You’re already there.

That’s right, fecal dust. And so, when I think about flying into and out of Mexico City tomorrow, the only thing I can imagine is fecal dust. At least I should enjoy a colorful sunset, rich in airborne Escherichia coli.

I’m resourceful, and am getting along fine on the plane by first tapping the bottle of wine on the flight attendants’ cart, then pointing to my gullet while making guttural “glug glug glug” sounds.

I wonder what I’ll do after the jet lands? The same thing, probably; drinking is a language that’s even more widely understood than Latin.

It costs a lot of money to operate a ship, and one of the ways Greenpeace can afford to operate several oceangoing vessels is with cheap—or apparently stolen—whale meat. When I was on the Rainbow Warrior in the eighties, we had huge stores of whale steaks, whale bacon, and even whale oil to lubricate everything from winches to engines. The boat, and everyone one it, had the rubbery patina of whale.

I particularly enjoyed minke sashimi; that was the captain’s favorite. Anyone who says that don’t like whales hasn’t tasted them with soy sauce and wasabi.

South American farmers grow some of the world’s best coffee, but what do they serve here? Nes, that’s what. The generic “Nes” comes from Nescafe instant coffee. It’s like being in Oklahoma.

Of well, at least the Chileans know what to with their grapes; the wine here is both tasty and efficacious.

“How can you go wrong with a view of snowcapped mountains?” I asked.

“I’m talking about the maids in the apartment building across the street,” she replied. “They’re all wearing the same stupid, blue uniforms. In New York I’m used to seeing maids wearing fetish outfits or nothing at all.”

“Empirical evidence suggests that we’re not in New York,” I concluded.

I was tempted to ask Alexia how she came to be such an accomplished voyeur, but I didn’t. There are some things I don’t want to know.

“Why are there so many troops here?” I asked the concierge. “Are you expecting trouble?”

“Don’t worry about the soldiers, señor,” he replied, “they are not here to cause unrest, they are here to maintain it.”

Aha.

The tyrant was infatuated with the mediocre pop star, Andy Gibb. He sent Gibb hundreds of love letters; there’s no indication that the singer ever replied. Perhaps the nadir of the despot’s courtship was the 1988 video in which the paunchy tyrant pranced around the military academy, dressed only in fishnet stockings, gold lame epaulets, and large sunglasses.

“These mountains can be yours Señor Gibb,” Pinochet said waving his riding crop at the mountains outside Santiago. “From now on, I’ve declared that they be called Andy’s.”

Unfortunately or not, Gibb died (was it a cocaine overdose?) about the time Pinochet made his bizarre video.

The film was even too much for the generals who’d supported Pinochet’s terror campaign of torture and murder; the wretched dictator was deposed less than two years later. Why the mountains are still called Andy’s, this I do not know.