where i was and here i am

Right. so.

This seems to be the eternal joke for anyone who`s caught me online over the past few months.... how`s the blog coming along? not really one to have taken advantage of the immediacy of such a medium, but certainly on to have made use a plenty of its save for another day-acy, i`ve a folder full of half finished drafts that really aren`t so up to the minute any more... but certainly add another spin on my diary, which is also looking fairly out of date.

so. where were we left?

well, in bogota, looking at a 30 hour bus ride to caracas. the upcoming referendum, which was to decide, among other things, the term length for one red shirted chavista shook off most of the fear of flying through forests in bus shaped cans. here`s a bit from that draft.....

Caracas isn`t as pretty as other Latino capitals. It didn´t have as much gold to steal in the colonial period, and the architecture of last century`s black gold rush rivals or rather, replicates the concrete block mall rather than the grand plaza or stately governmental palace with which forced indigenous and black slave labour in the OTHER capitals was busied all those centuries ago. And onto workers´ rights we go...

I tied up all my bus trauma in the finger of a surgical glove and swallowed it for the 30 hour journey between here and Bogotá. It´s only here that the Andes comes to its spectacular finale. If only I were travelling further east to enjoy the straight stretches again. Usually I wouldn´t take on so many hours in one go as it doesn`t matter how much leg room I have, my knees always feel arthritic after 10 or so hours by bus. However, I got my dates muddled, and had to high tail it to Caracas to have a squizz at the local papers and propaganda in the lead up to last Sunday´s referendum to change the Venezuelan constitution.

I`ve been pretty under awed by the prevalence and quality of graffiti here. The graffiti of the campaigns on both the SÏ with chavez and NO with the opposition (and media moguls) was limited to the si or no sentiment in block capitals on everything. Both SI and NO were clearly visible on walls, bridges, and the sides and windows of cars and buses, though the si campaign seemed to have a little more paint, enthusiasm or lack of concern for the general environment, with SIs sprawling across tree trunks, and, as I had a giggle at yesterday, don`t throw rubbish off the bridge signs. Granted I didn`t have the opportunity to see what was happening on the tele, as I arrived in Caracas after the official campaigning period had ended, but the SI campaign certainly appeared to have more money for stickers, billboards, and city wide banner flags.

But the NO campaign won on the day, albeit by a margin of next to nothing. The handful of people I talked to before the referendum were CONVINCED that thanks to the implementation of computerised ballot boxes, SI was due for a landslide victory. so really, it was a win for Chavez, as the voting process, which was implemented by him, worked... so the rhetoric goes... and the red billboards blazing his "..... for now" reply in response to whether the outcome was accepted. As the editorials sheepishly asked, who`s got the balls to let him in on the fact that he lost? eh?

The day to day of Venezuelan living certainly bleached the Chavista right out of my shirt... the food shortages... the labour hours wasted by well positioned officials, who`d rather give terrible advice and a petrol based bail out than have people actually making use of their time... the countless red billboards with our hero Chavez in one of a handfull of patriotic positions, marching towards the revolution (I always have wondered how a healthy marxist distrust of false ideology can be married with such a blatant use of media hypnosis) .... and then there was the suggestion that the FARC should have their terrorist status twinked right off....

THAT was all the way back in December... so if you`re keen for more on the subject, email me, or wait until i`m back and we`ll discuss it over 6 coffees a bowl of wedges and a clove cigarette. ew. You can smoke that one. They call cloves, literally, smelly nails here (clavos de olor).

I went to the most serene white sand, palm tree lined island paradises in parque nacionál Morrocoy following the elections, saw all sorts of angel fish and brain shaped corals and discovered that agua de coco and whiskey really isn`t such a bad combination.... better at least than whiskey and amaretto which they sell in the planetarium of Bogotà.

This national park was a welcome respite to my last attempt to enter a piece of land of similar status in Maracay. To enter parque nacionál Henri Pittier, the oldest park in the whole country, said to host 5% of the world bird population during one migration or the other, one needs to ask permission 15 days in advance, provide details of tho se wanting to enter: their names, ages, marital and education status, pay a park fee (to be determined at the time of application) to some bank account else where no less than 8 days in advance, and the list goes on and on. In other words, as a visitor with less than two weeks to wait around, you can really only see the park from the road unless you`re willing to help smooth over the paperwork with the park security. Sooooo many more stories where that came from. maybe you should buy a twenty pack.

Visited Punto Fijo for a tax free camera with black market rate bolivares, which worked out rather nicely for me thanks. Unfortunately, the memory stick wasn`t of the same calibre as my cut price cunning, and i lost 2 gigs of the world`s longest bridge in Maracaibo , 16 minutes of christmas lights and Chavez propaganda, and dairies blasting reggaeton from the water locked shacks on stilts in Sinamaica.

Why do I think I even need a camera when everyone else has one? Haha, I feel like I`m arguing against a hep C vaccination, which reminds me.... get the names of any vaccines IN WRITING on some piece of OFFICIAL LOOKING paper before you leave to look for them in Venezuela. It`s a terribly confusing mess that involves many people, much running around, number taking and your no doubt extremely volatile, temperature sensitive vaccine sitting on the bench propped up by an icecube.

I returned to the Atlantic coast of Colombia to spend Christmas in Parque Taerona, where I haphazardly met a friend and a bunch of his geezer mates from the British Council language school in Cali. I had planned to spend christmas drinking rum and burning my bum infront of a stack of books, but ended up as a contestant in our very own special olympics, throwing coconuts and getting disqualified from almost every event. Did you know that you can`t cavar yourself in sand without digging a hole first? ah those tricky, tricky language tricks. Beijing qualifiers... you`ve been warned.

Mompox is beautiful. It`s between Santa Marta and Bogotà. This photo comes from their most famous landmark, the church. Hundreds of people come here to celebrate the rebirth of Jesus. If you look closely, you`ll see that despite it`s popularity, there are still spaces available. You sized spaces. Just a thought.

The Amazon is too... beautiful that is.


Beautiful that is, though no doubt there`s another Santa Marta further south. Little imagination these place namers.

However, it`s all a bit polluted from people chucking whatever they can`t be bothered disposing of responsibly in it. Yeah, that`s right. Into that same wake the sunset`s illuminating. I gave up on the idea of a toilet edition to this blog quite some time ago, but a few pedazos of information for you. The sanitation systems here can`t handle toilet paper, so bins are provided. Often these bins don`t have lids and are located less than two doors away from the kitchen (is that really NZ building code or some urban myth?) and attract a lot of flies. Add to that a big tank of water to splash whatever ails you down the bowl while providing an ideal home for baby mosquitoes and you`re pretty much up to date on that entry, minus a few particularly grotty examples with swing doors and peep holes in some of the more humid aguadiente joints. I really hate smell memory sometimes, and that playdoh ad about fun memories that always seems to attach itself to any discussion of it...

Back to the bins. Toilet paper gets put out with the regular rubbish. Good system for building the immune systems of dumster divers looking for plastic and glass to recycle that. What that means, according to the crew of the passenger ferry Don Segundo which makes a twice weekly, 4 day trip from Puerto Henri Iquitos to Pulcallpa, transporting 250 people a pop, is that every last nappy, sanitary pad, and scrunched up 2 ply ball of shit and corn ends up in the river.

And while we`re on the topic of taking the rights to natural resources as your people have for generations, so its only fair.... want to buy the pelt of near threatened jaguar? 200 bucks`ll do it. That spider on the right goes for 150 they tell me.

So, after getting over my horrible illnesses from the unsanitary steerage conditions of my river hammock trip, I went to volunteer for a week in Pisco and Chincha: two areas dramatically affected by the August earthquake. I was working putting plastic roofing on schools of woven flax and helping put together moulds in which to pour concrete and make permanent toilet, shower and water tank fixtures for semi permanent housing. The towns are cleaned up enough that people are starting to come back from the refugee camps. There is a big fear that more people will die from sanitation related `complications` than died in the earthquake originally. I was working with burners without borders in Pisco, and was recruited through them to work for Unicef in Chincha. Ever wondered how NOT to keep administrative costs down if you`re a cheque writer at a Peruvian NGO? Crab breakfasts.

oooh.... i`m out of time.... I have to go and meet a woman to share some english learning links, as that same british council is charging her 300 soles a month PLUS additional material costs for one weekly three hour lesson five hours by bus from her house. That best part of the coincidence for me, is that we met at the Nasca lines, a collection of giant images of hands, trees, monkeys, aliens and all manner of other really aesthetically awesome designs etched into the Peruvian desert. They`ve been there thousands of years, despite the fact they`re only a few cm deep. ¡Increìble! No one really knows why they`re there, but nevertheless, it seems a relatively fly place for knowledge sharing.

Finding cheap ways to see Machu Pichu and figuring out where to go in Bolivia and Argentina are the next challenges. Do I want to go on a mine tour in Potosí? Can I whip over to Uruguay for the day? Should I add a cajón to the weight of latino instruments I`m carting about?

My tapping toe says yes. yes. ba boom bap.

the baby on the bus goes gua gua gua

so i missed (the rains down on) toto. sorry (the rains down on) anna. sorry.

however, the bjork concert reignited my inner pixie like a personal invite from moonface to tour through the land of take what you want. Her crouching and accompanying ¨will my eyes be closed or open¨fist motions during hyperballad was the best. Aaron of Radio One´s flash not so new breakfast show was kind enough to let me review it , though I thought it came off as more of an add for the big day out. oh welly welly welly. there should still be a copy (legally speaking) floating in the ether for the next three weeks should you dare to request one, for broadcasting standards breaches only, naturally. Tomorrow is the soda stereo concert. The Cure of Latino America. Rumour has it they´ll play three hours. It´s in Parque Simon Bolivar, which is a huge fish pan shaped structure built upon an older indigenous market/ meeting site, as many other ¨successful¨conquistador developments were... see Mexico City. The three day free metal hardcore and a splashing of wussy crap festival Rock el Parque was recently held there, bruising my neck and back in an aguadiente fulled haze of angsty moshing. I thinking it should be renamed washing here, as everyone dances fairly considerately in a giant human spin cycle. Great from an aerial perspective.

Today I celebrate a year travelling. The idea was to enjoy the long bus ride from Medellin (the first place I´ve felt really, genuinely excited for in terms of local government initiatives (that is, resources used rather than drained) for example, the biblioteca españa (not only an architectural masterpiece, but a massive library with 70 or so internet connected computers in one of the poorest and formally most dangerous neighbourhoods). Such projects appear specifically aimed at leveling out class boundaries, which are devistatingly rigid, to the poin that they´re categorised on a scale of 1 to 6. The numbers help decide how much the inhabitants need to pay for amenities such as water and gas, but they carry much more cultural weight. Museums in Medellin let stratas 1 2 and 3 in gratis (or free), while malls in Cali specify their strata 5 and 6 clientele specifically). I know, I know, too many brackets, not enough editors.

And there I was, sitting in my discounted, please I´m backpacking, bus seat reading my book, not getting uptight about all the traffic delays due to maintenance- I´m happy to wait for road maintenance, having travelled along the privatised roads from the coast to the jungle of Peru, formerly unpaved in their pre-privatised form, now days they´re a pitted squalor left with no other option but to bite resentfully at car tyres and watch the toll booth dollars sail off shore. Let´s road maintenance out corruption eh? Yeah, egalitarianism. Thing was, well, not exactly sure what the thing was... possibly a stop go man that got it wrong, a too-wide turn around a sharp bend, an over enthusiastic passing truck (there is a whole OTHER system of headlight signals and faith when it comes to passing on blind corners in this part of the world. You can fit three legal passes into the rugby field the road code says you should leave between you and the oncomer here. two if they´re oil tankers) but there was a krunchy bang, a lot of wobbling, and we were hurtled into the trees on the side of the road, coming to a halt with no more than 5 meters between us and the approaching yellow truck cabby.

I remember thinking, man, this is just how I dreamed a bus crash would be, like an inescapable tin can, crashing through a moist wilderness of shrubs which shreek like polystyrene against the windows, unsure whether to prepare for the sides crumpling in, or the rolling of the bus down the bank and into the path of the oncoming truck. My seat neighbour held me by the waist as apparently I stood up to complete some affirmative action either way. Our driver swerved the bus into a tree, mashing his leg, but stopping the bus in it´s tracks and saving the passengers from injury.

It´s 5am, I´m tired and not explaining the ordeal particularly well, save to say that boy oh boy am i glad to be here to relay the story, and how rich it was to dance like a maniac to a Colombian new wave covers band verde 3 that ripped out ´material girl´and ´love will tear us apart´ just a few hours earlier. oooh, and the upstairs dj popped on Trans Am: the robot sounding vocoder and accompanying jogging-on-the-spot-dancing may save globalisation from it´s sleazy corporate cesspool yet.

There may be photos to come. The camera I was using battled on, still coughing up a photo or two throughout the recent crowning of Miss Colombia, the accompanying street parades or gyrating primary school kids, flour bombs and colourless crackers called buscapie or looks for feet, which are lit and hurled into the crowd across the street, producing deafening bangs. (Worst case scenario, there´s alway´s wet toilet paper to protect your precious aural investments. The look didn´t catch on.) However, it no longer posesses the reliability i require for such snap-a-ramas. Following the crash I gave my email to a man taking photos. Little did I know the airbag inflated in the crushed black cube behind us had recently received his face, but his responding expression got me up to speed in a jiff. Don´t hold out on those photos.

I had to spend another 8 hours on a smaller bus to get back to bogotá in time for the concert. I took a cab not to my friend´s house, where i´m staying, but to the supermarket for Cabernet Savingnon, dark chocolate, wasabi peas, pistachios, olives, grapes and fresh orange juice.. a selection of flavoursome bits and bobs that remind me just how precious it is that I´m living through this strange adventure, and that you, dear friend, are out there, where ever there is, sharing this short time with me.

Arohanui. xxx Emma

Locombia

Well, it´s been a while. Colombia is confusing, so I´ve taken an Aristotelian approach to it all: let each event be a pair of spectacles, for which I have only one head, at any one time. That is to say, let the pacific brews, and not the threats of violence, blur our festivities.

Well, all in all, to begin to get to grips with Colombian living I need more specs than there were in my entire vintage collection, including all the pairs I left in the P section of the central library. So I´m just going to make a fairly poorly constructed list of bits and pieces from my bit over two months here as they come to me.

There are an abundance of horrid Miami style malls all over the place in various states of construction. They, along with apparently all the gyms, clean money lie new. A friend thinks their architectural style is one of the most dreadful outcomes of the drug trade.

In southern Colombia they sell the most excellent bagged, protein rich snack, the chontaduro. Resembling the tree tomato, and with a taste and texture that colours the grey area between pumpkin and bean, they are boiled, peeled and sold in mil peso bags in the street with salt and honey (which I´m guiltily eating here because the tropical flowers are so flavoursome).

Oooooooh QUE RICO!

Underneath the pit´s shell, should you be able to crack it off discretely and not get too much stuck in your teeth, is a sweet crunchy coconutty inner. utterly marvelous! And more than a little addictive. Strangely, though they´re from the Pacific coast, and have a reputation for sustaining the local population (there are gorgeous marimba numbers about living on chontaduros and marijuana alone) I was unable to scout any out while I was there. I´ve found the odd bag in Bogotá, but they´re double the price and, like last year´s apples, refrigerated, and a bit floury.

I spent a week on the Pacific coast, the area that following Peru´s earthquake (and during the Antonio Alvarez music festival when many of the costeñas were in Cali) was due for a tidal wave. The inhabitants of Juanchaco took the contents of their wooden beach side homes to marginally higher ground, about 30m above sea level to wait for the wave that, thankfully, never came. Lines of wave worn sandbags remain a constant reminder of such past threats.

From Buenaventura, a major port and consequently an area highly contested by all the influential sectors this country has to offer, it´s a forty minute boat ride to Juanchaco, where you can take a short walk or tractor pulled cart to neighbouring Ladrilleros, or, at low tide, a much longer walk to La Barra. Less than a month before I arrived at the coast, a man and young girl were killed in an explosion aboard one of those carts. The media linked it to guerrilla activity, but according to the costeñas that touched upon the subject, the man had a lot of bad debts in the area, and the death of the little girl was a tragic aside to a long period of loan scandals. I´m sounding less and less affected aren´t I?

The pacific beaches are long, wide, tree trimmed, mosquito possessed, and more than a little polluted by junk from boats and toiletry bottles. It rains buckets nightly in great rumbling storms that purple the sky. I found myself the butt of many jokes based on my fire building ability. Pretty much everything there is cooked on open fire bbqs lit with plastic, which is more plentiful and effective than paper. My poor paper based fire starting and a few toxic gas factoids was all the protest I could muster without sounding like a missionary. It´s a lot easier to convince people to not throw shit out of the bus window AFTER they´ve eaten the contents.

How glad I am that my Spanish is sufficient to ham together the local stories, advisories and television game shows. The superlative example, that seems to tie all the strange crimes and prejudices together ´Nada Más Que La Verdad´ (nothing more than the truth) is a distant relative of the´Who Wants To Be A Millionaire´format of answering questions to reach increasing booty brackets while sustained synth stabs colour in the silences. The twist, however, is that contestants are seated in front of three family members and close friends, and hooked up to a lie detector, forced to reveal the answers to a fairly representative spread of their most personal secrets. At least one contestant seems to have participated purely to shame those in the front row. Juice-y.

The last episode I watched featured a woman who admitted to having an affair, and child with her uncle, and working as a prepago for a drug cartel (a woman who is done some sort of favour by the mafia, perhaps in the form of a loan or television break, which is paid back through on call sexual service), but lost after denying she was uncertain about her sexuality. As such, she walked away with NOTHING but a lot of explaining to do . I hope you´re wincing right now. A couple of weeks back they pushed a food vendor to admit he dressed stinky old meat up as today´s and thinks his sister is fea (ugly) while the first 100 million peso winner admitted to investing his wife´s savings in an apartment for his gay lover. She left him seconds later, hopefully with half his winnings.

How they research the questions, which about 90% of the time require a ¨verdad¨ (true) response, I have no idea, but exploiting the darkest secrets out of the population for a little infamy and no prize money has illustrated some facets of this confusing culture rather colourfully.

The show has since come to rest, despite recruiting a good chunk of the telenovela audience (think ´Days of Our Lives´ with more sex, eyeliner and often strange historically themed locations and wardrobe) following the admission by one 50 million peso winner (about $NZ 30 000) that she had hired an assassin to take care of her husband. If you want a look-sy, all the videos are up on the show website in the VIDEO SALA. You don´t need to worry about the Spanish with all that synth working for you.

All Sundays and public holidays the main routes throughout the city of Bogotá are turned into ´ciclovias´, or cycleways, filled with families of bikes, skates, motorised trolleys, fresh fruit and juice vendors and cycle pit stops.
The truly scary traffic comes back at two sharp, so the last quarter hour can be a bit hairy if you´re on latino time.

You can have the price of any credit card purchase you make divided over as many months as your doctor advises. They call this system cuotas. I´m yet to really test it out.

People are super protective of their personal information here. Friends won´t be involved in supermarket flybuys´ style point schemes in case their membership card falls into the hands of someone, perhaps working at the supermarket, involved in any of the number of organisations that would want to threaten their families and extort money from them. They call this extortion a ´vacuna´, or vaccination, an oft increasing monthly payment that keeps your family, farm, transport business, fruit company union workers, from coming to any harm.

The local Blockbuster Video was recently reminded to keep their balance in the black by a parking lot bomb. Stories of parents disappeared by paramilitary and guerrillas after being unable to keep up the payments are as numbingly commonplace as the farmers and small scale land owners disappeared during CONVIVIR.

There´s a saying here, other than ´todo es posible, nada es seguro´(everything´s possible but nothing is certain, the most popular quote of taxi drivers going ´contraflujo´, or the wrong way down a one way street), that says, at this time in Colombia, it´s hard to know if it´s worse to have a lot or have little, as both present an equal threat to your life equally. Pushed to choose, I´d take more, give a bit, and keep my membership cards to a minimum.

A friend of mine has another approach to keeping capital from the various mafias. As well as being particularly careful with his personal information, he´s involved in a pot growing collective with his mates. Better living everyone.

More so than any other country I´ve visited, Colombia is festival HQ. Thus far I´ve been privy to festivals of theatre, books, music, cinema, kites, dancing, and art in more variations and intricacies than you have the patience to read. There is always, always something to marvel at. And the street art is poderoso, that is to say, really powerful.

This one comes from the Universitario del Valle in Cali, and was taken during the manifestation to mark the birthday of Katherine Soto, a young student who presented a threat to police by crossing a seldom used bridge in the early morning to see the sunrise. She was gunned down at the scene. It reads " All species evolve except rights. The police kill students".

It was the first of two manifestations that I´ve seen so far, which seem to start with the students calling up the police to come to the University, and them subsequently responding with tanks and riot gear at which to throw big bomb-noise rocks and molitovs, while leaping along the rooftops, identities hidden in pillow padding. I personally don´t understand why the police insist on responding to such call-outs, because there really wouldn´t be much to aim at if they stood them up. Maybe it just looks good on the CV? I hear Coca Cola needs more union workers.

Bueno. Not an entirely balanced account of Colombia thus far, but some of the more interesting findings for someone whose Spanish is finally allowing her to get a grip on well disguised local currents. That said, the people here are the warmest, most welcoming and least likely to whistle obscenities at me, the coffee is the best, the rumbas are the loudest, longest and most inclusive, and all the things I was warned about, namely bus travel, is yet to cause the slightest anxious furrow. Plus, Bjork, Soda Stereo and Toto are all playing Bogotá within the month. Wohoo!

This final snap was taken in San Agustín, the birth place of Colombia´s three great rivers and as such, a location of great spiritual importance to many. You best believe I don´t have photoshop access here.

How the west was wubbled

I trust you´ve seen at least a few images of the earthquake affected areas in Peru´s south. The reporting here has been incredibly Lima centric, largely ignoring the fact that much of the southern pueblos are built of mud (adobe brick), ON sand, and as they´ve just started reporting now, areas such as Pisco are 85% destroyed. ¡Increíble! And a little bit sensationalist ....of course, not everywhere has access to the same pixt-in-a-news-story technology of upmarket Miraflores.

The photo on the left is from the third story, well, the roof, of the hostel in which I spent almost a week in Pisco. It might help to aid your imagination when viewing further footage.

Right now I´m happy in Cali, Colombia, and looking at the state of the roads from Lima, not rushing south any time soom to use the remaining months of my Argentinian working visa. Besides, there´s a Pacific music festival going on right now and I´m too busy representing the south side. Much love and marimba madness.

Toxic Shock Syndrome

Phew.


I don´t know quite what I was expecting when I decided to head up to Lago Agrio for a closer look at petroleum production. The idea was, ¨well, we all use petrol, it´s not really something that can be avoided like sweat shop shoes or eggs from battery hens or any number of the screeds of things my heavy conscience has eliminated from my life. I´ve been witness to some beautiful treasures rambling around Amazonia, the butterflies, the bears, and now it´s time to get real and discover some of the horrible truths the well organised collection of regional tourist pamphlets have left off their suggested itineries.¨ Or something like that. I was also particularly inspired by the May-June issue of Ecuadorian magazine ¨Terra Incognita¨, an Amazonia themed issue to commemorate 40 years of petrol drilling which included this incredible map, detailing the extent to which Amazonia is riddled with all manner of petroleum production.


If you can´t read Spanish, just pretend you can, the words are pretty similar. As you can see, the whole eastern side is thoroughly owned by petroleum exploration. Right, thought I, time for this jaded traveller to get some perspective and a bit of a kick in the guts to motivate my save the world streak. Off to Lago Agrio I go, home of the Ecuador´s first drilling site.

Hands down, the scenes I saw and the stories I heard yesterday made for the most horrific day of my life. I cried all the way back to Quito. I´m close to tears now.

The orange and yellow lines that follow from Esmeraldas to Lago Agrio (on the map silly) are giant pipe lines or oleoductos. They´re utterly enormous, rusty, high pressure worms (think ´Beetleguise´) that carry crude from the fields to the coast. Another smaller silver pipe transports gas in a similar fashion. They weave all over the landscape, through farm pastures, alongside people´s houses, around water ways, through national parks. They also have a habit of showering their ´black gold´ though farm pastures, alongside people´s houses, around water ways, through national parks. The way in which these ugly tubes have been integrated into people’s lives is quite remarkable. Many houses and small bars whose entrance from the road has been blocked by these dangerous eyesores have built sties in order to pass over them. It took me a long time to remember the word sty. I was aided by a nursery rhyme.

These pipe lines connect a huge number of processing and storage facilities that litter the landscape with giant hypodermic towers and concrete barrels, and blacken the air with plumes of diesel smoke.

The town of Lago Agrio itself was, in essence, created by Texaco. After the discovery of oil, the hauling in of the pipe lines, the displacement of jungle nationalities and the creation of roads needed to transport the machinery and personal, Ecuadorians flocked to the fields to make their fortunes. But for one reason or another, possibly the huge discrepancy in pay between locals and foreigners, there just wasn´t enough whiskey and Levis to go around.

I was warned on more than one occasion of the dangers of such crushed dreams small town poverty, by locals that is, not hysterical travel agents. Though the neighbouring town of Shushufundi is home to only 15 thousand inhabitants, its crime statistics in terms of murder and kidnapping rival those of Quito, home to 2 million. More horrific details on this and background on the current case against Texaco can be found in the May edition of Vanity Fair.

I personally found Lago to be a fairly friendly little town. I had a wander around the giant oil tanks and refinery at the end of the main street, and found that the security guard at Petroecuador had a rather non-threatening, almost chivalrous way of telling me my photos were considered stealing in the eyes of the company. Of course, I didn´t understand, my Spanish is Just Terrible, and thanked him kindly for warning of the threat of my camera being stolen.

It was pretty apparent that I wasn´t going to get too far, even with my biggest smiles, feigned misunderstandings and Nancy Drew detective skills, so I hired the help of Cesar, a local guide who had worked in the petroleum biz almost twenty years, transporting personnel and thousands of meters of piping around the area. Our first stop was the site where it all began, Lago Agrio station Numero uno.

There´s still oil down there, but the site is currently dormant, as it´s being repaired at present.

Nearly 2 kilometres of thumb thin piping are needed to suck the oil up from the well below. Open pools of crude and water are found to the back of the photo, under the trees. The rivers that surround this drilling site are rusty brown and haven´t supported any life in the last twenty years at least.


Once a well is dried up, the area is abandoned, leaving Olympic swimming pool sized pits where little but grass will grow. Now´s not a bad time to revise that map of drilling sites above. On more than one occasion Cesar pointed out houses actually built upon former pit sites. If such areas will only support grass, some fairly big questions can and should be raised about their suitability for human inhabitants.

The photo to the left is from a site a little further up the hill from Lago Agrio Numero Uno. Most of the fields I saw were incapable of supporting so much growth, so one can only conclude that there must be something utterly delicious in that water, hmm?



The next stop was Selva Viva, an environmental organisation, where I was given 20 minutes to talk to Emergildo Criollo, of the nationality Cofan, an indigenous peoples of Amazonia, a key member of FEINCE (Federacion Indigena de la Nacionalidad Cofan de Ecuador), and a man heavily involved in the case against Texaco. For Emergildo, the biggest problem is the contamination of the rivers, the ground and the medio ambiente, or general environment (air, animals, plant life).

He talked of the illnesses that came with petroleum, the wrenching stomach and head pains, blistering skins, widespread cancer that, for the first time in the histories of their people, could not be cured by their Shamans.


What an utter blow to the lifestyle for these people, to their culture, their traditions and their identities. Puff the Magic Dragon skulked back to his cave to morn the pile of scales at his feet.


At no point did ANYONE inform them of the dangers of continuing their relationship with their water ways as they always had. No one suggested the stop bathing in, washing in, or drinking their former life streams that were rapidly becoming contaminated with dangerous petro-chemicals. Somehow it never occurred to anyone to mention to this nation of fishermen not to consider the dead fish they found along the river banks a blessing. All the while their people were dying of cancer 8 hours and unimaginable sums of money away from the nearest hospitals (particularly difficult for a people whose livestock and lively hoods were fleeing with the fish) and their women were giving birth to children with yams where two fingers should be.


Two of Emergildo´s children died as a direct result of the contamination. One of terminal birth defects, and the other in fits of blood vomiting after swallowing river water while swimming.


All this, and the demands the Cofan people seem, to me at least, fairly reasonable. They want the toxic sludge removed from the pools of crude, instead of just covering it with dirt to leach into the soil and waterways, to clean up the trails of petrol sediment, and to compensate for the contaminated waterways and air supply by building a hospital for their sick and dying closer than Quito.


And what say Texaco lawyers? Apparently cancer is caused by the people´s lack of hygiene, and chromium from a local sweet factory. They have considered 10 thousand parts per million to be a safe level of toxins and carcinogens for humans, twice that stated in their contracts, 10 times greater than that stated in Ecuadorian law, and 100 times greater than United States recommendations. Furthermore the discrepancies between the levels of toxic and carcinogenic particles per million in the waterways recorded by Texaco in 1998 and the court measurements in 2006 are huge. Lago 02 for example was considered to contain less than 5000 parts per million by Texaco estimates, but was recently found to have 325 000 parts per million in 2006 by a judicial investigation. The results of further such investigations and more images can be found here.


Of course, Texaco is only the first step for groups such as FEINCE, set to fight the oil companies. Once the rulings for the Texaco case are through, due somewhat optimistically in 2008, these groups will set to work avenging the all the contamination affected lives battling all the other oil companies working in the area. Texaco was the first to drill, and, assuming the court ruling demands compensation for these people, these groups will have an easier time battle other petrol giants such as Petroecuador, considered by everyone I talked to have less concern for the wellbeing of the jungle dwellers and river users than Texaco. And to your right, river users, in Rio Aguarico, the main river that runs by Lago Agrio, connecting all the toxic streams in the area. And look- a family taking a break from the oppressive 35 degree heat.


This absolute denial on the part of the oil companies that there is any relationship between their work and the sudden onslaught of terminal diseases, including rates of cancer in drilling town San Carlos 150% higher than the national average, and the utterly despicable neglect to inform anyone of the potential dangers of carrying on jungle life as usual was the biggest ´swindle´ of all for Jose Farjardo, president of FDA (Frento Defenso de la Amazonia), a collective of organisations that work to school the inhabitants of Amazonia on defending their rights. They work on the case, but also have a ´school of leaders´, which teaches, essentially, self defence skills against bullies invading your turf. Proactive. I really like that.


His office was a wealth of information, including an incredibly moving series of photographs taken by Lou Dematteis and Kayana Szymczak on the Chevron ´legacy´. Sadly the online version doesn´t include the personal testimonies of the people, all of which seem to include how utterly unwittingly they exposed themselves to the quimicos. He also gave me a really good grilling about who I was and what I was doing, should I be working for the defence to exterminate his efforts, and possibly him.


Apparently the environmental damage around Lago Agrio is nothing compared to that of the surrounding national parks and Coca, a little further south. Sadly I only had a day to investigate, but nevertheless, Estación Guanta proved to be fairly good case study in environmental horrors. It involved a bit of sneaky detective work to get to these places, pretending my guide was my boyfriend (HIS idea, and a trick I hadn´t pulled since I saw someone I´ve rapidly forgotten in DEKA with some girl in a Queens uniform).




A petrol spill can look like this. There is a house less than a kilometre to the left.




This is one of the only active drills in the area. The tubes are apparently 6 inches in diameter, and the oil is at such a pressure that it just spurts right out of the ground on its own accord. That plume of diesel to the right occurs at 10 second intervals.


This is a where they let the excess gas out. Funny that word excess, as there are gas shortages in Quito.

These containers store petroleum and are literally on the main street of Lago Agrio, just across from the refinery at which I´d been reprimanded for snooping. Cesar referred to them as time bombs, though the use of such terms, to me, seems to mock the degree to which this entire area is contaminated.


So what´s the message here? I really don´t know. I have never wanted to believe that we are helpless to change the evil ways of the world, but how can positive change come from all this horror?


In the least I want you to have a good think about YOUR petrol usage. At present there aren´t too many viable options for family transport, and certainly not for air travel, but there´s definitely room for you to lessen your involvement in the massive human cost of petroleum exploration by minimising your petroleum wastage. Perhaps even more importantly, I hope my horrible, horrible day will inspire you to talk about these injustices and provide you with some links to share with those who don´t have the opportunity to see all this first hand.

It´s very real. It´s very sad. It needs to be addressed by all of us.

Maybe it´s stockholm syndrome, but...

I´m trapped in Baños. Which is fine with me, really. I have some sort of flu, which thankfully isn´t High Altitude Pulmonary Edema, when the pressure on your lungs inflates them with fluid (an American chap I met in Cuenca found himself swimming in his own succulent juices while in Peru, gag) as i´m only at 1820m above sea level. There is a woman at the market who makes fresh bean ´menestras´ for me everyday, despite the fact it´s a costal specialty (i still have trouble with such regional culinary divides coming from ram whatever in the one pot land), there is a gorgeous spice shop with wasabi powder and crystallised ginger, the papers have cleo style quizzes and features on second life and of course, as the name suggests, there is an abundance of thermal baths. Heavenly.

I managed to take this photo on the way in. More rain has sent further igneous boulders tumbling onto what remains of the highway, and it´s now totally impassable, even on foot. I haven´t seen a highway in such a state since one almost buried Lois in Superman I. Thankfully their volcanic home remains relatively dormant.

If you look closely at the person in blue on the very left, you can see that they´re standing pretty much on the prime meridian, that jaggedy out bit. Further to the left of this photo a great river rages.

despues de un mes

And in the end I forgot to unpack my cocoa leaf powder, and nobody cared.

I stayed a night in Loja, which takes on a strange queenstown-ish sort of vibe with all its fresh mountain air, and headed to the valle sagrado that is vilcabamba. My first couple of nights were spent in a hostel opposite the pig slaughtering place, a large concrete area sort of resembling one of those wooden toy gas station/fix it shops with the painted on mobil signs that everyone´s brother seemed to have. They assured me that they only cut them up on Sundays, but they must have been doing some training on my last night as long decaying squeals kept me from sleeping sweetly. so much chancho here. i found some in my popcorn the other day.
Having heard more than enough of the nature trail tourist muggings, conspiracy theories about various missing and suicided locals, and other musings on ´the UFO people´of the valley, (is there a small town without all these stiffling qualities?), I heaved my bongos and a few other bits upon Pasito, a hard working but somewhat deaf (to my commands at least) donkey that took them up to Sacred Sueños, a fairly new organic farm about 2 hours up the hill toward Podocarpus national park. Since people have been tied to certain plots of land, ´owning´them, something strange has become of traditional slash and burn methods of farming. While once the land was given a bit of recovery time between harvests, as campesinos would rotate through the fields they sewed, land privatisation has led to the same fields being burnt year after year, resulting in terrible soil quality, the subsequent ´reliance´on chemical means to build it back up and greater difficulties growing basic staples to sell to American and European markets that bar the trade of anything other than the raw products from South America so that the eventual ´value added´ goods can count towards their own GDP. You´d think there´d be some pretty sweet chocolate in all these cocoa growing nations. nope. check the label, even the fair trade chocolate is processed in Belgium. ANYWAY... so I took to the soil of a three year old organic farm, trying to help rebuild what has been depleted over the years of misunderstanding through mulching, making use of the water resources through swails and grey water systems, carrying buckets of ´human ore´to the giant pit of human shit that will one day fertilize a small forest (one day far far in the future), and other environmentally friendly practices, like making ´cobb´bricks out of clay and plastic rubbish and giving the finger to tetra pak by learning how to make soy milk (leave it a few days and you get ´value added´soy cheese, but don´t tell the EU). It was just fantastic to be surrounded by a fairly dedicated group of permaculture activists, doing their bit to put some sort of salve on the world´s rancid wounds. One guy had spent a summer travelling around Canada in a bus that ran on vegie oil, stopped in one town by something like 5 cops who all just wanted to ¨check this crazy thing out¨ and pick up a copy of the accompanying zine. Another was a trained member of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army that put on subversive acts of theatre around England. A gorgeous German friend of mine described the sensation of being tear gassed at a G8 protest, while a gringa whose volunteer visa was on the brink of running out told me of the horrendous difficulty of maintaining a reading programme in the local schools, initially financed entirely out of her own pocket, as the mayor would close the library so that the only librarian could take over at the tourist office while the tourist officer went on holiday. Though the mayor´s son frequently attended the holiday programme she had set up, it just seemed more convenient to pocket the extra salary saved through such flexible job descriptions than to keep regular library hours during term time. Neither the schools nor the library can complain, they´ll lose their funding. The gringos fear being ousted from the community if they speak up. Of course, outsiders can always write to the mayor of Loja (the superior of the Vilcabamba mayor), Jorge Bailón Abad (alcaldel@municipiodeloja.gov.ec.) , asking for regular library hours. It´s not not a cause to make the pages of amnesty international, but think about it... you´re reading now. Hypocrite.

I then took to the national park of Podocarpus, on the Zamora, or more jungley side to check out some wild life. I always find the point at which you say, okay, I´ve done my three hours into this walk, time to sit and have some lunch , and ready myself to turn back and not get any more lost difficult, as it´s so arbitrary. Walking to an attraction is so much more satisfying, a waterfall, a wobbly mirador, is much more exciting than a mandarine and a squashy banana. So here I am, sitting in the middle of a path, having a banana, contemplating the attractions 5 minutes too far from the sensible rules my outdoor badge bestowed upon me, when who should come meandering down the path towards me but a mother oso de anteojos and her two baby cubs. That´s right (or a little more clear in a moment if you were unable to translate oso), bears. Suddenly 3 unaccompanied hours into Amazonian forest is an eternity. They looked friendly enough, and would have squeezed in nicely behind the duck had Prokofiev thought to include a bottle blowing how-down in´Peter and The Wolf´, but still, bears, protective mother bears (I assumed, casting all sorts of maternal ideologies upon the no doubt well educated third waver), who knows how much they´re out for a shredding? I reached into my bag for the only peace pipe I had to offer, a second squashed banana. Much more appetising than me after a couple of days alone in the forest and almost a month of farm work. But I could only find the granadilla! Not to worry, at the rustle of plastic they scampered into the bush. I put the banana in my pocket for further encounters, quickly collected my coat and bag, and walked calmly and purposefully towards my refujio. Not running. Not feeding the bears. Better than a waterfall, and no doubt much less dangerous than this incredible creature I met on my first day.

There are so many more stories to tell: my first scorpion, the spider that chased and threatened to bite the four year old on the neck, the frog that just turned up in my bed but I was too afraid to kiss, all the wonderful new forms of maize and sugar I keep coming across, the secret world of plants, but this internet connection is super slow, and it´s time to explore the picturesque city of Cuenca where I currently reside. What I´ve seen so far has been a delightful blend of cobblestone, red brick and fat churches with jewelled cream puff turrets. ¡Que bonito!