Bites from the jungle

A few words on the peculiarities of travelling:

Book exchanges. I always get enthused by the idea of a book exchange, of sweaty, smelly pages that someone´s held onto for dear spiritual life in the midst of some shithole, a book that provided him with escape like no drug can do, a book that might do the same for me, if only I could find it. But all I gaze upon are titles like ´We Fished All Night´ in two volumes, the title of which triggers off many associations, none of which are to do with fishing. Namely, (and least rudely) the annoying song ´I drove all night´starts playing in my poor, empty head, and I can´t stop driving all night. Or, there is ´The Young Hunter´, a 567 BC edition, about a boy who discovers wildlife with his loyal dog friend. Other titles are in German. A slightly attractive Graham Greene ´Jagd im Nebel´is in German. A Spanish language ´Los Evangelicos´. I offer it to Rafa. He throws me a sharp blade of a look. But there is nothing, I repeat, nothing, worth exchanging in the bloody book exchanges, ever ever ever. I guess all the good titles get exchanged for the bad titles, or stolen, or never get given in the first place.

The hostility of travellers. There´s this very strange thing of travellers who always throw big, friendly smiles to the locals, ´Buen dia´, ´Hola´, whatever, but as soon as another foreigner goes past, dreadlocked or not, wearing dodgy tie-die shirts or not, playing a flute or juggling bananas or not, the expression of the friendly traveller changes and a frown turns on, and not a ´Hello´passes the lips. Occasionally there´ll be the good soul who´ll return a feeble smile, careful so that others won´t see him/her, but otherwise it´s ignoring all the way.

The one upmanship of travellers. ´I went to Y today´one will say, proud of his adventurous spirit. ´Oh yeah? And have you been to X?´the other will ask, a cunning look on his face. ´No, where´s that?´(a fearful look forms on the face of traveller 1). ´It´s 30 metres further away from Y. It´s an amazing place. Off the beaten track. Completely. Not many people have been there.´ The first traveller is outdone by the second traveller. This is the way most travellers beat their path to self-satisfaction and better esteem.

The insect/animal attack stories. We were walking past a group of Brits yesterday, all North Faced on their rucksacks, socks and hiking boots, and one guy, around whom the entire group gravitated was relating a story: ´... and I was taking out my hand out of my backpack, and suddenly I saw a cockroach on my hand!´Gasp! The group´s hair is standing on many ends. This is a common story, with variations of snakes and other animals. Most dull.

The poncho buying and wearing and looking utterly ridiculous. No need to expand on that one.

OK. Enough of the traveller world, of which I am relatively sick of, by the way. Must tell you of the time, a couple of days ago, when I was cursing the Lonely Planet and my job and myself for existing. I was, existing that is, among open sewage canals in the jungle town of Trinidad, an unattractive shithole (literally, with the sewage) where they didn´t even have bells on the church. The church bells were played off a cassette on the hour, wailing across the town like cockerel on fire. An ancient Spanish chanson singer called Manolo Otero, whose career is so definitely over, is doing a tour around Bolivia and we´ve seen his posters and heard his concerts advertised across various towns such as this one. We were checking Trinidad´s top hotel, a place that´s been shut for 10 years, and were shown the ´Presidential Suite´, an orange room with a plastic bed and fake plants, where Señor Otero had stayed the night before. His excellency had asked the hotel staff to remove the TV from his room (one of the only rooms WITH a TV) in a fit of capriciousness that befits a star. The hotel staff had obliged and the guy showing us the room was kind of proud of the whole thing. It was kind of sad, really and we walked out feeling like Manolo Otero and the sad, dilapidating hotel together.

After the joys of Trinidad we crossed three rivers on a wooden raft, on a bus that was very old and very bouncy, and arrived in a village called San Ignacio de Moxos, where I think we saw one of the best parties ever. The village is mainly indigenous, of the Moxos tribe, and was once a Jesuit missionary outpost, which it´s becoming again. So the festival is a mixture of the indigenous and the Christian, with a massive procession of people with feather headgear, dancing in a trance, Amazonian tribes with flip-flops and mobiles and jewellery, and then in the evening, this mad guys called chasqueros, who have fireworks on their hats and run around in the crowd trying to set everyone on fire. I stood around with the Moxosians and screamed my head off with everyone else when the fire guys would approach, and I laughed so much I thought they might think me insane. But no one cared. Men got pissed on chicha (local booze) and fought like crazy, fireworks hung in the sky, Rafa was taking close-up pictures of the chasqueros and the whole night was mad and excellent.

The second day of the fiesta they had a bull-chasing event, where the very drunk locals waved t-shirts at confused bulls and fell over a lot. No one died. A couple got ruffled, but that was it. I expected gore, but nothing.

Possibly the worst journey of my life followed, with my stomach aching, R and I sharing 3 seats with a German couple, with the girl of the couple having spent a year in a tiny village near Trinidad, with no one to talk to. She didn´t stop talking for the 12 hours of the journey, though luckily most of that time she spoke to her boyfriend, fooled by our pretence of sleep. She sat on my leg, the bus jumped on the road, dust flooded in, kids screamed. We arrived in Rurrenabaque at midnight and slept in a disgusting hotel where some guy was snoring so loud he started choking.

But things looked up again once the sun rose and we found a different place to stay. Rurrenabaque is a lovely little town in the jungle, with mossy hills all around and lively night life in the jungle: crickets go bonkers at dusk, the frogs do a choir practise, birds, dogs, whoknowswhat, everything sings and parties all night long in the woods around the town. And the travellers, tired after ignoring each other all day long, get together and drink until they pop. For tomorrow, they will be at it again.