“We all had weird dreams. We all slept in 45 minute increments, waking up for whatever—rain. It rained a lot. I pissed in my titanium Snow Peak cup three times. At 7:30 it stopped raining. Kinda. We got up. I was bitchy. It was still cloudy, and going to rain again, obvs, and I wasn’t ready to pack our shit up wet, but we did. On the way towards the top, James and Kyle had to push my bike for me for about about the last kilometer. Basically until the final push through a fifteen thousand foot doorway. The drop down on the other side into the biggest valley ever defies gravity and logic. We crossed a river. Went through a field, around a bull.”

“Kyle’s Spanish is sooooooo fucking RAD. And getting better every day. It’s gotten us into so many rad spots. And when coupled with our trend towards lots of everyday-style bad luck that turns out to be good luck (almost necessary luck) in the end, we’re able to stumble into what clearly is the only truly dry building in a village battered by time, turds and widespread poverty. Don’t get me wrong, Hilo Hilo is awesome, at least in terms of geography and people. In fact, especially in terms of geography and people. But with regards to architecture, especially architecture in terms of houses and buildings featuring “creature comforts” such as hygiene and running water, Hilo Hilo is a pile of shit. Maybe a literal pile of shit. Anyway, the town square of Hilo Hilo is next-level depressing. We stack our bikes against a wall and sit under an awning next to three kids in green sweaters. It’s still raining. We learn the bus to La Paz comes every Miercoles. It’s Monday. We’re supposed to continue on to Peter Tosh but this town is in the middle of three valleys and we don’t know (exactly) which way to go. Kyle and James go looking for info. I sit in the rain listening to the three kids talk about boobies and futbol in Spanish for what feels like an hour. A creeper dude stares at me from just inside an open doorway across the plaza… the WHOLE time. I start having really bad thoughts. Like maybe we’re going to get hacked to pieces in this town. I think it’s because James was talking about his South American roadtrip the other night at Edgar’s joint when we were pretending to go to bed. He was recounting how they rode their motorcycles through a town that had dismembered an entire bus full of university students. Point is, I’m suffering, I think, from low morale. Dudes come back, they found the nicest building we’ve seen in four days. It’s down an alley in the middle of which is a two foot wide trough filled with running (muddy) water, turds and trash. The alley and turd stream which turns to turd rapids when the alley gets steep runs past the school down to a level area just above a cliff on the edge of which is a blue concrete building. Inside there are eight dudes hurriedly putting the finishing touches on the decor, sweeping (with a piece of bush), making the beds, moving the living room furniture into place, etc. Kyle already knows all of them by name.”

“Store to Floor” Cooking with James

I don’t know why James is such a fantastic mountainside hovel cook. It could be that he spent the last year plus perfecting his art while traveling through South America on his motorcycle, it could be that he is Canadian, it could be that he has lived in a van for the better part of his 20s, it could be that he loves fake butter, that he likes fire, that he appreciates steam, that he understands that bodies need food and he wants to give his body food. I DON’T KNOW! I don’t even know if knowing matters? James is a unique specimen, a maverick, a shining star, and he is pushing the culinary limits of high-altitude, bodega-supplied hybrid camping meals further than anyone that I know. If there is one thing that I could glean from watching the master at work it was his healthy use of Bolivian I Can’t Believe It’s Not “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” Butter. This congealed salt oil was dolloped like scoops of ice cream on top of beef colored noodles, on top of onions, on top of carrots, on top of any and all food. I don’t think this facsimile of a facsimile of butter is available in the States, and I can’t be sure that even if it was available in the States that it would taste the same. I think the exquisite taste had something to do with the lack of oxygen, like an anti-rust flavor thing. Long story short, James can cook one hell of a egg and beef flavored ramen meal in a Mountaineering Luxury Hotel in the sky.