Máncora installation 1
I just got back from Máncora, a Peruvian beach town 20 bus-hours away from Lima. I just wrote an hour-long blog only to have it lost at the last minute. This is the consummating event of a misshapen vacation. Here is a summary of the results:
1. In spite of thickly and thoroughly applying SPF 45 sunscreen to my body and limiting direct exposure to the sun to two hours, I am sunburnt all over again, though luckily not on my shins, which are still healing from last time. The equator is fucking powerful.
2. My camera-my friend when there are no other friends-is totally broken due to the entry of roughly ten grains of sand into the lens. This happened right before a bus ride along the coast up to Ecuador, which offered up some of the shapeliest, simplest images that I have thus far only salivated about in my mind’s eye.
3. I am irreparably dizzy like I was in New York (imagine a bad trip that doesn’t end), which is attributable to one, or some combination of, these factors: Celexa, excessive weed smoking of late, excessive drinking of late. I’m betting on the weed and praying that my mind fixes itself. Otherwise, I might have to do something drastic.
4. I feel even more alienated than I did before the trip, as my time with four Peruvian women-which I was looking forward to as a respite from the men-only confirmed that I am pretty alone here. At one point I even said, after trying to tell a joke, “please understand me….someone?”
Máncora reminded me of the beaches we went to in Mexico when I was little, bringing forth memories I forgot I had. The vendors who came up to us peddling stone and shell necklaces and fried foods and horseback rides recalled the white and purple necklace I got when I was six or so, that I used to suck on until salt came out.
I did have one of the best runs of my life along the beach, that, for a glorious 40 minutes, was my own (shared in brief moments with fisherboys). I also had one of the best meals of my life in a little town called Puerto Pizzaro. The restaurant is called Los Caracolitos del Mar, and if you go there, ask the Señora for the Carousel de Mariscos. You will be treated to killer ceviche, rice with mixed seafood, mixed fried seafood and this special dish with seafood and plantains. All, of course, served with mayonnaise and those little cebollitas (purple onions marinated in vinagre and lime and cilantro and salt). Man, it makes my mouth water just thinking about it. All I could think (during the moments when I actually had thoughts), was how much I wanted to take Mom and Papa there. Too bad it’s so far north.
Both in Tumbes and in Aguas Calientes, the sketchy border town between Peru and Ecuador (why are border towns always sketchy?) (maybe for the same reasons that beach towns are universally full of hippies and crafts and weed), I encountered a stunning number of mannequins with fucked-up faces. As I strolled through storefronts of these figures with chipped noses and scratched eyes and sad wigs or make-up failing to do just that-make up for their sad state of disrepair-all I could think about was the photo project that would not be. Kind of like the buses of Lima photo project that will have to be put on hold for a while.
Máncora is worth more time, but the combination of dizziness and computer screen is just too much.
1. In spite of thickly and thoroughly applying SPF 45 sunscreen to my body and limiting direct exposure to the sun to two hours, I am sunburnt all over again, though luckily not on my shins, which are still healing from last time. The equator is fucking powerful.
2. My camera-my friend when there are no other friends-is totally broken due to the entry of roughly ten grains of sand into the lens. This happened right before a bus ride along the coast up to Ecuador, which offered up some of the shapeliest, simplest images that I have thus far only salivated about in my mind’s eye.
3. I am irreparably dizzy like I was in New York (imagine a bad trip that doesn’t end), which is attributable to one, or some combination of, these factors: Celexa, excessive weed smoking of late, excessive drinking of late. I’m betting on the weed and praying that my mind fixes itself. Otherwise, I might have to do something drastic.
4. I feel even more alienated than I did before the trip, as my time with four Peruvian women-which I was looking forward to as a respite from the men-only confirmed that I am pretty alone here. At one point I even said, after trying to tell a joke, “please understand me….someone?”
Máncora reminded me of the beaches we went to in Mexico when I was little, bringing forth memories I forgot I had. The vendors who came up to us peddling stone and shell necklaces and fried foods and horseback rides recalled the white and purple necklace I got when I was six or so, that I used to suck on until salt came out.
I did have one of the best runs of my life along the beach, that, for a glorious 40 minutes, was my own (shared in brief moments with fisherboys). I also had one of the best meals of my life in a little town called Puerto Pizzaro. The restaurant is called Los Caracolitos del Mar, and if you go there, ask the Señora for the Carousel de Mariscos. You will be treated to killer ceviche, rice with mixed seafood, mixed fried seafood and this special dish with seafood and plantains. All, of course, served with mayonnaise and those little cebollitas (purple onions marinated in vinagre and lime and cilantro and salt). Man, it makes my mouth water just thinking about it. All I could think (during the moments when I actually had thoughts), was how much I wanted to take Mom and Papa there. Too bad it’s so far north.
Both in Tumbes and in Aguas Calientes, the sketchy border town between Peru and Ecuador (why are border towns always sketchy?) (maybe for the same reasons that beach towns are universally full of hippies and crafts and weed), I encountered a stunning number of mannequins with fucked-up faces. As I strolled through storefronts of these figures with chipped noses and scratched eyes and sad wigs or make-up failing to do just that-make up for their sad state of disrepair-all I could think about was the photo project that would not be. Kind of like the buses of Lima photo project that will have to be put on hold for a while.
Máncora is worth more time, but the combination of dizziness and computer screen is just too much.