Free The Travel Writer by Jeff Soloway Page B

Kenny, tired of understanding nothing.
    “He’s a cabdriver,” I answered him, annoyed that he had broken my rhythm. “He doesn’t know anything about Hilary.”
    “Sure, big man—you’re the one knows everything. What if he gave her a ride to the airport? Or what if his uncle Fajita did? Huh? Ask him.”
    The driver slowed for a line of rusty tollbooths, paid, and began the winding descent into the city. Ahead of us and far below in the valley, visible through the chain-link fence that inconvenienced suicides and garbage throwers, was the sparkling bowl of La Paz. I was pleased that, at this time of evening, Kenny couldn’t see the sacred peak of Illimani standing guard over the city like an eagle; it served him right to have that pleasure withheld.
    * * *
    The wheezing taxi, exhausted from its downhill flight, wobbled around the Plaza Murillo and deposited us and our luggage at the corner outside the Gran Hotel París, whose Parisian grandiosity consisted of a red carpet that started just outside the front door and a uniformed doorman who helped out with suitcases. He wasn’t so keen on duffel bags, though; he eyed Kenny’s doubtfully and waited for us to reveal our intentions.
    “Go to the next street, Calle Junín,” I said to Kenny, as we arranged our bags on the sidewalk amid the maddening traffic of evening rush hour, “and climb the hill for a block and a half. The Hostal del Arco. You’ve got the address. They’re good people, and they speak some English.”
    Kenny heaved his bag once or twice on his shoulder. I had to shuffle off the sidewalk to avoid an Indian woman, her back bowed under an open sack of oranges. Two businessmen in suits followed close behind, letting her run interference.
    “Then what do I do?” he asked. “I should go to a bar, right? Start chatting up the locals.”
    “Good idea.” It was getting chilly and I wanted to be inside.
    “Do you know any bars?”
    “They’re all over the place. Go to the Prado, the main street. You can’t get lost. The Prado’s there, down the hill, and your hostel is back up the way you came. It’s a safe street. Just leave your wallet and passport behind when you go out and don’t take too much money.”
    “What about that one over there, next to the church. Is that a bar?”
    “That’s a café. Give it a shot.”
    A man pushing a wheelbarrow full of paint cans and a woman with a baby on her back forced Kenny off the sidewalk too.
    “There’s got to be information here,” he said. “Look at them. They all look like they know something.”
    “This is their city,” I said. “They know lots of things. Like where they’re going.”
    “I wish I knew this place like you. I wish I could speak the language. Christ. My head hurts.”
    “It’s the altitude. Ask for mate de coca at the hostal. That’s the local tea. It’ll help.”
    I waited to confirm that he did indeed turn onto Calle Junín, and then I advanced on the door of the Gran Hotel París. The doorman maintained his impenetrable expression, but as he held open the door, I caught his eyes flashing to my shoes, the mark of a man’s quality. He was surely unimpressed.
    * * *
    I slipped the clerk my passport, and he hammered my name, two-fingered, into his computer keyboard, pausing for one heartbeat between each letter, perhaps to facilitate the computer’s comprehension of the outlandish “Jacob Smalls.”
    He swiveled the terminal proudly to display this marvel of the hotel’s technology.
    “Ah, yes. Mr. Esmalls,” he said in Spanish, tapping my name on the screen. “As you can observe, your room is reserved until Friday.”
    “Thank you, Antonio,” I said, noting his name tag. “The room is complimentary, right?”
    In Bolivia, directness is always the best policy, especially when computers are involved. At the Four Seasons (any Four Seasons), I would have attempted some sort of simple but polite dance of discretion with the desk clerk to confirm my freebie, but