The Devil Turned and Said, "Life is Cruel Out Here"

          We finished the fence a few days ago and I was relieved to not have to dig anymore three foot deep holes. The horses had been fighting, biting one another and so on, so we were looking forward to letting them out into the yard, with enough room that there should have been no conflict. All horses have different personalities. The seven are each very different and could probably be stereotyped parallel with something you'd see in high school.  Herman, Cheyenne, Thunder, Lil' Devil, Laya, Abandon, and Chap. Laya, Abandon and Chap are the 'popular' kids, but really they are just mean to the other horses. Very territorial. Herman is the 'best behaved', bought already trained, a friendly Paint, who loves attention ,but bucks when he has to leave the other horses...sometimes. Cheyenne and Thunder are the brother and sister pair we brought in the first few days. Kids of Laya, but sweet, friendly, and curious. Lil' Devil is an original. When the rancher inherited the ranch there were three hundred wild horses on the property. They rounded up all of them and took them to sale, except for one, who was hiding the whole time and reappeared about a month later. He was then named The Little Devil. He spooked like nobody's business and could run faster than you would believe. The rancher got on him only once and was thrown literally and figuratively for a loop. Since then Devil was deemed un-rideable and would rarely let anyone come near him, though we had gotten him to eat out of our hands in the last few weeks. Him and Herman stuck together a lot, but other times Devil would go off from the group and do his own thing. When we turned all the horses loose, they stuck together enough while still maintaining their space. At about six last night we saw that Thunder and Herman were on the wrong side of the fence and brought them in. We put all the horses in the coral after seeing that one of our posts for the fence had snapped in half. At that time, we couldn't find Devil and assumed he had spooked at whatever caused the fence to break and would come back later.
       The rancher had made delicious Maple Oatmeal bread and I had told him of my plans to stuff it with strawberries and make french toast in the morning. He wakes up at 4 AM pretty consistently and I merely guilt myself into walking into the kitchen at half past six. He is usually sitting at the kitchen island watching the radar for the weather, but this morning he was pacing in the living room when I woke up and I knew something was wrong. He turned around with watery eyes and said, "Devil's gone." "What do you mean?" I asked. He was obviously going to come back and be with the herd and get water. He may have wondered, but he wasn't gone. "I went up to the top to look for him and didn't see him, then came down and followed some blood I saw had splattered. He must have got stuck in the brush and punctured himself. He bled out." He walked towards me and hugged me. "I'll have to call John to get him out with the tractor. We'll have to clear some of the brush so he can get to him." "I'll pour you some coffee, then we'll go."
   Walking up, I felt hesitant. Not sure if I was ready to see the condition he might have been. I had heard coyotes last night before we went in and wasn't sure if I could walk up to a half eaten horse at seven thirty in the morning. He was already starting to bloat. Having fallen on his side, his hide quarters were on top of a pile of branches. Three of his legs were covered in blood. His mouth was slightly open, exposing a few of his top teeth. I couldn't see any immediate puncture wounds on his legs. Tracing back there were spots in the grass where he'd fallen, blood sprayed all over weeds, telling that there must have been more to it than his legs as the blood spray was more correlated to a rupture of an artery. We cleared all the fallen branches around him so that we could pull him out and take him to the 'bone yard', which is where all the dead animals get put. Having them near the house attracts all kinds of scavengers that aren't safe, though the turkey vultures circled all morning. The rancher wrapped a chain link around his hind legs and pulled him out with the pick up truck. It was only once we were able to move him that we saw what killed him. Devil had an eight inch puncture wound in his left chest. He'd spooked and ran into a fallen branch, probably turned and twisted to get away and bled out until he collapsed about thirty feet away. It was sad, horrible, honest and real.
   A few days after I had gotten to South Dakota, I saw a lone horse on the neighbor's property. "They probably got rid of the rest. That horse will either find water, or he won't. Life is cruel out here,"the rancher said.
   Life is cruel and Lil' Devil was proof. We knew there was lots of brush in that area, but had assumed the horses wouldn't get into it, because we assumed they wouldn't spook and break the fence. This morning when I woke up, it was absolutely gorgeous outside and it remained so all day. That's how things happen. Beauty and horror continue to walk hand in hand. I've always been a fan of the statement that life is a beautiful struggle, but sometimes we forget about the struggle. That each day is a feat and an accomplishment if finished. I felt bad and I liked Devil, and though my eyes welled up a few times, I never actually shed a tear until tonight, when we let the horses out again and found Herman, Laya, and Thunder, over by where Devil had died. They were looking for him.  They sniffed around and I found them licking some of the spots where there were pools of blood. Earlier in the morning, after we'd pulled Devil out, I went in to get the horses, and they were all acting strange. Half laying down, all together, they all came over when I walked in.
     In working with Cheyenne the last few days, I've asked myself how long it takes to tame something wild. I've found the answer in myself and in them. Something wild is always wild, because the spirit itself is free and that can never be tamed. It can behave and it can listen, but it can never be tamed and wild hearts never die. Devil's wild spirit will carry on over this ranch and those of us with something wild inside should never try and domesticate that feeling. Wear it with pride, be reckless, be free, be wild. It's what living is all about.

 Herman (left) with Devil (right) 

Branding, Castrating, Shots and Piercings: It's What's for Dinner,Tonight!

             The morning today was chilly, which means there is a lack of motivation. Because of this, we decided to go to town and buy some things we were out of or running low on. Mainly coffee filters and bacon. On the way to town, we passed a neighbor who we stopped to chat with. The rancher told the neighbor how we were going to help another neighbor brand later in the week. His response,"well, we're branding today, you two are welcome to come by and help." So we did. And boy was I in for a treat.

        Originally I was told we would be branding thirty five calves. We rounded up over a hundred cattle from the grassland driving in four wheelers. Once we got them all into a coral, we had to separate the calves from their mothers. This was done on foot in about six to eight inches of mud and shit. The process puts a lot of stress on the animals judging by their behavior. Calves hiding behind cows, running frantically, and so on. After about thirty minutes, we were able to get them all into two separate pens. At this point the calves were all trying to either crawl under the fence or charge through bent wire in the fence to get back to their mothers. The cows were all "calling?" for their young and sniffing through the fence to find their own. We had to get between 15-20 cows in a smaller pen so we could get 4-5 in a chute where they could get vaccinations and sprayed for flies. Meanwhile, any of the other cows that were not in the pen or the chute were behind me. I  was working the fence line to keep the panicked calves from escaping and the angry mothers from running through me. Once the cows were finished they were let out back into the pasture and would come back to the outside of the gate to try and find their calf through the fence.

    We arrived around one o'clock. At this point it is probably around three or four and we hadn't even touched the calves, which there were 62 of, not 35. We had to separate them to get about ten to go into a smaller pen, from which we could get them into the chute. I was unaware until riding on the back of a four wheeler that we would be "neutering" the bull calves. What he meant to say was castrating. I'd heard about how this was done, when we picked up the horses from another neighbor early in the week.  He told us a story of his grandson's friend vomiting everywhere after watching a lamb castration. I knew the procedure, but.... Okay, be aware I'm not going to spare any details so if you can't stomach this you should scroll down till you see a picture of something or whatever. 

         A chute is just a narrow passageway, but this one, for the calves, goes into a metal chute which can flip on it's side so you have the calves' side exposed for whatever you need to do. We had five things to do to each calf. Vaccinate, two different injections, ear tag, brand, and castrate if it was a bull calf. The calf is forced into the chute, where it put his head through the other side and is then somewhat restrained by clamps of the machine. From that point, the gates compress the calf and turn to put the calf at an angle. With it's neck and head sticking out, I had to give two injections into the neck, all while the panicked calf is thrashing around. The top gate compressing the animal has two latches that lift. If it's a bull, the second latch is lifted and the third person involved grabs the calf's outside leg and holds it while the fourth person castrates the bull. The third person is the one who gets shit on when the animal freaks out (yes, that happens). The fourth person, with a bucket of...sterilizing liquid? then grabs a pocket knife, slits the scrotum, reaches in and pulls out the testicle and cuts whatever cord is dangling from it, then proceeds to do the same for the other side. Tucking the leg back in and closing this latch, the third person opens the first latch and brands the cattle. This is when the smell of burning flesh and smoke take over, along with the horrid bleating noise of cries to mom. As soon as they stop thrashing enough, the second person pierces their ear and puts in the tag. After this, the chute is tilted back upright and the front of the chute is opened up so the animal can run out. It's the worst thing I could possibly imagine for these animals. BUT aside from the day they go to slaughter, this is the only time in their life they will be handled at all by humans. And today, we averaged a bull calf at a minute and forty seconds to do all those things. From the time it enters the chute to when it's let out.  Now I'm sure those are the worst and longest minutes of it's life, but it's all consolidated and I'd argue it's worse then slaughter because that's a quick shot to the head, it's not drawn out pain. You can't feel shit when you're dead.                       Anyways, the image I saw over and over again was calves,  aged 2-3 months in an angled chute, with eyes bulging, showing so much white you'd think they were having a seizure, thrashing their heads and kicking their legs, while their removed testicles are tossed into a bucket. The end result, as the calves are released to find their anxious mothers waiting outside the gate, I stare at the empty chute where the bottom is caked in mud and shit, smears of blood smudge the head stall, and a half dried out testicle sticks to the side. I couldn't make this stuff up. I asked for an experience and I got one.

   Despite the graphic scene I've just 'branded' into your mind, these cattle will now spend the next year out in the pasture, miles from being bothered by anyone, eating fresh green grass. A far better life than being force fed corn and cow parts in a factory somewhere. Not to mention this whole process I've just told you about doesn't have a whole lot to do with food consumption, so you can argue with me all day about eating cows and all the shit they have to go through, but this process goes for all the cattle, not just ones that would be used for beef, but also dairy, and breeding. That said, as a supporter of eating meat, anyone who drinks milk or eats beef should have to see this shit...if you can stomach it.

If you were scrolling, you can come back and read now. We worked with the cattle from a little after one to a quarter to seven at which point we had finished and went in for...steak dinner. It was good, but very fatty, so I skimmed a lot of it which made me feel rude. I discovered there are fifteen people in the one hundred square miles of the township and had a nice chat over dinner with the family who owned the cattle. That day will probably be one of my most memorable here, given how vivid it was. It's a shitty process and knowing that I was involved in the worst day of an animals life makes me feel a bit shitty, but giving vaccinations I was doing the most....well to do activity of the whole thing. We are supposed to brand later in the week as well, with another neighbor, but this will be on horses instead of four wheelers. Not that keen on it, but I came here to help, so that's what I'll do. Whatever it takes. 

John Deer, Thunderstruck, and Out of Shape

Let me just start off by saying, I am so glad we bought beer this week. It is now Thursday, on Monday I learned how to drive a tractor. It was probably the most expensive thing I will ever be allowed to be responsible for in my life at above eighty thousand dollars.

Most expensive thing I'll ever drive

The next day we went into Rapid City to buy things and pick up the rest of Steer #10 in Sturgis. We now have well over a hundred pounds of grassfed beef. We also went up through the Needle Highway and attempted to see the Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore. Unfortunately, the weather South of us turned out to be such thick fog we couldn't see anything at either of the sites. The Needles were cool though and Bear Butte  and Custer Park, which we drove through to get there. We saw lots of wildlife including buffalo, which I later ate in one of the most delicious burgers I've ever had. Wasabi mayo, fried onions, and soy sauted mushrooms, Mmm Mmm Mmm. So fucking good. Spicy though, started tearing up three whole times. 

Needle Highway

 The next day we worked with the horses nonstop. We started off lunging and saddling one of the new ones, Thunder, who we got back at the beginning of the week. He's got some bad habits and the trainer he'd been with all winter said he was real stubborn. The rancher's cousin, who we stayed with on our way out said he was a mean horse. I'm glad to say he hasn't proved to be either yet. We rode out and around the east pasture with the other horse Herman, just to give them the exercise and he was fine.

When we returned, we lunged and saddled the other two who we would like to be rideable by the end of the summer. Cheyenne, the black horse, has never been ridden and Abandon (named that cause she was just dropped off at the ranch by no one knows who) has had a saddle on once. Lastly, I rode Chap, who is the one I wrote about refusing to move a few posts ago. He didn't do much. 

Thunder and I

Today, we rode Thunder and Herman down to the Cheyenne River. It was beautiful and hot. I now know that I am neither dirty or tan. I am very much both. I pretty much live and breath a combination of horse shit and bug spray and I kind of love it. Is that weird? After the two and a half hour ride today, we took a break and I went out to work with the other two non-saddle broke horses while the rancher collected fencing materials. Afterwards, I met him to help work on the fence. Though I have learned many things while here, I am now coming to terms with the fact that I am not strong.  So after last week of riding, realizing I am not in shape I am not met with this. We dug a three foot hole in the dirt, put in a post...yeah, actually when I say we, I really just watched. I did help dig the hole, but then he set the rusty barbed wire and when we stretched the wire to the other post where we broke the hole digging tool. He then went and got an extra handle he had, cut it to fit it into the brace, etc. Long story short it took forever, I definitely got a sunburn, and I'm incredibly NOT strong. Honestly, what the fuck does in shape mean, that you can run a marathon, or stop a crazy horse at a dead run, or nail a post six feet into the dirt? I can't do any of those things and I'm not skinny, so I'm stuck in a valley of uselessness inbetween the two. In my mind, I was thinking I'd return to boston looking like Paul Bunyan, not the case. I know when it's time for me to leave in nine days now, which is such a bummer, that I'll feel like I was just really getting somewhere, but some things are left unfinished so we can return to them later. In the meantime, I've decided I'm either really fucking cool, or absolutely batshit crazy and in serious denial. I hope I don't find out which one anytime soon. 

Legs like Jell-O

People in the country are weird. They have character which makes them interesting, therefore I like them. Much like you'd expect most people out here seem to be old and white, owning acreage that was given to them by the government, who stole it from the Native Americans. That being said I could count the number of people I've seen since arriving on my hands, so I'm not here to judge. We did pass a reservation on the drive in though. It was weird looking and depressing, but most of all small. I saw wheat with more land then these houses had.

This is Real

 Today it rained again. Regardless, the horses still needed to be worked so we worked three of them and then took two out. One basically refused to move the entire time, so he would get lunged on the spot nearly every twenty minutes. I rode away from the barn, despite bitter discontent from the horse I was on. I can't say whether it was the bugs or my presence, but Herman, the horse, was less than pleased after my refusing to take him back to the barn. Stopping on a short ledge to attempt as many bucks as possible, we eventually came to an agreement to go to the east pasture, where we worked circles until dizzy. During this time it had started to pour. We were soaked through and through by the time we got inside the house. It was one of those days where afterwards I asked myself, "do you even like horseback riding?" But that quickly turned around cause I totally do. Even when it's fucking exhausting. If I was in the shape I've been lying to myself about being in, I would probably be a lot less exhausted. I've never been sore from riding...in the timespan of the ten years I was riding. I've now had three to four years off and today I can hardly cross my legs.

Herman

Every time I change lifestyles, I automatically expect to become skinny. I had similar expectations here, but at this point I eat Oreos by 9am each day and drink fine wine every night. The Rancher is into wine, so despite the black dirt under my finger nails I still hold my pinky out while sipping it back. You'd think we'd drink whiskey. After dinner, we drove up to check the winter wheat crop. All this means to me is beer. Once we checked the field, we drove out to the breaks where rolling hills and valleys go down to the Cheyenne River, which is gorgeous. Actually the black horse I've been working with is named after the river because much like the river she won't go in a straight line, but instead zigzags in every which direction.

 I feel I've been living so many different lives over the course of my own. I went from a cheerleader to...well Colorado, then became a traveler and a writer, then a teacher, then from a ski bum to a backpacker to a rancher? Who the fuck am I? Just kidding all these things have helped me shape  who I am and who I'm becoming. Those things aren't who I am, they are what I do and there's a big difference.

Oh and I almost didn't have a first today, but then I got chased by a turkey. Thing came out of NOWHERE!

The Devil Himself

                         

Heifers: Dress them in Snake Skins and Fatten them up with Blueberry Pancakes

First time I attempted to drive a huge truck up a mountain made of mud.

First time sliding backwards down a mountain made of mud in that same truck.

Made for More than Just Walking

          Forgotten first that happened the second day that I wish I never saw. I saw a cow take a shit on another cow's face. Dead serious. It always bothered me when people would make ethics arguments about eating animals that are less intelligent. You don't get to eat something because it's stupid. If that was the case we would have eaten half the world's politicians. Just kidding...kind of. Anyways people say that sometimes when the discussion of eating dog comes up. This happened a lot to me because I lived in Asia. People would say how could someone eat dog, they're friends and pets and they're smart. That's a US thing and pigs are just as smart if not more intelligent than dogs. BUT if your an animal that let's another animal take a shit on your face, and I mean let's, not forced to because of tight quarters then you are indeed not a smart creature. 

 The first or second day when we were herding the neighbors cattle off the property, one was following another so closely behind, that it's face was in the leading cows ass. The lead cow then proceeded to take a shit...while the other one did nothing but keep it's head in place. What the fuck? I had no idea animals did this, I wish I still had no idea. Cows are dumb.

Since today wasn't that different from the rest I'm going to catch you up on a few weird things that have happened so far. 

Talking about heifers. The rancher says to me,

"Ya know, with heifers first they go out in the pasture with the bulls, if that doesn't work they use artificial insemination, and if still no they fatten 'em up and put 'em to market." 

  "Are you saying that's what's going to happen to me?" Though I know it wasn't his intent my first thought was, oh my God he's talking about me being single. No luck, then online dating, then I just eat myself to death and die. That sounds awful...I think.

That was a day ago or so he said that though. This morning he gave me a rattle snake skin and made blueberry pancakes. Again it rained and stormed until late late afternoon. We worked some of the horses in the morning, emptied out the school house, cut up a bunch of brush from fallen trees and did other manly shit like drive trucks. I didn't ride today and I'm still sore. Even my thumbs hurt. For dinner I made pork chops for the first time. They came out delicious despite the fact I filled the house with smoke to make them. I'm full and exhausted to the point where when I think about showering I think about how much easier a bath would be with just a person on the side to wash my hair for me. I don't want to lift my arms anymore... Is that weird?

Another first, I saw the big and little dipper tonight. When the sky is clear here you can see out for thousands upon thousands of stars.

The Apache Helicopter of Human beings

My intention from my last post was actually to just write one thing that I did for the first time as a list of maybe twenty things I did while on this trip. That didn't work out because I've already given more than one thing for each day, plus more details then you care to know. So I'm just going to stick with that route. However, I'm still going to tell you about firsts...

May 30th

I herded two wild horses...on foot

Rode on a four wheeler.

Listened to a discussion on how to castrate sheep

...these firsts are supposed to be done with intention, which means I'm not doing so well. That said I also rode for the first time in a few years on a horse that hadn't been touched for six months. It went...okay.

I want to give you some perspective on what an average day looks like. Obviously I can't do that yet seeing as my first full day was today. Regardless, I'll tell you about today. I woke up at six, actually I first woke up at four and the silence was tremendous, which seems ironic as there are animals all over the property and bugs and birds making all kinds of noise during the day. But yeah, six o'clock I started getting up and dressed. Made a breakfast of OH! Another first. I had almond milk in my cereal. That was intentional. So breakfast and then out to start working with the horses and cutting down the weeds in the round pen. There's only one horse who is truly trained and that's a Paint named Herman. Having all not been groomed for months their manes and tails were completely tangled and dreaded with these strange sticky weeds that look like some kind of toy you'd get out of a gum ball machine. After taking out half of Herman's hair to get them out, the rancher I'm staying with told me to hop on him. Not thinking....at all...about the fact he hadn't been ridden for months I said sure and hopped on. This proved to be a huge mistake because I did not have bug spray on and now I look like I have the mumps. Going out to the east pasture we walked through grass that was up to two to two and a half feet high. All the bucking, balking, kicking, head tossing and stomping aside, the mosquitoes were by FAR the least enjoyable aspect of the ride. Other than that it was just like sitting on a pissed off couch, since that's what a Western saddles feel like anyway...couches, Herman brought the crazy. 

After that we got two other horses exercised in a round pen and our exercise was chasing them around to get them in there. Nothing too crazy. By then it was 9:15 and I was ready for lunch. Instead we both ate a bunch of Oreos and went out to hitch the trailer to the truck so we could pick up the other two mustangs the neighbor had been keeping. The "town" we're in has a post office that's closing (how you can close a post office I don't know) and a 'store' that is probably smaller than your kitchen yet contains more liquor. If everybody in town owns a few hundred acres at least and the rest is two building how does one call it a town. We passed a sign that said Pop:481. That doesn't count. That's not a population it's a collection. There are people with more antique spoons in their house then there are people here.

The Rancher points out neighbors to me who have simple names I can't remember and who live miles and miles away despite being 'next door'. I'm not condoning violence, but if you wanted to hide a body... It rained on and off all day and driving down the dirt road to get to the friend with his horses turned semi treacherous quickly. The man with the horses remakes covered wagons from antique parts then leads trails with them and his horses. It's a weird hobby, but what else is one to do out there. I say make your Oregon Trail wagons, if it makes him happy who gives a fuck. This man was a fascinating character. He successfully chewed a toothpick while over the course of an hour lunging one horse, trailering another, smoking two cigarettes and drinking two cups of coffee. He also called me Sasha which is admirable in that I can appreciate people who really don't give a fuck.

 After castration chatting over coffee, two Canadians showed up to buy tipis for their baby lambs. Apparently that's a thing, keeps the babies and their moms warm.( Learned something today, didn't ya?) We headed back to the ranch to unload the brother, Thunder,3, and his sister, Cheyenne,2.  After struggle fest 2014 of getting Cheyenne into the trailer, both horses refused to get out, putting one leg on the ground then freaking out and hopping back in. Eventually we got them both out and were able to exercise them before reintroducing them to their herd, which included their mother. The reintroduction did not go well as the other horses took it upon themselves to put the new ones in their pecking order. Lots of running, biting and kicking. After being in the house for less than a half hour we noticed the two outside and saw they had jumped the fence to get away from the rest. The pasture goes on for acres so instead of trying to catch them we just attempted to herd them to a separate pen. This worked until one stepped on a ribbon, freaked out and ran away. On the second attempt she ran right up to the barbed wire fence she jumped out of, stopped, and jumped right back in. Fast forward, long story short, you don't care, we caught them both and hopefully they will be there tomorrow morning, if not they'll come back eventually...I think.

Cheyenne and I

             

 We were pretty much done for the day by this point though I was exhausted by eleven and again at a quarter til three. That will probably be even worse by tomorrow. However, as the Rancher says, it really doesn't feel like work...as I count the burst blood vessels in my hand. But he's right. When I was ready to pass out at eleven I felt guilty, thinking back to when I was in Boston I had all this energy. I thought to myself I should make a point to start doing yoga in the morning before I start outside. Then it dawns on me, when I was in Boston I wasn't doing jack shit! I did yoga, ate bacon, and slept for twelve hours a day and oh yeah I didn't do any work!

  The Rancher tells me things never go the way as planned. I nod that I understand, but I don't think he believes me.  This may sound weird, but I really feel like living in Bangkok made me a much smarter functional human being. I am now accustomed to things never going the way they should. With the elimination of the expectation things will go according to plan, I am now drastically less stressed out. I also have really honed in on my executive planning skills, running through plan B, C, and D before even executing A. These two things with a somewhat competent level of independence make me a highly functional person. I am not always confident that I can do things however, I know I've overcome many challenges and I use this evidence as motivation to do the best I can in a given situation. You either figure it out or you don't, but let's be real here are you really not going to figure it out? Come on now, you totally will.

  Anyways, I'm really happy with my decision to come out here. Normally when I make a big decision

by the second day I get this 'oh shit, I've made a huge mistake' feeling. This wasn't a big decision, it's two weeks of my time, but even so I'm in the middle of nowhere. I could be easily murdered and disguarded or turned into one of those psycho cases where the girl is raised by cattle and lives in a shed for ten years. I even thought about all those happening and thought 'eh, I could probably deal'. What the fuck has happened to me? Am I like the Apache helicopter of human beings now? Not quite...but maybe.

Is There Even a Song with South Dakota in it?

I've decided to do this travel section of my blog a little differently. As some of you may know from my previous post I am now in South Dakota after driving through an abyss of corn, cows, and Jesus billboards for three days. For the next two weeks I will be living on a ranch taking care of and training wild horses. It's pretty awesome. A few have never been ridden before, others ridden unsuccessfully and so on. There's only seven of them. On the four hundred and eighty acre ranch they have free reign over about a hundred and twenty acres, which can make for some long walks to catch them, but I digress. Doing things differently. I'm going to try and make a point of doing something for the first time each day I am here. 

So for example, today I did a few firsts:

 May 29th.

 I herded cattle in a pick up truck.

 I thought to myself 'I'd like to know how to drive a tractor'

 I wore cowboy boots in all seriousness.

 Even yesterday I tackled a few...

May 28th.

I saw the Sioux Falls of South Dakota.

I lied and told someone I "didn't mind cats"

 The Day before...

May 27th

I embarked on a three day road trip and volunteered to work for free in a state I'd never been to with a sixty seven year old man I hardly know.

Sounds like an adventure, huh.

Bouncing from Boston Bliss

I mentioned in a previous blog, that I'm now doing work writing for multiple organizations. Pink Pangea ( http://pinkpangea.com/author/kaytia_king/ ) is a website for female travelers who has published a few of my blogs and will continue to for another month until my contract ends with them. I've also recently been asked to start a blog for an organization I worked with in Uganda. I'm also writing for a travel agency. It goes without saying that I'm doing a lot of writing and that said it really should be better. I owe it to you as a reader, a faithful loyal reader. The past few months without a computer I couldn't track my blog views, but checking back on it now I see they never dwindled and it's humbling to know people are reading my words. What sparked me on this tangent was that I just read an article that is so devastatingly beautiful it not only brought me to tears, but also served as a reality check that the writing I've been putting out has been short of what you deserve. You deserve better and although I probably can't give you the quality of the article I'm about to post, which made me cry, I can do better...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at

I've been home from South America for a month now and last week was my original date to arrival in the US from Chile. Having to return from my trip a month early due to earthquakes I thought the travel bug would sting earlier.  However, the itch to travel has been creeping up for probably about two weeks now, which is unusually only because I am far from bored here in Boston. I came into an extremely fortunate situation and am living in a friend's apartment in the North End, which is an adorable Italian neighborhood in Boston. I spend the mornings sleeping in, only to enjoy an hour of yoga overlooking the skyline and the harbor from the roof deck for the afternoon.

 I would hate me. More than that it makes me feel like a right asshole every time people ask me what I'm up to or doing with my life now. At the same time, I'm happy and things are going well, really well, and I don't want to have to feel bad about it. The truth is I'm terrified this is all going to turn around any minute, because I've been so lucky in all this that it takes nearly all my energy not to think that some horrible fate is just around the corner. When I tell people of this fear they attempt to assure me that I've been through enough and that I deserve the good or that everything is going to be fine. A part of me tries to tell myself that it's not that things are so good, it's that my perspective has changed. I still don't have a  "real" job, a home, or a substantial bank account, so when strangers or old friends come out of the wood work and ask me how I do it, or tell me they're envious they don't see the whole picture, they see what I post on Facebook. The fact that I'm not a weirdo means that I don't post about how I could count the number of times a year I see my own family on one hand nor do I advertise that I missed five funerals and three weddings in the first year I was away. That's not perfect, it's perspective...it's life. 

    I've been able to come at Boston like a traveler much more than years past. I never came into town when I actually lived twenty minutes away. Now I explore every dark alley I can. I order the specials, put my feet in the water I know is freezing, wonder through the old church with open doors and blooming flowers outside. Despite going to new places frequently, I often find myself being timid. These days I want to feed my curiosity whenever I can. Living in Boston is the biggest safety net I've had in years. People speak English, one version of it at least. My cellphone works and so does Google maps. I can't fuck up nearly as much as I already have in another place a world away, so I feel much more inclined to take risks and it's paying off.

  Though I'm merely at my quarter life crisis if I could give any advice to my fellow lost souls it would be this: We're not actually lost. No one knows where they're going, some people just walk more confidently. Say yes. Explore new things and do it with a bit of recklessness, you probably need it more than you think. Lastly, birds don't learn to fly because they stay in the nest all their lives. They learn because they jump. (Or mom pushes them, but you get the point.)

   That said I've had a spectacular time this past month living in the city I've called home, but it's time to leave the nest again. I'm off to South Dakota for a few weeks to go train mustangs on a two hundred eighty acre ranch. I'll be back, but opportunity knocked and somebody's got to answer that. 

Loving and Leaving Lima

 Waking up in Tacna, Amanda and I delved into research on the best way to get out of it. We spent the morning on the phone with Jetblue, OneTravel, and everyone else we'd made arrangements with for our returning flight that was initially scheduled for May. Trying to appeal to the compassionate side of customer service, we pleaded to get out of cancellation and change fees. With little avail we squeezed an unhealthy amount out of our budgets for new return flights. Pausing for another breakfast of eggs with a side of lighter fuel, we packed up and took off for the airport. The ride to the airport took us a bit 'out of town' which is when is became clear Tacna was where the movie Holes should have been set. To say there is nothing, doesn't even explain the terrain of this town. There are boxes made of brick with one top opening that could be a window. There were barely any people and I'm afraid I'll be offensive if I call them houses because I did not see one person around these buildings within miles.
      Back at the hotel, we had tried to book flights to Lima, but the website wasn't taking non-Peruvian credit cards, so we set out to the airport in hopes of just...well, making it. When we pulled up to the airport that has maybe a maximum of three outgoing flights a day, we were nothing short of an absolute shit show. Getting to the counter, I gave him a confirmation number and told him we hadn't paid yet. Our desired flight was taking off in forty five minutes. He told us he couldn't take cash for the tickets and that we had to pay for the tickets in town, but we could perhaps take the later flight out at 5pm. With this news Amanda flashed her pearly whites and I put it all out on the table that we needed to be on the immediate flight out. Oddly enough  for this scenario, the airport which had nearly nothing in it, had a bank, which we could go pay at. He had us wait there to check with his supervisor, Carmen, if we could pay with the bank. When we looked back over at the bank, the lights were off and the one woman who'd been sitting in there was gone. The guy who'd been helping us, ran out of the airport to go get her and bribe her back from her lunch break. We thanked her and then discovered she only took cash. We scrounged up our last dollars and soles, which we only had in anticipation of paying for a Chilean visa. She gave us a receipt and we went back to the first counter and gave it to Carmen in exchange for our tickets. She then took the tickets, put on an air traffic control vest and walked out. Confused Amanda and I sat down per their request and waited as another ten minutes shuffled by. Our plane was taking off in less than fifteen minutes and we were still sitting in the lobby without tickets. We questioned where in the world Carmen, newly named San Diego, had gone and went back to the counter, where another man printed our tickets then directed us to go and open our checked bags for security. Fearful our bags wouldn't make it onto the plane, we realized all the bags for the flight were still just sitting in a pile behind the counter. We went through security after the staff became informed we were still trying to get on the flight. We ran outside and broke out into a run as we saw they were about to wheel away the stairs to get onto the plane. Hysterically laughing while carrying all the things we couldn't fit into backpacks, we ran up the stairs and onto the plane where everyone stared at us like the idiots we were. We crashed into our seats trying to regain our breath. The plane was huge for a one hour flight and near us, in the very back, it was almost empty. An hour later we arrived in Lima with no plan other than to leave the next night.
      Last time we were in Lima we stayed near the airport because we had a 6AM flight. After the fact, everyone told us how lucky we were not to have been murdered for staying in that area. This time around we decided to stay in the nicer part of town, Miraflores. We did our best to find two things we desperately needed; wifi and icecream. We settled on gelato and a data plan and started researching decent hotels in the area. I told Amanda at this point we were no longer traveling. The trip had been unfortunately cut short, but I was going to take advantage of the situation. We were now on vacation and I wanted a pool. The difference between traveling and vacationing is about five stars. With some back up help from Amanda's boyfriend overseas, he booked a room for us at the hotel we were looking at through a terrible poor internet connection.
     We then left the airport in search for a taxi driver that wouldn't charge an obscene amount or kidnap us. Negotiating the price down, we got a guy to take us that didn't distinctly seem like a serial killer, though he was definitely confused when with forty pound backpacks we requested to be taken to a five star hotel. We told him about having just been in the earthquake region, trying to get into Chile and how we were leaving the next day and he offered to pick us up the following evening.
    When we arrived at the hotel, the receptionist tried to tell us she didn't have a reservation, but Amanda gave them her confirmation number and they showed us to a room, right next to their construction zone. Ageism people...it's real. We were the only people in the hotel that were under sixty. No, sixty for the white people, forty for the South Americans. A very pleasant ( and friendly) concierge named Steve showed us to our room, where we screamed and jumped on the bed like every kid that goes to a hotel in a Disney movie. The room was huge with a big bathroom and a kitchenette. And most importantly a rooftop pool.
   

            We showered and got ready for what we anticipated to be a big night on the town. After over feeding ourselves with delicious seafood, we downed a few Pisco Sours and decided we were too full to carry on anything else. Steve, however, had different plans for us when he called inviting us to a bar at ten pm. We kindly took his suggestion and then fell asleep.

       The next day we spent the morning at the pool. Cusco was a dangerous place to tan. You burnt in less than ten minutes and then it started raining. We laid out reading and journaling for a few hours and then got dressed for a delicious three course lunch the hotel was offering. We returned to our rooms, packed our bags, checked out and went shopping for the next few hours. We came back to the hotel for our bags and another Pisco Sour or too before heading off to the airport. Everything at the airport went smoothly and we ended up next to a very pleasant Peruvian Born firefighter from Georgia. For some reason the flight was nearly impossible to sleep on and we arrived in Fort Lauderdale, feeling groggy and disgusting. We both were flying to Georgia for our last leg of the trip home and honestly the whole thing seemed surreal. Particularly when we were scowled upon for searching for mimosas at 7:30 AM. When we landed Amanda only had a twenty minute connection so we said a very rushed goodbye and set off for our next gate, where we again departed for our so called homes.

        I've 'come home' a lot of times, with different emotions each time. I've felt ready, devastated, and excited, but this was the closest to nothing I've ever felt. It's obvious neither of us wanted to go home, but it didn't feel like this was a choice we were making. It felt like like the right thing to do on one hand, but on the other it just seemed like the course we were to follow, whether we liked it or not, it just seemed....written.

Shaken not Stirred

After Machu Picchu, our guests were on their way out. For the first time in a while, Amanda and I had the whole day to ourselves again. We went to an hour and a half of yoga classes probably every other day and continued to eat avocados as a staple of our diet. We each spent time with friends we'd met along the way and as we started packing to leave we talked about our feelings of leaving Cusco. Both overdue to leave Cusco, we discussed how the concept of a community is really important when developing an attachment to a place. Amanda had said in some ways she didn't feel the same sense of community necessary to want to stay. For me, I actually really felt a sense of community, as working in the cafe had introduced me to so many different people who became a part of my everyday life. At this point in our travels/lives we are both accustomed to leaving things behind. Although, I felt a strong sense of community there it wasn't something I had developed an attachment to. I liked most of the people I met and regularly interacted with in Cusco, but not enough to extend my stay. At that point it's not even about how much you like the individuals of the community, it's about whether it's conducive to your lifestyle and if its enabling or inhibiting you from becoming better.

Back to bus rides, we were planning on a ten hour trip to Arequipa, where we'd transfer to another five hour bus through the desert and then take a collectivo (a minivan) to cross the border. The bus we took to Arequipa was overnight and super comfortable. We would always take the VIP buses and the ones with full 180 or 160 degree recline for these kind of trips because it was worth the extra comfort. When we arrived in Arequipa, it was about 7am and our next bus wasn't leaving for another five hours. We walked across a very busy street, which was surprisingly bustling given the time. Trekking through the street with backpacks half our weight, the nagging voice that asks 'do you even like traveling?' came into my head.  I'd heard that taxi napping had become a huge problem in Arequipa so a big part of me wanted to just post up in the bus terminal for the next five hours. If you don't know what taxi napping is, it's basically you get in a cab that starts driving you out to god knows where, another guy gets in the taxi and they take all your belongings. Then one of the partners stays with you while another takes your card to an ATM and pulls out all your money. If you don't give them the correct PIN or have a lot of money in your account they have been known to distribute beatings, rapes, and cuts/slashes to faces. With this, I'm sure you can understand why I was content staying at the terminal. However, the women who'd given me all the information on the taxi nappings also gave me two legitimate taxi companies to call and recommended we go downtown while there. Amanda had no desire to stay at the terminal and convinced me, we should make the best of our time and go downtown. For reasons like this, I think we made such a good travelling pair. Sometimes I just need a kick in the pants ;) We drove into the downtown area, also called the Plaza de Armas and it was gorgeous. Shops and restaurants all around the plaza, beautiful flowers, and a large army of pigeons that scared the shit out of Amanda.

The weather was beautiful and we sat down for a delightful breakfast overlooking the square. The 'coffee' may or may not have been jet fuel, but everything else was good. We stayed until we had to move out of the sun and went down the the square to sit in the shade for a bit. After about a half hour we went in search of wifi and ended up at a hotel cafe, this time overlooking the square from the other side. We Facetimed our families and chatted about how smoothly the trip had gone so far. Little did we know. A few moments later as we started to pack up our things, we heard the sounds of drums beating in the distance. Across the plaza, a large group of people waving flags were coming down the street. Yet ANOTHER protest. We could only assume they were the miners that had been protesting and shutting down roads weeks before. Our same taxi driver came back to pick us up and was flagging us down from across the protests. We made our way to him and got back to the bus station in time to catch our second bus journey, this time to Tacna, a Southern Peruvian border town, with nothing but a bad reputation.

   An hour and a half into our drive and maybe forty five minutes into The Notebook in Spanish, we pulled over  in the middle of the desert surrounded by the Andes. One of the staff came into the lower deck we're sitting in and said that one of the four 'somethings' no functionado and it will be about an hour and a half wait. Amanda and I got comfortable and waited patiently for Ryan Gosling to come back on the screen and speak in a sexy Spanish accent. After about a half hour I stepped off the bus with  few other overheated people to look around the strange desert land we were residing in.

LEGIT Nothing Around for Miles...and Miles...and Miles

After roughly an hour and forty five minutes another bus came to pick us up and Ryan Gosling soon came back up on the screen. We'd been planning to arrive in Tacna around 5pm and immediately get in a collectivo to take us across the border, arriving at 7. We'd read a lot about borders being too dangerous to cross after dark and after another hour of driving we realized we were going to be well into night by the time we got to any borders. Amanda turned to me and asked if I thought it was safe to continue to try to cross the border that night or if we should try and stay in Tacna for the night. I told her I thought we should feel it out and see when we get there, but we hadn't heard of Tacna being particularly safe either and we had a hostel reservation in Arica. Since the passengers in front of us had been very kind, we asked them when we arrived in Tacna if they thought it was safe to cross. At this point everyone on the bus who heard us began trying to talk to us in rapid fire Spanish. What we found was that there had been a massive 8.2 earthquake very close to Arica, where we were trying to go. The roads were demolished and there was no way to get there. 

      In the meantime, most of the electricity in Tacna was out. One of the many people trying to help us told us of a safe hotel we could go to for only 35 soles. We went and were greeted by two women holding a candle outside. They led us to a clean room with two beds and a bathroom. We used our phones for light for about forty minutes before the electricity came back on. Soon after that came the aftershocks. They each got lighter as the night went on, but the first one was sturdy enough and it took me a minute before my body really registered the fact that the ground underneath me was moving.  Amanda being from Southern California was nowhere near as dumbfounded by this as I was.

Our View of Tacna....

...built for earthquakes, yeah?

      In the heat of this occurrence, Amanda and I started trying to map out what to do. The decision was made to get out of Tacna, pretty much as soon as we got into it. With the aftershocks, we knew we couldn't stay and that more earthquakes were expected in the same/similar areas. We couldn't get to Santiago through the roads, since they were destroyed and flying would involve going back up to Lima and paying nearly $900. We then considered going inland to Bolivia and maybe down to Argentina to get into Patagonia, but when it came down to it, the point of this trip was to do Peru and Chile. Changing it around meant entrance visas for both countries, which neared $150 each. After a very anxious night with minimal sleep, in the morning, we decided we were going home.