Animals are like kryptonite with slobber

Renee and I spent last Friday afternoon honing our mad puppy-cuddling skills while volunteering at Wayside Waifs in their doggy quarantine area. I could write about it, but honestly, it’s too depressing. There have been times where one dog has been sick, gotten the rest of the animals sick in the room, and they’ve had to put the whole room to sleep. There’s one mama dog who had a whole litter put to sleep simply because they were pit bull puppies. There are a couple dogs who run to the corners when you walk by, or shit themselves out of fear because they’ve lead such a jacked up life. But there’s also animals who flip out with some real deal lottery-winning elation when you open the cage and sit with them. I’d like to say it all evens out, but I’m not sure that’s the case. At any rate, Wayside is a great place doing great things with great animals and you should go out there today and take one of these guys with home with you. Below are some pictures (mostly out of focus cause those suckers are quick). - Lucas

Créditos Finales

Rather than sum up my trip in any other way, I decided to copy and paste the last three paragraphs from my journal as an epilogue, which I had lost until recently. See below for cast and credits. - Lucas

The rest of the trip was spent in a daze. We hung out in Cusco for a day, said goodbye to Sharon. Then there were six. Left for Lima, where we said goodbye to Elard. Then there were five. Spent a day hanging around Lima & I goodbye to the four Goatcheeses. Now there’s one, me. I’m sitting in a hotel room, the last man standing at party with scattered memories, reading through the pages and pages of my journal like it was someone else’s.

It feels cheap to talk about an expensive celebratory dinner on the waters of the Pacific. I feel guilty to look at my watch or to think about Christmas. I feel stupid for feeling angry for something as small as losing pictures on a memory card. I feel embarrassed that I was upset at a delayed flight or a messed up order at a restaurant.

My shoes are wet from a late night trip to the ocean, my clothes are dirty from alpaca shit, spilt wine, and saltwater. My heart is full of love and computer full of pictures. I leave at midnight tonight, get home Sunday night, go back to work Monday and move into my new house on Friday. That’s not really what I want to do. All I want to do is smell the air in this city, in Peru, in South America, in the world. All I want to do is think about the people I’ve been around. All I want to do is think about the places I’ve been. All I want to do is understand the things in the air that give direction and motivation in my life. I don’t want to forget, I want to learn to remember and be free of the past at the same time. All I want to do is write. There’s so many things that I want to do, all I want to do is do them. I think I will.

Maurice and his Peruvian. Theif.

Christine and empty wine glasses. Lush.

Emma and her gang signs. Whitebread thug.

Chanelle and her roasted guinea pig. Savage.

Sharon, aka 'Rooms', with her constant smile. Sicko.

Elard, with his favorite bathroom. Exhibitionist.

Silver, with his 5,000 kg backpack. Showoff.

Fearless author, shameless photographer, with his alpaca flokati hat. Clown.

Machu Picchu

No words, they feel cheap. Only pictures, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, then I beg a thousand pardons for not being able to do this experience justice. I present, Machu Picchu....

'Rooms' mugging for the locals

Hutmacher mugging for the locals

Hola, Adios.

It's Orange

It's a sectional. It's vintage. It's shaped like an 'S'. Or a question mark. And it's in one of my living rooms.

Mecca Picchu

Mecca Picchu

The Shepard: The stakes are driven deep in the ground, nothing can move them, the ropes are new and made of strong grasses; the cows will never break them now. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

Buddha: Like the dog that has broken his chain, like the elephant that has broken his shackles, never again will I enter a womb. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

This has got to stop. How long can a person go on thinking he has reached some sort of meaningful conclusion, or how long can a person go on thinking he has seen the greatest sight in the universe, or how long can a person think that the feelings he felt were the strongest, most powerful feelings ever felt, only to have them shattered the next instant, the next day, by something greater or more powerful?

Yesterday was tough, today would be long. It’s been one of the other for two weeks though and my compass for judging time or space or distance or personal well-being is all out of whack. Yesterday we went straight up for three hours then straight down for three hours. Today we would go up and down three times, each time being a lesser pass then the previous, but all in all, today was going to be our longest day. We did have something to look forward to at the end, and that’s a shower and a proper toilet. I’ve only had one shower in six days, and that was three days ago and I’ve gone on gastrointestinal lockdown for the last three days. Nothing in or out. But that’s an unsustainable situation. I just don’t like pooping in buckets.

Our guide, Silver, who has done the trail over 100 times and knows the ins and outs of the whole ordeal, decided that we should be up and on our way early, to beat the shower-crowds. Our goal was to be into camp by about 1:00. We would leave at 4:30 in the morning, hike for three hours, stop for breakfast and then finish the day with a five or six hour hike to camp, to showers, to toilets, but most importantly, to the footsteps of Machu Picchu.

This was my favorite morning so far and I’ll tell you why. Silver said we would leave at 5:00am, ready or not, and when the clock struck 5, I was the only one ready and we just took off, leaving everyone behind, doing whatever they do every morning without coffee, cable, toilets, showers and electricity. That’s the way to do it Silver, mucho props my friend.

The mornings hike was great. Because we left before most of the camp, we walked mostly in silence, I say mostly because Maurice talked pretty much the whole way. For someone who was having altitude issues, his lungs sure seemed strong to me. It wasn’t a big deal really, he’s an entertaining guy and I was soon out in front of the group far enough to drown out all extracurricular noise.

I started out wearing my long pants, long sleeve shirt and gloves, but within an hour, I didn’t need any of them. I still kept the long sleeve shirt on just to keep the sun damage down, which is wicked in the mountains and changed into shorts in a moment of nude bliss in the Andes. That’s when I realized that the layers of clothes were very effective against the odors that our bodies had been bubblin’ on for the last couple days.

We ambled up to the first of three passes for the day, Abra de Runkuracay (pass of the pile of ruins, I believe), which was the second highest of the entire trip, but seemed like a mere foothill compared to the day before. The landscape had changed drastically today, rather than a barren mountain highland, we descended into a cloud forest that was amazing. We walked in and out of the clouds; the clouds approached us, engulfed us and passed us on, like we weren’t there. The horizon would go from a visibility of twenty feet to ten thousand feet in the matter of minutes. Its times like these that I wish I could describe the passing landscapes like Hemingway. Say what you will about the drunken womanizer, but he could write the fuck outta some landscapes.

The trail down turned away from the dirt path that we had been walking on for most of the trip to actual Inca-laid roadway, an intricate construction of rocks and stones that was worth marveling at. It’s a good thing too, because if you didn’t look at the ground while you walked, your ass would have fallen off the edge.

By breakfast, we had worked up a devilish appetite and devoured anything that was placed in front of us; I accidentally took a bite out of a porters hand because I thought it was a overcooked biscuit.

By the time we sat out after breakfast, our bellies were rocked with food and we were fired up to tackle the rest of the day. It was only 8:00 am. People put too much stock in sleeping in. I prefer to be awake and seeing the world in the mornings. Too much of life passes people by when they’re sleeping and the difference between morning and night in any given area is the difference between…ummm…. night and day.

The next several hours were a beautiful walk, up and downhill, but nothing too difficult and near noon, we got to camp where showers, bathrooms, and beer awaited us.

Because we were the first people into the camp, there was no line at the showers, which meant that we could take our time, really get our $1 worth. Let me tell you, that roach infested, moldy floored, lukewarm water’d shower was like the Hilton to us and we felt like a million bucks by the end.

Another thing that was at this base camp was a bar. It wasn’t much, but there was beer and before we knew it, we were all getting a little tipsy. I spent the evening chatting with other hikers that I’d seen up and down the trail for the previous days and it was quite nice. Apparently, a while back, they decided that it was necessary to close the bar at 9:00 pm, otherwise people would stay up all night drinking, then try to hike to Machu Picchu in the morning, drunk, through the mountains. Which is not advisable. Looking at some of the people, all I could think was if you cant be a good example, be a horrible warning.

Because tomorrow would be very quickly moving, getting out of camp, we said our goodbyes to the porters and handed out fistfuls of tip money. I was nominated to speak to everyone because, apparently, I can be entertaining from time to time. They earned every penny of their money, these guys were amazing.

At some point, Silver briefed us on tomorrow mornings activities. He said the porters would wake us up at 4:00 am and we would be on our way at 5:00, ready or not. We would have a ‘short three hour’ hike and then we would get to Machu Picchu (remember Machu Picchu? It’s kind of why I took this hike in the first place.) Silver would give us a two hour tour and Elard would meet us at some point in the morning, then we’d have the rest of the day to chill and explore on our own. Sounds great, lets get it on. Wait, how the hell am I supposed to be able to sleep tonight with that in front of me tomorrow? Especially because just outside of my tent was Machu Picchu mountain. Staring up at me. Yes, staring up.

The silly conversation between the Shepard and Buddha has started to sink in, finally, after climbing my fingers to the bone for three days and it’s too simple to spend much time on.

Be Buddha, not the Shepard.

It’s not in being prepared for difficulties, it’s in being prepared for life and taking everything as it comes. It’s not what you have defining who you are, it’s who you are defining what you have.

Be Buddha. Is he Incan? Guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

From my tent - Machu Picchu. I hope Buddha's home.

Macho Picchu

The Shepherd: I have oxen, I have cows. I have my father's meadows and a bull who covers my cows. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

Buddha: I have neither oxen, nor cows, I have no meadows. I have nothing. I fear nothing. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

This was the closest I’ve slept to the ground in about fifteen years. Oddly enough, it was the highest I’ve slept above the sea in my entire life. An interesting dichotomy. I could smell the ground and at the same time, I could look down on birds flying, not thirty feet from my tent. The view from the campsite was breathtaking and once I got away from everyone and sat down, it felt good. The porters were quietly clinking pots and dishes in the background and as the sun rose, it awoke the entire campsite and the entire universe, our universe, with it. I know I wasn’t the only one to recognize this; the surrounding silence was proof of that. I could sit here all day. Unfortunately, fortunately, I couldn’t. Today was going to be real. It was going to be the test. It’s the day that has been on my mind for months.

Dead Woman’s Pass.

Over the course of about 4 miles, we would ascend from 3000 meters to 4250 meters (9,800 feet to 14,000 feet). Basically climbing up one mile and out four miles. The fact that we’re starting out at nearly 2 miles above sea level is sure to complicate things. Stairmaster day.

From our camp, we hiked uphill for about four hours at a leisurely pace, the kind of thing where I would get twenty minutes ahead of the group, sit down and whip out more cocoa leaves to chew on and write in my journal for a while waiting for everyone to catch up. Most of the time I was thinking, “Well, so far, this isn’t so bad. What’s all the hubbub?”

Then after lunch, almost like it only appeared when you were properly fed, the mountain appeared in front of me. Being from Kansas, it doesn’t take much of an incline to impress me, I’ve actually taken pictures of speed bumps, but this mofo was HUGE. From our vantage point, it appeared to be about twenty feet in front of us, but to go straight up for considerably more than twenty feet.

Our guide, Silver, said, “It’s time to head out, rest for another twenty minutes or so if you’d like. It will take you two to three hours to reach the top and everyone will go at their own pace. This meeting will reconvene at the top, I will go take a nap and meet you there.”

And he disappeared.

Sharon decided it was in her best interest to leave and get a head start. The rest of us decided it was in our best interest to rest a little more and after another thirty minutes, porters and other travelers long gone, we gathered up and tackled the newest challenge.

I didn’t know how much time had passed until much later, but it felt like days and it worked like this:

Go up uneven and often unstable steps for five to eight minutes at a time, the time is meaningless, but that was roughly the amount of time it took your heart and lungs to scream loud enough to get your legs to stop. Catch your breath, rinse and repeat.

Step, step, step, stop, breathe, start.

Step, step, step, stop, breathe, start.

Five to eight minutes may not sound like much, but when you’re at an elevation of over two miles, it doesn’t take much lack of oxygen to make a fella wheeze.

It wasn’t the ‘step, step, step’ part of the cycle that made me realize how in shape I was, it wasn’t really even the ‘breathe’ part. What really made me realize that I was in great shape was the comma between breathe and start. The recovery time. I didn’t really understand it for a while. We would all kind of get winded at the same time, all stop, all breathe. But when it was time to start up, I was always the first to get up and get ready to move. The others were huffing and puffing like chain smokers still and I was whistling and singing ‘Redemption Song’ to myself.

We started as a group of five. Within the first ten minutes or so, it was a group of three. Within twenty minutes, I was alone. Within another five minutes, I began to catch other hikers. Within another fifteen minutes, I had caught Sharon, who had a 30-minute head start.

My legs were feeling good and my calves were rock-hard from the work. My lungs were getting a stretch like they never had before. My heart was thumping so loud that I could feel it in the tips of my fingers and hear it in my ears. I felt amazing. I’ve never actually felt ‘good’ while exercising, but this time, this time…. Shit, I couldn’t believe it. It was like I had done it. I had worked myself into a condition that I had never been in for my entire life. I was out here with other hikers and I was stomping past them like they were knuckles-and-bun-old-women drivers. I was going to the top, I had a goal that was more than a stop watch or a distance. I could see it and it was rapidly approaching.

Within another ten minutes, I had lost sight of Sharon behind me.

About a half mile from the top is when I started hearing the voices from the people at the top. At first I could only hear periodic cheering, but as I crept up closer to the summit, my jaw set and my eyes glaring at step after step, I started hearing shouts. Then regular voices. Then I came into visual range and I could make out masses of people, then individual people, then faces, then I could read shirts and see what brands of shoes they were wearing. Then I got a high-five from a stranger and heard the clapping, popping right in my ears.

Clapping for me.

I made it.

When you walk uphill for such a long time, it’s an amazing feeling to look back and not even be able to see the start point, or even the mid point, and it was great. The mountains rose up all around me and I was at the top. I wanted to yell. I wanted to laugh. It was one of those feelings that I just wanted to flex all my muscles and drop to the ground in success, like the end of a horrible movie.

The Incas used to make sacrifices on top of mountains all around the area and this was a special pass because it was the only mountain in the region that was named after a woman. Rather than slaughtering a hippie, I opted for the newer tradition and that was stacking a rock on top of another pile of rocks. The custom is that you make a sacrifice and make a wish, but that sounds too cheap. Instead of wishing for anything, I crawled away from the group and sat down on the lichen covered stones and spent about fifteen minutes in some sort of trance-like reflection. I basically let go of my mind and just felt the world around me. The pulsing of the world was in my temples and I was muttering thanks beneath my breath. Thanks to no one in particular, thanks for nothing in particular, but just thanks.

The top of the pass seemed to me to be very significant. The road up to the top, the top and the road down the other side. The past. The present. The future. The sun, the rain, the wind. It started raining, not hard, just big warm drops from below my head. Though it wasn’t rain, they were tears and it confused me to have this sort of experience through nothing in particular. How do you explain a time when you’re emotions are obviously mixed? I was hurting and I was healing. I have come so far, but at what cost?

The rest of the day was a blur. Eventually everyone got to the top and they hunted me down for some pictures. Silver said he woke up and saw me with his binoculars. He said that I made it to the top in roughly one hour, which is quite good, even for a porter. We went downhill for a few hours and it felt good to actually run down stairs, even though I was more like a zombie to those around me, the thump thump thumping on my feet rattling through my jaw were merely background noise to me and I recall very little of it, my mind demanding all possible resources, trying to sort out what happened to me at the top.

By nightfall we were at camp and everyone was suffering from various degrees of exhaustion. Sharon was sore from her ears to her toes. Christine was sunburned. Emma and Chanelle were tired of not having an iPod. Maurice’s lungs were revolting from the altitude. My soul was scorched from feelings unknown. It was torn into the past and the future, but for once I realized that they were working together to help me understand the present.

I sighed, knowing that things would be fine, and I fell asleep with a strange sort of contentment that no one would understand.

Mass o' Porters

Dead Womans Pass

Gang o' Suckas

Not a bad view from the tent huh?

Sunset From The Campsite

Mucho Picchu

The Conversation between Buddha and the Shepard part one.

The Shepherd: My meal is ready, I have milked my ewes. The door of my hut is bolted, my fire is alight. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

Buddha: I no longer need food or milk. The winds are my shelter, my fire is out. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please.

Forty five kilometers in four days. That’s basically a marathon, which has been ran in about three hours. Of course marathons are typically ran on semi-level and extremely-stable paved roads and I highly doubted that this would be either of the above. There would be ups and downs, as is typical for hiking through the mountains, as opposed to hiking through Kansas. Another difference is that if you hike through Kansas for four days, it is still relatively unlikely that you will end up at Machu Picchu. For the past six months, I had been exercising regularly, very regularly. Like twice a day. True it was mostly out of boredom, but the side effects were pretty good. I’m weighing the lightest I’ve weighed since I was in high school. I haven’t been hating mirrors nearly as much as I had in the past. I can actually buy shirts in the fabled ‘Size Large-land’. My face is down to one chin. I can run three miles without even breathing very heavy or feeling the need to vomit at any point during said run. I could follow that up with an additional three miles on the Stairmaster and that’s tall cotton folks, ‘cause that mofo will cripple real athletes. All in all, I’m in good shape. I admit it. And from the looks of my companions, while not the only one in good shape, I’m probably the fittest out of our group. And definitely the funniest. And tallest.

All mountains that need climbing require one thing above all – to take the first step. Once that step is taken, it’s momentum can get you nearly 75% of the way to the second step. Right left. Right left. Could it possibly be that way for most things in life? You can’t tackle the project in one swing of your fist. You cant transplant a heart without starting somewhere. Changing your life requires patience. That’s why most people get stuck in ruts. They spend their whole time focusing on the goal that they forget that it takes many steps to reach the goal and trip out of the gate. Kids haven’t failed enough to deal with life that way, that’s why they learn languages and musical instruments so much better than adults do. Kids are task oriented, adults are goal oriented. Kids are the idea, adults are the reality, in between sits the area where the two shadows collide. Striving to stay in the shadows.

In this case, the first step was over a swinging bridge with barbed wire on each side. Kilometer post 82. The first day was going to be relatively easy, rolling hills for about 12 kilometers. Lunch somewhere in the middle, dinner towards the end, sleep after eat, many lefts and rights in between, many lefts and rights after.

The logistics of the trip were interesting. Each group of tourists had a group of porters that did the trail as well. There were two porters for every hiker plus two cooks and a guide. So for our group (six people) there were actually 21 people. A small village to look after six crackers. The government only allows 500 people to start the trail per day, counting porters. With everyone starting and stopping at roughly the same places, the whole thing seemed a bit crowded at times.

The job of the porters was to carry the tents, food, sleeping bags and other stuff. They loaded up about 65 lbs of stuff on their backs and basically sprinted up the trail. I was carrying a bag that may have weighed 10 lbs and these guys were straight up beatin the trail past me. They would get to our lunch spot, cook lunch and have it ready for us, then we would eat and take off. They would pack up and sprint to the night campsite. They probably left 30 minutes after we did and beat us to the camp with enough time to set up all our tents and cook dinner. Maybe I’m not the man after all.

Because of my long legs, I was quickly able to separate myself from the pack and get ahead in front of the noise for brief times. I would sit and wait and, more importantly, watch. Listen. Smell.

There is a lot of animal feces on this trail.

The mountains surrounding the Sacred Valley are unbelievable. You should probably get used to me using words to describe awe, because so far, they’re necessary to the fullest. The terraced hillsides show like enormous washboards where the Incas would farm different crops based on the elevation. One terraced field could hold as many as twenty different crops, all planted at an elevation that would benefit them the most for precipitation, sunlight, temperature and runoff. Distance up is more important than distance out. Elevation trumps latitude.

The eucalyptus trees grow like wildfire, stretching well over a hundred feet into the air, growing leaves and branches on one side only because of the strong valley winds. They’re an introduced species, brought in by the Spaniards because they grow quickly and can be used for everything from building houses to space travel. In a way, it’s a shame that the mountains themselves are so large because they can easily take attention away from other, smaller, things in this place. A mile looks like ten feet. Ten miles, eleven feet. A boulder looks like a teardrop. Bromeliads, several feet across are mere freckles in the distance that can be appreciated for their sheer numbers from afar and their amazing beauty close up.

By the end of the day, I found myself laying in my tent, looking out over the Sacred Valley. Not a bad way to spend the night. We were fortunate enough not to have any casualties for our first day, which is good I suppose. I’ve been beating around the Buddha conversation in my head all day, like a song that won’t go away. Tomorrow will be a big day, the biggest of the trip actually. But for now I must sleep, if I can, but I’ve had quite a bit to think tonight, and may not have much success.

No pictures and a moment of silence please.

In Loving Memory of SanDisk SD Card SDSDH-2048-901.

May you rest in peace with my 200 pictures from Day 1.

Ccaccaccollo

The bus ride took us about 45 minutes outside of Cusco. The road went dirt within ten minutes and was mostly switchbacks upon switchbacks and hills upon hills. On my side of the van was a sheer cliff, on the other side of the van was a sheer drop. There is no telling how far we actually went; it may have been forty miles, it may have been two. Around here, distance is meaningless, it's just 'go there' or 'don't go there'. Distance "up" is more important than distance "out".

At some point, we began to see small buildings. Not buildings like one would expect; more like shacks. Even by South American standards they looked dangerous. They appeared to be closer to carved mud than any normal building and it wasn't until I saw a mother and child sitting in front of one that I realized that they were houses.

After a couple minutes of houses and narrowing road, which was already barely the width of the bus, we ambled to a stop in the middle of a large flat dirt area, a sort of multi-use flat land that had soccer goals at both ends, an under-construction building on one side, and houses rising up from all sides, like seats in a stadium. I immediately began to search the ground for trap doors that may have chained beasts within. This was the city square. The 'Plaza Mayor.' In Cusco, the Plaza Mayor was a beautiful garden with a large fountain in the middle, surrounded by enormous Catholic cathedrals. Here it was dirt. Dirt and alpaca. Dirt, alpacas and, as we stepped out of the bus, staring eyes.

The village was Ccaccaccollo. The staring eyes were the owners of the houses that would be our homes for the next two days. Here it is, the second part of my trip. Cultural immersion.

I'm packed like someone who may need to flee the scene at any moment. My backpack, which has my camera, a jacket, a pen and paper, and some gum (for some reason) and a duffle bag that I've managed to squeeze three pair of underwear, one extra pair of pants, two shirts and two pairs of socks in. No more computer, there's barely any electricity here, I didn't even have room for my book. I brought a toothbrush, but no soap or shampoo as I knew I had just taken my last shower for the next six days.

We were divided up into three groups of two, like animals on the Ark; me with Elard (our tour leader), Emma with her mother Christine, Channelle with her dad, Maurice and marched off to different abodes throughout the village.

My mother was 43 years old, but didn't look a day over 70. Her feet had practically grown around her sandals and her gums had rejected all but about four teeth. Her name was Isadora and she had five children. The house was like a small complex, four different and separate houses, each with their own purpose and each smaller than the previous. The largest contained the dining room on the ground floor ('ground' in all possible senses of the word) and the bedroom that I would share with Elard on the second floor. The stairs and all doors were on the outsides of the buildings. The stairs and doors were the scariest and smallest things I've ever tried to use in my life. I smashed the shit out of my head on my way into my room on the second floor. The doorway was easily less than five feet tall and when I hit my head, in nearly blacked out. I'm used to hitting my head on stuff, but this was totally unexpected. It was like my mind just couldn't accept a door this small and tried to just walk through it, full bore. With blood running down the back of my neck, I sat down on the floor and tried to smile, but it came out as a pained grimace and I'm sure made a lovely impression.

Across the small dirt courtyard from the main building was the kitchen. It was made completely out of mud. I mean completely. The oven was a dried mud structure with a mud shelf to cook the food in the corner. The walls were totally blackened, like it had tried to destroy itself from the inside multiple times. A hole the size of a dinner plate above the oven acted as both a smoke vent and the only source of light in the room. Isadora sat quietly in the corner cutting potatoes. She didn't speak any Spanish, so that made communication even more difficult that normal, but she handed me a bowl of snap peas and I spent the next thirty minutes peeling them and tossing them into a rusty pot which would later have brown water thrown in to become part of our dinner.

As strange as it may sound, the whole thing was quite relaxing. It was like distilling my life down to its most simple elements; food, nature, quiet. I seemed to feel my senses opening up in a way that only happens with unfamiliar contentment. I began to hear sounds from across the courtyard; donkeys, chickens, a dog, a cat, kids shouting. I began to smell the simmering dish on the stove, flavored by years of spilled soup and meat drippings. My eyes began to adjust to the light and I could see the care that went into this kitchen, the pride that Isadora took in her life, her family. You cant see that in a picture, or smell it from a hotel room, or feel it from a tour bus.

Then Isadora handed me a hoe.

Fast forward about two minutes. I was shaking donkey feces from my hand after placing it squarely in the middle of a warm one while climbing around a blind-corner of dirt steps carved out of the side of the hill to the family potato patch. The garden was about the size of a small bus, and I was hoe in hand, totally destroying potato plants, all in the name of 'volunteer'. The ground was mixed with animal shit and rocks and it was an amazing feat of nature and mankind that food was actually grown here. It was actually a blessing when she left Elard and I, it took the pressure off my hoein' skills. We were supposed to be 'redrawing' the lines that the plants are planted on, whatever the hell they're called. The problem was that it appeared that the plants were arranged in a total random order. If the garden was a painting, it would most definitely be an abstract, and a bad one at that. Eventually we decided we had done enough damage to the family's garden and slinked off to the bedroom to rest and give me a chance to pick the dried blood from my hair.

Dinner was eerily quiet. I was introduced to Miriam, Isadora's 20 year-old daughter. After seventh grade, she left school to work at home with her mother. Taking care of the family is big business around here. The men are put to work as soon as possible and return for meals and sleep. This means that the women wake up, cook breakfast, clean up after breakfast and begin cooking lunch and the afternoon is basically the same. By the time dinner is over, it's usually close to 8:00 pm, which is bedtime.

This was Miriam's life for the past five years and it would be her life until she got married, at that point she will alter her routine by adding childbirth periodically. That's about it. There is no high school in the village and parents wanting to send their children to high school must be able to afford it, both for the cost of the school and the cost of having one less person around the mud kitchen. It is often unclear which price is higher.

It may sound like either a rough life or a horribly wasted life, but that's not the impression I get here. I would probably call it 'simple', extremely simple. The people spend their time preparing for whatever comes next. They don't seem to worry about the thing after that or the thing after that. They seem to be living life the way I'm trying to spend my time here, by simply being a part of the moment. Whether that is completely true or not, I may never know.

The next day was spent in the school. I sang, danced and spoke a mixture of English and Spanish for the whole day. Well most of the day, a good portion of my time was spent being embarrassed for various cultural snafus that I wont go into here.

Sometime after lunch I was sitting with a bunch of kids, hanging out, sucking on a juice box and tossing back crackers, when I started to think about the difference between Ccaccaccollo and the school in Cusco. Technically they were both considered 'volunteer' work by the people of the travel company, but in the flesh they were as different as night and day. Compared to living in North America, they would probably both seem quite similar, but after disconnecting myself for a week, the difference between the two activities is like the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing one.

The kids in Cusco really needed help. For them, getting help (whether it be from me or someone with some sort of qualifications) was the difference between life and death. Of freedom and jail. Of getting a good night's rest or having nightmare ridden sleep. I've had times in my life where I felt this way and the difference between the two is often as simple as following my heart or following my mind. But the truth is, the devil may not be as obvious as you may think.

The people in Ccaccaccollo are not fighting for their lives or their souls. They're just living. This is the way it's been for hundreds of years and I'm being blessed with the opportunity to see life in its most simple form and realizing that it's not life or death and that it's not a matter of constant struggle. The people here smile and laugh. They play and sing. And after I find a place to buy some beer, they're sure as hell going to drink and be merry.

Now I'm sitting on the bed of my room, leaning back, looking up at the five-foot ceilings wondering what the hell is making all the noise in the walls and writing stuff. I've been getting chased around by kids and donkeys all day, eating guinea pigs and trout at meals, drinking cold beer that has never seen a refrigerator and just enjoying myself. Miriam has asked me not to leave for unknown reasons of blind love of white guys and tomorrow I begin the final phase of my journey, which is only half finished.

I need sleep, which probably won't come very soon. I need life, which abounds between the snore and the sigh. I need to get the words straight, which cloud my mind.

You need pictures, but they are nearly as meaningless as my words because even the combination of the two is a mere toss of a bullet at a high speed train.