small world she said: UnBOLIVIAble

Copacabana, Bolivia

Isla del Sol, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia

Sunset over the lake

Sunrise over the Andes

Leaving the island

Island ladies spinning yarn

Where is my mind?

Traveling has been a complicated sport. At times an excitingly unpredictable mistress, never failing to entertain. Then there are those inevitable instances, after months on the road, when you're forced to realize something is missing from your beloved nomadic lifestyle. A forgotten piece of who you are, whose value can only be appreciated after the sudden awareness of its absence. Mine crept into the consciousness on a stuffy mid-day bus to our next country, Bolivia. I hate to say that it was on the way to one of my favorite countries when I was reminded of the sacrifices that traveling occasionally demands. Riley and I shared an earbud, listening to one of the mixes he brought on the trip for his discman. While I gazed mindlessly out the window, R nudged my arm. He wanted me to stop tapping his knee because it reminded him of how badly he needed to pee...with still two hours to go until Copacabana. I wasn't aware I'd been tapping but after being told not to and making a conscious effort to cease the annoyance, the bizarre electric current found an alternative outlet in my foot. Tapping my foot on the floor ricocheted the current back up through my leg and into my hand where fingers started tapping again, but to a quicker beat complimentary to the foot tapping. R glared. Cue awakening. I had to move. I wanted to dance. I needed to. A torso bob and lipsyncing the chorus of Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" into a fistful of invisible microphone is only temporarily soothing. I miss dancing. I hadn't been able to really dance since Halloween in Bogotá. Sure I could shake my thang at one of the many discotecas but it's extremely rare to find the energy at just the right time (nighttime, baby), at just the right place (downtown usually). I miss the package. I miss the dim dancefloor whose epileptic light flashing somehow makes anyone a decent dancer. I miss rapid shoulder girations and rythmic hip sways to synthesized beats. I miss how effective simultaneous booze-drinking is at loosening joints. I miss how readily available that feeling was back home.

Oh boohoo, right Kamille? Cry me a river. I thought you promised not to go into this self-discovery nonsense. Look man, traveling is never just about the far-away places you're seeing or the once-in-a-lifetime experiences you're having. It's also getting ripped-off no matter how pitch-perfect you think your Spanish is and incredibly unpleasant, inconveniently-timed bowel movements and unbearable rashes and exasperation and exhaustion and loneliness and public humility and not being able to remember why the fuck you're doing this and it's missing things.

Riley's admitted to deeply missing his bikes, biking, fixing bikes, talking about bikes, etc. I caught Riley staring off and when I asked where his mind was, he said bike parts. With glazed eyes, he marvelled over a beautiful tandem Cannondale in the hallway of our hostal in Copacabana. I could have sworn I saw him drool. I love and miss my bike too, but not in the same technical manner nor with the same viseral passion. Luckily his cravings were satiated by a mountain bike trip we took on the "most dangerous road in the world" in the towering jungle hills near La Paz (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungas_Road http://www.liebreich.com/LDC/HTML/Climbing/Mountain_Biking_Bolivia.html or ).

In Spanish, another way to say you miss something is me hace falta or to feel a lacking. There you go. Whether you like it or not, travel is also about the lacking.

La Cumbre to Coroico, connecting route from highlands to Amazon

zipping through coca plantations

1,969 ft drop-offs, no guardrails, 3 meter wide trails, and short breaths at some 4,000 meters above sea level

La Paz, Bolivia

The coca leaf. Infamous in the States as the raw base of cocaine, but in the Bolivian highlands it's been a source of relief from the ails of high altitudes. Since before the Spanish conquest, people have been chewing the coca leaf to quell the appetite and give workers energy to work the land all day. It was a symbol and a ritual centuries before it's manipulated form would become a fashionably illicit narcotic thousands of miles away.