Mark McMahon’s Blog

February 25, 2003 - Tacna, Peru

Evaluating alternative transport.

My flight from Lima arrived after dark. The dusty airport in this border town only receives flights from Lima and one other city. Outside the terminal building a gauntlet of taxi drivers squawked for my business. The driver I chose was willing to make many stops and give me a brief tour for an extremely low price. So low that I was embarrassed to bargain with him, even for the sport of it.

First stop, bad news. Baby Blue was not where I had left her. Then again, what could I expect after 14 months? Well, my expectations were good, based on a recent phone conversation. The conversation was with the lawyer I had entrusted to watch over Baby Blue in my absence. The lawyer’s office was next door to the garage where I had left my truck.

More bad news: The lawyer’s office was no longer there either.

The lawyers currently occupying the space guided me in the general direction of the new office after I declined their offer for their services. I found the new office but it was well after hours and I would have to wait until morning to get any answers.

Thoughts of finishing my trip by bus did not appeal to me. Going back home was not attractive, except for the fact that I could hide under my own covers. I could do nothing but wait until morning.

After breakfast, I walked 5 blocks from my hotel to the office. The legal assistant and the wife of the lawyer greeted me as if I was an old friend. It was awkward. I was leery of their friendliness and just wanted to know the whereabouts of my truck. They blamed the garage for the disappearance just as the garage had blamed them.

I had a knot in my stomach. They were pointing fingers at each other and probably in cahoots. Did they just not expect me to come back, in spite of my emails and phone calls?

The lawyer arrived shortly and produced a document that did little to ease my fears. Soon we drove to the police station. The proper authority was not there. The lawyer left me and the aide behind to wait for the officer to return. An hour or so later we were telling a brief version of the Baby Blue story to the commanding officer. He listened intently and said we should come back tomorrow morning. Ohhh Noooo! Not another ride on the bureaucratic merry-go-round from 14 months ago.

Hurry up and wait at the police station.

I was not up to it. I did not know whom to trust. If I could trust anybody! The legal assistant’s name was Carmen. She had been a guide and a friend to me during my previous stay in Tacna. I could not imagine she had any knowledge or involvement in a plot against me. As we shared a cab back from the police station she said, “We can’t waste any more time. We must find out where Baby Blue is.” She took me to a psychic! I went along with the idea mostly for the entertainment value.

El Divino was named Javier. In his consultation room we were totally surrounded by Christian images and memorabilia. I felt like we were living parts of a shrine. Javier seemed credible enough. He had a presence and a confidence that seemed very out of place in Peru. After some chit chat Carmen posed the question. Javier listened with his eyes closed and answered without hesitation. “Baby Blue is OK and in the hands of the owner of the garage.” Simple enough.

That evening I ran into a friend I had made in an internet cafe’ during my previous stay in Tacna. She said that I looked very calm for having lost my vehicle. She said Baby Blue was most certainly chopped up and sold for parts by now. God rest her automotive soul. I couldn’t bear to think of all those wrenches and crowbars tearing hear apart for black market Pesos (The currency is actually the Soles in Peru, not Pesos, but you get the point.) It was not a good day for me or the filmtrips adventure.

July 1, 2001 Quito, Ecuador

From Alaska to Argentina on a Bicycle.
Stopped short just outside of Quito by a couple of Banditos! That’s the story of my new friend Toralf, from Berlin. (he has a website (www.toralfsreisen.de it is however, in German!)

The day we met he literally had but a nickel to his name. Earlier in the day he had been robbed of all of his belongings including his bike, camera and lenses, many rolls of film from his journey and his journal from the beginning of his trip.

Two days later we went to the Mercado de Los Ladrones, the robbers market, a surprisingly well-known place you can go to purchase ‘hot’ merchandise. Toralf printed flyer with a reward for his irreplaceable film and journal. By this time he had found out that his replacement traveler’s checks were on the way so he shopped for a new bike while he was there.

Fortunately I have been spared from any misfortunes lately, but two other friends have been victimized here in Quito, not far from my home away from home. My friend Max was stabbed very seriously in the arm in an altercation with drunken youths harassing his daughter after a soccer match. My recent co-pilot and videographer, Juan Carlos sustained a much less serious knife wound above his eye during an attempted robbery late at night outside of a discotheque.

If you happened to run into my mother, please keep these incidents to yourself. They have served to increase my awareness for my own safety and security. When it comes to Latin American capital cities, Quito is about as nice as they come. Still not safe at the wrong time in the wrong place.

February 6, 2001 Quito, Ecuador

Mad Max was very excited about a photo opportunity for me at the local university! Indigenous people from all over Ecuador were in the middle of an organized strike that had closed major highways country-wide. The headquarters and main focal point of the demonstrations was close by with a myriad of different tribes and cultures camping out on the campus.

An opportunity to photograph many different tribes in one place! And experience teargas firsthand! I didn’t get to see any actual cannisters launched until that night on the tv news, but I sure felt the residual effects.

We spent a couple of hours wandering among the various groups and camps. Although most sects had different styles of dress and their own language, they all seemed to speak at least some Spanish. Max was not shy about asking about their villages and lifestyles. He was recruiting interested villages in participating with his eco-tour foundation.

As we walked away from the campus we encountered a pick-up full of foodstuffs for the protesters that had been stopped by a police roadblock. Max intervened on behalf of the nuns driving the truck and said that there were plenty of people to carry the cargo into the camps. The police said, “No, you can’t do that either!” Finally the police gave in to Max’s insistence and let the truck pass through to the hungry protesters.