April 15. You may skip this.

Wrote. Just more words. If you want to read them, they are all in your dictionary, only their order is less contaminated there. Walked around in the village to investigate the people of Bolivia. Entered a pharmacy to ask what medicine costs here. She started to tell, aspirin is four tablets for one Boliviano, and so on. I asked how about prescription drugs and she told me it was affordable for the people. Oh, is it true that most Bolivian doctors are educated in Cuba? Well, there are a lot, but the former (capitalist) government didn't really like it. Have there been noticeable changes under Evo Morales? Not yet, the pharmaceutical industry is in control and, the honest lady told me, she wants to earn decent money herself.

In Santa Cruz, there's no McDonald's. For a city of its size, it's quite an accomplishment in my opinion. A woman whose sons had grown fat after regularly consuming its Hamburgers had sued the company, that had preferred to leave the city over paying the poor woman a compensation. As a consequence, in all former McDonald's buildings now there are branches of Burger King.

Say the word. The word is tergiversating. Enter the room. It's foggy here. We should better look around, but oh it is of no use. Don't go. The feeling of the feeling of not feeling to share of not it's over, not able to communicate to feel. But wait a minute. Feel we not all? Don't take that away from us! Take a popsicle and slash the room to dust and pieces. Fight for our right to be vague. You see now? The room and everybody inside was just a farce. No need to be afraid of them.

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.

April 11. But he didn't use the soap.

Today, I wake up in a nice bed in a pension in Santa Cruz de Bolivia. This is Bolivia's boomtown, strongest growth of them all. Towns that used to be rich in colonial times are very poor now and vice versa. On the roof are my clothes and I think the morning sun already dried them. I will get them after my coffee and I'll see they are dry indeed. I make a cup of strong coffee and take pictures of the kid and the cat that were around. I decide to walk around the city today. The people I see on the street look friendly and calm. In a park I see a bump sitting on a bench and I talk to him. He tells me he used to live in the USA but returned to Bolivia because he's old now. He is sixty-seven years old and lives on the streets. Later he will show me where. I offer him to have a coffee together and we walk into a street café. They deny him to enter. It makes me upset. I have an idea. Buy him a shower and new clothes, a pair of trousers, a shirt, socks. Because he stinks like hell. So we walk around the mercado and buy him a nice white-pink striped shirt, a classic grey pantalon, a piece of soap and a towel. People ask me "tu papa?" and I answer "no, he encontrado en la calle". They laugh. Do they believe me? I take him to a public shower where I leave him for ten minutes. He has taken a shower but he has not used the soap. That bothers me. He didn't want to use the soap I bought for him? What to do? I cannot force him to be clean. He is happy with his new clothes and expresses his gratitude with a most adorable smile. "From head to toe new" he says to me in English. To camouflage the stench he is still spreading I spray some fake perfume in his neck and in his armpits. CK one - our version of CK One. Hope that'll do at least for the day. At least for the day, oh saint Vanity! Oh holy idol of the Vain! We go eat an icecream. He has chocolate and I have strawberry. With real deepfrozen chunks of strawberry. He is not denied entry this time. We eat the icecream with small wooden spoons. He is sitting in front of me on a plastic chair smiling at me and he will say to me he feels like Robert de Niro in a few moments. I smile back and we eat ice cream. Within half an hour, sitting in the sewer's place, I will see this on the wall: "Un alma generosa sera un alma prosperada" - Proverbios 11:25. In the shower, I will see the body of Justo, yes his name is Justo. Con mucho gusto, Justo. His body is old and wrinkly. I see skin but the form is strange, more like an insect than a man. I will leave Justo in the same park where I met him earlier. He lives there, on the street. And I will ask him "eres feliz?". "Si, soy feliz" he'll answer me. Then I'll cross the crowded street and wave to him a last time. I will be invited to a castle later today.

I'll continue my paseo through the heart of Santa Cruz and have my jeans repaired. They give me a cloth to cover my legs while I wait for my jeans to be sewn once more. I want to keep that jeans, I'll have it sewn in many countries. It will be an assemblage of the sewing skills of sewers from all over the world. Come on, world - unite in my pants.

I am enjoying my time in Santa Cruz. A couple of empanadas fill my stomach, and I walk into a museum where Jarin Johansen, a Peruvian painter exhibits some work from 2003-2008. "Mi camino" the collection is called and it consist of beautiful impressively colored canvasses of all materials. They depict women: nudes, dancing women, women playing a violin and a cello, women as landscapes. I liked his eye and leave a comment at the desk. It is getting dark. I want to go to a bar and drop by at a chess club first. A Bolivian from Cochabamba wants to play and we play four matches. I never enjoyed losing so much as that night. He overlooked nothing and just saw every mistake I made - and I made a lot of them. As I told him I am from Holland, he begins elaborating about Poland and the thriving agriculture there. Unfortunately I don't understand everything and can't respond in an intelligent matter. At least one time I achieve a draw.

I leave the chess club and enter the club next door. It is a local discotheque. I think I am the only foreigner around and received a good laugh when I tried to imitate the erotic dance style of the Santa Cruz teenagers. Very pretty girls danced with very lean boys that were moving their bodies like snakes, getting low on their feet while moving their pelvises in a copulating manner. I had a strange feeling of happiness watching the courting youth of this friendly town shaking their bodies to the hammering reggaeton beats. The music is loud, and the live band that takes over is not really my pair of sandals. So I decide to call it a night - of writing. I went back to the hostel at 1am, put some coffee on the gas and started working on the veranda, in the cool Bolivian night under the starry sky. When I look up now I see dozens of stars. This is the life, children.

April 10. Adieu to necklace "small luck"

Good morning. I hate to tell you this. I am a narcissist: I think there always has to be - me. I am looking for a cure. If you can suggest one, I'm open to everything non-narcotical. What I could try, metaphorically, is taking a sharp cutter and hollow out the eyes of the soft-skinned shiny fish called my language, the word "I" and become a blind fish but a nice fish. Alas, that won't work of course. Excerpt from the lamentations of a narcissist.

Twenty-two hour bus-ride to Santa Cruz on endless dirtroads with big holes. Passport control tree times in small aduana-huts. Many soldiers on the Bolivian side, doing nothing but waiting there in their uniforms holding their rifles and laughing about the tourists that passed. I felt for them and touched my temple. One soldier imitated my gesture absent-mindedly and by doing so, he conquered a place in my memory.

Santa Cruz. The town seems crowded as I walk out of the bus terminal. As always, people say it is dangerous to walk. I walked to center, nothing happened. Extreme cautiousness doesn't make us more beautiful. Instead of the killers, rapers, rippers and Reapers, I encountered an Easter Procession. The streets of the center were full of people. A group of about twenty well-dressed men carried a man-sized Jesus figurine in a baroque cage on their shoulders, moving it slowly left and right to heavy brass rhythms. Walked with the procession. Had some icecream, found a cheap hostel called "Oriente", took a shower and walked around some more. I saw the Cathedral at the central plaza. A calm atmosphere. Then a wifi café, they have them even here. A waiter shew interest when I told him I'm a writer, and showed me his website.

This is the day I also lose one of my lucky necklaces. It is the necklace with the small cupper figurine, called "small luck" that I had already lost twice during the ten years of its stay around my neck. This time I think it has decided to leave me permanently. I think it is somewhere in Asuncion, or happy around the neck of someone who found it. At least we parted without an argument. To be honest, I have another necklace, called "big luck" and that one has to do all the work from now on. Big luck has an amazing story that I am not going to tell you right now. If I keep alluding to that story, my readers will get

Bolivia's president, Evo Morales is in Hunger strike as I write this. He wants to force the parlament to pass a law that will allow him to be eligible in the upcoming elections - elections he is very likely to win.

April 9. More nonsense.

Working on fear. My traveling is a kind of therapy program, but it's not only for me individually. I want to use my person as an example, make a little sacrifice to psychological science. When you die, you can fill out a form (that is, before you die of course) declaring that Science can use your body for research. A dead body however, is not of much use to psychological science. They need living souls to test their hypotheses.
Wait a minute, maybe I won't be of much value for that science. I don't care. How do I work on fear? It's not easy. The causes often are very ancient and difficult to remove. Sometimes it's better to try and cure the symptom. I imagine all the people / that I feel afraid of. The whole bunch! All together! Dream about them, screwdrive my head in a soft pillow and dream more about them. I accept the irrationality of the fears. I make some abstractions, you might make other ones. There are father-figures and woman-figures I am afraid of. They say things to me in those dreams and I shiver. I guess it has to do something with the order of power. My hypothesis is that these fears are determining a lot of what I do. All I do are eventually symptoms of fear. Did I order an icecream recently? Didn't you see how I looked to the ground? Didn't you notice how I stuttered and trembled and wanted to get the coins out of my pocket really quick and didn't stand upright and sweated and ground my teeth? (feel free to apply this to yourself I am writing this for you). So the whole posture (or the whole pose) is one big demonstration of deep subliminal fears. And that's some insight. Now I can go and fight the symptoms. Step one: quantification. Keeping track of it like a bookkeeper. Step two: massive attack. I want to burn the fear out of her cave, smoke her out of her hole, clusterbomb her beyond recognition. But the fear is hiding too deep, so I go at the main symptom: the gibber. Behead the gibber! Shatter the True Being in order to be able to P L A Y it. You were curious about my Theory of Pure Being? That was my Theory of Pure Being.

I write all day in the canteen above a supermarket because I can pay there with my credit card. Without that card I would have been like a bump. I would have been someone who lives in ways I cannot even imagine. For a few dollars I buy a good lunch and coca cola and work diligently on my computer. The night before had not been very inspiring, but I've learned from it. I had run into two German girls in their early twenties that study international management in Montevideo. They were camping in the national parks of Paraguay. I envy them for what they already know about the world in their early twenties. I showed them the bar Britannica and was glad they really liked it. Maren and Annika liked Weizenbier and coke so that's what I got them. We danced later, and I saw the guys I shared the room in my pension with. They had a good time I saw; the Swiss macho had just kissed another girl and made the girl he fucked the other day painfully jealous. The strong blond German waited for the girl he met the other night in order to fuck her later in a love motel. We were dancing under the Paraguayan night sky to music of Bon Jovi, U2, Guns 'n Roses on the terrace of this only bar in the center of Asuncion. The sky was dark, the basedrum resonated. Vincent, the big black guy from Nigeria could dance really well. People took a lot of pictures. I flirted with a beautiful girl, whose pretty face I saw only against the wild shimmering light of the stroboscope. She told me she was a surrealist painter and twenty-seven. I told her I am a surrealist writer and then we danced and kissed with our eyes open and I said "you know that surrealists kiss with their eyes open?" in the stroboscopic light with the big moon in the background it was a brief share of infinity; she gave me her card her name is Guadeloupe and she said she is a serious person. That means she won't jump into the bed with someone just like that. She went home early. The longing for nearness, the nearness of You who don't exist (please, don't exist...), the nearness of lips that talk and talk and talk so near they cannot talk any more.

I will take a bus straight to Santa Cruz, Bolivia tonight, skipping the rest of Paraguay because I feel like moving on. Got really lucky with the ticket: I had exactly enough Guaranis (Paraguayan money) to pay for my trip to Santa Cruz.