The Senior Citizen Car Discusses Brazil and Bolivia

A little old lady who joined our group in the middle of the night just told me: “You know you are in a senior citizen car. Look around. This is for disabled people.” [For the record, I reserved a lower level seat intentionally and there is no such thing as a senior citizen car. There reportedly is a "quiet" car that you have to ask about but this is not it.]

The reason she got into my face, literally not figuratively, was that I was talking for the last 20 minutes with a young exchange student from La Paz Bolivia who recently graduated from high school in Montana. Our voices were moderate. Still we could be heard throughout our little space. The others were either listening or managing to sleep through it. She was calm not strident but clearly spoke for herself, particularly in how she ended the exchange. “Some of us need to sleep. I have not been able to sleep for three nights because I sat with a talker like this one (pointing to but avoiding contact with my exchange student companion). Her voice added the italics (like this one) not I.

The truth is that I woke him by accident and I started the conversation. He told me about going to school in lily white Montana then spending time in Los Angeles on the other side of the ethnic spectrum. My initial contribution was my one and only trip south of the equator to Brazil. In 1997, the Brazilian government invited me to come down and give a seminar on Data Warehousing. They flew me into Sao Paulo onto Brasilia where the seminar took place and out via Rio De Janeiro where I stayed for 3 days before flying home. The most memorable event of my trip was neither the seminar nor Rio, it was being accosted at night in the artificial capital city in the heart of the Amazon.

Exhaustion overwhelmed me when I arrived in Brasilia. The timing was bad. I just finished a four city speaking tour in Europe with only a few days turnaround before heading south. I needed to shop for something I no longer recall so I asked for recommendations. “Go right across the street but be aware they close by 6PM. You want to be back in the hotel by then anyway”. So I went up stairs to splash some water on my face … then woke up 3 hours later from a nap I did not plan to take. Heedless of the full extent of the message, I walked across the mall after dark to another location that was still open. The hair stood up on the back of my neck as I crossed the grand via. I almost turned back. Before I reversed course I was hemmed in by two scrawny young boys with the crudest gun I have ever seen and the first one I saw down the bore of the barrel.

They were more scared than I was. Probably because it all happened too fast. My seasoned traveler instincts kicked in as I enacted the ritual suggested by our state department. I did not protest, remained still, lowered my eyes, and opened my wallet to present the money to them. Unfortunately, these street urchins had not read the same state department directive and did not seem to have a script.  Maybe the needed me to hand the money (or the whole wallet) to them. As I just started to act on this new impulse, the older boy, no more than 15, pistol whipped me in the head while the young one grab the money that had fallen to the grass. They ran. I staggered. All the short but interminable way back to the hotel.

The ornate five star government run tourist hotel had mirrored columns and marble floors. This served to recreate a scene from Carrie. My bloodied and bedraggled visage was visible in each and every reflective surface. Time stopped and so did everyone in the lobby. When time started again, the conference coordinator and two of his female assistants were escorting me out to a black government sedan. Next began the comedy of errors part of this story.

They cleaned me up as they hurried across town to their private client for government officials. The clinic was populated by salaried administrators but no medical personnel at this time of night. We were advised to go to the public clinic back the way we came. Brazil is arguably a second world country but it helps to recall a mordantly inefficient 3rd world hospital you may have seen in a movie. To my utter humiliation, my benefactors hustled me past queues of people forced to stand in order to retain their place in line.

I was treated immediately and competently. And incompletely as it turns out. I needed a tetanus shot that could only be administered at a third clinic. The doctor’s instructions were clear. A shot, some food and, he stressed, a watchful eye. He got the full attention of my hosts when he warned of some of the more dire outcomes of a concussion.

Before I could finish recounting this story for you, the I-gotta-sleep lady shifted seats again. She has the only double seat left available since last night. Somehow this is not enough. When someone gets up for any reason whatsoever, she darts in for a change of view or a visit.   I have it on good authority that she has not tried to sleep for more than 15 minutes since she boarded. Not while I was aware. Somehow I managed to sleep for around seven hours.

OMG. She is back wearing dark sunglasses in our dim chamber. Luckily it is almost time for my lunch reservation.

Water, Fire and Ice

Waking up to Mt Shasta out the window is one of the best things about the Coast Starlight. The name  of this train is a not entirely appropriate. There is very little coast to be seen except for the run up the beach during the first short segment. During these days with northern California fires, the normal brilliant blaze of starlight is muted or gone entirely. Luckily for this trip, the air this morning is clear and the sky is a deep azure blue as we circle round the western and northern flanks of California’s most majestic, and possibly still active, volcano. My impression is that no other mountain of fire in North America stands out so emphatically in solitary glory as does Mt. Shasta. It stands alone dominating the primary transportation corridor between California and Oregon. By contrast, the peaks of the Cascade Range are connected by the  Pacific Crest ridge line stair stepping up to Mt. Rainer near the end of today’s travels.

You will notice something startling if this is not your first time past this monolith. The newbies marvel at the snow and ice streaking the peak a couple of weeks past summer solstice. The frequent admirers have a more emphatic reaction: Where did the crown go? The ice coverage seems close to extinction. Never have I seen the mountain so colorful; forrest green,  bushy brown, charcoal grey, and obsidian black. The white is nearly gone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Shasta

My breakfast is shared with a BMW riding, world traveling career entrepreneur taking time out during his company’s worst recession and a fellow IT tech with similar database roots venturing north of Sacramento for the first time with his wife who is still in full repose in their roomette in the forward part of the train. Me and the other beemer guy are toughing it out coach style in the last two cars.

I learn that chemicals to produce a clean water supply are in high demand in the petroleum industry. The peaking demand for oil should make this a banner year for his company. Instead the concomitant doubling in transportation costs is eating up the profits. It has not been this bad for him since the 70’s. For tech guys, the worst recession was 2002/2003 when information technology purchases nearly stopped and more than 230,000 consultants lost their jobs, permanently. My next new field, Cloud Computing, may well be the death nell of in-house glass room operations spiriting far more people into early retirement. I intend to be on the right side of this cathartic transition.

By the time I get back to my place (car 13 seat 77), we are entering Klamath Falls. The lakes here are breaming full and crystal clean unlike the dirty bathtub ring look of southwestern reservoirs. We have clearly crossed the divide into the great northwest. To my left is the first Oregon resident volcano. I will have to look up its name later since the data connection will not fire up in a roaming area.

I await my next sighting of water, fire, and ice.