Chapter Eleven: The Dream We Drank

A thick woolen blanket is wrapped around my neck, it itches and the weight lays heavy as it pushes and kicks against my already tired shoulders. She’s too old to travel like this, but we have no choice. It’s cold out and walking gives a sense of some warmth. We hurry against my breath. Her eyes little shadows of brown in the folds of fabric. My arms beneath her. She is five. “Tell me the story about the captains of ice-cream boats and the kidnap junkies who took mama.” She says “Tell me about how you were great once papa.” But I can never tell her. All I can do is wake up to the weep.

Under another unfamiliar roof where the sun can’t access me directly I sip a cold Aguila, one of my few weapons against the war on heat. Alert level adjustment. Belly up against the bar, I meet a man who got here thru a garage door, a sex motel where the cab pulls directly into the room so nobody can see who gets out. A laminated menu of sex toys framed against the mirrored walls. The bill comes up in a dumbwaiter along with whatever else you need. A traveler with a band-aid that he wears like a badge of pride. Look how dangerous this is. Look at me man. No hands. A land-mine model for the cool kids. The war on the thick continues.

            Tell the homeless to go home. Each traveler more racist than the day before. The Chileans hate the Peruvians, everybody hates the Argentineans and the Israelis are a given. Out of sight they demand, as we conquer more and more. Our vision rants and haunts the thick. Quenches it with the reliability of a quick fix. We jimmy-rig the future just seconds prior to walking thru it. We get our news from our immediate surroundings. Those around us become pundits. In these moments this man sitting next to me is my reporter. This bar is his backdrop. The open view of Santa Marta streets gives the weather report. Every time I interject I change the station. Every time he rejects my remarks we fight over the remote. Every metaphor cheapens and waters down how urgent this fight is.

           

                                                          This is where I am.

           

Where cocaine goes on the hotel bill. Where stretch marks are for junkies instead of fat. Holes so big you need a license to scuba dive. Which itch would you like to scratch today…You want it to be warm? Here we are. You want the ocean? There it is. You want a beautiful woman? There she goes. You want to get high? Have at it in public. Now what do you really want? After you’ve had all these things you will need to ask with the sincerity of a dying mans heart…and what should you ask for then, some sleep, the happiness of those you love, for a breath? Well just invite it in with the devil, with the travel, with the conquest, with the good company of desire.

            Santa Marta is the oldest standing city in Colombia. Here we are being the oldest we could be. It’s Independence Day here. The usual show of firepower is shown to celebrate. I stay up drinking with the bartender till the people slowly go the way of the buffalo. We hop in a cab and enter the exit of this city at around 2 a.m. 15 minutes out in a taxi for a girl’s birthday party. There are no speakers at her house and a strange little man drives a car drunk to steal some from his mother. I become a topic of conversation. I fade. I come back in. A man who owns a restaurant here asks me to spend the day shopping for art with him. A girl asks me to jump the border with her. I ask myself if this is what I came for. I feel to comfortable in this scenario.

I just want to swim, being out of breath in the ocean seems to be the only thing that calms me. The further the breakers are, the calmer I get. I’ll be almost thirty before I accept death and space-travel.  Admit I will do both. I’ll be almost forty before my heart breaks. I climb a coconut tree and cut down the pipas with a machete.

            Out in the water a man in a kayak rows up to me as I struggle for a swim. He asks me if I want to rent his kayak, I say no. He asks me if I want to buy any weed, I say no. He asks me if I want any Colombian women, I say no. He winks and rows off easily into the future.

            We take the bus 18 hours back to Medillin. A drunken bus driver kicks us off the road for two hours till a tow truck driver comes. We laugh because we have nothing else. We eat painkillers so we can sleep. We drive the pages of books down the lanes of memories so we can feel accomplished. We loose days.

They are already playing my record when we enter the city limits. They already know what I drink. Gather around with kisses on the cheek. How easy is it to recreate the life I had with the twist I want. How obvious is that failure evident. Very. Back in Medillin I think you can guess a frame of mind. I have my first show out of the country this week. Excitement dog piles execution rifles. I wont cheap poet anymore. I got my visa extended. So for another thirty days I will indulge. In Peru I will abstain. Between I will revolt. Everything I’ve been saying. Next time will be all A’s and B’s I promise. 

Chapter Ten: A bright light in a whorehouse.

I came here to beat it out of me, put in so much work there’s nothing but the dog left. Nothing but the animal that knows all it can about the world it lives in. Roams it with confidence and understanding. Violence in its smile, gusto in its step. I have found an ally in the town of Taganga where the jungle and dessert meet at the sea to share rum and thunderstorms with fishing-boat smugglers and the treasure hunters of the Sierra Nevadas. It’s here I will hone my Spanish, deep sea dive, and work my way thru the jungle. Swim further and further out into the ocean than I ever have before. Never be less and break all my own records for land speed, vice, cunning, and agility. We will make this home for a couple weeks as we big adventure thru the landscape and hold out for my visa to expire so I can get it renewed, as I am not yet ready to leave Colombia. Salt licks the wounds here. Cacti jut from cliff faces to knock the clouds back and forth around the ring. The ocean kicks the sand up and the wind hustles it back down. Perfect.

In Cartagena we matched ourselves against the heat dressed in Mexican wrestling masks made from the sweat of ex-booze. The city teems with the aggressive mentality of Jamaican ghettos. I feel like I’m out gunned once again, not prepared for the local talents of swindle. My street smarts are strong but you loose concentration in the heat after keeping your guard up for days on end. It wears on you. Puts stress marks in a decent heart. Never bring a condom to a bullfight.

We get swept into a nightclub by a little man with a smile so jutted and crooked you could roll dice down it. A giant metal door from the first war (ever) closes behind us by the will of two men larger than us. After fifteen worried strides inside we realize this is no nightclub it’s a whorehouse. We turn to retreat and the power cuts out. Dark engulfs us and I put my hands out to either side prepared to swing and lightly sway my fists. Ben takes our captors by surprise, of course he has a flashlight watch. He attacks bright beams of light over hookers and would be thieves alike, as back to back we retreat to an exit we find with the instincts and execution of two skilled men in what feels like a well-planned jailbreak.

Outside there’s no air to breathe relief into, just more quick steps to take weighed down by the cargo of new perspiration. At night this cities thick walls and streets let out the heat captured by the sun in the day and its twice as hot. Twice as mean. We eat cold seafood cocktails packed to the brim in styrofoam cups. We kick back beers in satchels like we were trying to water all of Afghanistan, but even with our resources stocked up the war doesn’t stop. This land is all throat. No one wants to quit. The more it hurts the more you feel you gotta push on to justify the pain.

One good experience can change everything though, make a place you never wanna go back to become a place you're proud you’ve been. You have to stick it out in towns like this, suffer multiple beatings before it gives you a little kiss...but one sweet peck from a city as mean as this is all it takes to make you fall in love. Boast with pride about her lips on you. A restaurant named Esta Es El Punto does just that. The most amazing owners, food, people. Locals who can see you’ve sweated thru it to find them and deserve a good meal. Fish, rice, soup, plantains, and fresh juice swarm around you and bring you into their fold. Hunker you down and serenade you on the cheap. Tell you you're pretty. We made it. A city like this is all or nothing but once you've found your key it unlocks everything. Skeleton to the full. Things fall in place after that. Reception is granted. Thank you. 

When they say sausage they mean hot dog. When they say spread they mean mango jelly. When they ask you if you want something they’re telling you that you do. It’s a four hour bus ride from Cartagena to Taganga, we get here in seven. We gave up the ship ride into Panama so we can afford our motorcycles in Peru. The jungles cheaper. Taganga is amazing. Excitement crawls in at the first sight. Today we climb. Tomorrow we dive. Here we are. Fishing, skipping stones, smiling into the eyes of the big adventure. Found it again and even though I know it will be lost again as well. My campaneros, it feels good to hold it close today and the day after. Organizing an event for September in Peru and it aint South Americas most lazy feral dog competition. Video soon, Lets see who shows up. Signing out, from the thick. 

Chapter 9: Motorcycle dance boats

Just when I start to wonder why one of the men in charge of running the boat has been staring at my foot tattoo for so long I realize he’s passed out with his head in my legs direction and BOOM we’re off. Speeding down the Caribbean Ocean in a boat meant for 8 but packed with 30 an hour away from any other shore. Why did I bring my laptop I wonder as water drifts and fights over the edge onto my bag. Because I had no idea what I was getting into that’s why. Leaving this island is nothing compared to how we got here. Let me start halfway up the top, it takes us back to Medillin.

Have you ever had a girl you’ve never met before in a strange country you’ve never been before come up and ask you into your ear if you will “fuck her to your new record?” Have you ever slid down into the Colombian ghetto of oblivion with makers and drunks writhing to the music, with a couple of journalists twisted on cheap rum?  Have you seen the mansions with yachts, made music videos on the side streets of hostels. Had a man insist you dance with his wife with as much offer as threat, then invite you to dinner. Had the locals chase each other down in the streets over you. Been left alone without a language. Decided art lived above love and cities died over strangers. Been invited to stay, been coerced to play. Racked up a bar tab like a shopping list for Ethiopia.  Been treated well and had to leave because that’s what you do, even though you want to keep on, you cant stop the big adventure for anyone or anything. That’s the only rule.

In Medillin after all the taxes are said and done, there’s only two categories. There’s no wanna-be-cool-hipster-dj-drug-deal-rich-kid-shes-a-whore-beef. There’s just this. Either you dance or you don’t. And if you don’t dance may the good catholic lord come down and break your legs himself before they do. I can fake my way thru getting up fine off a motorcycle accident and it looks just like it when I do. So I Just move the hips, swing em all the way to the airport where we fly into the Caribbean city of Cartegena instead of taking the 13 hour bus ride. Halfway thru the sky and my anxiety kicks in, what have I done, where’s all the money, who was that man. It stays with me for the first 16 hours of the new city and I have to retreat for the night to lock myself in my hostel room that looks more like a prison cell in purgatory. At least I’m alone in here though. At least it’s away from the pushers and pimps.

Cartegena is beautiful at about a hundred degrees and a hundred percent humidity.  Lets just make the joke and say it’s breathtaking. I have to choke down air like rock salt. Everyones trying to sell you something and saying no just doesn’t work. You have to be as diligent about not buying as they are about getting you to. Walk the thin line between offense and violence. The city itself is separated by three walls that divide each old section. Giant colossal ancient protectors from flood and war. They seem to be batting a low average for success. Rain rips thru the streets and battle scars are everywhere. The food is fruit, rice, and fish. I can deal with that. An old fortress towers above the city where the virgin statues normally go. It is pretty here, reminds of New Orleans, but I have to keep reminding myself that IT IS PRETTY HERE. I see obstacles.

We hear about an island to the north that can maybe hold off a little of this heat exhaustion till we come to our senses. We decide to test our navigational skills. We take a taxi to what appears to be the seediest part of town, where our taxi literally just cuts-off/blocks-in a bus on the road while it honks vigorously and we attempt to get on it like bad movie hijackers. Small negotiations and the driver agrees. The bus rides us for about two hours into the jungle thick where a young man assures us we should get off with him and he can help guide us walking to the closest ferry. Like idiots not sure where we were headed we’ve brought all our packs with us and my loads sitting at about a hundred pounds plus my laptop bag.  We walk thru a small village where the man appears to make jokes with the villagers about us. After about fifteen minutes we get to an old bullet ridden sign that says ferry with a sunken barge on the other side. A large platform pulled by a fishing boat comes along and a few trucks carrying cement get on. We lower our heads in the despair of two men who have passed the point of no return and follow the trucks on foot. They charge us a buck and the barge begins to float cross river. As we approach the other side we see a large gang of 17-year-old banditos on motorcycles and the man on the boat shouts over “I’ve got two, which of you wants em first.” At this point the sentiment between Ben and me goes from “this is what the big adventures all about” to “Ohh fuck.”

On the other side the kids fight to get at us each one on his motorcycle telling us that they can get us the rest of the way to the island with our backpacks if we just jump on, it will only take an hour. My immediate thought is that as soon as we get on the bikes they will split us up and that will be that. But after talking it over for a split second we realize at this point there’s not much choice…we are this side of the river crossing with nobody but us, them, two truck drivers, and a gruff medieval looking ferry captain. None of the above could give two shits if we live. We mumble a tentative yes and off we go on the backs of motorcycles carrying two backpacks a piece on our shoulders. Thru mudslides, dense forest, off road terrain. Stops and starts where we loose sight of each other for miles, but In an hour there’s a heavy sigh of relief. We can see the beach. They charge us 7 bucks a piece, shake our hands, and disappear as we walk the rest of the way. Fuck that was close. Fuck that was plenty. Fuck.

The waters is beautiful, the beach is the white typical sand this region is famous for. We stay in hammocks and eat fish and fruit the locals sell to us. Its good. Life passes by between naps and salt water. Nothing makes you miss a woman more though than being stranded on a beautiful island with another man. We tire after two days of the quiet sun being sucked up into the end of the earth and hitch a boat ride that brings us back around to a captain sleeping at my foot tattoo.

Back in Cartegena we have to decide if we head north for a 6 day hike thru the jungle or set to the seas for five days aboard a cargo ship for the San Blas islands just to the side of the Panamanian border. The mosquitoes will chew the rest of my either way. Just a walking carcass for their itch.  Choose your own adventure, from the thick. My campaneros.