When hell freezes over

Imagine life in hell.                                                                                                           

Not the classic hell full of torturous dungeons and lawyers.

Not the journalistic cliché about spousal abuse “made their life a living hell”.

But rather hell as the hottest place existing, like a small town in the Bolivian Tropics, A small, warm place with a yearly average of 34 ° C and 85% humidity. Probably sound horrible, hellish even.

And then, the worst happens, hell freezes over.

A horrid cold wind leaves Antarctica heading north, Chile and Argentina at freezing point, southern Bolivia with -14, La Paz with 4 to -3… but who gives a fuck about them, they’re all used to the cold… they have winter coats and hats and scarves and gloves and stoves and alpacas to snuggle with and hot drinks and central heating and houses with proper walls and windows with glass panes you can actually shut.

You see, for me, Rurrenabaque is heaven, heat’s good, sun is fun (yeah yeah, don’t spend too much time in the sun, you’ll get cancer, blah blah, spare me), the sun makes you feel young, heat might be tiring, but it’s easy to solve, grab a cold drink, stand in front of / under / over / next to a fan (I’d say AC, but we don’t have those here), slouch in front of the TV in your underwear sipping on a fresh cold Pineapple-Mango-Coconut-Star fruit shake from your garden…

But the cold, cold is evil, it makes you feel old, your bones ache, you need to pee every 5 minutes but you can’t really bother finding your pecker when it’s that cold, and the mere thought of sitting on the cold porcelain bowl of a toilet gives you the shivers, you keep sniveling because it’s the only way of stopping your nose from falling off, and you keep blowing on your hands like some cinematic homeless person, and you fart under the covers (well, frankly, men always fart under the covers, but when it’s this cold, you stop denying it).

And yeah, it’s only about 8 ° C here. Not exactly ice cones on the tip of your nose, but this is hell, who bring a coat to hell?? Besides, a dry cold in high places like La Paz is one thing, but this here is a wet cold (8-12 ° C, 85-90% humidity), I don’t know if you’ve ever encountered that, but it’s the worse, it’s a slick, slimy cold that slithers through the space between your jumper and your long johns and freezes your bum.

You feel so ridiculous, taking out the long johns and gloves and wooly jackets from the attic, and spend a moment pondering if it’s cold enough to wear a scarf (I have an unexplained hatred for scarves and men who where scarves), and miss your lovely fleece cap, nice and black, covered my big ears too, but I left it in the car last time I visited Israel.

And at night you sleep under 2 thick blankets, a sleeping bag and 2 cats (I know that’s disgusting, but I’m cold), and strict rules are set with the Mrs about touching, because your hands are too cold, and even if we get them warmer , you don’t want to start anything you’ll be too cold to finish…

You try and calculate how long it’s been since our last shower and how much longer you can wait until the next one (who’d thought of installing hot showers in hell?), and you stay away from the huge windows you have in every room of your house, always open, no window panes or other things that will block the usual hellish heat locked inside your house, and you drink so many cups of tea, in one day you’ve probably killed 400 Indian or Nepalese or Burmese old ladies breaking their backs picking tea leaves like slaves, but frankly, fuck it, slavery I mean, not the old Burmese lady.

And the worst part is, you just hide all day under the covers and ignore the cold outside, but then evening comes reminding you the capitalist greedy pig you are, a slave to the $ or the Peso, working 365 days a year, in a lovely restaurant, where people usually wait in line to get a good table outside, or one right under the fan, because in hell, who cares if food is expensive, as long as the place you’re eating it is not as hot as everywhere else… but that’s exactly it, it’s not warm, it’s all open, cold, and we don’t do warm beverages, who the fuck wants a coffee in hell?!?, and while I’m shivering and my teeth chatter, with gloves and a coat, some asshole orders a beer, or a Coca-Cola, now usually, I’d serve it with a smile, nice glass bottle, frozen on the outside and say: “can’t get any colder than that”, now I just mumble “ hijo de mil putas, my fingertips are stuck to that bottle…”

But then, you work for a renowned chef, the man’s a genius, he knows exactly what food to make in cold weathers a Spicy Tunisian Chicken, or an Indian Curry or a nice steamy chili, that warms your stomach, but you gives you such horrendous farts, that while nice and warm, scare off the few costumers you’ve had tonight (they fought over the tables inside), so you just sit there at work for 3 more hours doing nothing but shiver, trying to keep that spicy food in while humming Johnny Cash’s “Ring Of Fire”, obviously a song about the aftermath of spicy food, and wonder whether it’s ethical and more important legal, to send one of your employees to warm up the toilet seat for you…

In the end, you give up, go out early in the morning and buy yourself a retarded looking Andean wool cap with little strings that hang on the sides of your face like some goddamn orthodox Jew or Andean Chola, but it defrosts your brain to sit down and write this…

Well, cats stole all the covers, and my toes are numb, bye now

P.S.

When pigs learn to fly I’ll add pictures too.