit. i could not understand very much, but his speech was repeatedly spattered with words i did recognize, esperitu (spirit) tierra(earth) madre tierra (mother earth) padre (father) espacio(space)vida(life)mysterio(mystery) i believe much of his speech was prayer, in a sense. blessing. as the couple from chile seated next to the shaman murmered ´aho,´in agreement of his words, the image of my grandmother, in a red turtleneck and gold chain with a cross, murmering, mmhmm, at my grandfather´s side as he prays, came to my mind. while i compared the two images in my mind i also thought of the way i always felt during christmas season at the thiessens, during the evening of the bible reading and the prayer, waiting to open presents. aunts and uncles, little squirming cousins, and my own family all seated in a jagged circle in the dim basement room. i don´t think i understood what i was hearing then, being spoken in english, any better than what i´m understanding now, i thought.
i closed my eyes and tried to sense the medicine in my body, to sense the energy around me.
but i found myself continually diving into my imagination, my story, me me me...i thought all i could sense was a little bit of a dizzyness in my head. i was not experiencing what i had anticipated.

then the drumming and singing started, and that released something in me. sparkly fire tender picked up the drum and knelt next to the fire. he held his hand over the smoke and then rubbed the skin of the drum, slowly, with carefull attention. he did this several times, on each side of the drum. he then moved over to paulivio, still kneeling, head bent over the drum. he hit it with the drumstick bambambambambam like that, no rythym as you hear a drum being beaten by hands, and paulivio shook the rattle in the same manner, and sang. and a joy rushed to my cheeks. heeyyaahhhoyyahowwaahheeyyahh. i closed my eyes and felt the drum beat in my body, the vibrations of his voice, my spirit rising. several women joined in, ahh soo beautiful...i have been yearning for this song my whole life, i felt. this is what i´ve always wanted to hear.
the singing and drumming continued for about an hour i think. the rattle was passed to several different people, and several different voices were heard. sparkly fire tender moved to 4 different points around the fire with the drum.

paulivio spoke more. with his eyes closed, he stretched his arms out, as though to embrace and bless all in the room. and then the individual healing started.
first, after cleansing a large dark stone, he hands it to you and you rub it all over your body as if it were soap. and everyone is required to take their shirts off, or more clothing if desired, which is left up to the individual.
this is important because the shaman spits the liquid all over you. not ´spit´the way you´d huck a gob of saliva on the sidewalk, there´s certainly some kind of technique to it, and it comes out of his mouth in a spray. i wish i had been able to ask questions, because i´m not entirely sure of this, but i assume this is what cleanses the spirit. for those with joint or muscle problems (i believe) he dips his finger in the liquid, brushes it over a flame of a candle, and(because of the alcoholic content) blows the fire from his finger over the body of the person being healed. so that for a moment, a wave of fire runs across the back, or the arms, or the legs. and then depending on what the illness is, he acts as so many things to eradicate pain. chiropractor. reiki master. massage therapist. whatever is needed. afterwards, for each person, he fans the feather in the smoke and fire and then over the body, and finishes by pressing the feather in the centre of the forehead.
he moved his chair beside the fire, only a foot from me, and called on the lady who had travelled from cuenca to be healed, who walked over painfully with stiff legs.
this is when it all stopped. my innerworld vanished, and there was no secret place to retreat to any longer. i was simply there, with everyone. i didn´t even realize the tears streaming down my cheeks as paulivio worked her joints. he kneeded her arm and tugged on her fingers. i read the pain in her face as though it were my own. i could feel it, and then i understood why i was there, and what i was seeing, and what it meant to me. all of these people, old, sick and poor, with pain in their bodies, who probably could not afford visits to a doctor or hospital, have come to this man to be healed, who does so with compassion, with every ounce of strength in his own being. this is community.
this is what it means to be human , i thought. we have the ability to heal one another. this is how i am different from the butterfly and the moss and the spider. we have the gift of awareness. by using this and the energy of nature, we are able to reharmonize ourselves, we are able to heal. there was nothing more beautiful or profound to me in that moment. and that in itself was enough for me. i don´t even care if he does anything on me, i thought, i don´t need it now.
i felt ashamed for the way i had been relating the experience to myself earlier, ashamed at my thoughts, of my anticipation of the ´hallucinogenic plant´, (which, yes, although technically it is, the dosage is not great, and the purpose certainly is not to provide a high)
it felt like everyone in the room was united then.

and soon the room was light, it was morning. and perhaps it was the birthing dawn that lightened up everyone´s spirits as well. the room laughed together, smiled together. by the time he got to me, i did not experience anything particularly powerful. i believe that because i had already experienced the healing taking place in each person preceding me, that his hands felt no different on my own body. he drew out the tension in my forehead, the tightness in my chest. and he did something to my back, i´m not sure how, but when i left the place, i felt it was much more upright than i am used to.
to close the ceremony we were all given water to drink out of a large pink shell. it was around 9 30. i felt wobbly on my feet. i went to the bathroom. as soon as i had myself locked behind the door tears poured from my eyes the way the wind might release the moisture that has collected on a wide flat leaf during a rainstorm.
i lingered around for a while. i didn´t feel like leaving.
the woman from chile, with an appearance similar to my own, said ¨you speak a little spanish? you understood a little?¨
words were hard to form. slowly i managed to say¨i am able to feel.¨
¨it´s all one language¨she said ¨it doesn´t matter where you´re from, or what language you speak, the language is the same¨
when i left there were still a few people in the room, speaking with paulivio. fire still smoking. i felt...healed.
not in the way i had imagined. no, things never are.
but it was the most beautiful thing. i have ever seen.
it connected everything.
this is the path i´m on...i thought. this is what i want to explore.
i thought of the way i had felt when paul told me that i would be healer. it touched me deeply, my heart quivered. and i truly felt whole. is it true? i wondered, me? a healer? i know there is fire in my palms. that i am like smoke, with no definite shape. i can be clear and warm, and my heart is big.
but i think of the way i burst with force and then retreat sullenly, with my head down, to judge my expression, to judge my words. the way i protect myself with the idea of separateness that is so easy for me to believe in. am i self indulgent? i can ignore so easily the feelings and thoughts of others, wishing not to have to look outside of myself for anything.
i know i am loved and yet i feel loveless.
please universe, send me someone to open up my world. someone i can trust. send me a relationship that heals fear.
at times if i concentrate i can feel what it would be like. a connection that gently takes a hold of my heart. i relax, i don´t retreat, and i can travel deep in the universe, open.

Today i have arrived in Vilcabamba. there are certain spots on the map that draw in backpackers like a magnet. this is one of them. the southern highlands feel more beautiful to me than in the north, though i can´t quite put my finger on why. the mountains are so pure, lush. this area is absolutely gorgeous. not the town itself exactly. it´s more or less what i have come to expect of a small ecuadorian town. the slow dusty streets. abandoned construction projects. the simple cement homes. children in muddy clothes chasing each other down the street. dogs peering at me from their shady napping places under sagging balconys. sometimes when i´m walking down the street i can´t be sure if i´m looking into someone´s kitchen or if it´s a restaurant. doors are open. i can look right in, to these bare simple lives, unlocked. little to protect, nothing to hide.

i was in Saraguro for 3 days, a sizable mainly indigenous town (in comparison to the others i´ve visited) several hours away from here. now to throw a little ´practical´information in here (for my dad) the saraguros are believed to be a population descended from the incas from peru or bolivia, and for the last few hundred years, have been considered one of the most successful indigenous groups in southern andean ecuador.

it was a chilly wet thursday evening when i arrived. i found a place to stay, a cheap hot meal, and spent the rest of the evening in my bed. i´ve been reading east of eden by john steinbeck, and perhaps it was a combination of the novel´s content and the email i had recieved from cassandra (for those of you who don´t know, she was a very close childhood friend) that sent my mind reeling into my past. and i saw everyone. sometimes a thing happens in the mind, when all thoughts stop, and it takes a different route. memory after memory scroll by, and it´s all vision. all feeling. scent. even texture. as the faces of my past appeared i could sense their entirety, as physical boundry is dissolved, and with each arose something within me. i could almost touch each unique personality, and the emotions, fears, insecurities, and jealousies of girlhood. and i noticed that the relationships i was exploring in this way were significantly women. ashley´s presence arose in my mind and i felt connected to her in such a way i think i never have. i saw her and i knew her. and then all of my aunts became present to me. when i thought of robin, i could feel her strength. her gentle voice, the sincerity of her nature that is so distinct from others, and i felt such an affection that tears sprung from my eyes. and images began to move forward through time, and i remembered the knives, and i cried out because all i´ve ever wanted was to express myself. and then evelyn, cynthia. a relationship in which it perplexes me so to try to unwind the complexity of all the fibres. and eva, who continues to grow in importance to me as i discover new things in my world.
and there i was, all alone, cradling myself in a big stiff bed. cold cement floor of basement and bare walls. rolling on the waves of emotion. i thought of the postcard natalia sent to cynthia and i, from europe. ï feel so intimately alone¨she wrote. i find myself tracing over this sentence every day, wondering, is this what i feel too?intimately alone?

the next day i timidly approached the tourist office and asked for some information on things to do in the area. i recieved a pamphlet and looked it over on the leather couch next to the entrance. one thing struck my interest a bit. a short walk from town there´s some caves behind a waterfall that they call the inca baths. i hadn´t planned on staying for another night, but as i was heading out, a woman with stringy graying hair, a tacky western shirt, and an american accent introduced herself to me, informing me that she was an anthropoligist who has lived in saraguro for 10 years, and that if i had any questions, feel free to ask. there has been one thing on my mind for the past little while that i´ve been unsure of where to look for information on, a little unsure how it would be recieved by the locals, and that´s shamans. and i had a little feeling that this might be the right place, so i gave it a shot.
ï´m interested in experiencing a shaman ceremony¨i said.
and she seemed to hesitate for a moment, and her face changed expression, as though her impression of me had as well. ¨well, it´s friday. so you can. there´s a man named paulivio japon that lives up there..¨, she huffs her way up a few steps on the central courtyard and i follow, as she points to a spot up the hill a bit. ¨there, you can´t really see it from here, but you can take a taxi up there.¨
¨have you been to one of them?¨i ask.
ï have. now i don´t really like what he does, but maybe that´s just because i´m old fashioned.¨she chuckles at herself, and began to describe the ceremony to me. an excitement tinged with nervousness began growing inside of me. i found it, i thought. this is what i´ve been looking for. ït starts at seven, that´s when the drumming starts, thats when you know, and goes on all night, finishing at 7 in the morning. now, i know it´s safe. you´re totally safe, but don´t do anything you don´t want to do. now, i´ve got to go pick up some papers in the office over there..¨and i thanked her as i walked in the opposite direction, with a spring in my step.

and i will continue this tomorrow..as hunger is calling!

i wasn´t sure what i´d do this morning when i woke up, but breakfast is always the first thing on my mind, so i take care of that first before any decisions are made. unfortunately i often sleep a bit too late and by 11 or noon few places are still serving it. it felt a bit like a bad luck kind of day, nothing was coming easy. the first place i wanted to eat at wasn´t serving breakfast anymore and didn´t have lunches. i walked back to the hotel/cafe i was staying at before, knowing they served breakfast until 4. but as soon as i sat down and relieved myself of the weight of my backpack, the waiter politely told me that they were unable to serve any food at this time. so a couple more blocks and i settled on a cheap lunch of rice and porkchop. i spoke a bit with the lady at the restaurant. i told her i was heading to loja, which is a city similar to cuenca i think, but smaller. (i guess i´m working my way south down to the peruvian border now, unless i make a last minute decision to jump over into the jungle for a bit) and she told me that no buses were able to go to loja today. i couldn´t understand the words she was using to tell my why, but i got that i was going to have to change my plans. because my set lunch came with pineapple juice, i felt like i needed to sit and drink a good coffee somewhere and look into my guidebook for a different idea. i picked sigsig. i guess i just like the name, and i thought back to an hour earlier when a travel brochure tacked up on a bulletin board in the restaurant advertising a glossy sigsig caught my eye. so after that was settled, i walked down a couple flights of old stone steps to the river pathway to see if i could find my sweater on the rock that i had thrown it upon and forgotten the day before when i was sitting on the riverbank. it was gone. down one sweater. fortunately i don´t think i´m headed into any cold regions any time soon. so i hailed a taxi and, as i was sort of nervously predicting on the way there, the driver didn´t have any change for my 2o (this is a problem everywhere. i think trying to pay for something small with a 20 dollar bill here is a bit like trying to pay for a 75 cent candy with a 50 dollar bill at home. but it´s what the atms dispense! it´s such a hassle sometimes) so when we´re at the terminal i´m running from store to store (there are tons of little convenience stores selling candies and snacks and stuff inside the terminal area) trying to find change. finally on my 4th try i´ve got change, i think because of the helplessly desperate expression i gave the lady behind the counter, and i run back to my driver to pay for the fare.
i find a ticket booth for a company that goes to sigsig but i don´t understand what this lady is telling me and she´s really not being very helpful at all, but for some reason she´s not selling me a ticket, and i don´t know why. she apathetially answers my questions in words i don´t know. i´m standing there with this kind of perplexed smile on my face while she turns away from me to help the next person seemingly completely forgetting i am still standing there.
after a few minutes, perplexed smile still on my face, of staring at her and being ignored, i decide to hell with it i´ll just see if i can find the bus and get on it. then there is more confusion with the guy in charge of charging people the ten cents it costs to enter the lot where the buses depart from. now i am a little bewildered at how such simple things can be miscommunicated. i am so relieved when i see a bus with sigsig posted in the little destination window in the windshield.
i always sink into a kind of state of satisfaction every time i hear the engine roaring and feel the wheels turning and the scenery begin to roll.
the town is simple, has the standard central park with a statue at it´s centre, a fountain, a few gardens and a few benches scattered around. but it´s nestled in rich rolling hills, the view is beautiful, and i sense a quivering kind of mystery in the mountains . i think the elevation here is higher than in quito, but it doesn´t seem that way. the mountains don´t seem that tall.

i walk down a rocky trail with plenty of garbage and squished bottles caught beneath the stones, to the river. ah, hundreds of shades of green! there is a stillness about the place, despite the many sounds. there is a thick scent in the air. for a moment reminiscent of the familiar pine of canada, but then it changes. the trees are plentiful and long and thin, wearing tattered coats of bark.i like their character. there are many little picnic shelters at the bottom of the hill, a few boys peddle their bicycles in circles around a big empty shelter. to my right, a little ways down the river, i can see a woman in a brightly colored skirt, a large brimmed straw hat, with two braids flowing down her back, shaking out what looks like a bundle of grass. on the other side of the bridge, grazing cows bat flys with their tails. on the path to my left i see a little lamb throwing a tantrum in front of it´s mother, bouncing in such a way i wasn´t aware that sheep could, and kicking it´s legs in the air. as i walk, i can hear the faint salsa rythym of music being played in one of the surrounding houses. i think what i see being farmed here is corn. there is a lot of it, planted in neat rows on the dirt slopes. the sky is billowing with clouds but the sun has escaped them and everything glitters.
my body is completely calm, i think there might be a smile on my face. i walk slowly past a group of sheep with puffy dirty coats chewing grass on the side of the path, and i look them all in the eye. and it makes me happy to do so.
an answer begins to form in my mind, words now are creeping in and joining hands and i feel a bit of a dance around that question of what i want in life.
i will belong everywhere.
all space will welcome my being, the air will conform to my body, wrapping me in a silken shield that moves with me, breathes with me. colors will be vibrant, and they will all communicate with me. i will be able to sense the delicate vibrations in everything, not only plants and trees, but rocks, rivers, kitchen sinks. i will look into the eyes of another human being with no fear, and no self consciousness, and be both mystified and completely in loving awe of their existence. i will understand the language of energy. i will understand the language in which the sun speaks to the earth, and the language in which a lightbulb in a reading lamp speaks to the wooden desk it shines upon.
and i want no rules, i want to feel any emotion welling up in my heart to flow completely unguarded, whether it be joy or despair. i want to be a complete human.

i am beginning to visualize it, because i figure i might as well experiment with this power supposedly of visualization, but it´s a perception that i want to embody and bring into existence, and not anything material, and so the ´visualization´ of this perception, i think, is no less real than if it were, real. ah, well it´s hard to describe. but as i am walking i sense my body. and i try with great effort, to effortlessly be aware of absolutely everything in this moment. reaching for the deepest possible point i can find. it´s hard to describe.

and now the sun has set, the little boy spying on me through the glass doors has scampered away, and i should go find something to eat.
i don´t know why this torrent has ripped through me but it feels so good to write, so good. i know everyone is reading this and that i am sharing far more than what my family may have expected of a ´travel journal´, but...well, i don´t know. i don´t care. here i am.

i switched hotels the other day because, well i can do the dorm thing for a while, but after a week or so i need my own space. a space in which only i breathe, only i exist. this i felt i desperately needed to regain my balance.
so i sought out a decently priced private room in a hotel a few blocks from parque calderon. the floor of my room is slanted. very obviously so. kind of funny.
there are many ´things´to do around cuenca, things that tourists do, and i haven´t done a single thing. i just don´t feel like it. i don´t feel like being a tourist. last night i thought, ok, tomorrow i am going to go to that national park, and i had the image of a mystical fog creeping over an eerie blue lake and through ancient trees of wisdom and mystery. yes, this will be a good thing, i thought. i will connect with nature and feel more strongly connected to my spirit. this morning however, i tried to check in with myself, you know it´s difficult though, i never really know what i want to do. but my body didn´t want to move. there was no motion in my mind. after the standard breakfast of fried eggs, 2 pieces of white toast, juice, and lukewarm coffee in the hotel cafe, i stood on the sidewalk, water bottle in hand, watching yellow taxi after taxi roll by, waiting for that thing in my brain to say, hail it! put that arm out! but after a few minutes nothing happened, and i determined that today, once again, i do not feel like doing anything. so i sat down on a bench in the park and watched people for a while.
i thought of all the days at home spent doing the same thing, in the same mood. i am just as absorbed in my innerworld of thought here as i ever was.
if there´s one thing that feels like i´ve been cursed with it´s self doubt. but i think there are some things i do know for certain. although i am constantly questioning the validity of those concepts, i think i know something about what it means to be receptive. this i have learned. and i think i do know, that there is something very real at the core of my being. and it is warm. oh, it is so warm. and it is so powerful. and it is love. i stumble upon it now and then, like this morning in meditation, and it startles me. mabye because i had been doubting it´s existence within me so passionately. maybe because it still feels like foreign territory to me, and i instinctively run away from it. i hesitate in saying these things because i feel like i have done this too often. i think i´ve got it, and then i want to declare something, wrap it up in gold, and then what? oh, nothing really changes, i continue to see my world in that way this familiar to me, i continue to attach myself to every thought that comes pulsing through my mind, and i continue to feel unsatisfied, devising plan after plan to get more, to become more. and i`ve been asking myself, do i actually understand anything that i think i do?
i can sense that there is something wrong inside me, this i do very well. and it could all be my imagination, but this is how it goes. and then i search every moment i´ve ever thought i experienced truth, i try to bring it back to me to cure the wrongness i think i sense, but all i`ve got is words. i´ve got so much good advice for myself that i´ve saved and stored in my mind, really i do, but it´s useless! means nothing in the present moment! i have sentence after sentence that at one moment, now passed, i had created to represent an experience.
i walk aimlessly and disoriented down crowded sidewalks, sinuses irritated and complaining of traffic fumes, straining my neck in towards every store i pass as if i need something but can´t remember what, and i might find it if i see it. and all the symbols i have stored in my mind i bring to the surface in a pool in which all lose their shape, words don´t belong to each other, and i begin to hear my thoughts kind of like this...
the only difference feel the ground in me is a mind that isof all thoughts calm or a i am on a mind that is not calm no, this. breath. beall life is aware not like god`s eyesof everything isyour body. i am spirit beneath let them pass your feet. my eyeslisten to . god experiencing god. spiritual journey. by. spirit. your arelet go .
only less poetic and more annoying.
and i continue to wonder about this thing called fate...why do i let myself worry so much over it? what do i expect to gain from a ´fated´ encounter. what would that even mean? is not every moment a destined one? and why does this idea seem strictly related to other people? as though if i meet the right person at the right time, heaven will flash before my eyes, my world will filled with light, i will suddenly have a clear vision of myself, of my life. everything will feel right, magical. i think of cynthia and all her stories of encounters with others. and the way she held them so close to her heart. maybe this is so important to us because it`s just that we are all connected to each other and each has the ability to bring a sense of magic into the life of another. and we want to feel this connection as a warm sweeping wave over our entire being to touch deeply in us what is often hard to reach in solitude. and the occurence of synchronicity somehow makes this tangible, gives us a sense that life is wonderful, and really happening. what would this life be without the existence of others...


i had a few drinks with helena the other night, while i was still staying at the cafecito. helena is the german friend i met in montanita who is living in cuenca right now. candles flickered on every table, lighting up sharp angles in the faces around me. cigarette smoke swirls in the air, each exhale in it´s own pattern of movement. a group of women are setting up their music equipment up front by the reception for a performane. it´s loud. we were talking about writing and i got stuck on something she said. of her own writing she said ¨it´s a nice thing to write, to be able to see how your thoughts change. it´s nice to be able to read my old entries and see how i´ve changed.¨ i felt a bit like an insect in glue. there was this part of me that felt guilty for not being able to relate. honestly, a journal entry of yesterday looks barely different to me than an entry from the very first journal i ever kept as a kid. i feel like i´ve had only one thought running through my head since birth. hah, i didn´t mean that exactly literally but now that i think of it, yes, it´s who am i? and i feel nothing in my life has ever changed, and that this is ironic because the idea of transformation is what what motivates me to do pretty much anything. and it was what motivated me to travel.
it´s as though i have heard the same line in a song, over and over again. i am aware that there is more, that what i hear belongs to something much greater, a whole masterpiece. i can sense it. i can sense that it cuts off right before the best part, and i hope, every time i hear the bit right before it cuts off, i hope. maybe this time i will hear the whole song. but no!!! it goes right back to the beginning again. and i want to throw my fists in the air and scream!

yesterday i went on a search for a book in spanish i thought i could read with the help of a dictionary to get a better understanding of sentence structure and what not. i stumbled upon a little table set up, just barely tucked away in some kind of courtyard attached to the main sidewalk. the table was piled high with used books and magazines, i immediately recognized the beautifully yellowed pages and dog eared covers. ¨buenas tardes¨ a little man i hadn´t even noticed seated beside the table with a book in his laps and a fleece blanket over his knees looks up at me. ¨buenas tardes!¨ i browse the titles for a moment and realize everything is very old, and probably won´t be of much help in understanding the modern language, but the little man, who introduced himself as jose, engaged me in a nice conversation. he had mysterious eyes, that i couldn´t quite figure out. they were rimmed with a beautiful deep stormy blue, and the insides were just brown. i couldn´t see his pupils.
i understand when old people speak much better than younger people, because they speak much slower, and with much expression. we talked about some of the differences between my country and his. ¨here, we are not lonely,¨ he said, ¨but we have no freedom. in north america, you have freedom, but everyone is lonely. i don´t get lonely.¨ he pointed to the young girl playing with her brother underneath his table of books, who smiled at me shyly. ¨i have the children, they are not afraid. they are my friends. and the people, and ohhohhoh,¨ he makes a funny expression. i did not say much but he made me laugh. i liked him very much. we talked a while longer and i did buy a book, for one dollar. he rose up out of his chair to kiss me on the cheek when i said goodbye.

now, a little more comprehensibly
i left montanita yesterday and arrived in cuenca. back in the mountains now. city is gorgeous, similar to the colonial sector of quito. staying in an artsy cafe/hostal.
wound up here becuase..let´s see. while in montanita i met a great girl from austria with firey orange hair who i had drinks with, and met her friend and her roomate who live in cuenca. on the way to cuenca i ended up being on the same bus as the roomate man. he offered to share a taxi to the centre of town when we arrived. for a few minutes i was extremely confused about what to do while 2 random ladies promoting hotels pounced on me as i got off my bus, handing out cards, trying to show me on a map how to get there, 7 dollars a night, hot water, private bathroom, blah blah, i´m still trying to hoist my backpack onto my back. i see diego(roomate man) walking away so i quickly follow, brushing away the woman with map still in her hand. another man, with a large black hat and a cigarette in his mouth, who i hadn´t realized was also travelling with diego, who, hours earlier in the chaotic terminal at guayaquil had translated something for me at the ticket booth, asked me if i knew where i was staying. no, i say wearily. at the cafecito? that´s a nice place, close to where we live.
so that´s how i wound up here.
sharing a noisy room with a lady from new york.
i unlock the door but avoid turning on the light when i see the lump in her bed.
asleep already? it´s 8 oclock, i think.
second later her head pops up and starts talking to me. she offers to go have a drink with me at the german pub close by
i politely decline. i honestly tell her i have not been feeling very sociable.
why have i turned down so many offers for companionship?
the other night, coincedentally, while checking in to the hotel, florine, (the austrian girl i met in montanita) comes flying into me with a kiss on the cheek. she´s having drinks with her mother right over there. so after i unloaded my stuff i joined them and they invited me to come along to the national park about an hour and a half away, for this morning. her mother even tells me i can have breakfast in her home before hand. and i declined.
why do i have this fear of people? i find myself in a mental juggling act every time an opportunity arises.
and each time, i question about fate.
destiny.

but my experiences in montanita left me completely drained. the initial sense of having found some sort of jackpot faded after a few days. in the end i felt i had been taken advantage of. for this i do not blame anyone but myself though. i saw something i wanted, and i have the chameleon instinct. i want to transform into what i am surrounded by
i spent the last day of the year, as it spilled over into the first day of a new year, struggling to communicate with someone. travel with me, he said. i´ll teach you how to make jewellery. it´s a good life. come on. wet in the rain, kissing strong lips, trying to overtake me. trying to swallow me whole. i pushed, and then gave in, pushed, gave in, until finally i walked away. away from him, past the fiesta on the beach, the crackling fires, the couples giving each other orgasms in the sand, the crowd in the street, the myriad of sound and color pulsating together into one nauseating drink being poured down so many throats. and i layed down on my little mattress and arranged the mosquito net around it. there was nothing inside of me. nothing. anger? no. joy? no. resentment? no. relief? no. i had no energy to feel any of these things. i fell asleep. and i slept for a very long time.

the night before i had dreamt of a friend who i had experienced something very nice with in calgary.
i was excited to see him, as though i had been trying for a long time to lure his presence into my dreams, but i was so disappointed when i saw him. i did not feel what i had hoped i would feel. i was sitting. he approached my side, kneeled down, and asked me, very seriously. what do you want in life? i acted as though i had an answer, that i had only forgotten it, and i would find it later, and tell him.

ah, this place is closing, more to be continued later

Heart sick-heal me! i place a palm on my chest, it cries out.

she searches for what she thinks lies beneath, what makes the lump in her chest . she searches for what is wrong.
now, truly lost
she looks for clues.

i cannot see straight!I listen to my thoughts. they tell me to listen to my heart instead
i listen to my heart and it continues to moan. i can´t stand it any longer

now the sky is a myriad of colors. the moon a thumbnail clipping. the waves of the sea are an irridescent blue.

once again i feel myself lost in speech. my breath leaves my body. i am gone, fighting for a way back to my body. now i want it to be over. now i want to be alone. now i am pushing as i am pulled further from my home. i am scared. i will give nothing away.
how can i give? when i have lost my body. now that i have no strength. no power.

there are moments when All flashes before my eyes, flickers and dies.
a gust of smoke filled wind passes through me,
and i can see something
enormous.
for one moment.
i can see limitlessly
intimitated, of course! every possibility, just how open. this life could be.
but i blink.
i feel so far away from it
so far from Love
i see his face, staring back at me
i don´t trust it.

waves of thought rush up on to shore. what is there? when the sea takes a deep breath in
and clasps it tired hands together
to rest in its lap?
now all has shifted, the sand has a new face
what i was looking at, just a moment before
has completely rearranged itself

but nothing is lost. for this is not possible.
you contain all.
you forget this.
this is the nature of things, to pass in and out of awareness.

her face obeys her thoughts very well. now she frowns, and looks up from her page. eyes squinted, very puzzled.

"show me my face!" she cries. she tries to see herself in everything, and in doing so sees nothing.
She is tempted by mirrors.
again and again, she is thrown upon the sand by violent waves of thought.
but her eyes burn with salt, and she cannot see
that she walks upon the sand that contains the sea.

i feel clumsy, groggy. i am a child in this home.
deaf, dumb, and mute.
speak they say, speak. i squirm in my skin. speak.
there is no life in my hand. i´ve hidden it all away,
afraid it might give my hand the power to take.
it could get slapped!
afraid life might give my hand the power to give
it might give away something i need!
and so it hands by my side, waiting for someone to take it.
my hand only wants to obey.
everything is bouncing, there is no order
i am confused
i wait.
when i hear a knock at the door i wait
i am closest. all eyes in the room turn toward me
still i wait, holding my breath
then the mother says
open the door
so i open it.
and then i exhale. because it´s over
but i fear the next moment
now you offer to pay, now you offer your chair to the little girl, so she can eat her meal, out of a styrophome box. now you offer your drink. no, not this way. you pass it to him. now stand here. now dance. with my breath out of order, i look for the moment of exhalation in others, latch on, and try to remain standing. hoping the currents of their thoughts
will bring me to some place
wonderful

did i hear him right?
i thought i heard him call out doll as i walked past
is he right? i feel sick. i can see it. my sparkly eyes swimming in space. the fearful smile, plastered to my face
he knows
do they not experience this dance too?

i am acting in a play, confusedly looking for the director, wanting to say, hey look. i don´t want to be an actor anymore. stop writing. i want real life now.
silly. forgetting there is no other director than myself.
i pick out an audience, i choose my members based on the way they look. i do this without even thinking. and then their faces haunt me. my ego attaches itself to their eyes, looking outward
and i can never find peace in their presence
are my eyes closed? why can´t i see anything?
what´s happening? am i really here? alive in this life?

she feels she has told many lies.
and feels guilty, for agreeing with him. the boy from toronto.
that wasn´t what i think at all.
she feels her face has told many more lies
she searches her dreams. her memories
for something that is real
but everything feels the same, everything waiting to be found

how can i answer a question
that i don´t belong to?
how does the universe fit
into the tiny space
between you.and me.
how can i lay upon this table
something entirely different
from what you have set upon it

how can i peel away the layers
to find the seed
that bears the fruit

i must return to the earth.