Paul Newman Was Here, Almost (Tupiza)

In 1908, two bandits were killed by the Bolivian army.

A mule had given them away.

The bandits had robbed a courier transporting a payroll for the Aramayo Franke y Cia Silver Mine, stealing about 15,000 Bolivian pesos (as the currency was back then) worth of loot. The bandits then tried to hide out in the nearby town of San Vicente, where they were promptly ratted out by the owner of their boarding house.

The robbers had stolen a mule branded with the mark of the Aramayo Mine. The owner of the boarding house saw this, became suspicious of his lodgers, and notified the local authorities. That is, the Bolivian army.

A shootout ensued.

All of this happened in the south of Bolivia, near a place called Tupiza.

They made a movie about it, with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. It was called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

***

Tupiza

Nowadays, Tupiza is a quiet city located between huge scarps of red rock, along the Oruro -Villazon train route; Bolivia’s most famous railway line.

(Incidentally, the train that plies this line is a full-sized, horn-honking, multi-carriage affair, a far cry from the tiny duster that took me from Sucre to Potosi. Tupiza feels like a town right out of the Old West, so it’s reassuring they got the railroad right).

Aside from the whole business with Butch and Sundance, Tupiza most famous for being the back gate to Bolivia’s famous Salt Flats. The trip from Tupiza to the Flats is a four day expedition via jeep, which promises staggering and surreal views of Bolivia’s strangest natural sights.

That’s not really why I came here, though.

I just wanted to muck about on a horse for a bit.

Tupiza offers bargain-price horse trekking, through the rugged red countryside. It’s just like being in an old Eastwood movie, right down to the cacti. 

***

The cacti

Butch and Sundance fled to South America because the Old West wasn’t really the Old West anymore. Having more and more trouble keeping ahead of North America’s increasingly sophisticated lawmen, they fled south in the hope of recouping their glory days in more primitive climes.

In many ways, Bolivia still feels like that kind of frontier. The poorest part of the Americas, it’s a land full of ramshackle buildings and half-finished houses. It’s not hard to imagine two bandits out of Old West patrolling its countryside to this day, with handkerchief masks and six-shooters in hand.

Things didn’t end well for Butch and Sundance (unless you believe the rumours about them surviving their famous final shoot-out, and taking new names elsewhere; their bodies were never definitively identified, after all.) But here, on the ruddy edge of a ragged country, it’s easy to imagine their story playing out again--perhaps differently, this time.

After all, if there’s any place in the world where Butch and Sundance could still ride, it must surely be Bolivia. 

Horse riding in Bolivia. Click to expand.

EXTRA BITS:

>Horse treks through the countryside surrounding Tupiza are available from any one of the town’s many tour operators. The prices vary from 250 bs to 390 bs for a five hour expedition. I paid 350 bs for a very pleasant seven hour ride via the Valle Hermosa tour agency.

>It’s easy to find affordable accommodation in Tupiza, but watch out--many cheaper hostels have travel agencies attached, and they may try to pressure you into taking a Salt Flat tour with them before you have a chance to look at the alternatives.

>Going on a tour of the Salt Flats via Tupiza is quite a bit more expensive than going direct from the Flats-adjacent town of Uyuni (expect to pay around 1300 bs instead of 600 bs), but Tupiza is a far more pleasant place to spend a bit of time, and you get an extra day on the road for your money. I've chosen an agency called Natural Adventure, which was recommended to me by other travellers.  

I've also brought some extra socks. I hear it's very cold, out in the Flats...

A Mountain Ate These Men (The Mines of Potosi)

Antonio, a former miner and current mine guide.

The caves are narrow, dark and choked with soot.

Men scramble though tunnels barely tall enough to crouch in, pushing carts and hauling sacks of stone. Helmet beams cut through the blackness; thin streams of torchlight, bouncing off glittering mineral stains on the rock walls.

Ahead of me in the tunnel, my guide--a former miner named Antonio--scurries along, squatting. It’s a struggle to keep pace with him, my hardhat scraping against the stone ceiling.

We’re following rails; a path intended for mine cars. Every now and then, Antonio barks a warning to step aside. There are plenty of cars trundling along the rails, each one carrying a tonne of ore. They thunder past, with enough force to crush a person under-wheel.

This is a working mine, after all.

***

The Mines of Potosi.

The Spanish called it: “Cerro Rico.”

It means: “Rich Hill.”

Once, the streets of Potosi were plated with silver. Cerro Rico is a mountain that overlooks the city, and in the 16th century, its silver deposits made Potosi the richest spot in South America: as close to a real El Dorado as anyone ever found (albiet in silver instead of gold). 

That silver also cost millions of lives, of course.

The Spanish were ruthless in their desire to exploit Cerro Rico, working countless Quechua labourers to death. And when that supply of workers proved insufficient for the task, they began importing a steady stream of slaves from Africa. Conditions were awful; African slaves forced to work in the Casa de la Moneda (the National Mint, located in Potosi) were referred to as "Acémilas Humanas"--"Human Mules."

These monstrous conditions earned Cerro Rico another nickname: “The Mountain That Eats Men.”

It still does, to this day

***

The city of Potosi, and Cerro Rico overlooking it.

Today, the mines are run by Bolivian Mining Cooperatives--workers unions which allegedly offer the miners some measure of solidarity and legal protection, and which permit tourists entry to the mine for a small fee.

(A fee which my guide insisted goes toward helping the miners' feeble healthcare coverage).

But the conditions faced by miners are still absolutely brutal. The men have safety equipment insofar as they have helmets, and the mines are filled with rickety wooden ladders and precarious ledges. Getting into the mines means descending down through warrens of rock that could all too easily cave-in.

Occasionally, there will be a low, escalating rumble, like thunder through the caves. It's the sound of blasting dynamite, somewhere in the tunnels.

"At first we were afraid of one blast a day," a miner commented to me, in jocular Spanish. "Now we are used to hearing them every fifty minutes."

***

Miners eating coca leaves in Cerro Rico

Having been mined for the last 500-odd years, Cerro Rico is so riddled with tunnels that its very structure is in question. The mountain is puckered with sinkholes, and geologists have warned that parts of the peak are at risk of collapse. In 2011, a 339 square metre crater opened in the mountain's summit, and attempts to shore up Cerro Rico with cement and metal bracing have been of debatable efficacy at best.

But there's no doubt that the mining will carry on. The mines employ an estimated 15,000 men (and boys; some miners start as young as 6), and they are at the heart of Potosi's attempts to build itself a viable tourist industry.

"My family moved away from Potosi," Antonio said to me, explaining that his father was a miner, "to Argentina... because all there is here is mine, mine, mine."

***

A young miner.

On the way out of the mine,  I passed a young man with a handsome face and clever eyes, wearing a hardhat.

I wondered at his future. Antonio--short, hunched and possessing a resolutely dirty sense of humour--is one of the lucky ones. He taught himself enough English to escape working as a miner, and become a tour guide instead.

Few others are as fortunate. Miners have a typical life expectancy of around 40; the soot that fills the mines does serious harm to the lungs. Visitors have to wear breathing masks (scraps of cloth), and the miners themselves chew coca leaves while they work, because eating on the job would risk ingesting extra muck. 

Inside the mine tunnels, there are numerous shrines to a El Tio; a devil-like deity, with red skin and pointy horns, to whom the miners offer booze and coca leaves. They hope that a little supernatural pact might help keep them safe. It's a deal that (in the classic style of devils) El Tio rarely keeps.

Cerro Rico once made Potosi rich, on the backs of choking men. Nowadays, Potosi is a poor city in the poorest country of South America. There's little silver left, and the great peak slumps.

But men work all the same, and the Mountain eats them up.

EXTRA BITS:

>Whether Potosi's Mining Cooperatives truly help the workers, or simply exploit them, is a matter of debate. Similarly, the ethics of mine tourism is an open question. Certainly there are some tour operators that pay the miners much less than others. 

If you are considering a mine tour, try to find an operator that is run by miners, as they are most likely to pay other miners fairly. It's also typical practice to bring the miners gifts of drink or coca leaves. 

>Venturing into the mines is probably inadvisable if you're prone to claustrophobia or afraid of the dark. They are a fascinating and somewhat horrifying experience, and I was certainly very glad to escape into the daylight.

How To Catch A Train In Bolivia

A Bolivian "train" in its entirety. 

A guide to catching a train from the city of Sucre, Bolivia to the city of Potosi, Bolivia.

Step one: Upon exiting your hotel, convince your taxi driver that the train station exists. For some reason, bus and taxi drivers in Sucre are likely to insist that the train station is closed, temporarily out of service, or was never in fact built in the first place. If possibly, bring a map with the station's location labelled on it, to point at insistently. 

Step two: Understand that Bolivian "trains" are small,  cramped, and move at a speed only slightly faster than a brisk jog. The train to Potosi takes seven plus hours--a public bus will cover the same distance in two or three.

So why take the train?  In my case, because Bolivia's tumultuous political scene has led to road closures across the country, shutting down bus routes.  The train may be slow,  but at least it runs on time.

Step three: That's a lie, in fact--the train does not run on time, but rather on Bolivian time, which is an altogether more relaxed concept. So don't worry if you have to spend ages queuing at the ticket office at Sucre station (which you will); you'll still have plenty of time to spare before departure.

Step four: Bring a book and/or particularly challenging crossword puzzle for the journey. Be aware that the train will lurch to a stop at random intervals to let passengers on, off, or go to the bathroom.

If you're feeling adventurous, risk leaving the train to pee. It probably won't go on without you.

Step five: Forget to read your book, because the view is quite spectacular (click below to enlarge).

Step six: Congratulations, you have arrived at your destination! And thanks to the awesome power of the locomotive, it has taken you only two or three times as long as riding a bus.

EXTRA BITS:

> The name of the working train station from Sucre is "El Tejar," which cab drivers seem more likely to recognise than simply asking for the train station.  

> When using Bolivian trains (and indeed busses) be aware that you need a luggage ticket to stow your bag. This comes with your regular ticket: give it to the train porter, and he will happily sling your bag onto the top of the train with great force. 

> It's a good idea to bring snacks for the train. This is, in fact, sound general life advice.

 

 

Women in the White City (The Beehive, Sucre)

Once upon a time (four years ago, to be exact), a quartet of young women sat down in a coffee shop to discuss gender politics in Bolivia. 

One of them was named Susana Valda (Susi for short), and today she is the manager of The Beehive--a combined hostel and community centre located in Sucre, Bolivia’s quiet capital.

The Beehive is the fruit of that conversation four years ago. Started by the quartet of women, it uses money made by the hostel side of its business to fund projects supporting women across Sucre.

I sat down with Susi on a crushed leather sofa in the hostel's dinky reception area, to ask about The Beehive's history. ‘We never thought it would come true,’ she told me, of the dream to build the hostel.

It's a dream that wouldn't have existed at all if it hadn't been for one tourist, trying to learn Spanish.

***

Bolivian women getting married in traditional dress.

The Beehive was the brainchild of Amanda Pojanamat, a traveller from California. The daughter of Thai parents, Amanda came to Bolivia to learn Spanish--and while there, she was moved to do something to improve conditions for Bolivian women.

Susi was a teacher at the time, at Amanda’s Spanish school. Together with two friends, they hatched The Beehive Project. Starting a philanthropic project in Bolivia is no mean feat--the country isn't exactly set up to encourage third sector activity.

‘The government has no money,’ Susi told me, brushing back dark hair with a rueful smile.  ‘And if they have, they are using it for other things.’

Susi comes across as a quietly stylish woman, with a thoughtful demeanour but a ready smile. Sitting on a sofa in beige boots and a sleek bomber jacket, she looked a world away from the ladies in flannel caps and bowler hats selling potatoes in Bolivia's bustling markets.

'Women here need to work, be in the house, cook, clean, look after the kids, be a nurse...' Susi said, with a sigh. Women in Bolivia face serious hardships; the country has a disproportionately high illiteracy rate among women, and more than half of reported assaults come under the heading of domestic violence. The 2009 election saw an increase in female representation in Bolivian Parliament--but even so, Bolivian women only occupy 28% of Parliamentary positions. 

Women selling potatoes in a Bolivian marketplace.

‘Our first idea was a Foundation,’ Susi explained, of the Beehive initiative, ‘but the question was how we would get money, so we decided to start the hostel instead.’ 

Securing a hostel building wasn’t easy. The Beehive is currently based in an old colonial house, with white walls and a sunny courtyard (Sucre, otherwise known as the White City, is positively bursting with white walls and sunny courtyards).  The hostel originally started out on another property, but when their contract ran out, Susi and co. were forced to move

They spent the next twenty-four months refitting their current building to make it livable, putting in everything from new flooring to electric sockets.

It’s work that’s still going on. ‘Two years,’ Susi said wryly, ‘and we’re still fixing things.’

Still, The Beehive is one of Sucre’s top-rated hostels on Hostelworld.com, and the place is home to a constantly refreshing roster of quirky, friendly travellers. It isn’t unusual for backpackers to stay at the Beehive for days or even weeks longer than planned, volunteering to help the Beehive and its project out.

They could always use the extra hands.

***

Sucre's classic colonial architecture. 

‘It’s crazy hard,’ Suzi said, of The Beehive’s work.

The Beehive strives to support Bolivian women in two ways. Firstly it works together with other organisations in Sucre to provide support, legal aid and advice to local women, especially those trying to run their own businesses in the city market.

Secondly, in collaboration with a charity called Foundation Dos Mases, The Beehive runs a language school for Sucre's children. This is to help open the children’s minds to different cultures, and fight Bolivia’s toxic Machismo environment--winning hearts from an early age.

‘It’s not about being feminist,’ Susi said, when I asked her if that was how she saw The Beehive’s mission. ‘It’s about women having their own rights in jobs, in family, in society... human rights, to be able to say what you think. Sometimes women can’t do that.’

‘I feel it is getting better,’ Susi added, about the status of women in Bolivia. ‘But as a little, little thing.’

Women protesting on the street, during an anti-government march through Sucre.

‘I was very surprised when the kids ask for more lessons every day,’ Susi added, remembering her own time in school--being forced to learn English, and hating it. But The Beehive’s English lessons have proven a hit. Additionally, The Beehive also provides cheap Spanish lessons to passing backpackers, to help bring Bolivians and foreigners closer together. 

I asked Susi about the future of The Beehive, and she sounded optimistic. ‘I’d like to see what else we can do,’ she said. ‘Maybe a foundation, or a centre in another place.’ Susi is the last of the four founding members still working at The Beehive, but her co-founder Amanda will be returning to Bolivia in a year, with plans to expand The Beehive's efforts to include improving the standard of healthcare in Sucre.

A woman in traditional Bolivian Cholita garb.

Expanding will be serious a challenge for The Beehive, which has to scrap for all the funds it can get--but with support from travellers and locals alike, it's one that Susi thinks they can meet.

‘All my life I was working in an office,’ she told me wryly, gesturing at The Beehive’s small lobby, and the prim colonial courtyard outside. ‘I never thought I’d be working in a building like this.’

It started as four women in a coffee shop.

It’s amazing how far one conversation can go. 

EXTRA BITS

> You can find out more about The Beehive and its mission here.

> Relaxed, walkably small and positively European in its architecture, Sucre is a definite contrast to the Gothic nightmare of La Paz. It's a great place to spend a few nights winding down.

>That said, Bolivia is still Bolivia, so Sucre is currently in the grip of anti-government protests; firecrackers sound off in the streets, as protesters wave placards at the local police and demand lower taxes.  When I got here, there was a small but colourful  street-fiesta going on; the dancers segued into protesters without pause.

Bolivians just like their streets lively, I guess.

Over the Rainbow (Mountain)

Rainbow Mountain

While I was in Cusco, I trekked up the famous Rainbow Mountain--a multicoloured peak in Peru that stands at 5000 exhausting metres.

You can read all about it at my guest post over at The Planet D!

Above: Alpacas trek across Rainbow Mountain. Click to expand.

Bas-Lag Sprawl (La Paz)

Cables snake across the city.

They cling to each other, slender black serpents binding buildings and nesting atop lampposts. They dangle over churches wrapped in gothic grandeur, over teaming markets, over streets closed off by police blockades. Pigeons perch upon the power lines (as well as on the city’s countless stone statues); sky rats everywhere, mingling with the snakes.

In the markets, women dressed in bowler hats and puffy skirts hunch as they pull their wares from stall to stall; heavy baskets of potatoes, nuts, and sundry goods. Other women sit comfortably amid piles of vegetables and meats--meats of every kind, from heart to liver to splayed lung, as many fresh as putrid. Men in puffy jackets and fedoras flit between them, either gathering goods or hurrying from work to home and back again. Everything in this city moves.

At the centre of the chaos lies the national seat of government, the Palacio Quemado... The Burnt Palace. Named for the fact it was burnt down by citizens, during one of Bolivia’s many violent revolutions.

Traffic chokes every road and street and alley, and at night, a few buildings manage neon lights. The city is set in a deep mountain bowl, endless sprawls of houses crawling up the rock. It’s watched over by the great snow-capped peak of Illimani--allegedly the city’s guardian, standing impassive as the sprawl is choked by pollution, revolution, and petty crime.

High above most of the city sits El Alto--The High Place, linked to the streets below by a creaking red cable car. It’s a neighbourhood full of half-finished buildings and broken streets, where witches huddle around tin huts, reading palms and burning incense. Down on the streets, more commercial witches tarry with the masses in the famous Witches Market, dazzling tourists with herbs and animal embryos that they use for potions.

Everywhere, the city seethes through day and night. It smells of soot and dust and food left out too long. In the mornings, the mountain weather freezes; in the afternoons, it bakes. 

Welcome to La Paz, built up in the mountains.

It could put a fantasy to shame.

Lake Titicaca (Puno vs. Copacabana)

The Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca, and a traditional reed boat.

Puno is a bit of a dump.

Perched on the sparkling blue shores of Lake Titicaca (a name people have sadly grown tired of giggling at), it’s a slump of ugly buildings wrapped around ugly streets, all pavement and decaying "Hotel" signs.

At the centre of Puno is a small main plaza with a medium sized cathedral. This plaza is connected to a public park with another cathedral (this one painted yellow) via a vaguely boulevard-ish street full of shops selling alpaca clothes and boat trips to tourists.

At the bottom of the city, there is a bus station and a port. The bus station brings travellers to Puno. The port sends them to Lake Titicaca. In the meantime, they can soak up the sketchy atmosphere that permeates the streets.

The lake is very pretty, though. You have to give it that.

 

Puno

***

Peru owns 60% of Lake Titicaca. The other 40% belongs to Bolivia. 

From the Peruvian side, tours abound to the famous Floating Islands, inhabited by the Uros people. These are tiny settlements built on yellow totora reeds, drifting in the middle of the lake. It's a lifestyle that was adopted by the Uros hundreds of years ago; they fled to Lake Titicaca to escape the expanding Inca Empire.

Living adrift.

The islands are miraculous feeds of construction--reed platforms with soil bases, anchored in the river by wooden pikes--but these days they entertain a different kind of invasion. Tourists frequent certain of the islands, bringing cameras and often tour guides.  There’s something unnerving about the way a guided visit to the isles begins with the inhabitants being prompted (somewhat awkwardly) to explain their culture, and quickly transitions into various attempts to sell the tourists trinkets.

Interestingly, the Uros people have adopted solar panels, bringing them electricity. 

Meanwhile, on the Bolivian side of the river, the gorgeous Isla De Sol lies waiting, a three hour boat trip from the city. There, you can spend a day hiking across the island, soaking up the stark beauty of its yellow sands and matchstick trees. The island is divided into three local communities, but there's plenty of stunning, empty space in between to walk across.

While Peruvian tours offer the chance to spend a night with a local family on one of Lake Titicaca’s islands, staying a night on the Isla De Sol is more of a do-it-yourself affair; there are plenty of hostels waiting, if you want them. 

That’s Bolivia versus Peru for you. One of them has frills; one of them, less so.

The Isla Del Sol

 

***

Copacabana should, by all rights, be a bit of a dump. 

It’s a small beach sprawl full of unfinished buildings and nigh-deserted streets. In the main marketplace, there are stalls where women sell huge bags of nuts, and men sell raw meat. It’s Bolivia, away from the comforting tourist infrastructure of Peru, and into a country that feels instantly stranger and wilder.

Copacabana

 

And yet, Copacabana feels like a relaxing place to hang out. There’s a laid-back atmosphere radiating outward from the beach, where visitors indulge in activities ranging from speed-boat rides to water-zorbing. A viewpoint at the top of the city (complete with religious shrine) affords a fantastic view of the harbour, and it’s a scenic walk up stone steps to reach it.

As overused as the word “Bohemian” (currently the go-to-phrase for describing Tom Baker’s 70s wardrobe), it feels like a good fit for Cobacopana. By rights, it should be a much less agreeable place to spend the day than the comparatively richer and more built-up Puno.

But that isn’t the case at all.

Somehow, it appears, being over the border has done it good.

The Bolivian side of things.

EXTRA BITS:

>Lake Titicaca is positively freezing at nights right now. In fact, when I was in Cusco, I saw a Peruvian news program reporting (with alarmingly dramatic background music) that the Puno region has been so cold, baby Alpacas are dying.

>While they do feel a bit like a human zoo at times, boat trips from Puno are nevertheless very pleasant--in particular a visit to the tranquil island of Tequili, which feels far less touristy than the Floating Islands.

>At the viewpoint at the top of Copacabana, there is a religious shrine, full of candles lit by locals. There’s also a stall from which you can purchase little model houses. 

On the way back down the steps, men with bowls of incense offer to take the little model houses, and bless them in smelly smoke. It’s a ceremony, to bring fortune to one’s home and family.

Bolivia is going to be an interesting country, I think. 

 

 

School's Out

Amauta Spanish School in Cusco

I could have learned more Spanish.

I've been at the Amauta Spanish School in Cusco for the last three weeks, mingling with students, scribbling in a notebook, and generally fumbling around with a language I can now mas o menos hold a broken conversation in.

I could have stayed longer, quite happily (in fact, I stayed a week longer than originally planned).

Whenever I'm at an academic institution, I'm invariably disappointed that it isn't a Hogwarts-esque castle full of precocious brats and enchanting teachers. Amauta certainly isn't Hogwarts--it's a squat little building tucked away in a sidestreet, filled with dorms and classrooms. But it has a charming faculty that could be straight out of any novel.

There's a perennially stylish lady named Dessy who teaches in an array of colourful hats; a curiously evasive outdoorsman who leads field-trips and bears a startling resemblance to Nick Offerman; and of course Rudolfo, a sprightly white-haired man of small stature who all the students agree is the kindliest person in the universe.

During my time at Amauta, I made friends with fellow students from across the world--normal practice was for us to study in the week, and use the weekends for expeditions to the surrounding countryside.  I spent a couple of weeks staying with a loving host family located in Cusco's Wanchaq area--a household headed by a basketball-loving lawyer named Maria, who became my Peruvian Mum.

And I danced, of course.

It's been a long time since I was in a school. I forgot how nice they could be (High Schools exempted). A good school is basically a cult of people sharing a conspiracy to learn.

I was glad to put my travelling hat down for a while, and pick a few phrases up.

But there's a lake with a funny name to see, though I've heard it's rather chilly. Apparently Lake Titicaca is so cold right now, even the alpacas are uncomfortable...

A mí me gusta Amauta.

Nos vamos. 

EXTRA BITS:

>In practice, putting down my travelling hat just meant passing it around all the other students to try on. I'm surprised I got it back...

That Machu Picchu Post (History and Names)

In Quechua, the word Pachakutiq means "He who overturns space and time." The word "Yupanki" means "with honour." 

It's from these words that the Inca ruler Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui derived his name. The man under whom the small Kingdom of Cusco transformed into the mighty Inca Empire, Pachacuti was also known as "The Earth Shaker." According to legend, during a battle with the Chanka (bloodthirsty enemies of the Inca) Pachacuti fought so well that the very stones rose up to fight at his side.

Words are powerful things. They can make a man mighty, or a place magical.

It's thought that Machu Picchu, the most famous Inca icon in the world, was built for Pachacuti. We're not entirely sure why, but popular hypotheses have it as either a personal estate for Pachacuti, or as a religious training ground for members of the Inca ruling class. 

Machu Picchu was constructed around 1450, when the Inca Empire was at its height. Just one hundred years later, the citadel was abandoned, probably due to smallpox. The Conquistadors never found the Machu Picchu; it sat silently amid the clouds while the Inca Empire below was mapped and slaughtered. 

For a long time, the city was lost in mist, left to ghosts and the growing jungle.

***

I went to Machu Picchu with two friends. We took the easy way.

Well, easy is a relative. The easiest way to Machu Picchu is the train. Tourists can take the train from either Poroy station near Cusco, or from the town of Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley. But at around $130, a train trip is pricey, and you don't get to do much walking on the way.

There's also trekking of course, but the famous Inca Trail books up months in advance. Other treks are available in Cusco, though prices vary from operator to operator--if you have this in mind, be sure to ask around. You'll need 3-5 days. Walking the whole way takes a while.

We chose the middle option: hiking alongside the train tracks from Hydroelectica, a small settlement ten kilometres from Machu Picchu. This option means taking a bus from Cusco to Hydroelectrica, then following train tracks through the jungle until you hit Aguas Calientes, a tourist town built at the base of the mountain leading to Machu Picchu.

After a pricey night in Aguas Calientes, it's an early morning stagger up to Machu Picchu. There are 1500 unforgivingly steep stone steps to beat before reaching the top. The stairway opens to tourists at 5am, but it's best to be there an hour earlier. A lot of people make this climb, and you don't want to be at the back of the queue. 

The clamber upward is a determined scramble of panting travellers with flashlights and headlamps, trying not to trip in the dark. 

The sun comes up as you climb. 

At the top, Machu Picchu is a populated by tour groups and flag-waving guides. The view is magical; clouds slink across vast mountaintops, while sparrows flit between the stone walls of the dead city. You're not allowed to take food in, or anything out.

In recent years, Machu Picchu has been seriously eroded by tourists stealing stones away as souvenirs.  Keeping the site accessible but authentic has been a longstanding issue for the Peruvian government.   In the 1980s, a large rock was removed from the citadel's main plaza to allow helicopter landings; in the 1990s, helicopter landings were banned for fear of causing damage. 

Meanwhile, UNESCO has been criticised for allowing tourists to access the location at all. There are serious risks of landslides and hiking accidents, as well as damaging all that history. 

Hiram Bingham III, discoverer of Machu Picchu, and the original ruins prior to modern reconstruction work in 1912.

***

Machu Picchu isn't really what it was called.

In 1911, American explorer Hiram Bingham III went in search of Vilcabamba, the last Inca city to fall to the Spanish. While in Hiram was travelling Urubamba Valley, a local farmer pointed him to a set of mysterious ruins on a mountaintop. The farmer called the mountain "Machu Picchu," meaning "Old Peak." 

Hiram brought Machu Picchu worldwide attention (though some evidence indicates the city may have been found and pillaged by a German named Augusto Berns about 44 years earlier). Since then, it's been Peru's most famous landmark, and a must-see hub for travellers visiting the country.

In 2012, Spanish historian Mari Rubio claimed to have discovered the real name of the ancient Inca citadel--"Patallaqta," meaning "Step City," in Quechua.  Many of Machu Picchu's tour guides nevertheless still claim that the true name of the city remains unknown, shrouded in mystery. 

In truth, it doesn't make much difference. Its the words that people know which stick.

The mountain city of the Incas was called something else, but it was swallowed up by mist and time and jungle. 

Nowadays, Machu Picchu is the name on all the maps.

It's the place that people come to visit.

Including me.

Including me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. 
" 

We Can Dance If We Want To (Who left the EU Behind?)

Cusco has a party.

 

Where were you when the Big News hit?

When the results of Britain's EU Referendum came trickling in, I was dressed in a bright red poncho with a frilly hat, getting ready to flounce my way through the streets of Cusco.

Everyone knew the referendum was going to be a near thing; polls had made it clear that Britain was closely divided between those who wanted to stay part of the European community, and those who wanted out. But it was still a shock to see Leave votes surge ahead as the first constituencies were called.

I wasn't dressed up alone. I was with a group of students, a rag-tag assembly of fellow tourists studying at the Amauta Spanish school in Cusco. For reasons that escape me, we had volunteered to take part in a night-time parade through the streets of Cusco, as part of a larger city-wide celebration. It meant funny hats, bright ponchos, and performing a traditional Peruvian dance in the crowded town square.

The parade was huge: we were the 147th group due to perform. While we waited nervously for our turn to shine, the Europeans in my group crowded around a smartphone with a dying battery, and boggled at the latest updates from the UK vote.

***

The Inti Raymi reenactment.

***

Once upon a time, Inti Raymi was the old Inca Festival of the Sun: a colourful ceremony held on the Winter Solstice to persuade the sun to keep on shining. This persuasion came via enthusiastic singing, dancing, and the bloody sacrifice of an unfortunate llama.

The festival was banned by the Spanish in 1535, but historical reconstructions began taking place in Cusco in the 1940s. These days, the llamas get off easy. A few get paraded back and forth during the festival, but they don’t get anything cut out.

Instead, the whole of Cusco erupts into a solid week of parades to mark the holiday. Dancing children cartwheel through the streets, fireworks light the sky, and on June 24th, a theatrical reenactment of the Inti Raymi ritual takes place at the Saksaywaman Inca ruins, two kilometres from the centre of Cusco. 

It makes perfect sense that the Spanish banned the original Inti Raymi festival, when you think about it. They were a Colonial power, and it was something colourful, strange and different.

Of course it had to go.

***

I honestly have no idea what that last float is. Parades breed strange terrors.

***

The most distressing thing about the EU vote (aside from the massive economic uncertainty it has caused) is that the debate took what should have been a fairly dull discussion about economics, and repeatedly framed it as one set of people versus another.

Brits overwhelmed by refugees. Brits endangered by immigrants. Brits against that lot in Brussels (who aren't influenced by the British government at all). So much rhetoric positioned the referendum as the story of a plucky island full of one people, and the worrying Others all around them.

It's a line of thought that leads to nasty places--and thinking of the world in terms of Us and Them is a little old fashioned, too. Once upon a time, that kind of reasoning would have given one empire licence to repress another, like the Spanish and the Incas. 

But in an age where a British vote can cause markets across the globe to splutter and crash, a philosophy that makes strict divisions isn't really fit for purpose.

It just doesn't fit the world we live in anymore.

***

A group of tourists who wish they could dance. Photos via the Amauta Spanish School.

***

In the main square of Cusco, a bunch of foreigners danced.

We did so very badly, truth be told. With only a couple of hours practice under our tasselled belts, our choreography definitely needed work. I certainly don't think I won any awards; I spent most of the night prancing up and down in desperate search of rhythm, flapping and squawking.

Why flapping and squawking? Because my group was performing a traditional dance which represented the mating of birds. The girls sashayed and skipped and shook their village-maid dresses. The boys flapped billowy white sleeves, and cawed at the sky.

The air was filled with drums and flutes. People clapped for us, as we lolloped past. The night smelled heavily of sizzling street meat, and overused public toilets.

The audience smiled, and chuckled, and encouraged us along.

Half a planet away, my home country decided it ought to see the world as Us and Them.

But on the streets of Cusco, a bunch of tourists looked like fools in a parade, while the locals cheered and clapped.

And we laughed together, late into the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Riding Batman (How to catch a bus in Peru)

A guide to catching a bus in the city of Cusco, Peru.

STEP 1: Admire the names on Peruvian buses. While buses elsewhere make do with pedestrian names like "Number 33," buses in Cusco proudly wear exciting monikors like “Zorro,” “El Dorado,” and, best of all, “Batman,” complete with Bat Symbol. 

If you are very lucky, you may get to ride Batman.

STEP 2: When the bus stops, a conductor will hop off and begin herding people aboard. The conductor will not have any kind of uniform, but you’ll be able to recognise them by their jangling money-belt and harried expression. Approach this conductor and say the name of your stop. If they recognise the name, they'll usher you aboard the bus.

If they don’t, wait for the next bus and repeat.

(Beware: buses have the names of some of their stops on the side, but not all of them.)

Nanananananana...

Nanananananana...

STEP 3: You are now crammed onto a tiny mini-bus with several dozen Peruvian citizens, all jockeying for space and trying to make sure their pockets aren’t picked. The conductor will be standing near the doors of the bus, shouting out the names of stops as they approach. You may not be able to hear the names of the stops over the sounds of other people chatting.

Don't panic. You may miss your stop, but there's nothing you can do about this, so there’s no point worrying.

STEP 4: If you hear the conductor shout the name of your stop, force your way through the crowd by liberally shouting “Permisso,” and “Perdón,” and possibly waving your arms for the conductor’s attention.

A bus trip should cost 0.70 Soles before 10pm, and 1 Sol after. As you exit the bus, press some money into the conductor’s hands, and be sure to wait for your change.

STEP 5: Congratulations, you have now ridden the bus!

Examine your surroundings, as it is possible the bus has deposited you in the wrong place. Occasionally and somewhat inexplicably, you may be let off a stop early or late. If so, don’t worry, as another bus will probably be along shortly. 

EXTRA TIPS: 

> If you are lucky enough to get on a Peruvian bus with empty seats, a word of caution. Most buses have three red seats toward the front; these seats are reserved for the elderly, infirm, women and children. If you are not one of these, do not sit there, as you are liable to get sorts of nasty looks.

> In fact, Peruvian citizens are generally impeccable when it comes to giving up their seats for the infirm or elderly. It helps to blend in if you follow suit. 

> The buses in Cusco really are an excellent way to get around, once you get the hang of them. They cost much less than a cab (which charge about 5 Soles for a trip from Plaza de Armas to Santa Ursula, after haggling). 

 

Everyone Wears Alpaca (Cusco)

Alpaca Ladies.

If the tourists in Cusco were wearing anymore alpaca, they would be clomping around on all fours, chewing on grass. 

Cusco was once the Inca capital of Peru, until the Spanish arrived and replaced most of it with churches (a familiar tale throughout South America). It's now the country's most popular tourist destination, a baroque hive of travel agents offering treks to nearby famous landmarks like Manchu Pichu and Rainbow Mountain.

Every third shop in Cusco sells supposedly pure alpaca clothing--slippers, socks, scarves, ponchos and fleeces, available in dizzying a variety of shapes and sizes. In practice, most of what's on sale is at least partially synthetic, and nothing marks you out as a tourist more than wearing a giant alpaca fleece, decorated with little alpaca patterns. But it's still impossible to leave the city without buying at least something with an alpaca label on it. Buying alpaca is what you do in Cusco, if you're visiting.

You can even meet some in person. A quick walk around the city will reveal plenty of the animals, working the curb. 

***

Cusco. 

The most common touts in Cusco are the Alpaca Ladies.

These are women colourfully dressed in traditional Quechuan garb, who rove Cusco's cobbled streets dragging alpacas (and occasionally small llamas) behind them on leashes. The beasts tolerate this with resolutely wry expressions, as if they are quietly in on some top-secret joke--even as they're hauled before tourist groups to serve as portable photo opportunities. 

'You pay what you like,' these Ladies will say, offering travellers the chance to have their picture taken with the animals. This is usually quickly followed by: 'American dollars okay.' 

Sometimes, the Alpaca Ladies will carry  baby alpacas in their arms (ridiculous creatures which resemble cuddly toys). They'll press these babes onto tourists to hug and hold. If the amount of cash the tourists offer in return is not considered sufficient, the women become insistent on receiving more--if given less than 10 or 20 Soles ($3-$6), they are likely to beg plaintively, or else become aggressively demanding. 

It's how they earn their living, after all.

***

Alpacas, souviners and shopping.

***

Travelling South America without knowing a word of Spanish is a recipe for comic misunderstanding, so I've stopped in Cusco for a couple of weeks to attend a local language school. Called 'Amauta,' the school is located just beside Plaza de Armas, the city's historic centre. Most of its students are either backpackers hoping to brush up on their holas, or young professionals who think Spanish might be useful in their careers. And naturally, most of them have added at least one alpaca garment to their wardrobe.  

One morning, on the way to classes, a fellow student told me a worrying story about the Alpaca Ladies. Apparently, many of these women snatch baby alpacas from their mothers at a young age (much to mother and baby's distress), and keep them in poor conditions, without proper nourishment. It's enough of an issue that some Cusco citizens have begun advocating for the Ladies to be banned. 

In a bustling tourist destination it's hardly surprising that some touts would mistreat their charges, but it feels especially unfortunate in Cusco. After all, this is a city that generates a huge amount of money from silly camelids with flippant expressions. Everywhere you look, tourists are dropping serious Soles in shops to take a little alpaca fur home to snuggle with. 

Getting up close with alpacas is what you do in Cusco.

But it may be a good idea to think twice, before you have your picture taken with one.

EXTRA BITS:

> Cusco has another notable street animal: the dogs. Ownerless mutts patrol the city in packs, wagging their tales and scavenging in garbage, weaving through traffic like fish in water. These dogs seem relatively docile in their attitude, but it's still a bad idea to pet them.

> Peru passed a major law banning animal abuse in 2015, though curiously, this law deems cockfights and bullfights permissible as they are considered part of Peruvian culture. 

> I brought alpaca socks and gloves, in case you were wondering.

> You can also eat alpaca in Cusco. It's delicious. It also fills one with guilt, like eating a Dr. Suess character. 

 

 

 

A Yellow Kind of City (Landing in Peru)

The city of Lima owes its name to a mispronounciaton.

The river that runs through the city was once called the Limaq by the native people, after a famous Oracle (Limaq means 'talker' in Quechuan). But when the Spanish arrived to build a city in 1535, they mispronounced the name as 'Lima,' and that name has stayed since. 

Colonial powers rarely felt under obligation to get the phonetics right.

***

Lima's famous yellow arches. Not golden. That logo belongs to McDonald's.

Lima's Jorge Chávez International Airport is a small airport, located a twenty minute drive from Miaflores--the gentrified area of the city that most guidebooks prod tourists toward. 

Exiting this airport at 01.40 in the morning, I was immediately accosted by a huddle of touts trying to force me into their dodgy-looking taxis, bringing to mind horror stories of unsuspecting tourists being robbed in Lima's unmarked cabs. The chaos of the touts was oddly comforting after the brusque roboticism of America's TSA. It felt a lot more human, by comparison.

I didn't take an unmarked cab. My hostel in Miaflores sent a taxi out to me, for only 60 sols (about $20.) It seemed like the safer option. 

I  didn't say I minded the guidebook's prodding, after all.

***

In Lima's famous Kennedy Park, stray cats congregate from across the city, to be fed by locals. At night, there's sometimes dancing amid the cats. 

***

Lima is the capital of the Peru; its largest city, perched on the coast. It's the second largest city in the Americas, and a draw for visitors and migrants from across the continent. So much so, in fact, that the city is bordered by shanty settlements called Pueblos Jóvenes, scrappy hospots of crime and poverty seething in semi-legitimacy on the city's edges.

Unfortunately for its non-shanty architecture, Lima is located in an area known as the Ring of Fire--a part of the Pacific Rim prone to intense earthquakes. Over the years, great chunks of the city have needed to be repaired and rebuilt, usually to the latest architectural fashions. This has left the city a bit of a jumble when it comes to building styles, with its most distinctive features being the bright yellow blocks with bright yellow arches that stand out amid small flower gardens in the centre of town.

It may be karma. When the Spanish came to Lima, they decided to build a cathedral right on top of the existing Inca temple, destroying it in the process. Since the, thanks to Lima's position on the Ring, the grand Cathedral of Lima has needed to be rebuilt eight times.

Perhaps somewhere there's an angry Inca god, who's trying to get a point across.

***

Across the bridge to downtown Lima

 

'People from Miaflores say not to go down town,' The tour guide told us, dismissively, 'they say you will get killed, you will get robbed, you will get raped, but no.'

He was a short, lightly lisping man by the name of Arturo, wearing a yellow safety jacket and leading a herd of about two dozen backpackers through Lima's city centre--cameras poised and expressions studiously interested. Our tour group had irritated locals from across the city, clambering on an off public buses on our quest for landmarks to ponder at, and now we were on the edge of Lima's main square, looking across the river to the hustle and bustle of Lima's infamous downtown. 

'The people there are good, hard-working people,' the tour guide said, enthusiastically. A small tank trundled around the tour group, travelling along the bridge to downtown. Apparently this was not an unusual enough event to attract any comment from the tour guide. 'The people there are the real Lima.'

The guide then advised us not to venture downtown without a Peruvian friend or two, as we would likely get our pockets picked.

I wonder about the real Lima. In a city built on a mispronunciation, full of buildings that have been remade so many times, what counts as the real and genuine heart of a place?

The answer is pretty obvious, I guess.

It's whatever the people living there think. Especially the tour guides. 

 

EXTRA BITS:

>Llama Watch: I have seen a Llama, along with some alpacas. They were being held in a cage in Huaca Puccllana--a set of pre-Inca ruins in the heart of Lima, and in interesting place to tour. They didn't look too happy about it, so I've decided that they don't count.

>Also glimpsed in Huaca Puccllana--Peruvian Hairless Dogs, scrappy creatures who are sometimes put in little shirts and jumpers to keep them warm (and possibly chic) in the cold.

>The Inca deity responsible for earthquakes would in fact be a goddess, in case you were wondering--by the name of Pachamama. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Sunshine State of Mind (Florida)

Florida

I lasted about twenty minutes in Miami. 

That isn’t even time to work up a decent CSI pun.

Passing though Florida on the way to Peru, I thought South Beach would be the perfect place to relax for a couple of days in between flights. Instead, I found Miami's seafront strip to be a teeming mess of drunken tourists, lurching in packs between tacky bars, or else leering out from the gated confines of their ugly multi-story hotels.

South Beach is like Ibiza or Magaluf; the kind of place great throngs of tourists come to drink and sun themselves, drowning out much sense of anything else. In this case, things were made worse by the impending Memorial Day celebrations. Streets were cordoned off and public transport was rerouted along strange and winding paths, making navigation a nightmare.

I decided to skip the whole place, and visit Sarasota instead.

***

Siesta Key, Sarasota- one of the world's finest beaches, made of white sugar sand.

Sarasota is located across the state from Miami, on Florida’s opposite coast; a few hours drive from Orlando.  A popular holiday destination for the rich, Sarasota is full of beachfront condos that are only occupied for about half of the year, by tourists coming in from far up north

‘We call them Snowbunnies, because they only come for winter,’ I was told by a local resident named Shannon; a perky, ebullient Sarasota housewife whose family was kind enough to invite me into their home for a couple of days. It was a rare opportunity for someone on my budget to see the area, and Shannon's family--a P.E. teacher husband and a precocious son with a Star Wars obsession--were eager for me to enjoy their state. 

Nearby Orlando is also home to Disney World--a weird selection of themed rides and hotels that looks like it should house an evil cult in a 1960s science fiction movie.

Shannon showed me around Sarasota Country in an enormous black land rover. Car is really the only way to explore the area (and indeed most of Florida); Americans like to spread themselves out over large spaces, and Sarasota is made up of chilled beachfronts linked by teaming highways,  abuzz with giant jeeps and SUVs. The roadsides are liberally sprinkled with fast-food eateries, convenience stores, and billboards advertising some very shifty looking medical practitioners. In the grand spirit of Americana, doctors hawk their services through roadside advertisement. 

When I made a comment on the impressive size of Shannon’s vehicle, she explained that driving big cars had become something of a defence mechanism among locals. Apparently, Florida’s impressive population of senior citizens has a predilection for SUVs, not to mention dodgy driving. ‘If somebody hits you,’ Shannon explained, ‘you don’t want to be driving something smaller.’

*** 

Life's a beach.

‘Florida mountains,’ is a nickname for Florida’s impressive cloud formations; billowy, looming white towers of fluff, apt to turn dark and thundery in a hot heartbeat. Like many local homes, Shannon’s house has storm shutters. This is a state that has been prey to more than its fair share of hurricanes, after all.

In general, Florida’s residents have a curious relationship with the weather. Every house, every shop, every car in the state swears by the need for air conditioning, to fend off Florida’s brutal sunshine. Often, the temperature inside are cool to the point of feeling freezing, while temperatures outside are sweltering hot. This creates a strange situation where people endure the summer haze in sweaters and hoodies, to avoid being caught out by the cold next time they go into an air conditioned space.

It's funny, the lengths people will go to in order to be somewhere warm and beach adjacent, like Miami or Sarasota. Deadly old people, hurricanes, shifting temperatures and of course the numerous alligators; Florida's residents put up with them all year round, for the sake of living bright and near the sand. Visitors flock here in droves for extended periods, courting sunburn, for much the same reason. 

That sounds just like human beings, really.

Pick a sunny spot, and work out the details later.

 

A Fairy Tale From New York (Manhattan)

Manhattan

''Please mind the gap between the train and the platform when exiting,' booms a comforting automated announcement on the New York subway system. The deep, rich Mid-Atlantic tones resound with authority in your ear; it sounds like the kind of voice that should be narrating a newsreel from the 1950s.

It’s a stark contrast to the sharp, stern: 'MIND THE GAP,' bellowed by the terrifying Goddess of the London Underground.

New York reminds me a lot of London, really. It’s a huge urban melting pot, full of street food, indie art, and little lives going on between looming towers.

But New York’s towers are bigger. Its melting pot feels hotter (currently at a steamy summer 31 degrees). And it’s announcements are just that tiny bit more calculatedly reassuring.

It’s like London’s all grown up, with extra glass.

***

Time Square. Not quite the iconic shot I planned on taking.

Time Square. Not quite the iconic shot I planned on taking.

If a cynical person were trying to sum up all the bad parts of the American character, they might point to Time Square; that heaving monument to capitalism, filled with flaring advertisements, fractured across a hundred different billboards. A teeming neon scrap of pavement cracking under a relentless flood of tourists with their cameras (yes, including me). A hunting ground for tacky gift-sellers, steaming hot-dog vendors and a scattered selection of plump men in superhero costumes, looking for marks to pose with.

And amid all this, just off the middle of Time Square, stands a US Armed Forces recruiting station, entreating patriots to join up. America’s industrious military complex; an invitation to war, standing amid glittering monuments to money.

It’s such a good metaphor, it can’t possibly be true

Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown

***

You should never judge a place by its tourist traps.

And it would be easy to pretend that’s all Manhattan is--a dense concrete jungle made up of Empire States and Grand Centrals and Chrysler Buildings. A whole island of things to photograph, with nobody living there except the touts and bartenders.

But that’s the eye of an outsider with a camera, who only sees the shine and glitz. Just like London, between the tourist traps, there are washing lines and public brawls and families paying bills. There are so many ugly apartment blocks poking between the glass towers, like edges of real life intruding on the Sex in the City gloss.

The danger of the traveller, the real tourist trap, is accidentally substituting actual places for fairy tales--stories that are easy to swallow--because you spend too much time fixating the famous bits, or comparing what you find to what you know back home. 

There’s an army recruitment station in Time Square, and that sums up all the worst aspects of America.

That isn’t true at all.

It’s just a fairy tale from New York.

 

Bohemia In Brooklyn

Brooklyn

 

When JFK contacted me to say they’d found my luggage, I was up there like a shot.

Losing your backpack is a huge blow, especially when it's your own fault. Flushed with jet-leg and New York excitement, I'd accidentally taken the wrong bag home from the airport (I know), and it had been up to the staff at Norwegian airlines to save the day. 

It took a day and a night for my bag to be found, leaving me to contemplate life without a toothbrush or clean underwear. When my bag was finally unearthed, it meant a midnight expedition to the airport to retrieve it. 

Riding back from the airport in a taxi, clinging to my salvaged baggage, I realised that my New York taxi driver had--despite his protests otherwise--become very, very lost. This was not the neighbourhood of my hostel. We were driving in circles through a dark mess of shuttered shops and squat apartments, somewhere near Brooklyn. There was a gas station on the corner, splashed with red and white lights. Police cars were crowding under the gas station's neon roof. A circle of officers huddled around a man lying prone on the tarmac, in a puddle of dark liquid.

'Oh shit,' said the taxi driver, in broken English. 'There’s been a shooting there.'

***

Street art in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn

***

Apparently, the neighbourhood I'm staying in used to have a lot of crime.

Not anymore. I'm in a hostel in East Williamsburg--one of the trendiest, most up-and-coming parts of Brooklyn. By day, the area looks off-puttingly like industrial district. It's filled with squat warehouses, loud with the patter of construction, crowded by cement trucks lumbering along wide streets in small herds.

But look carefully amid the noise, and you'll find plenty of colour. The whole neighbourhood is filled with graffiti, fresh art dripping from the walls. By Morgan Avenue, the local subway station, people are selling second-hand books and VHS videos, piled on little stalls. Unassuming doors in the graffitied walls lead into trendy cafes, crowded with young people sipping on ice tea.

Come night, the industrial district gives way completely. The cement trucks slink away, and bars and restaurants open. Amid empty warehouses, little canopies unfurl, thick with fairy lights and coloured bulbs. Artists spill out of basement galleries, chatting on the sidewalk. A van on a street corner sells vintage clothes well into the night.  The New York hipster crowd comes ambling out to play.

Bohemian is the word, I think.

***

Hipsters love their vinyl records.

***

‘In the late 90s, early 2000s, this place was desolate,' a man named Mike told me, on my first day in the neighbourhood. Mike was a big guy with a belly lounging in its vest, wearing a frazzled beard and a necklace heavy with glittering trinkets--fragments of rock and metal. He was an artist, and a pretty good one at that. ‘Drugs, crack, hookers, everything,' he added, recalling the old version of East Williamsburg. 

We sat together in a street-corner park, watching kids play in the sweltering sun; basketballs bouncing between groups of teenagers, predominately black. 'Now it’s the place to be,' Mike mused, 'it has an energy, you can feel it go when you leave the area--it’s spiritual.'

Nearby, a friend of Mike's was darting around the park, wrestling with the multiple cameras around his neck. Named John Isaac, he was once a photojournalist for the United Nations (not to mention a personal photographer for Michael Jackson). Now retired, John has found he can't stop taking photos of New York city streets.

'My wife is always saying to me,' John told me confessionally, between snaps, 'you're 73 fucking years old, you're not a young man anymore.' But John can't help it; everywhere he goes, he sees new photos that need taking.

John Isaac, unstoppable photographer.

Mike and John share an art studio together in Yonkers; another once-rough neighbourhood that’s slowly creeping into vogue, with old factories and warehouses becoming studio apartments for artists. East Williamsberg is a little further along the same evolution; it's well into courting gentrification, but still feels abuzz with underground energy. It's the perfect place for people like Mike and John to come for urban inspiration.

They were friendly conversationalists, perfectly willing to start chatting with a perfect stranger like myself. But then, it's that kind of area. 

A little later in our talk, Mike drifted away from the topic of the neighbourhood and started explaining how evolution didn't happen, and how the world is secretly run by a shady cabal of shadowy figures, intent on stymieing human spiritual potential. He lit a cigarette that wasn't filled with tobacco, and became impassioned on the subject.

I found that part of the conversation a little hard to track.  Nearby, John Isaac shook his head ever so slightly, and began earnestly advocating for evolution; a gentle debate pinging back and forth between them.

That's the thing about Bohemia, I guess.

You're hear all sorts of things.

 

Just Like In The Movies (New York)

It's quite hard to take pictures from inside a landing plane. 

It's quite hard to take pictures from inside a landing plane. 

I know how this part is supposed to go.

A fragment of rainbow passes by the window, as the plane descends through cloud. On the screen in front of me, my in-flight movie (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) has been paused. Instead, the screen is now showing a comically large cartoon aeroplane passing over a comically small cartoon map of America, while the pilot chirps over the intercom about preparing to land at JFK.

You’ll notice I said the window, not my window.

I am sitting in the middle isle on the starboard side of the airplane; there is another person between me and the nearest window. She is a lovely, friendly Canadian artist travelling to America to put some work in a gallery. She has sharp eyes and raven hair, and right now I hate her with the fire of a thousand suns.

I know how this part is supposed to go. If this was a movie (if it were my movie, as we are all occasionally guilty of wishing), I would be sitting by the window, watching New York come into sight with wistful awe. Instead, I am left fidgeting for glimpses as the plane tilts and dips and drops toward its destination.

Clouds resolve into grey ocean. There is a distant black blotch on the horizon; a boat fading into view, followed by another, followed by another; the granite sea suddenly crowded with dark shapes. I strain toward the window as best I can, and see an orange band rip across the slate coloured sky.

Shafts of gentle flame are falling through the clouds, raking over the coast below--lighting up a city that’s sprawled across islands. Most of the islands are crowded with houses, with tower blocks standing up between the tiny homes like upright Lego bricks. Bridges spring between the islands, busy with lines of roving traffic.

The skyline has become the looming metropolis of Manhattan--a platoon of skyscrapers set dark against their orange backlight, divas showing off. 

The plane skates down, touching the runaway. It turns to find a berth, and my view is replaced by the tarmac of the airport. No longer in the sky, reality must assert.

Everything looks better from above. It can't be like that on the ground.

That was New York.

Just like in the movies.

The Town At The End Of Humanity

I come from a town called Luton.

It isn’t very nice.  

Luton is a sprawl of houses dropped across a valley in the East of England, along the meandering River Lea. It's home to about 210,962 people, and it occasionally makes the headlines because a lot of those people aren’t white. 

Whenever there's an editorial, list or poll ranking the worst places in the UK, Luton invariably shows up somewhere near the rancid top. It has a high crime rate, an ugly look, and a tendency to be used as a lens for discussions on the failure of multiculturalism. After all, it's a working class town with a high migrant population, notorious for birthing religious radicals and extremist hate-groups like the English Defence League. 

A recent article in The Sun went so far as to dub Luton: "The Town At the End Of Humanity," based on the studious musings of a reddit thread.

Which, if you ask me, is a waste of a perfectly good book title. 

***

***

Luton is famous for its international airport.

The local economy used to be based around manufacturing straw hats, and after that trade died off, around a Vauxhall car factory. But now the straw hats are gone, and while Vauxhall's head office remains in town, the factory has closed. Luton touts its a raucous annual carnival and a university popular with foreign students (possibly because they don't know the town's reputation), but the airport is what it's known for.

Pointedly, the airport is called London/Luton Airport, emphasis on the London. Tourists don't come to visit Luton; they pass through it on their way to other points. 

A cruel joke about Luton is this:

The town's primary export is people who are desperate to be somewhere else.

***

***

It's the little things you remember.

I'm sixteen years old and covered in spots, talking to a pair of Muslim girls in Luton's Arndale Shopping Centre. They're each cradling an enormous tub of Pick-N-Mix. It's Ramadan, they explain to me, the time of fasting. They're saving the sweets for sunset, at which point they will scoff them all for a gigantic sugar rush. Quick relief from the fast.

I'm thirteen, and sitting in a high school classroom that stinks of deodorant and apathy. A substitute Maths teacher is trying to keep things in order, but the kids have deliberately decided to find his name unpronounceable. Balls of screwed-up paper are flying from desk to desk. Occasionally someone will mock the teacher's thick South African accent.

I'm twenty-two and home from university. A handful of Polish supermarkets have opened in the town, thanks to a recent wave of new arrivals from Eastern Europe. I'm standing in one, staring blankly at boxes of breakfast cereal, wondering if I might find pierogi elsewhere in the store. I've been to Poland, I think to myself. I ought to recognize more of these words. 

Luton's multiculturalism is a complicated thing; a diverse population in a poor area inevitably leads to tensions and conflicts. But it also exposes young people like myself to a greater variety of worldviews than they might otherwise get. Without it, my home town would be even less remarkable; just poverty and luggage rushing to the airport. Instead, I grew up in a seething mess of different peoples, jostling together and apart. Colour on the brick and concrete--for, I hope, more good than ill. 

I've always been surrounded by different cultures. I've never been allowed to think of mine as the only one.  I've always wanted to go out and see more. 

It may be The Town At The End Of Humanity.

But it at least gave me a place to start. 

 

EXTRA BITS:

For anyone curious, here's a breakdown of the town's demography. Luton has a 54.6% white majority, though that includes both the town's Irish population (3%) and White Others (7%).

Overall, Luton considered a White-British minority town; one of three in the UK, including Leicester and Slough. Nevertheless, 81% of the population identifies as British regardless of ethnic background--so it can still be safely described as overwhelmingly British, if not overwhelmingly white.

...Though as someone who has to tick the "Any Other/Mixed," box on forms, I'm a little wary of these kind of statistics. They always make me feel like I'm some kind of ethnic cocktail. 

What's The Big Bang Good For?

Let's talk about The Big Bang.

No, not that one. I mean The Big Bang Young Scientists & Engineers Fair – one of the largest science celebrations in the UK. 

Held in the Birmingham NEC – a cavernous space that resembles a cross between an aircraft hangar and a shopping mall – it’s an explosive cavalcade of technology, science, maths and engineering.

Every year, thousands of children from all over Great Britain come crashing through the Fair, dragging tired teachers behind them, jumping up and down as they sample exhibition stalls covered with robots, magnets, VR helmets, and all sorts of other shiny toys to play with.

As one of many volunteers who helped run the 2016 Big Bang Fair, I have to say, I found the swarming children rather inconvenient.

I wanted to play with the robots.

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The word “scientist” was first coined in the year 1834 by William Whewell – reverend, philosopher and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. After agonising for some time over what to call folk of scientific inquiry (hitherto known as “natural philosophers,”) he chose “scientist” as a logical extension of the word “artist.”

If a person who does art is an artist, Whewall reasoned, then a person who does science must be a scientist (the word “science” is actually much older than “scientist,” dating back to the 14th century).

It’s appropriate, I think, that the word “scientist” derives from “artist.” After all, no matter how rigorous the scientific process applied, things always start with a creative spark.

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***

The main draw of The Big Bang Fair is its awards.

Children from age 11 to 18 are invited to bring their own personal science projects to the fair, where they’re examined by judges. A lucky few will win prized titles like UK Young Scientist of the Year.

While waiting for the robots to free up, I perused a few of these projects.

I met a group of teenage boys who had designed a disability-friendly hot rod, then built it by themselves from scratch.

I spoke to a teenage girl who had made an oil-based UV sun-blocker, and turned her phone into an improvised UV-light to demonstrate it.

I was awed by a 15 year-old prodigy named Krtin Nithiyanandam, who had taken some time out from being a teenager to create a new early-stage detection method for Alzheimer’s.

Never mind creative sparks. Kids like that have wildfire talent. 

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Unfortunately, in the current austerity climate, events like The Big Bang Fair are increasingly in danger of being regarded as expendable luxuries. They’re not. They’re essential, and not just because they provide lots of shiny toys to play with.

They’re where tomorrow’s scientists come from. More crucially, they’re where tomorrow’s scientists discover that imagination gets results. That science thrives on creativity as well as solid process. And that sometimes, it pays to be able to redesign the box.

They’re where the future learns to happen.

And most importantly, they’re where I get to play with robots.

EXTRA BITS:

>The first use of the word "scientist" was in Whewell's 1834 review of a book by Scottish science writer and polymath Mary Sommerville. In this review, Whewell makes a vaguely progressive if rather muddled attempt to talk about women in science, calling Sommerville "One of the brightest ornaments in England."

>Meanwhile, in the 21st century, this year's Big Bang Fair seemed gratifyingly interested in tackling the issue of women in STEM fields, with with groups like the STEMettes roving the floor. 

>I got the opportunity to volunteer at The Big Bang Fair because I'm on the mailing list of the British Science Association. Check them out; they do good work.

>For more information on The Big Bang Fair, see here.

Brussels

The Botanical Garden of Brussels - which looks suspiciously like something out of Logan's Run. 

Brussels is a mix.

Parts of the city are old and beautiful—full of baroque balconies and gothic towers and quaint little cafes, with charming graffiti on the walls.

Parts of the city really aren’t—the EU Quarter and the nearby business district, both filled with concrete cubes and jagged glass skyscrapers. In the EU Quarter, the European Parliament sits surrounded by car-clogged roads and construction sites, drawing visitors from all over the world.  

The number of hotels is frankly startling.

I’m spending quite a lot of time in one of them.

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The European Parliament is a distressingly random collection of shapes. 

The European Parliament is a distressingly random collection of shapes. 

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Brussels is a city of 11.5 million people.  Overall, 30% of Brussels’ inhabitants are foreign residents. There are more foreign ambassadors in Brussels than in Washington DC. There are an estimated 30,000 political lobbyists working in the city, and 1200 accredited journalists (only 200 of whom are from Belgium). 

Think of all those interns, diplomats and reporters, just passing through on business.

***

The wall-art really is fantastic everywhere, though.

The wall-art really is fantastic everywhere, though.

***

It’s a nice hotel, of course.

That took some getting used to. My usual travel budget allows for hovels and hostels that sometimes lack luxuries like, say, hot running water.

But I’m here to work, so I get a big bed, a proper shower, and very little time to see the sights.

Looking out my hotel window, I glimpse office blocks and traffic lights, an endless procession of headlights crawling up the Rue de la Loi. Horns blare and engines grumble. It’s funny how the EU Quarter feels so much like a bubble of its own; a vaguely dystopian colony planted in the middle of rococo streets, full of people who are only here on business.

I ought to come back and visit properly one day.

But for now, I’m just passing through.

The almost pretty Boulevard Boutique, a short walk from the EU Quarter. 

The almost pretty Boulevard Boutique, a short walk from the EU Quarter. 

EXTRA BITS:

What work am I doing? A freelance gig writing minutes for a financial reporting group, which advises the European Commission. 

Some bits of Brussels I have managed to see, and recommend:

>The Atomium, near Heysel Metro. If you like science, you'll like this.

>The Grand Marketplace, which is just as pretty as it looks on the postcards.

>There's a little stand that sells chips in Place Jourdan. It's called Maison Antoine. It's really worth finding. 

> Why haven't I included a picture of the Rue de la Loi? Because it's just so pretty, I couldn't do it justice.