Thursday, Sept. 11, 2003 - 8:26 p.m.
September the 11th
On Thursday, the 11th Helene secured her bus ticket back to Peru for the following day. It was her last day in Bolivia, the last day for us to hang out. We had talked of going to the zoo, but we ended up not going. We talked about the fact that it was September 11th and if we had gone to the jungle as originally planned we would have flown in a place, a little eerie to do on the anniversary of the World Trace Center disaster two years ago. I couldn't help thinking about that fateful day, hard to believe it's been two years. Helene was traveling in Vietnam at the time, she didn't even find out about it until a few days later. I'm not superstitious, but I'm glad we didn't fly that day and I'm glad we didn't go to the jungle since I'm still fighting a cold and my sprained fingers are still swollen. Helene had some muscle relazant aloe vera stuff she let me use. I put it on my fingers and then she taped them together with my index finger which wasn't sprained before going to sleep and left it like that overnight. I think it helped, it felt better, although I couldn't see any difference in the swelling. Finally, I was able to force off one of my rings, on the the ring finger.
Later in the day Helene and I did some shopping (I bought a few more music CDs!).
That evening I saw Raul and he reminded me that it was Sept 11th and he knew that I'm an American. He also shook my hand, and I was really touched by this kind gesture. I had heard a story of another traveler who was in S.America on Sept. 11th, 2001 who had locals approaching him with tears in their eyes and giving him hugs, a gesture of consolation in the wake of the tragedy.
