rambling bus mindvisions, the hours are ploughed away. chimbote, flyby city in the night, i will never know your streets, will never know their names. slick roads, rattling glass, we move on, on, on through the night. sleep comes in waves, nearly here nor there. fabulous dreams of color huaraz, huaraz, mystic rocks on a desert horizon... approaching, great red dawn red sun halfway born into the sky, with strange tubes of rays transforming before my eyes, now great skeletal sun, then shattered, swept away, eyes blinking open, time after time dream after dream, to a condenscating windowpane showing bleak dreary outlooks of passing walls of rock, grey in the cloudy light.
damp pantlegs from virgindew grass, long fingers of earth, knees drawn into my chest. hoarse breath of bus, passengers snoring, grunting, shifting bodyweight in confining seats. cajamarca-trujillo 8 hours, 2 hours in wobbly blue plastic chair of the station, cheesy latin television drama, plastic bag full of snacks, and shared eyestares of fellow travellers pale of skin. from trujillo-huaraz 10 hours, arrived disoriented and legs wobbly from all night scrunching, greeted by strange brown faces of hotelpushers and taxidrivers expectant of their estranged family memeber being i and having forgetton i was on my way to the reunion. all speaking to me at once, oh please pick me, pick me their eyes say, and i'm almost laughing as i say, yes..i need. a taxi. new city take a look so cold and early in the morning, dont know why he had the window rolled down all the way, and american 80's radio, i almost clap my hands together in the wakeupdawn disorientation of self and disarranged personality inhibitions, to cry, bruce springstein! and kade flashes through my mind, dancing in the dark as my body twists at the knees climbing backwards into the trunk to retrieve my book for an adress for the driver.
here at caroline lodging, a nice little hostal, i have a dorm bed and free breakfast, internet, book exchange, dived straight into the motorcycle diaries, and people to talk to. like a quick instant family together from all parts of the world, a girl from france, one from belgium. a guy from germany, identical in glasses to john lennon or harry potter, a handsome guy from bosc country which technically is a part of spain, and i, the only native english speaker, awkward self done haircut and janis glasses canadian.
we grouped together, all having arrived the same day, and set off for a little adventure. first to the market place for some fruit and snacks, then to the street advised by helpful hostal staff to hire a car up to pitec where our little trek would begin. 6 soles each and i'm balancing on belgiums lap steadying myself with hands on back of orkatz seat trying not to grind my boney butt into her fleshy legs, head being bumped into the roof of the car as it slowly makes its way forward steering around deadly potholes and portions of dirtroad eaten away consumed by rain. villagers stone faces almost dramatic movielike poses as our eyes meet separated by glass, sombreroed heads turning slightly as the vehicle outreaches their view. brightly skirted women in colorful leggings, little feet snug in dusty dark shoes, chasing their in-transit sheep and sad looking cows off the side of the road to make room, strange bumbling car of funny white faces a top torsos of raingear.
pitec the climb starts, deserted bare wilderness reminiscent of the belovedrockies. out of breath and panting, but i got into a rythym and soon i was practically bounding from rock to rock, the body always finds a way, its natural, not much thinking needs to be done bout where this foots gonna go and where the right ones gonna go after. the boys ahead, the girls behind, im always in the middle, no one by my side. then climbing vertically and bosc man gives the ladies a hand, splitting waterful of glacier ice, cold hands whimpering on the slippering rocks, mud splashes inside shoe. over then, the lake comes into view. deep blue and emerald hues, foggy blanket of skyclouds and distant snowy peaks. so much energy i feel, jumping from boulder to boulder to get the best view, ahead of all the others, but they soon follow and then all of us seated together opening last minute lunch efforts, pitying lennon's slapping together pathetic sandwhiches of flimsy white bread and 'cheese'. me with the 'energetic food' as boscman comments, walnuts and raisins and dried apricots.
i have the tendency to postion my ears closer to the guys, both speaking poor goofy english swapping stories and jokes, corrupt peruvian police, false papers, i learn the rules for slipping a police man a bribe without offending, always making me laugh, belgium and france chatter away in french and of course i dont understand a word. boscman travelling on motor bike, started in buenos aires zooming through chile and bolivia, now working his way up to columbia, then through central america and eventually canada. yes, i tell him, do it. you've got to see the west coast.me dreaming secretly of doing this myself, buying a tent and a fake license and a used bike somewhere and mabye finding someone who can tell me how to work the thing, burning lonely planet in a personal firey ceremony and then setting off on a totally new and unpredictable adventure through south and central america.
food consumed, sky drizzling, coats zipped up, and then back down to the trail, careful on the slippery rocks.
the next morning a man arrived from dawson creek, canada, old guy retired and fluffy white hair, age tired and worn skin of life experiences. along with 2 girls from britain, the 4 of us paid for the tour to the ruins of chavin de hauntar. long tiring bus ride packed with peruvian tourists, i of course picked the seat which would soon be neighboring whiny kicking children on fleshy laps, and felt annoyed and sad the whole way there. the day dissapearred into the hours. more rambling mind visions only so melancholy and uninspired. the ruins were not fascinating but worth the tour, keening ears tuning in to the boisterous guide, absorbing enough to feel expanded but not so much i could relay the information to anyone else. here and there words catch my attention and give me faint ideas of something ancient and discovering, black and white, male female, sun, numbers, calender, rocks, solstices and equinox.
in the evening a glass of rum in the common room and once again find myself the only female in a circle of men, more stories now with my fellow canadian included, all talk of culture and countries, i have learned more about and gained more interest in europe in those few hours than ever before. rex, an employee here from holland, oh the places hes been, and he will be living like this for the rest of his life. 'after a year, you know the only thing that had changed', he says in his lofty accent, 'was me'. emphasizing that with his entire body. 'and i couldnt get along with anyone anymore.' and hasnt been back since. i learn there are people doing round the world trips on bicycles with 4 year old children, an irish girl doing the same thing on motorbike. now dreaming of turkey and france, india and egypt. motorcycles and bicycles and gypsy vans and thumb jabbing the highway.
today to a trout farm, no official tour, but teo one of the owners drove us out 40 minutes in a van, old and dustsmell like the oldsmobile from my childhood,and the great beastly red and white thing that we rode all the way down to guatemala, snap back ashtrays, and stinky interior.
beautiful countryside, andean farmland, peace at last. one moment of joy, overflowing with it as i watch a small herd of ducks waddle down the bank towards me. great mother earth, creation. in all its curious and beautiful diversity. life on this planet, creator earth, all things growing and giving life, all things nurturing and being nurtured, all things passing away, all given back into the cycle. i wasnt interested in listening to all the fish talk so i wondered off trying to lure stubborn and independant dogs towards me, but to no avail.

here now, completely in pieces. many stormy nights have passed.
why cant i keep it, why cant i have this! crying and pushing inside.
i dont belong here, like this. i belong out there. out there. i belong to the wind. oh great mother, am i not too in your care.
everything goes, truth goes, truth present in all things and all things being reborn every moment there is nothing for me to hold on to. i open the palm of my grasping hand only ever to find skin shed of a light now gone, moving on, i feel deformed in this body, broken and lost. crying in my war of words, i declared battle the day i understand them as symbols and nothing more. but years gone by and i feel naively dependant on these illusionary creatures of the mind, i know no other way to myself. i cannot let them go i cannot let them go! is it fear of the serenity, to blink my eyes open to a scenery where nothing is caught, nothing is found, or described.i dont know the difference between love and fear in these moments of thunder, my footing is swept upwards and away in the storm. i know nothing.
i do not become anything, i am only forever becoming.
throughout ramblingmind journey i try to break it up when my arms are flailing sorrowfully and my voice crying to no one, try to bring myself someplace real by snapping my fingers, signalling stop sign--this is temporary. sometimes for a moment i loosen my grip and i watch what was tying me up in knots disassemble and float away, but time after time my mind launches forward once again into my drama, broken and lost to this world that has forgotten its divinity, all human beings illuminated that might not ever find out, and me, in my poor farsighted vision it comes and it goes, at times vivid like the sunrise of heaven, but mostly somewhere far, it feels far far within me. life feeling like a game of remembering and then forgetting

no birthplace, and no point of termination. every moment born anew....