#cusco explorers

[aroundtheglobe]

Inca Trail: Day Two

06/20/10 In Canada, I am an average-sized dude, though my nostrils are different sizes, a beauty trend passed on from my mother - one side resembles the Africa continent, while the other could be the wrinkle line near a baby´s armpit. In Peru, I was a Yao Ming giant, which means I had knocked my head on multiple ceilings, including one leaving a bathroom, forcing me to walk out bent forward massaging my head, looking like I injured myself from drinking out of the toilet. For the entire night, I struggled with my body being too long to fit in the tent without laying on my side on rocks, while my shoulders were too wide to fit inside my sleeping bag. The result left me wearing my sleeper like a strapless dress, my knees up in the birth giving position. By the time I fell asleep at around 2 a.m., I was awoken at 3:15 a.m. by roosters armageddon screaming. If I ever become a farmer, one my first day on the job I woul call a meeting with the roosterstell them to wake up around 9:30 a.m. If they do not respond correctly, I would crack their spirits by eating scrambled eggs in front of them. Thankfully, a couple hours later at 6 a.m., a porter knocked on our tent´s wall and handed us two glasses of coca tea to prepare for the altitude. It was the first time we had received room service while camping. Awesome. Walking outside the tent, we dodged chickens while I attempted to stick my foot so far up a rooster´s bootae I would have known what the animal was thinking. We brushed our teeth in a nearby bush, spitting on top of a pile of cow poop. In the distance, the rising sun had turned the brownish mountains golden. My feet were cold in shoes and socks, while our porters prepared breakfast wearing sandals. Day Two was the hardest section of the Inca Trail. Lack of sleep over two days made me no more prepared than if a doctor told me I was pregnant. Young lady, I too am surprised by the size of your ovaries.

"To the hill of destiny," Boxie-boo proclaimed, watching the sun cast light down the shadowy mountain at 7:35 a.m. as we began our hike. My nose was already slightly burning from the thin air, but my armpits felt silky smooth. Leading the pack, I felt like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with my fellow hikers behind me, but without wearing a push-up bra and nobody tiny screaming "High Ho", though, it would have been nice. Our feet crunching on rocks, we began our first incline from 2,950, eventually leading to 4,215 metres.

By the time we reached the Wayllabamba check point, we removed our clothes fast like triathletes. Our passports stamped, we looked at the hardest incline to date, as our next meeting point was 350 metres higher. Valeriano had told us to meet him at a rest stop that had our group´s flag, two stops ahead. "Porter," a group yelled marked by Canadian flags as we passed. For some reason, Boxie-boo and I were hauling ass. I thought of being called a porter a compliment, the same way it was nice to have a donkey sniff my bumhole a day earlier. We were in the zone, ignoring our troubled eyes and faltering breaths, our smiles coming and going, mouths wide to the point that even our gums were drying. "Is this pace okay?" I asked, my voice sounding as though as I was just punched directly in the lungs. "I´m actually doing okay. The next flat part I will grab more leaves," Boxie-boo replied, having become an addict to coca leaves. We will never know if they actually helped, or if chewing on them was simply a placebo effect. Coca leaves, according to our guide who was no where to seen all day, contain 14 alkaloids, one of which is cocaine (Don´t worry, Mom, not enough to make the drug, as it would take thousands of leaves).

We were a good team on this day. I held my hand back to help Boxie-boo up steps that were higher than a foot, sometimes two. We continuously motivated each other. When my heart rabbit thumped in the back of my head, I remembered to take in slow, deep, fuill breaths while twiddling my pen in my hand to allow my mind to focus elsewhere, beyond the burning in my calves. In the rare downhill sections, we reminded each other to be careful of our ankles, passing tourists every couple minutes. ...One and a half hours later... The trail turned to straight rock, staircase after staircase between one and two-foot high. Step after step. Thighs sumo wrestler vibrating. Exhausting. We skipped the first rest stop and the trail began to live up to its reputation. My muscles switched from tight to jello. "I have bad headache," Boxie-boo said. It could have been altitude sickness, or possible dehydration, so we rested quickly a couple trail turns ahead, at which point we were joined by Ming. At 10:25 a.m. we arrived at the second rest stop with no flag in sight. No porters. We waited for half an hour, eventually joined by Fabienne. The three of us figured there was no way we would be faster than porters, even though they carry larger bags and we had a head start. Ming asked other guides if he knew about Cusco Explorers and was told our lunch stop was much later. "Let´s just get it over with," Boxie-boo said, and we moved on.

Reaching higher altitude, the air became thinner again. We were above 3,600 metres, with over 600 more to go to Warmihuanusca Pass, the "Dead Woman´s Pass." AT this point, I felt a pre-serve tennis ball bouncing on the back of my skull, then smashed into my brain. We continued on staircases scattered between sharp rocks, caveman-like tools. The mountains began talking to me. A puzzle of small dark plants sat amongst light, yellowish brown scrubbery, writing me a message across our mountain. How do you like me now, white boy? Another mountain, across the passageway, added to the conversation. Your penis has shrunk from overexertion. How did it know? The thin air resulted in Boxie-boo needing more stops, while she kept telling me to go on without her. Nope. The low oxygen levels had given me the frozen, loose gum facial expression of a dog mid-run. The rabbit no longer thumped on my brain, but instead, seemed to be have invited over a female companion. I felt half-dead, the feeling of my lungs collapsing and forced open with each breath. When Boxie-boo asked to stop, my response was "No problem." Ever since passing the slower hikers, we were keeping pace with a 72-year-old Canadian, one of the fastest foreigners in the Andes Mountains. Taking a break, he stopped beside us. "They say you burn more calories by having sex than hiking the Inca Trail," he said. "What am I doing here?" The four of us burst our laughing. Around the next corner, a resting guide told us we were approximately 3,900 metres above sea level, then pointed to the pathway between two mountains. "All the way up there?" Boxie-boo yelped, the literal truth passed off as absurd. "*Beep* my life." Continuing across shark rocks and staircase steps of smooth stone, we kept moving, limited our stops to only 10 second breaks. We realized when we stopped longer, it felt impossible to keep moving. Boxie-boo began walking with her hands on her knees, face downwards and swaying, looking as though she was dragging an invisible beluga whale; one with a blow hole that only released curse words. "One second, I need to grab something from your backpack," I said to her. The moment she took it off, I strapped the bag to the front of my chest as if preparing for lamoze class. "Let´s keep going, you are doing great, babe." "I can..." her voice drifted away, losing breath. "...Carry the bag." I kept walking.

Nearing the top with only 30 steps left, I felt a sudden surge of energy, an adrenaline rush of pure stupidity. I told Boxie-boo I had to run it, to just get it over with. By the time I reached the top, I was gasping for air more than Monica Lewinsky during her internship. I sat down on a rock, heaving and delirious. We had finally reached 4,215 metres, the highest point on the Inca Trail, and the four of us took a celebratory photo, before heading 600 metres downwards to camp. Fabienne decided to wait for the others, while Ming joined Boxie-boo and I downhill. We walked, jogged, and occasionally, gripped the rock wall beside us like caged animals reaching for freedom.

"You are too fast," Valeriano said, finally catching us with a few metres of camp, a statement my soccer teammates hear from their wives after some alone time. "What time did you arrive at the second stop?" he asked, stopping us on our route down the Pacasmayo River Valley, giving us a break from steep staircases, pounding my knees with vibrations that left mine without feeling. "Around 10:30 a.m. and waited until 11 a.m.," Ming said. It turned out, the porters did not get there until 11:30 a.m. By the time we arrived at camp Pacaymayu at 2:20 p.m., there were no foreigners in sight and few porters. Our last porter showed up at 3:40 p.m., at which point we were finally given lunch, while the other hikers on tour began showing up from 5:20 p.m. onwards. All night, the topic of conversation was how it was somehow possible we beat the porters. Yes, we had a head start and little baggage in comparison, but still, it was an expected pace. To celebrate, I rubbed my burning thighs and calves with Tiger Balm, then contemplated how many ibuprofen tablets it would take to leave my entire body without feeling. I took three regular strength. That´s all for now. Thank you for visiting Page59.com.

[aroundtheglobe]

Inca Trail: Day One

06/19/10 "Here we go again - back to pooping in holes," Boxie-boo said, walking under the darkened, cobblestone streets of Cusco before the sun had risen. As a result of our room at Apu Wasi Hostel all night going from sauna hot to ski hill cold, I now know what it is like for a mountain goat to go through menopause. It was a ba´aaa´d night of sleep, further interrupted by someone who could have been tap dancing on the floor above us. I wanted to re-direct my hot flashes into lightning bolts and blast the tap dancer´s feet on fire. There was no bingo-bang-bang in my heart, only the feeling of my brain attempting to jump ship through my nostrils. Screw this guy! I am leaving! I must have been an Egyptian Pharoah in a past life - Ronamin Ribatronius, the King of Insomnia and Mountain Goat Menopause. "If I get negative on the hike, don´t get mad, but remind me to stay positive," Boxie-boo said as our bus climbed a hill so steep, the driver could not leave first gear or remove his socks. "Just say, ´stay positive,´" she added, her voice high-pitched with her arms swaying like Popeye post-spinach. We were on route to Kilometre 82 - the starting point for our four-day, three-night hike along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. The drive went up and down a swervy mountain highway, then down through valley towns. Some streets were lined with cactus, others with homes built within a few feet of train tracks. The area had vast, snow-peaked mountain ranges and low valley farms. Our driver dodged whipped cow crossings, boulders of fallen rocks, edging us passed other buses so tight along cliff edges his mirror had to be turned inwards. We passed through the villages of Chinchero, Urubamba and then stopped at Ollantaytambo, creating a break through our three-and-a-half hour drive.

Inside Ollantaytambo, ancient viaducts ran through the town in small streams a foot wide. Locals surrounded passerbyers, offering everything from hiking poles, toques to coca leafs that our guide said aid in the battle with altitude. We reached the Terraces of Pumatallis (above), an ancient Inca site that had cut the mountain in latches. These terraces, a common architectual practice of the Incas, allowed them to farm on otherwise unusable terrain at various altitudes. At Ollantaytambo, the walls of cut stones were higher, which archaelogists have also found at other Inca sites like Chinchero, Pisaq and Yucay. It was so beautiful, I decided to find a bush to pee in. Leaving the small town, the bus drove down a tight, one-way path on top of train tracks set between the tires, spitting up rocks. I felt as though we were driving inside a gravel pit, as we continued to lower our altitude, leaving Cusco´s 3,400 before arriving one kilometre before Kilometre 82, walking alongside the Urubamba River, the route used by the first westerner to be shown Machu Picchu. "We are all family now," our guide Valeriano said. I thought about this briefly and realized our Mom must have gotten real busy. We were a mixed group: Two Canadians, one Chinese-American man, one British guy, one Bulgarian woman, brother and sister Aussies, a Brazilian man, a Swiss girl and two girls from Argentina.

When we reached Kilometre 82 called Piskacucho, the first of four control points, we had to show our passports while our guide showed our Inca Trail passes. Only 500 people a day all allowed on the trail, including guides and porters. Being the dry season, it was the more popular time to hike as it decreased the chances and danger of rain. I was glad I reserved our trail pass many months ahead, almost a full year, a must to be 100 per cent certain on being able to hike the trail. Crossing the Cuisichaca (Happy Bridge), our hike finally began, stomping across creaking wood while the cables steadied the crossing. With my first step on the gravel path, I felt the dust rising, the wind forcing me to hold onto my hat, while a donkey bumped its nose into my bumhole, the aggressive animal tailgating a species with no tail, just awkwardly placed balancing equipment. I was already a slow tourist in the world of superhuman porters, who passed us with bags upwards of 25 kilograms making me feel no more masculine than a girl in a wet t-shirt contest. Hey boys! We battled our first uphill climb, sucking up the thin air like hotdog eating contestants, drying our lips, yet somehow, still allowing Boxie-boo and I to fart, sometimes in unison. It was romantic. Our path was surrounded by massive cactus, house-sized boulders and mountains that towered in all directions, casting giant shadows. We felt our presence, more than saw the trail, a feeling of how minimal our existence is an area that has stood relatively motionless for thousands of years. "I feel so bad for them," Boxie-boo said, as a porter passed with a bag so big it went from behind his bootae to a foot over his head. He was wearing sandals, his toes black and nails sharpened. His fingers, gripping a strap across his upper chest, had turned a pale white. Valeriano led the way out front, his 260th time hiking the trail. I wondered, did he still enjoy the hike? "I enjoy the second day, watching the people who look like they are dieing," he said, passing a donkey dragging a stick. "Keep going, keep going, I tell them," he smiled. Boxie-boo did not. Instead, she gave me a disgusted look as if I had pooped myself. "I enjoy this too much." We continued, listening to the sound of horse shoes, metal stomping dirt, the clip-clopping ringing and mimicking my rising heart rate, while porters jogged by continuing their inhuman capabilities. Valeriano pointed at Angel Trumpet Flowers, white and dangling downwards with the tube of a trumpet, which he said can make us hallucinate. He teased us, asking who would want to try a special tea made from the flower. "You drink this tea and the mountains go flat," he said, as we all laughed. "Then tomorrow, day two will be easier." He asked us to stop, then pointed at a glacier mountain, known by the Incas as the Wheeping Mountain, 5850 metres. He then pointed ahead at the 4,215 metre pass we were set to do the following day. Nobody reacted. We looked at it the way people look at monkeys at the zoo - it was beautiful at first, but monkeys tend to throw poop. The mountain, instead, had the capability to throw boulders and create mudslides that could disappear civilizations. Valeriano put what appeared to be a white seed in three of the girl´s hands, then smashed one of them, turning the Fabienne´s (Swiss girl) palm red. It was a bug. We all laughed, while Boxie-boo quickly threw her bug in a bus. Valeriano cackled, as he always did, the way a 12-year-old boy reaching puberty sounds if he was attempting to mimicking a crow´s mating call. Ah! Ah! Ah! The pitch always the same, coming from the back of his mouth, sounding throaty and dry. In everyway, his laughter was contagious.

After crossing a forest of eucalyptus, we reached the Salapunku archaeogical site (above), situated across the left bank of the river. Valeriano explained the difference between reconstruction and restoration - reconstruction involves new stones, while restoration means the same stones are used. At Salapunku, they used the same stones, a sight that has stood in the Sacred Valley for centuries, with no Tim Horton´s in sight. Recently, archaeologists at the National Institute of Culture (INC) said it may be the resting place for a pre-Inca tomb, while other researchers believe it was a "Tambo," or resting place for travelers. The remains found, according to the INC, may belong to a woman from the Quillke culture, which flourished before the Inca Empire. "When the people built the railway, they destroyed one of the Inca trails," Valeriano said, chewing on coca leaves, which dangled from his backpack´s shoulder straps in a small plastic bag. He said there were originally six trails to Machu Picchu. On day two, we would be walking on actual Inca-laid stones, a pathway cut by the ancient civilization for pilgrimages to visit Machu Picchu and pay their respects to the Sun God. The ancient means of communication, Valeriano said, was through runners from Cusco who would pass their messages throughout the empire to different posts, where other runners continued, between the cities. This means, the Incas were capable to run across passes we walked up with the pace of snails towing a sandal. The nearby river, the Cusichaca River (as it is a tributary of the Urubama River), was believed to be the representation of the Milky Way galaxy on Earth for the Incas. To me, it represented the easier route, or "lazy people passage" as Valeriano called it, where people took the train to Machu Picchu.

. After lunch, the hike began to live up to its reputation and got tough, but throughout the hike, Day One was relatively easy. "You don´t need Jenny Craig, just do the trek," joked Victor from Australia, hiking with his sister Yamila. We were walking along a steep cliff, where below, cows mooed and chewed, mocking us with their ability to laz around, and I suppose, use their hooters as milk squirt guns. I thought back to my goat menopause, now feeling cold as the altitude rose, heading from the Kilometre 82 at 2600 metres, to 3,000 at Huayllabamba, a village we were set to camp at. With no other goats insight, I had nobody to head butt, so I released the wedgie from my bootae and stretched. I prepared to continue, began chewing on some coca leaves and focused on slowing down my breathing. From on top a mountainside, we could see Patallacta (also known as Llactapata).

Llactapata, known as the "Village in the Highland", was located at the foot of a mountain (above). At this site, people were given free food and lodging, a stopover on their religious voyage, Valeriano said. From above looking down, we could see the cultivation terraces, which probably served to seed people and fill the "Ambos" (store houses) along the Inca Road. Its urban sector helds approximately 50 families, Valeriano added, a small society, as the Inca Empire had an estimated 30 million people. Beside the site, local families were farming the same vegetations their ancestors had cultivated for centuries. By the time we reached Huayllabamba, it was around 5 p.m., 12 hours since we had awoken. This small indigenous village, located on the foothills of small mountains, was surrounded by neigbouring farmland, chickens and wondering dogs. Nearby, were ancient Inca steps, our next challenge after a night set for us to sleep on a mattresses less than one centimetre thick, inside a tent I was too tall for. All complaints aside, our porters proved not only to be exceptional hikers, they were hardworking - our tents and dinner were ready before we even arrived. That´s all for now. Thank you for visiting Page59.com.

[aroundtheglobe]

Cusco Festival and Pre-Inca Trail

06/18/10 "I'm nervous about the hike," Boxie-boo said, her fingers nervous and twiddling together. It was nightfall, dark with one light bulb in our room, while the drums of the Cusco festival echoed across the ceiling, fluttering the thin sheet we shared on the hardened, hostel bed. White paint, a shifting dapple of light, the unforeseen future frightening us both into stillness. She scanned across the ceiling, the white paint, and I knew we both thought of our last adventure left. Her eyes dilated in the darkness, so full, so blackened; there was no room for any other image within my imagination. I could hear my own concerns in Boxie-boo's voice. I leaned over to view her from another angle. She laid parallel to me as she always did before we fell asleep, facing me. Her eyes, sideways now, stony with held-in tears, the saddest kind, the type that force us to cry if we let but one tear fall to our cheeks. I felt so cold, felt the shade of night pass over me. I suddenly realized that some of our adventures she only tackled because of me. There was an expression on her face I had not quite seen before, a subtle change in her voice. She had become someone else in this moment, someone I did not know. "Me too, babe," I responded, then gave her a hug and kissed her forehead. "We will get through it together." She looked pretty in a way I had never seen before, as if something had a hold of her and finally let go, and for a moment, I saw the ending, the adventure over, a gateway into the rest of my life. ... The first fight happened soon after we had returned home from the trip. We had both moved home with our families. We were apart for the first time in over six months. I never told her how much I missed her. Alone in my old high school bedroom, I made up poems that I never wrote down, but still remembered: ‘She focused all the light of the sun into one stare’. I would think of this look often, the look of a woman giving an honest and hurtful confession a week earlier in Cusco. I stayed awake all night, curled up with two pillows lying parallel with me to my side. In the morning a few friends visited, curious of my travels. I began to answer the same questions about my trip that I would come to know quite well for years to come: "What was your favourite country?” “Would you do it again?” “What was the worst experience you had?" “Did you get sick?” I called her to see how she was. She was short on the phone, a bit angry with me for calling as I knew she was busy catching up with family and friends. I never told her I missed her. Later, she called back, asking if everything was okay. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. "Nothing really, just checking in," I told her. This was the first time I had lied to her. I had traveled around the world and returned home to my family, but without her by my side, for the first time in seven months, I felt a thousand miles away. ... In the apartment, after moving in together, I surprised her with an itinerary I was working on for a short trip to Belize. I sensed she was unimpressed with the idea of traveling again. I tried to hide my excitement to her for driving to Guatemala and back, to seeing ancient ruins once more and hopefully diving with Whale Sharks. She said nothing at first. Still as a painting. Later I will learn how much she had changed and how much I had changed from the trip. But now, unaware of what was happening between us, I smiled, resisting my urge to ask, "Where are we going to next?" It was the first time I felt alone in her presence. I went for an evening walk in North Vancouver, and as I scanned the skyline of the City of Vancouver and looked back at the North Shore's mountains and everything was unfamiliar. I walked the streets I had known my entire life like a stranger. I knew the adventurer in her, at least for now, was gone. ... When we first met in Hawaii, many years earlier, I impressed her with stories of my previous travels and my dreams to travel around the world. The house we stayed at overlooked the ocean and a backdrop of stars illuminated the outer tips of palm tree leaves. The fresh scent of humidity and nature soared above us, powerful, listening in, stealing our secrets. I almost did hear her say, "That sounds amazing!" as it seemed too good to be true. The scariest moments in life, after all, are not illness or even death, not even love, but knowing we could be falling in love at any moment. ... "There's not enough room for my clothes," she told me, as we organized the small closet in our apartment, shared one dresser and the bed with drawers I had bought for more storage. We had just moved in together for the first time. I hated organizing the condo I had bought in Canada, and although she never said it, it seemed clear to me that our small bedroom reminded her of tiny hostel rooms where the floor was once crowded by our spread bags. She wanted structure and normality in her home. I did my best to hide my annoyance. I had been used to living out of a backpack and a part of me missed it. I felt the space was more than adequate and that if any couple could handle a small apartment, it would be us. Yet my anger was etched on my face from months of thought. This was what I feared most - the return to normality, the grocery shopping and working Mondays to Fridays, to fighting the way all couples do about simple day-to-day chores.

... The Cusco festival was in full force all morning. The drums wailed and trumpets blasted, creating a wall of noise around us that we leaned against in silence. With her back against a building wall, the sun's glow burnished Boxie-boo's skin. She watched the festival, wearing a smile on her face of permanent stone. In each direction, young children danced, played flutes and drums, sending goose bumps across my skin and waves of music through my veins. The entire city was alive with colour, personality and a feeling of community unmatched anywhere else on our trip around the world. We held hands the whole day, our attraction to each other refueled by the romance of the setting. "This town is amazing," she said, her voice slurred and out of breath from the high altitude, still leaning against the wall for a rest. Walking a few blocks in the morning was exhausting, until our lungs adjusted to the high altitude of the town. The sun seemed to close in around her. Energy came in waves from each direction: A movement of human-powered electricity. The parade of children continued: Dancing, smiling, music, their outfits colourful from large feathers to high hats glittering with stones. I smiled at her. She smiled at me. She gripped my hand. It was a moment worthy of a photograph, yet I had trouble feeling happy. I knew this was our last adventure of the trip. I felt buried alive by my own future and my skin tingled. It was as if I was walking across a forgotten graveyard; yet she was excited, looking forward to the normality of home. ... Over two weeks had passed since she left me. The day after she came to pick up her stuff at the apartment, I woke early, having barely slept. I starred at the contours of her blankets where I once read poetry and felt emotionless. I focused all my efforts on feeling nothing. Unable to eat, I headed to my favourite shop to pick up a fruit and berry smoothie. A young woman entered with a tan. "I just came back from Mexico," she said. I did no tell her I went around the world. I did not want to think about it ever again. I wanted to forget my smoothie and leave, but instead, as if without choice, I told her, "You are so lucky to have traveled." I began seeing photographs. I saw Boxie-boo's smile as she swam in a cage near a massive Great White Shark, her cheeks raise after yelling "Bula!" in Fiji, her drunken snicker sitting at a bar in Bangkok, the massive grin when seeing the pyramids of Egypt and Cambodia, her mouth permanently smiling in the rear-view mirror of my motorcycle in Nepal, her Cusco Festival happiness. It all came at me at once. These images. Australia, Japan, India, Botswana, Tanzania, Brazil: Her smile. The woman sensed something was wrong, and for the first time, I left the store and cried. ... I had timed the last stop on our trip perfectly. I had planned for Peru to be our last stop for three reasons - end with one last hike through the Inca Trail, arrive for both the Cusco Festival and Inti Raymi, which is the celebration of the Sun God. Throughout the day we walked around aimlessly shopping for our hiking supplies, yet we were fully entertained doing so. Around us always were locals dressed in bright coloured-shawls and decorative hats. A group of men circled the center of the city dressed like ancient priests, belting out high-pitch notes with instruments that seemed made out of bone. All I could do was whistle along quietly, making me feel no more adequate than how my testicles would feel if I had no penis. As Boxie-boo continuously pointed out, I needed new shoes. My shoes were so battered they looked like a mix of a beaten crocodile's snout and the facial expression of a teased duck; the front lip extended and pouting upwards, while heals flattened without grip, the sole broken right through to my socks. Boxie-boo convinced me to get new shoes and we treated ourselves to two new pairs of socks each. New socks for us, after months of travel, made our feet feel finer than baby hairs, so much so that I wanted to burp my big toes, but I instead decided to mimic Boxie-boo's happy dance. ... The day she came to pick up her stuff from the apartment it was sunny, a rarity in North Vancouver’s winter. I came home with my smoothie to discover she was already in the apartment, waiting for me. Her arms were wrapped stiff across her chest, with her legs stiffened straight across the coffee table; the rigid curve of her calf answering to the rigid curve of her collarbone. I peered at her from the hallway that leads to the living room. She stayed silent. I was mad at her for entering the apartment without using the buzzer and asked her for her set of keys back. She apologized sarcastically, hurt by my words; a childish boy acting in retaliation for my broken heart. I acted tough in her presence. I brushed off her compliments of her being impressed that I kept the place so clean. I wanted to tell her we could make it work, hold her in my arms and protect her the way I had when she was scared camping near wild hippos in Botswana or gripping my hand in fear during a horrifying taxi ride in Nepal. But I knew her mind was made up, and instead, cowardly said nothing more than what was needed. I helped her pack and carry away boxes when her father came. I was robotic and skeletal as I help load his SUV quickly. I was tough and short with words, releasing a smile when her father said hello. I could have been wearing invisible spurs. Her and I did not touch, no kiss hello or hug goodbye for the first time. We felt like strangers, this girl I once knew so well alone in the dark. ... A buddy came to visit me at work to see how I was doing. I explained that I was not going to move out of my place; that I will just work harder in my career to make more money so I can afford it on my own: It was a small sense of protest, a challenge for myself, to know I could survive without her. On my lunch break, we stopped by the furniture store I had bought my dresser at so I could inquire how much a second one would cost. "What I need is just more storage," I told my friend. "A matching dresser to make more room in the closet." My voice had pitched and I swallowed quickly to avoid sounding feigned with enthusiasm or sadness. My buddy smiled back in a sympathetic way, as if to say he knew a secret he would never tell. The fresh scent of humidity and rain soared into the store, and I had smelt this before, the door opening with more shoppers, their footsteps listening in. Blinking to swallow my tears, it became apparent that everyone knew my story and all our nerves were straining. ... I kept half my closet and dresser empty for months. I never bought more bedroom furniture, yet choose to struggle to stuff t-shirts and sweaters into tightly-fitted drawers while others were empty. When I returned from snowboarding with a buddy from out of town, he threw his borrowed goggles, toque and glove in an empty drawer. When he left the room, I moved everything out of the drawer, putting them back in a storage bin in the bottom of the closet, angry with him. ... The empty drawers became my secret: A silent place, a meaningless empty spot I often forgot existed; a place that only called out when opened and seen, like a clown mask lifted to reveal hidden tears.

... At the Cusco festival, Boxie-boo and I searched out the company that had screwed us. Andex Adventure, the travel agency with whom we had reserved our Inca Trail trip through Cusco Explorers, did not live up to its written contract. Our free hostel pick-up never happened at the airport and we never received free accommodation in Cusco. We did not find their shop so instead went to an Internet cafe. My email of complained received a new, edited version of our previous receipt, stating that we were promised earlier were "Typing errors." We were under the impression that sleeping bags and a porter would also be included. Instead, we had to pay $130 U.S. extra; a handing over of cash to Cusco Explorer employee that made me wish I had pooped on my own hands. This is the nature of backpacking. Sometimes we could fight con-artist companies; other times we could not. My emails accomplished nothing and neither did stomping my feet like an elephant on steroids. Nothing worked. Not even my telepathic attempt to communicate with Tom Cruise. It was too late for a refund and we were set to wake up early for our last adventure - a four-day, three-night hike through the Andes Mountains to Machu Picchu. I remember thinking, I cannot wait until we just pay the same price as everybody else and simply always get what we are promised, and for the first time on the trip, momentarily, I thought fondly of returning home. ... The afternoon she left me, I heard her words before she said them. "I don't love you anymore," she said, with an expression that was familiar, yet different. She looked pretty in a way I had only seen once before. All my poems crumbled into dust. I avoided eye contact with her to allow her to speak more easily. Her words moved across my body and into each one of my organs individually, draining them, like she controlled the flow of my own veins. And then my body was emptied of all instincts: No hunger, no need for sleep, nothing. It was as if she had entered my mind and left with my dreams, leaving only her lullaby behind. I knew she was unhappy and confused. She had gone from emailing me engagement ring photographs to crying, from smiling and laughing, to being angry and cold towards me. I had tried to make her happy. I threw her a surprise party and invited over her entire family. I built a closet with two rows for more storage of clothes. I offered her more drawers and did my best to stop talking about traveling. For weeks, I felt alone in her presence – the worst feeling in the world. I listened to each word individually. I don't love you anymore. My body folded inwards and all the music in me was gone. Each law of science I had ever known evaporated in my lungs, and, without the feeling of my own skin, without the sensation of my own living body, of my own blood, my lungs finally compressed slowly and I realized I had stopped breathing. I placed my hands flat on my thighs, looked her in the eyes and saw the last traces of who I was once when I was with her: I saw how she saw me. She became someone else in this moment, someone I met briefly in Cusco and we were strangers once more. She was horizontal to me this time, but the sight was the same: The eyes stony with held-in tears, the kind that would cause us both to cry if she let just one fall. There was no room for any other image in my imagination. I finally realized what I saw in her eyes that night in Cusco, this difference between us, that I was a traveler at heart and she was not. While she was content to stay home, I was eager leave once more, a part of personality that will never dissipate. I placed my hands on my thighs, while my back and neck dropped to the position of defeat that physically imprinted across my entire body for months. With eyes red and heavy-lidded I droned in a soft low voice. "Okay. I can help you pack," I responded, looked up across the ceiling, the white paint. I gave her a hug and kissed her forehead. It was my way of saying one last time, "We will get through this together." That´s all for now. Thank you for visiting Page59.com.