Laura

“So, how did you meet Laura?”
“Do you want to hear the long or the short story?”
“Ehm, start with the short one and then I’ll decide.”
“In a hostel in Bolivia.”
“Well, that is a little bit short.”
“Haha. Yeah I know. OK, the long story then. It’ll take a while. Only that you already know.

I think it was about a year ago. I started working as an English teacher in Colombia. I wanted to practice Spanish and then become an English and Spanish teacher back home.
I had to convince my parents to come here. They said Spain would be better and closer, but nah, I wanted to go as far away from home as possible. Plus I’m afraid of flying so I only went there once but I’m still in South America. Procrastenating my flight back home. But maybe, as I’m with Laura now, I’ll stay with her. She’s from Australia, you know. Or I’ll just stay here. It’s a nice place, isn’t it?
Anyhow I was working in Colombia. It’s awesome. Have you ever been there?”

“No, only here to Chile.”

“Aww, you have to go. Such an amazing country. People are so nice and help you with everything.
OK. I started working two years ago and after one year in Colombia I decided to travel a bit South America using my Spanish skills and everything. So I started going South to Ecuador. Longest bus ride in my life 48 hours. Only a few stops for a couple of minutes to go to the toilet or buy some water or something to eat. Sometimes the breaks were so short you had to decide whether going to the toilet or buy some water. That wouldn’t be a problem but in any bus in South America you cannot use the toilets. They are only for number one and because sometimes people don’t stick to the rules they close the toilets completely.

I managed it though. It was rough. And I was quite sick after that. I couldn’t feel my ass after that much sitting. I wouldn’t do it again. My first stop was Quito. Quito is a shithole if you ask me.”
“I liked it.”
“What? You liked it? What is wrong with you? Haha. Nah, I mean to each his own, right?”
“Didn’t you say you met her in Bolivia?”
“Yes. But you wanted to hear the long story. So I have to start at the very beginning.”
“…”

“Don’t roll your eyes at me. Anyhow. So, I arrived in Quito. I stayed in that hostel, it was called ‘Quit’. I guess it’s a play on words with Quito. Great hostel though.
I slept in a dorm of 20 people. Yeah I know it’s a lot but it was only April so there weren’t a lot of people around. Only me, that American guy Jimmy, a cool guy actually, some French girls, oh how I hate French people, I swear, and another guy from Germany. I forgot his name. Something German like Hans or Jorge or something like that. I didn’t speak a lot with him. He was like ‘Ugh, close the door’, ‘clean up that mess’, ‘flush the toilet after you used it’. A real pain in the ass. You know those kind of people.
I got quite close with Jimmy, learned a lot of English as well. That’s why my English is so marvelous.
We ended up spending about a week in Quito until I learned his real name. All the time I thought it’s Brad. Why Brad? I don’t know. I thought half of the American population is called Brad. A typical American name. Like Chang for Italian people.

On our first night we went to that bar called ‘Dirty Sanchez’ for obvious reasons. If you have to ask why, you should probably stop listening.
No stay. It’s a funny story.
Dirty Sanchez is a small pub, not much going on there to be honest. Weird paintings everywhere. We entered it and I thought the painter had to be on drugs while painting them.
Actually, we’ve been there quite some times, also when doing some acids. And yes they freaked the hell out of me when we were high. Oh gosh. That one time Jimmy bought a bag of what he thought was cocaine. I don’t know what it was but definately not cocaine.
I never did cocaine before and he said it’s really funny and shit. But I’m not really sure. I mean it was not cocaine. I read a bit about the effects and can clearly say it was something else. Unless Ecuadorian cocaine is different.

I said Jimmy, Jimmy I said, ‘if you want me to snort cocaine I want to do it classy. From the ass of a hooker’ and if you’ve been to Ecuador you know it’s not hard to find hookers. You just have to know where to look but all those hookers are either butterfaces or so fucked up that you can clearly tell that she had more guys in the last few weeks than I smoked cigarettes. And I smoke a lot.
I mean out of those hookers you can actually afford, sure Ecuador is still cheaper then the States but I didn’t want to spend any money on prostitutes. I got Tinder.
But we wanted that feeling, you know? It had to be authentic. Cocaine, sluts, well ugly sluts, and a dirty hotel room that you can book for one hour only.
I can show you some pictures but haha nah, maybe it’s better not to show them to anybody. Jimmy wants to be the president one day. Change the world.
Well, good luck with that buddy.
So guys, if there will be a guy running for president in the US called Jimmy Smalls, vote for him. Hmm, I think he didn’t tell me his real last name.
Back to the story. We went to the hotel room and this was probably the most disgusting place I’ve ever been to. And I’ve been to France. The wallpaper was gone and there was this painting of Jesus right above the bed with that judging look. As if he wanted to say ‘I know what you’re doing and you’re going to hell.’ Jimmy tagged him with a Hitlerbeard. Haha. That looked hilarious.
Jimmy had a fake passport, for whatever reason, we checked in with it so they couldn’t trace us after we ruined that room. Well, there wasn’t much left to ruin.
The sluts came too late. And to spend the time we decided … ah no, I shouldn’t tell that.
The sluts came and Jimmy started getting naked and I was like, what is he doing. I didn’t want to put my dick in that dirty cunt. Putting my face on her shitty ass is all I wanted to do. But he was like ‘Nah, we paid for it man, gotta do what a man gotta do.’

He kinda was right. So we fucked them. I luckily had a condom with me. He didn’t. Which he regreted afterwards. Ugh, that was so disgusting. He showed me his dick. I’m not a doctor but it was close to rot.
All red and swollen. Eww. Not nice to see. His dick was following me in my dreams. I couldn’t sleep for days.
However, snorting that, let’s just say, powder from that ass was hilarious. Sex on cocaine feels different though. I was finished like so quick. Not that it is much different than normal but it felt like there was more coming out than usually. Haha, it felt like it wouldn’t stop. I’ve could have quinched a fire with that.
It was quite fun though. Would I do it again? I’m not sure. Maybe if she looks a bit better.

Maybe I should change the subject. Well, I just wanted you to know that Jimmy and I got quite close. Literally.
That was pretty much the first thing I and Jimmy did together except for the usual stuff you do when you meet someone like talking where you’re from and what you’re doing here over a beer.

After a few days in Quito we decided to move on. So we went to the bus station and looked up buses going South. There were a few and we booked the cheapest one.
Another 8 hour bus ride. So annoying that everything here in South America is so fucking far away. When you’re used to the short distances in Europe, like I am, than this is torture. I swear. At least that bus was comfortable. I mean as comfortable as a bus in South America can get.

But, and this is important for the story, in the bus we met two girls from the UK. Sarah and Melanie, everybody calls her Mel, that’s why I called her ‘Anie’ all the time. Wanted to keep the balance so that the other letters in her name don’t feel useless. Anyhow, Sarah did like a semester abroad thing. She studies law and I never understood why people who study law do an abroad semester. I mean what do they learn there? Like how is it any helpful in your education? They probably only teach you how it shouldn’t be as you’re from a more advanced country than this is. But who am I to judge?
Anyhow she finished the study and decided, like I did, to travel a bit. Her friend Mel came along to travel with her. I mean as a girl it might be better not to be all alone. I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Mhm, mhm. Interesting. Back to the story. We were sitting in the bus getting to know each other a bit. And girls, you should know everytime a guy meets a girl he asks himself one important question that effects how the conversation and onward-going accompany will be: ‘Would I bang her?’. So with Sarah and Anie it was yes and yes after some beers.
Jimmy on the other side … well, I don’t want to talk bad about him. We were talking with the girls this and that. Like where they were from, what they do back home, where they were going and so on. They more or less had a fixed route till Perú. Wanted to go to Machu Picchu.
Jimmy and I didn’t had any plans and so we decided to come along for a bit. They were cool with that and we had some nice company apart from each other.

At the next stop Jimmy told me he was into Anie. She was a little bit darker and had a, I don’t want to say fat but, let’s just say well-formed butt. I didn’t mind it at all. I wasn’t out for sex. Just wanted to have a good time.
We got back on the bus. I don’t know how but Jimmy managed for Sarah and him to switch seats. So I was sitting next to Sarah. She’s really smart. Her parents made her more or less study law. They seem like a big bunch of assholes though. That’s pretty much the reason why she left home and went on that abroad thing. Good for her. Her dream is to move to South America actually. Maybe working in a hostel or with kids. The complete opposite of what she studied but she likes it apparently. While she was studying in Ecuador she had a part-time job to earn a little bit extra. So she gave extra lessons for children in English. She said she loved it. Everytime a little boy or girl told her that his or her English improved so much because of her and how grateful they were that made her cry a little bit. But in a cute way. I started to like her.
She told me about her parents. About what a dick her father was and her mother just watching what happend without doing anything. And how this made her and her sister become really close. Like the typical story. Her sister is bit older than her, four or five years if I remember it correctly, and moved to Italy after that. She married an Italian and now lives there teaching English. I only remember that because his name is Maria and that’s just hilarious if you ask me. A guy named Maria.

That bus ride was way quicker than all the others I had just because of the good company. After talking to Sarah for pretty much five hours we got to know each other really good and I was a little bit into her. I liked her curly black hair, the cute little nose she had and that Ramones shirt she wore pretty much every day.
Oh, I can’t go that much into detail as I’m with Laura now. But yeah she was cool.

So we arrived in, uhh I forgot the name, it’s something with G. In the South of Ecuador. Like Gua, Guya, ah I don’t know. Who cares. It’s not important.
What is important, however, is that Anie and Jimmy really bonded there. We were traveling together for a week until one night, we decided to split up for a bit as the girls wanted to go to that one yoga hostel South of Cuenca. Apparently it’s famous for that somewhere in the middle of nowhere I don’t know. They told us about that and I instantly forgot the name. Jimmy and I decided to stay in Cuenca and go out a little bit. Enjoy the vibrating night life of Cuenca. And luckily there was this huge festival. San Jorge or whatever it was called. He was somewhat the founder of the city or the barrio we were in. Or did he just built a church? Oh, I don’t remember. Anyhow, it was a huge thing. Literally everybody was outside. All the buildings were empty.
You have to imagine 600,000 people or how much Cuenca has in all the tiny streets. It was fucking packed. I whonder that nothing bad happened. Someone stole my wallet but I only had cash inside. Lucky me in that moment.
I didn’t bring my phone because I thought of that it might get stolen or I’d lose it or whatever. Me with my blonde hair, I mean it’s quite obvious that I’m not from here. A gringo as they would say. A gringo with a stupid haircut.
Jimmy as well. He didn’t bring his phone either. Which was kind of sad. I would have liked to take some nice pictures of that festival. But maybe it’s better like that otherwise they could’ve stolen my phone as well which would’ve been really shit because of all my neat pictures I took during the past few weeks.

So we went out that night and Jimmy told me about him and Anie. He was really in love with her you could clearly tell. And they really fit together. From how much I knew both of them, because I just met them, I could say they had a lot in common. They both loved ice hockey. It was no whonder for Jimmy as he was from the North of the US somewhere but Anie is pretty much the only Brit that I met that likes ice hockey. The night they found out about that there was no other subject. Hockey here, hockey there. I won’t bore you with the details now. They both shared a love for sea food whereas me and Sarah didn’t. I mean I don’t mind to have grilled makarel every now and then but I clearly don’t need it everyday. So pretty much every night we had a discussion on what to have for dinner. ‘You’re at the ocean you have to get some good, fresh fish’, that was their argument pretty much every night. I am from near the ocean and still I don’t love it that much. What is his problem? Gosh!
How I hated him for that.
Get some fish, duh. Fuck you and your fucking fish.

Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah, Jimmy and Anie were, against all odds, quite a good couple. You know many couples start fighting when they’re on holiday together because they see each other 24/7. With us it was no difference. We had been traveling together for full two weeks and were always together except for the toilets we were pretty much one group. One unit. One big family. I loved every second of it.
Nobody messed with us. Four gringos. One tougher-looking than the other one. Ok, that’s a lie. It felt just like good friends hanging out. Like you and your old friends at school. You see them every day and you still like them.
Sometimes it was a little bit odd for me and Sarah as Anie and Jimmy were that couple and we were just sitting awkwardly opposite of them during each dinner.
With all the kisses and ‘you’re so cute’ bullshit. Ugh.
Or when we went to the national park in the North of Perú. Have you been? You should. You got some amazing views. Zero wildlife but you stand on top of one of those mountains and just look around with nothing in each direction. The mixture with the mountains and the uncountable lakes is just amazing. They wanted a picture kissing on top of that one mountain. I thought, to be honest, that ‘relationship’ wouldn’t last long. Not because of them as they were quite alike but it was one of those travel relationships where the break-up is when somebody has to go back home.
So we were in that national park trying to take a nice, romantic picture of them kissing. It took us like 20 tries until they liked it. Just an excuse to keep on kissing.

That’s not what I wanted to tell. I wanted to tell that they went to that yoga hostel. Right. Because they didn’t see each other for a while. And we met again in Perú. Right after the border. Right. Now I remember.
We were in Perú already. We rented a car to drive down the North Coast. It was still warm up there and Anie surfs. I always wanted to learn surfing so we bought an RV for around $200, we thought it was a good deal. We also bought a surfboard, some groceries and water and shit and started our journey. It was quite a big RV so we could all sleep in there. One night, it was a beautiful night, we just took our blankets and mats and slept outside.
We saw the Milky Way which was the very first time in my life that I saw it. I love star gazing. All the bright stars and the moon in the sky. We got really lucky as there was a meteorite shower. This was one of the best nights we had.
If you ever experienced that you know what I mean. You’re lying there in the sand. Next to your good friends. You all cuddle because even though you got sleeping bags it’s still cold. You feel the sand in your fingers. You hear some crickets nearby. Whenever I hear them I imagine it’s two crickets where the male one kindly asks for a dance and then you see them glowing around. Oh no, those are fireflies.
You’re lying there in the dark. Well, it’s not dark with all the stars and the moon. I once started to count them. I stopped after 14. Way too much.
Then I tried to figure out the constellations. I don’t know any of them which is quite a shame as there are hundreds of them. Did you know that some of the stars are already gone? But they are so far away that the light takes million of years to travel so you still see them in the sky.
Isn’t that mind blowing. I do love the stars I swear.
I should get a star tattoo. That would be dope. What do you think?
Nah, maybe not. Tattoos sound hurtful.

Anyhow, back to the story. We pretty much had the shittiest RV in the whole country. Might be even in the whole continent, who knows. We planned roughly a week from the border to Lima. Google said it’s about 20 hours so we decided to drive for 4-5 hours a day and spend one or two full days in a nice little town.
The first day worked out perfectly. We were driving along the coast which was beautiful. A typical road trip except for the radio that wasn’t working. But hey, it’s South America. A lot of stuff here isn’t working.
We started around noon or a little bit later so we arrived at the brink of dusk in a small town where we decided to sleep. Everything was fine so far. The town was nothing special so we just bought some bread, made guacamole and that was our dinner. Actually that was quite filling. In the beginning I was a little bit skeptical but it was fine in the end.

The next morning I wanted to drive. We took in turns of driving so it was my turn. And as always when I try to do something it is not working. I was sitting there. In the front seat. Put the key into the ignition. Turned it. Nothing.
No sound. No vibration. No lights. No nothing. I tried again. Again nothing. Jimmy already freaked out like ‘what the hell is wrong?’ and ‘start the car dammit’. ‘I’m trying’, I said. We were yelling at each other for about ten minutes until I let him do it. Like ‘if you’re that much better than do it stupid’.
So he sat down in the seat. Turned the key. Wroooom. Working perfectly fine. ‘How did he do that?’ He just said something like only real men can handle a car blablabla. He then get off the seat and let me sit down again and we drove for an hour, two hours maybe. Not a very long time. We came along a gas station and turned over to fill it up. Everything’s cool. We paid and got back in the car.
Same shit happened again. I turned and nothing happened. Jimmy immediately kicked me out of the driver’s seat and sat down.
And it didn’t work either. He tried it a couple of times and nothing. I felt sooo good because it was not my fault. Then I felt bad because it meant we were stuck.
None of us knew much about cars. We asked the guy in the gas station if he could help us and he did something, noone of us knew what. It seemed like he was just hammering the engine. It took like 30 minutes then he just shut the hood, gave one thumb up and said ‘todo bien’.

We started the car again. It worked till the next stop. We drove to a beach near a small fisherman’s village. It. Was. Amazing. One of the most beautiful sunsets that we had. We rented a boat and just drove into the pacific to snorkel a bit. There was absolutely nothing to see, so kind of useless but we had fun.
It was such a nice place we decided to stay the night and the next day also. The RV was safely parked at the beach and we just had an amazing time. I don’t know how but Sarah somehow found a guy who sells weed. Getting stoned at the beach is one of the best things you can do there. Oh my god, we were talking so much bullshit. Like how awesome it would be to see some whales. Because of this we decided to build a sand whale at the beach. In the end it looked like sushi. Not even close to anything. There you have your fucking fish, Jimmy.

When we then wanted to drive again the car was broken completely. It didn’t start at all. Not even a little sound. Not even the lights went on. There was nobody nearby who could help us so we were kind of screwed.
We looked up the next city on the map which seemed pretty far away. We tried to call the guy who sold us the RV and it turned out he gave us a wrong number. No whonder the deal sounded so good. He totally fucked with us. Oh my.
So then we had to think what to do. We had so much stuff we didn’t want to leave behind. We were thinking that two of us could go to the city and look for maybe a tow truck who could bring us at least into the next city but as already mentioned it was reeaally far away.
After a little bit of brainstorming we decided to hitchhike from now on. We took the essentials and left the rest behind. We wrote a sign ‘in case you get lost take as much as you can carry’ and walked back to the main street.
I don’t know if you ever hitchhiked but hitchhiking in South America is no fun. Especially with four people. Noone, absoluetly noone stopped to pick us up. We were standing there for about two hours and barely any car came along that street. Those who came didn’t even care. One guy, however, stopped and offered to take the girls into the next city. Ah-ah. No way buddy.
So we had to come up with a new idea. After a while Jimmy had the brilliant idea to build a little wagon and carry all the stuff to the next town and sell it there. But how to build a wagon? ‘Just take stuff from the RV’ is what he said.
He pictured it as a small wagon with a in-built shelter where we could sleep. The idea after all didn’t sound too bad and eventually he convinced us to try it. So we kind of dissambled the RV. Luckily we had a car jack and a wrench to take off the wheels. It took us hours to halfway get pieces out of there that we could use to built a wagon. Of course it got dark before we got finished but at least we had enough parts that could be reused.
We decided to spend another night and rebuild it the next morning. That’s what we did. But without any tools or like screws and nails it was way harder than you would think. And it took us another full day to assemble something where we could put stuff on. Needless to say it had no in-built shelter. And thank god we had enough water to overcome those two more unexpected nights. Then after the second night in a destroyed RV we finally continued our journey.
To my surprising the wagon we built was still there and working. I don’t know how long it took but pretty much the whole morning until we reached another city. Another fisherman’s village with like zero inhabitants. But we found a guy who was willing to drive us to the next bigger city where we could sell some of the stuff like the surf board. This was in Trujillo. I later read this is the most dangerous city in Perú. We spent there a couple of nights and nothing happened. I honestly can’t tell why it is considered the most dangerous city. Clearly it’s not the most beautiful city but well that’s something else. We just needed to recover a bit after those three long days.

This is where Sarah got really sick. I don’t know why because we all ate the same things. Everytime. We went into a hospital and the doc gave us some pills. I didn’t understand what he said as my Spanish isn’t that good to understand the medical stuff but it was something like a bacteria in her stomach. He said with those pills it should be gone in like two or three days.
To fasten the trip we booked a bus to Lima to get there quicker. Too much wouldn’t have been that good for Sarah.
The bus ride was quite nice actually. I’d never thought that the buses in Perú are that nice especially after the ones in Ecuador. However, in Lima Sarah didn’t get any better. It even got worse so that she had to spend two nights in a hospital. Still then it didn’t get any better. It got so bad she had to abort her trip and fly back home. She said it would be ok and she had a great time with us and didn’t want Anie to stop as well.

We brought her to the airport and said good bye and everything. It was hella sad. Now that she was gone we didn’t want to spend too much time in Perú and see only the major sights. We booked an over-night bus to Arequipa in the very south which is actually a really cool place. We did some hikes around the area like that canyon thing which was really amazing and also the Rainbow Mountains which I have to say was not that beautiful. You walk up for hours stand there take one, two, three, four pictures and walk all the way back. Don’t get me wrong the mountains are incredible. The different colors just look breath-taking but the effort and what you pay it’s not that worth it. I wouldn’t do it again.
All the time we kept in touch with Sarah and she slowly got better. We sent her all the pictures of what we did and even sent her a get-well package with stuff from Peru. It never arrived. It was soo cool, we had a sweater, some postcards and some small souvenirs. We thought of putting in a pisco sour, which is the national drink of Peru apparently, but we thought it might brake and ruin everything. We never told her. It was meant as a surprise gift. I don’t know what happened with the package but who cares. Maybe it’s now helping Robinson Crusoe to survive.

After about a week Anie got a text of her old room mate Clara, who was studying in Australia now. She said before she goes back home she wanted to travel a bit. Quite a common thing these days. And as Anie and Sarah were in South America she decided to join them. Which was cool. Then we were a group of four again and I’m not that weird third wheel anymore. I was probably the one who was most excited about that even though I didn’t know her.
We set her up to date and she booked a flight to Cusco where we met with her. And Clara was fucking awesome, man.
She was so nice and took care of all of us. When we couldn’t decide what to do next she handled it. She was like a mother to us. The one time I got sick and spent one day in the hostel she stayed with me the whole day, cooked me soup, gave me some medicine. I felt so good even though I was sick. She was even better than my own mother with this. Nah, just kidding. But she was really cool. Always had a smile on her face and in a good mood. I never saw her sad or upsett or anything. She was quite smart, too. All in all, that kind ofgirl you want to keep around.”

“I though you can’t talk like that about other girls as you’re with Laura now.”

“Oh no that’s fine. Just keep listenening. Ehrm. Ok. So this is it. After about two months I experienced a lot of shit. Sarah was gone but we had a good replacement. Jimmy, apparently, found the love of his live. Man you could easily make a book with all the stories we experienced. But don’t worry, it’s getting better.

Yes. There we were. Cusco. The Inka city that there is. Did you know ‘Cusco’ was the Inkan word for center? And Cusco was in the center of the Inkan empire, that’s why it is called Cusco. It is such an amazing city. I loved it so much there. Just to see what they all built and how they built it. Some of the houses took centuries to be finished. But those fuckers had all time in the world. And even today they look so perfect. When you see the buildings the Spanish built next to them that just looks terrible. Like they were built by a kid with autism or something. Not good.

We all together did the Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu. It was, so far, the hardest thing that I did in my life. But it was really amazing and really exhausting. I can’t describe how good it was. You walk for four days just through the jungle with your backpack. You sweat pretty much every drop of water you drink. You smell like shit. You’re dirty. You’re exhausted. You just want to quit. You’re close to death. And with all the mosquitoes it does feel like death.
And then. Shortly before you collapse and die. Shortly before you go insane. You arrive at Aguas Calientes. This is the city next to the Machu Picchu mountain. It is a lovely place. I really loved it there. It’s very touristy though because everybody stays there the night before going up the mountain but everything feels like you’re going back in time a bit.
Then the next morning you get up at 4 am to be at the gate at 5 am to start walking up the stairs. The view of Machu Picchu and the ruins are ineffable. I didn’t want to leave. I was the happiest person on that day. I cried when we had to leave. Hah, the others literally had to tear me down to get me out of there. You even get an awesome stamp in your passport. It looks so awesome. My favourite page.

I got to say, I was a little bit sad the next few days because I couldn’t stay any longer at Machu Picchu. But on the other hand I was so incredibly happy that I’ve been there. It was a long dream of mine to be there.
Anie and Clara decided, to get me on other thoughts again, and we left Cusco straight away. So we had a bus booked to Puno and Lake Boobiepoop. We didn’t spend much time there. The lake is neither filled with boobs nor poop. Quite disappointing. We went to La Paz the next day.

La Paz, I have to admit, is a fucking shit hole. By far my least favourite city on this continent. There are only a few things to do La Paz. One of them is the Death Road. The most dangerous road in the world. We did it. And here the story takes a sad turn.

It starts in the morning where they pick you up at your hostel and then you drive up the mountain where the road starts. You get your bike, some safety clothes like helmet and gloves and an instruction on how the bike works and some info about the road. So our guide said you shouldn’t break completely otherwise you will slip and fall and might plunge into the abyss, which, of course, would suck. He described it as if you would squeeze some boobs, soft and slowly. It would be the best to only take two fingers to break.
After that the tour starts. The beginning is quite fun. You drive along an asphalt street and don’t have to do much. But that’s good, then you get a little bit of a feeling for the bike and the breaks and everything. Jimmy and I were quite confident with the bikes and did a little race. Like men do, you know. So stupid though.
After maybe an hour you reach the actual road and immediately can see why it is so dangerous. It is quite narrow, 3.5 m at the tightest point, a lot of rocks that make you slip when breaking, no walls on the side. A few in the curves but that’s it. The view though is picturesque.

When you start it is quite cold so everybody was wearing a jacket. After some stops it got a little bit warmer so me and Jimmy waited for the bus to put our jackets in there. You have to know that bus that takes you there follows you all the way down. Inside you have some water and some snacks and can leave your backpack for example that you don’t have to carry it around all time. The girls decided to keep the jacket on and left before us.
And again, so stupid, Jimmy and I did a little race to catch up with the rest of the group. Usually when you pass one you should scream so they would now there is somebody coming. We didn’t do it all the time as we thought there was enough space. But it was not. Remember, should you do it yell when you pass someone.
You probably can already imagine what happened now and I don’t want to go into too much detail here but we were driving pretty close to each other. Jimmy in front of me. We got quite fast. So fast that I got tears in my eyes and I just said something like ‘hey Jimmy wait a second’ and slowed down. Apparently he didn’t understand what I said and turned around. Like the dumbest thing you could do in that situation. Because he was still so fast he crashed into someone else who couldn’t react quickly enough, lost track and rocketed over the edge into the abyss.

I only heard a scream and opened up my eyes. With all the tears in my eyes I couldn’t see exactly what happened. I only saw how Jimmy broke, threw down his bike and ran back a few meters to look down. I stopped next to him and asked what happened.
He said ‘I don’t know. I tackled some one. It was a mistake. I swear. It wasn’t my fault.’
‘Who did you tackle?’, I asked him. ‘I don’t know’, he said, ‘might have been someone with a red helmet’.
And the second he said that we both knew who he had tackled. There was only one person with a red helmet on this tour and that was Anie. I will always remember Jimmy’s face in that moment. How shocked he was. His whole body was shaking and he just stared down the abyss. You couldn’t even see where she landed. It was horrible. I … I can’t even describe what I felt in that moment. Just emptiness.
Clara was in front of us so she didn’t know what happened. Let me grab something to drink. This is still hard for me.”

“Ok. The next stop we had was the worst and saddest moment. Everybody was there, talking, enjoying the sun and a cold water. And then we came on and had to tell them what happened. I only told Clara what happened. Jimmy didn’t say anything. It didn’t take long until everyone who was on the Death Road that day knew what happened. The rest of the road felt kind of weird. Anyhow everyone was able to keep on driving. I don’t know why but usually if something like this happens you would stop immediately and wait for the bus. But we didn’t. I think everyone of us was kind of captured in his thoughts which is even more surprising that nothing else happened.

On the way back to the hostel nobody said anything. Not Clara. Not Jimmy. None of the others who were there. None of the guides. It was as quiet as it could be in that moment.
The only thing that made a noise was the engine. I think out of respect the driver turned off the radio. Some were listening to music on their phone. Some were sleeping. I was just sitting there. Thinking of what just happened. This girl, that I met two months before. This girl, who I shared food and beds with. This girl, that taught me sowing and surfing. She was gone now. She would never come back.
I looked over to Jimmy, he was staring out of the window. I would like to know what he thought in that moment.
I looked over to Clara. She was clearly under a shock. Couldn’t do anything. She had her hands folded on her lap staring at them.

After a while our guide started handing out the t-shirts you get in the end. He gave me three. Mine, Clara’s, who was sitting next to me, and Anie’s. He just said ‘I don’t know if you want to keep them. If not just leave them on the seat.’
It’s just a green shirt saying ‘I survived the Death Road’ and the logo of the company. I just thought ‘Well, I survived’. I kept the shirts for whatever reason. I thought it might be a nice thing to give to Anie’s parents or even to Sarah as they were good friends. On a second thought it’s actually quite dark. ‘Hey, you’re friend died. I got you a t-shirt of the very last thing she did.’

Anyhow, we arrived back in the hostel. They dropped us off directly in front of it. Jimmy immediately rushed in and up to our room. I helped Clara to get out and we walked in the hostel.
And there was Laura. She studied together with Clara in Sydney. Laura came to surprise Clara and had a huge smile on her face. When she saw us she ran over and hugged and kissed Clara as they didn’t see each other for ages. As she went back a step you could see that Clara had put on a fake smile which Laura in the beginning didn’t realize. She turned over to me and introduced herself. I instantly had to smile when she shook my hand. I don’t know why. So I introduced myself, too.
She turned back to Clara and saw something is wrong and asked what happened. Clara just looked at the ground. So I kind of explained what happend. To be honest I didn’t say anything specific. Out of respect I just said ‘we had a rough day’ or something. ‘We just need a break. Do you want a beer in the bar?’ I asked Laura but looked at Clara. She just nodded, walked into the hostel bar and sat down at an empty table. We were standing there watching her. I turned around to Laura again and said ‘Hey, I’m sorry for that. Something bad happened. Please excuse her. I will try to explain it to you as soon as possible.’ Laura clearly didn’t know what to do so I suggested just to have a beer and act as nothing happened. Give some lone-time to Clara so she could deal with that.
Laura sat down next to Clara and took her hand. Clara didn’t respond to that. I got a round of beer for all of us and sat down next to Laura.
It was rough to start a conversation as she wanted to know what happened but I didn’t want to talk about it. Not at that moment at least. Would not have been right, you know.
We were talking a little bit while drinking our beer. Well, Clara didn’t even touch hers. After that beer we all went to bed. Surprisingly Laura was in the same dorm as we were.
When we got into the room I looked over to Jimmy who was already sleeping or pretended to be. I don’t know.

I was really surprised that I could sleep at all that night after what had happend. Usually I dream some weird stuff and like 90 % I can remember what I dreamt. This night nothing. It felt like I went into bed, was lying there for a bit and I closed my eyes for a second and when I opened them again it was the next day. I had hardly moved as my phone was still lying on my chest. I looked at the watch. It was 9 am. I remember that because they started serving breakfast at that time. I heard some noise and turned around and saw how Laura climbed out of her bed. She saw that I was awake and waved her hand. Then I got up and looked around. Jimmy’s bed was empty. I didn’t think much by that, maybe he went to the toilet. Clara was still sleeping.

Laura and I decided to get some breakfast. During the breakfast I told her what happend. Clara told her about Melanie as they were room mates and that they would travel a bit South America together. Laura never met Melanie though as she was never in England and Melanie never in Australia.
It was pretty much the saddest breakfast that I had in my life. After I told her about it we were just sitting there. Again it was this freaking silence. I can’t bear that shit. That’s why I’m talking so much.
After a while Clara came. She looked a bit better than the day before and at least said good morning. I just thought that’s my girl. Your friend just died and yet you wish us a good morning. But so was Clara.
She sat down at our table and asked me ‘Did you know that Jimmy left?’
‘What do you mean?’, I asked her.
‘His bag is gone and his locker is empty.’, she said.
I was like whaaat. I couldn’t believe that so I ran back to our room to see myself and she was right. Dang! I went down to the reception asked what happend, when he left and if he left anything. Like a note or something, you know. But the girl just said that he had left during the night, before she started working. The night guard checked him out.
So we didn’t know or I still don’t know what happend to him. Where’d he go or what he is doing now. He doesn’t have facey so I couldn’t text him and in WhatsApp he never responded. It seemed as he never received my texts as there is only one tick next to them.

Needless to say the next few days were horror. I tried to clarify everything with the hostel and what to do with Melanie’s stuff and all that. Clara was a wrack. Laura didn’t know Melanie so she wasn’t that much hit by her death and I don’t why but me neither. I was there when that happend but still I was able to act normal and to keep a clear mind. We were in La Paz for almost two weeks until Clara was a bit back to normal. It wouldn’t have been that bad but La Paz is fucking borin. We tried to make the best out of it. Mainly me and Laura as Clara for the first week was just sitting in the hostel mourning. I’m more like the distraction guy, you know.

After like 10 or 11 days or something in the morning, while we had breakfast Clara suddenly said ‘I’m leaving!’
We were like what did you just say.
And she said, she would take all of her and Melanie’s stuff and fly to England to go to her parents and tell them what happened and to give them her stuff. Sure we wanted to get along but she insisted on going alone. I said that it would be easier for me to go as I live in Europe and she in Australia now but no. She wanted to go. She said she already had booked a flight in the night and would leave the next day.
Of course we were really shocked by that. I couldn’t believe what was going on. We tried to talk her out of this. Tried to be reasonable and all that stuff but nothing worked. She made her decision and nothing could change that. That’s how Clara was. She then stood up and said ‘You two should stay. Laura, you should travel with him. He’s a good guy and you will see something else than Australia. That’s what you came for.’

It was a weird day after that. Laura and Clara talked about pretty much everything as nothing ever happend. About their work together. The one crush they both had. Tips about traveling. About me that I was good company. All stuff that was not really necessary. Well, that’s how I felt about it. But maybe as they almost completely irgnored me the whole time. I never saw Clara like that. Then again I didn’t know her for that long.
The next morning around 10 am Clara left. She hugged us, got into a cab and drove to the airport.
Laura and me, we were both amazed and shocked by what just happend. How one person could snap from one emotinal state to another, completely different one, you know.

We didn’t do much that day. The only thing is that we then decided to travel together till Rio, where she wanted to go so madly and after that we would see what happened.
And yeah the trip was really good. We really connected and yes that’s how it started. The first bit was still hard with Melanie, Clara and Jimmy and everything. I told her what exactly happened. About our road trip. And I think this somehow connected us and made us to what we are now. It sounds like a cliché but I think otherwise we wouldn’t have fallen in love with each other. After two or three weeks we kissed for the first time at the Christ Redeemer in Rio. I told her that I loved her on a beach in Uruguay. And now we’re here.
This is it. The End. Great story, eh? It’s a little bit sad in the end I know but that’s life. You can’t change it.”

“This is a fucked up story, man.”
“Don’t you ever think of Jimmy and what happened to him?”
“Oh I do. Pretty much every day. But what shall I do. I never heard of him again.”
“What would you say to him when you see him again?”
“If I see him again. I don’t know what I would say. Probably something like … Oh, hey Jimmy. We were just talking about you.”