April 21. The road ahead.

Today, we copy the photos of the Paraba Azul to a cd at Alberto's place. He offers us lunch and has some story about the integration of foreigners into the community, which can be hard at times. After this it's time to say goodbye to Buenavista. I leave with dear memories of the people here and the tranquilidad of the village life. This is a place to come back to.

On my mind is the road ahead now. I love the feeling of a long road ahead. Thousands of kilometers leading nowhere of course al final, but with the reasonable expectation of many yet unimaginable encounters. The road ahead, giving backbone to everyday life. What happens is not happening in the anonymous locality you coincide with after some years of living in a certain place, but happens uniquely at one specific spot. Cities, villages, mountains become associated with your experiences, and enable you to keep them more distinct from each other in your memory. Traveling becomes a way of organizing your memory, a way of mental hygiene, brushing the teeth of the mind. The road ahead is like a cord of indefinite length on which I will string the beads of yet unknown experiences. Believe me, you can say this more kitschy.

April 20. Lazy day.

Lazy day, I skip the excursion to Cafetal where the nine-step process of coffee production is explained. Washing the beans, sorting them, peeling them, sorting the big ones out for richer coffees, fermenting, drying, roasting, grinding. It's an interesting science. So, if you're in the area, put Cafetal on your list.

I meet Alberto the writer who writes short stories, plays, and mainly novels. He also sells plants, like the hipi-hapa that is used for the thatched roofs here, and even vanila. He is about seventy years old and his face reminds me a bit of Klaus Kinski. A writer, a man! Including everything: a big nose, lips, a deep voice, large hands, a sweaty hairy breast underneath an open shirt, impeccably combed grey hair, slow movements. What would it feel like to be that man, that writer, I wonder.

A few weeks ago, I wrote something about a theory of power. Today, we will continue with that. Whether you want it or not, ha! We have established that power is something relational. The dialogue was not really fruitful though. Let's try to approach the phenomenon of power from a different angle. We can't measure power like voltage or weight. In physics, power is not an elementary quantity. We use the term metaphorically for energy. The reason why power can't be a scientific unit is that it presupposes individuality as the center from where the power is exerted. In science, we look at events, movements that we can measure. Imagine a cheetah hunting a gazelle. We could measure the almost equal speed of both animals, we could measure the flow of chemicals in their blood, the path they take, yet we won't be able to conclude from it that the cheetah has more power without presupposing some intention of the animals. And that's where we already started to think anthropomorfically. The cheetah is following the gazelle, and the actions of the gazelle are merely reactions to those of the cheetah (not the other way round!). We interpreted the scene and supposed a causal relation between the actions of the cheetah and those of the gazelle. We have understood them as individuals. So power is just a matter of interpretation. Some freak might deem the gazelle more powerful than the cheetah. But wait. That freak won't be able to understand his own quantum of power. What I'm saying is that understanding power involves some kind of natural comparison with the power we exert ourselves. If a people acts upon the decree of a king, all that we observe is a number of organisms moving in a particular way. We might even find out that the decision of the king has been influenced by one of his subjects. Again, we can't tell who is more powerful. Naturally, we assume the individuality of the king and his people, and arrive at the conclusion that the king is exerting his power. In order to do that, we must be able to see ourselves in the position of the king, or compare ourselves with him. We can say the king has power because we have the same kind of power ourselves. The power of the king depends on the interpretation of his subjects, and that interpretation is nourished by the fact that his subjects possess the same kind of power as the king does. A slave that doesn't have the sensation of power himself can't be owned. And there we have an empirically testable conjecture. To be continued...

April 16. Buenavista Coffee.

Buenavista coffee beans, dried on the ground

Days begin with a cup of Buenavista coffee in a small tienda artesenal and some empanadas to bite on. I look for a place in the shade and write. Today, I work on my novel again, after many weeks. I'm a bit worried I can't repair the narrative anymore and the project might go down the drain. So be it. Nothing is lost. All the words will remain on their spots in the book, the only thing that has changed is my judgement of it. And that judgement is not even important, I mean, not as important as yours. You are free. You can dance on the ashes of my freedom that I am burning away with all the passion long years of submission can squeeze out of a mind.

April 14. Just another day.

I decide to return and stay some more days in Buenavista. I can work there well, and La Paz can wait. A taxi takes me back to the village and the kind people of the restaurant Paraba Azul. They have offered me a place to stay. I can write in a house again, get some things finished.

That night, I did not dream about mosquitos. I dreamt about a room full of computers and computer people. The computers were piled up against the walls and they spread an unbelievable heat. The people typed incessably on multiple keypads and stared at large screens. The room was uncomfortably hot, despite of the roaring ventilators. There were even computers in the doorway, and outside the room, with dozens of plastic coated copper cables: green, yellow, and blue. It was as if the computers were sweating. One of the boys shouted that he had solved some stuff, his colleagues looked over his shoulder at the flickering screen and applauded him. Want some hot coffee? one of them said. Prefer a beer now the fast ethernet ip resolving mechanism also funcs on our tetragrid highres computing network. They open an old bulky fridge and take out a sixpack of beers. We're so good, the boy with the long hair says. Yesss, replied another scratching his neck, this is life! For me, this was hell, for them it was the summum bonum of happiness. I try to explain them how I felt, but can't move my tongue. They start to eat pizza, thick greasy slices of fastfood-pizza they stuffed into their mouths I gazed at them, sitting behind their machines and feeding themselves like pigs and I couldn't move I had to stay where I was and watch them typing staring scratching their hostile humanoid tissue while alienating from it more than I dared imagine.

April 13. Village life.

I wake up and I think it's late but it's not. It's only 9:30. I pay the old lady and go. Carolina will show me a traditional village, where ecotourism has become the main source of income. I am shown cocoa trees, and taste the sweet pulp. I chew a seed too but it doesn't taste like chocolate. There are friendly women braiding hats and small containers. There is a bamboo workplace where almost everything is made of bamboo: chairs, tables, wardrobes, the floor, the roof. I see different kinds of butterflies. Lunch: beef, lemonade, potatoes. In the afternoon I walk an interesting sendero and see trees of cacao, papaya, mango, tamarinde, and so on. Chewed a coffee bean straight from the plant - quite an experience for a city boy. So this is what an autonomous village looks like.

Say the word. The word is sycophancy. Enter the room. Come on, don't be shy. We won't bite you. You see the contours of people but the people don't move. Come on, throw yourself at their feet. This has nothing to do with you. These people will wake up when it's feeding time. Can't you wait another fifteen minutes? They won't move, they expect you. Don't be confused. It's all good. On my mark you may put your hand on their knees. Look them straight into their eyes, we'll make some light for you. Don't forget your pupils must be enormous. Now go away. Get them something to drink, anything, the expenses are yours. Forget about this.

At night, I take a taxi back to Santa Cruz because I have to pick up my backpack. The ride through the cool evening air is very comforting. Paying about three dollars for a hundred kilometer taxi ride, we rich Westerners are the gods of mobility here. Before lodging in the good old Oriente one more time, I eat a steak sandwich in restaurant Picolo in Calle Junin. The waiter with makeup on his eyes recognizes me. "Camilo, how is your writing?"

April 12. Some words about "moral"

Remember yesterday? That I dressed up a bump from head to toe? And proudly presented it to you? Today it's time for a little moralist sneer. Why do you have to tell this kind of stories, to proof you're good? Do you want the reader to admire you for it, do you want to tell him, you are morally superior? Superiority? Is that it? How low, how cheap you are. Your face should be hidden forever behind thick brown curtains, hidden away from the people of good beliefs. Why? Because you used your alleged goodness to make yourself seem good. That bump hasn't played the slightest role in the autistic theater in your head, I bet. He was just some collateral human junk that crossed your path whom you have played your pseudo-moralist so you could adorn your ego. You asked him he's happy when you were done? You cynical bastard. It is so ugly this show of yours. Your ego is so despicable. As if the happiness of the bump would save your soul. Who cares?! This life is about becoming pure and good and modest souls every man for himself. A stinking bump along the way ain't gonna help you, an overly dramatized theatrical mise-en-scène of alleged humaneness will only stain your wrenched soul more, and insult the Others who try to walk the cumbersome but righteous path. You should be ashamed of yourself you know that? Helping a bump on the street. Where is your consciousness?

STOP IT! Everybody who thinks along these lines, who thinks the ego conducing the helping hand is a factor in the calculation of the goodness of the deed should be burned at the stake. Their preoccupation with the pureness of their own moral acting, and their grabbing every chance of insulting the other of acting morally unsound makes me want to puke. The happiness of the bump, yes the vain happiness of him one single day in clean clothes, the vain happiness of him one day smiling at that stupid gringo facing him and buying him chocolate icecream, that counts more than all the internal wickedness of all moralists combined. The bump didn't even wear underwear under his new clothes. Got that, you stinking moralist rats? I did it for myself, because I wanted to see a smile on the old big-nosed wrinkled face of that bump in Santa Cruz. Got that, you moralist freaks? I will come back to you later, because I am angry with your kind. It is the same anger Nietzsche felt and I warn you, don't push me. This time I let you go. Lick your wounds and go cipher the goodness of your moral superiority.

Instead of rolling out another argument here, I will quote from Bergman's movie silence (Tystnaden):
"Erectile tissue...
It's all a matter of swollen tissue and secretion.
A confession before extreme unction:
Semen smells nasty to me.
I've a very keen sense of smell -and I stank like a rotten fish
when I was fertilized.
It's optional.
I wouldn't accept my wretched role.
But now it's too damn lonely.
We try out attitudes, and find them all worthless.
The forces are too strong.
I mean the forces...
The horrible forces.
You need to watch your step-among all the ghosts and memories.
All this talk...
There's no need to discuss loneliness.
It's a waste of time.
Give me my writing things.
I'm feeling much better now, let me tell you.
o you know what my condition is called? Euphoria."

A long voyage takes me to Buenavista today. The entrance of the famous Amboro National Park should be there. In the morning, I see a man dressed up like a butterfly (mariposa) on the television. It is a program that show childrens the ecological value of the Pantanal and its natural inhabitants. The man talks "mariposa" and goes like "bzbzbzbz" asking the children to translate him. I find it a great idea to make children aware of the value of the naturaleza. I greeted the boys in the hostel and left my backpack there.
I had to take two innercity micros, two regional collectivos, a taxi, a motorcycle ride through various rivers and an uphill walk to reach a pristine spot in the Parque Amboro where tapir trails and silent butterflies catch the eye. But first, I experience the Bolivian countryside from the bus, the breeze blowing in my face. The land is green, the cattle is mixed, cottages have thatched roofs (Motacu, as I will learn a few days later), a broad brown river rests in its bed. Life is tranquilo here. In Montero, I have to change the bus. An old woman doesn't want me to take her picture, but a young boy wants. I ask the boy to sit on the driver's seat and take the wheel. He smiles. Is humanity divided into people who don't mind total strangers to take their picture and people who do, I ask myself when I take a short look at the center of Montero. Another long busride follows. I copy the prayer the driver had put on the roof because I like it.

"Dadme Dios mio
mirada vigilante
y mano firma
para poder
llegar a mi destino
sin causar daño a nadie
Amén"

In Buenavista, I get into the taxi that will take me to the Chonta, one of the park entrances. They say it's a three hour walk to the actual park. And I have to wade a river. They, that's a Bolivian family that offers me a traditional meal of greasy chickenbones and dehydrated potatoes in a tepid broth.
"Three hours ida, three hours vuelta. No chance to do it today, gringo."
I nod at them but decide to give it a try. I cross the river carefully since I am wearing my computer on my back. On the other side, I meet José Luis Hurtado, the méjor guia of the Parque Amboro, who gives me a ride with his motorbike to the park entrance. This is great! I grap the saddle and hold on, because he likes alta velocidad. José Luis rides straight through rivers, it's so cool. The road would be a real challenge for a 4x4 vehicle, and we just spurt along. He shows me the house where he lives with his uncle, where I take a few pictures and share a grapefruit with the pigs. He shows me huge trees with the most powerfull roots I've ever seen. Some species of trees have a bunch of roots in a wigwam shape to support the trunk, other roots form slings, snakes, and many more natural resemblances. At the park entry there are some empty huts. We walk around and call for the señora, but nobody is there, saving me the entrance fee. My guide shows me a trail that takes me to an interesting mirador, passing many more fairytale trees and some small red birds. Deeper in the park, there are tigers, but there is no chance to meet them here. We walk down to a river and see the butterflies and tapir trails I already mentioned. It is a beautiful place and we drink from the water.

So, for me it was possible to see a fair bit of the park in one day. Returning on the 125cc motorbike felt just great. Sitting on the back again, the engine roaring and the palm plantations zooming along, we shout our slogan "vivir la vida por lo maximo" at each other.
I pay my guide 100 Bolivianos for it because it was worth every penny of it. Wade back to the camino, got a ride from another boy (everybody drives motos here) to the main road, and a taxi takes me back to Buenavista. I decide to walk around and went to the central square. There I hear sounds from my home country: "Tulpen uit Amsterdam" (tulips from Amsterdam) in a version of André Rieux on two flatscreens. I am very surprised and enter the pavilion to say hello and ask about the music. A friendly woman ask me to participate in a questionnaire about the National Park, and she asks me a range of questions. I am glad to tell her about my motivation and we chat a little bit in private, too. Her name is Carolina.

It is too late to return to Santa Cruz. I call my hostel in Santa Cruz (yes, it was possible to retrieve the number) to tell them my backpack would spend the night there. Carolina shows me a cheap place to stay with an old woman. All I have to do is buy a new toothbrush. Just outside the shop I take a coca leaf from a jute sack and chew it. It's strong and bitter. So, millions of those leaves would eventually make cocaine: the old Bolivian problem. Residents of Bolivia are allowed to grow coca in small quantities for private use. Large-scale production is prohibited.

I am very tired and spend the night in a good bed. The old woman is playing cards until deep in the night.