Danny in the Andes: The Old Mountain

When last we left our hero… well, when we last left me, anyway, maybe you think the hero of this story was Amy the whole time… day two of the Inca Trail started in hardship and ended in fellowship over rum tea.

We proceed.

Day Three: The Long Walk

Day three started much better than day two. I had improved my makeshift pillow by wrapping my hoodie around my book instead of my shaving kit. More comfortable and fewer toothpaste explosions. Also, it had the benefit of taking two items I’d brought for, as it turns out, no reason, and forming them into one item of actual use. Plus two Gravol helped ensure that I got some actual sleep that night.

When 5:30 rolled around, the porter made his rounds, with gentle wake-up calls and coca tea. A simple breakfast later, it was time to pack up and hit the trail. While day two is the hardest day of the hike, day three is the longest. Over 13 kilometres from Pacaymayo to Wiñaywayna.

Camp for night two was nestled in a valley between two peaks, 600 metres downhill from Dead Woman’s Pass, 360 metres uphill to the next peak. Which meant that day three opened with a quick refresher on the worst parts of day two. Which meant, once again, hiking alone.

This happened a lot. I was with a good crew, good people, and I enjoyed our times in the meal tent, even when long hours of hiking with a heavy pack made me question how long I could deal with the less-than-comfortable stool. And we had good chats in the times when we were hiking near each other. I just wish I’d been able to spend more time with them while hiking, rather than the voice in my head saying “You didn’t train. You said you were going to train, then you didn’t, and now this is happening. Are you happy with your choices?”

Some groups ended day two with this second surge of seemingly endless staircase. I’m glad ours didn’t. There’s a relief in knowing that the hardest part of your day is behind you. Also, once you clear that next peak, things get interesting. You’re back into Incan ruins and, in theory, great views.

In theory.

Because here’s the thing about day three. Day three it rained. And when you’re on a mountain, 3600 metres above sea level, and it’s raining, you are in the rain cloud. This meant that instead of appreciating the beauty of the Andes, we were more stuck in a bank of Doom Mist.

Still. We did gather at one fort, up a set of stairs from the day’s first big downhill stretch. Which made for a cool group rest stop.

20160310_101522 — On other days, you can see the path behind you and the path in front of you. On this day, we saw the fort.

There was a second fort down the hill from there, but I gave it a miss. It was rainy, kind of cold, and unlike everyone else I lacked a plastic poncho, so I and my day bag were getting soaked through. More than that, I thought this might be a chance to not be in the back of the group for the first time since day one.

The hike from there was pretty good, actually. Sure, there were a lot of vistas where I’d stop and think “Bet this is a great view when the mist isn’t in the way.” But the terrain wasn’t too hard, and I thought I was, actually, in the middle of the pack. After all, Kate was nearby, chatting with Evert about life and love, two topics I really didn’t want to weigh in on but enjoyed listening to well enough. Then after a short burst of uphill, the illusion was shattered, as we reached the lunch site, to be greeted by a clearly large group of people cheering us from inside the meal tent. Turns out I hadn’t been making better time, Kate had just been enjoying a leisurely stoll with Evert.

But that’s okay, because this was the best meal we’d bee served yet. Huge trays of beef, chicken, potatoes, salad, and quina… plus an eggplant cut to look like a condor, but which ended up looking like a pengiun.

Which is clearly great. — Best use of an eggplant I’ve seen.

And to top it all off, the chefs baked us a cake. On a mountain.

There were only two downsides to this lunch. First, it was a little cold. Quite cold for some. Even the Norwegians, so let’s not be casting aspersions at the Texans. The hot water kettle ended up finding uses beyond making teas and whatnot.

B and Kate snuggle with a kettle for warmth. — Bergljot and Kate snuggle with a kettle for warmth.

On that note… it was around this point that I noticed I’d been overdoing the hot beverages. Or maybe just doing them wrong. Drinking coca tea or hot chocolate was starting to hurt, burning all the way down.

Anyhoo, lunch over, we began our trek down the mountain to Wiñaywayna. I thought it would be eaiser to keep up with people on the way down, but the steepness was hard on the knees, and I prefered a more cautious pace, having already taken a tumble earlier. So, yeah, I got passed, just more gradually this time.

Some groups had stopped at the lunch break. Worn down by the cold and the rain, they pitched tents and called it a day. Those people were going to have to get up two hours earlier the next day, at a time no rational person would call “morning,” so I stand by our choice to push on, especially since the rain stopped and the clouds parted, and we finally had views again.

Our last stop before camp was at another Incan site, full of terracing and llamas. Always loved a good llama sighting.

20160310_162050

This stretch of the hike became more of a treat than a burden. I wasn’t the last person to reach camp, as Rusty had a harder time going downhill than I did, but I was still pretty far back, meaning I got to find camp alone.

See, it was at this point that it became really clear just how many groups are on the trail. Because we all shared one large camp site at Wiñaywayna, and G-Adventures, our group, had secured the spot at the far, far end. They did this so that we wouldn’t have other groups walking through our camp the next morning, which makes sense, but that was a lot of other groups to pass through trying to figure out which was mine. (It wasn’t that hard, mine would be the one with porters applauding for me.)

As it turns out, it was this night that Team US and Team UK got into a fight over Jelly/Jell-o and Tic-Tac-Toe/Knots and Crosses. Really thought that argument would have required the rum from night two, but Robbie’s blog (which was far more punctual, despite that fact that he’s still on the road and I’m not) informs me that it was night three. Oops. Also, during happy hour, I gave up on the hot beverages. They hurt too much on every sip.

Following dinner, we held a thank you ceremony for the porters, in which we presented them with a tip and thanked them for their help. And after three days of hauling our stuff, and one mountain-baked cake, that was well earned.

One last thing from night three. I made my way to the washroom before heading to my tent for the night, to find a few people from the neighbouring camp clustered around the two stalls. The stall on the left was open, but no one was going in, because apparently there was a giant bug just inside the doorway, and nobody wanted to deal with it. I chose not to get a look at the bug myself (you had to go into the stall to see it), and just waited for a turn in the stall on the right… only to find a giant-ass bug lurking on the wall.

Which nobody was talking about.

Which begged the question… how big was the other bug? If the monster bug I saw didn’t even warrant a discussion, how the hell big was the other bug no one was willing to share a bathroom with?

No, I didn’t get a picture. My phone was my only light source, so night time photos were problematic.

Only one day to go…

Day four: The Arrival

Day two was the hardest (unless you’re Rusty, who preferred a lot of up to a lot of down). Day three was the longest. Day four is the earliest. The porters came to wake us at 3:30 AM. Which wasn’t, like, super easy, especially since my tent was next the porters, who were up playing music and chatting after we’d turned in. And I’m like, “Aren’t you getting up at the same 3:00 we are? Earlier, even?”

“But it’s worth it, right?” people ask. Well. Sort of. Though not really. You’re not up at three in the morning to catch the sun rising over Machu Picchu. We got up at 3:30 then walked for a half hour to the check-in point, which wouldn’t be open until 5:00. Because you aren’t getting up at 3 AM for you. You’re getting up at 3 AM because the porters have to make a 5 AM train, and before they do that, they need to break camp, pack it up, and haul everything to the train station. And for them to do that, you can’t still be in the camp.

The wait at the checkpoint would have been a good time to chat and bond with the group, since we’d be parting ways sooner than I liked to think, but… fun fact about me. I am not a morning person. To the point that I do not socialize well before, say, 11:00. 4 AM is, in fact, a good deal of time before 11:00. So instead of chatting with the others, I pulled out my iPod and watched some vintage Doctor Who.

See, I feel sad because I have trouble connecting with people in group settings, then when I’m in a group setting, I do stuff like this. My own worst enemy some days, I’m telling you.

Five o’clock came, and we were back on the trail… for the last big challenge of the hike. The Monkey Stairs. The Monkey Stairs are a staircase right before the Sun Gate (not an actual big stone doorway like I thought, but a gap in the mountain that the sun shines through at a certain time of year when watched from Machu Picchu), said to be so steep that you need to climb them on all fours like a monkey. I don’t know about that, but what I do know is that path gets steeper and steeper as you approach the Monkey Stairs. But then, at long last… you make it. And in the distance?

Machu Picchu awaits.

There is a definite feeling of triumph. You’ve made it. Three days and a wake-up of hiking, some very strenuous, three nights of camping, but now you’re here. Just one last stretch of gentle downhill and you’re at a world wonder.

Also flush toilets. And a cafe. And did I mention the flush toilets? With seats and toilet paper? That were regularly cleaned? Because some of us were really looking forward to that.

Upon arriving at Machu Picchu we had some time on the outskirts to get pictures and have a reunion with Ellard and Maria.

Also to finish a video project I’d been working on.

The ladies enjoyed taking turns hamming it up as models for Brian, who’d call out things like “Now you’re a condor! Flap! Soar majestically! Now you’re a puma!” Sadly I have no photos of the results, because I didn’t think to take any, and harvesting photos off Amy or Kate’s Facebook feels uncool.

Then we had time to relax and snack in the more touristy area outside of the old city (Machu Picchu was like the Hamptons to Cusco’s New York… a place where the rich went to get out of town and relax over the summer). The food wasn’t exactly a blessed relief, because we’d eaten exceptionally well the last few days, but it was still welcome. Lunch at 8:30 is an odd experience, but it worked. What I wish I’d done is grab a beer with Robbie and Tayla instead of getting a Coke. Sure, there’s a chance I would have been having a beer near Robbie and Tayla rather than with them, but Robbie said some great things about that morning beer. Me, I was just happy throwing my bag into the bag check and exploring the area unencumbered.

After a few hours exploring the area, with and without a guided tour from Evert, I grabbed a bus down to the town to meet everyone for a lunch before our train ride back to Ollataytambo, where we’d split back into our original groups for the drive back to Cusco (which Evert, with Peruvian pride, stubbornly pronounces Cosco, as the Incas did). And at lunch, I did grab a beer. And a pizza. And it did feel good.

Not as good as my first shower in three days felt upon returning to Cusco, but good just the same.

That night… yes, amazingly this is still day four… we all met for dinner (save, sadly, for Rusty, who tended to value resting over meal times on the last two days). A final Puma Family meal, all scrubbed up and looking our prettiest. We presented our guides with their tip (there was a lot of this the last few days of the trip) in a ceremony led by Brian, who even threw in a “My dear family” to kick it off. And as a final… I’m going to use the word “treat,” but your mileage may vary… Evert ticked off one more box of the Peruvian Vacation Experience, buying the whole table a guinea pig to share. Which I also appear to have not bothered to get a picture of.

I ate a small piece. Partially because over a dozen of us were sharing one guinea pig, and partially because it turns out coy, as they call it, is really gristly. And I mean, I don’t even order prime rib often because it’s too fatty and gristly for me. So I don’t really regret not ordering coy more often, because it was always the most expensive item, usually by a fair margin, and it turns out to be gristly and organy.

Yes, organy. You eat the organs. You have to, there isn’t that much meat on a guinea pig.

Following dinner, a contingent headed out to a nearby club, as apparently Evert (at a point I’d missed) issued a challege to be up for 24 hours straight. Our day started at 3 AM, and some were determined to end it at 3 AM. Some of us were in extreme pain from the waist down, given how rough the past few days had been on our knees, and elected to go back to the hotel. As did Tayla, for whatever reason.

Sure, on some level I wish I’d stuck it out with everyone else. But in the moment I was sure I’d have a terrible time attempting to club through leg pain. So… choice made. Goodbyes said. And two last days in Cusco remaining.

Next time, a farewell to Peru, before I start ramping up to rant about superhero TV again.

Danny in the Andes: The Trail Begins

Okay. We’ve talked about my arrival in Peru, we’ve talked about night busses, and we’ve talked about the various stops and shenanigans my tour made. Now let’s get to the main event… the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

(Sidenote… apparently you’re pronouncing that wrong. When you read it just then, you pronounced it wrong in your head. It’s “Machu Pik-chu,” which translates to “Old Mountain,” not “Machu Pee-chu,” which translates to “Old Penis.” Or so our guide Evert claimed. Our guides were known to stretch the truth from time to time.)

On day one, we arose in Ollataytambo, grabbed the complimentary hotel breakfast… which, let me just say, there’s a lot to recommend about the places we stayed, but not the complimentary breakfasts. They made “continental breakfasts,” a term I have long equated with “minimal effort,” look like glamourous buffets. Anyway. Maria left for her tour, while Amy, Kate, Tayla and I met our new companions. Evert called us the Pumas, or “Puma Family.”

He said “family” a lot, greeting the group or calling for attention by calling us “family,” “dear family,” or “Puma family.” I would make a joke here. I’d invent something called the “Dominic Toretto line,” claiming that if you say “Family” more often than Vin Diesel does in a Fast and Furious movie it begins to lose meaning, but damned if it didn’t work. We did become a kind of family those four days.

The last time we'd look this good for a few days. — The last time we’d look this good for a few days.

There were Steven, Leigha, and Will from Texas, two brothers and Will’s wife who were all med students on spring break. Heidi and Berjldot (who said we could call her “B,” as she didn’t love the odds of us pronouncing it right) from Norway. A third, unconnected woman from Norway whose name I don’t recall because I waited too long to write this and she’s not on Facebook and why was I born a fool who “roomed” with Tayla. Rusty from Florida (though now living in North Carolina part time), the only member of the Pumas older than me, and his sons Josh and Brian. Robbie from Devon and Alex from Bristol, who hadn’t known each other prior but formed “Team UK” in later debates with the Americans. I’ll get to that.

Porters

This is a big enough part of the experience it needs its own section.

You'll know them from the backpacks that could hold a teenager. And from hiking better than you. — You’ll know them from the backpacks that could hold a teenager. And from hiking better than you.

I believe I mentioned that you don’t have to carry all of your equipment on the trail. Our group of 15 came with three guides, two cooks, and twentyish porters who carried our personal tents, the meal tent, the chairs, the food, the cooking supplies, and all of our 6 kilo duffel bags. And while carrying all of that, they still do the hike twice as fast as any of us. In sandals. They break camp, dart along the trail, and set up either the lunch break or camp site while you’re hiking, then applaud you as you arrive at camp, and not even sarcastically. They are rock stars, served some of the best meals we had the whole trip, and make the entire hike a far better experience.

That said.

Every time a porter comes up behind you, there is a call of “Porters!” and everyone moves to the side. Like pulling over for an ambulance. This… happens a lot. Like, a lot. There are many groups on the trail at any given time, each with their own troupe of porters, meaning there are over a hundred porters that will pass you at some point during each day of the hike. Twice on days one and three. Never all at once. It can get old. But you don’t complain, because look at all that shit they’re carrying and they don’t even get to come to Machu Picchu.

Day One: The Warm-up

Together, we bussed down to Kilometer 82, a common starting point for the Inca Trail. When Evert said “Inca Trail,” which as our primary guide he did frequently, his accent could make it sound like he was saying “Inca Trial.” Which… was not an unfair assessment, all things considered. The beginning was simple. A fair amount of up, sure, but jovial chatter among we Pumas, and a ceremony asking for blessings from Pachamama, Mother Earth, who the Incas worshipped. That is, I’m told, the reason that the Inca Trail weaves its way up and down the mountain rather than following the river… to truly savour the views along the way. Which, sure, were impressive. There were plateaus, old Inca ruins, it was definitely a hike but not an arduous one at the beginning. The sort of hike that boosts your confidence for the days to come, even if those Australians from the horseback ride have hammered the notion of being sent home back into your head and now on every hill you find yourself thinking “Not yet, flesh body, we can’t get tired yet, so far to go…”

I’m sure everyone thought that. Feels universal to me.

There was also a lot of dung on the trail, because this section is dotted with villages that sell supplies to hikers, and they transport said supplies via horse and donkey. Hence dung. But complaining about feces must not be super Pachamama-friendly, as I seemed to be the only one who noticed or minded. So, whatevs, I guess.

My duffel bag carried shirts, socks, and underpants for three days, plus pajama pants and a hoodie that I was told I would need. I wanted to say “Dude, I’m Canadian, I’ll be fine” but they seemed insistent, so I brought it anyway. In my day bag, which was starting to tear open, but that’s neither here nor there, I had a wool hat (didn’t need), five litres of water (did need), my shaving kit with pills and minimal toiletries, sunscreen, mosquito repellant, a book (for real, Past Dan?), my new scarf (again, from Canada, why did I think I’d need that), a bag of popcorn from our homestay (which was already stale, why did I wait until after the hike to bin it), tour-provided snacks, and my jacket (when I wasn’t wearing it). Not present? A flashlight (didn’t think to pack one) and one of those plastic ponchos everyone else bought at the start of the hike. “Bag’s too full,” I said. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s not like it can fold up even more than it is, being made out of thin plastic,” I said.

Why do I make these decisions.

Anyway, the point is that my bag was pretty damn heavy. But I managed it.

After some gorgeous plateaus, we descended to the river for our lunch break, being applauded into camp by our faithful porters, which was a good feeling every time it happened. After a lunch/washroom break, we were back out on the trail… realizing my concern from the previous hour. See, there was a long stretch of downhill right before lunch, which was fun and easy (spoiler alert: not something we’d be able to say about all downhill stretches), but I knew what elevation we were aiming for. Camp at Wayllabamba would be at 3000 km, over three hundred kilometers above where we’d started. So every metre we went downhill would be a metre we’d have to make back up. Which we did. After lunch.

Still, can't complain about the lunch spot. — Still, can’t complain about the lunch spot.

Evert said the terrain would be “undulating,” implying a series of ups and downs. As I said before… sometimes Evert lies. It was up. All up. The first big challenge… though only a taste of what was to come.

Once again applauded into camp by the porters, we found our tents and settled in. Dinner would be a few hours later, but first, 5:00 happy hour. We gathered in the meal tent for tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and popcorn. We bonded as a travel family, and eventually dinner happened. We ended night one with a ceremony introducing us to our porters. There were a lot to get through, so the intros were limited to name, age, and number of children/marital status, for both them and us. Our porters were all locals to the hills, most speaking Quechua, not Spanish. The sun vanished during dinner, and after a full day of hiking, no one found it that tricky to head to bed. Well, okay, after a half hour of tentmate chatting. If you had a tentmate. Which I did not.

I also learned that flashlights were not provided, and I would have to use my phone to have any light. My phone was on airplane mode from the moment we left Ollataytambo, so this turned out to be a minor issue, but suffice to say flashlight duty burned through more of my phone battery than anything else during the trek. I guess since “Everything else” amounted to “Being on but not used,” that’s not surprising.

Day Two: The Ordeal

This was it. The day I’d been dreading. The day generally known to be the most challenging of the entire hike. And it did not… it did not get off to the best start.

I barely slept the night before. Like, night bus-level bad sleep, where I only had the vague sensation that I must have been asleep at some point, but rarely seemed aware of it. Dogs were barking. My makeshift pillow, which involved wrapping my hoodie around my shaving kit and shoving it under the air mattress, was not super comfortable. Also I guess I’d overdone the coca tea, because in the middle of the night I really had to pee. I was, however, unwilling to deal with the effort of getting my boots on, finding my glasses, and getting my phone out, so I just walked in my socks to the bushes I knew to be nearby.

Those socks remained damp for the next three to four days. So, as decisions go, I give it B, B-.

When “morning” came (said it before and I’ll say it again, if the sun is not up, it is still night), things did not super improve. I discovered that my makeshift pillow solution had caused my toothpaste to explode, getting toothpaste all over my tent, sleeping bag, and pants. I admit this made it easier to find my tent on subsequent days, but overall, I wasn’t thrilled with this turn of events. Also, when I attempted to put my contacts in, one of them fell out. A falling contact violates the laws of physics. It never manages to land, like, directly underneath where it was. I can be leaning over the sink, and the dropped contact will end up behind where I was standing. As such, I never saw that contact lens again. It belongs to Pachamama now. It was glasses from thereon out.

So, you know, doing great on the start of day two. If you’re about to embark on the most physically demanding day of your hike-slash-vacation-slash-adult life, possibly, the last thing you want is to be well-rested. And if you can have a wave of annoyances on top of being tired, even better.

Anyhoo.

A brief and simple breakfast later, it was time to begin. Camp at Wayllabamba was on an Inca terrace partway up the trail to Dead Woman’s Pass, the highest elevation of the trail, and a full 1,000 metres up from camp. Hence being the toughest day… it’s four to five hours of constant climbing, and it only. Gets. Steeper.

Day two was also the loneliest day of the hike. We all went at our own paces, because of course we did, meeting up at the pre-planned break points and meal stops, but day two is when my pace and the rest of the group’s pace really began to noticeably differ. I found myself in the back of the pack both soon and often, so for long stretches I hiked alone. Well, with occasional visits with whichever guide was assigned to taking up the rear, which on day two was Daniel. So he was the main person I saw on my way to the pass.

At the first break, it began to sink in… I hadn’t seen Rusty all day. Or his sons. Not at breakfast, not on the trail, not with the group at the break point. This caused a wave of panic and a touch of despair. Had it happened? Had Rusty been sent back? The hike was already hard, but going back still seemed unthinkable. Turning back was failure. But if Rusty was gone… was I next?

At the next break point I found out that Rusty had not turned back. Knowing that he had the slowest pace of any of us (even me), Rusty had decided to get up and leave an hour before the rest of us. Josh and Brian, dutiful sons, went with him. This was a relief, and knowing this, I pushed on, up and up the increasingly steep stone steps. Pausing when I had to, sitting to drink water when I had to, just trying to get up the next section.

View wasn't bad, though. — View wasn’t bad, though.

There is a long stretch where you can see Dead Woman’s pass in the distance. And it doesn’t look that far away. But this, ultimately, doesn’t help. The endless staircase of day two constantly curves its way along the mountain, but it never seems to be curving towards the pass. Every time you round a corner you see another stretch of stairs that is not leading where you want it to be. Which is not encouraging.

Nor is it encouraging when two people come up and just stand behind you, glaring, while you pull yourself up the next step. Yes, fine, Beardy McGlower, I am taking my sweet time right now, and yes, we all were encouraged to aim for the lowest part of the next step, but that isn’t mandatory. Go around me if you’re in such a god damned hurry. Bad enough I was pulling over for porters every ten minutes.

There were times when I felt like I honestly didn’t have the strength for another step up, let alone another flight. I was as tired as I could remember being, depleted… but through force of will and plenty of water, I pushed on. And eventually, the pass was ahead. Encouraging calls from Kate, Amy, and Tayla rang down from above. Each step was a struggle, had been for a half hour at least, but the end was truly in sight. I pulled myself to the top, dropped by bag, and rested, triumphant. And then filmed the second segment of a video I’d decided to make.

I passed Rusty on the way down. As always, he had a big smile on his face, was a delight to talk to. Turns out he did okay on the uphill sections, but climbing down the same stone stairs after the peak was far harder. I see his point. The stairs were easier on the way down, but not easy. They were hard on the knees, and it was easier to roll your ankle a little stepping down. The walking sticks were still a big help.

I’m pretty sure that’s the area where I slipped and fell off the path. A combination of fatigue and a misstep sent me, somewhat gradually, off the steps and into the tall grass. This was not one of the sections where I hiked alone, as it turns out. Heidi and B were there. Possibly Leigha. So I felt a call of “I’m good, nothing hurt but my pride” was in order.

Around 2:00 I arrived at the campsite, in time for lunch. Yes, for day two, our lunch stop was also our campsite, something we were all grateful for. Others had to hike back up for two hours after lunch. We got to just collapse. And collapse I did, quite literally. Once I found the tent that was smeared with toothpaste, I unzipped it, and flopped face-first onto the air mattress. There I remained until the lunch call, five or ten minutes after.

The hero of the day was Robbie. One of the rest stops on the way to the pass is also the last place to buy supplies. Sure it’s expensive, but it’s your last chance for snacks, water, or, and this is the important part… booze. The Australians had recommended buying beers to share with the porters. Robbie took it one step further, and bought us all a bottle of rum. Happy hour truly was happy hour day two, as Evert took the bottle and whipped up a rum/tea concoction. We played drinking games and fell into spirited arguments over proper language, with Robbie, Alex, and Tayla campaigning for British terms like jelly, jam, and noughts & crosses, while Team USA fought for Jell-o, jelly, and Tic-Tac-Toe. Yes, each side had a jelly. The Brits thought jelly was the gelatin desert we were served after dinner, the Yanks claimed it was the breakfast spread. We in Team Canada were stuck in the middle, while Team Norway got to just laugh at our antics.

Robbie has, on his blog, accused us of not sufficiently having the motherland’s back in these arguments. While I will admit that Noughts and Crosses does make more sense as a name (provided that you call zeroes “noughts”), because what even is a tic or a tac, but I’m sorry, Team UK, Jell-o is a brand name so is technically correct regardless of continent.

Day two was a struggle, for a long while. Five hours of increasingly difficult climb. Moments of doubt, times when I had to fight through the urge to just stop. But if there hadn’t been hardship, there couldn’t be triumph. And there was triumph. And in the end, fellowship. Laughter and good times, buoyed by Robbie’s rum.

triumph

Wow this got long. Next time, Doom Mist and the Old Mountain.

Danny in the Andes: Road to the Trail

Before I get into this, a few things I’d forgotten about the trip thus far.

First… It amazed me how little time it took to get used to the trip. The different culture, the constant moving, it became the new normal almost right away. So thoroughly was it the new normal that by Arequipa I already couldn’t believe that I’d only been in Peru for four days. The group was my home, my companions my friends. Home as I had known it was a distant memory, an incorrect life I no longer maintained. My other friends merely ghosts. Ghosts with Facebook accounts I checked up on when I had WiFi and who liked my Instagram photos like ghosts do my metaphor is flawless.

Second… The road to Chivay provided some of our better llama viewing. Llamas and other camelids. During my bus tour of Arequipa, I learned about the various types of fur-bearing camelids found in Peru: llamas (which you know), alpacas (softer fur, fuzzier), vicunas (non-domesticated, but provide the softest fur), and guanacos, which people didn’t seem to care much about and really only came up the once. The drive to Chivay included a herd of vicunas and a few herds of llamas you could get pictures with, although we were expected to slip the kid minding them a few soles.

Vicunas in the wild, — Vicunas in the wild.

The llamas have accepted me as their cute and fuzzy brethren.

Third… no one in Peru looks Spanish. I began to wonder about that. Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand… the Europeans moved in and shoved the locals into isolated pockets, so the population became mostly white. Some native Mexicans have more European features, but a lot still look Mayan. Peruvians look entirely native. Get inland, and a lot still speak their original language instead of Spanish (also true of Mexico, now that I mention it). I guess the Spanish conquered the area, but didn’t have any interest in living there.

Fourth… as long as I’m addending old blogs, when I ranked the best picture nominees, my gag title for Room was “Not THE Room, Thank You,” when it should have been “The Somewhat Breakable Kimmy Schmidt.” My bad.

Cusco

Formerly the capital of the Inca empire, the city typically used to acclimate to altitude before tackling the Inca Trail is Cusco, sometimes spelt Cuzco, and formerly known as Cosco until the Spanish decided they didn’t want it to be confused with discount grocery chain Costco a few centuries down the line. Or because they found “Cosco” tricky to pronounce. They told me the second one was the real reason, but does it actually sound more likely?

Parts of Cusco, notably near our hostel, still incorporate ancient Inca walls into their buildings. It wasn’t uncommon to see a building that was Inca to about chest level, then more modern from there.

My arrival in Cusco was a little different than the rest of the group. They went on the standard intro/city highlights walking tour with Ellard while I finally reached the first portion of my “adrenaline package,” the one upgrade I chose to get. (I considered the “my own room” upgrade, decided against it, then got it for free by being the only guy in the group. Score!) So while the others checked out the town square (warned you) and other nearby sights, I was horseback riding on the hill overlooking the city.

That's Cusco in the background. — That’s Cusco in the background.

In addition to a couple of old Inca temples, the horseback ride featured two Australians who were doing the ride the day after their Machu Picchu hike (as I was supposed to, but the river was too high for my other activity).

This was… informative, if harrowing. They both had a lot of tips and insights, but the guy was determined to talk about punishing day two was. I tried to mention how hard the climb up the sand dunes had been, but it didn’t deter him.

“You have a stairmaster at home?”
“No, but I’d take one over the sand dunes—“
“Because that stairmaster feels like heaven next to the stone stairs on day two.”

Here I began to wonder how necessary I was for this conversation, since I hadn’t engaged him on the stairmaster topic at all. He also seem quite amused picturing me on those stairs. So, you know, that was a little hurtful.

That night we (save Maria, who booked too late and had to go on a different trek) were introduced to our guide-to-be, Evert. He walked us through what we could expect from day to day on the Inca Trail. His accent meant that it sounded a little like he was saying “Inca Trial.” Which was not… not inaccurate.
We also had the opportunity to rent equipment for the hike. But each piece had to be considered carefully. Budget issues aside, our G Adventures duffel bags (which, unlike our day bags, we wouldn’t have to carry) could only hold six kilos of stuff. An air mattress would make nights in the tent more comfortable, but would also take up one of your kilos. A sleeping bag keeps you warm, but that’s another two and half kilos. Two walking sticks? Those you carry yourself, so… those are fine.

I got the lot. Only left me two and a half kilos for clothes and whatnot, but I do value my sleep.
One group dinner, in which everyone opted against the guinea pig (partially because it is hell of expensive), and our intro day in Cusco wrapped up.

The Homestay

Next up… a traditional homestay with a women’s weaving collective the village of Ccaccaccollo. I could tell you to pronounce it but I think you’d learn more looking it up yourselves and then reporting back. We arrived, were split between Fransisca and Patricia, two sisters/civic leaders, and were shown to their homes, where we were served lunch. From there, we were handed traditional garb and brought to the potato fields to assist with the harvest.

There were two opinions of this particular stop. Some had been looking forward to this the entire time. They saw this as a trip highlight. These were, shall we say, the outgoing people. Other members of the group… say, the more introverted members, who aren’t great with strangers even when they do speak the same language… those who perhaps don’t see chores in a potato field as an exciting vacation experience… maybe those people weren’t looking forward to this stop so much.

Yes, fine, me. I was talking about me. That second bit was all about me. If you didn’t get that.

Still, the ladies were excited enough for this stop that I allowed myself to believe I was worrying for no reason. And by and large, I was. The people we stayed with were far too friendly, welcoming, and generous for the stop to be considered any sort of burden, potato chores or no potato chores. Our homestay consisted of lunch with our hostess, an hour or two of chores in the potato fields, dinner (featuring a few of the potatoes we’d helped harvest, also lamb), then a night in the guest room(s).

Yes, Maria and I ended up way further uphill than the others, and the climb up the hill to Patricia’s house was… daunting. (There was a less steep path, but I was forced to admit it was longer.)

Also the doorways weren’t quite designed for average North American heights…

20160306_134741

On the other hand, Patricia has a proper flush toilet (even if the “flushing” has to be done by pouring in a bucket of water) and a bathroom door that went all the way to the floor, unlike Fransisca, who had a hole in the ground and a door that ended at squat-level. So we had that going for us. Also, we had easier chores.

Post lunch, we were given traditional Peruvian garb and led to the fields. While the others had to actually dig up potatoes (save for Tayla, who maimed enough potatoes that she got moved to babysitting), Maria and I only had to gather them and rub off excess dirt. And avoid spiders. And look like we weren’t avoiding the spiders, just causally moving to another part of the field.

That last part was also just me.

Kate and Amy harvest spuds, Tayla enjoys some playtime with one of the kids, Ellard... is also present. — Kate and Amy harvest spuds, Tayla enjoys some playtime with one of the kids, Ellard… is also present.

Also, Patricia’s daughter spoke decent English, which was a perk. She was studying it at university, which surprised me, because she did not look older than 13. Between that and Patrica’s mad cooking skills, it was a decent lunch. Her son did not speak English, so Maria did her best to use her limited Spanish to chat with him over dinner. Apparently he used to be a porter on the Inca Trail. That’s… the main thing I was able to pick up.

Post-chores, Ellard gathered the ladies for a fashion shoot in the traditional skirts, something he does with the women of all of his tours. Just women. Not the guys. He says he doesn’t enjoy or see the point of photographing dudes. Which, you know… that’s fine. That’s his call. It’s just not something Citrus Photography’s Tim Nguyen or Abby + Dave Photography would say. For what that’s worth. (Okay, Abby and Dave are wedding photographers, so that’s not entirely fair…) Since “being photographed” lands slightly beneath “chores in a potato field” on the list of things I enjoy, so no, I wasn’t exactly miffed about being left out.

The skirt wouldn't have looked as good on me anyway. — The skirt wouldn’t have looked as good on me anyway.

Amy on the left, a more-cute, mostly-equally-fuzzy stand-in for me on the right.

In the morning, we were given a tour of the weaving process. We felt the differences in four types of raw wool, in order of softness… from sheep wool, which we soon knew to be garbage in comparison, to llama, to alpaca, to baby alpaca, to ultra-soft, luxurious, largely unaffordable vicuna. We watched how it’s spun into thread, and saw how one seed is used to dye the wool. Different colours are achieved through additives like lime juice or by simply rubbing the dye with a certain crystal. No, for real. A crystal. I saw it happen. Otherwise I wouldn’t buy it either.

Speaking of buying… the weaving collective’s creations were available for purchase. Scarves, blankets, sweaters, hats, made from llama or alpaca… I checked out a nice green baby alpaca scarf my hostess had made. At first I thought it might make a nice present, but then I felt it. It had to be mine. Also Patricia gave me a discount because she made it personally. Kate eyed a headband, but wasn’t sure she needed it.

“Do you need it?” I asked. “Possibly not. Are you working it? A little bit.” That may not have been the deciding factor, but she did buy that headband, so I like to think it had an impact.

We also got our first glimpse at our trailmates for the hike to come, as their more basic tour stopped at the village that morning.

Ollantaytambo

Ollantaytambo… roughly translated, the town of Ollantay, an Inca warrior of sufficient renown to be promoted to the nobility, but who got into a Romeo & Juliet situation with the Emperor’s daughter. Or so the legends say. I mean, it definitely probably could have happened.

Ollantaytambo was conquered by the Inca emperor Pachacuti, who incorporated it into his estate. It would later become a key Inca fortress: when the Spanish took the Inca capital of Cusco, the Incas fortified themselves in Ollantaytambo, managing to hold back the invaders. These days, it’s the last port of call before the beginning of the Inca Trail. Well, the typical start point of the Inca Trail. It actually goes all the way to Cusco, but that version takes 15 days.

There are two old Inca forts you can climb to: one of which costs money and is more official, and one which is free, but has posted signs saying (basically) “No railings, please don’t climb up here, but if you do, please do it before 4:30 ‘cause that’s when we close this gate.

Ellard told us it should take 20 minutes to climb to that fortress. So I took this as a test. I’d been anxious about day two of the Inca Trail since before I left, and was even more so after my encounter with the Australians (I mean, he didn’t have to tell me he found the visual hilarious, did he?). So if I could make it up that hill in twenty minutes, taking my time and enjoying the view as the Australians recommended, then I’d be good. Or so I was choosing to believe.

I made it, and on schedule, and the view was impressive. Thus emboldened, I gave a wave to Kate and Amy, who were on their way up while I was on my way down, and returned to town for… erm… a last burst of internet access before being unplugged for most of four days, IF you must know.
One last group dinner before the six of us parted ways for a spell, a final attempt to see how much stuff we could take with us (2.5 kilos goes fast), and then resting up for a big day ahead.

Next time… the trail.

Danny in the Andes: Pre-Andes Adventures

Let’s get back into this.

Last time we talked about the buses that carried our little group through Peru. Well, parts thereof. As we discussed, it’s a big country, and our tour allowed us to see a wide variety of places. Let’s talk about a few of them, shall we?

Nazca

If you know the name Nazca, you probably know it for the Nazca lines. A series of drawings in the desert that can only be seen from the air, and thus were forgotten for centuries. Near those lines is the actual town of Nazca, which is… a place people go when they want to see the Nazca lines and then leave really quickly. It’s a tiny place. Ellard, our guide, did not advise walking into town, feeling that the town square was safe but the surrounding town was… less so.

Now that I’ve limited Nazca’s appeal to the World Heritage Site it’s next to, it’ll probably seem weird to admit I didn’t actually see the Nazca lines.

See… maybe you were hoping to go easy on your credit card, since you hadn’t 100% paid off the trip itself. Maybe you were trying to see how long the cash you picked up before you left was going to hold out. And if those things are true, maybe you balk a little at the fact that between plane fare, park fees, and other fees I can’t quite recall the Nazca line tour came out to $140 US for a half hour flight.

Whereas, if you chose not to take the flight, you could a) sleep in, and b) lounge by the pool all morning. If you’re not going to see another hotel with a pool this trip, that option has a certain appeal. And lord have mercy the water was incredible. On a hot day in the desert it was the exact, and I mean exact right temperature. Sun, swimming, and the Welcome to Night Vale novel made for a perfect and relaxing morning, followed by lunch in town with the ladies (save for late riser Tayla, who was on the group’s tightest budget, and was just getting into her pool groove, and elected to stay at the hotel).

The restaurant strip near the town square of Nazca reminded me a little of the walk to Moulin Rouge in Paris. Or Chungking Mansions, a shopping centre in Hong Kong that I can only assume was named ironically. There are people stationed outside each restaurant on a mission to get every person they see into their restaurant. Some would find that entertaining. I find it kind of awkward. That’s more attention from strangers than I really need. Menu could be interesting, though…

Post-lunch, Maria (the only one of us to do the Nazca line flight) took her turn at the pool while the rest of us headed further into the desert for a tour to the sand dunes. We got a chance to see the heart of the former Nazca civilization, the aqueducts that provide Nazca its water to this day, as well as old burial sites… which sadly have been just super looted over the centuries. Still, it means we didn’t have to keep our distance. So if super close looks at old bones is your thing, that’s the place for you.

Then the buggy broke down. And not just a little. After a series of alarming clunks, our tour guide pulled to a stop in the middle of the dunes in order to search our tracks for pieces of the engine.

Into adventure! — Spirits remained high.

That’s not the most comforting thing that can happen to you mid-desert.

Fortunately, the same company had a second tour that was just behind us. Once their people were deposited at the top of a dune for some dune-boarding, the second buggy returned for our roller-coaster ride through the dunes. Which, as it turns out, was a way more thrilling ride than the actual dune boarding, and involved way less climbing back up the steep-ass sand dune in between. Don’t get me wrong, sandboarding was fun, just closer to crazy carpeting than anything else.

IMG-20160307-WA0015 — Adequate thrills, ahoy!

We returned to the hotel with just enough time for a decent shower to rinse a surprising amount of sand off of ourselves before our traditional Nazca dinner.

Not that anything could free us of the sand. Not completely. I couldn’t wear my shorts again for the rest of the trip for fear of my phone or iPod being damaged by the sand I couldn’t get out of my pockets. My camera stopped working, meaning I had to take all of my pictures on my phone. Which, yes, is technically superior to my 11 year-old digital camera, but still.

Totally worth it, though. Good day.

Arequipa

With Arequipa we were now firmly out of Spanish-influenced Peru and into Inca territory. We weren’t what you’d call well-rested, but bounced back for our tour of the… I’m going to be using this term a lot… town square. Which we were excited to learn was going to end with crepes. Ellard is a good guide, because not only does he know the historical facts, but also where to get crepes.

I like crepes. Is that clear? I think it’s clear. God I should find a place to get a crepe this week… sorry, I’m back.

Arequipa was a free day. Recommendations included a convent, a famous mummy (or at least a well-preserved mummy), and a monastery. I opted for a bus tour of the city, getting a good sense of Arequipa as a whole. Highlights? My first sighting of a restaurant whose sign included an adorable (and realistic) cartoon guinea pig gesturing for you to come in and devour the flesh of his kin. This gets more common in smaller towns.

Also, a building in the… downtownish area that was done up like a castle, complete with Smurfs waving from the windows. An adorable, if questionably legal, family restaurant? That’s what I thought too. But no, once we got closer, it turned out to be a dentist’s office. Not sure unlicensed Smurfs and medieval décor are going to lure in the kids like you think, Mr. Dentist.

Arequipa was unique in one way. Apparently the more rural areas in the hills view Arequipa as a great place to go for new opportunities. Which isn’t odd, people do that in cities around the world. No, what made Arequipa different of the cities we saw was that people don’t move to Arequipa. They sort of shimmy up next to it.

Arequipa is surrounded by unofficial shanty towns. People come, put up a house, maybe open a garage or a restaurant, but do not officially live in Arequipa. Which is a problem for the city, because they don’t pay property taxes. Pretty sure they have power, though, I guess they pay for that? I doubt entire neighbourhoods are running off an extension cord to the nearest outlet.

This was one of the LESS shanty shantytowns.

Arequipa is also the first city where we went drinking together. Happy hour drinks, two for 15-20 soles (7-10 dollars). Which started as “Maria and I split a happy hour special” and turned into “Hey, now I have two drinks” before long. Right around the time Amy showed up. Probably a coincidence. She’s a lovely girl of strong moral character, who said she wasn’t?

Turns out “I Never” has a phone app. We learned some things about each other.

Good night. Noisy hostel. Did not sleep great. But frankly “did not sleep of great” nights really outnumbered “fully rested,” and I didn’t die, so whatevs.

Chivay

Time to leave the “big smoke” as people say. Not people I like or respect. Why did I say “big smoke,” off to a terrible start on this section…

Chivay is a small town near one of Peru’s more impressive natural sights, the Colca Canyon, one of the world’s deepest canyons, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.

Also a good place to see giant condors. Which, yes, are immense, majestic birds. Birds that are super hard to get a really good compelling photos of if all you have is your phone and it’s super bright out so the screen is hard to see but damn it you’re trying your best.

Gonna have to trust me a little on "big" and "majestic." — Gonna have to trust me a little on “big” and “majestic.”

I got to spend some time with Maria, checking out a church and the local market. Fresh juice, ice cream, and addressing the fact that when I was picking out one day’s worth of stuff to bring to Chivay (leaving the bulk of our luggage back in Arequipa), I neglected to bring my swimsuit.

Yes, that’s right, sports fans, I created an opportunity to play “What Did Dan Forget to Pack” mid-trip. That is dedication to a bit. Or to not thinking about what I need to bring with me for the day leave me alone I have a condition.

I needed a swimsuit for the hot springs. That would have made this part clearer. Kate, Amy, Maria, and I had a relaxing trip to the hot springs that afternoon. Not much more to say about than that, except it was a nice time. But that’s why I now own three swimsuits, which just… it’s insane. That feels like way too many swimsuits for someone who is in water once a year. Gonna have to do some river rafting this August, that’s all there is to it.

Okay. Shake it off. Proper story.

Our guide for the Colca Canyon portion of the trip brought us to the local dinner theatre that night. They performed a variety of local dances, including a traditional wedding dance, and a dance sequence meant to indicate catching and curing malaria. Although the curing involved more suggested sexual activity than I think is medically advised.

Here’s the thing.

Midway through the wedding dance, their first number, the worst case scenario came to pass. They started wandering into the audience and pulling people out.

Few facts about me… I enjoy scuba and rafting, I love cheese, I gag on eggs, and I hate, I hate, I HATE audience participation. And mere minutes after the chilling realization that it was happening… they came for me.

I mean, it could have been worse. I only had to make and dance through arches. I did not have to catch or cure malaria. Others were not so fortunate. Or were more fortunate, I guess? Really a matter of perspective.

Also I found out I like alpaca. But did not bother to order guinea pig because, like always, it was the most expensive thing on the menu. Seriously, steaks cost less than guinea pig.

Next time… our tour through the south comes to an end, and the road to the Inca Trail begins.

Danny in the Andes: Another One Rides the Bus

When talking about being on a tour-style vacation, the least glamorous thing you can mention is buses. Being bussed around a country doesn’t sound appealing at all. Slower than flying and none of the space, amenities, or being on a boat of a cruise ship. But here’s the thing…

Peru is a big country. Quite big.

You might not think so, looking at a map, but you should know that your map is almost certainly a dirty, dirty, liar. Why don’t we let the Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality explain?

For those who didn’t watch… for nearly six centuries we’ve been using maps that distort the relative size of countries in the north vs. south. In short, if your map claims that Alaska is larger than Mexico, or that Greenland is remotely the same size as Africa, your map is lying to you. Sadly, being on a West Wing episode does not make something common knowledge. We know this because “the bible says being gay is wrong” is still being thrown around as an argument after President Bartlet thoroughly, hilariously destroyed it waaaaaaay back in the fall of 2000.

Okay, really getting sucked into a pit of West Wing clips here. Shake it off, back on topic…

The point is, the areas of interest in Peru are pretty far apart. And when your tour has “on a shoestring” in the name, there’s no quick and easy way from one to the other. In fact, I’m not even certain there are regular commuter flights to Nazca. It is a small town in the middle of a desert that happens to be next to a world heritage site. It does have an airport, but I’m pretty sure you’d need to charter a plane there. At that point, you’re not doing “Peru on a shoestring,” you’re doing “Peru with the sort of opulence that makes people resent you.”

And so you need a bus.

We’ll now break from covering the trip sequentially in order to talk about the buses I was on. Because they get a little samey and we may as well do it all in a row.

The Bus Experience

Aside from the private vans G Adventures provided for shorter jaunts, there were three buses, all from the same company. The honest truth is that comfort-wise, there isn’t a big difference between an economy-class bus and an economy-class flight. Your leg room isn’t ideal, your seat isn’t going to recline much (at least it shouldn’t), the seat is moderately comfortable but gets old after seven hours… the food/beverage service isn’t what you’d get on a plane, sure, especially overnight, but that matters less than you’d think. In the end, you’re on a vehicle for a long time, hoping you’re near a window and that there’s something worth seeing on the other side of it. Because the in-drive movie options are probably going to let you down.

There were two types of movies on my various buses. Either they’d show something I was somewhat interested in, but dubbed into Spanish and subtitled in English (diminishing its appeal), or something in English with Spanish subtitles that I had no interest in. Interest was especially low when we were on a night bus and trying to sleep, but we’ll get to the greatest offender on that. Weirdly, nothing Peruvian. Or even from somewhere outside the States. Only Hollywood.

Bus One: Lima to Nazca, seven hours

After a morning exploring a section of Lima’s coastline (not, ultimately, a section with a beach… I did not do well there), we left for the bus station for our seven hour drive to Nazca. It was at this point I realized the size of the country, because on a map of South America they do not seem that far apart. But I suppose if you look at a map of North America, Calgary and Golden don’t seem that far apart, and yet it’s six hours if you drive like you mean it. And I’d like to think passenger buses drive more conservatively than my friends do when trying to get to the houseboat by noon.

This the only bus we took that left during the day, as well as the only bus we took that had a stop along the way. And as it turned out, that town (whose name I never caught) was where just about everyone on the bus was trying to go. Once we were back on the road, we learned that the six of us were now the only passengers on the entire bus.

“Really?” asked Tayla, after Ellard broke the news. “It’s just the four of us?”

“Um,” I replied, from the row behind. “Five. There’s… I am also here.” It was that kinda day.

The potential perk of this was that since it was now just us, we were told to feel free to move to whatever seats we liked, even the nicer lower-floor seats. However, the ladies had all scored front row seats: it was just them and the windshield, with an unparalleled view of the landscape and bonus legroom. So they weren’t in a hurry to move, and I wasn’t so in need of a slightly comfier seat that I wanted to split off from the group. (Tayla having briefly forgotten I existed might, might have had something to do with that choice.)

Movies? We had two, one from each category. Our “dubbed into English” selection was The Walk, from Robert Zemekis and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I kind of got the impression that I might like this movie… the visuals seemed impressive, and what isn’t Joseph Gordon-Levitt good in, but the dubbing was annoying and the small screen wasn’t doing the story of a wire walk between the towers of the World Trade Center justice, so I only caught bits and pieces.

Prior to that was 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown, our Spanish-subtitle option. I paid vague at best attention to this one, which the “WWE Studios” logo indicated was all it would require or deserve. I feel I can be forgiven for thinking I might have to figure out the previous two movies’ history and character relationships, since it had the number three in the title and was about a cop’s first day back to work after an injury (and something about a dead rookie, but maybe that wasn’t backstory? Maybe it was something that happened when I wasn’t looking?). Turns out, no, the “12 Rounds” movies are just a set of unrelated action vehicles for WWE performers. Different leads, different characters, different stories, because John Cena apparently felt doing a second one was beneath him. And the one they chose to show us was the one John Cena’s replacement felt was beneath him. Let that tell you the level of quality we were dealing with here.

So what did you do? I read things and watched Dr. Who on my iPod. Turns out, in airplane mode and when not left in a cold car, the battery on my iPod lasts impressively long. So I burned through some combination of Time and the Rani (the newly regenerated 7th Doctor takes on rogue Time Lady the Rani, aided by a local forced to collaborate who ultimately sacrifices himself), The Green Death (the 3rd Doctor and departing companion Jo Grant face an evil computer and its human collaborator who ultimately sacrifices himself), and Seeds of Death (the 2nd Doctor faces the Ice Warriors and the human collaborator… who… sacrifices… hey…).

Bus Two: Secret of the Ooze Nazca to Arequipa, ten hours

Our first night bus. Leaving around 10 PM from Nazca and driving through the night.

Night buses and red eye flights are, to me, a mixed bag. Since I can rarely, if ever, afford business class or better, I don’t have the best sleep on planes or buses. Hence needing that nap in Lima. It’s also tricky to brush your teeth and there’s no guarantee of a shower on the far side, since you’re often arriving prior to check-in time.

That said… the drive to Nazca took up half of day two of the tour. By the time we reached our hotel, there wasn’t time for anything but having chicken dinners delivered and discussing our game plan for the next day. If it’s going to take ten hours to reach Arequipa, why not put those ten hours in a part of the day you weren’t using?

Our seats were not as good this time, as a second, larger G Adventures group was on the bus with us. We also learned that the seats reclined fairly far back, or maybe one was just broken, because Maria spent the night squashed under the seat of the guy in front of us, who either allowed or didn’t prevent his seat from tilting all the way back.

Reclining seats are a zero-sum game of comfort, people. Tilting back gains comfort for you at the cost of taking it from someone else.

Movies? Just the one before lights out: Life as a House, starring Kevin Kline as a former house model designer who, if I followed what was happening correctly, got a terminal disease and decided to spend his last summer attempting to build his dream house with his antisocial son. If you came out of the Star Wars prequels thinking “That was okay, but is there an even whinier character Hayden Christensen could be playing?” this is the movie for you. It was not, I felt, the movie for me, as within fifteen minutes I decided I hated everyone in it and had no desire to spend the next hour and a half witnessing them learn to live and love or whatever it is they were going to do.

So what did you do? Tried to sleep. It was… somewhat successful? Must have been. At some point, at least. I feel like that was the night I had dreams about an unwanted reunion at the Calgary Comic Expo that messed with my head for the next day. Also the drive didn’t feel ten hours long, so I must have nodded off at least once?

Bus Three: The Busening Arequipa to Cusco, ten hours

Cusco is about as close to Lima as Vancouver is to Calgary, or so I assume from how long it would later take to fly the distance. However, to better see the country, we’d gone the long way, and required a second night bus. This one left earlier in the evening… and there our problems begin.

Like every other problematic sleep night, I took a couple of Gravol to try and knock myself out for the drive. The bus and its employees, however, clearly felt I was missing prime bus-party time, and did everything they could to keep sleep from happening.

I expected a certain amount of announcements from the bus staff. There are always initial announcements. Approximate arrival time, reminders that the toilet can’t handle solids, that sort of thing. But then there were just… numbers. Lots of numbers, each proceeded by something I hadn’t been paying attention to. But it just kept going and going, and then the five of us began to put it together, each on our own… before each number was a letter. They were playing bingo.

Somewhere on this bus people were playing goddamned bingo, and apparently we all had to hear about it.

I would later learn that the reason we hadn’t been informed this was an option was that the prize was a free return ticket, and that wasn’t something we needed or could conceivably use. Which made it all the more annoying that everyone had to hear the game over the loud PA system. Once the game was over… she kept talking. And talking. And talking. Only in Spanish. I was tempted to ask Ellard what the hell she was going on about, since it seemed “We’ll be in Cusco in nine hours” isn’t a statement that would require this level of detail, but somehow he (and only he) was already asleep. Finally she gave the mic a rest, and it seemed sleep might be in sight…

Then the movie started.

Movies? Pitch Perfect 2, dubbed into Spanish. Well, the dialogue was, anyway, and therein lay the rub. The volume of the dubbed dialogue (I had even less interest in hearing someone else talk over Anna Kendrick than I did Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the (frequent) un-dubbed musical numbers was jarringly different. Basically, we’d start to nod off, then a song would kick in and the volume would jump and BAM, Gravol or no Gravol, I was awake again… wondering how much movie there was left.

So what did you do? Tried, in vain, to sleep. This time I had a front seat (although there was way too much condensation on the windows for any sort of view, even if we hadn’t drawn the curtains) so leg room wasn’t a big issue, but I was right in front of Maria and didn’t want to recline too far. Also I was paranoid about “manspreading” into Tayla, so I spent the night trying to huddle into the barely-reclined left side of my seat as much as humanly possible to stay out of her space. Between the less-than-ideal seat, trying to make myself as small as possible, and the stewardess talking through the half hour when my Gravol was trying to kick in, I barely slept at all. Which would have a cost the next night, but that’s another story.

Again… ultimately it was better this way. No matter the discomfort, sleeplessness, or ending up knowing that the 12 Rounds movies exist, at least we didn’t lose two entire days of our tour to driving through the Peruvian countryside.

Next time… less about buses and more about sand dunes, as the gang arrives in Nazca.

Danny in the Andes: Arrival

…Or, the Peruvian Whovian.

Or not that? If you like…

It suddenly occurred to me on a Friday evening in late February that, in less than 48 hours, I would be in South America for the first time. Now, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. I booked the trip last June, after all. So that should have been plenty of time to come to terms with the fact that I would, come the end of February, be in Peru for a tour ending in a four-day hike to Machu Picchu.

Yes, okay, elephant in the room… four days of mountain hiking and three nights of camping normally aren’t things I do for fun, so much as things someone would subject me to as some form of enhanced interrogation. But I did just tell a friend that adventure lies outside your comfort zone, and I try to limit my hypocrisy to things like complaining how overexposed Wolverine is while buying every comic about Batman I can get my hands on.

But that’s later. When my plane landed in Lima, Peru, the four-day hike was still a far-away thing. For now, I was in another country, another continent, another culture for the first time, and once I found the hostel where my tour would begin, there was only one thing to be done…

What's your second guess? — What’s your second guess?

A nap.

Don’t get all judgey, with your judging and whatnot. I arrived in Lima at 8 AM (two hours behind schedule, thanks so, Dallas airport, but whatevs), I didn’t sleep great on the flight to Lima. Either of them. I’ve done two overnight flights to London in recent years, and in both cases, a mid-day nap turned out to be necessary in order to avoid falling asleep in the middle of the city. Sometimes while standing up. So, I decided to head that off at the pass, grab a 90 minute nap, and then head out into the city to see what I could see… and maybe buy some toothpaste and conditioner because I kinda forgot to pack those.

The hostel was a short walk from the both the beach and Miraflores, Lima’s (and possibly the country’s) most upscale, touristy area. Seemed a good place to try and find some ceviche for lunch. Through some sort of providence, I not only found it, but found a place that made a trio of ceviches similar to the versions I came to love in Belize and Mexico. Not as easy as you’d think, since in Peru it involves much larger chunks of fish (often tuna) on a bed of onions, rather than the smaller-chunk seafood-salsa version I know and love.

I was less successful in finding the beach.

Yes, obviously I could see it, and there were people on it, but the coast of Lima (at least next to Miraflores and Barranco, where the hostel was) is waaaaaay downhill from the rest of the city, finding a way down wasn’t super easy, and it was really beginning to sink in that I’d completely forgotten to put on sunscreen before heading out for the day, so “inside” felt like my friend.

And to enjoy the fact that as the only guy in my group, I got a room to myself without having to pay for the upgrade. Score.

7:00… time to meet the group. The five people I’d be spending the next two weeks with: our guide and four younger, fitter, and far prettier ladies of my Peru on a Shoestring adventure.

Kate and Amy, both from Ontario… despite living in the same province, they met on the far side of the planet, backpacking through Australia, New Zealand, and southeast Asia, and are now travel pals. Which is the sort of friendship I find fascinating.

Tayla from South Africa. Youngest of the group, taking a year to wander the Earth in between school and starting work in accounting. I’ve liked the idea of a “gap year” ever since I heard of it. Which, sadly, was too late to actually have one myself. Although it wouldn’t have helped that the idea of having a job while going to school seemed, like, way too stressful to my addled teenaged mind. My addled teenaged mind had, as I’ve stated in the past, some powerfully stupid and self-destructive notions. Moving on.

Maria, originally from Russia, currently living in Brooklyn and bartending in New Jersey. At first, the quietest member of the group (a group that includes me, a notorious introvert with habitual difficulty entering conversations), but we would learn that those still waters ran deep.

And last but hardly least, Elard, photographer and our guide from here to the start of the Inca Trail. A guide who handily doesn’t just know the historical facts about churches, but also where to find dinner, crepes, and cheap happy hour drinks.

For night one, we grabbed dinner by the hostel, a “getting to know you” style of thing. We were introduced to one of the national drinks of choice, the pisco sour, made from a type of brandy (pisco) produced in Peru and Chile. I also ordered a dish made from strips of beef heart, because I cling to my belief that if I eat enough odd things while on vacation, I will somehow find redemption for eating McDonald’s in Greece instead of discovering souvlaki and flaming saganaki a decade early.

Damn you, Past Dan! Think how many more of these we could have eaten!

It was, overall, a simple day. The Lima airport isn’t in the best neighbourhood, and my drive to the hostel felt reminiscent of every movie set in Brazil’s favelas. Miraflores, however, took the edge off the culture shock. Ocean and heat aside, Miraflores now felt like most major cities I’ve been to. Most of them are alike, in their ways.

That… would not last. I would learn that Lima is in a part of the country still heavily influenced by the former Spanish occupation, whereas the areas we’d be travelling to are still influenced by the Incas, some people even still speaking the local languages from before Spanish occupation. Perhaps that’s why Lima was the one major city we visited whose restaurants tended not to carry guinea pig.

But the smaller-town, less affluent, tiny winding streets of inland Peru would have to wait. Tonight, there was just meeting the crew, a brief and unsuccessful attempt to watch some of the Oscars (the Spanish dubbing really drowned out the English, it was annoying to try and follow), and a spectacularly bad night of sleep in my single hottest hotel room.

Next time… buses.

Ranking the Best Pictures

Hello readers. I return, and apologize for my absence… although, one could argue that there is an amusing symmetry in going from writing about the adventures of Dominic Toretto’s Fast and Furious family to discussing the eight films that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has chosen to claim were the year’s best.

A claim that grows more dubious the more we look at their storied history of blown calls, and the entire genre of movies that’s sprung up whose sole purpose seems to be pandering to the Oscars, but… eh, what can you do.

Let’s look at this year’s nominees, in my personal order of preference. And because I’m me and that one scene of Birdman really stuck with me, I’ll also be tracking how many superhero/Star Wars actors are trying to do something of substance in between tentpole flicks.

(For even quicker descriptions, check out this list of honest Oscar posters)

8. National Lampoon’s Vengeance Vacation

AKA "This was SUPER uncomfortable, can I have my Oscar now?" — AKA “This was SUPER uncomfortable, can I have my Oscar now?”

In a nutshell: When a fellow trapper kills his son and leaves him for dead, Hugh Glass (Leonardo diCaprio) must overcome his horrific bear-related injuries, a harsh environment, and a band of natives on their own vengeance quest, in order to find and punish his betrayer.
Featuring: Bane, General Hux

A lot has been made of how this movie was shot. How Alejandro Iñárritu insisted on using only natural light to shoot (meaning some shoot days lasted an hour and a half), how Leonardo diCaprio actually did eat raw bison liver and swim in freezing rivers, and so on and so on. Here’s the thing about that, though… none of that is the narrative. It’s the meta-narrative. It’s fuel for the DVD special features, not relevant to a discussion of the film’s quality. Using exclusively natural light resulted in a lighting effect I would describe as “adequate, not exceptional.” Tell me “Leo actually did all of those things,” and I’m going to point you to his five stuntmen. He actually ate raw liver? He was lying two feet from a fire and had, in fact, eaten that day, so from a narrative perspective, nobody needed to eat raw anything, especially if doing so was just going to make them throw up.

Also, saying “When Glass throws up after eating the liver, that was Leo’s authentic reaction…” well, that isn’t acting. It’s reacting. If diCaprio deserves an Oscar for that, then Johnny Knoxville deserved an Oscar for Jackass.

That aside.

Ultimately? It’s a little dull. What few action sequences there are were well-shot, I’ll give it that, but they end up few and far between. The whole thing could be thirty minutes shorter and you wouldn’t miss anything. Watching Glass struggle across frozen tundra for two hours just… gets old.

But at least that’s the worst I can say about it. A little dull. Not “It shouldn’t even be considered a movie” like Tree of Life, not “desperately and annoyingly cloying” like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, not “actively evil” like American Sniper. When a character in The Revenant calls the natives (Cree, I think?) “savages,” it’s someone we’re rooting against, not the supposed hero of the movie (looking your way once again, American Sniper), and said natives’ rampage might be horribly misguided, but it’s for good reason. They’re trying to recover one of their women who was kidnapped by white men… sadly their strategy of “murder every white man we encounter and hope they’re the right ones” is just god-awful.

Still though… eight nominees, and the weakest one is just dull. Normally I’d be angrily questioning why certain films had been nominated for a while yet, but not this year. #OscarsSoWhite aside (and not having seen Tangerine, Beasts of No Nation, or Straight Out of Compton, I can’t really speak to that)… not a bad crop.

7. SUCKER! You learned stuff!

The_Big_Short_teaser_poster — Don’t get too excited, only two of these people are in a scene together.

In a nutshell: Several finance industry outsiders see the impending collapse of the US housing market, and risk everything by betting against the American economy. And if you’re not careful, you just might learn something.
Featuring: Batman, and a cameo by Harley Quinn

Here’s what I respect about The Big Short. They are really trying very hard to hoodwink mainstream American audiences into learning how the 2008 economic collapse was caused through corruption and fraud on the part of the banks. They lure you in by telling you it’s a movie from the director of Anchorman and Ant-Man and a cast including Steve Carell in a wig that’s about a group of misfits finding a way to screw over the big banks.

That’s not what happens, by the way. If you recall, when the collapse did finally happen, the big banks (or at least their top executives) managed to be some of the only people not screwed over.

What this movie actually is, is the story of how a select few largely unconnected people managed to see that the housing market was a bubble, and that it was on the verge of bursting. Along the way, they walk us, the audience, through the steps involved in the housing market collapse. Whether it’s by having Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and his team investigate the actual houses involved in the mortgage-backed securities (many of which were given perfect ratings, but were clearly filled with mortgages on the verge of foreclosure), or by having frequent narrator Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) literally say “This is all really technical and kind of boring, so to explain, here’s Margot Robbie in a bubble bath.” And then yes, Margot Robbie explains sub-prime mortgages to you while sipping champagne in a bubble bath.

The result is a harrowing if still entertaining look at how corporate greed caused a global economic meltdown. The frequent fourth wall breaks, both celebrity cameos to explain the more technical issues and characters addressing the audience to explain how they’ve stuck to or deviated from actual events, help to keep the story engaging. And that’s good, because it’s a super important story that not enough people understand.

Honestly, it would be much higher on the list, except for one little thing. Christian Bale plays Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager who first identified the housing bubble, and was the first to bet against the housing market. He leans fairly heavily into playing Burry as somewhere on the autism spectrum (though not, like, Sheldon Cooper-level, just a certain amount of inability to interact with people or conform to societal norms), which makes him almost seem to be in a completely different movie than anyone else. And that would all be fine, but once his fund starts to lose money because he’s put everything into his bet against the banks, Burry’s plotline loses all momentum. There is nothing happening with him that isn’t also happening in a more engaging fashion with the rest of the cast, and every time they cut back to him (which is somewhat frequent), it’s dead air. Revenant aside, which was heavy on dead air, no other film on the list has that problem, so Big Short gets knocked down a few pegs.

6. No, not The Room, thank you

In a nutshell: Joy and her son Jack live in captivity, Joy having been kidnapped two years before Jack’s birth. When they finally manage to escape, both must adjust to life outside of the small shed known as Room, the only place Jack has ever known.
Featuring: The Shoveler

The opening of Room is a fairly successful blend of sweet and horrifying. Sweet from the bond between Joy and Jack, horrifying from the fact that they are imprisoned in a shed by Joy’s kidnapper/rapist/abuser, who… goddamn. Does that monster ever work as a perfect depiction of male entitlement’s worst case scenario. “I deserve love and sex, so I will keep a woman prisoner so that I can demand both of those things from her at my convenience.” Ugh. UGH.

Moving along.

After the highly tense sequence leading to Joy and Jack’s escape, we shift gears, watching Jack try to adjust to an alien world: so many people who are neither his mom nor the “imaginary” people he’d see on TV (yes, they had a TV, which their captor probably demanded all sorts of thanks for, I HATE HIM–sorry), buildings filled with rooms. With Jack as our POV character, every shot of an empty room becomes highly significant. It soon becomes clear, though, that it’s Joy who’s having the most trouble adjusting to life outside, as once she escapes Room, and the day-to-day life of simply trying to stay alive and provide any sort of happy life for her child, seven years of trauma refuse to be repressed.

It’s anchored by impressive performances from Brie Larson and nine-year old Smurfs 2 veteran Jacob Tremblay. It’s definitely worth watching once. Can’t say I’d go back for another round. Well, maybe, if I could… you know, skip to the part where the cops find Jack and figure out where he came from. I liked that part. Even if it involved less of their captor being hunted by Batman than I’d like. No, Daredevil. No, the goddamn Punisher.

5. Spielberg. Hanks. You know you want it, Oscars.

It's even a period piece. — It’s even a period piece.

In a nutshell: At the height of the Cold War, an insurance lawyer finds himself negotiating a prisoner exchange between the US, the USSR, and an East Germany eager for a seat at the table.
Featuring: This one’s clean. Two people from The Wire, though, that’s neat.

In 1957, New York attorney James Donovan is handed the least enviable case possible: publicly defending accused Russian spy Rudolf Abel in a country at the peak of anti-communist paranoia. And from there it only gets more complicated… after alienating his family and firm by going above and beyond defending Abel, when an American pilot flying a spy plane is captured by the Soviets, Donovan gets pulled into a prisoner exchange between two superpowers on the brink of war.

And it gets worse for him. An American student studying economics in Berlin waits one day too long to get his German girlfriend out of East Berlin, and gets grabbed on the wrong side of the newly-constructed Berlin Wall. The East Germans see this as a chance to gain formal recognition from the West, and try to hijack the prisoner exchange.

It’s Spielberg’s fourth collaboration with Tom Hanks. Is it their best work? Probably not, but I am awfully fond of Catch Me If You Can. Hanks goes with quiet strength over flashy dramatics, which is the right call, because it’s only that quiet strength that keeps Donovan in the game. And the fact is that at this point, Spielberg’s B-game is, in fact, still Oscar-worthy.

It’s that rare historical movie that not only has awards appeal but doesn’t feel too Oscar-baity. I can picture this movie existing for a reason besides attracting Oscars. Not something easy to say about, say, The King’s Speech, The Imitation Game, or The Reader.

4. NO! SLEEP! TIL–

Brooklyn — The struggle of being a white immigrant in America

In a nutshell: A shy girl from Ireland tries to build a better life in New York, only to have her home town try to lure her back.
Featuring: General Hux (again, dude’s everywhere all of a sudden), Felicity Smoak

If you don’t come out of this movie a little bit in love with its lead character you’re some kind of robot.

Saoirse (pronounced “Sur-sha”) Ronan plays Eilis (pronounced AY-lish) Lacey in the biggest collision possible of aggressively Irish names lacking any sort of intuitive pronunciation. A timid, traditional girl working part-time in the shop of a horrible, horrible woman, Eilis is sponsored by the church to immigrate to New York in the 1950s. With an entire ocean separating her from her friends and family, she has to forge a new life.

What I appreciate is that they steer towards some of the stereotypes, but then veer away at the last second. Her new boss seems to be a “mean boss,” but turns out to be supportive when it counts. Yes, Ailis stays in one of those boarding houses for ladies that, yes, forbids men and encourages good Christian behaviour, but the landlady isn’t the cruel tyrant of, say, Agent Carter, but the nicest, most accepting, most helpful, still rigidly Christian landlady I’ve seen on TV or film in a while. And the Italian lad hanging around her church’s dances is a perfect gentleman, charming and romantic yet respectful. Probably helps that Italians are often just as Catholic as the Irish.

Now… the second half? I’m not sure I reacted to that the way I was supposed to. When a tragedy causes Eilis to return home for the first time in months, her home town is quick to offer up all the things her new life in Brooklyn had been offering, but in the comfortable familiarity of small-town Ireland. Her sister’s old bookeeping job (which is exactly what she’d been studying in Brooklyn), a charming and handsome fella to spend time with… actually, they’re weirdly quick to offer all these things up. Suspiciously quick. Almost aggressively quick. Quick enough that I didn’t think “Hey, you know, maybe there is no place like home,” but instead reacted to her hometown like we’d entered a horror movie. Every time some new thing made her rethink returning to Brooklyn, I thought “RUN, IT’S A TRAP!”

That said, I had a better time watching the less oppressively dark metaphorical prison of small-town Ireland than the literal and horrifying prison of Room. But that’s neither here nor there.

It’s a delightful, charming, and moving. Okay, sure, elephant in room, a movie about an immigrant of colour trying to adjust to life in the US would be very different, would be considered an “issue” movie from the word go, and would probably get shut out of the Oscars, but… this is still delightful. Also, I saw Domnhall “General Hux” Gleeson in three movies in a matter of weeks and if his nose were less distinctive, I’d have had no idea it was the same guy (let alone the same guy as the excellent sci-fi flick Ex Machina), so, nicely done, that man.

3. Saving Private Ryan… IN SPACE

Another fine mess Matt Damon got himself into

In a nutshell: In the not-too-distant future, astronaut/botanist Mark Watley is accidentally stranded on Mars, and must find a way to stay alive long enough for NASA to send help.
Featuring: The Winter Soldier, Invisible Woman, Boromir, Ant-Man’s kinda offensively stereotypical Latino sidekick, Dr. Strange’s probable nemesis

It’s not The Martian’s fault that it will spend the next year or two serving as the poster child for Category Fraud (when a movie or TV show claims to be a comedy because the “best drama” category seems too hard to win). It isn’t, strictly speaking, a comedy, so the fact that it won “Best Comedy” at the Golden Globes feels hinky. That said… it doesn’t lack humour. For a movie about someone left stranded on a far-away planet, it’s got wit when it wants to, but it also impressively tense when it’s time to put Mark in increased danger.

Matt Damon is excellent. He could easily have carried this entire movie, Castaway-style, but he doesn’t even need to, thanks to equally great work from an all-star supporting cast. No other movie this year has made me think “Awesome, it’s that person” so many times. It’s delightfully pro-science (if, I hear, less so than the book, but that would happen), never dull, sometimes thrilling, and overall incredibly satisfying. It’s hard to think of more to say that wouldn’t just boil down to me reciting my favourite parts. You should probably just watch it if you haven’t already.

2. The Fast and The Furiosa

In a nutshell: In a post-apocalyptic future, Imperator Furiosa tries to escape warlord Immortan Joe, bringing along five women he kept as breeding slaves. A road warrior named Max and a Warboy named Nux get dragged along for one awesome, feature length car chase.
Featuring: Bane, Beast

There’s a lot of talk about how out-of-touch the Oscars are. This is mostly aimed at that time they snubbed the Dark Knight in favour of the vastly inferior The Reader, then expanded the best picture category to avoid shunning popular films, but then kept doing it. So sure, it was a surprise when Mad Max: Fury Road started breaking the trend and attracting award buzz. So why this movie?

Because it’s freaking amazing, that’s why.

It’s masterfully shot and edited. It gets strong performances out of not just Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, but X-Man Nicholas Hoult and supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whitely of all damned people. The action is incredible. The story is above and beyond what a Hollywood blockbuster would go for, despite being so simple that it takes less time to describe than The Revenant. It’s a revival of a thirty-year-old franchise that isn’t weighed down by nostalgia, wink-nudge references, or franchise building.

Every element comes together to create an action movie far, far better than it has any right to be on paper, and that seems to have gotten Awards Season’s attention.

Also it pissed off MRAs, which I find delightful.

1. Extra extra, vows of celibacy screw with your head

Spotlight

In a nutshell: A period piece set in the long-forgotten time when print journalism made a difference (2001), the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe looks into child abuse accusations inside the Catholic church, and discovers a systemic cover-up bigger than they ever expected.
Featuring: A different Batman, Bruce Banner, Sabretooth, Dr. Erskine, Dr. Manhattan, Old Howard Stark, Dr. Strange’s probable love interest.

Remember journalism, you guys? When men and women employed by newspapers would really dig into a story, doing months of research if necessary, to ensure that the news you were reading was not only important but true? Man those were the days.

Spotlight is the story about how one team of journalists uncovered the story that the heavily Catholic city of Boston did not want told: that priests had been molesting children. For years. Decades. The more they look into it, the more victims they find, and the more extensive the cover-up is revealed to be.

The cast is phenomenal. Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, and more, all doing some incredible work. The horror at the extent of the abuse and cover-up, the determination to put it right, and the gnawing realization that people inside the paper may have helped keep it all quiet once before.

It’s a gripping story, one that manages that trick of injecting suspense into a foregone conclusion. This is a movie I was determined to seek out the moment I saw the trailer, Oscars or no Oscars, and I’m glad I did. Highly recommended.

Fasts and Furiouses Six:

Last time: a previously mediocre car-based action franchise discovered they’d accidentally created the Ocean’s 11 of car-based heist crews, so they put everyone in the same movie and sent them to work in BRAZIIIL!

Sorry, it is just so hard to stop doing that... — Sorry, it is just so hard to stop doing that…

Han continued to cheat the death that we already saw two movies ago, and as the credits start, we learned that Michelle Rodriguez ~~wants to buy a bigger house~~ is about to return to the franchise. Let’s roll! (Damn it, these stupid movies just get in your head…)

Name a second American action franchise THIS successful with only one white guy on the poster.

This time around, the action moves to my favourite place in the world: London, England. Now, the streets in London are narrow, twisty, and congested, and it rains a lot, so surely this means the franchise will have to forgo the usual “illegal street race surrounded by scantily-clad women” scene, right?

No. Nothing ever means that.

Last we saw these furiously fast folks, Brian O’Connor and Dom Toretto were about to have a Rocky III-style private (and unfilmed) rematch race across their new, tropical, non-extraditing home. One might think that’s exactly where we pick up, but no: Dom and Brian are actually racing home to see Dom’s sister/Brian’s wife, Mia, as she gets well and truly sidelined from being an active player in the movie, just when she’d finally started getting interesting shit to do last time out. Sorry, I mean “as she goes into labour.” Autocorrect, am I right?

“As soon as you go through those doors, everything changes,” says Dom. “Our old life is done.” Also, he’s still with now-former Rio PD officer Elena, as long as I’m mentioning things that aren’t going to last past the first act.

The opening credits serve as a swift “previously on” montage, highlighting the major players and plot points from the previous movies… save for Tokyo Drift, which due to the Han issue still hasn’t happened yet. They also serve as a reminder of how much Paul Walker has aged since F&F1, but that’s old lady mortality for you.

Anyhoo, with all of that done, we rejoin Special Agent Hobbs, who pulls up (in a truly ridiculous pick-up truck/humvee… when you want an armoured car but might need to move a couch) to a crime scene in Moscow, where he meets his new partner Riley Hicks (MMA fighter/former American Gladiator Gina Carano), introducing her to us in the least graceful burst of exposition I’ve seen in ages. Hobbs is investigating a high-speed car-based crime, one we’re led to believe must have been Dom and company. But when Riley gets him five minutes with the only suspect the Russians caught, it’s not Dom at all, but a low-rent British Vin Diesel impersonator who Hobbs asks about his boss, Shaw. He asks him pretty hard, as Sin City’s Marv would say.

Okay, we’ll get back to Shaw and his evil-doing in a minute, but can we just talk about how ridiculous what’s happening is? Hobbs, an American agent, being allowed access to a Russian crime scene, allowed to interrogate a prisoner in Moscow, who he proceeds to toss around like a rag doll and nobody stops him?

F&F6 01

The way he hurls the 230 pound suspect into the ceiling hard enough to break it is the least improbable part of this entire sequence.

“You don’t just pick up Owen Shaw like he’s groceries,” announces Hobbs, having learned his quarry is in London. “You wanna catch wolves, you need wolves!” And once again, Dwayne Johnson’s delivery is so over-the-top-macho perfect that it makes me forgive the fact that the last thing any serious law-enforcement officer would do is recruit a team of international fugitives to hunt a different, similar team of international fugitives, but that, ladies and gents, is our plot.

Dom wakes up to another perfect morning of tropical sunshine, fresh air, and Elena’s tasteful sideboob to find Hobbs waiting for him on the porch. Despite Dom’s desire to stay retired, Hobbs informs him that he’ll soon be begging Hobbs to help catch Shaw and his crew, by giving him a file proving that Dom’s true love Letty is alive and working with Shaw. Right in front of Elena. Come on, Hobbs, there’s a way to be a person about this.

Time to call in the team! Roman has a private plane that’s flying him and five (we have to assume) prostitutes to his penthouse (and giant yacht) in Macau, which I guess means he either invested his $10 million from the last movie really well, or is having one last party before going flat broke.

Tej has left his dream garage (maybe because it was lamer than his pre-established garage in Miami) and is hacking ATMs somewhere in the Carribean. Because Tej, the mechanic-turned-safecracker, is a hacker now, I guess?

F&F6 02

Han and Gisele are interrupted from talk of settling down by the arrival of a squad of Chinese police… who seem to only be there to hand Han a phone so that he, Tej, and Roman can all receive the same phone call from Dom. And so they all drop what they’re doing (not hard, only Roman was doing anything difficult to interrupt) to meet up with Dom in jolly old England.

(The previously nameless Mexican henchmen are not present: they bet their entire Rio payoff on one spin of roulette in Monte Carlo at the end of Fast Five, and according to Brian were never seen again. Never were the brains of the crew.)

Brian’s the only one who needs convincing (the only one, which is weird for reasons I’ll explain in a sec), as he’s convinced Hobbs is lying, but if Dom’s going to be chasing Letty’s ghost, Brian’s in too. Brian’s wife and mother of his newborn son, Mia, swiftly agrees. Seriously. Right away. No question at all. Just bam, “Absolutely my husband should help you chase down an international thief and his dangerous crew. I’ll feel safer if my entire family is at risk.”

I mean, I guess she has a point, sort of? Dom and Brian protecting each other does add a level of safety that either running off on their own wouldn’t have. And I guess Letty is family to Mia as well. But it still feels odd that there wasn’t even a moment where Mia thought maybe this wasn’t the best idea. Or Elena! She gets on board with her new boyfriend trying to reunite with his great lost love super fast. I get that she understands what he’s feeling, but wow, she gave up her entire life for Dom, and has no qualms over what she will or could do when he inevitably dumps her for a not-dead Letty.

Moving on.

Hobbs explains to the crew that he wants them to capture Shaw, who has stolen a weapon that could cripple a country. Brian is the first to remember that only two people in this room have actually met or care about Letty, so he demands full pardons for everyone, something that worked so well in number four that Dom ended up sentenced to twenty years without parole.

The legality of this arrangement is suspect.

Also Roman spent most of that scene begging change for the vending machine and ends it asking if they’re getting paid. I’m gonna go ahead and assume I was right about him blowing the last of his Rio heist money on that plane.

Shaw’s crew manages to outmanoeuvre team Toretto in their first encounter thanks to some car-hacking hockey pucks and bulletproof go-carts packing ramps capable of flipping cars twenty feet in the air.

Which is deemed... improbable — Which is deemed… improbable

And we learn that Letty may be alive, but she has… AMNESIA!

F&F6 04

Seriously, is anyone else really over amnesia as a plot point? I’ve hated it since the mid-90s and it has not improved.

The two crews begin sniffing around each other, as Roman identifies Shaw’s gang as their “evil twins” (only with triple the white folk). After a run in with their counterparts featuring a pretty badass fight between Letty and Riley, Han and Roman getting their asses kicked by Evil Han, and Gisele scoring the first kill with one impressively calm and precise bullet to Evil Roman, Gisele finds a solid lead: to find Shaw, they need to see returning villain Braga, the Mexican drug-runner Brian and Dom brought down two movies back. The one who supposedly had Letty killed.

(I mean, he did, but flashbacks reveal that the henchman in charge of doing it was just the worst assassin ever. That was not a hard gig but he fucked it up royally.)

As part of their newfound respect for interfilm continuity, Brian calls in an improbable favour from one of his former FBI colleagues from F&F4 to get him into Braga’s LA prison under an assumed name (to make it easier for wanted fugitive Brian O’Connor to get back out of the US after), so that he and Braga can have an awkward reunion. Meanwhile, Dom tracks down Letty at… you guessed it… an illegal street race filled with scantily clad women, the one thing all cities in the Fast/Furious universe have.

F&F6 06

It makes sense that Dom would try to win Letty back into the fold through a race. First, it’s neutral ground, and second, he’s been making women question their allegiances through smouldering looks and tragic memories of Letty since his return to the franchise. Why wouldn’t it work on actual (if amnesiac) Letty? Although it is a little odd that once they pass the starting line, there are no spectators. I guess British racers use the honour system. Seems British enough.

Skimming forward… Dom’s team catches Shaw after a car vs. tank chase/fight, Dom saves Letty’s life through a mid-air catch so physically improbable it made Daniel storm out of the room, and all seems well… but Shaw has captured Mia, so they have to let him out of custody. Also, Letty’s switched sides, but Riley was working for Shaw the whole time, so it evens out. This leads to Team Toretto and Team Shaw having a fight on and alongside a cargo plane driving down the world’s longest runway. Everyone (but Mia) gets a moment to be badass, Shaw is thwarted… but Gisele doesn’t make it, giving her life to protect Han. Don’t worry, Gisele… you’re going to a better place.

Wonder Woman — Themyscira, or Paradise Island, to be precise.

Not only do the surviving crew get their full pardons (in the US, anyway, probably still wanted in Brazil over the death of half the Rio police department), Dom gets his old house back. The crew gathers for a Toretto family barbecue, Han announces he intention to follow through with Gisele’s earlier suggestion they move to Tokyo (“It’s just something I gotta do,” he says, acknowledging that they’ve stalled catching up to Tokyo Drift as long as possible), Elena pops by for a final farewell before leaving to work for Hobbs (and to pay deference to Letty as Dom’s One True Love Interest), and all is mostly well.

But wait! Before the credits roll, we flash back/forward to Han’s fatal crash in Tokyo Drift. Turns out it was no accident… Han was hunted down and killed… by Jason Statham.

Jason fucking Statham. Now our car-based action franchise is finally complete.

Reactions

It’s both better and worse than Fast Five, in different ways. Fast Five was an import car heist movie, whereas number six is trying to be an import car spy movie. And unless you actually are a James Bond flick, I find heist movies more entertaining than spy movies. There’s more satisfaction to the climax: it’s the culmination of all the pieces they put together, whereas here we just have a series of escalating car chases/action beats. Good ones, to be sure, but still.

Shaw is an effective villain, if kind of annoyingly smug. Actually most of the villains have been really smug. It does make it satisfying when they get knocked down a peg, though.

We probably have some of the franchise’s best fight work. They have Gina Carano and Dwayne Johnson in the cast, and know how to use them. Okay, Dom’s flying headbutt was ridiculous. No getting around that. But otherwise, the action beats are pretty impressive, if physics-defying.

However, it’s clear that following Fast Five, the ensemble got too big. Yes, it was already big, but they found stuff for everyone to do last time. This time out, with Hobbs already part of the crew, there wasn’t enough time for everyone, and it’s Elena and Mia who suffer. They’re sidelined almost immediately, with Mia only coming back to serve as a hostage in the climax. Elena I can live with, but after finally making Mia an active part of the team in Fast Five, it seems particularly sad to cut her role down so severely.

It’s not like the film wants to be a boys-only club… Gisele’s more kickass than ever, Riley and Letty get their moments to shine, but Mia (who even got to be part of the heist crew while pregnant) gets left out. It’s a shame that it’s the women who–

SHIT the no-name Mexicans. I keep forgetting about them. They’re just gone this time, which is a shame since they finally get both of their names spoken for the first time in three movies. Okay, fine, it’s not just the women who got cut back. Look, it’s a bit of a dick move to marginalize Mia, given she’s one of the original four. That’s all I’m saying.

And in terms of the overall series? It’s hard, when watching this, to recognize it as the same series as the first three movies. Yes, women in tiny skirts/shorts cavort around illegal street races, but the physics-nope action set pieces seem like an entirely different world than the simple drag races of F&F1.

Actually, if they WERE on a different world, that would explain a lot.

It’s hard to follow a success. Fast Five was a breath of fresh air, a whole new twist on what these characters could be doing. Fast and Furious Six just kept running with that, and tried to crank the volume a little. It still works better than it has any right to… it’s just the novelty’s worn down a little.

I’ll say this, though. They made something happen that I would have thought impossible earlier in the week, when this all began as I watched Brian fail at undercover work… they made me eager to watch the next movie. God help me, when Jason Statham tells Dom “You don’t know me… but you’re about to,” I actively and unironically wanted to watch Furious Seven. I haven’t yet… but it’s coming.

And if the rumours are true, and Methusa-brah is taking Brian’s place in the crew in the eighth movie, which after “Fast Five” and “Furious Seven,” I assume will be called “And The Eight?” They will make me miss Paul Walker. That I never saw coming.

Fasts and Furiouses is over for now… next time, there is only The Smurfening.

Fasts and Furiouses Five: Rock On!

And we’re back! When we last left those who are fast, but in a furious persuasion, they had, in their fourth instalment, finally managed to make a proper second movie.

Now, we rejoin Dom and crew/family as they hide from the law somewhere more exotic than ghetto Los Angeles…

As the poet said…

Let there be light…
Sound…
Drums…
Guitar…
Let there be Rock!

Hail, hail, the gang's all here. — Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.

We pick up exactly where we left off… Dom’s being sent to prison for 25 years, despite his help with the super illegal extradition of Mexican drug lord Braga. I guess eight years of literal highway robbery aren’t swept under the rug because of one mission against a worse bad guy. Probably takes, like, three missions against worse bad guys. Anyhoo, former cop, sometimes drag racer, about-to-be-former FBI agent, and two-time winner of World’s Worst Undercover Operative Brian O’Connor throws away his law-enforcement career (again) to stage a bold prison break mid-transfer, because of course it’s mid-transfer, these people don’t get out of bed for a heist if customized racing cars aren’t involved.

But while the high-speed prison break was only implied in the end credits of Fast & Furious, here it’s presented in its entirety… they stop the prison bus by making it veer around Mia’s car, then crash into Brian’s, so that it flips so many times you just have to assume everyone inside is dead. Just super dead. This is what happens when Dom’s out of the action… the quality of their car-heists just goes way downhill. However, a news report featuring the man I am incapable of seeing as anything but Pawnee Indiana’s Perd Hapley informs us that there were no casualties (somehow) and that nobody escaped but Dom. Because I guess the old A-Team writers snuck onto the set.

Still, nice that Dom’s sister/Brian’s somehow still girlfriend Mia gets to play too. Mia is often reduced to “Brian’s love interest,” or “Method of making his career-ending attachment to Dom less gay.”

From there, we cut to Brian and Mia on the lam way, way south of the border (since Mexico would also like to round up the whole crew), in Brazil.

I promise this will eventually make sense.

They take shelter with an old friend, for given values of the word “friend:” Vince, the biggest asshole form Dom’s crew in the first movie. He still has a soft spot for Mia, still doesn’t seem to like Brian, but I guess Brian saving his life that time he nearly got killed by a trucker with a shotgun has soothed his “Look at Mia and I’ll murder you out of jealousy” demeanour. Or maybe having shacked up with a Brazilian woman sometime after escaping the hospital did that.

Anyway, he soon asks Brian and Mia to help him steal some high-end cars (because of course) from a train. Brian reluctantly agrees, because he is already a wanted fugitive, and hey, in for a penny, in for a pound. Also there’s not a lot of legitimate work for twice-disgraced ex-cops.

Dom arrives just in time for Brian to notice that the cars they’re stealing were seized by the DEA, and that Vince’s… associates have their eyes on one car in particular. Dom and Mia swiftly decide to betray said associates and steal that one car, the job goes wrong in a hurry, and the DEA cotton on to what’s happening.

After some train-and-car based fighting, and an improbably survivable fall off a cliff into a distant river, Dom and Brian are briefly captured by Brazilian crime kingpin Reyes. They escape super fast, but it all has Dom wanting to know what’s in the car that’s so valuable.

Since one of Reyes’ men (who IMDB tells me is named “Zizi”) killed three DEA agents, and then let Dom and Brian take the fall, they end up being hunted by the US government’s best man… Special Agent Hobbs, played by none other than Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who struts into this franchise like he owns the joint and damn near does own it from his first lines.

Vince the Asshole returns, and quickly proves himself untrustworthy (because of course), as he knows exactly what Reyes’ men want: a memory card hidden in the car’s computer. Vince is banished, but doesn’t leave without giving a tirade about how everything that’s happened is because Dom never listened to Vince, proving that he still hasn’t 100% learned that being an asshole 100% of the time makes people not consider you a trusted friend.

Hobbs and his team are joined by Rio PD officer Elena, who he figures is the one cop in Rio that can’t be bought. After exchanging some delightfully ridiculous cop lingo, they’re on Dom’s trail. Sadly, so is Reyes. While Dom and crew figure out that the chip contains all the information on how Reyez moves his money around, Hobbs and Reyes’ thugs descend on their hideout, resulting in a chase over the favela rooftops (because of course) that can be somewhat hard to track if you’ve already had several adult beverages to get you through the last two movies. In short, Reyes’ men (led by that pesky Zizi) attack; Dom, Brian, and Mia make a run for it; Hobbs intervenes, managing to kill several bad guys but not catch Dom; and in the process, Dom saves Elena’s life, making this the second consecutive movie in which a woman reconsiders which side she’s on thanks to Vin Diesel’s smouldering gaze.

Dom wants to split up for safety, but Mia’s sick of the family splitting up, especially when she finally reveals she’s pregnant (something we’d known since six minutes into the movie). So instead of splitting up… they do something much cooler.

The Fast Five Nine

After a talk about fatherhood, Dom and Brian decide they can’t run anymore, so they’re going to use Reyes’ memory card to steal all of his money and use it to buy new lives somewhere with no extradition. But for that, they’ll need a team… and so they assemble a Fast and Furious supergroup of supporting cast members from the last four movies. Roman and Tej (Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris) from 2 Fast; Han, who still hasn’t managed to make it to Japan for his death in Tokyo Drift; Gisele (the previous woman to reconsider her side thanks to smouldering looks from Dom) and the two Mexicans who I swear didn’t have names from Fast & Furious. It’s the Oceans’ 11 of people who like custom racing cars. Or the Fast and Furious Avengers. One of those.

Don't worry, they got to it eventually. They always do. — Don’t worry, they got to it eventually. They always do.

The gang hits one of Reyes’ money houses in order to make him move all of his money to a central location. Sadly, it’s a police station, proving that Hobbs had a point about there not being a lot of cops in Rio who can’t be bought. Hey man, it’s their stereotype, don’t be blaming me. Pulling some straight-up Oceans’ 11 moves, they get the lay of the land, a copy of Reyes’ safe (which of course Tej the mechanic knows how to crack), and thanks to Gisele knowing how to work her good looks, Reyes’ hand-print.

Also Dom and Brian score some fast, nimble cars by hitting street races filled with hot girls hanging around the cars because of course they do. Streak unbroken.

Just one problem… while they’ve been prepping to hit Reyes, the perpetually sweaty Hobbs has been hunting them, and now the whole team has been flagged, leading to a tense standoff in which Dom reminds Hobbs that he isn’t in the US anymore. Where is he?

It’s impossible to think of this movie and not think of this moment. I have a hard time seeing Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue and not think of it yelling “BRAZIL!”

Okay, let’s skim forward. Dom continues to work his rugged “I sure did love my dead girlfriend Letty” charms on Elena, Vince returns long enough to save Mia from Zizi and have one last Toretto family dinner, Tej announces that he’s using his share to open a garage back home, despite the fact that he already owns a garage in Miami, that’s why he’s in these movies…

Hobbs successfully tracks down Dom, Mia, Brian, and Vince, leading to the best fist fight in the series to date…

…but when Reyes’ men kill Hobbs’ entire team (minus Elena) while trying to get at Dom and Brian, Hobbs decides to join the heist after Dom saves his life. Because. Of. Course. This was a sweat-soaked bromance waiting to happen.

Seriously, it’s like they sprayed The “Dwayne Johnson” Rock down with a hose before every scene he’s in. The man is damp.

Zizi manages to be the only Reyes thug not to get shot for the third time, Vince dies more tragically than you’d expect, given that I spent the entire first movie hoping someone would kill him, but with all other obstacles cleared, it’s time for the big heist: stealing the safe itself from the police station, and using their race cars to drag it through the streets of Rio. The nicer streets, though. It’s nice to see a high-class neighbourhood get torn up in the car chase instead of a favela.

It’s like in the Final Destination movies, when the victim survives the elaborate Rube Goldberg death but then something heavy crushes them three second later. They drop their more elaborate heist and just smash into the building with Hobbs’ bulletproof SUV, then run off dragging the safe behind them.

After a certain amount of car chase shenanigans, Dom cuts Brian loose, then takes out their remaining pursuers by firing his nitrous (BECAUSE OF COURSE) and whipping the safe around like a morning star.

Fans of physics had qualms about this sequence.

Brian returns just in time to break his streak of bringing the main villains alive by killing Zizi (finally) to save Dom. Hobbs then arrives in order to straight-up murder Reyes, before giving Dom and company a 24-hour head start, provided they leave the safe behind. He swiftly realizes that, during a “ten second window” in the chase, they managed to switch the money safe for their training safe, leaving them with $100 million and him with an empty safe surrounded by crushed cops cars.

Everyone gets away clean (except Vince, but fuck that guy): Tej opens his garage (which is worse than the one he had in Miami), Gisele and Han hit the road together, and when Gisele asks Han if he wants to go to Tokyo, he says “We’ll get there… eventually,” (translation: the producers are in no hurry to catch up to his death from two movies back) Elena leaves Brazil to be with Dom, and Dom and Brian have a Rocky III-style unfilmed rematch as we go to credits.

But wait! There’s more! One last returning player! Partway through the credits, Eva Mendes returns as customs agent Monica Fuentes (the inside woman from 2 Fast), with news for Hobbs… Letty isn’t as dead as everyone thinks.

Dun dun DUUUUNNNN. (Don’t get comfy, Elena)

General reactions

This is where the switch flicks. We’re still in “high-speed thefts” territory, to be sure, but the franchise has crossed a line that will leave “Point Break knock-off” in its rear-view… mirror… god damn it, now they have me doing it…

One would be forgiven for thinking that there is no way they’ve spent the last four movies world-building. That they made one “undercover cop loses his way” crime movie, then spent seven years flailing around trying to make a decent sequel. And you’re right, you’re entirely right. But while flailing, they accidentally created a somewhat likable ensemble that manages to be the most ethnically diverse cast of any American action franchise in living memory. Han remains cool, Gisele has become impressively badass, the Mexicans make a passable comic duo, and 2 Fast’s Roman comes into his own. With Vin Diesel also in the movie, Roman didn’t need to be “replacement Dom” anymore, and was free to become the comic relief and the second most quotable character. Tej… is whatever the franchise needs Tej to be from movie to movie. Mia got to participate in a few action beats before revealing she was pregnant, at which point she just ran comms and tactics from HQ, because no way Dom and Brian let her back into the field at that point. She did some super dangerous things when they didn’t know.

Paul Walker had either settled into the role, or they started writing it to suit his abilities, because he feels far less awkward here than the first two. He hasn’t said “bro” since 2 Fast, which is for the best.

And I cannot overstate what a valuable addition Dwayne “The Johnson” Rock is to this franchise. He steps off the plane, knowing he’s in a dumb, aggressively macho action flick, and by god he swings into it. Hobbs is instantly the missing ingredient we never knew we always wanted in these movies. His badass cop lingo scenes are a damned delight.

Now, I do like a good heist movie, and half the fun is seeing the heist carried out, so in theory I should be disappointed that they switched the plan to a smash-and-grab. But it’s hard to be. The mashy-smashy final act is just too hard to dislike, even with its merciless assault on the laws of physics.

They also do frequently pause the action to hit on themes of family, honour, and all that… and one largely pointless drag race between Brain, Dom, Han, and Roman, but it drags the film down less than you’d expect. Soon enough Hobbs will swagger his sweaty self back into frame, and we’re in ridiculous fun territory again.

Up until Fast 5, these movies were a bit of a slog. Especially in the dark, Vin-less times. Maybe you had to be into street racing. I hear that helps. But with this entry, I finally began to see the appeal.

Next time, they realize they have a good thing, and keep running with it. Which is less common than you’d like.

12 Days of TERRIBLE GIFTS

A pause in my deep dive into the furiously fast to talk about something that plagues us every holiday season.

I do like Christmas. I really do. The sense of togetherness, gathering with friends and family to make the coldest, darkest days of the year* into the warmest and brightest. I say this because it’s kind of obfuscated by two factors: a) I don’t really get into the Christmas spirit until the third week of December, and b) I hate the music.

*Unless you live in the southern hemisphere, in which case enjoy summer, dick**.

**That was mean, I’m sorry. It’s just really cold this week.

Just… never got into Christmas carols. I would theorize that it’s because of my brief time in my elementary school choir, which from September until December was nearly exclusively Christmas carol-based, but that seems like poppycock. Aside from one somewhat embarrassing mishap singing on a department store escalator and one incident of fainting at a gig, something I had to be told happened later that day because it made so little impact on me, the sole trauma of my one semester in choir was giving up my lunch breaks. Not exactly deep wounds there. No, I’m pretty sure I just didn’t care for carols much to begin with, and being drowned in them for two solid months doesn’t help.

But there’s one carol in particular that takes way too damn long, and when you look at it, doesn’t make a lick of sense. No, not Jingle Bell Rock, though you could be excused for thinking so. Jingle Bell “Rock?” Maybe in the 50s it could be considered “rock,” but in 2015 it should be legally required to be called “Jingle Bell Old-Time Country Jamboree.” Unless it’s played by a death metal band. I’d allow that.

No, I’m taking about the 12 Days of Christmas. And if you follow along with me, you’ll see exactly why this “true love” giving you all these presents is a bad gift-giver at best, and a war criminal at worst.

“On the first day of Christmas–“

Gonna stop you right there, actually. How many of you out there actually understood what the hell “first day of Christmas” meant when you first heard this song? I couldn’t have been the only six year old saying “No, wait, back up, there’s only one day of Christmas, or at least only one when I’m getting any presents.” Okay, sure, in the UK, the Twelve Days of Christmas, or Twelvetide, is still a thing for some people. Some people. But in North America the whole idea was slowly killed by secular Christmas and Santa, and the rise of New Year’s Eve as a more popular holiday than 12th Night. Maybe the 12 Days thing was a big deal in 1780, when this bizarre pile of presents was first theorized, but today?

I get that we haven’t come up with a particularly iconic Christmas song since the Kennedy administration, but maybe if the traditions they refer to are dying, we can let a few of these go, is what I’m about to take a long time to say.

Now… what exactly has your true love decided to hand you between Dec. 25th and January 5th?

A partridge in a pear tree

Okay. Not super weird. A pet bird and a tree to keep it in. Although… it is winter. Like, super deep into winter. Not a great time to plant a tree, and that partridge isn’t going to want to sit in it right now. But assuming you have a lawn for the pear tree, and that it doesn’t die before it has a chance to sprout a pear, this… isn’t awful.

Let’s just establish something before we move on. There are two ways to take what’s about to happen. You can assume that this is the only partridge and pear tree combo that will be given out, or you can assume that every single day means a new partridge in a new pear tree, and that 11 out of 12 days will have fresh pairs of turtle doves, etc. I’m choosing to believe the former: that each item is only given once. First of all, because I think this list of gifts is weird and troubling enough as it is, and second, because the merciless pop culture critics over at Cracked have already broken down the financially crippling, feather-encrusted nightmare scenario that comes with assuming that each day you re-receive a fresh set of all of the gifts from the previous day, plus something new.

So this is your only partridge and your only pear tree. Just off the top of my head, partridges aren’t a very common pet bird, and pear trees are apparently hard to maintain and more than a little pungent, so I’d have some serious questions about this true love who assumed he/she had nailed the perfect gift.

Two turtle doves

Turtle doves aren’t exactly a low-maintenance pet. They need a diet of seed mix, fruits, vegetables, and gravel (for digestion). They need a bird bath and a well-designed cage. They need thirty minutes of exercise per day outside of the cage, which needs to be disinfected once per week. And they’re not even the prettier dove. If you’re picturing white doves, you’re way off.

This true love of yours better be damned sure you like birds, because they’ve just given you chores for Christmas. Well, for Boxing Day.

Three french hens

More birds. Great. Thanks.

According to my research, french hens are, in fact, the best chickens to keep as pets. If that’s what you’re into. And hey, free eggs? If you want? People might react oddly to being offered a partridge-egg omelette or a turtle dove frittata, but french hen eggs just sound fancy.

Still… still though. That’s six birds in three days. And weird birds. No parakeets, no parrots, but the uglier doves and chickens. Still, as long as we move on to proper presents soon, it’s not so–

Four calling birds

No? We’re still doing this? Okay. Four more birds. But at least these are songbirds. One could almost consider this a proper pet. Four at once seems like diving in with both feet, though. Ever cared for a songbird before? I hope so, because here’s four of them, on top of the hens, doves, and the partridge you already got.

At this point you’re going to need a full on aviary to keep all of these birds in. Probably a heated one, since not all of these are cold-weather birds. Certainly not the turtle doves. Not to mention it would be a place to keep your foul-smelling pear tree alive in late December. Why is this happening? Did you get, like, a bird statue from your grandmother, and then you put in on your mantle because it’s started to sink in that she’s not going to be around forever so you’d better start appreciating the hell out of her now? Then everyone saw it and assumed you’re totes into birds?

Five golden rings

Now we’re talking. Rings! Golden rings! Admittedly a lot of them. I mean, I probably wouldn’t wear five golden rings all the time. I once considered wearing a grad ring and a wedding band, then as a result had a dream where Liberace accused me of being a little too flashy, but hey, you do you. I know several people, male and female, who make multiple rings work, and it is your true love giving them to you, so it’s not horribly forward or anything.

And even if you only wear one or two of them at a time, at least your true love has stopped giving you birds.

Six geese a-laying

Oh god damn it. Come on now, when are you going to sit your true love down and ask them who could possibly need, or even want, this many fucking birds? Or this many types of bird?

And we have moved on from cute, small birds, too. Geese? Fucking geese? Geese can be aggressive, you know. These are not pretty birds to keep around the house. Or let into it. If you weren’t building an aviary before, you are now, and it had better have pens for the geese. And good luck hiring someone to build it for you on December 30th.

Before you suggest that you now have access to free fois gras, I’d ask you to consider whether killing and slaughtering your own geese, then dealing with judgemental glares from every vegetarian you know, is actually worth not just buying some in a store. Assuming you even know how to get proper foie gras out of a living, honking, hissing goose that your bird-crazy true love has dropped on your doorstep the day before New Year’s Eve.

Oh yes, and there’s all these goose eggs to deal with. Which means that these six geese might be extra aggressive, since they all just laid eggs and now here you are getting all up in their nests.

Seven swans a-swimming

SWANS? Swans. Forget what I said about geese being aggressive, because we’ve entered a new thing here. Swans will fucking fight you. Swans will knock you out of your boat, then make sure you never find land. Rowing races have been called off because of swan aggression, and rowing crews are basically tree trunks with smaller tree trunks for limbs.

Oh, and since swans are sometimes used to keep geese away from a property, it’s safe to assume that these seven swans a-swimming are going to have beef with your six geese a-laying, and that’s just going to agitate those delicate flower turtle doves, which–

No no wait, stop, shut up… seven swans a-swimming? What are they swimming in? There’s no way seven swans fit in any bathtub. I hope you have a pool, because if not, your Hitchcock-recreating “true love” just flooded something in your house. Your basement, your garage, your newly-built aviary, something just got turned into a swan habitat, and I’m willing to bet it’s not something you’d intended to be a small pond. But too late, everything you’d kept in your storage room is now under water and covered in swan shit. The good news is, you’ll be able to recover what’s left fairly easily, because the swans should be relatively cool until nesting season. The bad news is, it’s New Year’s Eve, and instead of getting ready to party, you’re dealing with a flood and twenty three pissed off birds because this psychopath you’re dating couldn’t be bothered to just get you The Flash on Blu-ray like a sensible person.

And it actually gets weirder from here.

Eight maids a-milking

Eight maids. Your true love has given you eight women. As a gift. Not to clean your house or anything… they haven’t signed you up for a cleaning service to deal with all the bird crap or the water damage from the swan habitat you didn’t ask for. No, these are milk maids. They milk cows, and according to the song (which we’ve probably been singing for five minutes by now), that is exactly what they’re doing. These eight maids are a-milking.

Your true love did not give you any cows.

Putting aside the person-as-gift problem for now (but oh will we ever come back to it), you have been handed criminals. These eight ladies are out there, in the countryside, sneaking onto farms and milking things, then presumably bringing their unpasteurized spoils back to you in your bird-infested house that I have to believe has been the subject of some noise complaints by now.

Happy new year. You are now running a gang of milk thieves. And since there isn’t a lot of overlap between “people qualified to milk cows” and “skilled cat burglars,” I don’t love your chances of getting away with this. A rancher, or worse, a factory farm is about to press charges against you.

Nine ladies dancing

So… now your true love has handed you nine dancers. We have dancers… being given as gifts. This… Your true love’s unorthodox gift plan has gone from a wacky, feathery nightmare to something horrible.

Let’s stop beating around the bush here. Your “true love” has stopped handing you increasingly large and potentially angry birds, and is instead giving you human beings as gifts. As pets. SLAVES. Your true love is a human trafficker. First, eight women who spend their nights stealing you milk, now nine women to dance for your amusement. Which, I guess, as far as women (probably eastern European or Asian) being offered “dance scholarships” in the west go, is less horrific than the usual. They may be slaves in a house overrun with birds and unpasteurized milk, but they actually do get to dance. That’s… something?

Oh, wait… is that why they gave you the rings? The five golden rings? Were they… were they supposed to be your pimp bling? Your true love was dressing you to be a pimp. Marinate on that. The only genuinely positive gift on this list is tainted forever.

Ten lords a-leaping

Oh no. No no no. It’s all becoming clear. I thought maybe your true love was just tapped into a terrible, terrible black market of human slaves and… mildly exotic birds, but it’s so much worse than that.

It is terribly, horribly, tragically easy to buy women. I assume there’s a way to do that on the dark web, something I hope to never, ever have to confirm.

This is going to a dark place. Let's take a baby otter break. — This is going to a dark place. Let’s take a baby otter break.

Your true love didn’t just grab ten poncy-looking brits. No, these are ten lords. Noblemen. People who actually govern (when they choose to) in the UK. People with security and staff, people who would look for them if they went missing and turned up in somebody’s sour-milk-reeking slave mill and birdhouse. Kidnapping one noble takes work, and attracts attention. Grabbing ten? They’re either Kilgrave from Jessica Jones, controlling minds, or else your true love conquered a country. They marched in, seized power, rounded up ten of the ruling class, slapped them in chains, and shipped them to your house to jump around. Jump around. Jump up, jump up, and get down.

That may have been an inappropriate time for the House of Pain (they’re far from plain), but I thought maybe a touch of levity would help, given that you’re slowly learning that your true love is a goddamn monster.

Eleven pipers piping

Of course. Of course that’s next. What took so long, really? Surely those nine enslaved dancers and ten leaping lords could use some musical accompaniment. Let’s just kidnap a jazz band. Why not at this point.

Twelve drummers drumming

Sure. Come the fuck in. Drum up a storm. Somehow we’ve made it all the way to January 5th and the cops aren’t here, so bring in a drumline. It’s like a bird-poop-crusted Burning Man.

So let’s recap. What exactly has this true love of yours thrust into your home over the last twelve days?

Twenty-three birds, some of which are fighting, all of which are pooping, some of which have cages you’ve been neglecting to clean because of the chaos that followed, so I bet people are starting to get sick.

One hastily-constructed aviary to hold said birds. Hopefully. Which spared you nothing, thanks to…

One aquatic swan habitat, somewhere in your house.

No less than fifty slaves. Eight of whom are constantly stealing fresh, raw milk and stuffing it anywhere that has less than five birds. Nine of whom are dancing to the music played by eleven enslaved pipers and twelve involuntary drummers, making enough of a racket to draw the attention of the authorities. And let’s not forget the ten lords who were taken either as part of a war crime, or as part of a series of kidnappings that are probably bringing someone’s special forces crashing through your window.

Merry Christmas. You have the bird flu, some sort of milk-borne infection, and you’re on your way to the Hague to face prosecution for crimes against humanity. All because you fell in love with a monster who thought paying for a year of your Netflix subscription wasn’t “flashy” enough. And every year, you get to hear people sing about how you ended up in this mess with smiles on their faces, because somehow they don’t see that none of this is okay.

I mean Little Saint Nick is a bad song, but god damn.