April 23. Lake Titicaca.

The legs are okay again. I can move on today. I want to describe the begging women in the bus station. Her dark skin, how she crouches and moves her hand up and down to indicate what she's after: a few Bolivianos. The colorfully woven pouch on her back, the noises she makes, her small feet with the dirty sandals, the old hat, the expression on her face. Her whole expression, her entire being is an allegory of need. Say she's only playing her role as a beggar and skip the only-part.

A few hours later, the bus arrives in the village Copacabana. We have crossed an arm of the Lake Titicaca by boat. The bus was shipped on a different vessel and it was fun to see it moving slowly on the water in the hot afternoon while we had already crossed the water on a smaller motorboat. At the shore of lake Titicaca I had a good lunch of Trucha from the lake and strawberry gelatine, a popular desert in Bolivia. A man came begging and I sent him away with a few coins.
The afternoon program: a boatride to the Isla del Sol. I talk to an older Dutch guy who travels two months every year and "does" Peru and Bolivia this time. I don't really like the expression. How can you do a country? Like you do a woman? Like you do your job? Never mind, the boat trip was beautiful, and the Isla del Sol is a fine thing too. You can walk up a hill and visit some Inca structures there. I had to go back to Copacabana to take the bus to Puno at the Peruvian side of the lake. In Puno, I missed the famous floating islands, that used to be a retreat for the indigenous while the conquistadores lived the city.

Change the bus in Puno. In the terminal some guys yell "Arequipa Arequipa!" and "Cusco Cusco!" The guy from my bus company had it all organized and provides us with Peruvian tickets. In the bus to Cusco I meet an American guy working on a book with his laptop, which I find interesting. He has a book deal and does some field research. We talk about writing travel blogs or travel literature and he tells me he can't just write freely what he thinks. I give him the address of mine and hope we exchange ideas some day. He continues writing with the computer on his lap which scares me a little. He writes more pages than I do! But that doesn't matter, does it? We all do what we do. That goddamn fear of not being recognized is holding up too many fruitful ideas in too many meek minds.

I can't concentrate on my own work and I can't sleep either.

February 22.

I'm falling / Safely to the Ground. So what use is it to go all the way up to visit the Christo Redemptor? Since it is a tourist magnet and I swallowed some tourist iron, I walked to the entrance gate of the tramway that comforably takes you up the 700 m hill that is crowned with the stretched-out giant, "gazing placidly" over the city, as the Lonely Planet has it. I don't like the guidebook language, it's sterile, impotent, without rigour, it makes me forget that I'm alive. Guidebooks offer "one thousand places to visit before you die" as a substitute so you can feel alive a little. I have better recipes. The line for the Christo would last two hours. I decided not to go. On my way to the Christo I had to pass the Ben Gurion square anyway. I'm not much of a Catholic.
So I walked back and took a bus to Ipanema. Ipanema! Te, tuh duh, tuh de, tuh tuh duh. It felt great! The beach was nice, I could take good pictures there. Didn't swim. Ate a hotdog and drank a can of mango juice. But I've been in Ipanema, they can't take that away from me. The birds were fascinating. They roam the airspace above the thriving city, and remind me of how it must have been before civilization: a beautiful green valley between the high hills. I decided to walk the boulevard all the way to Copacabana to see that too. It was nice.
After that, I took a bus to Urca in order to get up the Sugar Loaf mountain. If I have any followers: this excursion is great and worth the 44 R$. A cable car takes you up the first hill where you can walk around as long as you please. You'll see the helicopter platform (note for Gerrit: cheapest offer 150 R$ for 3-4 minutes to the Christo and back, most expensive offer 850 R$ for 60 minutes all over Rio) There are cute little monkeys that you are not allowed to feed but you'll see tourists feeding them bananas in order to lure them into the range of their protruding camera lenses. Another cable car takes you up to the actual Sugar Loaf mountain, from where you have the greatest view of Rio, as the guidebooks say. I was glad I skipped the Christo. This view was just amazing. I took a lot of pictures which you are of course free to browse on Picasa.

I got back and cooked some Dutch dinner (Andijviestamppot. Do not try to pronounce if you're not Dutch). Another good night in the hammock.