A Day in the Life of Chaos

Outpost Trinidad Part II.... Continued.... Day to day life in Trinidad meant the constant search for clean food.  This at times was a challenge as shipments form other parts of the country were irregular at best.  The decision was essentially find something and have a maid at the house cook it for you or play Russian roulette at a restaurant.  One experience that always brought a smile to my face was the hunt for chicken.  There are no supermarkets in Trinidad so when chicken was desired you had to pass by the chicken store.  In Trinidad this meant a visit to Pollos Imba.  Pollos Imba sold one thing, chicken.  The problem was that they only had chicken about 30 percent of the time.  The rest of the time the Pollos Imba girls simply hung out and responded to clients queries.  Typically it involved driving up in front of the store and rolling down the window.  Looking into the open front door you would catch the eye of the attendant. "Hay Pollo?"   You would sh

Rio Mamore, Bolivia Beni, Bolivia Recently I read a book by Charles C. Mann called 1491.  In it, the author spends a significant amount of time discussing the land that comprises the North Eastern side of Bolivia known as the Beni.  To the naked eye it seems to be an endless grassland punctuated by trees that spends large segments of the year under water.  Rivers wind their way through the land like snakes toward an eventual confluence with the mighty Amazon river itself.  At the time when I was flying over it as a younger man I remember trying to make sense of it all.  From my perch in the machine gunners position on a Vietnam era Huey UH-1 Helicopter I looked out and watched parrots fly in pairs over the trees.  While the noise made it impossible to communicate there was something transfixing about sitting in front of an open door watching the ground pass below me.  I remember seeing patterns in the countryside but I had no idea what they meant.  It is a strangely vacant lan