360 Degrees Longitude

by John Higham

  A few moments later the Unimog roared to life. I asked Patrick what happened. Ciprián, our Latin MacGyver, repaired a vacuum leak with a peanut from an Armageddon Pill and a bit of electrical tape. Jordan, and to a lesser extent Katrina, were genuinely sad that we wouldn’t be spending the night in the Unimog.

  It was oh-dark-thirty when we rolled into Doña Lupe’s inn. Of course Doña Lupe had no idea we were coming, but when you have an inn at the edge of the Salar, you learn how to throw open the doors and get something good to eat on the table in nothing flat.

  Doña Lupe was a large, grandmotherly sort dressed in a traditional brightly woven skirt and bowler hat. As soon as she saw us pull in she came running out of her one-room adobe house to welcome us. It was clear from the warm greetings between Ciprián, Patrick, and Doña Lupe that they all knew one another, and held each other in high regard. But when our family of four came tumbling out of the back of the Unimog, Doña Lupe gave Patrick and Ciprián a withering look and started to scold them like school boys.

  Doña Lupe spoke to Ciprián in Quechua, and although we didn’t understand a single word, the message was pretty clear. She spoke rapidly in a scolding voice as she pointed first to the salt flats, and then to the pitch-black sky, and then to our children. When she was finished berating Ciprián for endangering two young children, she gestured imperiously for all of us to follow her inside.

  The Spanish title “doña” is an honorific, bestowed only upon those few who, after a number of years, have attained a certain stature within their communities. Doña Lupe had the only inn in town, the largest fields of quinoa (the grain grown high in the Andes Mountains), and most importantly, a herd of nearly a hundred llamas. It was clear from her manner that she was used to being obeyed.

  Doña Lupe immediately took the children under her wing and sat them in front of the warm wood-burning stove. Pulling pots and cooking utensils from the kitchen shelves, she muttered to herself in Spanish, shooting Patrick a “look” from time to time, as I picked up a few of her Spanish words such as “children” and “hungry.”

  I thought about stepping in and coming to Patrick’s rescue and telling Doña Lupe that we had a great dinner consisting of peanut M&M’s, but then I thought it was best to play the part of “victim” rather than “perpetrator.”

  Doña Lupe was preparing a meal of quinoa soup, which smelled divine, but we decided that given the late hour Jordan was in no condition to try something new. September quickly went to the Unimog and retrieved the last box of macaroni and cheese that we had purchased at Kinokuniya in Kamakura, Japan many weeks prior. September handed it to Doña Lupe.

  Doña Lupe looked at the box as if it had just arrived special delivery from Jupiter and turned it over and over as if by so doing it would reveal its secret. September tried to take over and explain what it was and how to make it. Doña Lupe waved September off with her hand and proceeded to take the box and dump the entire contents, cheese sauce and all, into a pot of boiling water, and that was that. What came out some minutes later was a bit of a watery mess, but Jordan was so sleepy he didn’t notice.

  • • •

  Doña Lupe had built her first guestroom more than 25 years ago and has been adding on ever since. In the tiny village of Jirira, she had a monopoly on the tourism industry, but at $1.25 per person, she didn’t seem to be interested in capitalizing on it. Her inn was very basic: Its few rooms were constructed of adobe with ceiling joists made of dried cactus. Despite being made out of dirt, it was incredibly spotless.

  The next morning Ciprián was once again under the hood; the entire engine block looked like a giant salt lick. He was taking apart all of the electrical connections and cleaning them, then sealing them with grease in preparation for crossing the Salar.

  Our $1.25 per person included a hearty breakfast of bread and scrambled eggs. When we were nearly finished eating, Doña Lupe brought in cups of tea made from coca leaves. I personally had no issues with drinking coca tea; without an alkaloid catalyst, the drug is benign. Katrina was another matter; to her, moral issues are black and white. To drink coca tea would be a crime against humanity, much like buying a black market DVD—and I had already made that mistake. I had had a discussion about coca tea with her previously, but as every parent knows, sometimes you have to choose your battles. I was in the uncomfortable position of declining the coca tea that was offered.

  “No, gracias,” I replied meekly.

  Doña Lupe gave me a surprised, quizzical look. Perhaps we had not understood. She said in Spanish, “I have brought you some coca tea to drink after your breakfast.” I could actually understand what she was saying. It was a bit of a language breakthrough.

  I didn’t have nearly the Spanish vocabulary to explain myself, so I simply flashed my biggest thank you (but no thank you) smile and repeated myself.

  She put her hands on her hips, frowned pointedly, and proceeded to clearly enunciate three distinct syllables in Spanish, as if talking to a small child.

  “CO-CA TÉ!”

  I answered again, “No, gracias. Solo agua, por favor.”

  Doña Lupe’s expression was a mixture of surprise and indignation. Surely we were imbeciles in need of a translator.

  She marched away, muttering to herself, returning a few moments later with Patrick to interpret. He explained that coca tea is a standard breakfast drink in these parts. By Doña Lupe’s audible “hmmph!” you would think she was Bill Gates trying to give away all his money, but these stupid people just wouldn’t take it.

  John’s Journal, March 6

  Bolivia is dirt poor. Then again, so were Cambodia and Tanzania. Somehow, this is different—“content in spite of poverty” is how I would describe it. Bolivia’s poverty is a legacy of the Spanish explorations. The saying here is that Bolivians had the cow, and Bolivians milked the cow, but the Spaniards got all the milk.

  In the 16th century Potosi, Bolivia was the richest city in the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish were mining the silver from the surrounding mountains to pay debts related to their infamous inquisitions. Initially Catholic influence forbade the natives from chewing the coca leaf, but when they realized that production in the mines fell, it was once again permitted. This was about 50 years before Jamestown was first settled in Virginia. Potosi has since gone bust, the riches having been drained away centuries ago.

  We were still a long way from the Chilean border. Fortunately, after Ciprián had repaired the Unimog that morning at Doña Lupe’s inn, it ran flawlessly. Bolivia is as big as the state of Texas and the parts we were now entering were some of the most remote and desolate on the planet. It is one of the reasons Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid chose to try to hide here.

  That day we crossed the entire Salar de Uyuni without incident, and the next day we pulled into the town of San Cristóbal. I pointed out the window and said, “It looks like we fell out of Bolivia and into a Norman Rockwell painting.” Gone were the adobe houses and in their place were modern, yet simple homes that looked as if they had come right out of the American Heartland. We pulled into a café for breakfast; it seemed that it had been airlifted from Route 66.

  Patrick explained the recent history. “San Cristóbal started out as a small village seventeen kilometers from this place. The 350 villagers made a living from growing quinoa and raising llamas, and the village was identical to every other in this region, except for one distinguishing feature: It was the location of a small, historic stone church, built in the late 1600s.” Patrick gestured toward the church.

  San Cristóbal may have once been seventeen kilometers away, but it was certainly right there at the moment. Patrick continued. “The church contains intricate carvings in its interior and elaborate frescoes painted on its plastered walls, and is much beloved by the people of the region roundabout.”

  A few years ago a Canadian mining company had been doing some exploration in the area, and discovered some astoundingly large deposits of silver. The company was delighted and wanted
to start mining the silver, but the problem was, the silver was underneath the village of San Cristóbal. So the Canadian company met with the village leaders. Would the residents mind moving the village?

  The end result was an entirely new village seventeen kilometers away, complete with a school, a small hospital, and a sports center. The company built modern houses for the villagers, and then deeded the land and houses to them so that they would have full ownership of the new property. Most significantly, the company hired Italian art experts to move the historic church stone for stone to its new home. Even the frescoes that were painted on the plaster walls were preserved.

  The mining company’s investment in San Cristóbal gives the village a strong contrast to other communities of the Altiplano, as it has paved roads, electricity, modern communications, and an actual sewer system. Yet, as we walked through town, I noted that behind many of the new, modern homes, there were traditional adobe mud dwellings in the backyard. “Patrick,” I asked, “what gives with the in-laws’ quarters?”

  “Most people don’t like the modern homes as they are too cold. They like the convenience of living in one room, where the cook-stove or open fire warms the entire house.”

  Aha. Residents were eschewing their brand-new company-supplied homes in droves. This was an epiphany—not everyone wants to live like we do! From our brief experience in Doña Lupe’s kitchen, we knew that a wood-burning stove warms an adobe house smartly. The thick mud walls hold the heat in, ensuring a nice environment, even through the cold nights. I had naïvely thought that everyone was envious of the North American lifestyle and would jump at the chance to trade places with me. Surprise!

  • • •

  The roads had much improved since we crossed the Salar, but they were still dirt. I could tell September was thinking about the town of San Cristóbal, which we had just left. “Interesting place,” I commented. “All nice and shiny.”

  “I can’t help but wonder what it will look like in 20 years,” September replied. “Who ‘owns’ the infrastructure? Patrick said that the citizens own the houses. But what about the sewer, or the power lines, or the roads? Does the mining company own them? If so, what happens when they eventually leave? If not, who maintains the infrastructure?”

  I had been wondering about similar issues. Some of the social problems we had witnessed in our travels and how they varied from country to country kept me awake at night. Something clicked in my head, but I was uneasy saying it, because once said, I couldn’t take it back.

  “I can’t help but wonder if that’s one of the problems we saw in Tanzania. As long as the colonists were there, the infrastructure was in fair shape. When they left, the roads and rail lines and power grid disintegrated. Perhaps because the outgoing government didn’t set up a system of maintenance and the incoming government didn’t know how to act until it was too late.”

  September looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, “I don’t know. Sounds too simple. Complex social problems are never so simple that they can be wrapped up in a nice little packaged description.”

  “True enough.”

  • • •

  We had been climbing slowly ever since we had left La Paz five days earlier. As we reached the continental divide we peaked at 4,980 meters (16,340 feet). The high Andes were dry, barren, and bitter cold—nothing to break up the monotony of dirt and rocks as far as the eye could reach—no trees, no vegetation. Zip.

  www.360degreeslongitude.com/concept3d/360degreeslongitude.kmz

  Mars on Earth. The stark landscape reminded me of the Martian crater Gusev that, thanks to the NASA rover Spirit, had been on the front page of every newspaper years earlier. Then Patrick told us, “NASA comes down here every so often doing long-term habitation tests.”

  Recalling the scene from Capricorn One, I then started to scan the horizon to see OJ. They wouldn’t do that, would they … ?

  After crossing the continental divide and performing the border ritual into Chile, we found that the roads became paved and descended sharply. Within an hour we arrived at our destination of San Pedro de Atacama. We had moved from dry and bitter cold to dry and unbearable heat in less than an hour.

  We had successfully made it over the Andes mountains. It was Ciprián, by his sheer grit, who had gotten us there, and September’s paranoia that had kept us fed. The groceries Patrick had purchased lay virtually untouched because when we really needed them, there was no way to cook them.

  However, the vision that had inspired the trek to begin with was pure Patrick. If he were my investment banker, I would give him my life savings. In spite of his unorthodox methods, or perhaps because of them, with Patrick as our guide we had seen some of the planet’s most fantastic scenery and made it out of one or two rather harrowing situations. Nothing compares to the Salar when it is covered with a few inches of water. It is desolate and beautiful and there isn’t any other place on earth quite like it. And I wouldn’t have had the events unfold any other way.

  • • •

  We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, on the eve of our 15th wedding anniversary, sharing the four bunk beds in the room of our hostel with our two children. San Pedro is a backpacker’s paradise on the edge of the Atacama desert with lots of attractions and activities, most of which were similar to what we had already seen and done with Patrick in Bolivia. We spent our time in San Pedro making arrangements to travel south and debating if it was hotter here or in Dubai.

  The following day, Katrina asked, “You guys aren’t going to do anything for your anniversary?!”

  “We can’t just get a babysitter,” I answered.

  “We don’t need a babysitter!” Jordan said defensively.

  “No, I suppose you don’t. But Mom and I couldn’t just leave you and Katrina alone while we celebrated.”

  “You’re only allowed to leave us alone when doing boring stuff like laundry. You aren’t allowed to leave us alone to celebrate,” Katrina said with a tone that reminded me that the teenage years would soon be upon us. “We do everything together!”

  “Just about everything,” September agreed. “But we just had a big adventure in the Unimog, didn’t we? That was our anniversary celebration. What we need is to get some laundry done and make arrangements for moving on.”

  “How about that Unimog adventure?” I asked. “You guys didn’t seem too worried, but you know if it wasn’t for Ciprián, we might still be in the Salar.”

  “Why worry?” Katrina responded. “We could have slept in the Unimog, and we had enough clothes to keep us warm.”

  “But we didn’t have much food,” I said.

  “How about all those groceries Patrick had that we couldn’t cook?” Katrina asked. “We could have eaten them uncooked. Something always works out.”

  “We didn’t need Patrick’s boring old food!” Jordan exclaimed. “We had Armageddon Pills! We should be sure we take Armageddon Pills with us wherever we go.”

  Months earlier when we were cycling in Europe, there was almost always a fair amount of anxiety about finding a campground every night. Now it seemed all we needed was a pack of M&M’s to remind us that all we really need is something to eat, something to wear, and somewhere to sleep. We were half a world away from Europe, but it was pretty clear we had come much farther than that.

  • • •

  “Did you get the bus tickets?” I asked.

  “Yes. It’s 23 hours to get there,” September replied.

  “23 hours! Holy cow!”

  “That’s just to Santiago. Puerto Montt is another 17. We have reservations in business class.”

  “Business class? Really?”

  “Sort of,” September explained. “It’s referred to as ‘Salon-Cama,’ but they let me sit in one of the seats and it feels just like business class.”

  With Chile being a Twiggy-shaped sort of country, the north/south distances from various points on the map are huge. The country is 2,700 miles from top to bottom, and since we wanted to
make it to the southern tip of South America, we’d have to travel just about every inch in between.

  We had been on long bus rides before, but nothing like this. When we first stepped on board I was impressed. The accommodations were better than business class on an international flight. The kids immediately reclined their seats all the way back and started using the seat-back as a slide. I smiled at our neighbors and pretended I didn’t know who the kids were. It would be a longer ride for some than for others.

  24.

  Roll, Puke, and Yaw

  March 12–April 9

  Chile/Argentina

  We didn’t know it when we arrived, but Puerto Montt, a port city in central Chile, was to be a place where Katrina would cross a big threshold from being a little girl to being, well, not so little anymore. She got her ears pierced.

  Katrina claims no interest in such things; at least that’s the story that she offered to her parents. By comparison, Katrina’s friend back home had been begging to have her ears pierced since she was old enough to form a complete sentence. Much to the chagrin of said friend, her parents actually liked having a little girl and hoped to keep her from growing up too fast. There would be no ear piercing until her twelfth birthday, which would fall after we returned home.

  In a pact of solidarity, Katrina and her friend decided that they would have their ears pierced simultaneously. I had been vaguely aware of this, in the same sort of way that I am vaguely aware that walruses mate.

  That was until an e-mail showed up in my inbox from Katrina’s friend, asking me to please pass along a message to Katrina that her parents would now allow her to get her ears pierced, so that meant Katrina could, too. I was confused. Had Katrina’s friend had her birthday moved? I thought this ear piercing thing was on schedule for her twelfth birthday, still several months away.