News from Ted
I spent a lot of my early life very close to Portobello Road, in North Kensington, so I felt a particular attachment to the Spanish port of that name.
This is where Spain counted and loaded its treasure fleets.
An obvious target for pirates and privateers, it was well defended. You can see the canon still lined up below, facing the Caribbean.
April 29th, Monday
I leave for Costa Rica. Very soon one cylinder starts missing. If it gets worse, it seems I may have to turn back. It’s hard to reject the idea. But the missing continues, uncertainly – worst when engine is asked to work harder. Fiddling with the HT lead seems to affect it. Plugs are white. I raise carb needle. That night I get close to border. David (a town) then Concepcion. Decide to go to Volcan. It’s wet but not raining. Volcan is nearly at 3000 metres. All lush but nowhere obvious for tent. At entrance to town are cabañas, $8 a night. Ask a young man where I can go. Eventually he suggests I can sleep in the garage, and tells me where to eat. Have fish, and converse with several Panamanians who are very friendly and interested in my journey. The garage is a porch with pillars. Good for a hammock. The man comes over to talk with me. He’s an evangelist and wants to do me good.
“What a remarkable coincidence,” he says, “that we should meet. If you had arrived a few minutes earlier or later, we would have missed each other.”
He is straining my sense of the miraculous, but he means well. His tracts are in Spanish, distributed free from some US mission.
“Sospendido por un hilo,” is one of them. “Pessada y hallado falta,” is another. [Hanging by a thread. Weighed and found wanting]. Like US advertising slogans, they are translated literally, word for word. Coca-cola – “Chispa de la vida.” [Spark of life] McDonalds – “Su classe de lugar. » [Your kind of place]. They say the translations really don’t work at all. I think this is a very good example of what is really offensive about North American intrusion into South America. Before sleeping I changed a coil on the bike to try and track down the fault. Put foam plastic in hammock against cold.
April 30th
Morning was lovely. Small dog was dashing about the garden, occasionally dashing towards me and then, overcome by nervousness, dashing off again. Standpipe in garden produced milky water. Rode off to highway, then to Routier at Paso Canoas (The frontier).
Not too difficult. About fifteen minutes each side. Then to first town for breakfast – quite a nice place – eggs, rice and meat – two coffees. Rode on and passed a petrol pump. [My principal vice, for I knew I should stop but wanted to change money first, which I should have done at the breakfast town but I was too impatient] and shortly afterwards ran dry.
The bike was burning too much gas and the cylinder was still missing. I got a litre of petrol off a laughing woman and gave her fifty cents for it. It didn’t last me. I stopped some telephone people, and they siphoned half a gallon for me.
The mountain range before San José took me by surprise. I hadn’t expected anything so ambitious – both high and long – very cold air and a lot of cloud/fog. Meanwhile I had changed back to the French plugs and the misfiring ceased. However, the provisional rocker-box plug was failing and I was losing oil over the engine, carb, and gearbox. Also overheating and possibly the two were connected.
Got into San Pedro at 4.30 and it began to rain. Stopped for coffee and watched two girls drinking tea and doing their nails by the window. One was very pretty and they both smiled at me a lot. Should have done something about it, but I didn’t imagine that I would be sleeping next door for two days.
When I came out, found Lee waiting by the bike. He was from Boston, had come down with two others – Richard and Gerry – on two Harley Sportsters and a truck.
[He saw that I’d come halfway round the world]
He invited me to stay. I thought I should try to get to Mark and Sally Beaudoin [friends of friends] but asked if I could come back if necessary.
“Sure,” he said. “See you tonight or tomorrow morning.”
I went on into town and saw the rain clouds ahead. Then o the turnpike it began to pour. The directions were confusing, and I rode around in buckets of rain before finding the address. They had moved out a week earlier. Now I was very thankful to know that Lee was there. He received me enthusiastically in the restaurant – called La Fanega – which they had bought only two weeks before from another American.
Half-pound hamburgers, quesoburgesas, pescoburgesas, machoburgesas, cerveça cruda (draught), dim light, good music, lots of writing on the wall.
[I stayed a few days, sleeping in a storeroom, and then moved on to another friend of a friend on the Gringo expat circuit, the Davidsons at their Santa Ana ranch. He was away but his wife, Pat Davidson, young and lonely, invited me with enthusiasm.]
The Country Club. Christina the impeccable gossip from Florida, with the perfect sweet American “ass” and the slightly buck-toothed cocktail sipper’s mouth, dispensing chat about the Foxes, the world’s most disagreeable couple – ugly as sin – he an alcoholic about to die – she a telephone addict. Forbidden the phone she uses the neighbour’s and runs up 6000 colones – $750 – in a month. A cosmetic surgery freak – her eyes lifted and two inches of stomach fat – eager to show her scars she drops her pants without provocation – “Isn’t she gross!” When he was ill last she hired a Lear jet in Miami to fly down and pick him up that instant. “It burns my stomach,” was one of Christina’s expressions.
From the rough and ready life on the road in 1975 I’m transported to the big rock candy mountain, a bubble of luxury kept inflated by the US Navy and its Marines.
April 15th, a Monday
Life in the Canal Zone begins on Rodman Marine Base. Thirties barracks buildings, big, spacious, landscaped – now a golf course runs through the middle. Captain John B. Mallard jr USN (that’s one down from Admiral in the US) lives in the last house of five with open porches and garage below, a fleet of rooms above.
John and Ann Mallard, daughter Lynn was nurse, is married to USAF helicopter pilot on rescue service in Iceland. Born of Russian émigré family. Wedding was Russian Orthodox in New York State. They also have a son who is about to do post-graduate work at the University of Salamanca in Spain. John is nearing fifty and expects to retire in two years or so. I don’t know Ann’s age. She’s small, grown dumpy, but very active. Hair grey, face still youthful. Saw picture of her at 18 in scooped crinoline dress, belle-of-the-ball, all firm flesh and sparkling eyes – a great catch. She has developed ideas about social work – “one to one.”
The Admiral, Blunt, is the butt of all jokes and criticism. He’s a weak man, but ambitious. They say he’s determined to get to Washington but he’ll never make it. But just before I leave he’s posted to Washington, to some office of research and development. They say it’s a meaningless post where he’ll fade forever from the sight of man, surrounded by hundreds of the same rank.
The Admiral has arranged for tulips to be brought by KLM. He wants all the officers’ wives to buy them, for charity, and Ann is put in charge of selling them. She thinks it’s an imposition but doesn’t quite see the essential absurdity of it. The tulips, when they arrive, fall to pieces. If they were plastic the petals would have been stuck on firmer, no doubt. These tulips are wear-dated.
She and all the other ladies are all disciples of the Mola cult – vying with each other for superior understanding and judgement of these folk-art pieces.
(Molas are brightly coloured pieces of appliqué, usually about a foot square, stitched together by the natives of the San Blas islands, not far off the coast of Panama. Originally they were stitched by hand but now, since the Peace Corps brought sewing machines to the islands, they are sewn by machine. Inevitably only the hand stitched ones are considered authentic.)
My Mola – stitched by hand, of course
Marge Asman, wife of Commander Bob next door, repairs my hammock expertly (It was ripped by Skip Kaltenhauser on the boat to San Andrés). She sews two little Molas on by hand.
The marines have movies every night, picaresquely described – “Rape, murder, pillage and violence” – and violence?
Marines are very tall in their seats, spring up as from dragon seeds to obscure the screen.
The Canal controversy is very low key here. (Panama is pressing the US to relinquish the Canal Zone to local control). Nobody seems to imagine that much will happen, although John is mostly resigned to a shift of power eventually. Vietnam finally collapses while I’m there. He has a ruminatively resigned appreciation of the faults of USA. Any criticism can be voiced in his presence and receive attention.
He wants to build a house in North Carolina to retire. He will get 75% or more of his full pay. Thinks it’s ridiculously extravagant and seems most worried about the general waste of public money.
The visit culminates in the big party with fairy lights on the green, two bars, an enormous display of warming dishes, but all the work was done by the ladies themselves. Servants in the Zone are paid $2 an hour by order, (two dollars then would be roughly eleven dollars today) and the USN goes out of its way to avoid any charge of exploitation or discrimination against Panamanians. Money buys the image.
John was in submarines – his commands were all under water. I grow very fond of them both, and they make me very welcome, always renewing their invitation to stay on.
April 29th, Monday
I leave for Costa Rica.
PS: Some of you were intrigued by a remark I made in my notes, a few weeks ago. I wrote:
“The explanation of these fits of urgency, interspersed by periods of timelessness, must be explored somewhere.”
I didn’t get around to doing it then but, thinking about it now, it seems to suggest that there are actually two journeys going on simultaneously, the conscious “real life” journey and another subliminal journey across the ocean of the subconscious, sometimes peaceful, sometimes threatened by anxieties, like Scylla and Charybdis, demanding hasty escape.
In 1975 the Panama Canal and roughly 5 miles either side of it was still US territory and called the Canal Zone. Politically I was trying to stay neutral, although the Vietnam War was at its height . . . I had no idea what to expect, but my sponsors, the Lucas company, had an important depot in Panama.
11th April, 1975
Leave San Andrés for Panama on SAHSA plane. $90 all in (tips and tax included)
For some reason I say nothing in my notes about this extraordinary event. The plane was a Lockheed Electra with a Honduras airline, SAHSA – often referred to as Stay At Home Stay Alive. They tried to squeeze my bike into the cargo hold but it wouldn’t fit, so they rolled it up the gangway into the cabin and tied it to the back of the pilot’s seat.
Fly over sea for an hour, then over Colon and parts of the canal (before landing at the airport).
Because some of my luggage seemed to have been lost I wasted time and missed the cargo deadline. So had to return next day for the bike. But all worked out (thanks to the sponsorship of the Lucas agency in Panama).
The Ambassador had me to dinner and found me a hotel. Lucas man, Martin Allen, took me to the airport the following day.
12th April
Taken to visit Colon by a rep. of the David Brown company.
In spite of all the attention I was getting, I was bitterly disappointed to get no mail in Panama. The absence of my pieces in the Sunday Times has had a two-fold effect on me – more subtle one being that it robs me of a form of communication with my friends. If they then fail to write to me I feel lost to them entirely. Why didn’t Jo write? I know that the most probably explanation is that it required too much effort, sorting out how much to say or how little. I am deeply resentful that she can’t even get a postcard off but prevented from expressing my resentment by sense of guilt – or rather my undeservedness. (I walked out. She drove me to it. I failed to satisfy her. She made Utopian demands. I was too weak to resist the temptation to step up on her pedestal. Once up there, there was nowhere to go but down.)
Riding through South America is nothing like riding through Africa. Nor is the second year of this journey like the first. It has taken a while for me to appreciate the cumulative effect of this second continent.
My confidence with the bike is much greater, and I have fewer morbid fears of sudden disaster – though the accidents I’ve had were, if anything, more dangerous than any in Africa.
The experience is more varied and intricate. The psychic pressure is greater – there is more aggression, hostility. The journey is slower, more tiring. I feel much more remote here which combined with absence of mail makes me feel abandoned. But against this there’s Bruno’s company, and Malu’s friendship.
I find myself much more rigidly held by habit than I would like. Although I know that people and situations will respond to my needs, I still find myself reluctant to let go of accustomed sources of comfort and security.¬ Restaurants, hotels, cash transactions, conveniences.
Riding up to Volcan yesterday in Panama, I had to force myself to go on rather than return to the certain comfort of known hotels in Concepcion.
When I arrived in Volcan (because everywhere the grass was too tall and wet for comfort) I looked longingly at the Cabañas and asked a man how much they cost.
Eight dollars – too much. Where else can I go? The pension at five or six dollars. Is there a camping place? He thought about it – then said I could sleep in the garage by the motel.
Out of the conversation my confidence revived. In fact, with my hammock slung between the posts of the porch (which was what the ”garage” turned out to be) I was more comfortable and happy than I would have been in a hotel. The human contact was the essential prerequisite.
The pension Mexico on Av. Del Sur 4 (formerly Av. Mexico) is four streets up from the Av. Balboa, which runs along the coast – but not I think right on the sea; I can’t remember the water’s edge.
The name of the proprietor is Maduro – this is an old name for one of Panama’s richest families. He is brisk, balding, dapper, not afraid of unpleasant details (“I sell combs. They are not expensive. You see, this one is 20 cents. It is so plastic it conforms immediately to the shape of your hand as you drag it over and through a 4-month growth.”)
Or – guests are not allowed to cook, although here’s Pete Shoemaker doing it in front of your very eyes. He has a special dispensation awarded by himself on the grounds that if he’s not allowed to cook, he’s leaving. They would rather have him stay. He pays a daily rate ($6) but lives there by the month. Mrs Maduro is white and all knots and sinews under her kimonos. She hustles and hassles and loves it.
Shoemaker is a young alcoholic sex-maniac. I accused him of not being able to leave the drink alone [The accusation was remote and implicit, but he dug it out] He swore it wasn’t true. When working, he said, he never drank until after work. He has a good face and body, but the skin round his eyes is inky stained. He has just ridden round from Rio to Panama on a Kawa 750. He says there wasn’t anywhere he wouldn’t rather have been in a car.
When he got to Iguacù and found he had to go back to Säo Paulo for some papers, he went there and back non-stop. Curitiba, Säo Paulo, Curitiba, Iguacù, 1200 miles non-stop – mostly at night. Insane.
He didn’t enjoy the journey – just fucking and drinking between rides. Spent $10,000.
“Remember that bridge coming into Ecuador,” he said.
It was in Ecuador, and I remembered it well. Two planks for four-wheeled traffic and only joists in between.
“I fell on it,” I said.
We were both laughing and he howled and shook my hand.
“Me too Pal. Which way did you fall?”
“Into the middle!”
“Jesus! I only fell against the side.”
He says he has screwed every girl in the pension (a very job lot they are too). Says they’re all very discreet about it, but he doesn’t mind telling me. That’s why he stays here. It’s a license to screw, he says.
There’s a Sanyo Widemaster fan in every bedroom. It’s really silent. I have a big double room and fill it as usual with my stuff. There are those louvered windows which you can never open, and lots of recesses in the walls. It’s not a bad life at the Mexico. The style is “rooming house international.” Panama is just a blend.
The Ambassador was leaving on Friday for Boquete with his daughter, to return on Sunday evening. I was invited to use the new pool at the weekend.
Called his secretary (Sheila?) who received me there. There were three women stranded on the concrete round the pool. The first impression was hideous, but of course conversation and attention brought them to life. Sheila was a widow capable of having fun – a compulsive talker – she wore horrible slacks and bent the door of her brand new car on the pillar of the Ambassador’s porch.
With her was a floating 3rd secretary – Scots – who filled in for the holidaying 1st secretary and had massive jellying white thighs and a dour and homely face. The Australian girl had a reasonable figure, but her face had never got finished off properly.
At some point during the week I went to a bank in the city to change my traveller’s cheques into dollars, since that was the official currency of Panama. These were the same cheques that I had been carrying since Rio, nine months earlier, where the Sunday Times had misguidedly arranged for me to receive money in this form. The whole of Latin America was starved for dollars – no bank would give me dollars for my cheques, and the denominations were too high so that I was always left with piles of local currency which lost much of their value when changed at borders.
In Peru I thought I’d found a bank that would give me dollars. After I had countersigned them the bank official told me that I couldn’t have dollars after all. There was a heated exchange, and I took my cheques back but now, in Panama, the bank refused to cash them because they were countersigned, and I would have to have a reputable person to vouch for my identity. In the absence of the Ambassador
I was in despair when an American voice behind me said, “I’ll vouch for him.”
I turned to see an American Naval officer who introduced himself as John Mallard.
“Glad to be able to help,” he said. I thanked him profusely and he gave me his phone number, inviting me to call him any time. He explained that he lived on a naval base in the American Canal Zone. In fact he turned out to be Captain John Mallard, a submariner, and he ran the show.
Capt. Mallard and his wife Ann
April 15th
On Sunday I called the Mallards. Was immediately asked over. Within an hour of arriving I was asked to stay there. The change was instant, abrupt. I felt as though the ambulance had finally arrived – the rescuers had spotted me – I was going to be all right. It’s only afterwards that you see how good or bad things were before.
In the Mallards’ garden
Still following my notes from 48 years ago in Cartagena on the Caribbean coast. Trying to get to Panama, but with no idea how to get there, I took my bike on a boat to a pirate island, San Andrés.
At sea
There were flying fish, but no albatross this time. It was a fairly easy sea. Ship was “Ciudad de Zap … something or other.” Captain talked to me once. Said his grandmother was Indian. He looked fairly Indian too. The ship was putting up its entire stock of pennants in a grand show. I asked why. He said, “This is the first visit of the ship to San Andrés.”
How did we get on to drugs?
“I refused to carry them. I have a family in Baranquilla. I have been offered $15,000 just to take one packet, but I value my tranquility too dearly. Some others who went to the naval school with me are already millionaires – but they have no tranquility. Once you carry drugs you can’t stop. They would kill you.”
I can imagine Denis Nahum’s scepticism, but this captain seemed honest to me.
We were two days and nights at sea. The third night we spent anchored on the lee side of the island and then drew in. (One of the ties snapped and the boat crunched on the quayside. No rubbers, either).
9th April
There were two ships at the dockside waiting to leave when I arrived. Both were going to Panama. I felt unhappy about having to leave again within hours but knew I should try. (The explanation of these fits of urgency, interspersed by periods of timelessness must be explored somewhere.)
However the bigger of the boats was going to Bocca de Torres, the United Fruit Company port from which there is no exit other than by boat or by plane. The smaller boat would not take me.
San Andrés. – ten miles long, seven miles wide, reputed haven of Capt. Morgan. Some beaches of crushed white shell and coral – rest, ugly black coral. Two little islands – perfectly round with coconuts, – cartoon desert islands – called Johnny Cay and Aquarium.
Found Amigo Pepa sitting on his lot, watching his new house go up. He said he wanted to preserve the style of the original islanders. Talked about the days before the island got crowded – quoted cheap prices and said nobody used money.
Amigo Pepa’s new house on San Andrés
Said he was building his house out of all natural materials. I was a bit uneasy – it sounded too pat, as though he’d been taking ecology lessons from visiting gringos. He had a carpenter making the frame of the house – a little man with bloodshot eyes called Brachman – named after Dr. Brachman who strode out of the mists of legend to give his name and then apparently disappeared again. Brachman gave an impassioned and drunken eulogy of Dr. Brachman on my second night which was impressively eloquent.
[But I’m still no closer to knowing who this mysterious doctor was].
Slept in hammock between coconuts – the splashes of black against the sky.
Gringo lady with little son – shrieking with anxiety and unaware of it – talking of Pepa as great man – fending me off (for no reason).
The English couple on the boat – he thin, gaunt, bespectacled, looking helpless, but innately tough, she plump, baggy – like babes-in-the-wood. Talking about the fish we were going to grill on the beach.
We got ourselves a four -and-a-half-pound bonito, failing red snapper. Then two huge black men telling us the fire was illegal – move to Pepa’s – the iron bedstead torn out from under a fallen palm to grill on.
Pepa’s green jump suit – his huge son, “I have found bottles in the sea. I have found several bottles in the sea. Yes, several, several, several. I have found several bottles with messages. Sad messages, man. Yes, sad messages. I saw a message in a bottle that broke my heart.”
Pepa said he smoked a lot of dope. He has letters from people in England and USA. Showed me one from Trinity College, Bristol. All charter holiday people to Trinidad, I expect.
The town of San Andrés seems to be called San Luis. In the middle it’s smart cement shops; then up the side of the island past the port, it’s wood. Tarmac, then dirt. Pepa’s is at the beginning of the dirt. You can get into the sea there, over flat rocks, with sea buds growing, and urchins lurking in crevices. Green water, blue sea. So clear. On the Aquarium – looking at fish – glorious.
I spent two nights on San Andrés. Through Skip I met the Argentine couples, Jeanine and Malcolm Donaldson, and Manuel Pedro Peña and his honeymoon wife Pixie – the last with his easy laugh, and easy claim to supreme court judgeship, which is so embarrassing.
Malcolm is a doctor, Jeanine an architect. She has some incurable weakness which makes her unsteady. She can’t drink alcohol. She is very attractive (Skip was aflame). They met in hospital and she wanted to tell me what a very good man he was. He probably is too – but in South America any man who is free of the worst traits of machismo will seem like Christ to any intelligent woman.
I’m back again, after three weeks in California and another week recovering from my first dose of Covid: but I’ve had five vaccinations and apart from one day of sickness and a few other days just feeling tired and unbalanced, I’m fine. So as promised I’m going to plunge you back into my diaries of 1975, and I am just leaving Medellin, Colombia, hoping to find a way to get past the Darien Gap to Panama.
Even today, just as then fifty years ago, the Darien Gap is considered an obstacle to human progress. It’s a large area of swamp between Colombia and Panama inhabited, I was told, by primitive tribes. I am very happy for it to be there and resent all those foolish efforts to drive Jeeps and Corsairs and Land Rovers through it. Leave it alone I say, but all the same it was an obstacle to my progress, and I had no idea how I was going to get around it. The only shipping line turned out to be useless, so now I was headed for Cartagena, a port on the Gulf of Mexico, where I hoped to find a solution.
April 3
Start out for Cartagena. High mountains to cross. Get caught in rainstorm and let bike slide into a gulley at roadside. Can’t get it out again and have to wait till rain stops and passing lorry driver helps me lift it out. Very foolish.
Down into Cauca valley – and find that my petrol consumption has dropped to a very satisfying 74 kms per litre, or more. Texaco Special. Apparently, according to Andrès, the octane figures for Esso Extra and the others are phony – not 94 at all, but in the low eighties. Texaco alone have one which corresponds to European two-star, and with this I get the original European results.
Beyond Caucasia – and 30 kms before Planeta Rica – I stop at a hacienda called Aguas Vivas. Looks very nice¬. Building laid out round a garden, with religious statues in middle. All neat, with every imaginable animal. Well, turkeys, ducks, chickens, pigs, dogs and cats. Mango trees, lemons, gourd tree. Big open barn behind, where I put my hammock. Four young farm hands are very good company – until one of them suggests I take him out on the bike to a village 2kms away.
In fact, it’s an endless journey to Planeta Rica – and nothing there anyway but a glass of beer. Coming back we go past the hacienda and he insists it’s further on but he means another village. He’s determined to ride all over Colombia to get another beer. Thank goodness I realise in time and refuse to go any further. We’ve already finished two bottles of Aguardiente and half a bottle of rum, and we’ve been out on this aimless ride for two hours. But it was very pleasant on the hacienda talking, watching the toads catch “grillos” under the lights – with the two maimed turkeys flopping about. One on a stump where his foot should be (a cow trod on both of them two months ago) and walks like a person with a peg leg.
April 4
Given a breakfast of coffee, lemon juice, rice, platanos, beef and egg. Can’t complain. Hot ride to Cartagena. Cattle Ibis, heavy hot air. Like Mombasa. Hit on the lip by a bee. Swells and makes a villainous expression. Cross marshy river by a bridge that seems oddly derelict. Cluster of thatched huts on the riverbank. Fine birds, people floating about in piroguas – but looks very poor and primitive – poorer even than Iguatú.
(It was visiting Iguatú, in Brazil, that got me locked up.)
Cartegena
Come into Cartagena about 4 pm, past Torices (a district of Cartagena) and through wall to old city. Stop for two glasses of flora juice and directions. Ride to Club de Pesca with letter from Chris (a Royal Navy officer I got to know in Bogotá gave me an introduction to Denis Nahum). But Nahum isn’t there.
At the old wall
Looking around I get a slight recollection of Venice – more in the disposition of things – perhaps the Piazza Roma area more – the Manga Bridge – and the atmosphere. Telephone to Nahum’s house. Penny Lernoux, his wife, answers. Go to hotel Plaza Bolivar. Wander about a bit looking for restaurant.
April 5th, Thursday
Visit Dennis Nahum. He is suspicious at first. Asks for a Sunday Times identification.
Fortunately I’m carrying newspaper cuttings with me and I turn the tables on him rather by exposing his suspicions.
“The quickest way to a free meal is to claim that you’re a journalist,” he explains afterwards. “Don’t know how good they are in the Navy (at sorting people out). Was in Naval Intelligence myself so I’m perhaps more suspicious for that reason.”
Thereafter much hospitality, lunch at his home, meet Penny – read her piece about Chile (she is apparently a well-known journalist writing on South American Economy and Politics.)
House is attractive and holds many enviable objects. The cat-o-nine tails and a marlin spike. There’s a toucan, a parrot, a macaw, two monkeys and a bush-baby.
On the quay at Cartegena
April 6th
In morning walk down quayside to find a ship to San Andrés. None to Panama from here it seems.
(San Andrés is an island in the Carribean that used to be called Saint Andrews, a notorious hang out for pirates. It’s not much closer to Panama than Cartagena. I have no idea why I thought going there would get me to Panama.)
Sent to (a man called) Giraldo at Torices. He wants 1,400 pesos. 400 for the passage, 1000 for the bike. Boat is supposed to leave next day. Dinner that night – alone – at club. Penny is finishing outline on a book about the Church in South American politics.
Back to quayside to try to get the price down. Nobody seems interested. Boat should leave at midnight. Then at 4 am. Lunch at club with Denis. Take pictures in afternoon. Eat at Italian place in the evening. Old man and drunken wife who cooks. The Manhattens cost a fortune.
Afterwards back to their place to talk for a while. They go to bed and leave me to while away the hours. After a scotch I decide I must lie down on couch, sleep and wake at 4 sharp. Walk down to quayside, but ship won’t sail they say before 12. Go back to hotel, sleep on couch in lobby.
April 7th
Borrow my old room and get a shower. Walk around a bit on the fortifications with my camera. Call Penny to tell her our lottery tickets won. Ten pesos for seven. Go there for lunch. In middle of the meal there’s an earthquake – a considerable tremor lasting for ten seconds or more – we eventually walk outside by small pool, in case. The maid in the kitchen comes out screaming that everything is falling down (nothing did) but it became quite frightening during the last moments. The damage is done more by the duration than the intensity I’m told.
Eventually, at about 4pm, go back to the ship and wait many hours.
Then Giraldo tries to duck out of the deal, says it’s up to the captain, that there’s no room for the bike, etc He’s very evasive. I have to raise my voice and insist that G. take a moment to settle this matter. (What I tried to say was – “for once, will you speak to me, man to man,” but heaven knows how it came over in Spanish.) He took me on to the ship. The captain turned out to be one of the men I’d seen coming and going with Giraldo. A youngish man, short, sturdy, with a stony face.
G. told him that he’d agreed a price, all told, of 1000 pesos – 600 for the bike, 400 for the passage. I was astounded and had a job hiding it, for G. had resolutely refused to take less than 1000 for the bike alone. Why? Was it a slip?
Seems improbable he would make such a mistake. His livelihood depended on these prices.
Was it too sentimental to suppose that he’d reduced it in respect for the way I’d spoken up to him at last?
(Yes. Most likely he’d hoped to keep the extra 400 for himself).
The Captain demanded to see my passport and saw that I was five days over my visa time. I told him about my enquiries in Medellin, and they sounded very feeble. In fact he refused to believe that a police chief had given me verbal permission to overstay my welcome. A Frenchman who was also going to San Andrés was several months expired, and the captain was sure we would be checked by immigration at San Andrés.
At last he made us promise that if we were sent back on his boat we would pay the fare. We both promptly agreed but I knew the Frenchman didn’t have the money, and later he decided not to risk it. Cheerfully he announced he would go to Ecuador instead.
He was a slim, good-looking man but in a rather old-fashioned Bohemian way, with a little beard and hair brushed back long.
Then there was Skip Kaltenhauser from Kansas University – with the anxious, celluloid smile, overwhelmed by his experiences but quite unable to react naturally to them. Quite unable, too, to express an opinion or a true feeling – but suddenly shattered to find that he had to. He was on a two-month holiday before signing into law school. Now, that prospect seemed deadly, although he couldn’t quite rid himself of the need to achieve more security. I surprised myself by my eloquent condemnation of law school and what it represented.
We walked over to the market together to get some fruit juice – maracaju – he in his strangely baggy shirt and trousers – the former with an intricate pattern in shades of beige, lined with green. He wore a hat too. In his language everything was “neat,” and he strove for a quip constantly. Later, in San Andrés, he thanked me for “showing me some pretty good times” and hoped “he wouldn’t disappoint me.”
The boat went out shortly before midnight, but with none of the magic I’d felt at Laurenco Marques. I got my hammock across the ironwork on the upper deck and gave Skip my foam rubber. He was getting progressively more sick. (We’d eaten tuna fish and mustard on old rolls, perhaps not the best preparation). During the day there were three times I came within an ace of being sick but with a great effort, swallowing the great quantity of saliva that flooded into my mouth, was able to keep it down – and I’m sure it was the best thing to do.
A rooster at dawn in the Caribbean
Well, I’ve got my work cut out. Hundreds of you came out of the woodwork to tell me to keep at it, so in deference to my readers here is a bumper edition from my South American notebook of 1975.
Good trips, bad trips – the road to Medellin
After Bruno’s unfortunate meeting with the front of a lorry, which reduced his Renault to a shambling wreck, he packed what possessions he could in a duffel bag and took the bus to Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, where he could catch a plane to Mexico City.
Bogotá was half a day’s ride for me and the logical next stop on my way north. He said he’d leave a message for me at the French Embassy.
Bogotá, Tuesday 18
Arrived at 1pm to find the French embassy closed and empty but for a manager who says come back at 3pm and sends me to a café called “The Parasol”. Woman who owns it warms to me as I wait. Eventually she proposes marriage. Says it’s the only way she can get out of Colombia to work in the USA. Doesn’t seem sure of her facts. Afterwards, I’m told all a Colombian needs is a paid-up tax certificate. But she touched me and let me off a few pesos on my bill.
At 3.30 got Bruno’s message; to find him at Jane’s flat, but there’s no room for me. Her ample cousin Nicole has arrived to wait for her passport (stolen) to be replaced.
Ring British Embassy and shamelessly ask to be put up.
David Lloyd makes an effort (I think) but eventually sends me to Pension Allemana (50 pesos + 10 for garage).
Wednesday 19
Next day I visit him [David Lloyd] – he’s your all-English smooth man, but with a slightly crooked mouth. Has Information & Intelligence function.
Friday eve. Meet Tim & Sorita Ross [Observer newspaper]. Fled from Brazil where Govt. has warrant for his arrest, for denigration and incitement of insurrection. Also meet a stringer for Sunday Times. Eat churrasco at Indiana – very good – open grill on charcoal. Sorita was moved to tell me she was raped in Brazil by carload of police (in Salvador) and I feel like touching her, but don’t. He [Tim] is impelled to pursue risky, violent stories. Much understated bravado about tear gas (CS & CN) and mob violence. Emeralds.
All the usual stories of robbery and violence in Bogotá. I’ve escaped so far.
Tim calls me later to ask if I’d like to have lunch with the Defense Attache next day (Saturday). He fetches me in a car. Chris Jenne, Commander, Royal Navy, tall, shock of white hair. Suburban stye house, wife Elizabeth, sons Charles & Edward, daughter Tina.
Chris Jenne and co very kind, hospitable, informal. Spend best part of two days with them at Sports club. Roped into a game of cricket. Take two catches and score five. Never did so well at school. Very enjoyable.
Visited the Gold Museum. Astonishing.
ONE OF THE WINDOWS AT THE BOGOTA GOLD MUSEUM
Tremendous evolution of form to classic perfection. Continue to wonder why certain variations of anthropomorphism are current in certain societies. Alex Bright (No.2 at the museum) talks about hallucinations being common to all takers of some drugs – only interpretations vary. He is not very convincing – either unwilling or unable to let his mind range over possibilities. A disappointment to Chris and myself.
British Council has [copies of] Sunday Times except for Jan 19, Feb 16, March 9. But nothing of mine anywhere. Suspect that I’ve been squeezed out of the revamped Holiday Section and have no place elsewhere.
[There was a period of many months when certain editors at the paper thought my stories were inappropriate and wanted to cut me loose. Although my expenses were very low I was dependent on the connection.]
Bruno has sent the bulk of his luggage back to France including my stuff from Peru. On Saturday evening, coming back with Chris to Pension Alleman we found him outside hotel door trying to get in. He had left his luggage in my room. So far had I sunk into British Sporting Life that seeing him there was like being reminded of a forgotten episode in one’s life.
Before leaving Bogotá I wanted to arrange some kind of passage around the Darien Gap. The first possibility that presented itself was to go round by ship with the Italian Line which sailed from a Pacific port called Bonaventura to Panama.
I visited their office in Bogotá.
First, they insisted that a carry a plane ticket out of Panama.
I got the Panamanian consulate to call them and say it wasn’t necessary, but they called my hotel to cancel my booking, with gratuitous abuse to one of the guests.
When I called them to protest they said they had sent to Panama for instructions.
The next day they said I had to leave a $200 deposit (that would be $2000 today) against being refused entry to Panama. Traveller’s cheques will do, they said, but when I arrive at the office only dollar bills would satisfy them.
But it’s not at all clear how I would retrieve the money if I miss the boat, and time is already short. I decided to continue North to Cartagena and hope for the best.
It was with a note of triumph that Señor Torrenegra cancelled my booking.
Wednesday 26th
Leave Bogotá at 1.30 after wasting time on Italian Line. Arrived that evening in Fresno – just after Honda – a small town in mountains. Hotel Bella Vista (no view) at 25 peso a night. Dinner in small place on square, where they try to serve me an old beer with a swig taken out if it. Two small children come in at the end of my dinner and point silently at my plate which has a potato and 3 slices of tomato left on it. I nod, and swiftly but politely they gather the remains in their fingers and dart off. It was the most telling incident so far in my encounters with hunger – and quite unexpected.
Easter Thursday 27th
Leave for Medellin.
The church (an exceptionally ugly cement one) broadcasts cracked recordings of bad songs through loudspeakers at 7, and again at 8. Ride off into mountains. Apart from a short, but terrible stretch it’s all paved to Medellin.
A RURAL IDYLL, FROM THE ROAD TO MEDELLIN
Arrive at 4.30 looking for British Consul. but can’t remember her name. And all offices closed. After long search I look in the [telephone] book for any English name and ring a family called Smith.
“Fantastic” says girl, when I explain, and they invite me to visit because they know Ampora Villa [the consul]. When I get there they fetch another motorcyclist round called Antonio, who is a dentist and paints. He is smoking pot all the time we talk, with no apparent effect. He takes me off to Andres, but I don’t realise till later that it’s the same person I rang earlier (as given me by Matt and Andy and Cleo [in Otavalo] who spent several nights there).
Mrs Smith is an interpreter. She will work at the first International Congress of Sorcery, to be held in Bogotá in August. Her electric typewriter was stolen and she is willing it to return. She says she thinks she’s got it – but it’s not quite there yet.
Her daughter, MaryJo, writes tender verses about love, grief and springtime. Has very good grey eyes and a busy life of arts and crafts, all macramé and pottery, flutes and drums and drawings. Very Hampstead, or Gloucester Crescent.
Andres Ceballos is a curious man. Seems very alive and dead at the same time. Advises textile firms on selling lines. Intellectually developed but physically unresolved. Wife, Eleanor, returns from Cartagena with four-year-old daughter, Catalina. He encourages her freedom – to study, to live apart from him. Was 15 when she married him. Now a passion for learning and travel. But all their energies seem focused on external things.
[I remember one day I smoked one joint of the stuff Andres smoked incessantly without effect, and I had a truly terrible trip which I thought was going to fry my brain.]
March 31st
Spent two nights at Andres’ home. Went to see Ampora at hotel, then to the Cuerpa de Bomberos [fire service] for free hospitality – a room, bed, clean sheets – amazing. They have old fire engines from the Twenties, beautifully preserved. Nice, gentle men, very poorly paid, it seems, but dedicated.
MY BIKE AT THE MEDELLIN FIRE STATION
A FIRE ENGINE FROM THE TWENTIES
April 3
Leave for Cartagena.
That’s all I can manage for today. Thanks again for taking an interest. I won’t be back for a few weeks. I have to go to California to take care of a few things, so I’ll see you again in April when you’ll learn how I caught a boat to a pirate island and flew to Panama with the bike in the cabin.
Feb 4
Into the Cauca valley. Tropical. Bananas. Music. Good asphalt road. I flew. Up a mountain. Down again. Up again, and then sat there watching Bruno’s van appear over the previous summit.
(The van had a damaged cardan, or half-axle)
Went on to Popayan. Pretty town. Colonial Facades. Churches with beautiful carved wood, gilt and maroon on white. Remember the pulpit of San Francisco.
Found a hotel – Los Balcones.
Feb 5
Moved to another hotel, El Monasterio. Superb. Only 240 pesos (eight dollars) for two. Pleasant day walking in town. B has his cardan repaired for next to nothing. Remember chapel of Encarnacion in convent. Had lunch and dinner at hotel. Excellent.
Feb 6
Hotel breakfast (Fabulous – remember it to this day) Laundry. Supermarket. On to La Plata again.
(We were heading inland into the mountains to San Agostìn where – we had heard – a large number of statues had been recently discovered underground)
Bruno leaves before me. I get out at 12.30. Lovely weather. Then a fuse blows. Waste time trying to trace the fault. Then give up and put in a temporary circuit. Meanwhile a storm blows up. Find myself in a terrific downpour. Makes me very unhappy. But later, in good weather, on very dry roads, ride fast – and slide uncontrollably right across one bend.
(There were lorries driving fast downhill and filling the road. To meet one unexpectedly on a bend could be fatal)
Catch up with Bruno just before La Plata. He’s had another bash with a lorry.
(Lorry drivers surrounded him, insisting it was his fault.)
The end of the road
Paid 600 pesos damages. His other half-axle is broken. Has a Quebecois hitch-hiker with him.
(Looking for a place to camp I spot a lovely green field)
I lead us all into a bog. Struggle to escape – ploughing up the field. Ride into La Plata. Find the Residencia Berlin. Jesus and Domitila Clavijo and their ten children. Parrot called Roberto.
Ten kids and a parrot
Feb 7
(Bruno’s van is now lozenge-shaped and undrivable. It is illegal to sell a foreign registered vehicle in Colombia)
Still in La Plata. Bruno sells his car to a policeman. Auctions the contents. (See full description in Jupiter’s Travels)
Feb 8th
To San Agustin. Two rivers to cross. Take first one very seriously, barefoot. Fast but not too deep. On last stretch from Pitalito to San Agustin – dirt – fall off. Break strap on pannier and crack spark plug in half.
Bruno arrived half an hour before by bus. Is finding out about horses already.
(Bruno is devoted to horses and rode steeplechase. I know nothing about horses)
Have mixed feelings about it – still think of horses as potentially dangerous. But excited by idea also. He walks for hours and says he has found two good ones for the next day. I begin to get a feeling for San Agustin and the hotel.
Fuzzy rider
By horse to Alto de los Idolos. Tremendous ride down the side of a ravine. Only loss of my raincoat spoils the trip, but soon get over that. Staggering descent and climb. Statues don’t measure up to the experience. (Why should they?)
Feb 10
Idle day – last hours at park (Parque de los Idolos)
Feb 11
Horses again – to Pamela’s Hacienda. Spiky reception but ends well with banana bread. She has an enormous bottom but carries it quite well. There are two children there. Whose? Pamela and Harry get paid ($100 a month) to keep them for the summer months. They also get money sending Colombian stuff to her mother’s shop in New England. They spent eight months – she says – scraping old lime wash of the woodwork. No animals, except chickens. She is very defensive about their position. The only ones, she says, who stuck it out.
Feb 12 to 14
Back to La Plata. Bruno leaves for Mexico. End of a chapter.
PS: It’s interesting transcribing these old notes, but it’s an effort and I want to be sure it’s worth the trouble. A precious few faithful readers have shown their appreciation, but not enough. If you want me to go on doing this, please let me know.
Feb 21
Leave Quito. Too late. Fantastic downpour & hail. Inches of water on roads. Bike fails on way out, but only for a short time. Reach Otavalo at nightfall. Frozen. Indian café. Find Peace Corps house. Ray (Raimundo) receives us. Sleep in kitchen. Ray illustrates textbooks to help Quetchua-speaking Indians to learn Spanish. Very pleased with progress of program.
Feb 22
Saturday. Market at Otavalo. Very Indian – and quite unlike Peru or Bolivia. Indian dress is sombre. Navy blue wool ponchos, pigtails. Characteristic diamond shape of men, short cotton trousers, women wear hats of piled up shawls, straight dark dresses, white blouses. Almost all are barefoot. Gold bead necklaces (glass from Czechoslovakia).
Much more communicative than other Indians. Sellers line up in two facing rows – with their blankets in front of them – shoulder to shoulder – while buyers walk between them. Permanent kiosks of masonry for stallholders. Many Gringos taking pictures. One of my cameras has failed (light meter) after soaking on Peruvian beach.
The Gringo café – pancakes US style – granola for sale – like refectory at Berkeley. Bruno is astonished. Ride out to hacienda to meet Matt coming the other way.
[Matt Handbury is Rupert Murdoch’s young nephew, riding a BMW, trying to decide what to do with his life]
The Hacienda
Went to see hacienda, then back to Otavalo – where Andy and Cleo arrive at Ray’s. Together return to hacienda, by old Pan-American route – cobbles, then grass slide down past precipice. Andy at first strikes me as quite strange. Thin – gaunt – blonde, moustache, tight leather trousers, orange satin smock. BMW. Front teeth missing on left side. Cramps his smile. Easy to underestimate, as I do at chess.
Feb 23 – 27 at Hacienda
Bob and Annie there too. They’ve decided to stay and get married. Play card game called hearts. Marathon session till 4am. Vegetarian meals. Indian family very close. Girls just come and sit. Fascinating and lovely to watch. Always smiling, greeting. Maria says photos steal her spirit – her father told her so.
Andy becomes ever more interesting. His dead-pan manner, slow uneasy smile, would fit a Western hero. The missing teeth could explain it, but there seems to be more. With his specs on he seems quite innocuous, small-minded, hard to imagine him fishing tuna – $500 in one day off ‘Two-fold Bay’ in Australia. Tells story of killer whales and fishermen combining to catch blue whales. Also of his hero, the Irish Australian skipper he has sent me to see.
So we went out to dinner on the last night and coming back Bruno drove into a foot of plastic mud on the old highway and was stuck there for the night. Took two hours of digging to get him out in the morning.
[I also remember that Andy, inexplicably, accused me of stealing his camera body by switching it surreptitiously for one of mine. Could not disabuse him. Bob and Annie gave me an address of friends in California, leading me eventually to the commune that played a huge part in my life.]
Feb 28
Rode off to Colombia in the rain. Wet but easy. Got to border at 4.30. But customs is back in Tulcan. Bruno is furious. Then, on Colombian side, ride up hill to Ipiales to find that passport control was at the frontier. And while we stop to talk to frontier guards a section of hillside falls on the road we were about to take.
Roast chicken at Ipiales, then into night to find place to stop.
Getting ready to leave
On the road the Ipiales
March 1
Woke up to beautiful scenery and sun. A curious dip in road, against a grassy hummock. On other side a valley, cultivated, and mountain beyond. A bus has been abandoned down the road – one of those fairground vehicles without doors, common in Ecuador & Colombia. A small house nestles in the ground beside us, smoke oozing through the roof. Took many pictures. Left about midday on switchback road to Pasto. Most impressed by countryside. On smaller scale than Peru, greener, less bare stone, but spectacular. Waterfalls, trees, much cultivated land. White house, L-shaped with porches, tiled with clay or wood. Found a patch of flat grass, near a mountain top to camp on, about halfway to Pasto. Spent much effort, both nights, preparing for prospective assaults by delinquent Colombians. Arsenal included my knife, machete, Bruno’s pistol. Seen by many lorry drivers and imagined the gossip at nearby hamlet, but a peaceful night.
March 2
In Pasto I was a sensation
To Pasto – ordinary town with some big modern municipal buildings. Searched uselessly for (spark) plugs. Bought food. Took road to lake. Not so impressive. Slept in car outside rustic hotel owned by Germans (Swiss?) who said they’d come to Colombia 20 years before, after being soldiers – to supervise the opening of a number of hotels. Then opened their own. We ate, bought wine (Chianti at 180 – in shops 130). Played chess.
March 3
Renault failed to get up hill. Towed by lorry, into Pasto and out, to eat in a rainstorm on the road. Bruno develops a passion for porridge and bacon & eggs, but I still don’t dunk my bread and strawberry jam in my coffee. Who’s the chauvinist?
Where did we spend the night?
Four days on the road to Quito
Feb 14, 1975
We Left Guayaquil in the rain, over the bridge again and back along the same road to El Triumfo, a busy, muddy cross-roads with roadside stalls selling bananas, pineapples, small mangoes, and muddy-looking juice. Bought two pineapples for 4 sucres (7p). These stalls always look crammed with a variety of foods until you look closely – also striking how hard it is to get vegetables in the countryside.
Passed some enormous banana plantations – kilometres long. Thickest, lushest vegetation I’ve seen. Then the rapid rise into the Andes again, and soon we are up to 2,500 metres, but the hills here are smoother than in Peru, the countryside more ordered, better worked, with some large houses. Had the idea of being invited at a hacienda and chose a large white house, below the main road, to the right shortly before Riobamba.
Met in the yard by a peon (but in Western clothes) who invited us to sleep inside. Building seemed deserted. In fact it is used as a school (one room) filthy and bare, as was our room. B wanted to use the hammocks, and pulled up a gate post, under the appreciative gaze of the custodian and his family – an Indian woman and tots. The post went on the windowsill against the steel frame windows. Another post went inside the cupboard, diagonally across the room and the hammocks were slung between them. Four eggs lay in some grass in the cupboard.
The Indian woman with her tots
We asked if we could buy some food – eggs or meat. They said there was a tienda (shop) cercita (nearby) down the road. We decided to walk there and we walked forever down the hill and eventually met the custodian coming back on his horse. He pointed out a house and we asked for a chicken. They were dubious at first (three men and a woman) then tried to decide which bird to sacrifice. At first they went for a cock but it was too expensive so we settled on a mottled pullet for 50 sucres and had a fine chase all around the yard to catch it.
The walk back took me over an hour. It would have been shorter if I had been as enterprising as Bruno and caught the back of a passing bus. I tried to wring the chicken’s neck and failed. B chopped the head off with his machete. The family plucked it, I gutted it, and we boiled it. It was a stringy bird but the legs were tender. The family also gave us a plate of pork, but it was too much after all for one meal. There was still the chicken’s carcass in the pot.
Feb 15
Woken in the morning by a hen at the window, anxious to get to its nest and bewildered by the change of scenery. It stood on the windowsill observing us from every conceivable angle and clucking. At last it managed to edge its way along my hammock and with much floundering and shattering made its way to the cupboard, but failed to lay.
Before leaving I at last took the trouble to examine my rear axle. The bike had been wobbling strangely since Lima where I had aligned the wheels (i.e it was much worse than before when the wheels had been really out of line). Found to my stupefaction that both spindle nuts were loose and presumable had been for 1000 miles or so. What I get away with! Terrifying what omissions I’m capable of. Got the wheels straight and tight, and of course the wobble is no more.
Getting out was an ordeal for Bruno. His van couldn’t make the climb up the dirt path. He had to take a series of dives from off the road to get enough speed up but eventually he got out.
Riobamba was a pleasant town. People seemed more relaxed here – less aggressive. Many plazas, a few nice buildings, a nice working market, helpful shopkeepers, little attempt to sell things to us. Went on until dusk when I found an inviting field by the side of the road. Children all said we should stay there, so we went in. Then adults arrived. Owner’s wife and her sister. Sister was very inquisitive and aggressive but invited us in to talk. They were enraptured by Bruno, gasped at his exploits, plagued him with questions and took no notice of me at all. For me a very unusual evening since I have become used to being the focus of curiosity and attention. Most of all it astounded them that he insisted on sleeping out. They were sure he would freeze to death, and I thought he’d find it chilly (he did).
Bruno and his audience
Feb 16
I was up an hour before Bruno, who lay cocooned in his hammock, still as death. The sun was hot and bright. I turned the chicken into soup and saved the rest of the breast meat. Washed and shaved. Bruno was visited by his audience at about 7.30, who watched carefully as he got up, dressed, etc.
By breakfast time he was thoroughly pissed off by the young woman who insisted on examining every item in his car, opening every tin, endlessly questioning him on every detail.
The road to Quito was good and we made good time. Crossing through Ambato into the Quito valley we were both stopped by a pair of splendid cops mounted on shiny 1200cc Motoguzzis, but after a short period of mutual admiration, we went on to find ourselves on a pleasant grassy ledge above the capital.
Comforted by the chicken soup I had made that morning, we looked down on city lights which were unusually pretty – veins of gold in silver. A party of dogs serenaded us, and after dark a sound like chopsticks rattling which we thought must be frogs. I was particularly pleased with a new lighting system I had rigged up using indicator bulbs – brilliant, and allowed me to write in my tent.
Just before going to bed we watched rivers of mist flow down and engulf the city. Then came a chorus of distant shouts, sounding like a political demonstration. The P.C.M.L.E (Partida Communista Marxista Leninista de Ecuador) was busy agitating for oil nationalisation without compensation to ensure a bright future for everybody. But it turned out to be a football crowd.
Feb 17
Bruno hoped that some French volunteers in Quito would put us up, so the following morning in light rain we went down to the city. Well, I slithered down, and went over twice in the mud.
By the time I got to the bottom Bruno had disappeared. I found the central plaza and tried to find the friend of a friend who was supposed to be famous, but nobody had heard of him, and he wasn’t in the phone book.
It took me two hours to find Bruno at the French Embassy. Every other street in Quito is named after a date – incredibly difficult to tell one from another – and in South America the traditional revolutionism is reflected in an absence of signs.
Bruno did find a place for us both to stay, with Emile and Claude, who also had a gramophone, and we spent half a day just playing, again and again, at top volume, the overture to Tannhäuser. Our conversation with the two volunteers was inevitably about our experiences and frustrations. Emile had not benefited by his time in Ecuador and thought its inhabitants should be put down. “Il faut les supprimer.” After a while we realised he wasn’t joking, which made us uneasy.
Bob and Annie, from California on their Norton
The following day, riding around Quito, I came across an American couple on a Norton 850. Of course we stopped and talked. Bob and Annie were from California. They told me about a hacienda near Otavalo where we would be welcome. They were on their way to Cuzco and I told them to take the road from Huancayo. They introduced me to Lee Guzman and his garage, where I took up the play in my steering head, and changed my 140 jet for 150, 140 being too lean.
Quito would be a pretty city in better circumstances – nice buildings, plaza, etc – but rain too heavy for appreciation. Next day we leave for Otavalo.
I’ve been reading my old notebooks again and enjoying the memories. There is so much that never made it into the book. Sometimes the story is written out in enough detail so that I could lift whole episodes straight onto the computer as I did a couple of weeks ago, with the story from Sri Lanka. At other times the notes are very brief but I can reassemble the story from memory. That is the case with my visit to Gauyaquil.
Forty-eight years ago this week I was still travelling in the company of Bruno, a young Frenchman with a much-battered white Renault van. His own companion, Antoine, had left him to fly back to Paris from Lima. Now we were making our way up the coast of Peru towards Ecuador and we had just spent two glorious days on a perfect beach, feeding off the sea.
Without the fish the impoverished people living on this arid coast could not survive. It never rains and water has to be delivered by tanker. But the sea off the coast of Peru was said to be among the richest fishing waters in the world, and we took full advantage.
Not that we caught anything ourselves, for all our efforts, but two fishermen who had brightly painted boats anchored there were happy to sell us a big, beautiful sierra and another fish they called a lenguada which we grilled and ate with tea and cigarettes.
The beach was scarcely visited but as I was packing up to leave three men and a woman came down to the sea. I was some distance from the water’s edge, just able to see their faces, and I saw the men ducking the woman in the water.
She was fully dressed in a short black skirt, a yellow blouse and a pink scarf round her hair.
She scrambled out of the water and appeared to be laughing, but they threw her in again. I went on packing but every time I looked up they were doing the same thing and as I rode off the last thing I saw was the men throwing the woman into the sea again. Needless to say I felt uneasy.
SAN JOSÉ, PERU
It took us two days to reach the frontier with Ecuador, passing through an oil field at Tumbez where we ate enormous oysters, and suffering a hot, sticky mosquito-ridden night at Puerto Pizzarro on our way. The border at Aguas Verdes was extraordinary – quite unreal. On one side, everything was dry as bones: on the other side a profusion of humid vegetation as though nature had conspired to create this barrier between two nations. Thick banks of tall grass interspersed with banana trees extended from the roadside into the surrounding hills, making any thought of camping difficult, and rising up from the grass, here and there were wooden houses on stilts, some quite lovely, all wreathed in air misty with moisture.
The road left the coast and climbed up into the Andes again, but there were wearying police controls, six of them, before we got to Durán and the bridge that took us back down to the coast and the important port of Guayaqil.
Quite why we went there escapes me now. Perhaps Bruno was hoping to do something useful with the French consul. We found a hotel that rejoiced in the name of a five-star Parisian hotel, the Crillon, but there the resemblance stopped. As I entered my room I heard the stampede of cockroaches making a dash for the shadows, and the ceiling plaster over the shower had fallen away to reveal the plumbing of the shower above. Even so, with the help of a Sanyo Widemaster fan I spent two nights without too much discomfort.
Before leaving England two years earlier a friend who was also an Olympic yachtsman had told me that if I should ever find myself among sailors the mere mention of his name, Tony Morgan, would guarantee that they would take me to their hearts. I noticed on a folder for tourists that there was a Yacht Club in Guayaquil so in the afternoon we trod the boards of the port to find the massive carved door of the club firmly shut. I persisted, ringing and knocking, until a porter came to open it, and I explained that I wanted to meet some yachtsmen. He appeared to be bewildered and it took him a minute to register. Then he said, “Señor, there are no yachtsmen here. Nobody sails. They only come here to drink.”
We were equally disappointed in our efforts to find the beautiful part of old Guayquil promised by the tourist flyer, and after tramping around some mouldering but far from charming neighbourhoods we thought we would at the very least find the lobster that had eluded us since Lima. We found a restaurant with lobster on the menu and paid a rather high price for lobster that was not especially good. Furthermore, there was no wine. It must have been all these disappointments that made me particularly vulnerable. When a boy of about 12 came to the table to offer me (and it’s interesting that he chose me and not Bruno) a bottle of Dubonnet at an absurd price. At first I laughed at it, but as the price began to come down to something almost reasonable my scepticism dissolved in the pool of my greed and I bought it. As soon as I’d given the boy the money I opened it. The seal was in perfect condition, but by the time I’d tasted it he had gone. It was a bottle of vinegar.
I was mortified by my gullibility, but Bruno was outraged. He dashed out of the restaurant and seizing two of the boys always loitering in the streets he charged them with the job of finding the miscreant for a reward and sent them off in opposite directions. They came back after a while and both said they’d found him, but one was more credible than the other. Bruno followed him, but instead of a boy he found himself facing a man who looked so villainous that Bruno decided justice could wait for a more worthy object.
The following day we met a man who thought our “wine” was delicious. But that’s another story.
