The way home

Back in the U.S.S.R.

The Beatles

Flew in by Miami Beach B.O.A.C.

Didn't get to bed last night

All the way a paper bag was on my knee

Man, I had a dreadful flight

I'm back in the U.S.S.R.

You don't know how lucky you are, boys,

Back in the U.S.S.R.

Been away so long I hardly knew the place

Gee, it's good to be back home.

Need until tomorrow to unpack my case

Honey, disconnect the phone

I'm back in the U.S.S.R.
You don't know how lucky you are, boys,
Back in the U.S.S.R.

Well, the Ukraine girls really knock me out

they leave the West behind

And Moscow girls make me sing and shout

That JoJo's always on my mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind.

Show me 'round the sloping mountains way down south,

Take me to your daddy's farm.

Let me hear your baililakas ringing out,

Come and keep your comrade warm

I'm back in the U.S.S.R.

You don't know how lucky you are, boys,

Back in the U.S.S.R.

It's the good old U.S.A. rather than the U.S.S.R., but I think the mood fits if you've heard it. I'm back home now, and I'm very glad for it. At the end of a 28 1/2 hour trip, with layovers in Dallas and Miami.

Unfortunately, I have to share a piece of bad news: On Saturday, my camera was pickpocketed while I watched a cultural heritage parade with Kim. I left it in the cargo pocket of my pants, and when I got back to the hotel I realized it was gone. With all my photographs of the entire 2 1/2 months. This was sort of the coup de grace, that on the last day in Bolivia an item of real value along with the entire photographic record of my experience is taken from me. But it's only a material thing, and at least I have my life and my health (or most of it; 2 1/2 months sans exercise has put me a little out of shape. I've lost 10 pounds of muscle mass since arriving and I've got the chicken legs of pre-running days.)

But anyway, at last I've returned to my native land and my life.

At 4 A.M. on Sunday my desperta, or wake-up call, sounded on the room phone in the Hotel Espana. I'd paid my bill the night before, and all that was left was to drag myself sleepily into my clothes and breakfast on a chocolate chip muffin and a packet of brown sugar I'd bought/taken from a coffee shop the night before. Within ten minutes I was in a taxi, racing up the dark silent morning streets of La Paz to El Alto, 1500 feet above the city, where the airport was. I talked with the taxi driver a little about my return.

When I got to the airport I waited in line to get my three boarding passes for my three flights, passed through security, and had a more proper breakfast of an empanada, a shot of espresso, and my last Bolivian banana milk. Then I boarded the plane for Miami. We took off around 7 A.M. and hopped east to Santa Cruz, letting off some passengers and taking on more. Then we took off and beelined northeast, over the border into Brazilian airspace.

Dave Barry's humor book Money Matters segued into the first chapters of Saul Bellows' classic novel The Adventures of Augie March as the plane crossed the vast Amazon, trees and rivers and settlements beneath us, then we crossed the South American coast into the Mare Carebbieana heading northeast direct for Miami. Hours later we passed over Cuba and soon the Florida Keys, made landfall, and passed over Miami. An American city where the roofs were no longer corrugated metal, but properly shingled and papered. We landed, held waiting for a gate, and I finally disembarked at nearly 5 P.M.

I raced through immigration and cleared customs: my declaration only got a cursory look from the agents and I was straight through to pick up my check bag at the carousel and race across the terminal to pick up my connection to Dallas, departing in 20 minutes. I re-checked my bags and made my plane in time - only for it to take off 10 minutes late itself. No matter, because I sure as hell wouldn't have to rush in Dallas. There I was spending the night.

3 hours on the plane and I found Dallas. I knew that I was in the northern hemisphere was that the sun hadn't gone down yet and it was nearly 8 P.M. In Bolivia in winter, the sun sets between 6 and 6:30.

In the Dallas airport I dined at a restaurant on a burger, cheese fries, and buffalo wings. The dinner cost $25 dollars - 150 Bolivianos. If I really wanted to, I could probably eat three squares a day for four or five days on 150 Bs in Bolivia. but my waitress was really nice, and spoke English. it was a sports bar kind of place and for the first time in the whole summer I saw TV coverage of the kind of football where they wear helmets and hit people. Since it's pre-season, the ESPN commentators have resorted to beating dead old news. They were covering the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl.

I boxed the last half of the wings to eat during my long vigil in the airport and went off to find my departure gate, which ended up being a tram ride away on another concourse. I returned to my previous concourse and bedded down for the night on a cot the people provided with Augie March to keep me company. I watched the last planes come in, watched passengers disembark and head for their taxis in Dallas, hotels, beds, and families, including an hourglass-shaped brunette with hair like a waterfall whom I sort of wished was on my plane in the morning. But most of all I wished I was home, seeing my family as I entered the baggage claim. Just a few long sleepy hours more for that.

My night company was my novel, a bar of Toblerone, the chicken wings, and a bottle of Mountain Dew. I watched the cleaning staff and the security guards make their rounds, walked through chapters of the novel, stayed awake with pieces of the chocolate bar and hits from the Mountain Dew and, once they ran out, pinches on the arm, coming to every so often when I had nearly nodded off. There were two or three other travelers laid out around the terminal, sleeping, but I was staying awake to guard my baggage. After the camera incident, I wasn't taking any chances. But I also wanted to pass this last vigil, I suppose, to make the transition from my foreign sojurn to my Ithaca after my summer of exile. To make some Ulyssean odyssey in the spiritual sense. I don't know why it seems so necessary. Partly, I was also a little paranoid of oversleeping my flight. I probably could have just asked a night guard to get me up and watch my stuff, too. But let Ulysses be shipwrecked and swim the last sea to Ithaca and Penelope and the grown Telemachus he barely knows.

At four in the morning on Monday the 28th I demolished the last of the wings and rose, found the tram, and hopped a terminal. I went to the airport chapel and said a prayer of thanks for the experiences I've had, however trying they have been; and thanks for my family, safety for my friends still abroad, and for a safe return home. I walked around a little to pilot-light my circulation and waited for the 6:30 boarding call, reading more of Augie March. Finally, I boarded the MD 80 with a passel of Cincinnatians bound for home, sans brunette, and we took off at 7 A.M. I slept about an hour, then watched as our plane passed over the lower Ohio valley towards home.

I saw rolling hills and green fields, and towns in the settled lands below. Then I saw features become clearer as we began our descent: Southern Indiana, the northward-bending loop of the Ohio River which holds three Kentucky counties in place, Northern Kentucky cradled by Cincinnati across the river and the Bluegrass to the south. As we descended I saw I-275 cross the river at the Zimmer Coal Plant, right next to the outflow of the Miami into the Ohio. We started our approach, swinging over to the Ohio side and banking over the suburbs of Delhi. As we got even lower, I could make out the pier where the Anderson Ferry plies the river, giving traffic an option against going out of its way to the downtown bridges. Then, the Florence water tower out on Dixie Highway, the new suburbs of Hebron, and then the airport. We touched down around 10:15, taxied to the gate, and came up to the jetway. Safely on home soil at last.

I came across the jetway to the terminal where the morning flyers were waiting to fly to other cities at their gates, crossed out of the secure section of the terminal, and headed to the baggage claim. As I stood on the escalator, I saw the most welcome sight in the world.

Under a trio of balloons and a poster-board sign written in marker were Mom, Dad, Liz, and Daniel. We met at the bottom of the escalator and exhanged a round of fierce hugs and salutations. Dan pressed a cold botttle of Stewart's orange cream into my hand to revive me, and we picked up my check bag at the carousel and headed to the car.

I've spent most of that day and last night paying off outstanding sleep debts. Acclimatizing myself to the humidity of a Northern Kentucky summer and returning step by step to the land of the living. This afternoon I ran three miles with Dad, as the first step to getting back into shape after the horrible atrophy endured in Bolivia. I've decided to continue theis blog for a while, as I have vague plans for a jam-packed twelve days of things to do before I leave for school. My return to UD, then, will park the end of this blog. I also expect to make some reflective post chronicling what I've learned on the trip, which will include a lot of redemptive suffering and will not at all have a Disney ending. Actually, it will probably end up sounding a lot more like a James Joyce novel, or the end of Heart of Darkness with the critical difference that no one has actually died. Until then, I'll leave you to consider this mini-odyssey back to the land of my rearing.

In that spirit, we'll move from hasta luego to until then,

Drew