Wind & Wheels

L. TITICACA -- I´m still at brisk altitudes on the shores of one the largest highest lakes. Out of the gates, the day began traditinally enough: weak coffee in a joint burrowed into the plaster, a malaria tablet, and ruminating about the next move. For a few days, we added a British fellow whom we met in the airport. He´s saddled with an theater profession, a strong currency, and zero Spanish. We dubbed him Lord Montague. (Both had caught phantom nose bleeds, too.) A bit of a lamb in the woods, but lambs, too, can speculate on the next move. Motorcycles. Some haggling later and I´m straddling a shrimpy bike, Andy ahead of me with Montague on board, rolling along toward the Peruvian border. Rural people sowing their fields wave, sheep bleat, and I try to hide my immense grin. Not happening. Around a bend, a net of schoolchildren interlock hands in a Red Rover traffic stop demanding money. I can´t pony up a dime because, let´s face it, one . . . maybe two kids will get their mitts on whatever I dole out. It wouldn´t be fair to others. A package of wafer cookies, spread out one by one, comes in handier than you think. Time for the getaway–shades down, RPMs up. Andy and Montague had already gone. My engine wouldn't start–a rental, right? Fugheddaboudit. I dropkick, kick, and kick some more. Nothing. It won't turn over. The pack of school kids have turned ravenous with sugarlust and start circling with frenzied eyes. I´d already been bled of all my sweets and this show had to get on the road. I pop the gear into neautral to start coasting downhill, carombing my feet off the gravel like a skateboarder. My scent had already been cast though. The wolfpack are chasing after me in their school uniforms screeching. ¨Help!¨ Andy stops, turns, laughs, and doubles over to laugh some more. The predators had caught me and . . . wait, what? . . . their little hands began pushing. Just the boost I needed; I slip it into second, pop the clutch and continue along the dusty path to bleat back at any obstacle sheep. Three hours of pretending we're Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid pass. So do ten miles of lake shore . We´re back in town slapping palms in jubilation. We can´t stop now, dusk isn´t nigh upon us. We could just slow down. The transition from moving fast to slow ended up being: A sailboat. These leasors were far more skeptical to let some foreigners – two reared on an island, one lamb on the Isle – take out their boat on a lake so boundless deep and wide, it may as well be the sea. Claiming islandhood was the coup de grâce. ¨This isn´t like sailing you´re used to,¨ they tell us. The boom (smoothed piece of hardwood) wasn´t attached to the mast, no daggerboard, and the rudder (hewn plywood) was dangling on three scraps of rusted rebar. In the name of safety, we had lifejackets and oars. Deep out of the marina the wind picks up and we have to use a paddle to swing through the tack. Someone on shore must have seen us luff for those minutes because a local ancient with deeply cut weatherworn creases in his face paddles out in a kayak to check in. Move your rope here, crank the rudder then, he says. The pointers turn the sordid first half into a relaxing second half. We were twenty minutes past our rented hour. But that extra twenty minutes meant we watched the sun sit down over the Peru side of the lake in a stark gradient of color. And that´s just day four.