Latinalicious: The South America Diaries

by Becky Wicks

  ‘Oh wow, it’s soooo pretty, look at all the water!’ Stef enthused. But I caught the glint of recognition in Khaki Ken’s eyes, and my instincts, too, were primed. Top mosquito real estate by the acre stretched before us: a nursery for malaria carriers birthing killers by the millisecond. We were right. Sure, the Pantanal is all so pretty in the day, what with its preening birds and glistening caiman and white horses wading through the swamps like mythical unicorns missing their horns, but come nightfall we’re forced to make a mad dash between our rooms and the dining hall through what can only be described as an insect blizzard. You can tell when Stef’s on her way back to our room because you can hear the screams.

  Still, it’s definitely all worth it … the whingeing companions and the bad truck-stop food, even the enforced ‘flapping’ and press-ups. Because I can’t even begin to explain how incredible that sunset was tonight. If Pachamama blesses everywhere in South America, as I’ve witnessed over the past eight months, the Pantanal, at the heart of it all, is surely the place she must call home — the place she keeps her rocking chair and comfy slippers and comes to have a chuckle at tourists screaming in an insect blizzard.

  08/03

  Lucky escapes and new beginnings …

  So, I was going to leave you there, my friends, at the very centre of this fascinating continent, humbled and enchanted once again not by another South American city, but by the vast expanse of nothing and everything in between.

  I was going to leave you there, high on natural wonders with yet more travel ahead to God-knows-where-exactly … but I should probably tell you what happened on the truck ride back to Cuzco at the end of our intrepid Dragoman expedition.

  We were trundling up the road with steep cliffs and deep valleys on either side when we saw a white car parked, a blue pick-up truck on its side in a ditch and a motorbike in the middle of the road. I caught a glimpse of a man standing between the motorbike and the car, leaning in towards the car window. I thought there had been an accident. Daniele, our Spanish-speaking driver, was at the wheel and he pulled to a stop, at which point we heard a gunshot. Holy shit! My heart literally slammed into my ribs and I almost puked. The guy was so close-range to the car, there’s no doubt whoever was in that car had just been murdered in the middle of the road.

  ‘Guys, get down,’ Dave told us then from his place in the passenger seat up front. He didn’t have to tell us twice. All fifteen of us threw ourselves to the floor just as I caught sight of both our drivers throwing their arms in the air. I was huddled under a table with two other girls, looking at Russ under the table opposite, fully expecting the man with the gun to get on the truck. I’ve never been so terrified in my life — I thought that was it, quite frankly. Everyone’s face was drained of colour, in spite of our tans and insect bites.

  ‘Tranquilo, tranquilo,’ I heard Daniele say then, as whoever it was with the gun approached him. I later found out it’d been one of three guys all wearing balaclavas. Another shot went off and I hugged my knees on the filthy truck floor, not caring about the mud, the smelly shoes, or the possibility of stray tarantulas on board. Every part of me was trembling. Stef, who’d been asleep with her iPod on, woke up suddenly and was yanked to the floor by Russ before she knew what was going on. Daniele was speaking hurriedly in Spanish at the front. I later learned that the people who’d been in the upturned pick-up truck were lying on the road and one had been shot in the knees. The white car had stopped to help and, unfortunately, the driver had been shot at point blank, no doubt as a result of having seen too much.

  I have no idea what it was all about, or how someone on our truck wasn’t shot at, too, but apparently, while the shooter was pointing his gun at us and urging Dave and Daniele to look away, somehow Daniele found the presence of mind to calmly ask if they could just let us pass like nothing had happened. The guys with the guns were obviously panicked at having already shot so many people, and probably didn’t want to risk doing anything else, although I guess they could have got on board and taken our valuables, if they’d wanted.

  I think Daniele staying calm saved our lives, or at least stopped us getting robbed. Eventually we were allowed to drive off untouched and unhurt, thank God, although further up the road at a tiny village we saw another white car parked by the road with at least fifty people crowded around it. A bullet hole was clearly visible in the windscreen but we never saw any police about as we high-tailed it as fast as we could to Cuzco, without stopping.

  I’ve heard worse stories than this over the past eight months — people who’ve been held at gunpoint on the street, kidnapped, mugged, stripped, raped. You never think anything like that is going to happen to you. But the truth is, this is the real world. Calling a ‘path’ The Gringo Trail doesn’t necessarily make it safe. Shit happens when you grow complacent, and I guess there’s a lesson in that for all of us.

  There is so much more to see of this daunting continent, so many places I didn’t go, but I guess in going with the flow I’ve still seen so much more than I ever dreamed I’d see, good and bad. I, along with numerous other people who’ve crossed my path, have been floored by the wonders of the world and changed irrevocably by standing small in the face of so many miracles. The mountains, the sweeping grassy plains, the sequined southern skies at night. The jungles, the beaches, the wetlands, deserts, scrub and snow, each setting as different and inspiring as the passionate, proud people who inhabit them all.

  It’s kind of hard to decide which specific part of this trip has been my favourite, or my least favourite. In retrospect everything looks different and my eyes have been opened to so many new things. You can’t help but grow and expand spiritually (as well as width ways) when you’re travelling out here and, if I’m honest, I feel that this experience has shaped me as a person more than living in Bali last year ever did.

  Opening my mind always seemed like something I was trying to learn how to do. But somehow, in exploring South America, I’ve found it has come naturally. A connection with nature, and to something else. To the divine perhaps, at times? Even without ayahuasca running through my bloodstream, I can still appreciate now how we’re nothing but energy, flowing like rivers from mountains into the fields of other people. This continent is as beautiful as it is frightening, as vast as it is part of a ridiculously small world (as exhibited when you meet a friend from home in the middle of Machu Picchu).

  Excitingly, it looks as though The Crab and I are meeting up again when this truck reaches Peru, and there’s talk of us travelling northern Chile together once The Lion goes home to work on new projects … a thought that makes me smile even when my head is bouncing off the window on a dirt road and Russ is acting like a woman on his period. I’m ready to go out and face the future, whatever that might be. All I know is that, when it comes to travelling, there’s no such thing as going the wrong way. Every time I’ve thought I’ve made a bad decision, I’ve made a new connection that has ultimately led to something else.

  Of course, I’ve also learned to be extremely careful with earplug insertions, to never put a date on the expected arrival of extraterrestrials, and to never, ever fall for a Latin American man. Especially not one who lives in the Ecuadorean jungle, plucks bats from thin air and doesn’t even have a Facebook account.

  Epilogue

  Poor Eduardo, we thought, as The Crab steered the car over the rocky salt flats back towards San Pedro. Our fabulous Chilean guide had been pointing out the natural habitat of a pretty pink flamingo when he tripped over a concrete bollard in the viewing area and dislocated his shoulder, so instead of learning more about the harsh desert environment, we were speeding through it on the way to the hospital. Poor, poor Eduardo.

  After working our way down from Cuzco, back to Arequipa and into Chile’s northernmost city, Arica, The Crab and I had headed south via Iquique – a really pretty coastal spot (although the sea was way too cold for swimming) – to spend a few amazing days in beautiful Valparaiso. Imagine a city by the sea that looks a
s if first a rainbow was splashed all over it, then a crack team of graffiti artists armed with spray cans hit it. Valparaiso is crazy cool and expensive.

  After dining there on some of the most ludicrously priced food and wine I’d had in South America, we’d found ourselves in the harsh, cowboy town of San Pedro in the Atacama Desert, where we’d taken Eduardo up on his offer of a tour – and that didn’t end well, obviously. After depositing him in the emergency ward we headed back to the Aatacamadventure Wellness & Ecolodge, a sandy, windswept resort consisting of a few rooms and a hot tub in the middle of nowhere. This place offers quite possibly the most rustic desert experience you could ask for outside of living in a Bedouin tent and plodding around on a camel.

  We also stayed a few ‘romantic’ nights at the ridiculously chic Alto Atacama Desert Lodge & Spa, which spoilt us rotten; something The Crab and I felt we deserved after time spent in a hideous granny flat back in Arica, which was so much worse than anywhere else I’ve ever stayed I’m struggling to describe it. We couldn’t even get into that place without ringing a bell and waiting ten minutes for a decrepit old woman to hobble down the stairs and open the door.

  Perhaps we should have booked somewhere in advance in Arica, but The Crab and I have kind of been winging this whole thing, and we’re not the best-organised people, we’re discovering. I think travelling alone makes me get off my arse and get things sorted but when you have a travel buddy somehow it’s easier to leave more to chance. Sometimes that can be amazing: you can have such unprecedented adventures, like the time we smoked some local produce (ahem) with a guy we met on a beach in Arica and ended up first in a skateboarding park attempting Spanish with his teenage friends, then back in the dreaded granny flat talking to dead people. (Don’t ask.) But most times you really should prepare.

  I’ve been travelling with The Crab for a few weeks now, but I have to say nothing tests a friendship like spending twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week with someone. He’s become my best friend, husband, wingman, sidekick, all in one go with no room for ‘gradually getting to know each other’ whatsoever, but that’s travelling, I guess. It’s all or nothing on the road when you team up. You’re going to see each other at your best and worst, when you’re hungover, sick to the stomach, sunburnt and grouchy … but to compensate, you’re going to have the time of your goddamn life and you’re never going to forget any of the eye-opening things you’ll witness together.

  I thought the stars in the Galapagos were incredible, but the Atacama Desert is known for being one of the best places for stargazing in the world and it didn’t disappoint. A trip to the observatory the other night had us standing inside a huge glass dome, which moved around us like some kind of space pod, allowing us to see the craters on the moon in such close up clarity it felt as if I could touch them.

  I’ve never actually travelled with a guy before, but we get along surprisingly well. I guess we wouldn’t keep going if we didn’t. Plus it’s really great to be stargazing and desert trekking with someone of the male species. Not only do I have someone who can appreciate the wonders of the world with me, but he can also help carry my bags, ward off creepy local men, apply sunscreen to my back and keep me on the ball when it comes to shaving my legs.

  We still have two more months to go, as we’re planning to carry on to Santiago and then back to southeast Asia to see some of Thailand, Vietnam, Bali (The Crab has never been) and Japan. Who knows what the future holds after that, but I guess the point of this epilogue is to show that the journey never ends; it just goes on as you bust more doors down and open yourself up to opportunities. I never thought I’d end this South American trip by travelling even further with an American guy, but then a year ago I never thought I’d be in South America at all.

  Actually, the more I hear about the US from The Crab, the more I want to go back there. I lived there once, from 2001 to 2003, and I never quite got it out of my system. If we’re supposed to meet people for a reason, perhaps one of the reasons I met The Crab was to kick-start another process; to take me back to where it all began; to where I first started believing in lands of opportunity?

  We are changing each other day by day, second by second and, even when it seems like there isn’t a plan, things are falling into place, just as if everything was planned all along.

  For now, though, being in the moment is all that matters. I’m just going to enjoy looking up at the stars some more, and wishing on one or two that Eduardo’s OK in his hospital bed.

  Aww.

  Poor Eduardo.

  About the Author

  Becky Wicks is the author of two previous humorous travel memoirs, Burqalicious: The Dubai Diaries and Balilicious: The Bali Diaries. She’s been gallivanting around the world since graduating Lincoln Uni in 2001 and has lived and worked in London, New York, Dubai, Sydney and Indonesia. To earn a living she’s sold her soul to the advertising industry, written credit card copy for banks that wouldn’t give her a credit card, been a morning radio show sidekick and sold jello shots in Manhattan. She’s currently Bali-based, where she’s freelancing, working on fiction, and awaiting the next adventure. Becky blogs most days on travel and random ridiculousness at www.beckywicks.com. Twitter: bex_wicks

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  First published in Australia in 2013

  This edition published in 2013

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  harpercollins.com.au

  Copyright © Rebecca Wicks 2013

  The right of Rebecca Wicks to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright.Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Wicks, Rebecca.

  Latinalicious : the South America diaries / Becky Wicks.

  ISBN: 978 0 7322 9641 4 (pbk.)

  ISBN: 978 1 7430 9829 5 (epub)

  Wicks, Rebecca – Anecdotes.

  Women travelers – South America – Description and travel.

  910.4

  Photographs by Rebecca Wicks

  Cover and internal design by Natalie Winter

  Map by www.ianfaulknerillustrator.com