Out of all the lives I’ve lived, my life in Bolivia was one of my favorites, like most, but in its own way, like all. Forget about nature. Nature is queen in the moment, your skull all emerald on the inside when you look at these word-defying landscapes. But I hardly ever wish myself back there. It’s these grimy little alleyways in La Paz I think back to, and that street up the hill which is lined with markets on all sides where we bought the pots and pans, and the avo rolls, and these drunk nights and drunker friends, the front yard of the language school I worked at, the lessons, the other lessons, those millions of bricks, the two-dollar-three-course meals in Sopocachi, the movie nights on that silly little DVD player we bought from a different decade, the commute on those sub-micro buses that were built for six but carried thirty. Without any room to sit diagonally, my legs would end up deep inside the backrest of the seat in front of me, where they usually took a nap. One time, they went all the way into REM and when I hopped off the bus, they gave in like the legs of a balloon giraffe. Wasn’t much of a hop at all that one and had me flat on the sidewalk to everyone’s surprise and amusement. We spent a green Christmas at the outskirts of the jungle in Coroico, and on our way to Argentina we passed by that exoplanet Uyuni. Another visa overstayed, third in a row, but this time there was no way of doctoring my passport.