Ben Welsher | Writings

Day 89 - Huanchaco The sun turned a searing red as it began to dip below the horizon. Only a solitary tarmac strip disturbed the sandy expanses that lay to my left and to my right. The bus tracked Peru's Pacific coast until we reached the seaside town. Huanchaco was a small village home to fishermen and little else until surfers discovered its breaks. We too sought a break, though one from the vast distances we had to cover through South America's third largest country. The day after our arrival brought an undeserved defeat in the rugby, the day after that an undeserved victory in the football. At this point we broke our week-long alcohol fast. Michael's was done under medical advice, mine self-imposed after 3 months of daily imbibing. We stayed in a hostel called 'Chillout' which was run by a Scots fellow called Will who supplied fine Pisco Sours while decrying the state of the motherland. Back into the desert we plunged, passing hills of silicated sterility and ...

Day 82 - Cuenca Is it evolution that has given us the ability to internalise actions? That allows our conscious mind to leave the basic physics of any act to unconscious reflex while it wanders elsewhere? That sees the complexities of something like driving a car as nothing more than learned response? The subconscious takes over the familiar and rules routine. So it can be with travel. An autopilot takes control and the 'why?' of it slips almost as far back in the mind as the 'how?' Vision narrows and sees only the road. A whole country could be passed in this way and all memory will recount is "I was there". How quickly I forget the drudge of the past, how quickly our scale of what makes us happy and what makes us sad adapts to new realities. But then I believe there is no happiness without sadness, we need light as we need shade, we can detect only contrast. Sometimes life assumes the beauty of a symphony with its four movements of birth, youth, adulthood a...

Day 76 - Quito As an dance track from my youth had it "Ecuador!" After a day spent in Otavalo and its renowned market, where I picked up a Panama hat for a song, we had hit the capital. Long days of travelling had left tempers frayed but a couple of days of rest and an over-the-counter culture had restored moods to normal working order. Quito is a slender city pushed to elongate by surrounding mountains. It seems the planning policy employed by the Spaniards who founded these places was "is the site near a mountain, if so build. Better yet find a volcano." You know you're at altitude when a short flight of stairs leaves you bereft of breath and at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level Quito certainly had altitude. I hadn't realised that on stepping off the bus I was planting my foot for the first time on Southern hemisphere soil. There were no markers on the road to Quito still less a giant band ringing the earth's waist so my straddling-both-hemispheres p...

Day 71 - San Agustín It was late on the 70th day that we arrived at this little town in the hills. Our first of five buses that day had an electronic speedometer fitted in view of and presumably for the benefit of the passengers. The fact that it only had space for two digits when the driver could easily have put three to good use was concerning indeed. We tempered our fear as we careered along jinking roads with the knowledge that at least we were making good time. If there are any maxims of foreign travel then 'don't sit at the back of a minibus' should be one. It was a rule we had repeatedly failed to abide and again we rued while bring thrown violently over bumps and down potholes with nary a dab on the brakes. To distract from the spine realigning ride Michael quizzed me on my Spanish. Nouns, adjectives and the linguistic lesions that are irregular verbs until my brain could contort itself no longer. "¿Hola?", "¿Hola?" our greetings met no reply. ...

Day 69 - Desierto de la Tatacoa The road forked. One way lay the city of Cali, population: 2.5 million. The other way lay the Tatacoa Desert, population: goats. Which way to go? The town of Villa Vieja lay on the fringes of the desert's sparse expanse. It is a town were nothing much happens and nobody seems to have anything much to do or at least not with any urgency, mañana indeed. A chicken bus replete with actual chickens dropped us in the main plaza. Shaded from the beating sun, old men ruminated in small groups while schoolgirls giggled in green gingham. A 'mototaxi', something akin to a cage welded to a moped, would take us the rest of the way. The first sign of our desiccated destination was a cactus sat incongruously among the trees. Trees that gradually turned to stunted shrubs above grass that straggled and yellowed. The landscape opened up before us as rocky dunes took the place of flat pasture. Life seemed absent save for wandering cows and the ubiquitous goats...