There Are Perfectly Good Trains in This Country, Frankfurt, Germany (Aug 2005)

I disembark from the slowly chugging commuter train and exit the station. It’s been a fun weekend visiting Kris in her hometown of Mainz, I haven’t seen Berlin or any of the tourism highlights of Germany but I think I enjoyed this more, seeing a small German city with someone who lives there. It’s time to go back to Amsterdam, though, I need to back by early morning, and much as I wish I were transferring smoothly from a slow train to a faster one I’m not, I’m headed to the parking lot to the bus stand.

It was a tough decision to choose bus over train, not really difficult because the price differential was enough to get me on a budget Eurolines bus but difficult to give up the romance of trains in Europe, the ease and civilization and speed of the thing. I know its possible to travel by train in America but it doesn’t feel the same, doesn’t feel like a romantic trip back in time fifty years to when people traveled with trunks or fleeing an encroaching army with an elaborate hat on. It’s not like this is the Orient Express or anything, it’s just a train and the romance is in my head, and apparently romance sells relatively cheaply at a price point of around $40, which is the difference between what a train ticket would have been and my bus ticket.

It’s late when I reach the bus stand, not middle of the night late but late for this country where nothing is open 24 hours and in fact after 8pm you are going to have to pay a premium for any services or products. The bus is supposed to leave in around thirty minutes and drive through the night, arriving in Amsterdam at 6am or so. There are a few others waiting there, I join them but don’t greet them, two days here has reinforced my monoglot humility and while they probably speak English I sometimes get a little tired of being the American with no languages. I speak French, a little, and I tend to protest this at some point or another in any conversation, but I don’t speak it that well anymore and everyone speaks English anyway so I end up letting everyone condescend to me.

It is a pleasant summer evening, a comfortable night to pull up a chunk of pavement and sit outside. I lean back and muse over the past couple of days, the statue of the river spirit on the winding banks of the Rhine, the jazz festival we went to and the house party later that night, the beautiful jewel of a church with stunning stained glass windows by Chagall. A fun time and I wish I could bump around Germany a bit more, maybe go see the Reichstag after all, but I am out of time and money for this little jaunt and I need to be back in Holland by the time the sun comes up and so here I wait for my budget bus to serve as an uncomfortable traveling bed tonight., leaving the romance of those trains coming and going on vectors flung across the continent inside the station.

And waiting. The bus is late by now, not terribly late but this is Germany after all, Western Europe and things are supposed to be on time here. I consider walking into the station for a snack before it shuts down completely for the night, but I know that Murphy’s Law applies here just as much as it does everywhere else and if I do that the bus will screech into the parking lot, everyone will leap aboard and I will be left here holding a candy bar in bewilderment.
And waiting still. We are Westerners, we wait politely but anxiously. I am still not really talking to anyone, and as a slight delay of fifteen minutes stretches to thirty and then forty-five, the loose collection of disparate strangers begins to coalesce. We have nothing in common but a shared point of departure, a destination, and a schedule, but that is all it takes to bridge social conventions sometimes. I watch a couple begin to chat with another couple, there is an examination of the sign and a brief huddled conference, a phone call is made in rapid German. Another two people join the clump of four and I am the only one sitting separate now, I’ve thought of doing something but I don’t really know what there is to be done, the bus should be here but its not, I can’t think of any action I could take in this country where I don’t speak the language and don’t have a context that would manifest a bus. I could have figured out a missing train, just get on a different one and spider through all those crossing vectors, take the scenic route, but the trains are all gone for the night now, it’s Sunday and its late and we are a group of strangers hanging out in a deserted parking lot with no bus to validate our presence. This is not supposed to happen in first world countries, and yet c’est la vie, here we are. I don’t know the German for that expression.

A lanky man breaks off from the clump, an ambassador sent to recruit me towards the shared goal of bus manifestation, or perhaps more accurately to humanely help the stranded foreigner, more stranded than they by the simple fact of my clear foreigness. He introduces himself in accented English, doesn’t even bother testing me with German or Dutch. They have called the bus company with the righteous anger of first world travellers, and he tells me that they were told that the bus is late. We figured that part out. They also said the bus was coming. Sometime. It has to come this way sometime, this is the route. Also immensely helpful.

I move over ten feet and become part of the group, solidarity, and listen while a young woman makes the next call. More rapid, agitated speech in a language I don’t understand, and a frustrated farewell at the end, punctuated by the abrupt snapping shut of a cell phone. More news, there will be no refunds, exchanges, discounts, or vouchers, we have been instructed to read the back of our tickets which clearly states that there will be no refunds, exchanges, discounts, or vouchers for our trouble. I can’t read it, it’s in Dutch, but I’ll take their word for it. The woman’s face twists as she says, “This is why it’s so cheap,” and we all concur that we are being abominably treated, yes it is an economy bus but we are in Western Europe. I guess the motto is that if we wanted first world service we would have ponied up the extra $40 and gotten on a romantic train.

We continue to wait. We haven’t been given an ETA on the bus, just “sometime,” and this isn’t even the Mediterranean with siestas and manana time, this is Germany, former home of lockstepping Nazis not to put too fine a point on it. I have been fairly sanguine about this whole thing, as it’s all entirely out of my control, but we are now all comparing notes about where we need to be and when, and how much this is inconveniencing us and may disrupt further travel connections or arrangements. I had some time to burn, but this tardy bus has already burned through most of it and I am beginning to fret as well.

We discuss options--perhaps we could just rent a car and pile in, drive through the night on our own? If we split the cost it wouldn’t put us out that much, although nobody wants to blow the budget that way, we are all waiting for the bus because that $40 meant more to us than comfort and it would just stink to blow our modest savings on a triage solution, but we do need to get from here to there. There are other problems with this plan, the first being that it’s late, where would we even find a car rental agency? We send an emissary to talk to the night guard in the station, he comes back and informs us that we can call a special service that will bring us a rental car for an additional charge. The bus still isn’t here and this is looking more and more like a necessity, but wait there are other issues to overcome with this plan--does anyone know how to get there? I don’t, clearly, but the young woman does, she can navigate but doesn’t have a valid driver’s license. Hmmm. New problem, does anyone have a valid license?

Well. I do.

And suddenly this is starting to seem like a grand adventure, a madcap midnight drive with a carload of strangers across Europe, I warn them that I’m not a very good driver and I don’t really know how to drive a stick shift, automatic only, but we are beginning to convince ourselves that this is feasible. We will wait another ten minutes for the bus and then we are taking matters into our own hands, we will be cowboys not cattle and hopefully the American girl won’t drive off the road and hopefully the German girl actually knows where she’s going and this is going to be a story for sure.

The bus pulls up five minutes later.

Let’s Pave the Rainforest, Misahualli, Ecuador (Jul 2006)

I fell asleep last night listening to the rain plinking steadily on the roof of my breezy cabana, smiling at the sound but also hoping that it would stop before morning. I am, after all, in the middle of a no-shit rainforest, so it is a happy surprise to wake up to clear skies dotted with fluffy clouds. The horizon over the flagging treetops is blue, but a different kind of blue than the sharp, clear air of the mountains; it is hazy and soft somehow.

My hygiene habits have adjusted on this trip, I no longer shower in the morning. There’s no point, as I will immediately set out to get as dirty as possible stomping around exploring, so despite the slight sense of being off-kilter from not following my morning routine, I pull my hair back in a ponytail and spray myself liberally with my precious 100% DEET. It is the most toxic insect repellent commercially available, and I can feel it tingling and stinging into my pores. I throw the bottle in my bag, anticipating relayering myself with poison at some juncture, I am paranoid in my assiduous application of DEET and it’s worked so far, no malaria so far, in fact I have watched lumbering giant mosquitos circle and fly away from my probably melting skin.

After breakfast, I go with my guide to get geared up. Unlike most others here, I am traveling alone, so I get a guide all to myself. He gives me wading boots, encasing my legs in sweaty rubber up to the knee. Already my hiking boot plan has failed. Off we go, and we are doing this a little differently because I’m not a tour group, instead of having a dedicated jeep for our adventures we will hitch a ride to our first trailhead, and it will be a combination of buses and walking afterwards.

The jeep drops us off after a short ride on fairly well-paved roads, and off we go to the Sacred Waterfall. We climb slowly up a rough set of steps set into the muddy hillside, stopping every few minutes so that my guide can show me a plant or flower and explain it’s medical uses. The day is starting to heat up, and the sweat beading all over my body is mingling with the DEET and creating a slick layer of poisonous, dirty sludge. We are just beginning our day.

We go on, stopping less now as we move into the taller trees. The path is not too steep, its not a vertiginous climb, but it is a river of mud still steaming off last night’s rain and it goes straight up, the rude steps of the first section have fallen by the wayside. I slip with every step, clutching at branches and roots as the rubber waders slide treadless in several inches of glop. Every yard of progress I’ve made has been tempered by a foot of sliding, and I am getting dirtier and sweatier and wondering how the hell my guide proceeds with such sure footing, I am stepping exactly where he is and yet here I go sideways and only catch myself from a complete face-plant by thrusting my hand down into the mud. I ask him to slow down, I am panting too because the air is so thick and humid, some rain would be nice right now this is a rainforest where’s the damned rain?

We reach a smoother section, there are some actual stones sunk into the mud on this stretch, some rough indication that this is something other than a wild pig track that humans have adapted to their own purposes, and not that well. My boots are caked with mud, making every step heavier and now I’m carrying my own treachery on my shoes, sliding on the stuff stuck to the bottom even where the ground has traction. We reach a stream and the path ends, will we go upstream or downstream along the bank until we reach a bridge?

How foolish of me to think that there would be a bridge.

My guide leads, the path, it would seem, is to wade upstream for several yards until we reach a break in the foliage on the other side. I am mud all the way up to my thighs, and smeared down my naked arms as well, I have much earlier ditched the long loose layers recommended for jungle weather and also keeping mosquitoes off, it is too fucking hot for that. Rivulets of sweat have traced lines of cleaner skin through the muck all over me, and there are smudges of mud on my face as well where I wiped my brow without thinking of the hand I’d thrust down to save my balance earlier. I am gamely following, teetering against the water’s current and gingerly picking my way step by step in the river, not stepping stone to stepping stone mind you. It occurs to me to wonder, what happens if I fall and, say, sprain an ankle or worse? Is that what it will take to get a helicopter in here to get me out of this jungle hell? Who am I kidding, the closest heli is hundreds of kilometers away, the only way I am getting out of this jungle is the way I came in, sprains, breaks, cuts, and venomous bites be damned.

I stagger and lurch from the water, clumps of mud still clinging to my waders. Oh look, it seems there’s a small hole in the left one, as evidenced by the sloshing wetness covering my foot. This is just getting better and better. There must be a different path out of here, we aren’t even at the waterfall yet but surely we won’t have to backtrack down this path, there’s probably a wide paved access road on the other side and he is just taking me up this way for an authentic experience.

I lean against a tree, panting a little bit, and am torn between wiping the crud off my skin as best I can or adding to it with another layer of DEET. My guide has a slight amused smile, I snarl up at him, “Ever heard of asphalt?! It’s great! You pour it, and then it hardens and it stays that way and you can walk on it ALL THE TIME.”

“Oh, but this is the easy path! Everyone takes this path, groups with senior citizens and small children come up this way, this is easy, very easy.”

I glare. “Easy? Easy? Easy for you, but how about I take you to New York and drop you in Times Square and leave you to navigate the subway to meet me in Tompkins Square thirty minutes later.”

I don’t think he realized how frustrated I am, he backpedals and agrees soothingly that yes, this is easy for him, this is where he’s from but it would be hard for him to be where I’m from. And we are almost there, really. He promises.
One last set of muddy steps, up and up and up, and finally a rickety gate, we have reached the waterfall. Oh no, we have reached the access path for the waterfall, my notion that we had been on the access path was foolish indeed. At least it’s downhill now, but treacherous, treacherous, steep stone steps slick with moisture and I am going very carefully, and we are wading downstream this time it is old hat by now I just want to get to the waterfall, I cannot imagine a greater pleasure right now than plunging into a cold pool of water in the midst of the moist forest and I think I understand why it’s sacred now.

There it is, beautiful manna from heaven, water from a rock, and I tug and yank and pull the rubber prisons from my feet and only then realize that I have forgotten my bathing suit.

The Big Square is This Way, Marrakesh, Morocco (Feb 2008)

We are going to get lost. I planned it that way, on purpose, because ‘getting lost in the souks’ is both recommended as the best way to experience them, and also seems to be inevitable, so we may as well give ourselves permission to not know where the hell we are and try to enjoy it. Arrival in Marrakesh has gone sort of smoothly, we got off the train from Casablanca and only had to argue with two cab drivers before we were able to bargain the rate down to something vaguely acceptable, and we only wandered down four or five blind alleys before we located our riad. Climbing the steps through messy construction to our room was a minor detail, the joys of travel, we are going out to get lost.

And so it begins, we start from the Djama el Fnaa, The Big Square. This is described as “the beating heart of Marrakesh,” and first observations indicate that the beating heart of Marrakesh is pumping tourists into the city at an alarming rate. We were nervously prepared to cover our heads and wear loose clothing from neck to ankle, but even the process of getting to our hotel revealed hordes of European women in tank tops and shorts. It’s not like a veil is going to make us look local anyway, it will just make us looks like uncomfortable Americans with scarves on our heads so we skip it.

My map says that from the Big Square we follow the narrow alley from the north end, bear left and that will lead us into the old market district. There are warrens of interlaced souks, or markets, within the walls of the old city, each souk with a different specialty such as carpets, or leather, or slippers, or musical instruments or metalwork, all spilling over into alleys narrow and full of pedestrians, donkeys pulling carts and the occasional motorbike roaring through and scattering foot traffic left and right. So far the ‘specialty’ on these first few blocks seems to be ‘tourist crap,’ we are hoping to find something a little more authentic as we wend our way deeper.

There is a slight widening here, a courtyard with a crooked tree, and we pause for a moment as I turn around surveying all the different offshoots leading asymmetrically deeper into the old city. A young man passes us, stops and says, “Are you looking for the Big Square?” and points back the way we came, “No, we are going to the souks,” he nods and points at the third alley from the left and continues past us. Third alley from the left it is, picking our way over ancient paving stones covered with a patina of dust, and a turn or two later we are in the market for real.

It is an eruption of color and smells, I can walk down the middle of the alley with both hands outstretched and touch souvenirs and handicrafts with the tips of both fingers, except if I did I’d be mown down by one of those scooters within seconds. Welded metal lanterns piled upon each other in varying sizes, insets of stained glass, elaborately decorated daggers in tooled leather sheaths, ducking under rugs hung from the eaves of these shacks, looking and touching and moving without stopping because even without stopping the shopkeepers are leaning out of their booths, “you like? Is very nice! Come look in my store, best prices in Morocco!” I might want to look at some of these things but the pressure is so intense I don’t want to stop, if we are being swarmed while in motion it is only going to be exponentially worse if the target stops moving and becomes a sitting duck.

Debi wants to check out spices, so we stop in the first spice stall we see. They are gracious, bringing us many samples of different spices and teas to taste and smell, I don’t want to buy anything on the first day here but Debi does, we pack up a couple of small sacks and begin to move on. The vendor asks us what we’d like to see, offers to take us to his friend’s carpet shop, no thank you, do we need a guide, no we don’t thank you, thank you, thank you, we are leaving now, thank you.

Another turn and a duck down an alley completely roofed in tin and the motorbikes still roar through this arcade, these are the soap makers and we don’t stop, there is a special price just for us but we don’t stop, emerging out into another courtyard and thoroughly lost now, stop to shake our heads and squint in the sun looking at the different capillaries leading from here deeper in, the beating heart of Marrakesh pushing us ever deeper into the old city, and a young man sees us standing there and says, “Are you looking for the Big Square?” No, we are not, we are looking for the carpet souk, he points to the second alley from the right and continues on, and we dive back into the second alley on the right and continue getting more and more lost.

Emerging into another arcade after we’ve passed some of the metalworkers, bright sparks showering from their handheld welders and other tools, and rich carpets are piled and hung everywhere in layers, a dizzying profusion of hues and patterns and styles and the carpet souk is supposed to be the most aggressive, this is where we will be subjected to the hardest sell. The mosque bells are ringing though, it is prayer time, so we arrive in the souk just in time to see all the merchants abandon their stalls, thirty pairs of shoes are lined up unevenly across the central space and they are all on canted prayer mats bowing east, east to Mecca, Mecca is more important than trying to sell us a rug. I step back, I am not sure what to do, I have never seen anything like this, is it inappropriate to walk across the courtyard while they are praying? Is it disrespectful to sneak glances at their wares in the brief moment that I will be able to do so before they start telling me how very fine this rug is, and that they have a special price just for me?

We sneak unobtrusively down yet another pathway as the call to prayer subsides into silence, now past mountains of glazed ceramic tajines and elaborate woodwork and turn blindly to the right and we have been down this alley before, the shopkeepers recognize us and this time their calls are different, “What are you looking for, girls?” They are laughing a little but I think mostly they are laughing with us, we are equally bemused by the degree of lostness we have achieved, I give them my Patented Rueful Lost Tourist half-smile and keep moving, eyes still shielded behind mirrored aviators. This looks familiar, and this, and the afternoon is bleeding away and we are tired, it is time to try and get un-lost.

I backtrack, or try to, everything looks the same because every stall seems to have the same things for sale so it has been difficult to landmark but this little courtyard with the crooked tree looks familiar, yes I think we are headed in the right direction and then a young man passes us as we stand there contemplating the different alleys leading off from here, lady or the tiger or something else there are more than two doors to choose from, “Are you looking for the Big Square, it’s that way” not even stopping as he points, for the first time today the answer is yes, we are looking for the Big Square, we are ready to circulate back to the heart to be cleansed and pumped out again, he has continued on and we are about to follow his directions when he loops back, says, “You see that man? That is my friend, he is going there, you can just follow him.”

We are wary, as we should be, but nobody has lied to us yet today in fact they have all been very helpfully approaching us in English and pointing us in the right direction, and that alley looks like the right alley so we follow his friend. Turn and bear right and down another alley and yes, this looks right. We walk alongside our new friend for a bit, he asks us where we are from, he says “welcome to Morocco.” Then he pulls ahead again, we drop back but he is making sure we follow him with each turn, making sure he doesn’t lose the American girls headed to the Big Square.

We’ve been walking for a while now, we’re tired and our feet are sore but we must be close and yes, this is all looking familiar as we seed back into wider and wider alleys almost becoming streets but not quite, not here within the walls of the old city. We must be close, I think this is the road we came in on and he turns again. I’m not sure about this, I think we’re close, I think this is it, but he waves urgently and what do I know, we wandered for a long time probably in circles but maybe not and we have to be getting close, the sun is slanting further down as we heave ourselves up cobblestone alley after cloistered arcade after dirt track. I am seeing fewer tourists and they are all heading in the other direction, this does not bode well.

We walk, and walk, and walk. Our friend is still ahead of us, gesturing urgently, and we follow, what else are we going to do, there was a brief moment there when I thought I knew where we were but that was several turns ago. To my left a wall opens up onto a deep pit.

Wait one stinking minute.

I step over to the gap and look in. Our guide circles back to us, I look at the activity inside and then turn accusingly to him: “This is the tannery!” “Oh yes, you want to see, all the tourists come here I will show you.”

I do not want to see the tanneries. I particularly do not want to see the tanneries right now as the sun is going down and we are tired and hungry and have been lost for hours and are trying to find our way back to the Big Square, because it’s not like I studied my map closely before we set out but I looked at it enough to remember that the tanneries are as far away from the Big Square as you can get and still be in the old city.

There are no other tourists around, it’s just us and vendors smirking from both sides of the street, they had this figured out as soon as they saw us here and we are just catching on. We had been warned about this, about people trying to make themselves our guide, leading us astray and then demanding money, I should have known better but I guess we got suckered by all those good directions earlier and I do not want to see the tannery, I want to go back to the goddamned Big Square and I tell our false friend this in no uncertain terms. He tries to convince me but wilts under the heat of my righteous anger, just point us in the right direction and I will figure it out. His shoulders slump, he will take us back, his gambit has failed.

He leads us up yet another path, not back the way we came, and it is even more deserted here there are no shops at all. He’s ahead of us again, about a block, and at a fork in the road he starts to head up the one on the left, glances back at us and suddenly switches directions and takes off at a full run up the other path.

We are well and truly screwed here.

Debi and I consult. We have got to get out of the old city, if we could at least get out of here we could grab a cab but there are no cabs within the walls. We have also got to get out of this part of town before the sun goes down. We start by backtracking and all these vendors have seen us moments before, trudging behind our guide and they call out to us but it’s not friendly anymore if it ever was, they are jeering at the naïve lost tourists who are at their mercy. This looks familiar, this looks right, maybe, this courtyard with a bent tree, but it all looks familiar and we are no closer to getting out of here. We hear music.

Down another alley to the left and there is a street procession in the alley, a group of percussionists and costumed men dancing behind them. “Let’s follow them! They must be going -somewhere-!” We fall in behind the parade. I am hoping against hope they will end up in the Big Square, that is where these performing troupes and processions seem to end up. We are following them deeper and deeper into narrow alleyways and the dirt is more prevalent here and there are no shops, we are in the poor part of the old city and the only tourists in sight, we may be getting deeper into trouble rather than out of it but options are pretty limited and we don’t have a lot longer until full nightfall and we have got to be out of here by the time that happens.

Suddenly there is a crashing finale, a final atonal wailing accompanying the crashing brass, and the crowd disperses almost instantly as people rabbit down alleys, absorbed into the secret nooks and crannies that perforate this city.

Fuck.

But wait! I see something ahead, I step forward, speeding up, are we really that lucky, yes, yes, yes, yes! There is a gate here, we are at the walls of the old city, no idea which side but at least we can get the hell out of here. We nearly run through, suddenly thrust back into the more modern city with paved roads and cars and traffic, a kid offers to be our guide and I just scream at him wordlessly, I am no longer trying to be an ambassador for my country, representing Americans as respectful yet savvy. We walk in circles for a couple of blocks, I am peering around trying to find the spire of the big mosque, if I can see that I’ll have some idea where we are and therefore some idea of how to get back to where we need to be. Nothing, but there’s a Western Union office there, someone there must speak English and as a representative of a international company will hopefully not try to scam us. We cross the street, the office is closed. As we walk around the corner I glance down and narrowly avoid stepping in something that is shining slickly at me up from the pavement.

A closer look reveals a disturbingly anonymous pile of entrails, flies glutting themselves on this found feast.

“TAXI!!”

We dive into the cab headfirst, slamming the door behind us. The driver turns and looks at us. “Are you looking for the Big Square?”

There is No Train Today, Maybe, Kangra, India (Aug 2008)

I am trying one last time to snap a photo of the monkeys playing on the roof, to no avail; they are uncooperative in the extreme, coming within five feet of me and staring until I fumble for the camera and then merrily scampering over the roofline. I have a lot of pictures of the roof, or a monkey tail vanishing over the edge, but no monkey pictures and I am leaving McLeod Ganj in an hour so I suppose the monkeys will just remain undocumented, lost to posterity. I’ve been in this town for less than 24 hours and have been waiting to leave for half of that, the monsoon rains are the most intense I’ve seen and the Dalai Lama is out on tour, the rock star of religion, and there is not much to see or do here other than fail to take pictures of monkeys.

The up side of leaving earlier than planned is that I will have time to ride the Kangra Valley toy train. The famous one is in Darjeeling, but that is on the other side of the Himalayas and not on my itinerary. The Kangra train is the little known, poor cousin version, but it is nearby and Darjeeling is not. Information on the train is scant, as its not a tourism highlight, but I have assiduously scoured the Rail System website and determined that if I can get there by 10am I can catch one that will get to Pathankot in time to connect to the main rail system and head on to Amritsar by the end of the day. Getting to Kangra by 10am on public transportation was going to be a hell of a trip, it’s not that far from McLeod Ganj but it is not really the distance that determines the difficulty, it was going to be a 5am bus down to Dharamsala and then waiting for another bus to Kangra and then a rickshaw out to the train station, I wussed out and went the non-shoestring route and booked a cab to take me directly to the train. I am losing shoestring backpacker points, but I will also probably get there on time and not get stuck in Kangra.

I pack up the last few items in my room and lock the door behind me, I am going to the café to wait for my cab to arrive. While I am sipping coffee on the veranda, overlooking the mist obscuring the mountains and keeping an eye out for a glimpse of monkey tail, a monk joins me. This is not uncommon in McLeod Ganj, seat of the Tibetan government in exile, and as we talk he tells me he is actually from Delhi. I comment that I haven’t gone there yet, but will be there in a week or two, and in the liltingly accented English that is common here he says, “Oh but Delhi is terrible, terrible! It is full of murder and rape and death, all the time people being murdered and robbed. Terrible, terrible, not even safe for tourists, nowhere is safe, there is rape and killing and murder…” This is not comforting.

The man at reception waves at me, my taxi has arrived. I bid farewell to the monk who is convinced that within a week my body will be found in a dumpster somewhere in Delhi and duck outside in the rain, not worth popping my umbrella for the two seconds it will take me to climb in, I haven’t bothered snugging the rain cover over my pack either. We careen down twisty rutted paths in the pouring rain and I am grateful that I have eschewed the bus, I have had enough of lumbering vehicles wheezing around curves on glorified goat paths, I am looking forward to trains, trains, trains. A monkey! But he is gone too fast or I am, and I have a picture of a blurry roadside.

We don’t talk very much, my driver and I, and I prefer it that way. We get to Kangra and wend our way through town and out of it, over a bridge and then he pulls over. There’s no train station here. He explains that there is no road to the train station, I will need to follow a cobbled footpath through this little hamlet, then over a bridge, and up the hill. I am not sure I trust him, my guidebook said nothing about this, and why the hell have a rail station that is inaccessible? This is India, I have given up expecting things to make sense, so I shoulder my pack and pull the hood of my sweatshirt over my head. Not worth popping my umbrella, not in this crowded alley, and it can’t be that far anyway.

I am the only farang in sight. I orient one more time from the taxi, confirming that I am headed up the correct alley, and feel a little abandoned as I watch my driver turn around and drive off. He was supposed to make sure this went smoothly, that was the point. I walk up the path, it’s steep and the rude steps are slick with streams of water running off from the monsoon rains. I’m a little hungry and there are a couple of street meat stalls, but there is supposedly food available on the train and I will trust that a little more than this. I’m wearing sandals, and they slip off my feet once or twice, I almost want to kick them off and go barefoot.

A few minutes and I have emerged by a riverbank, the same one we crossed earlier. Sure enough there is a bridge, for foot traffic only. I walk out from under the close eaves of the shacks that have been shielding me from the rain onto the bridge, and stop to take a couple of pictures. There are life size statues of Shiva or maybe Vishnu, on the riverbank, or I suppose human size since they don’t exist in life really. I have been mostly up in the high mountains, where there is some Hinduism but mostly Buddhism, so this is a change and I am still having trouble really getting the idea that the people here make sacrifices to these statues by the river, and worship here.

Over the bridge and another twisty pathway leading up into the thickly wooded forest and there had better be a train here after all but the path must go somewhere and I am going wherever this path is going. I pass a group of Indian businessmen cowering from the rain, they are headed the same direction in their damp, ill-fitting suits, yes the train must be this way.

It is 9:15am when I turn the corner and arrive at the station, dank and dirty as it is. There are some people waiting here already, this is a good sign. The ticket window is closed, there is a sign explaining that it will be open 15 minutes prior to the train’s scheduled arrival so I sit down to wait, trying to be unobtrusive.

I am failing spectacularly at being unobtrusive. The women are staring at me with eyes shielded by saris, and the children are not even trying to shield their curious eyes. A man eating something fried out of a paper envelope walks up to me and offers to share, I shake my head and smile and try to pull myself in, I am waiting on the station agent and scribbling in my travel journal, notes about the monkeys and the annoying Belgian who was stalking me in McLeod. A younger man, actually quite handsome, walks over to me and says, “There is no train today, you must not wait here,” but I don’t trust him. He says, “Where do you want to go, I will help you, come with me,” but he is too smooth, his English is too good and there are people here waiting for a train and I will wait with them. He writes his phone number on a scrap of paper and presses it into my hand, says “Call me if you need help,” and leaves. I didn’t think he would actually leave, if this is a bluff it’s not too shabby but I will wait, the station agent hasn’t arrived yet and these people must be waiting for something.

One of the little girls has been slowly sidling closer to me, sneaking up on the tall pale stranger. She tugs on one of the straps of my back and smiles at me, says hello in Hindi, “Namaste,” and I smile and say hello back. Then she asks me if she can have my pen. This is pretty common here, for some reason the kids always ask for pens, and I say no, it’s the only one I have. She pouts. If I thought kids were cute I might think this were cute, but even then I wouldn’t give her my pen and I don’t think kids are cute anyway. I am trying not to growl, though, I am foreign enough without violating the social precept that anyone with a womb must love children, so I smile as I wave her off.

She does not wave off. Oh, a few feet but then she sidles back and starts tugging on the straps again. Her mother is watching her, and by the time I am seriously considering nudging this child with my foot in a way that is probably going to be more like a kick mom calls her back over, giving me a complicit smile over the child’s head. Oh, aren’t they so cute. Not really, but the brat is gone so I can smile about that and I do.

At last, the station agent has arrived, a figure of authority. The other group of Indian businessmen has left as well, they too approached me to say that there were no trains today and offered to take me where I needed to go, but I didn’t trust them either, and these families are still waiting so I will wait with them. I hover as the middle-aged man in a smart suit opens up the office, but he doesn’t open the ticket window. I stand outside the door that says “No Entrance” and peer through the screen, knocking at last. Can I buy a ticket for the train to Pathankot?

“No, there is no train today, the tracks are washed out.” But I saw a train go in the other direction! “Yes that is a different train on a different track.” Now I know that can’t be right, there’s barely one track out here much less two, there’s not even a road to this station for Chrissake. Was there a train yesterday? “Yes, there were trains yesterday, but not today,” and he gestures at the rain pouring down all around us. What about tomorrow, will there be a train tomorrow? “Yes, there will be a train tomorrow,” really? For sure? “Yes, they will fix the tracks today,” well does that mean there might be trains later today?

Right about then a train pulls up, heading in the direction I want to go. I start to scramble for it, the families are all packing up their things and squeezing aboard, but my oily, unctuous station manager smiles beatifically and says, “That is not your train.” I almost get on board anyway, it is at least going in the right direction but I hesitate, I am kind of stranded here in Kangra but at least it is listed in my guidebook and I have some resources here, if this train in fact does not proceed on the only track out here to my destination I may well end up stranded somewhere in between.

I watch the train pull out of the station, mouth slightly open in disbelief. Obviously the track is not completely washed out, and I ask him again if there will be a train later today, even if there is not one at 10am. “Yes, it is possible,” Really? I am questioning him closely, because if there is going to be a train I can wait here, it will mean a later train at Pathankot and getting Amritsar later at night but I will still get there and I will have gotten my toy train ride so it is worth considering, the other options are pretty grim, he reverses, “No there will be no trains today. …Maybe.”

I want to strangle him. At this point I know I can’t believe anything he says, he is now just casting about for the right platitude to make this tall blonde farang with the light eyes stop glaring at him. He wants to tell me what I want to hear, whether or not it is true. I sit down again to wait for a little while. Another family comes into the station, and there is a reprise of the Small Child Being Fucking Annoying act, and then another train! I get up, look around for the station manager, that oily smile again as the families climb on board, if he is not actually waggling a forefinger at me he is thinking about it so hard that he might as well be, “That is not your train.” Will my train come later? “Yes, it will come later.” Really?! “…Maybe.”

I retreat to my bench, light a cigarette, and flop open my guidebook again to study options. He approaches me, “You would not see anything today anyway, bad weather,” he’s trying to mollify me. I ask again if the train will come later, he firmly says, “No.” Are you sure? No words, just that smile again. Ok. This isn’t working. I can wait here for a train that probably won’t come. I can retreat to Kangra, spend the night there and then try again tomorrow, or I can backtrack all the way to McLeod Ganj and take the direct bus from there to Amritsar the following morning and chalk up the past two days to a waste of travel time. But I want trains, trains, trains, I am so sick of buses I want a train.

My guide says that there are local buses from Kangra to Pathankot. If I leave now, I can probably get there in time for the train to Amritsar, but it going to mean admitting defeat here. The Indian trains have defeated many a lesser mortal, and they seem to have conquered me as well, so after two hours sitting in the dank station I sigh and stand up, buckling my pack back around my waist, and head out into the rain towards Kangra proper. Back down the trail, across the river and I’m not bothering to take pictures now, through the cobbled path and down the wet stairs and back out to where the taxi dropped me off hours ago. I have a new problem, I don’t know where the main town is. I know I need to get there to reach the central bus station, but should I go back the way the taxi came down from McLeod, or further on down the main road? There are bus stops on both sides of the road, I just need to figure out which one I need.

I approach a group of women standing on the near side of the road, I am trying to talk to women rather than men because I have been so thoroughly warned about devious rapacious men in this country. Unfortunately, the women are far less likely to be educated, they don’t speak English at all, just shyly shake their heads and avert their eyes. In frustration I turn to a man standing alone, ask him if he speaks English. “A little,” he says cautiously. Where is the bus to Kangra? “Yes, yes.” Kangra. The town, where is it? “Yes, yes.” Kangra! Which way? I point one way and then the other, hoping he will give an affirmative to one and not the other, but again “Yes, yes.” These people do not know how to say no. The bus? To Kangra?

We have been doing this little “who’s on first” routine for a few minutes when a crowded bus pulls up on the other side of the street. I point at the bus and say, “Kangra??” and he says, “Yes, yes.” I wish he’d said no to at least one thing so I could feel confident that he differentiates between yes and no. I cross the street and squeeze onto the bus. I ask the driver, “Kangra?” and he nods. Off we go, shuddering and shaking and we are crossing the bridge again and turning into a town, we reach what seems to be a central stop and the bus driver gestures to me, this is where I want to get off. How can he know that? But I guess where else would I be going but out of this place. I step off the bus onto the corner and look around. I ask someone where the bus station is, they tell me I will need a rickshaw. How far? Too far, you must take a rickshaw. Really, if it’s less than a mile I’d rather walk, if I get lost on my own two feet at least I know how I got there but nobody will give me directions they just say “rickshaw” and “yes, yes.”

There is a rickshaw waiting on the corner, I run over and say “Bus station” and he nods, I squeeze in with a couple of others. Off we go, wheezing and rattling up the road, and a few minutes later I get out at the bus station, it was less than a mile away. This place is actually pretty big, a columned hall with many windows and a couple of snack bars. I grab a couple of bags of potato chips and some crackers and wander around until I find the inquiry window. Where is the bus to Pathankot? He tells me it is in berth 37, and it leaves in 20 minutes. I can buy my ticket on the bus. I walk outside and look up, there are numbers on all of the columns, I just need to find 37.

I circle the building twice, the numbers stop at 35.

I go back in to the inquiry window--where is 37? He points. I shake my head. He points again. I shake my head again, and if this dude starts saying “yes, yes” I probably am going to try to kill him. He rolls his eyes and steps outside the booth, walks me over to the door and points to the next building. Ah. There’s a 37 painted on a small stand there with a bus in front of it, empty. I walk across and find the driver standing beside the bus, I ask him, “Pathankot?” He nods and I climb on board. I’m the first one on the bus and I sit up front, squeezing my bag above me into the luggage rack I am glad I got here early, otherwise there might not be room. I lean into the window and open my book, waiting for our departure as the bus fills up.

Ten minutes later everyone starts to move, I look up in confusion. We are all getting off the bus, it seems, a man stops to tap my shoulder and point at another bus, it seems that is the bus to Pathankot after all not this one. I pull down my bag and scurry over, but now I am the last one on the bus instead of the first and end up teetering precariously on the edge of a seat in the middle with my bag finally crammed in overhead. Shortly after we rumble off.

I have no idea where we are, this road, whatever it is, isn’t marked on my map. I am trying to stay alert, wary about all the strange Indian men around me, ready to fend off lewd advances on a crowded bus if necessary. We stop frequently, people get on and off and the Punjabi conductor, or whatever the appropriate term is, squeezes up and down the aisle and over bags to collect fares at irregular intervals. There are no lewd advances, but man I wish I could feel confident that everyone had showered within the last week but it certainly doesn’t smell like it. I zone out, a little, not even reading just hunching into myself on this sweaty, humid bus.

A beautiful young girl boards the bus in a fuschia sari. She’s with her mother, and they crowd onto the edge of whatever seat they can find. She’s gorgeous, and fully decorated with henna in her hair and a bindi on her forehead and intricate patterns dyed onto her hands and feet. She is also apparently carsick. Every ten minutes or so she rushes to the door of the bus and vomits on the side of the road. The bus doesn’t stop moving. I am alert now, because this gal is actually pretty close to me and of the many ways that this day could probably get worse, being covered in vomit is one of them and I am preparing to fling myself out of the way if called upon to do so.

That doesn’t happen. What happens instead is that the bus stops. There’s a incomprehensible negotiation between the bus driver and the conductor, and suddenly everyone is getting off the bus again, but this is clearly not Pathankot. I follow, what else am I going to do? As we disembark the problem becomes clear. The road has washed out here, the bus can’t get over the bridge its too unstable. There’s a bus on the other side in the same predicament, so we are applying a typical Indian solution: we are switching buses. My busload of people trudges over the bridge, the opposing busload of people pass over to our bus, and all aboard… again.

This time there’s no room overhead for my bag, so I have it crammed onto my lap. We are degenerating slowly here, taxi to train to bus to bus to bus and I am not sure where the bottom is but I’m pretty sure I’ll find out by the end of the day. At least the vomiting girl is further away from me now. We continue on, and on, some interminable time of rain-streaked windows, and then we stop. I look up, peer out the window, this doesn’t look promising, but everyone is getting off the bus. Again.

We all get off, and half of the crowd disperses, we are in some kind of town but I have no idea where. I turn around a couple of times, I am about to ask my eternal question, “Pathankot?” and wait for the inevitable “yes, yes,” when a skinny middle-aged man takes pity on me in my evident confusion, touches my arm gently and points me to yet another bus. How does he know where I’m going? Where else would I be going, I am not waiting for Godot per se but it is pretty similar.

Another bus and we are coming out of the mountains now, the rain is clearing up so it is less humid but still hot, hot, hot. We turn onto a smooth, paved highway. There are road signs here, they say “Pathankot 22 km.” I am counting down kilometers, and we are still on the outskirts of the city and I’m not sure that this bus goes all the way to the train station, we stop and everybody is getting off again, this must be Pathankot, I turn a quizzical look to my helper from earlier in the day and he nods, this is Pathankot.

Now I have to find the train.

Bus Go Crash, Antigua, Guatemala (Jul 2007)

It’s starting to rain as I cross the main square to meet Dana and Assaf. Not hard, but it will get worse and I don’t have a raincoat or an umbrella, at least not with me now, and there’s no time to go back to the hostel to get gear so I guess I will just get wet. Assaf and Dana are waiting for me, a bit anxiously, and when I arrive Assaf gives a dubious look at my footwear and distinct lack of weather-appropriate clothing. A tone of disbelief, tinged with the kind of concern you’d hear about a mentally challenged child, “You’re not wearing those shoes, are you?”

“There the only ones I have, so I guess so.” I had ultimately decided not to pack my heavy-duty boots for this trip, it wasn’t going to be worth the weight and it’s steamy and tropical here. My runaround shoes are slip-on Mary Janes, not really qualified for hiking but the hike is supposed to be fairly easy, then again all the hikes here are supposedly easy and almost never are, they have a different definition of an easy hike than I do. Mainly my definition involves wide, smooth paths that incline gently. The hike is not the point of this little excursion, however, the point is the caldera of Volcan Pecaya, a spectacularly scenic active volcano just a few miles from Antigua. We are anticipating explosions of lava showering up into the sky, and as we confer we are disappointed that no one remembered to bring marshmallows, someone told us that you can toast marshmallows over the lava flows up there and that would have been awesome, if we had remembered it.

We are all here and accounted for, a group of around ten tourists from all over the world, there’s a Spanish couple and an Italian couple, a Canadian guy and someone from Germany, the Israelis Dana and Assaf, and of course me representing for the U.S. I met Dana on the flight from New York yesterday, and that has turned out to be quite a fortuitous meeting as we got delayed in El Salvador and ended up traveling to Antigua from Guatemala City late at night, since we had both independently made reservations at the same hostel. She has come here to meet her brother, Assaf, who is rounding out his year in Latin America, and he met us at the hostel last night. He’s been in Antigua for a while and knows his way around, and he took care of making arrangements for all three of us to join this tour, he is one of those guys that gets things done even for strangers that aren’t his sister.

We clamber into the van, or minibus, or “tourist bus” as they are called here, Dana and Assaf first in the back row and I end up teetering on the edge of the second row, odd man out and the only tourist not paired off in some way or another. We pull out of the square and head up the road out of the city, and its raining harder now as conversations spring up awkwardly amongst the group of disparate strangers who share only an origin that is Not Here. We chat about where we’re from, where we’ve been, how long we’ve been in Guatemala, the things that travellers always talk about with each other, getting cozy in this sweaty little vehicle where we’re practically sitting on top of each other and the idea of a seat belt is laughable.

One of our number ended up in the shotgun seat next the driver, necessary to fit everyone in, and breaking through the rising babble of cross-conversations is a crisply accented “Watch out!,” there’s such urgency in it that it grabs everyone’s attention and look forward and see the wall of the cliff sliding towards us, or we are sliding towards it and its looming so close so fast it shouldn’t be that close and

Impact

The van stopped moving but we moving within it are still going, I am flung forward and end up in the console area between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat in the front and thunk something is on top of me and we are moving for a long time even though it’s only a couple of seconds at most and everything is shuddering to a halt and it’s silent now it was so loud a moment ago I guess everyone was screaming but I didn’t scream or at least I don’t think I did but I probably was. The weight on top of me shifts, Dana has landed on me from behind where she was flung over the seat, everyone move up one peg, like musical chairs but not really and we are collectively struggling to move back one peg, we have to get out of this van because we are on the shoulder of a road that doesn’t really have a shoulder and I can’t really think yet but what if another car slams into us while we’re trapped here we have to get out, someone next to the door is trying to slide it open and it’s jammed and he shouts “It won’t open” and we’re trapped here, but before I can even begin to panic Assaf has levered himself out of the broken window and climbed around to the door and is prying it open from outside, we tumble out into the pouring rain and traffic veering around us and my feet hit the ground, wobbly, I have a vague notion that I shouldn’t move because I might be injured and in shock and I could injure myself even more but we had to get out of that van and my knees are shaking my whole body is shaking and quaking and I step to the side of the road, Assaf is making sure everyone gets out safely and I am so glad he’s here to do this, that he hasn’t even paused to panic or think about it he just did it, I feel my muscles turn to water and sit down abruptly and I shouldn’t be moving or at least not this fast I should be moving slowly and carefully and testing and examining everything but I sit down fast before I fall down and just barely manage to lift my feet above the rill of water in the gutter and Assaf sees me and immediately steps towards me, “Are you hurt?” “Shock,” I yell back over the noise of the traffic and the rain and the buzz of the world that is receding and advancing in distorted waves, I am cogent enough to let him know that he can triage others before he gets to me, I drop my head between my knees and I shouldn’t move my back probably but fields of gray geometric triangles are swarming in on the edges of vision narrowing down to a tunnel and if I don’t get blood to my head I am going to faint here and that is not going to do anyone any good.

I breathe deeply for a few minutes, or maybe less than that or maybe more I have no sense of the passage of time right now and in part of my awareness my body is still accelerating forward towards the window and the wall in front of me looming closer than it should be and so final in its proximity. By the time I look up everyone is gathered around the back of the van, the hatch is open and the driver is sitting there, nobody is sure how badly they are injured, we are shaken but moving and huddling out of the rain and waiting for someone to come, surely someone has to come.

Someone does come, because Assaf got a cell phone from the driver and called it in. A police car arrives, and two policeman swagger warily over to the group of first world tourists with ashen faces and shocked open eyes. They talk to the driver, and then there’s a long conversation with the Spanish tourist about what happened, and then he talks to Assaf for a while. The policeman steps back and looks at the van, and the wall, and us. His eyes run that circuit a couple of times, settling back on the wet huddle of tourists who are all waiting for him to do something, we come from places where once the cavalry has arrived they take over and do things.

He comes over to us and flips open a little notebook, holding a very small pen awkwardly in a rather dirty hand. He asks us what countries we are from, and laboriously records that we are Americans, and Spaniards, and Italians, and Germans, and Israelis, and Canadians. Then he closes his notebook and asks if anyone is hurt. We are all hurt, we clamor, but we are all moving and functioning or so it seems. I can feel that something is wrong in my left thigh, but I don’t know how wrong and I’m scared to look. I tried rolling my pants leg up to get a look at it, I could see the bruise coming up already and it’s enormous and if it’s already starting to come up mere minutes after the impact it is going to be really bad, but maybe it is just a big bruise, it will hurt but is that enough reason to subject myself to a Guatemalan hospital on the first day of my trip?

Danna and Assaf go with the cop, Dana’s wrist is hurt and Assaf is going with her to get it checked out, he asks me if I need to go too and I say no. If he were my brother he would probably make me go anyway, the way he’s making Dana go, but he’s not my brother and I’m not his sister and his sister is hurt, and everyone here has been triaged. I tell him how grateful I am that he’s here, that he’s a good person to have around in an emergency, and he shrugs it off, says “I’ve been through worse.” “What’s worse than a third world car crash?” I ask, he stops for a second to see if it’s a real question and then says “People shooting at you.”

Oh.

I forgot, he’s Israeli, not only does he live in Jerusalem itself but he has of course had to serve his compulsory term in the army.

So they’re gone with the cop now to the hospital, and soon after an ambulance shows up to pick up two other people, the driver who probably has some broken ribs and another woman who thinks her back may be injured, they strap her to a backboard and load her in, we are a diminishing quantity here waiting in the rain, the only ride out so far has been with serious injury. We were told that the tour company was sending another bus to pick us up, raising the new question of whether we want to get in another vehicle by this company because in the hours that we’ve been waiting here I took a look at the van and found to my horror that tires were completely bald, no tread whatsoever to grip the slick asphalt and hold it on the tight mountain curves.
It is about three hours from impact until when our ride shows up. We climb gingerly into this new potential vehicle of death, and my leg is talking to me now and louder but it’s not disabling, I just suspect that it will be once the shock wears off. I feel sick, now, and increasingly uncomfortable as all the water I drank is sloshing back and forth in my body, still moving towards the window and the wall beyond the window so close closer than it should be.

The driver gets lost.

It takes us twice as long to get back to Antigua, and we want to get back as fast as possible to put some distance between the helpless group cowering in the shelter of a crashed van but we also tell him over and over to go slow, go slow, be careful, take his time, any illusion we had of safety has been shattered along with any further illusion that anyone here cares if we are safe.

It’s fully night when we arrive back, I am helped out of the car by the Spanish guy and rush for the bathroom first before doing anything, I shouldn’t be rushing anywhere because I still don’t know how badly I’m hurt. When I come back the remaining members of our group are arguing heatedly with the tour operator official representative. She is blatantly uninterested in our complaints and our pain, she blandly offers to refund our tour fee of $5 each. We protest, we are first worlders and we can protest like nobody’s business, I am fully prepared to go all kinds of Ugly American on this woman, we will sue, we were injured, gross negligence, bad driver, unmentioned vehicle, but she knows our threats are empty here. She gives us all business cards with a number we can call tomorrow to file our complaints, and then informs us that she is shutting down the office for the night.

I am not limping, exactly, as I navigate back to my hostel, but I probably should be. The Spanish couple is escorting me, they are a little concerned that I am more badly hurt than they or I at first realized, but I assure them that I am ok and they accept my assurance without too much convincing required, I wish they hadn’t swallowed it so easily because I probably do need help but I don’t want to ask for it, I don’t want to need help here I am traveling alone because I can handle whatever happens all by myself I don’t need the security blanket of others to get through these adventures and misadventures, I am brave and resourceful and competent and strong and if Assaf hadn’t climbed out that window maybe it would’ve been me instead.

I let myself into the Black Cat hostel and go to reception. I ask if Assaf and Dana have returned, explain the crash and that they went to the hospital. I ask her if she has a private room available, that I’d like to switch out of the dorm if possible because I hurt my leg, but they are all booked up. She suggests I ask the other girls in the dorm to switch and let me use the bottom bunk, no way I can climb that ladder tonight or maybe I could but I shouldn’t be moving so much, I am still moving towards that window and the wall beyond.

I thank her, and slowly climb the stairs to my room. There’s a group of British girls in there now, they just arrived today, and I tell my story again and of course someone will swap bunks with me, is there anything they can do to help am I sure I’m ok? Oh yes, I’m fine, laugh it off, what a story and at least my laugh isn’t shaky and hysterical anymore. I finally have a chance to take off my pants and see how bad it is. A bruise the size of a serving platter is stamped on the outside of my left thigh, a bubble of purple blood rising to the surface of the skin with vessels not just ruptured in there but likely flat out obliterated. Everyone gasps in sympathy, I lean over to pull a dress out of my bag and suddenly scream I didn’t even know I was going to scream didn’t pull in extra air for it but oh my god the pain is radiating and knifing out from deep, deep inside the muscles of hip and oh god its not stopping I’m not moving anymore I’ll never move again I promise I swear and I am still screaming and tears are exploding from my eyes my tear ducts violently and suddenly evacuated and it is subsiding a little its not gone but I’m not screaming anymore but I can’t move either, I have finally stopped moving towards that window with the wall looming too close closer than it should be and I am not going to move again I will be still and solid like the rock wall and never move again because moving hurts it hurts so much and how did it not hurt in the hours before this, climbing in and out of cars and sitting on a toilet and up stairs and bending and sitting and rising because I will still moving then I was ahead of it and I have crashed through that window and into that wall at last after all these hours in motion, the shock-induced adrenaline has drained out and left agony in its wake.

One of the British women is a nurse, she tells me I have torn at least one muscle maybe more, and rummages through her med kit to dose me with heavy duty codeine. It’s altruistic for sure, but also the only way anyone will be able to sleep tonight otherwise I will scream I can’t help it, I have no control over it my body dictates that screaming is the only possible response.

I still don’t go to the hospital.

Club Korsakoff, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Jul 2005)

Urban pathways become so familiar so quickly, and I am threading my way along canals and down alleys through my favorite neighborhood in picturesque Amsterdam, the Jordaan. I’ve whiled away many an afternoon meandering through the junk shops and cafes of this district, scurrying from sudden showers and basking in alternate sunlight, but tonight my mission is different. I’m going out, to be social and around people, not going out to be out in the city but in my own head. Club Korsakoff, I was here last week and I haven’t been going out much really, have been in my own head more than out of it but I am winding down my little sabbatical here, my brief meditation on writing, I am frankly sick of the sound of my own voice echoing in my head and pouring onto my computer telling me stories about myself, in some ways I feel like I’ve been talking nonstop for three weeks except mostly it doesn’t get outside of the closed loop of my mind and the laptop, and I would like to hear someone else’s stories for a change or at least make a new one.

Along the canal and the walkway is narrow, I am piloting a monster of a bicycle alongside the rilling yet doubtlessly filthy water. I haven’t ridden the bike very much, trusting my feet more in the patchworked web of pedestrian, bicycle, tram, and car traffic and the bikes are by far the most terrifying, the Dutch are masters of pedal-powered locomotion and traffic rules are suggestions only, and weak ones at that. There are fewer people out tonight though, and it is about time I added my tributary to the delta of bikes flowing concurrent with the canals. I find the size of this one almost comforting, a heavyweight hunk of metal that is slow to start but once rolling near unstoppable, something that maybe shouldn’t be comforting but is, I like the massiness of it. Right down the last narrow cobblestoned corridor, and I reel to a halt and lock up my banana-colored bike, adjust my skirt and walk through the battered door painted flat black.

Inside I’m immediately engulfed in a cloud of chemical fog and a textured wall of sound, a sensory shock after the quiet of the night outside. I nod to the bouncer with the uncertain smile of one who can’t respond in Dutch if he chooses to question me, I wouldn’t even be able to understand the question. He nods back slightly, stoic, and I’ve passed the gatekeeper and push into the wall of hazy smoke to the bar. It’s not particularly crowded, and that’s a relief, there is room to move and breathe, if you can pretend the thick combination of artificial fog and cigarette smoke is beneficial to breathe. I give my uncertain smile to the bartender, he asks me something and I just point to one of the taps, I don’t even know what it is but with the twin barriers of language and noise I am just going to have to trust him. He turns out to be trustworthy, and I turn and lean my back gently against the bar rail, almost cuddling my drink, a prop to hide behind if necessary, and look around for the first time, I find I prefer to give everyone else a chance to ‘see’ me first if that’s what they want to do before I turn my attention to the constantly mutating social constellation, that way nobody has to get busted checking someone out, giving them the initial two second evaluation.

They are here, the gaggle of younger club kids I met last week, they’ve seen me and they are so happy to see me again, their exotic foreign friend, although I can’t imagine I’m that exotic I’m only an American. They are all younger than me, late teens or twenty-young, and it’s ridiculous probably but I do feel older, wiser, more experienced and cosmopolitan, all this despite my constant self-awareness as really nothing more than a small town girl from rural North Carolina who has somehow managed to stumble her way across the ocean to get here.

We greet each other with exaggerated joy, overdone hugs and a fake kiss on the cheek as if we think for a moment that we’re French and can get away with that without being pretentious. We talk, and laugh, and giggle, half the conversation lost in a swirl of sound and abrupt entrances and exits from the conversation as people hit the dance floor and then return, sweaty and smiling, it doesn’t actually matter if we can understand each other that’s not the point really. I slide into back into my social persona, a bit rusty since I haven’t been doing this regularly for a while, it’s a face that started to fit all too well when I was being aggressively outgoing in Seattle every night of the week. It’s a frivolous place, and it is appropriate to be frivolous people here, and I am smiling and laughing easily, my face mobile and expressive with ironic amusement, every gesture and expression slightly outsized to push through the sound and the dimness and let’s not forget the tequila, there is round after round of tequila and I participate in the first one but then try to demur, the impeccably gothed out girl who seems to be the social alpha won’t let me, she insists, I explain that I rode my bike here this time and I will have to get it back, and what she doesn’t understand is that if I keep drinking like this I will ride it straight into the canal, “We will pull you out,” she laughs back at me, we are friends at least for tonight, for tonight I have been fully embraced as part of their community, a mascot almost.

I didn’t mean to stay this long, but somehow the night has slid away and it is 4am and the music is fading out and the lights are coming up, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here, and we spill out of the battered black door and scatter to unlock our bikes. I am privately planning to walk this bike home, I go to say goodbye but it’s not time for goodbyes yet this night isn’t over quite yet, there’s a bakery a few blocks away that will open at 5am and I am dragooned into the joining the cavalcade, I say dragooned but it’s not as if I’m resisting too much I don’t really want to go home yet either if we can keep this groove going a little longer.

I am walking my bike and they are all walking theirs as well, a silent concession to the drunk American gal, over the next few blocks different members of this group of five or so people drop back to talk with me, a rotation almost, and now here we are at the bakery but it’s not open yet, it’s not 5 am quite yet so we drop our bikes or lean them against the wall, not bothering to lock them up we’re the only people out here anyway. We sit down on the sidewalk and never mind the elaborate club outfits, who cares it’s the end of the night and the judgment is over. I lean over and rest my head on Yuri’s shoulder, the goth girl strokes my hair and we are still chatting but slowly, lazily, energy oozing into this odd cuddle puddle on a Dutch sidewalk in the Jordaan.

The light comes on inside and the ovens are firing up, we rouse ourselves and knock on the window, not yet, they need a few minutes to get the croissants going. I don’t stand up yet, Thomas is taking point on this transaction and I am going to lounge here on the sidewalk until my fresh croissant magically appears. It doesn’t take too long, and maybe time is elastic too, I’m not in a hurry or waiting for anything, this night has already been lovely beyond my expectations and anything further is a bonus, extra credit, and there is a warm, flaky, perfect pastry in my hands, butter still moist in the dough as the sun starts struggling up in the east.

Volcano Surfing at Cerro Negro, Nicaragua (Nov 2007)

“Maybe we should have stayed at this hostel instead,” I mutter as we walk into the Bigfoot Hostel. It’s a bit grubbier than our newfound homebase in Leon, but has a much compensatory social vibe that is definitely lacking in our Hostel of Silence, the Lazybones on the other side of the old town. Too late now and we’re only staying one night in this town, Leia left the beach yesterday and established our bulkhead in this city while Melissa and I stayed to soak up hammock-y sunshine and take surfing lessons, an endeavor which as usual ended with me spat out on the beach coughing up saltwater. It was good that Leia left a day early though, good I think for all of us, this trip has involved a lot of tension amongst travelers and it was nice for Melissa and I to have a day when we weren’t worried about somehow offending Leia, and good too for Leia to have a day when she navigated herself around Nicaragua all alone, building some confidence as a third world backpacker. It’s always frightening the first time you’re on your own with nothing but a backpack on a dirty bus, heading to a town you’ve never set foot in where you don’t speak the language, but she seems to have done just fine, booked us into the agreed-upon hostel and has also reserved our spots on the volcano surfing tour. We didn’t know it but if she hadn’t been here the day before we wouldn’t have been able to go today and today is the only day available, so victory all around and we have arrived at the appointed time in the lobby of the Bigfoot Hostel.

Melissa has bowed out, she is feeling too sunburnt and tired from our surfing endeavors to tackle the mountain, so it is just Leia and I and the tension has simmered down, that day of space really helped and I am hopeful that maybe we can end this trip as friends after all. The lobby is crowded, a milling group of tourists from a variety of first world countries, we’ve got Aussies and Americans and Germans and Brits, all lined up and ready to go do something exquisitely dumb. There’s a placard on an easel with a few pictures of the mountain and a description of what we are about to do, “after an easy 40 minute walk up the mountain” as the placard describes it, we will “surf down the slope of volcanic shale at speeds up to 75 kilometers per hour.” We are advised to bring at least two liters of water each, and that we have, maybe this will be the one freakin’ time I don’t end up dehydrated and panting on the side of a Latin American mountain and out of water.

Our guides are Australians, they are the ones who pioneered this activity. We are subject to a brief orientation prior to climbing into the truck, Cerro Negro is the youngest volcano in the world, appearing in the middle of a cornfield about a hundred years ago, erupting out of fertile farmland and growing quickly to a height of about a kilometer before settling in to smolder menacingly. Australians being the second-craziest group of travelers in the world (the first being the Kiwis), they naturally saw the mountain and thought, “I must surf that pile of geologically unstable rock and ash! How fast can we go??” It is actually more like sledding than surfing, but surfing sounds cooler so we are going with that.

Into the back of the truck, ten or twelve of us crammed onto hard benches and we rumble out of town, a pickup with a payload of multinational gringos. We will drive for about an hour, we were told, and the weather is perfect despite being in the tail end of the rainy season, the air is warm and soft and we are traversing through increasingly rural roads, turning off the highway onto dirt track branching off of dirt track through lush, verdant countryside and crop fields. Little kids run out of things that I can’t really call houses, more shacks or hovels, waving and shouting as they chase the truck and we are all smiling back, big grins you kind of can’t help it. We all laugh, what must the locals think of this truckload of tourists going up to the mountain to do their damnedest to kill themselves in new and creative ways? Life isn’t challenging enough for us, waking and working and caring for land and children and relatives day after day, we are jaded and spoiled and we seek the thrills of life in ever more outlandish fashion.

We stop at the entrance to the park, or conservation station, it is a little unclear whether we are paying an official fee or an unofficial bribe, the line is always blurry down here, one thing is certain though we are going to pay somebody for the privilege of our suicidal adventure. We are waiting for a while there, the reasons again not exactly clear, this also something to be expected in this part of the world, and we can see the mountain now looming sternly above us, a cone of black rock harsh and devoid of any gentling vegetation, it looks like something out of the Lord of the Rings, we are entering Mordor. We can see the storm clouds coming across as well, not impeding the blazing sun yet but we are worried because we need to beat the rain, we can’t do this in the rain.

Back in the truck with still no explanation of our pause there, explanations are things you learn to let go of. We approach the mountain, curving around it’s flanks, and our guide points out the steep slope that we will be going down, good god that’s intimidating, I know the angle looks much more intense than it actually probably is, magnified and distorted by my disbelief that I am actually going to throw myself down it towards the rocks below.

Final disembarkation. Out of the truck and our guide, the absurdly athletic blonde woman, distributes a bundled plastic grocery bag to each of us, this contains our protective jumpsuit and goggles. She starts pulling sleds off the top of the truck and we each get one of these as well, it’s about four feet long by two feet wide, with metal sheeting on the bottom. It’s not terribly heavy, probably just a few kilos, but its awkward as hell to manage, there’s no good way to carry this thing, and the fact that we are carrying our gear up the mountain is news to me although there’s no reason that it should be, perhaps in the back of my mind I temporarily forgot that I was doing Something Unsafe in Nicaragua rather than visiting a sanitized ski resort type of place, somewhere with a lodge at the bottom of the mountain and little gondolas to take me to the top, I had vaguely thought that maybe they kept the sleds stashed on the mountain but as it’s volcanically active and could erupt at any moment that wouldn’t make much sense now would it?

We start off towards the trail, picking our way through boulders of pumice. No tree cover and the sun is hot on our skin, the heat absorbing too into the black rock surrounding us and radiating back from all sides. We are moving fairly quickly and the slope isn’t steep yet, we are winding our way around the base first to access the trailhead, this is the easy part of the hike but it’s a lot less easy in the glaring heat, awkwardly toting my sled and bag of gear while concentrating on placing my feet on a relatively solid surface, this is less of a path and more of a goat trail really, the faintest of indications that this route may actually get you up to the top without confronting a sheer cliff face. Leia and I fall behind quickly, we are panting and sweating and taking water breaks after ten minutes. There’s a German girl back at our pace too, we are letting the testosterone-filled guys rush ahead with the crazy Australian guide and we all agree that we will not be pressured to meet an unreasonable pace, we will not feel judged we will get up this mountain all in good time and never mind the clouds coming in, I actually kind of want the clouds to come because some shade would be nice. We continue up and I can’t help but think of that Biblical quote that I am paraphrasing in my head, something about not finding shelter under the tree nor the rock, wherever that sinner was it probably looked something like this.

We catch up to the rest of the group, they’re waiting for us. Our guide explains that we have completed the easy part and the next portion of our ascent is the steepest, probably on ten or fifteen minutes but to be careful, they haven’t done as much maintenance on the path as they should have since the last time the volcano rumbled its rocks into redistributed patterns. She sets off again, disturbingly muscled thighs pumping in quick rhythm up and around the shoulder of the mountain and we trail after, coming around the corner to see a steep drop off to the right and how did we get so high already, Leia and I are leapfrogging each other as we take frequent breaks and the even the German girl has pulled ahead of us, I am going very slowly I will not be rushed and I am incredibly grateful that I packed my heavy boots after all, the leather strapped and laced around my ankles all the way up my calves is probably the only thing that has prevented two sprained ankles so far because these rocks are unstable, and there isn’t even anything pretending to be a path anymore just a pile of rubble to climb over with a menacing slope of horse sized boulders to the right and this stupid sled under my arm or the best way to carry it really to balance the weight is to sling it on my back and use both arms up over my head and down again to hold it center but then I can’t use my hands to balance or catch myself if I trip and I’m not sure I can do this, I’m not sure I can make it up this mountain the group is far ahead now so much higher so quickly and my foot comes down on a rock and it shifts and I stagger sideways a step and there is just barely even a steps worth of stagger room before I’d go off the edge here, tumbling down and over and there are no bushes or trees to soften the slope I don’t go over but I cry out, I am shaking now trembling and I can’t go on I can’t go up but I can’t go back down either I sink down to the ground I want to lay down and press my body to the most stable surface I can find and grip every point of contact possible, the grit is digging into my knees and I am all the way down now and still clutching my sled for some reason and I can’t do this, I can’t do this.

Leia is several feet above me, she turns and sees me crouched down on the path, I’m crying now and I hate crying and I especially hate anyone else seeing me cry, especially Leia who I haven’t been getting along with and especially that group of strangers further up the mountain who are just starting to realize that something has gone very wrong back here but we are down a lot closer to the bone that any pretense of toughness or competence because I’M SCARED and I’M CLUMSY ANYWAY and WHAT THE HELL I AM DOING SCRAMBLING UP A MOUNTAIN WITH A SLED and I am not moving from here I am not, I’m safe here right now with my hands clenched into the gravel holding onto this mountain as if there is some centripetal force trying to fling me off the globe spinning faster and faster but I am holding on here.

Leia puts her sled down and begins carefully picking her way down the path, this path was never meant for descent because everyone goes up this way and goes down on the other side on the sled, there is a part of my brain that is still coherent, a small place very small indeed that is separate from the wordless scream of panic that has taken over my mind and body and that part is amazed that she is coming back, it’s not like Leia’s much more physically competent than I am in fact she’s actually in much worse shape and has even less experience with this kind of thing, isn’t she afraid that she’ll teeter and topple over the edge? Her arms are out for careful balance, that helps this sled is a huge part of the problem but that’s all academic anyway because I am never moving again, sled or no.

She stumbles a little as she reaches me, rights herself and crouches down and only now that there are ears to hear it close by do I realize that strange sound I’ve been ignoring is me, nononononononononoicanticantiwontnonononononocantcantcantcantcantwontNO, that is all buzzing out of my mouth without punctuation or breath through the hitching sobs spasming through my core. She pulls my face up to meet her eyes, tells me to breathe and I do, I take my first breath that I can remember since this began but I guess I must have been breathing thank god for instincts. “Another one,” she commands, she’s holding my gaze and won’t let me hide, won’t let me bury my face back into the ground, and I take another breath, deeper this time, and now I’m breathing so I can’t make that sound anymore, I am still shaking but it’s subsiding a little bit. The first thing I say on purpose, “I’m not going up,” and she asks me if I want her to come back down with me, “I ca-ca-can’t go down,” the sobs stuttering through my words and “Keep breathing,” she’s not going to let me slide back down into panic. Each breath is a like a solid brick of air that I am forcing down past my teeth and tongue, scraping raw and solid against my throat, choking me but I know I need it. Our guide appears behind Leia, she has left the group up at the top and come back down here to see if she can help. She’s going to take the sleds, both of them in all of her freakish fitness but to be a little bit fair to us she built this path, some path but she climbs this mountain twice a day. She checks with Leia, will she be able to get me up the path, it’s only a little further up the rough patch and then we’re at the top. Leia says yes, I want to say no way, uh uh, but my input has not been requested.

“We’ll do it together,” she grips my hand firmly and I’m not entirely sure how she got me to let go of the ground but I am holding her hand now just as hard as I was holding the mountain. “We’ll go as slow as we need to, they can wait for us.” She pulls me up to a crouch, I put my hands out and slowly rise on trembling legs. We take the first step and my foot wobbles, I immediately sink back down on my heels. “It’s okay, that was our first step. Now we’ll take the next one.” And we do.

Time has warped and stretched with the elasticity that panic gives it, so I don’t know how long it takes us to get to the top. When we do, I’m surprised to see it only took us about 45 minutes to climb from the base to the caldera, “easy walk” my ass and I am angry now, so angry why weren’t they honest who could call this easy? I’ve stopped crying and everyone is looking at me with nervous smiles, I nod with embarrassment that I am fine, really. The group is going down into the caldera to check out the smoking vents of sulphur, a steep path down and then back up and you know what I’m gonna pass on that one, Leia stays with me while I keep breathing, sitting on a rock and looking out finally, looking beyond the next step and the landscape beneath us is absolutely stunning, a breathtaking expanse of rolling fields with occasional trees dotting it, it looks exactly like I imagine the African veldt looks like from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, we are here on the highest ground for miles and miles and far off in the distance we can see other volcanic peaks rising in the clouds. I halfway expect to see a great herd of gnus crossing the plains but we are not in Africa we are in Nicaragua, and looking at something else has made me forget for a few minutes how scared I am. The group comes back, apparently we missed out the caldera was “so cool” but I am entirely comfortable with missing the “so cool” caldera if it means I have avoided another panic attack.

We set off now around the rim, the path is about two meters wide maybe with a drop off the mountain on the left and a drop into the cone on the right. I’ve been dragging my sled but I can’t do that here because if it slips off to one side it will start to drop and pull me with it. The guide is worried about me, will I make it and I think so, I’m carrying the sled under one arm and then the wind comes up, making a sail out of the plywood and metal that I’m holding and without even a moments pause I sink to the ground. She thinks I’m panicking again but I’m not, or at least not yet, I have a little more control now and simply tell her that she needs to take the sled, maybe this makes me a total wuss but I don’t care anymore, there is really no coming back from that screaming crying bit so I am just going to do whatever it takes to get all the way through this experience and be damned proud of myself for doing it at all. I crawl a few feet further on the path before I have the courage to stand up, it’s just so frightening with my center of gravity that high and the wind and the narrow path but I make it around the edge.

There’s a wide flat space here, yards and yards of level ground and I unclench for real for the first time since we set out. We suit up, coveralls and heavy gloves and goggles to protect us from the abrasive flying gravel. The guide shows us the ‘surfing’ technique, it’s rather counterintuitive with one hand on the rope, body crouched on the board, and the other hand held up in front of your face, they’re experimented with different postures and determined that this odd configuration allows for the most speed and the fewest crashes. Technically our hands shouldn’t touch the ground at all, we are to use our feet for braking but they have also learned through experience that there’s no overcoming the instinct that kicks in when you start flying down the mountain to fling your free hand behind you to stop, thus the gloves. She says, “New rule today, the girls are going first,” she’s afraid that if we see the guys flying down the mountain we’ll never get on the boards, she is particularly convinced that I am going to be the problem and who can blame her, but I am strangely sanguine about this part of the experience. It’s like skiing, really, and I ski sometimes, not well but I do it, and even easier because I will be sitting down it is all about getting my center of gravity as low as possible and there are no cliff edges to fly off or trees to run into so I’m pretty comfortable with this.

Leia, on the other hand, while fine going up the mountain is terrified of going down. We do some practice runs, baby steps, and we decide that instead of one of us going first we will go down together, I wish we could ride together or I could hold her hand on the way down but that’s not possible on these sleds, I have some strength to give back here but no method to share it, she’s going to have to do it alone.

We push off and head down the slope simultaneously, and it’s actually both easy and underwhelming, I start slow and then try to build up some speed but as soon as I start moving with any kind of quickness I shift my weight, or something, the whole caboodle goes awry and I get dumped on the gravel, pick myself up and start down again trying to build momentum for that final sharp drop but damn butt in gravel again, I get down the mountain just fine but it wasn’t terribly thrilling, just sort of thrilling. Leia is still slowly winding her way down the slope, going slow slow slow on purpose and I can hear the occasional yelp of frightened delight, she eventually slides to a halt at the bottom and we regroup to watch the boys bullet down, crash landing with whoops of adrenaline. Last of all our guide comes down, she’s not on a sled but runs down the slope, just barely keeping her heels before her head. We have surfed the volcano and successfully outrun the clouds, the sun is setting now and we are all laughing together now and anticipating the mojitos that await us back at the hostel, clamber out of our jumpsuits and back into the truck and back through the bucolic landscape that we just saw from the top of the mountain, and a full moon is rising between the trees overhanging the road and the air is warm and soft and it is a perfect, perfect, beautiful night.