The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure

by Rachel Friedman

  I’m coughed up at the Tilcara bus station, in front of a small ticket booth and groups of patiently waiting families who stare straight ahead. There is no shuffling about or straining, like back home. No one looks at her watch or complains about the deplorable conditions of travel these days. It doesn’t seem like they are waiting for anything particular to happen—or not happen—they’re just waiting out the day. At one point a black car pulls up and five people cram themselves into the backseat, defying all laws of physics.

  I remove my backpack from beneath the bus. Even though there are lots of bags below, mine is the only one that looks like it’s been rolled around in flour. It looks so grimy and abused that I consider the possibility that maybe it somehow fell out and has been dragging behind the bus for the last few hours. I swat at it, then strap it on my back, wheezing and light-headed, and consult my map. As the bus pulls away, the wheels ignite a thick cloud of dust that blows all over me.

  Disoriented and coughing, I careen from side to side like a character in some romantic comedy about to drop a four-tiered wedding cake that has improbably wound up in her arms. I manage to remain upright, barely. I look back at the crowd, ready to make eye contact to show them that all is okay and have a group laugh over my gracelessness. I might even spin one finger around at the side of my temple, the international sign for crazy, and mouth, “Loca Americana!” But no one meets my gaze, making me now actually feel a little nuts. A lone little girl is giggling, a tiny hand covering a small mouth that is not emitting any sound. When she notices me smiling back, she buries her face shyly in her mother’s skirt.

  “Hostel Malka?” I ask the agent in the ticket booth. Tilcara is so tiny that my guidebook doesn’t offer a map of the city center, and now that I’m here, I realize how silly it was to assume there might be tourist maps on offer or even a waiting cab. The sun is setting quickly, and I have no idea where to go. The agent answers me in Spanish no longer draped in an Italian accent, and I don’t understand a word. “¿Qúe?” I say helplessly.

  He points toward a desolate road behind me, the kind that might plausibly lead into town or some place that is decidedly not town. But his tired gesture is all I’ve got, and my head is starting to throb. I feel like the moisture has been wrung out of me, like I need not only a long, cool drink of water but also to submerge my entire body in liquid. I’ll have to trust the directions. I’m starting to realize my utter dependence on strangers here in South America.

  After a short walk, I enter what looks like the city center. I’m amazed at the unexpected spurts of joy I feel in South America at something as simple as ending up in the right place. Tiny accomplishments fill each day: finding my way to a hostel, eating something delicious that my stomach doesn’t reject three hours later, successfully conversing with a local using an eclectic set of nouns, verbs, and charade-like hand gestures.

  Adobe houses and stone walls line the street. A few places have signs hanging outside, as if they might be shops, but the doors are all closed except one. It leads to a small white room that is the tourist bureau. Inside, I am profusely welcomed by a diminutive, friendly man with the look of someone who has not had a visitor in a long time. He leads me to the large map of Tilcara that covers the back wall, traces my route with his finger, then taps three points on the map—“museo, pucará, iglesia.” Words I know. Museum; pucará is the pre-Hispanic hilltop fortress I’ve just read about in my guidebook; church. He’s showing me the tourist attractions.

  My guide walks me to the edge of the road to point me in the direction of my hostel, then sends me off with an encouraging nod. I cut directly through the center of a plaza filled with vendors, an oasis of green grass and plump trees resembling old photos I’ve seen of 1970s San Francisco street markets. Some of the women are older and have the darker skin and hair of Andean peoples, but there are also young people with dreadlocks and tie-dyed T-shirts who look like they just finished touring with the Grateful Dead. Many of them are knitting or painting in their stalls. Few people seem to be shopping, though; there are far more sellers than buyers.

  At the other end of the plaza, I take a left onto a deserted street minus a Scraps-scrawny dog who limps hopefully after me. It’s as if all the color in Tilcara has been drained into the center plaza, leaving the surrounding houses pale and dusty. Row after row of faded pink, white, and beige little abodes populate the quiet street that ends in a short but steep ascent up to my hostel. I huff and pant. I suck in big, greedy mouthfuls of thin air. Halfway up the hill, I drop my pack onto the dirt and collapse atop it. Just sitting there is an effort. It feels like a weight is pressing down on my chest; a hand is squeezing my throbbing lungs.

  By the time I reach my room, my burgeoning headache is so overpowering that I have to lie down. The top bunk is free, although I would have chosen a lower one this time because the mattress is only a few inches from the ceiling. I slither across the covers, scraping my shoulder on the wall. I cover my face with a sweatshirt and hum softly, trying not to consider whether I am having an aneurysm.

  When I open my eyes a few minutes later, there is another person in the room. For some reason, the hostel has decided to put two single beds in this room, along with one bunk bed, so he is sitting comfortably upright across from me, reading a book.

  “Oh, hi,” I say.

  “Hi to you,” he says.

  I imagine how I must have looked in my coffin/bed, prostrate and humming. Assuming he might understandably be concerned about sleeping in the same room as a crazy person, I attempt an explanation. “I’m Rachel. I don’t normally lie down in the middle of the day and sing, but I have this terrible headache.”

  He grins deeply, three layers of smile lines bunching outward toward each ear. He looks strikingly like the Grinch who stole Christmas. He’s not green, and he isn’t bad-looking either, but his wide face is definitively grooved and sly.

  “I’m Hans,” he says, clearly more interested in whatever he is reading. Then he glances up, as if he’s decided that I deserve a few more minutes of his time. “If you have this headache, it could be from the height. You should get some coca from the woman who runs the hostel.”

  “Thanks,” I say gratefully, realizing that I am being introduced to altitude sickness at the rather wimpy height of 2,461 meters (about eight thousand feet). I walk to the main office cradling my throbbing head.

  Inside is a bookcase with a “two-for-one” sign. This is often how the book-bartering system works in hostels, sometimes insisting on a trade of three or even four books for a measly one in return, but I’m in too much pain to be annoyed about it. I ring a bell. The owner appears, and I point to my temple and explain my situation through gritted teeth.

  “Hola. Estoy enferma. Aquí. Por favor.” This impressive linguistic feat translates as: “Hi. I’m sick. Here. Please.”

  “You need coca,” she pronounces. She pats my shoulder and hands me a bagful of green leaves. I look around nervously. Since it doesn’t look like a setup (not that I have any real idea what a setup looks like, other than from watching cop shows on TV), I let her steer me toward the kitchen, where I am instructed to put the leaves in hot water. “Drink,” she commands. “All of it.”

  Half-blind, I stumble back across the grounds. In a heap on the hallway floor, I sip my tea, and within minutes my headache vanishes completely. With it, a heavy fog lifts from my brain and body—similar to the effect of my morning cup of coffee. I can breathe again. I marvel at the magical green dregs at the bottom of my cup.

  I assumed I had misheard Hans when he suggested the coca. I expected to be handed some Tylenol or laughed at and told no one gets sick at this piddling altitude. But coca leaves really exist. They jump from the description in my guidebook into my hands. Historically, the relationship between Andean people and coca was a straightforward one. It’s presently complicated by the creation of cocaine, whose biggest customer is the United States, but coca leaves have been consumed by South Americans for thousands of years. They c
ombat altitude sickness, increase blood circulation (crucial at heights), and lower cholesterol. They were once traded as currency and are still used in social exchanges. Two men might greet each other by offering their coca pouches, exchanging leaves as a gesture of goodwill.

  Once I feel well enough, I walk back down the hill to investigate Tilcara. The whole place is still eerily deserted. Even the plaza vendors have packed up and left for the day. I plot out the route to the Pucará ruins but am diverted by the sound of horns and drums growing louder and then the sudden sight of what must be the entire absent town parading down the street. In the center of the crowd, several young men in bright red garb are dancing and tossing around what looks like a giant doll made of cornhusks. I stand near the back of the revelers, hoping to remain unnoticed, but two young boys instantly swoop down on me as I’m sneaking a photograph of the foreign scene. I recoil in confusion, assuming they are after my camera. It is only when they are right up against me that I am embarrassed to realize all they are interested in is the package of cookies I’m holding. They widen their eyes and point shyly to the bag. I hand it over. Without another word, they fly from me, and lacking further allure, I sink into the background. I follow the procession as it winds back to the center of town, then part ways near my hostel. Pucará will have to wait until tomorrow.

  When I ask the hostel owner what I’ve witnessed, she tells me the party is part of the local Carnival festivities. Tilcara’s festival lasts nine days and is dedicated to il diablo—the devil. The doll bandied about was a devil effigy, which is buried the rest of the year in a rocky lair; the boys in red dressed as devils are the envied leaders of the procession.

  Back at the hostel, my headache returns with a vengeance, so I pour myself more coca tea and take a seat at the stone table outside the dorm rooms. Two children from an expiring barbecue a few feet away approach and ask my name. Where am I from? How old am I? Their questions stretch the limits of my novice Spanish, but they seem happy enough to endure replies with no prepositions or conjunctions. After a few minutes, I run out of words, so they run back to their family, undoubtedly announcing that they have just had a conversation with a very simple girl.

  After that, I sit in silence and watch Tilcara fade into darkness. I feel palpably remote, lost in the landscape. I want to be lost in it. Like I did in Buenos Aires, I start imagining my Tilcara life. I could learn how to knit and take up a stall in the square. Maybe the hostel would let me stay on in exchange for some sort of labor. More and more, quicker and quicker, the places I travel draw me in like a spell.

  I haven’t emailed Erica since I arrived in South America, and she feels even farther away now than she did when I was in Australia. Her life and mine, so intimately intertwined at college, feel like they’ve started down two diverging paths. Watching the sun set behind the Andes has no quantifiable value, like my friends’ burgeoning careers, but I know that I am gaining something that is as important. I don’t know how to define this period of my life, but I don’t know how to define myself at the moment, either. I’m no longer a student. I’m nobody’s employee or girlfriend. Thankfully, I still have my parents, but I’m no longer defined in relationship to them, either. I’m in a space that defies these traditional categories, one I have carved out that is just for me.

  Hans is in the kitchen stirring rice when I come indoors. A wispy-haired girl hovers beside him, intently observing him add spices. She is so enthralled that she doesn’t notice me until Hans turns to say hello.

  “Would you like some rice?” he asks me. “We are about to eat.”

  The girl’s smile vanishes. Her eyes are daggers, and when I shake her hand, it’s vampire-cold. I have to say I’m intrigued, since before this moment no one has ever despised me so wholeheartedly so immediately. It’s easy to tell her iciness revolves around Hans and the meant-to-be romantic dinner I have interrupted. I glance at my pathetic packet of soup and decide to take my chances with my new nemesis because the smells coming from that pot are way more delectable than anything I have a shot at concocting.

  Cassie is Australian, so I try to impress her by revealing that I’m on my way to meet an Australian friend, as if to say: “See, we’re not so different. You’re Australian, and I have an Australian friend. And I’m not trying to steal the Grinch—just his rice, which I think we both agree looks delicious.” It does not appear to have any tenderizing effect on her, so I shift tactics. “How long have you two been traveling?”

  This gives her the chance to tell me about their recent romance, which cheers her up considerably. I learn that Hans is from Switzerland, the French-speaking part. He’s a true vagabond, returning home only in the winter tourist season to work and save money to spend the second half of the year traveling abroad. He has no interest in a career. His lifelong pursuit is seeing the world, and he has no intention of slowing down until he has ingested all of it. He is in his early thirties, and Cassie is a few years younger. She has taken work leave to travel for five months, and she tells us how much she misses Melbourne, looking longingly at Hans. He nods thoughtfully. “I’ve been there,” he says, and I can tell he’s crossing it off his mental map, though Cassie’s sigh indicates a different interpretation. I pull out my ultimate bonding card and tell Cassie that I’ve just come from four months living and working in Australia, and she becomes almost tolerant of me.

  “Are you crossing the border alone?” Hans asks as I’m drying the dishes.

  “Yeah.”

  He frowns. “This is not a good idea.”

  He doesn’t elaborate, but in Salta I did hear some rumors about corrupt Bolivian officials who bribe and harass.

  “We’re crossing tomorrow to Tupiza,” he says, but it is Cassie, in a miraculous change of heart, who extends the offer for me to travel with them into Bolivia. It means missing the Pucará ruins, but I gratefully accept their invitation. We head back to our shared room, where I knock myself nearly unconscious climbing into my bunk and drift happily to sleep.

  We rise at five A.M., load our packs, and walk off into the still-dark Tilcara morning. I have learned to like being up before dawn (minus my stressful stint at the Sydney café), whereas in college, I would have scratched your eyes out for even suggesting such a thing. Backpacker me is perky as a blond gym bunny at this hour, though I need my daily dose of caffeine to carry on an intelligible conversation. South American coffee is dark and bitter. It laughs right in the face of yuppie Starbucks brew like some scrappy city kid.

  The morning is so cold I can see my breath, and I know for certain I have not brought proper Andean clothing. Hans’s and Cassie’s backpacks are much bigger than mine. After Hans’s gourmet meal, I have come to think he might have an entire kitchen packed in there. The spices he sprinkled in the rice came from a small pouch that hangs off one side of his pack; off the other, salt and pepper shakers rattle against each other. I pretend we are bandits stealing across the border in the dead of night, and it takes severe willpower not to break out in the Mission: Impossible theme song. When we get to the bus station, the ticket window is shuttered, and I’m a little worried, since Cassie and Hans already have tickets. I don’t yet realize that Andean buses are magical creatures that stretch to fit anyone willing to pay the fare. Although the bus that arrives is barely full and I easily find a seat, there will be many times in the near future when I stand or sit in aisles for hours, bumping and banging against the strangers next to me.

  Hans is afraid of knots. Not of tying them but of untying them. I learn this fact three hours into the four-hour drive to the border. Somehow (and we must have exhausted a wide range of topics before winding up at this one), we find ourselves discussing his unusual fear.

  “I cannot get near them.” He shivers a little. “My skin feels like, ah, bugs are under it.”

  “Crawling,” I say.

  He nods.

  This must be a misunderstanding. I try to recap. “So you can tie knots.” I mime the act, one hand rolling over the other, then pull
ing two pieces of invisible thread away from each other. “But you can’t …”

  “Unknot them. No.”

  “What about your shoes?”

  He’s wearing sandals. His sneakers turn out to have Velcro straps. I think of other things that need tying. “Presents? What about unwrapping presents that have bows?”

  “If the bows are tied, this is not possible.”

  “Did something happen to you?” I ask. I want to crack a joke, maybe throw out some sort of pun about him being knot quite right in the head, but I can’t tell if we have a sense of humor about this slight eccentricity or we’re dealing with some sort of PTSD. Did someone close to him die in a knot-related accident?

  “Nothing that I remember.” He shrugs, then unzips his hefty pack to retrieve his sunglasses. He’s been camping on and off while traveling through South America, so in addition to the usual array of clothes and guidebooks, he has pots and packets of instant soup, a sleeping bag, and a blue tarp. He strikes me as a guy prepared for anything, who fears nothing other than knots and a bland, sedentary existence where he cannot make his way through one foreign country after the next.

  Travel takes hold of some people, like a virus. Carly’s “bug” has been long-nurtured, but mine is just starting to show its strength, which is understandable since I’ve only recently unearthed the traveler within me. I consider all the places Hans has been where I want to go: Greece, Tibet, Russia, Thailand; the list goes on and on. My father has told me that he will “really start to worry” if I am still wandering around in another year. My mom is concerned, too. But right now it feels like a year is not nearly enough time to see everything.

  [17]

  Our heroine boards a crowded and not entirely pleasant-smelling vehicle for Tupiza, alongside her two temporary companions. The threesome is soon joined by two more, and the five begin an excursion both cursed and blessed by fickle Mother Nature, who maketh both thunder and hail, pink flamingos and salt flats.