A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~Lao Tzu

Exiting La Paz was as difficult as we had feared. The city’s streets were narrow and unpredictable, often ending in a pile of rubble or a series of potholes. Navigating through them with the dolphin was a sweating, white knuckled affair that ended in the dolphin getting stuck on an extremely steep street. We heard the familiar chugging sound and I pushed the truck as hard as I could, both of us leaning forward in a sympathy plea to make it over the hill. Right at the top, the dolphin’s engine died with a final cough and we began sliding backward, once again. The street was busy and narrow and the risk of a car crash was high. Jonas jumped out to place our stoppers behind the wheels and a woman began screaming at him from across the street. “Who told you you could come up this hill?? Trucks always get stuck here! You can’t come up here!” Cars began honking and drivers yelling, the woman finally shut up when she learned Jonas was Brazilian and we were still stuck on the hill. A fellow driver jumped out; he and I got behind the dolphin and pushed with all our might, the engine screamed and it crested the hill.

The rest of the trip out of La Paz was a series of barely-made-it hills and sharp turns and desperate prayers that we were following the right road. It took us hours and hours and hours to get out of the city, yet we made it. We headed out through the great plains toward Cochabamba and the last leg of the trip. We drove through flatlands for hours on a bad road, even though it was the main road between Bolivia’s two largest cities, La Paz and Santa Cruz. We spent the night in the parking lot of a lonely motel, owned by the family of a PSU international student, whose main attraction was the natural hot springs underneath it. After a freezing night in the dolphin, we awoke the next day and took a bath in the hot springs swimming pool, now filled with locals. We filled the dolphin’s tank with the gas from our spare tank, which took us to the next town.

The road was desolate and empty to Cochabamba. Every so often we would pass a small dusty town housing a two table restaurant, a couple skinny dogs and a bored old woman. We began to descend from the Andes, the road twisting and turning and snaking down, down, down through the dry landscape. We passed a truck that had not made the turn and had flown over the edge, crashing to the bottom of the dusty hills. Its cargo was motorcycles; dozens of men were now pulling them up one by one from the bottom by hand with ropes. We worried about the brakes getting hot – the motor yelled and thrummed as we used it to slow our descent. Bolivia behaves as if it were at war. Every 20 miles or so is a military or police check. Unlike most other countries, here they always wanted to check inside, go through the dolphin, ask us questions. Our movement through the country was slow and tedious – the last stretch was slowing into a series of police stops and drawn out descents.

We had seen on tv that there were violent protests in Cochabamba regarding access to water. The last time Jonas had been here in 2000 he had gotten stuck for three days due to violence and upheaval over the same issue. The Bolivian army can cut off roads to and from the major cities at any moment; motorists are sometimes stuck for days awaiting the re-opening of the entrance gates. Upon reaching Cochabamba, the city seemed peaceful. We could find no parking lot or hotel in which to park for the night, however, and spent a couple hours driving through the city. We had become security mooches – when we could find nowhere safe to stay, we would drive until we came to a wealthy neighborhood and park on the street in front of a security guard. The best option was always in front of a fancy hotel, where we could order a coffee or a drink in order to use the bathroom. Being white in a country of Indians, of course, ensures a free entrance card to all areas of the rich, no matter how grubby and unshowered one appears. We obtained my three month tourist visa from the Brazilian consulate and moved on toward Santa Cruz.

At Cochabamba we had reached 8000 feet. We still had at least another 7000 to descend before we finally exited the Andes; the final descent proved a real test for the dolphin. The landscape began to change as we moved away from the city – jungle began to overtake the high plains. Suddenly we were surrounded by dense green vegetation and fog so thick it came down in a soupy rain. As we made our way down the inclines the road would suddenly give way from pavement to pot holes and we would be forced to brake suddenly. Hours of this caused the predicted effect on the dolphin – the brakes began to smoke and stink. We exited the car and touched the wheels – they were hot enough to fry eggs on. We sat for an hour on the side of the road, listening to the jungle around us and watching the fog clog the mountains. On this road we got stuck in a truck line for two hours, awaiting a police checkpoint miles ahead. It was late afternoon when we arrived at the jam; by the time we got through the military examination it was completely dark. There were no gas stations, motels, or even towns on this road – we were forced to continue driving. The road became something out of a motorists’ nightmare – steep turns on a dirt road filled with massive ditches and holes, surrounded by cliffs and fog so dense we could barely see the truck ahead of us. We followed the jam of huge semi trucks as they all slowly made their way down the mountains, passing one another and honking, engines screaming as their motors slowed their speed. I felt I was in a highway carnival ride – all I could feel was the red lights of trucks, the smell of diesel, and the next massive pot hole in the road ahead. I spent every molecule of concentration I had to maintain the dolphin without getting hit by passing trucks on dangerous curves. Finally, after a frenetic couple hours, the line of trucks stopped. We had once again reached a truck jam. The huge engines around us shuddered and died; here we sat for another two hours awaiting our turn to go through a road construction site where the direction of traffic switched only every couple hours. When we finally reached the bottom of the line, we were exhausted. Since the gas had gone out on the fridge we had been unable to stock food. This was the beginning of our week-long starvation/driving marathon.

We reached Santa Cruz and stayed in front of the fanciest hotel we could find. The place was a massive ostentatious affair, costing more per night than most Bolivians make in a year. We ate a bad dinner there, used their bathroom and retired to our quarters parked next to the security guard on the street outside. The next day we asked truckers and gas station attendants about the road to Brazil. As always, we were told, “It’s fine, you can make it, no problem.” We decided to go for it, as our only other option was to go through Paraguay. We were losing steam and the vision of a soft bed, shower and dinner in Brazil pushed us to take the risk. As we passed the last toll station we asked about the road. The toll both conductor told us he had heard via his 3 way radio that morning that the road was fine and passable.

The drive from Santa Cruz to Brazil was surreal. The road would change color from red to black to yellow; the substance would vary from sand to dirt to small teasing sections of pavement. It moved and twisted like a snake in the most unpredictable formations possible. Suddenly the road would veer from straight, packed sand to the left and down a steep embankment, through a set of trees and back up a steep side ascent, where it became black dirt or pot holed ancient rock. The landscape changed once again as we reached the bottom of the Andes and the beginning of thousands of miles of flatlands through Bolivia,, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. We drove through countryside resembling national parks in the Southwest of the US, past terrific and deserted plateaus and mesas of red rock. According to the map, the area from Santa Cruz to the Brazilian border is a vast empty space – no towns, no cities, no road. This is almost true. There is a road, but it is difficult to call it passable. We knew we could not break down here – there are no real towns, no mechanics…only drug trafficking and peasants.

To pass the time, we decided to listen to the entire unabridged version of The Shining on cd. This only added to the bizarre surreal state of our lives at that moment. After driving for days without stopping through hostile, alien landscapes, speaking only with the occasional unfriendly and uninterested local, with very little food, the world begins to feel like a dream. The red dust began to eat everything, filling the vents of the dolphin, our noses, covering the seats, cushions, dishes and clothes. The road was riddled with potholes like a dog infested with fleas. Hours of driving, wandering across the road trying to avoid holes or sand pits, praying the road did not get any worse, as it was only barely passable and really required a 4 x 4. We could drive a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour and often had to slow to 5 or 10 Mph in order to stop the incessant shaking and rattling of the dolphin. We were terrified to pop a tire on one of the holes – the front tires would require a tire service shop to change. We both knew that if something were to go wrong with the car, one of us would have to stay behind while the other hitched a ride all the way back to Santa Cruz. This was not a good option.

We passed a bridge made for the railroad, rickety and wooden with steel railroad tracks in the middle. The dolphin’s tires got stuck in the thin tracks - later we saw that half the rubber on the tire had been stripped away while crossing this bridge. As we drove, listening to Jack’s steady descent into madness in the Overlook Hotel, we began to lose touch with reality as well and descend into our own sleep and food-deprived madness. Our minds began to play tricks on us; we began to hallucinate and moved into a strange communal delusion. Pot hole-sand- pot hole- Where is the road? Where did it go? Red Rum Red Rum Red Rum – pot hole- pot hole-pot hole- Police checkpoint – chat chat chat fear…pot hole pot hole pot hole pot hole…Was that a person crossing the road? What color is that cow? Is that cow green?? Yes it’s GREEN..IT’S A GREEN COW….no, no it’s not. God, I am covered in the dust, the red dust - Pot hole – Pot hole – Pot Hole – The road has no bridge – it’s a river; we can’t cross….Back up – that way now – ok a bridge, but god it’s wooden and splitting and our weight will crush it…drive drive drive fast fast fast aross it – it’s so narrow and old - thank god we are across – sand, not more sand – back to dirt – pot hole pot hole pot hole - Come out and take your medicine, you little shit! Cigarette- dust- pot hole- pot hole- pot hole, Oh God, the road is splitting – where do I go? Should I go down that sand bank? We’ll get stuck! Pot hole – pot hole – Pot hole – Is that cow blue?? Pot hole – Pot hole- Pot hole – Is that an AMISH man? God yes, it is – a couple of them in their little hats on a horse cart – God they’re WHITE – what are they doing here? Are they really there or am I imagining it? Wave wave at them – do they speak English? They are waving back…Pot Hole Pot Hole Pot hole - God can’t we go ANY faster than this? To get 60 miles will take us four hours!! It’s getting dark…nowhere to stay the night…No way off this road - Pot hole pot hole pot hole - More lights, but it’s only one light – is it a UFO? Is the light flying? A truck with a headlight out? I am losing perspective…don’t know how far away is the truck or ufo or whatever it is … No, wait, it’s coming into focus now – yes, there is the truck, with normal headlights passing me now…God I shouldn’t be driving – I am going crazy…Can’t stop now though….Pot hole Pot hole Pot Hole – Are we gaining altitude? Are we going up a hill? Yes, yes, we are, we are moving up a hill…We’ve been going uphill for hours…But there are no hills here – its flat for thousands of miles…Pot hole pot hole pot hole – It’s flat, we are hallucinating the hill…How could that be? Pot hole pot hole pot hole…Red Rum Red Rum Red Rum…You lost your temper and hit him! Shut up you bitch! He needs to learn his lesson red rum red rum… Pot hole pot hole pot hole…God, is that a dog? No, a fox? Are those eyes? Red rum red rum The hedge animals are coming alive …Pot hole pot hole pot hole… Where are those lights coming from? Is that truck sideways? Is it on the wrong side of the road? Am I on the wrong side of the road? Pot hole pot hole pot hole pot hole…I don’t think we will ever stop driving this road – we will circle it forever…some level of hell Pot hole pot hole pot hole… Red rum Red Rum Red Rum Come out and take your medicine you little shit!! I’ll find you!! Pot hole pot hole pot hole pot hole pot hole pot hole pot hole pot hole pot hole pot hole…….

And then….Trucks. A truck jam. 9:30 at night, we had reached the Pantanal, the vast wetland of Bolivia and Brazil, an untouched wetland roughly the size of France. We saw suddenly the familiar sight of Semi parking lights and pulled to a stop behind a line of trucks. We were outside in the world now. It came alive with the sounds and smells of swamp. Jonas walked ahead to see what was stopping the trucks. I looked around for a place to pee and found that the road was surrounded by standing water. I heard splashes in the water around me and, as usual, had nowhere to go and had to hold it. The earth now smelled musty and wet with the overwhelming odor of floating plant life and primordial ooze. Jonas returned and told me a river from Paraguay had flooded here and a truck was stuck in the water ahead of us. He disappeared again to speak with the truckers. God, not this. Not a river. After an hour of listening to the swamp, the trucks roared to life and began to move in front of me. I jumped in the car and moved forward, looking for Jonas. I drove past truckers and parked semi’s on the narrow road and came upon a group of men, digging at the back tires of a stuck truck, waist deep in the swamp. The lights shone out eerily across the water into the flooded undergrowth. I stopped the dolphin, ignoring the yells of the truckers to move on, and looked for Jonas. Inside a panic grew…where was he? I was not going to pass the water without him. Where was he? Why had he been gone for so long? I sat stubbornly awaiting him, forcing the trucks behind me to wait. Finally, there he was…he jumped in and we drove forward into the water. A rock stuck out of the water – we crossed over it and held our breath as the dolphin tilted sideways toward the soupy lake. We made it through the flood and up the hill, where a trucker stopped us. He told us the river had flooded much worse up ahead and there was no way we could make it. We followed the trucks a half mile down the road. It was now pitch black, no moon, in the middle of a great endless swamp. We got out of the dolphin and walked ahead to investigate…The truck lights shone across a lake of water stretching as far as we could see in the headlights. The truckers spoke rapidly among themselves and started their engines…Jonas asked one of the drivers if he could pull us through the water. The trucker put the giant semi into gear and moved forward, yelling back at us to follow him and honk if we had problems. We started the engine of the dolphin and began moving forward into the water…and stopped. We had no idea how deep this water was or how long it stretched. We watched the truck lights disappear ahead of us and turned off the engine. We opened the door and stood on the road. I walked the edges – swamp surrounded both sides of the road – there was nowhere to pull off. I heard something large jump into the water and splash in the dark. We were stuck and alone in a great, deserted bayou of Bolivia.

We sat for a bit in the back of the dolphin, exhausted. Jonas walked outside and into the flood to gauge its depth. I thought of snakes and alligators and multiple other creatures that had been disturbed by this flood, swimming in confusion through the water. He returned and told me the water was up to his knees and would cover the exhaust pipe of the dolphin if we attempted to cross. He had heard voices in the woods around him as he walked the flood…it was not safe to park here. We turned the dolphin around, slowly, carefully avoiding the water and mud surrounding the road, and drove back to the initial part of the flood, seeking the company of others. The truckers were still attempting to free the stuck semi – now they were soaking wet and covered in grime. Jonas requested help from the man parked ahead of us, but there was no way he could turn his semi around on the narrow road. He told us to return to the flood and wait, someone in a truck would come along.

We turned the dolphin around, barely making the turn, crushing into the embankment. We waited at the site of the flood, hoping no one would show up with a gun, watching the road and listening to the story of the Overlook Hotel where things were spiraling down into death and insanity. Red rum red rum red rum murder murder murder come out and take your medicine…outside the swamp was alive.

Finally headlights shone from behind – a truck approached on the dirt road. We stopped the driver, asked him to pull us through. He hooked our tow rope to the back of his truck and told Jonas to keep the engine revving as hard as possible in order to keep water from entering through the exhaust pipe. He started the truck and pulled us through a river of at least a half mile, the water moving higher and higher up the sides of the dolphin. Jonas had the engine yelling at full capacity and we gripped the sides of the doors and willed it to stay alive. I was surprised water did not enter through the side doors – I could see it swirling around the sides of the car. We reached the end of the water, finally, to a hill of mud and holes. The driver kept pulling us through the muck until we reached the top of the hill and parked. We had made it through. Water had entered the back part of the dolphin, soaking the first step of the living space. We gave the driver $9, thanked him and continued down the never-ending red road.

The night seemed to last forever. My body felt adhered to the soft felt of the driver’s seat, my stomach rumbled and complained. The road swam before our eyes and our hallucinations grew stronger. There was nowhere to stop, no gas station in which to pull over. We had to keep driving. The night seemed to have swallowed into its madness…we were lost in a forgotten corner of the earth, covered in red dust.

When eternity ended we reached a small town, San Jose de Chiquitos, which housed a gas station. We pulled into an empty corner and slept a strange and fitful sleep. My dreams that night were of the dolphin’s tow rope coming alive and snaking up like a cobra, an imitation of the fire hose in the Overlook Hotel. Water and potholes and red dust covered my eyelids when I closed them. My mind was consumed with the constant tipping and turning and avoiding of holes in the road.

We awoke very early and bought a tiny coffee at a stand on the street. I had bought Gotham cigarettes, on which was printed an image of a city very much like Gotham City on the front; they tasted like one would imagine the air in Gotham. I did not want to get sick in this last leg of the journey – the idea was just too horrible to contemplate – so we did not eat at the tiny, dusty restaurants in this middle of nowhere town. We were living on cigarettes, water and bread…Our minds were full of the lovely parties, booze and food of the guests at the Overlook Hotel. But like in the Overlook, they were just the mind’s tricks of desire.

We reached the edge of the small dirty town and looked out at an absolutely beautiful expanse of perfect highway. The road was not just paved – it was pavement six inches thick, flat and empty of traffic. A gorgeous freeway, appearing from nothing sat the end of this tiny decrepit town. We looked at each other, wanting to make sure we were not hallucinating again, the way one imagines an oasis of water in the desert. Sure enough, the highway was real and for 50 beautiful miles we sailed above the red dust at 55 miles per hour on grey pavement, feeling like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road. At the end of this lovely stretch, which probably saved us at least 2 hours of driving, we saw then the end of the dream…the highway stopped abruptly, giving way to the familiar red, pock marked road. We wondered at this tiny stretch of perfect highway in the middle of an otherwise devastated road system. A useless NGO grant? Good intentions to help San Jose, but accomplishing nothing? We were grateful for its presence but disappointed with its flirtatious teasing.

As we entered the heart of the Pantanal we began to see wildlife among the pooled water and dry dusty red fields.

Huge cranes, flocks of macaw, hawks, small silver fox, alligators lounging on grassy islands, millions of different types of bird life began to roam to and from and over the road. The road winds through an otherwise vastly untouched wetland where ranching involves herding swimming cattle through lakes in the wet season. It is virtually impassable apart from the road, often requiring a plane during the rains. We stopped to examine dead alligators (which was fairly terrifying since it was not really possible to tell the live ones from the dead), ant eaters, and capybaras (which reminded me of my parents’ terrier) alongside the road. We watched the live alligators sunning themselves in the water, near a huge bird called a tuyuyu. The Tuyuyu (wood ibis) has the body of a swan and the legs of a stork with a head like a burnt charcoal branch. Around its neck is a fat red stripe, resembling a bright ribbon tied around i\. In flight the thing is huge, its wingspan stretching out like a condor. While standing, it reaches the height of a man’s shoulder, like a great Egyptian relic. We took turns driving so we could watch the edges of the road and the cacophony of life exploding from the trees. It was by far one of the most beautiful drives of our trip, a safari of red dirt and the wildlife of the wetlands.

We reached the border of Brazil late that night and slept again in a gas station on the Bolivian side of the frontier. As we fell asleep, we looked up at the ceiling of the dolphin and thought about the fact that this was our last night here, in this car, surrounded by trucks. The trip was a day away from the end…my heart was full of confusion. We had reached the border of Brazil…The goal post, the end of the road, the X on the map that we had strained for with such hope. Our home for five months, the vehicle that had started off on a side street of Hawthorne in Portland was now sitting, coated in red Bolivian dirt, at the border of Brazil in the heart of South America. We had made it – I wasn’t sure if I should cry with a broken heart or rejoice with relief.

Tags: Bolivia, Driving

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