“I’m the bare essentials of a human being,
disassembled I come in peace”
Words from the 2003/04 Latin American wandering
I want to see all the every-wheres and no-wheres of the world,
Do all the every-things and nothings,
Meet all the every-bodies and nobodies,
Be. Me. Free.
And so it begins again …
On December 2nd of 2003 Rob Cartwright became Roberto for a third time, as he ventured again towards Spanish speaking worlds. This trip would begin in Costa Rica, working with Reto Juvenil (Youth Challenge) and would then move in loco directions across the American continent all thanks to his economic round the world the ticket.
The Arrival
No space inside the ute, so I rode the back as we maneuvered around pot holes facing the oncoming traffic, assumedly shocked to see white skinned people on such a remote jungle dirt road. We were greeted by some of the community at the point in the road where mud becomes too deep to pass, and so after both hesitant parties made a confusing introduction to one another, we unloaded our 4 weeks of supplies and other gear and heaved it all to the school, which was to be our home.
Valle Bonito – Beautiful Valley
We had passed the community hall whilst bumping along the road towards the school, but it wasn’t until our first day at work that we were really able to appreciate the need for a new hall. The walk to work was long, but with Jurassic, agricultural landscapes holding your hand everywhere you went, time never seemed to matter nor play a major role in our lives other than our morning tea break, which was delivered by two team members who would cook all morning, and for that matter, all day for the rest of the team.
The viejo hall was a bamboo framed, dirt floor (as in there was no floor, just the earth that the bamboo frame had been erected upon) building of three rooms (kitchen, bar, and a mysterious small room with a small door).
The ‘walk like a boss’, with ‘a body like boss’, boss of us, Doña Ana Maria lived nearby the worksite, and it was from the in parts rocky, and in other parts muddy road in front of her house that we carried stones that had tipped accidentally from a deliberate truck, some 100 metres from where they needed to be tipped. And so into hessian bags we shoveled these ill-placed stones and in Santa Clause fashion hobbled them down the road to the site. We had wheelbarrows too, and I had the chance to push the rattly, noisy wheeled barrow that rode the rocks roughly and sent the feeling from my gripped palms directly through my body, making my excuse for pectorals jiggle. After moving the entire pile, we had completed our first hard days work at the office.
The Fonz
Our work was led by Alfonso – a.k.a. The Fonz. The Fonz was an incredible specie of human being. Whilst we struggled between two people to lug wooden posts to the salon, the Fonz strolled by with four stacked on his shoulder, then stopped and conversed with some passing females, us still staggering and sweating and looking on in amazement. To have someone like Fonz as your boss was inspiring and also funny and insightful. He was constantly joking and although only three of us within the group understood Spanish, everyone understood Fonz’s jokes. He was also full of wise quotes, my personal favorite: “You’re born and you see that you’re dead”.
Anyway it was under the instruction of Fonz that we worked, and the tasks varied between moving ill-placed rocks, sifting rocks to separate the dirt from the rocks, digging trenches and holes – then filling them when there is a three-way conflict between builder, architect and community leader, bending steel and making frames, mixing cement, laying frame in the trench and filling the trench with cement, and laying bricks. We managed to lay the wall three bricks high around the perimetre of the hall. We had also painted the beams that will support the ceiling, and away from the hall, painted the school and laid a path leading from the school to the toilet.
Unfortunately the construction of the hall didn’t get as far as we hoped due to various reasons ranging from materials not arriving on time, lesser than expected community involvement, and lack of tools. At many times, members of the team were unable to contribute due to there being no task to complete because all the tools were occupied, and therefore we were effectively losing the contribution of a willing worker. However, by leaving still some work to be done on the hall, we hope that more community members are able to find the time to contribute towards its construction, and thus will feel a greater sense of ownership.
One member of the community that did eventually contribute was Alvin – a.k.a La Hustler. Why a.k.a. La Hustler?, here is the lowdown: La Hustler first showed up one day at the worksite. He was just standing around, but not like a regular type, he held himself with a pimpish composure. Arms linked across his chest, but not in an angry, upset way, they just hung. His stance was slightly side on, like a super hero pose. He didn’t smile. He had both ears ‘DIY pierced’, his right ear had an earring, his left had pink thread looped through it. He didn’t walk, he trod with salsa steps, but with a ‘Michael Jackson in his youth’ tinge to it. He held his shoulders hunched, but not like a hunchback, just so that he could swing his arms gorilla styles. Alvin soon became a good friend to all of us, and worked frequently and hard at the site. He was not seen on the last day or night of our stay in the community, which will forever remain a mystery.
Mmmm Coconuts
Strolled next door. Adelante (Come in). A grandma, a mother, three little girls and Steven, a baby with a lazy eye and tendency to bump his head into any solid object and to trip over in enraged baby charges towards nothing in particular, were seated around in a small room. Steven cried a lot, however his little sisters knew how to stop the crying, and although to us it looked like they were performing a childhood doctors and nurses autopsy, they were simply tickling his stomach and it worked.
Angela was the aforementioned grandma, and Marta the mother, and if Marta didn’t know – “Mummy does” as she would answer. Smiles of amazement and eyes that matched, characterised their faces as I explained to them about time differences, geographical locations of our countries, and aeroplanes. A little green pet – with either clipped wings or an illness – parrot dragged itself around under feet en route for a piece of fallen fruit. Girls ate fruit and offered us a piece, however we had to refuse due to ‘the unknown’ being ‘the germ’ in our cases. Then “Les gusta Coco?” Of course we like coconuts, vamonos.
We went and collected the rest of the clan and I changed into my gumboots (bought from a market, off father and son shoe sellers, selling out of a shoe box sized shop. Bought some green flip-flops too at this same time, by no means complimentary to the gumboots, but necessary nonetheless). Angela and Marta lead us from their home. Cuantos machetes tienen? I think we have four machetes, I replied. Under a fisherman’s hat, the youthful and smiling Jonathon, the youngest child of Angela, herded us all from behind like a kelpie. My boots got slushed, whilst unfortunate others had their ankles temporarily kidnapped by the deep mud. Passed starving, hump necked cows that had branches tied to the side of their heads, which as Jonathon explained was to stop them escaping.
Limboed and slipped and slid and maneuvered through bottom row of barbed wire fences as we transcended from farming territory straight into the depths of jungle via a felled tree that bridged the two sceneries across a shallow river. Thankfully there was a handrail, as I for one, felt unbalanced thinking about balancing across horizontal tree. We walked a bashed track through banana plantation, under the canopy of the enormous banana leaves. We arrived at the ‘mansion’, an abandoned shack (but in this case it is all about location), facing two fruiting coconut trees.
Long, skinny pole-like branches lay at the feet of the trees, evidently for the purpose of shaking down the ‘pipas’. Jon ended up climbing the trees, as we messily took tragos straight from the shell and got as much down our chin and neck and shirt as we managed to direct down our throats. I helped Angela to pull a tightly rooted, nutty looking vegetable something out of the ground.
We milled about sharing the litres of coconut water, eating the gelatin flesh of coconut and also the airy, more dried out coconut, till we felt sick in the stomach, and so we fled, me hauling back a branch of coconuts.
Whilst returning, Jon took Giles and I down a different route after we three had hung back at this one senyora’s home (her son had returned home on horseback whilst we were there, and we swapped some coconuts for the fruits he had growing on his trees – watermelons and water-apples). So the three of us and all our fruits crossed another fallen tree bridge, and were now in much thicker banana scrub and also amongst cocoa plants, and here we spotted our first big, fat, green frog, and so that Giles could get a photo, Jon kicked this lazy amphibian until Giles got a photo of it facing the lens.
Natural Hospital
In the afternoon a gang of us climbed the mountain behind our home with Jonathon and his mum. Angela is ‘muy afficionado’ with herbal medicines and stopped and showed us different leaves and plants and explained to us what they remedied. Appendicitis, Asthma, Snake Bites, Open Wounds, Tinier could all be healed by the mountains.
The trek was slushy and slippery. In the steep sections we skated about in our gumboots, and making the whole event more extreme by gripping a machete. I held a machete for most of the walk and developed a thrilling enjoyment for holding one in my possession. The ‘ching … ching … ching’ sound it made when chopping or slicing long grass (the sound that movie star ninjas and medieval knights swords make). The action of macheting overgrowth at ankle level, one sweep forward, flip the wrist and machete back, this swing lower still, until you are left a mowed lawn.
I saw an army of ants, orange and red backed, creating a moving highway that didn’t move, like a travelator at an airport. Next to them marched a society of leafcutters, carrying ant-bite-sized leaves along a tree trunk. Angela then spotted a leaf, and told the boys to leave as she had a joke she wanted to show the girls regarding the leaf. She broke into a state of paroxysm, and as we found out, it was because the leaf faintly resembled a vagina.
We trounced around some more, occasionally stopping to check views, one of which was of a lake in Nicaragua, and others of our road to work, which distance we were able to respect in its entirety, and which let us in on why we arrive at work already sweating like we have done a days work.
We also saw the houses embedded on the fringes of jungle, such natural settings for a home, yet they say the occupants are described as poor (In these locations, so rich in agriculture and natural beauty, so peaceful and tranquil, its hard to imagine what one would want to do with money) (Unless of course it is a developer, who could build hotels and casinos and shopping centres and give the whole community employment and … but what happened to our flora? Our fauna? So that was the price for money then?).
We debated going deeper in to where supposed tigers and lions lurk, but time and fear of darkness sent us downhill. We arrived at this hidden shack, built amidst various trees of sustinence. Oranges, lemons, pineapples, cocoa, and banana all grew rampant. Sucked on cocoa seed found inside the ribbed and lavishly shaped fruit. Seeds are coated in a white gel type substance, like the liquid that babies are covered in when born. A very sweet flavour. We kicked around the shack, impressed by the ingenuity of its location and design. Simple for survival.
On the way home we reached a peak with two sky tall trees. One of the trees had a vine hanging from it and we swung on it like children, bouncing off the trunk with outstretched gumboots, then after turns and spins, came to a crash against the tree. Pura Vida.
Just before heading down, we spotted a tucan from afar perched in a tree. Massive beaks which is how I managed to distinguish it within the tree. Eventually saw it in flight between trees and we questioned how a bird so small can maintain a balanced flight path without nose-diving. We reached the bottom with a side-stepping and soon sliding down the precarious, muddy and steep face.
Before going home, Jon took us to his farm (Jon is 14 turning 15, he cares for his own piece of land) and gave us coriander, which would add sabor to our rice and beans. He then told us to put our ears to the trunk of this tree and we were able to listen in on the busy-ness of bees that traded stock and negotiated Dow Jones in their corporate hives. Chopped down three banana leaves that were coated on the not-seen side in a white/talcum powder, and then from where they were cut, dripped a staining sap. As we balanced the leaves in awkward ways, someone stomped on a crab of all things, and knocked its left claw off. It died shortly after of natural causes and Jon used it for his soup. Why a crab was wandering through a farm, I am yet to know. The banana leaves were used to make a shower curtain.
La Paz – The Peace
We were greeted in La Paz by a monsoon and a heavy fog. The majority of us had managed to keep dry for the trip, however running the distance from where we were parked to where we were staying (100 metres), there were to be no dry person or thing (This would lead to mass mould attacks on everything in the first week).
We were invited to a Costa Rican meal and met the community leader, Pedro, and his family. Pedro, who later admitted to being ‘the most nervous in his life’, explained to us what the work would be: Using stray rocks and river rocks, we would firm the currently ‘very muddy’ trails, which were effectively hurting the community, as tourists were less inclined to visit, and those that did were doing further damage as by trying to avoid the mud, they were trampling on plants and damaging the rainforest. Also the local primary school needed a trench and septic tank dug for its toilet.
The Project
While we worked our long chains of stone passing, tourists would often pass us, appropriately decked out in brand new white sneakers, and of course, not wanting to spoil the whiteness, they would take the most irrational detours trampling over the young sprouting plant that in years could be an ominous tree, but due to the unaware tourist, is now smudged in between the grooves of their shoe sole. Pedro, the community leader, offers a gumboot hire service, but people would time after time elect to try and trek the forest in their sneakers. We advised that Pedro make it compulsory that those that enter must wear gumboots, as it would play some role in solving the current problem.
Natural Office
Having a rainforest as an office was a most wonderful and pleasurable and relaxing although hard working experience. I spent just two days working on the trench at the school, because I was fascinated in the rainforest. The feeling of working amongst so much green and life and peacefulness was so purifying.
The majority of the work done within the rainforest was ‘chain’ work, in other words, we would form a line, and pass bags of stones, or single, big, heavy stones along the line of team members so to transport the weight more efficiently and effectively. This grew boring, however we spiced it up by introducing Chinese whispers (or Broken Telephone as Canadians call it) and by pretending we were playing rugby, running the weight through the mud and faking passes and then throwing fancy passes to the next in the line.
Over the month stay in La Paz we completed ‘more than was ever expected’ by the community, really powering through the work in the final weeks when the sun reclaimed the sky from the fog and rain. In La Paz we also received more community involvement, which made the work that little bit more interesting, with new jokes, new energy, and more people lessening the weight.
There were concerns by members of the group that by taking rocks from the river – although we were fixing the path problem – we were negatively impacting on the river, and same applied with the trees we used to help support the steps we dug in the path, however rainforest experts came and explained to us that the river continually carries rocks downstream and what we took will be replaced, and the same applied with the trees, that they weren’t in scarcity and that they were replanted.
Liquor Raining in the Forest
The day was cloudy, the day was rainy, but up until then everyday had been this way and if we were going to remain sane, we needed to do something with our weekend, so we gumbooted round to Bilicha’s house, a local who had told us he knew the rainforest inside out and could take us on a special ‘off-track’ tour. He brought along his illegal immigrant Nicaraguan neighbour, Enrique. We set off right after quick shots of Bilicha’s contraband cane liquor, which was to keep us warm for the walk.
We entered the forest off the side of the road and we’re right away told to keep quiet because he sensed the presence of a Dante. So we tiptoed in our gumboots, keeping relatively dry under the canopy formed by the rainforests’ trees. As we walked Bilicha would stop and explain to us the names of each tree, what it was useful for, if it had medicinal powers, and then would always handpass to Enrique, who had different names and knowledge about the plants and trees from his Nicaraguan experiences (he walked days from Nicaragua through the jungle to cross the border into Costa Rica).
We eventually came to a path and we followed it up to a crater-like hole, and in the dark, depths of the hole, lay a curled up, black snake looking object. Bilicha told us it had electricity running through it and that is how it killed it’s prey, and he threw sticks and rocks at it until it moved to prove to us it was alive (It turned out that it was just a broken off root from a tree and the reason it moved is because he hit it with the stone causing it to move, however our over-anxious and super-enthusiastic eyes let us believe his charade).
We walked on and eventually reached the confusion of rivers that ran parallel to one another, however with currents that ran in different directions. Up to this point we had taken a mouthful of nips from the cane liquor bottle, and Bilicha we ascertained, had obviously begun earlier. He led us across tree trunk bridges across various wide rivers and then assisted us to jump, or stepping stone across narrower rivers that didn’t have bridges. After all this crossing, confusion, and cane liquor we eventually found ourselves lost, but Bilicha assured us we would find our way out. From this point the comedy began as we watched Bilicha fall into rivers, duck dive into rivers, slip into rivers, while we searched desperately for alternative methods to cross without getting soaking wet.
After many moments of madness we found ourselves back on track and drank to it, before continuing on. We came out of the rainforest saturated, but Bilicha invited us to his house, where we rung out our clothes, dried off with towels and then got invited to more of his contraband liquor.
Letter written in La Paz
Hola, here I am seated under the perpetual guard of the La Paz rainforest. For the coming month our work involves moving creek stones and sand up to the currently muddy and over used trails and using the natural materials to firm the trails and widen them. The area is by no means poor, the community has food, clothes and shelter, however there are few opportunities to make money and there are a lack of resources to improve and / or maintain and / or develop commodities such as electricity, the community hall, and the trails we are helping with now. Inside the rainforest we are offered views of waterfalls, baths in hot springs, sights of dreamy blue lakes, a transparent aqua colour river with a sense of purity to it, and of course, we are working in an environment where the colour green has myriad definitions and the sounds of congo monkey’s, cicadas, and various birds entertain our ears under the ominous crashing, drumming, humming presence of Rio Celeste (Blue River). All of this has come after a four week project in Valle Bonito (Beautiful Valley) which was a low in resources area, however evidently worse, witnessed most clearly in the health of the livestock (or lack thereof), and the housing conditions of many community members. Being the main Spanish speaking participant in the group invited me to step into the lives of many of the community and I so doing gave me an insight and understanding on why decision such as – a 15 year old son needing to put his education aside so to assist his family to cultivate the fruit and vegetable that feeds them daily – need to be made. This however did not halt any family from generously donating oru group sacks of fruits and vegetables and taking us on walks through the valley where we: ate from the branches of coconut, orange, star fruit, lemon, grapefruit, and cocoa trees; pole vaulted rivers with skinny trunks chopped down with the Costa Rican visa card equivalent: the machete, which we saw fashion soccer goals and cricket bats, mow soccer fields and lawns, open coconuts and peel sugarcane, and generally prove to me, in this environment, that you can never leave home without one. Our project, the reason for us being in Beautiful Valley, was to build a community hall. During the four weeks, we watched as Don Alfonso aka The Fonz, amazed us daily with his ability to make the most our of the seemingly nothing and on top of that, to make the most difficult and what some may say impossible without electricity and machines, look like an effortless task, which by simply having good balance and technique, were not worth the fuss of plugging in a tool. Living this simple, organic, natural life where there is no notion of time, but rather you when its light and sleep when you’re tired, walk because there is no rush and play because it comes natural, has me feeling more and more pure and more and more stronger in the cycles of nature and trying to live in symbiotic harmony with the universe.
Words after project
Pura Vida Muchachos, i am now off project. 10 of the the wildest weeks. Since last email I have been working in Tenorio National Park building trails. Off the chain, pure escape type of place. Waterfalls, hot springs, sky blue rivers, contraband liquor, old crazy dudes and illegal Nicaraguans getting us lost in the jungle, soccer with bandana’d boyz of the hood, I was totally off the leash this time around, visiting every house in the community and getting the down low on how to breathe the pura vida. Now I have three weeks to totally get savage, I have a hobo beard, dont know how much cashola and no ideas other than wandering in my gumboots. Merry Christmas Happy New Year Happy Birthday I saw a sloth, a black snake came for me from out of a pool, I am all about swinging on vines and whittling stakes out of wood with machetes. Pigs are funnier than television when they eat. Climbing through roots of walking trees is extreme. Sugar Cane is the best food, juicing it makes me dizzy and drinking it hypes me up to get dizzier. Shake hands with everyone. Peace.
Roberto aka Correcaminos (road runner) so this kid Chakarita likes to call me.
Organic Farmer
Having painted the school and played demasiado domino with the locals under the bus shelter, I decided it was time to step back on the wobbly, rotted wooden bridge that is adventure, and make a trek along the beach and through the jungle from Cahuita to Puerto Viejo. It should take 6 hours from having talked to the locals, and so with 2 loaves of bread, 1 bottle of clean water and 2 bottles of local tap water, and my backpack, I began to trudge along the sands in my gumboots.
The walk winded through jungle paths and back along the beach, and along the way I was harangued by monkey’s wanting whatever was inside the plastic bag I had (they didn’t know it was bread, they just knew from experience that plastic bags in the hands of tourists meant ‘dinner’); I was then washed under the tropical rains of the Caribbean coast whilst I sang Bob Marley tunes out loud knowing I was so far from anyone I could do what I want without a care; and I was forced to remove my gumboots and walk in my socks due to forefeelable blisters.
After all this walking, and singing and rain I arrived at an unexpected river, but since so many people had told me the walk was possible, I assumed it was a crossable river. The river was flowing out and into the ocean, and as I stepped, prodding for the depth of the next step with a found branch, sinking ever so slightly each second that passed, getting wetter higher and higher and NOOOO, I could not cross it without wetting my pack and so as the waves crashed in and the forest just stared, I set about my short-term housing.
I’d heard soldiers talking of this one technique they called a ‘hoochie’, so I drove two branches into the sand, tied my rope between the two and draped my tarpaulin and the other scraps of abandoned plastic left behind by the last wanderers and nomads, over the top, and there I had my coastal abode. And it did rain that night as I lay dreaming of waking up to a dry river that I could cross and leave me with an hour more of walking until reaching the Rastafarian run town of Puerto Viejo. But I woke to no such luck, and so I trudged back to Puerto Vargas with a quarter loaf of bread and tablet purified water that was tasting filthier than its predecessor ‘not potable water’, and this metal tasting water was consumed during the ‘seated on drift trunks’ moments where I rested my pack before, dragging myself little by little closer to the ranger station.
The Ranger, on my arrival, stared at this drowned, skinny me, but went on with his phone conversation as I wrung out my soupy socks and poured out the rain from my boots. After finishing his call, the ranger came out and helped me get a ride with a passing truck towards my destination.
The truckie dropped me off on the side of the road and pointed me down my path, however my journey changed when I met this herbal doctor Gregory who turned me around and sent me in the direction of an organic farm and from that point onwards, I became the organic farmer. I worked for just over a week in El YUE an organic farm that cultivates banana and various other fruits and herbal medicines.
The community were supportive as, cooking up Costa Rican cuisine and showing me the hidden secrets of the jungle like the waterfall and their farms where they grow everything natural and live the life of simplicity, everything they eat, they replant twice. In the farm there was an indigenous hut with a hammock and there was a rocking chair and I spent time rocking and swinging and plain chilling when I wasn’t sweating it out in the farm.
I was healed by herbal medicines, I had the meanest sore throat and the ladies went out in the farm and hooked me up with plants that I had to tea up with water and low and behold I was cured with the quickness.
A poem I wrote after work in a rocking chair:
Here I hammock
Gumboots and machete at rest
Rocking chair snooze
Boxer shorts dressed
Sleep with the moon
Work with the sun
Here I’m organic
Here I’m green thumb.
Beautiful Poverty
I lived in a concrete cube: no windows, no door, no running water, no electricity, but there was a roof and that’s all I needed to keep dry should it have rained (which it didn’t). The family who lived in front were nice to me and fed me the first night, but then I was on my own, setting up some rocks in a circle, laying down kindling and starting a nice fire, laying down some logs and then the grill which sat on a angle, and so my black beans which were cooked and ready to eat, slipped off the grill and I lost them all.
The days were hot in Pino Suarez so as soon as I woke, I grabbed my machete and went wild on the scrub, better exposing the well (the property is on top of a hollow, I guess a cave, and its full of water which is pure and fresh, however by abandoning the house, Graciela hasn’t been able to maintain the cleanliness of the water unfortunately) that the property sits on. It’s actually quite amazing, potentially a lot of the area could be connected by underground canals.
Down the road there was a turquoise lake, and with very few people in the community, it made it feel like a private lake, and it was massive and a fantastic place to cool off and wash off. It was lined with coconut trees too, so after a dip, you could come out and machete down some coconuts, kick back on the shore and chill.
Anyone Seen Jesus?
An email I sent when I left the community with Yuk for the afternoon to sneak drink beers that we couldn’t drink in the community:
Buenos Dias, i am in Tzajala, this little community on the road between Ocosingo and San Cristobal. I came here on the advice of Rojo, the round redhead who plays guitar and smokes lots of weed in Maya Bel camping in Palenque, and well I wasn’t expecting what I arrived to. I get out of the back of the ute that hauls people around for 7 pesos and ask for Marzo and get pointed down this hill. I find Marzo in this room, with a crew of jewelers all fine tuning pieces of precious stone, the stuff that you see for sale in every tourist city of Mexico.
The conditions of staying in the house is no drugs, no meat, a little bit of work, no rubbish, no soap in the icy river that cuts through the property, and well I think you are meant to be a Christian coz we have to hold hands and read the bible before we eat, but I still haven´t been introduced to Jesus.
Last night I took part in a Temazcal, you go into this little brick room, small enough for 6 people sitting down, you can´t stand, and you sit in this room and Marzo, the head tribal indigenous looking dude starts up this ridiculously hot steam room in the dark, and they sing and chant and it purifies you and there are 8 doors, which is like 8 times when the steam is at high heatness and I bailed after the first door, I was seated right next to where the steam was hottest and I couldn't breathe and felt weak, and I wussed out, but I will try again, and now I know some techniques to withhold the heat.
Mexican Crocodile Hunter
Friday night drinks, bought with loaned money and drunk to the notes of romantic Mexican songs, were drunk by boys that cried and howled and slammed down bottles and fists until the fridge was empty. 5.30am Saturday and each and every one of them are lined along the shore throwing out lines in hope of breakfast.
We were passing by, checking the regular spots where crocodiles annually lay there eggs, so to rescue the eggs and keep them in protection until they hatch and the ‘lil croc’s reach one year of age, the age when they learn to fend for themselves in the wild. We paddled along the lake finding tracks, but no nests.
We tied the boat to the island and followed the bank until we reached the enclosure of Susana and Sabrina, and STREWTH, CRIKEY, half the team is already there, nervous and staring. Sabrina, during the night had mauled her way through the fence to fight Susana who laid her eggs on the other side of the fence but right next to Sabrina’s nest. It was clear they had fought, teeth marks of blood on both their faces, but Sabrina, on her way back through her hole, had got caught on the fence.
Tino and Vincent were right on the case, lassoing the nose and then flinging a wet t-shirt over her eyes before properly strapping up her jaws. Sabrina was hissing and the sound alone sent fear through me. Tino took apart the fence like he was detonating a bomb, meticulous as he unwrapped the wires. The moment the croc had room to move, Tino and Vincent scattered, jumping the fence like they were escaping police, but the job wasn’t quite over.
Again Tino and Vincent had to mount and pin the croc, then leash it to a tree while the fence was repaired and also they sprayed the croc to cure the blows. Susana in the other side was guarding her nest and any slight movement by us towards the area was greeted with a snap or a swing and it was her now we had to trap. Cuchi got his shirt off, after the first rag missed the target, but the second fling missed again and ended in the croc’s mouth. So then another shirt comes and this time it hits, just as I was getting ready to throw in the Timberland.
Susana, having full movement as not trapped in a fence, ran circles and headed for her pond, did croc rolls and swung around trying to evade the staff. Eventually pinned, they sprayed her injuries, then I jumped in the pen and on my knees, dug out her infertile eggs with my hands. The ‘tejon’ named Poncho, by this stage was on the scene nosing about with it’s snout, waiting for a chance to gobble the eggs. The fence got fixed in both spots and then the scariest part came – unleashing them. A coordinated effort by Tino and Vincent that went off without a hitch.
My notes taken in Ventanilla:
So I continue drifting from place to place like a feather in the wind, every time I open my mouth is like another gust, sending me to my next destination and that’s how I ended up here in Ventanilla, the coastal village of 24 families. And when I walked up the dusty road with Jesus – the kid I met in the back of the ute, who had the t-shirt on with ‘ventanilla’ written on it, and I remembered Maria the smacky’s advice to find Ventanilla, and so I had to ask him to take me there – and helped him pick up the rubbish on the side of the road, I knew this would be different, and when I laid down my pack and set up my mosquito dome under the clear sky which would be filled with magical stars that would guide me peacefully to dreamland nightly, I knew I would be spending longer here and when I took the first group of tourists on the lake tour amidst the red mangrove that tinted the lake a cola-ish colour and we paddled slow and quiet past crocodiles and herons until we arrived at the island where the deer and the raccoon and the tejon and the 2 adult crocs and the hundreds of baby crocs were all being protected from hunters, I knew then that I was in tranquility and when we walked that night rescuing turtle eggs and we saw a UFO bopping about in the starry sky, a flaming orange drunk-like moving object that eventually faded away slowly flashing into disappearance, I knew I was somewhere special, and when I lay in my hammock at 6.52 in the a.m. and began to write this, with roosters clearing their throats and neighbors working to the Mexican music, I knew I was at peace.
Mexican Willy Wonka
Toltapec had been hit hard by Hurricane Paulina a few years back, which wiped out it’s coffee plantations and destroyed many roads and houses. In response, the community began to focus on growing cocoa and now produce an organic chocolate.
I stayed in the home of an old señor, already forgotten his name, but his home was two rooms backing onto a corridor where the hammock hung, and table stood, and the chickee-dee’s roamed around, and on my last day there, trusted me enough to jump up onto my leg while I was laid out in the hammock. Walking down the corridor away from the hammock, led to a separate room, where he had three local kids storing the banana that they were chopping down for him off his farm.
Turning right at the end of this corridor, rather than going straight and into the banana room, led towards a shelter where we roasted the cocoa seeds when we were making chocolate, and then turning left from there, led to the toilet and shower, but since the water took so long to travel from his tank to the shower, I just went down to the river that was down behind the toilet. I’d go down to the river with a bucket, my soap, and my toothbrush, and pour the bucket of chilling river water over me continuously, lather up, rinse off, and then brush my teeth, very Neanderthal.
Making the chocolate was amazingly simple, we half filled a tin drum with cocoa seeds, started a fire and span the drum over the fire like on the old television shows where the host was spin the barrel before drawing out the winning letter. After than we emptied the roasted seeds into bowls, and panned and blew on the bowl to remove the shells of the seeds. We then took the seeds to a machine, which crushed up the seeds and oozed out the chocolate. We added sugar and almonds and then I got my hands messy in it, mixing it all together, and sweetly licking it all off my fingers at the end, a just reward. We then used some moulds to shape the chocolates, bagged them, and then the old señor hit the road for Mexico City to sell them, leaving me in his house solo. His son lived just down the road, as I spent more time with him, he started to explain what he did on the side to explain why he had a chevolret truck and a nice house. He was what they call in Mexico ‘el coyote’ or in other words ‘a people smuggler’. Here’s his account of how the smuggling goes down:
Sometimes one or two, sometime up to thirty, pure sign code with eyes and gestures in the bus station where the group of needy Mexicans all act like they don’t know one another when buying there tickets. To Mexico City they all go, and from there, another bus to the border of the U S of A, never letting anyone know that they are all together. They would go to different spots on the border, depending on the situations, whether or not there had been any deaths in certain spots which would mean augmented security. And so they’d walk, they used to drive up to 30 minutes from the crossing spot, as from 30 minutes away, it was still not obvious you were trying to cross the border. The walks could sometimes be long, that why people died.
There was an indigenous reserve where coyote’s could take there people to rest and prepare for the crossing. Approaching the border, the coyote would get the people into pairs, the person behind putting his hands on the person in fronts’ shoulders, and then both walking on their heels, so to make their tracks seem like deer. At the border fence, the coyote would prepare the hole, and then once they crossed, they were on their own, the coyote’s job was over.
Confused in the Coca fields
Q. Am I the first person to sit on this rock?
I asked myself this whilst I sat and folded coca leaves down their spine, and then stripped them off the stem, chewed, and deposited the pulp into the top left corner of my mouth, between gum and lip, letting the juices swim down.
I went back to the hostel, and continued with my nagging of Pasquala, the Negro cleaner, which at last paid off. She drew me a map to her parent’s house nested in the mountains in a community called Marca. She could tell I was going to get lost, and so took me part of the way and then introducing me to another couple – Don Pasqual and Doña Chara – that also live down the mountain. I zig-zagged down the mountain along a beaten track, brushing against and through a skinny tunnel formed by the mandarin, orange, lemon and various flowering trees and plants.
We chatted and I explained myself and my reasons, and my intentions and Don Pasqual after all this ended up inviting me to stay in his home, but I couldn’t edit the script like that, and so after stopping for some cold boiled Bolivian water refresco, they led me deeper down the mountain to Don Parfilo and Doña Nieve’s home. No one was there so they left after 10 minutes of whistling and gritando (yelling) and I sat myself down on a wheat bag and read about plants in the meantime before they arrived.
Nieve (her name means snow in English, ironic since she is Negro), Janet and Reyna (her name means queen in English), the three women of the home, with tomatoes, which they had me sort between the damaged and undamaged shortly after finding me, this total stranger sitting on the path to their home.
Whilst peeling green plantains, Parfilo arrived, seemingly unperturbed by me as well, but as we chatted, he seemed the lesser inclined of my idea in comparison to his wife, with whom I chewed the sweet coca from their campo (farm).
We ate soup and noodles with boiled plantain after a hot chocolate, all prepared by Janet, and chit-chatted about my travels, my work, my country, my life, my dream the night before, and then I was shown my room and I lay in the bed that would straighten out the most crooked of crooks, who may just be the assassin of their granddaughter, daughter of Pasquala, on November 4th 2003. Here, that a girl was stabbed to death on her way home, in such a far away place, was truly shocking.
“If there’s no justice, I’m going to get myself a gun and take justice into my own hands” Don Parfilo at the dinner table, after the police still hadn’t caught his granddaughter’s murderer.
Parfilo stood in the coca field, on the edge of a new trench, in the rain. He looked down the slope, then at the trench at his feet, then up at us, then went back to looking down the slope, again at the trench and again at us.
He repeated these three looks for 20 minutes, before lighting a cigarette, moving his stance slightly, stepping an awkward circle, thinking some more, all under the rain. 30 minutes had passed, and with the rain still falling, Parfilo returned to digging his trenches.
Thoughts and observations made whilst in Marca:
Picking café leaves me tired in the way that standing in a queue all day would leave you tired.
I’m lodged in the throat of a coffee plantation.
Smiling Bolivia with all its missing teeth and suffering.
All the smiling Buenos Dias Bolivians missing teeth, I’ll be missing them.
All this talk about Jesus
I’ve had people tell me I look angelic, that I’m a saint, that with my hair and skinny face and beard and blue eyes, that I remind them of how Jesus is depicted. Everyone of these people expects me to be a missionary with my work, and expect me to be a believer in God and when I look them in the eye and tell them I am of no religion and don’t believe in a god, they straight away be preaching and trying to have me conform, trying to convince me of a god.
Many of these people don’t believe or conform to a religion, agreeing it’s a misused representation of their God, but all still believe in a god and the bible and prayer. In Costa Rica I wrote about feeling in ‘symbiotic harmony with nature’, in that I was eating what the earth provided me, I wasn’t polluting or contaminating or introducing rubbish into the world like petrol from cars, plastic packaging and bags. It was simple, I was being in and with earth and it was pure and clean – easy and simple. Why pray when rain falls on crops to produce food and it rains because fumes haven’t raped the sky and the earth produces good crops because chemicals haven’t raped the soil. Naturally, nature is here to serve. God only serves, only needs to exist in the minds of those who live impure or in the world that’s been raped by impurity. In the times of simplicity before humans, why would animals need God?
Scribbling in the hammock
The bus dropped me off at the soldier station and in my wake up clumsiness of 4am, I stumbled off the bus – with my sleeping bag dragging off one shoulder, and backpack off the other – and under the shelter of the soldiers office. Once organised, they showed no sympathy and said I had to wait under the pine tree on the wet, cement bench, so I stood and then paced, then pissed and then sat on my pack until it rained and they invited me under the shelter. (on the way to the soldier station I remember dreamily stepping off the bus to pee and walking into this seedy, greasy, highway food joint, where I saw the biggest moths ever. So out of a movie).
The soldier in charge was so helpful to me and a total prick to the young, vulnerable, ‘still kids’ soldiers, who had notebooks like me where they wrote letters to their mothers and love letters to girlfriends called Gladis and drew love hearts with murals depicting the love – maybe to be sent, maybe to be kept in the book. These soldiers were interrupted by orders to perform the most menial tasks as: picking up leaves off the muddy ground that needed the nutrients, and sweeping water / puddles.
Soldier in charge got me a ride to the community. I rode in the back of a landcruiser with two indigenous men and up front sat the white man, two guys and a woman. Along the unpaved, pot holed, clay road we bounced, we shook, we slid, we splashed, got treated like a doll having its ownership disputed by brothers. I hit my head on the roof and from then onwards, held on and ducked the whole rest of the way there. The driver, a fat, always smiling Venezuelan, didn’t want to go slower that 40kms, in a hurry and driving like in a video game, hitting the bumps for air and driving through the biggest puddles for splashes. Windscreen wipers scraped away the muddy film left. They gave the community a television and VCR – no videos yet – for the school, to teach the kids better they say. The kids and me wrote our names on the dirty car while it all happened. One kid attached a leaf to the wire on the flag pole and tried to raise it.
I left following small, indigenous, bare footed prints down the wet, sandy, clay path worn into the savannah. My 30 indigenous minutes crossing, got shortened thanks to me getting a hitch across by a tour jeep.
Oats with hot water, porridge, for three or four days, eaten with a cup of tea and the savannah and all just to avoid bank queue blues. The owner of the restaurant, big Claudio with his son that they call ‘Cabezon’ (big head), fed me rice and salad and potatoes for free, or with his heart. I ate it with a shocking sense of guilt but sure was tasty. I ate it slowly as the porridge had really filled me. I told him that he didn’t need to feel sorry for me, and that the oats were sufficient.
Everytime I eat since leaving Bolivia, I cough up phlegm in quantity. My nose is blowing out more however, this morning into a plastic bag that hosted my guava bread, so it smelt good to blow into and then was able to investigate and study the phlegm in all it mustard or yellowish green or all those three colours mixed in a filthy ménage é tói. I bushman blowed every last sticky flicking of it out in the pond and lost my balance and hearing, but clean sinuses I had. I lay in my hammock lots here, with the river of s-shaped ripples to my left and to my right, the nine children of Constantino, who walks with a crucifix stick and adorned with crucifix necklaces and pray before bed because he told me so in response to whether I could get hot water off him before bed for a cup of tea. The kids play – race wheelbarrows in no directions and fish and cry and scream and wash and splash and be barefoot wet in puddles.
Indigenous Dominoes
Cachiri – the fermented yuka and potato drink brewed by the locals – was sipped over a game of dominoes with the indigenous hustlers, who couldn’t conceal the fact they were old time domino players with their innocent indigenous looks. The way they slammed down blocks, tossed and slid blocks when they couldn’t reach, tapped the block twice rapid on the tin table when they passed, the way they kept score in their notebook, which read 4 games, 2 wins to me, 1 win to my partner and 1 loss.
I had to get walking, chef Claudio won’t boil water after 6pm and I’m hungry, thinking that my two bowls of porridge is fueling my long walks, swims, waterfall meditations and hammock thoughts. How many lonely purple flowers were in bloom along the track? I followed the heels of my own footprints home. The mama, who’s spot I took at the domino table, laughed ‘TOMA’ (take that) at her family when I blocked out the game (by laying down my block at one end, which had the same number as the block on the other end).
The man they call ‘Invalido’, spiders or crabs around on his arms / hands, dragging little legs under and behind himself. I tried to solicit a free tour since we arranged yesterday that if I paid once, I could go for free any time after, but no! He wasn’t having it, and made me walk, only sparing the enough petrol to get me across the river. (This is why I had to walk home from the game of dominoes). This morning he comes past hooting at me with wake up calls, while I lay wanting to sleep, he continued teasing me and waving his extra strong arms.
The economy of the indigenous dialect here has piqued my interest. The words seem so ‘cut short’ and abrupt and as if forced out by pounding one’s chest. The kids climbed the tree last night and made monkey sounds like earlier when they tried to scare off the birds. No monkey to see, yet monkey do.
Venezuela poems
My poem which began in Toltepec, Mexico, was concluded here in Merida, Venezuela:
I am the bare essentials of a human being,
Disassembled I come in peace,
I sit on nature’s shoulder reached
Letting my mind wander with my feet,
I’ve vagabounded over landscapes many,
But always slept under the same stars,
The closest I’ve come to finding home,
Is where I realise I’m most afar.
After Merida I eventually made it to Salto Apongao, a waterfall Paula had recommended me. Constantino, the local who rented his hut to me, helped me untangle and hang my hammock up. I laid a lot in the hammock whilst in the community, watching how they made the days tick by, here’s my account of indigenous kids, a poem:
Fish a little
Play a little
Fish a little more
Barefoot
Walk through puddles
Dirty in the raw
Wash in river
Everywhere toilet
Neanderthal yell at birds
Throw sand
Push sis in wheelbarrow
Say ‘hola’ or its Creole words
Hit the dog
Wave around a funnel
That’s just the morning in a muddle
Reality kicks in (while I’m on the ground cowering in the cold)
I took a bus from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina as my entrance into the country. My first night in Mendoza, a seemingly peaceful and developed city, I went out with a type from my hostel to a local night club. Being both drunk, we managed to lose one another in the disco, and me, having assumed that the dude had bailed for home, decided it was time to adios the disco. Walking home along the street I was all of a sudden attacked by a gang of four, who punched me to the ground and then stripped me, leaving me with only my jeans (2 jackets, a t-shirt, 3 recently acquired and much liked beads, a beanie and my skate shoes with orphotics inside).
I trembled along the street half naked in the wintry night, and not knowing how to get back to my hostel, pleaded with anyone I could find to help me out, but who would help a half naked hippie in the middle of the night?
Well someone did, and I woke up in a nice hotel bed in the morning, which the hotel didn’t charge me for, and in fact gave me from their lost property a pair of sandals and a cape. So caped and sandaled, I hobbled home, and realised I needed to do something.
So after some days trying to hunt down my assailants, I headed for Buenos Aires with the goal of working with street kids, to see if I could hopefully decrease the chance of the next tourist having to go through what I went through. So I found Fundamind, a type-orphanage place, where I would go daily to play with 2 – 5 year old children who’s parents weren’t able to look after them during the day, and eventually host 2 groups of teenage street kids, with whom I organised a soccer tournament, and later we ate cakes and they all received new shoes.
They all laughed when we spoke of my travels and about my recent robbery, and rightly so that they laughed, because in hindsight I made myself such easy prey, in a sense the begging tables were turned, as I was literally begging to be robbed, walking home down a lonely street, drunk, and with warm clothes on. Of course I am not approving what they did to me, but in a social situation like that of Argentina, one must take some precaution.
However I was rewarded in the end, by getting my hands on tickets to Boca Juniors vs River Plate, The Libertadores Cup Semi Final, one of the biggest games guaranteed for the year, and I only got the tickets thanks to my friends at Fundamind. Here’s my account of the game:
Boca vs. River ‘El Super Clasico’
Boca Juniors and River Plate in the Copa Libertadores was declared a super classic before even being played. Tickets were so called impossible to get unless you were willing to pay $70 which is 14 times more expensive than normal. I been speaking with every clown, baker and pizzamaker I knew to try and get myself a normal entrance fee of $5 but they were all agreed that no one was getting in unless they had a membership with Boca, even River fans couldn´t get tickets as adding them into the mix at the stadium would be a recipe for war.
The director of the kids foundation knew I wanted tickets and went and pulled every string, pushed every button and who knows what other tactics until on the morning of the game I was on the phone to some lady who tells me to get to the stadium asap and tell them you are looking for such and such on behalf of the president. So here is me skipping through the streets, power tripping through the window of luck once more. I got my ticket and skipped away with a Hewitt clenched fist concealing the most sought after ticket in Buenos Aires, which I was convinced people would either kiss me or kill me for.
I got to the game 2 and bit hours early coz I’d heard people arrive 3 hours early to get position. After being pad down by the endless wall of law and authority, I got in and watched the spectacular unfold. First off everyone I could see were picking apart weed in their palms, brought to my attention by the cold wofting clouds of marijuana smoke and the old guy next to me who pointed out to me the all too obvious.
Just before the game starts and I think I have royal spot, I started seeing all these ropes being flung down the aisle and tied to these bars, which I figured were for resting on. Not to be. The fans boosted one another up onto the bars and they held onto the ropes for balance, whilst they jumped, danced, and chanted up an atmosphere to the tune of drums and stoned, soothing, oooo-ing voices of the crowd.
The guys in front of me tied their windcheaters together with in what appeared to be a moment of makeshift ingenuity, however as the knots revealed, was something of years of experience. These guys saw not one moment of the game, they faced us, the fans, and danced like ketamine disco phenes for the duration of the game, blocking – in my tall case – the only one corner of the field, but for the shorter Argentinean, I assume the whole field.
For the whole first half I had my shoulder gripped by the tension of the fan behind me. I was too scared to turn around, and so let it be, with each movement of Boca forward, the grip tightened, with each movement back it loosened, with each bad pass it tightened and each good pass it tightened alike.
When the goal was scored by Boca, I experienced the passion of Argentinean soccer fans, just like a massage, all the built up tension of my masseuse was released in a moment of orgasm for him, that flowed through his hands into my scared, bony shoulders.
The game involved an on field brawl after a double red card and the game ended with 10 players against 9. The second half soccer wise was by no means super classic, however the fans, who jumped in unison and sang in chorus from whistle to whistle, was and I believe can only be, the reason why you could describe the game between these two teams super classic.
Peruvian Poverty
An email from Peru:
I arrived into Lima after a nights sleep on the airport floor. Skated around Lima helping little street kids sell toffees to tourists, they stood on the nose of my board, I stood on the tail and we rolled around from tourist to tourist. I attracted a decent amount of attention and met a heap of crew in Lima who were also heading for Cusco for the fiestas like me.
I arrived in Cusco and was straight away exposed to the Peruvian flu. Went out with this Peruvian from my little hostel, met a girl from the States and slept the next two nights in five star luxury, Novotel styles. After she left I met this Brazilian girl and we went to the market, this was where everything turned bad. Me and the Brazilian are checking out wak clothes to buy and suddenly I get this bird shit on my face, then I remembered some advice, that when a bird shits on you at the market you have probably been pick pocketed, and low and behold, my sole means of money was gone, my debit card.
Luckily I had cash stashed away, and then I hooked up with a Peruvian girl who sells beads and bracelets and all that tribal gear and she invited me back to her place where I pay 50 cents a night but share a little room with 12 other musicians and bead sellers, all broke. So now I’m learning the trade of weaving and bead making and will travel Peru with this girl producing and hopefully exploiting the too-richs.
It was a week long festival here and during the week I managed to fall asleep in one disco and in one open air rave in front of the camp fire. Thankfully mummy has sent me money through western union so I am not as stressed, but today at the same market, my girlfriend was robbed with the same technique, however she lost all the cash she had, and now we are hitting the streets and markets hard to sell to make up for it. We plan to sneak into Machu Pichu maybe in the next week, and then head back toward Lima via the sand dunes of Ica.
The hari chrisnas were really nice too, they invited us dinner, but I had to chant and sing there songs and broke out in laughter more than once, but they are super generous. peace to all.
Reflecting on Peru
I realise now, I was a puppy dog in Peru. I had been stray for 7 months up until this point, I had spent nights with girls, but never more than this, I was so curious and eager, and never felt like I wanted to settle anywhere. In Argentina I was slowing down, and Peru, well I needed love, I needed to be cared for (more so after getting pick pocketed).
I found this from Carmen; we met in an afternoon, and found each other again in the night, two gypsies on a bench, fighting over a t-shirt that was covering the respective holes in both our jeans, like puppy dogs fighting for a bone (or a blanket). We toked joints and took nips on the cane liquor; we were two more in a circle of many.
Inside the disco, we kissed and later stumbled, in the cold, hanging off or hanging onto one another up the Cusco steeps to my room. In the morning, we talked of wild adventures we would make together, and she invited me to stay at their squat. It was the kennel; I was just another puppy in this litter – cold, curled up, on the floor, underfed, trying to get by.
Some juggled, some played instruments, some were artisans, some were all, and being here, in the kennel, has brought about the most significant changes in me, self reflecting. I’m learning to juggle; I’m working less and living (that is, doing things for me) more.
After 8 months of hearing ‘the bread for today, worry about today. The bread for tomorrow, worry about tomorrow’ it was all finally kicking in, it had become a reality, a reality I was surviving as they had told me I, and anyone else would and could.
I abandoned the kennel, as many did, after Inter Raymi. Before leaving I traded my whistle for a necklace, some books for other books. I had thought my diary had been used as toilet paper when I found it in the toilet missing pages (fortunately those pages all turned up, stashed away earlier by me as they were so tattered), and so I left on an almost sour note, but Eckis (X) gave me a long, drunk speech about how its only material, and what matters is what is inside me (this had little effect on me, as I said to him, these were writings of moments in the moments themselves, my heart can’t go back to these moments and repeat them, and yes, these moments mean more to me than mere material) and though he sort of agreed, he was bent on getting the message across that nothing matters, everything is material, I guess I could dig that. Kato put a dreadlock in my hair and then I was off with Carmen to visit her father, 22 years since the last time they’d seen one another.
The trip was horrid, I had let cold avocado sit in my stomach, rather than sipping a hot tea before bed, and vomited frequently and didn’t eat for the 2 days it took to arrive, 2 days of waiting on the side of roads, feeling raggedy, wanting to sleep but wanting to move too.
A lady in a village saw us waiting and invited us into her home for tea (so ‘mi casa, su casa’), her home resembled all the others – guinea pigs scurrying on the floor, a table, a calendar sponsored by local government, an ornament of Jesus. She asked me the standard questions, while I had my ear to the street listening out for approaching vehicles.
Eventually one came, and took us all the way to the town we’re the first guy we asked in relation to where Carmen’s dad lived, happened to be her cousin, and the next guy was an uncle, then the next guy her grandpa and it was as if the whole town was somehow related, and in these old, forgotten towns in the mountains, it can be the case (remember with Deysis driving to her Grandma’s home outside of Merida and her waving and beeping the horn at every house and person in the street, a one street town where only two surnames existed).
Her dad was out working, so grandpa walked us to his home, stopping mid-street, unzipping, and peeing in the middle of the street – in a town where toilets aren’t, you pee where you please, you poo more discretely, I found a spot in front of a wide, waist high stump.
We laid down sheepskin on the earthen floor, lay down our sleeping bags, and lay down myself in preparation of Van Winkle sleep. During the stay, we went and herded cattle, rode horses, walked 4 hours over mountain to reach hot springs – I had been refusing to wash in Peru in cold water due to the chilliness of the weather.
We slept at grandpa’s and ate at dad’s. Dad and grandpa didn’t get along, and while we pretended to sleep, we overheard a terrible verbal fight between the two. We attended a ‘tinker’, hosted by Carmen’s cousin, a tinker is where the owner of cattle pierces each cow’s ear and attaches a ribbon to it, along with a necklace made from wool and onions I think. Some cattle where branded, others were injected so they would survive the cold.
We all drank ‘chicha’ and ‘cane liquour’ out of hollowed seed cups and shot glasses made from hollowed tips of horns. The kids all had lassoes and it was their job to rope in the cows, whilst they weren’t roping in cows, they roped each other.
The party ended up at the home of Carmen’s cousin, where we watched on a video, last years ‘Running of the Bulls’ event that they hold in the community. A comical bull fighting event in a bull ring, where bull’s aren’t killed, only taunted and teased, after being herded through the community from the mountains by the screeching singing of the traditionally dressed Peruvian women, and hold hands in rings, skip, dance, spin down the street singing in their way.
Liquor was being passed around continuously, Carmen’s dad was planning his tinker whilst we were there, and was preparing lots of chicha as you have to invite all that come to ‘mucha chicha’.
Because of snow, we thought the once a week bus wasn’t going to come to take us away, but late it came, and slowly we winded down the snowy road, carved into the face of the mountain. It took 24 hours before arriving to Ica, and in Ica we headed for the Oasis amidst the sand dunes.
Carmen knew the artisans who were already there, and we passed the following days, camping on the edge of the oasis, watching the Copa America in the restaurant at night, and I started producing beads and weaving some bracelets. We were growing tired of one another, we had planned to go our separate ways on a few occasions, but neither of us had anywhere to go, and I guess we needed each other in the cold nights.
We walked hand in hand up the sand dunes one night, coming so close to the stars, and just sat there together in silence until the winds picked up and we were forced down, she wanted to show me the night sky. We went now to Carmen’s mother’s house, we arrived to bad news, that her sister had been stabbed in the leg in an attempted rape just metres from the home.
While in the house, I met Carmen’s sisters and brother and son, Fabian, and we’d walk him in between us, holding one of his hands each, and swinging him over cracks in the street, over bins, over rubbish and boxes, over narrow streets.
One afternoon, while we were sitting around the house, the one light globe hanging from the ceiling began to swing, then the clock fell off the wall as the whole room trembled. Carmen grabbed and covered Fabian, her sister did the same with her child, as the room began to shake more, and in the whole 5 or 7 seconds of this tremble, the first one I have ever experienced, I didn’t realise what was happening. It wasn’t until after and they told me it was an earthquake that I figured out the obvious, and then thought about why they were panicking so much – the roof falling in really wasn’t such a far fetched thought.
We went to her local market, and cooked up meals from the hari krishna recipe book. I was totally lethargic and just laid around until my flight. I hadn’t spent this much time with anyone on my trip and I had been thinking how hard it would be to leave, but in the hecticness of the moment, it all happened to fast to realise I was gone.
My advice to those who wanna hitch hike – don’t have schedules!
A day of waiting, lying in my hammock, preoccupied writing about waiting, reading, thinking, walking in circles and thinking in circles too and getting teased and taunted by ‘Invalido’ and then at last a group arrives, a truck, but no space, ‘but you don’t understand, I have to leave’! And so there is space, but then there is rain, monsoon, in less than 20 minutes we are in a pool of rain ankle deep at least. We’re in the truck, me and the guide, guide doesn’t want to know me or deal with me, but does when we realise his group are paddling back, so we go to get Claudio to get his boat and what – No – Yes – the food delivery man has come as promised, only 8 hours late, bam, I am in his truck quicker than the rain and we’re off to Santa Elena, slowly though in his ute. The windshield is fogging up and being wiped with the pink toilet paper and we’re all laughing and getting along as we plod down the puddle-y, sandy track when –OH – where’s my little backpack, oh shit, oh fuck, and I’m straight out of the truck checking although futile, knowing it’s back in the community, but no way can he return In his truck, so I gotta say adios and unload my big pack, leave it at a home and run like with Jaya at the beach, only alone, back for the pack. I’m hurdling puddles, some so big, I stop, run back to get a faster run up and then hurdle, end up with water in my boots anyway but keep running, knowing I might catch the group before they leave and then I’ll get a ride to the crossing at least. I’m seeing the houses now, 200 metres off and here comes the jeep, they have my backpack and instructions from Claudio to ‘catch up to them!!’ and so I jump on the back on the rear bumper bar and hang on as we four wheel drive and try to catch up to see if I can’t jump back into the previous ride.
I grab my big pack and strap it on (not really, the indigenous guy did, with a fast and simple knot) I’m in the back seat now, too dangerous out the back and we go bumping along fast trying to race them down, but they’re long gone, I know, they gotta have 20 – 30 minutes on us, but I don’t care any more. I tell the tourists about my oatmeal diet and my poverty traveling and they all laugh and joke about me and give me chocolate and offer me water as I step out to take residence under a wobbly cast iron roof bus shelter. I’m figuring no cars are going to pass and so I get to roping up the hammock and just as its up, I see a ute coming from afar, I run out on the road, don’t even look for puddles, just got my mind on stopping this ute and giving myself a chance of getting the 9pm bus to Caracas (now 6.30pm-ish and Luepa is 1 hour 15 minutes away). The guy stops, tells me he is full, which inside the cabin is true, but I’m not even thinking or looking at that, I’m about the tray, big caged in and empty and he is cool with it and waits while I bring down the hammock and lug my gear across. Back again, moving, rattling along the holey and muddy and puddly road, watching the afternoon go night, stars come out, light bugs start paparazzi-ing, I’m sitting on an upside down crate, feel like a cowboy on a bull, one hand on the cage like the reigns, other hand around my backpack, like a damsel I’ve rescued and we’re fleeing for freedom. I remember then about the three necklaces I got earlier off Constantino (a swap for a nights rent not used, and some tea bags) and I figure it all out, each represents a ride of the journey out of Salto Apongao, it was all destined and my mind is churning crazy in the back of the ute, too much emotional swinging, like a broken metronome. I felt down while I waited, semi up with the ride to the crossing, up with the ride to Santa Elena, crashed down when I forgot my backpack, rising up again with backpack and the ride to the crossing, and over the moon when driven to the bus stop at the soldier fort, passing my original ride in the process, and chilling with the soldiers until my bus arrived at 9pm.
Following the strays
I wanted to ride to the Quebrada del Diablo (The Devil’s Canyon), but I wasn’t going to pay a tour guide, I was going to do it solo on the hostel owner’s daughter pushbike. So while the moon was still babysitting the sky, I crept out the hostel and headed for the bakery.
Fresh, warm bread rolls, and a gram of raisins and I was pedaling one handed, the other hand holding the map that made it all look so close and easy. The fresh goodness of bread in the morning smell was filling the streets, and soon I had two stray dogs wanting to crew with me (so long as they didn’t snatch, like the episode in Peru after I had been vomiting for the whole night before, hadn’t eaten the whole following day and in the evening whilst lying on the side of the road, camping out till the morning for a ride, I put my only bread roll, with only one bite taken from it, next to my head, in a bag, and I watched the bag hover up, but assumed it was my girlfriend, as I watched the bag hover away from my head, I lifted myself onto my elbow and turned to watch a cunning stray, wander off with my meal. Gutted in the gutter – literally).
So we rode down lonely dirt roads, still asleep roads, and it was an easy ride other than the crossing rivers, because to cross the rivers I needed to walk the bike, and I had worn thongs, and the river was icy, and so I pedaled as fast as I could after crossing these rivers, hoping my feet would warm, and to some extent they did, but I still let the thought of frostbite, bite away at my mind. We had gone about 3 kilometres, and I really had expected the dogs to drop off, having not received nor one crumb, but they remained loyal, although with obvious ulterior motives.
After following this clayish road for long enough, we came to a camp of tents, and so I dropped the bike and went to ask them whether I had I rode too far, or whether I still had long to go, and I was told it was just round the corner. So back on the bike, I took the next right and entered the Devils Canyon.
There were paths leading everywhere, and it was under such ominous shadows cast by the canyons. I didn’t know which path to follow, so I let the dogs lead me, and we spent hours climbing rocks, picking up crystals that were lying round like clothes in a messy room, entering caves, and eventually finding a nice rock to sit on, make raisin sandwiches, and eat and write this song, that came out really punk rockish, well that’s what I think:
Stray dogs
Stray dogs are my leaders - Down the devils path
We’re collarless and dollarless - Engulfed in shadows cast
By ominous rocks overhead - I’m resting on the sand
I’ve walked and watched the sun rise up - over the stillest land
Will make it one way or another - Cunning we’ll survive
Inhabitants in an inanimate world - With geckos and dragonflies
I’m the bare essentials of a human being - Disassembled I come in peace
Known alone anonymous otherwise - A feather being blown around by the breeze.
And so it ends again …
My trip was ending, I was in Spain, I was at Grandma Lines’ house, where I had stayed in the summer of 2000, I was in a bed again, I had hot water again, I had a fridge – and food inside it, somewhere to cook – without having to gather firewood or blow on cinders to ignite the last meals fire. I started to think about how stray I had been, how difficult I made living, but how much more exciting and interesting it had all become. Out came this:
Hook:
I’ve been wandering stray no destination never lost
Coz where I am is where I am and while y’all gathering moss
I’m on the roll with my thumb out and wherever I land
I’m never lost coz where I’m going is exactly where I am
Verse:
See the shaggy headed skinny ragged child thumbing the road
Dragging his feet hunched over hungry walks his own rhythm of slow
He’ll get there when he gets there but where there is nor he knows
Says the sky of clouds are calling so up the mountain he goes
Speaks with farmers from pueblos exchanges food for his old clothes
Also they point him towards tranquility their fingers he follows
He ascends, one foot in front of the other and on the tenth
Step he sits down on natures shoulder and then
Steps until the peak and see the perfect two trees
Hangs his hammock up picks an orange now he’s at peace.
Other post wandering rhymes
She slipped her hand down the back of my jeans,
I had my arm around her shoulder we’re walking whilst we’re talking bout dreams,
She has flown beyond the clouds and through the eye of a hawk,
She danced with pigmies in Africa in one thought,
Whilst I was in a jungle, a need to be with the plants,
Learnt about the weather conversing with the ants,
The traffic’s disruptive; we halt at corners patient
We shiver coughing together like the doctors’ patients
Its grey and smoky, we sleep on cardboard in concrete
We’d freeze to death if we couldn’t hug under these sheets
The contrast between the now and our nightly wanderings,
Is drastic like the thought of the time we’re squandering,
In cities pondering how we get ourselves out of here,
Find the freeway with our thumbs or jump a train when coasts clear,
We loathe fear, hunters in Las Vegas we’re not,
Prepare shots of cane liquor we’ve shared lots
To keep warm when huddled on the ground next to the embers,
Gypsies carried by dreams, vivid enough to remember,
We head towards what we know will find us first
Dreaming and walking together, hand in hand with the earth.
More wandering words:
My hands are clean like why eat with cutlery
talk with an empty stomach save my mouth for gluttony
tastes better when hungry, when i'm starving no taste
no need to wash plates, i'm cleaning crumbs with my tongue
tilt the bowl verticle, and lick whats left till its dry
like clock bells on the hour, my hungers heard city wide
unashamed like skinny strays when they're scrapping for scraps
we're motherless puppies, share the floor for night naps
and its cold always, cardboard on the cement
no carpet or matress, we pay free rent
in abandoned anywheres, clandestine lairs
desolate angels, halos around mangy hair
so carry me caravan, take me away
the doors are always open, i'm a make for freeways
my stories my currency i ride trucks the free way
gypsy liberty i'd like to say that i'll stay
please don't say i'm selfish, don't say i betray
she me we paved plenty of paths laid
under the moon we're still together like when we slept in the grass waiting for rides to passsssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
And now, here it all is in a nutshell:
I vagabounded from valley to rainforest to farms,
From lakes to rivers to beaches, I bathed and swum,
From waterfalls to deserts to salt plains I was astounded,
With crop-less farmers and parentless kids I was grounded,
I wandered from place to place, the stray skinny wolf,
Content to work for two meals, four walls and a roof.
