Collaborative Narrative: Yavari Ship Story

Yavari on Lake Titicaca

Two travelers discuss ships…

Graham: Just as travelers have stories, ships have even bigger stories.

Somerset: Titanic was a huge story. Grandeur. Romance. Adventure. Irony. Tragedy. And all the passengers had their own stories.

Graham: Even smaller ships have their own stories. When I was traveling with my aunt last year, I sailed on a short voyage on quiet waters.

Somerset: No drama there. Or was it that you were traveling with your aunt?

Graham: It was on Lake Titicaca. No storms, no. No shipwreck, no. My aunt was not in the least bit outrageous.  The story lay in how the ship, the Yavari, a hundred-foot lake ship, got to Titicaca.

Somerset: Wasn’t that the one that was carried up the Andes on a mule?

Graham:  Simply put, yes. Built in 1862, in London, then disassembled into 2,766 pieces. Shipped to Peru, then mules carried the ship pieces 220 miles up the Andes to Puno on Titicaca. Reassembled there by riveting the bits together.

Somerset: Riveting account! A hundred-foot boat built of a kit of parts.

Graham: And get this for a bit more local adaptation. The ship's steam engine burned dried llama dung.

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Voice-over
Storytelling construct: Somerset knows something about the Yavari but Graham knows more. A collaborative narrative.

The Yavari has been restored and is now docked at Puno Bay.

Oil at 1000 dollars a barrel

Max, who tends to overreact, indulges in a little crystal ball gazing, to the ever-optimistic Ray.

…
Max: Well, maybe we won't have to put up with long flights much longer. Back of a Fortune magazine Stanley Bing makes a prediction we are headed for oil at $1000 per barrel. None of this wimpy $200 a barrel stuff. Air travel at $25,000 per ticket will only be for seriously wealthy business people. Hybrid vehicles will putter around really slowly but the police will be allowed to go at 16 kilometers per hour to catch criminals. Most of us will be hanging out of windows or onto the roofs of buses and trains to do any distance. Food will be locally grown.

Ray: Is Bing a bit of an alarmist?

Max: Alarmist? Heck, that was normal only a hundred years ago.

Ray: OK, but how does this affect us?

Max: We’ll have to move. Reposition ourselves. Geographically. Cold country with wind and rain but possibility of Vegetable Wars? Warm country with possibility of Water Wars? New Zealand where all the crims join the police force? Japan where you'll only be exempt from joining the army if you are over 97 years old?

Ray: All countries will have their problems. Something will be worked out.

Max: Peru with 2,500 varieties of potato looks increasingly attractive. I'm sending off an application to join the Shining Path.

Ray: I thought you liked lasagna better.

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Voiceover

Ray has three attempts to ween Max off his dire projections. First he questions whether the original writer was “alarmist.” Second, he has a try at calming Max down with a generalization “All countries…” Finally, he uses a diversion, “lasagna,” but since they disappear out of earshot, we don't know what conversational road they went down after that.

…