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.

Chapter 8: The missing links

The city streets are littered with amputees, their feet and arms gone along with the old infrastructure of Medillin. The movement of the Zona Rosa leaving them even further displaced. Lying on their backs and huffing glue, hobbling along the sidelines of my peripheral vision, best kept in the graces of god than the pennies of men. I guess. One of them wildly whips a cane at me from the ground and howls. We are all missing something here. Theirs is just more visible than mine. In a country where landmines still kill 3 people a day and take the limbs of many more we seem to glide by them like hovercrafts ripped out of the back pages of a boy-scout magazine.

Our two legs propel us to the dolce donut shop with ease. I know immediately when Ben leaves me to check on the train that something is gonna go wrong. I sense small danger and sugar-glazed goodness. When he doesn’t return for almost 25 minutes I start to go thru all the scenarios of what I should do (sell his stuff/claim his identity/hack his facebook account/eat donuts forever/go for help.) Finally he returns, he had gotten a good old-fashioned shake down by the cops for walking too fast. He had his multi-tool knife with him and they took him down a long hallway to meet “the captain” who snarled and dismissed him with the wave of a hand. I believe the policia who nabbed him were disappointed with their lack of bounty for he had already entered into bargain mode.

            Prostitution is legal down here and the old gringos make me sick with it. Women and the talk of them are in the air everywhere. It’s hard to find a place to escape, and even harder not to loose my tongue or worse my fists. Luckily we have the most beautiful hostel room overlooking the city. We will hold up here for a whole week.

            In Colombia it’s hard to decipher exactly what a shop sells or does. I walk by one where an 80 year-old lady sits behind a desk with an alarm-clock on it and a pig shaped stuffed animal. Nothing else in the room, and I have to decide if I should ask her to make me breakfast. Today I don’t. Tomorrow I will. In a land of no menus, chances are for 5000 Colombian Pesos ($2.50) she will whip me up something with potatoes in it, as long as I have exact change. It’s expected.

            I have decided to only learn my Spanish from the South American politicians I watch on TV. I have decided to free the prostitutes into a hot air balloon. I have decided that the best way to work out is with the concrete buckets of cement on the corner with the locals. That’s where Ben is now. I have decided to make a music video in Colombia. I have decided to turn the landmines into Mexican jumping beans.

            What I haven’t decided though is what I want out of all this and how I should feel about drinking milk out of a bag. Everything comes in bags down here.

When I left out on the big adventure I thought it was a means to an end. A goal in and of itself. Now that I am on it though I realize that even the big adventure needs a purpose too. So from the city of 5 names before this one and the master plan. Medillin dubbed the most violent city in the world up until 2003. What better place to let these ideas miss limbs, clash, and war until one prevails with all the beauty of this city. All the heart of this country. I haven’t had much to eat yet today and therefore no descriptions to give you as we head north and then eventually south to put our feet on the end of the world. Let me just say it’s well worth the price of it. Even in a dark night of the soul. My campaneros. I miss you. 

Chapter 7: Kill The busdriver and the Australians

         The turquoise greens and tomato oranges of the houses and huts that freckle the landscape slowly disappear into the dust as the violent green of the jungle overtakes them one by one. The vines and tall grasses raise up as if to strike the bus and sometimes do. The windows sealed shut, the AC blaring in the night, the drivers ranchera music pounding thru the skull. 3 hours outside of the capitol of Colombia with the worst hangover since Caligula sodomozed the Roman empire and then spit wine up their ass. On a 12 hour bus-ride down slow dirt that would make me re-think my entire trip. Serotonin depletion.
        Two kiwi blokes I hope to the lord I never see again had kept us up drinking bottles of rum till the sun pissed in our eyes. I curse the day were born. I frown with great disdain upon the land they come from. I blame only them for throwing up 10 times in 12 hours. I finally get a dip of sleep to the thought I have to accept that my life will be like this forever, locked in this self made prison barreling down this  ditch of a road at 6 miles an hour. Onward. Slowly forward.
       We arrive in San Gil around midnight with the worried look of two boys who have just been beaten badly. Our room of 6 beds is empty except for us. We lie down to see if we can sleep away the scars. We can. In the morning we eat avocados and fresh pineapple juice and  hike a few miles up the river to a local swimming hole. The water thick and muddy. The desire to swim gone with the midday. Thunderstorms roll in and cover the jungle in fog. A general feeling of "fuck" seeps into me. Holds the hand and breath of an outsider.
        This small jungle town stares at me with every eye. Glares at me with every tooth. I long for the warm smile of someone I know, I can only seem to loose this loneliness between the pages of The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao. I sit to read and get lost. Ghost in the machine. Autopilot for pages.
        We hike further into the jungle to a 180 meter waterfall. We meet two kids from Mexico City that we get along with and remind us of ourselves. We head out with them and the girls who run the hostel to a discotheque on the edge of town, its surrounded by armed military guards. The feeling pervades. Stairways make bedrooms. Hot heads make wall marks. Who knows what Ben did.
         Its our plan to travel with the Mexico City boys up to Medellin but we grab the last seats on the bus, another 13 hour ride, this time at night so we don't loose a day or have to pay for a room in the city that night. The buses are plastered with religious paraphernalia and roadblocks so frequent merchants have set up permanent stores where the traffic backs up. You don't wanna look out the window into oncoming traffic, it will make you tear up, over canyon edges and fog semi's race at your nuts.
        Finally in Medillin, I have fallen in love with this city. Only a few hours in, I will let you know how the affair goes. The jungle weaves in and out of it as does the beautiful architecture as it switches from colonial to art deco. From the longest bus-ride in the world. From the home of American heartbreak. From where they loose their minds and go AWOL. From the wild world of starches. 6 different kinds of potatoes, roots, and rice later. I see you from the thick as we head north towards the coast and Panama. My campaneros.


      

Chapter SIx: The Botero Yogurt

She had a body like a bag of yogurt that in two days time I would learn resembled a Botero painting of the Mona Lisa almost precisely. Young, fat, and white European. Just because I explain the skin don’t think I got in it. I did not, but she was with us when we entered the bar after it was closed. The soon to be fired bartender insisted that we help ourselves and so we did. Sometimes crime can hold you like a familiar hug in times of loneliness, so the four of us drank and swapped stories until the sun came up. I know a man named Kevin suffered from elephantitus of the ball-sack in Panama. He in turn knows I’ve been shit on. I slept in my clothes next to Ben and woke up in Colombia laughing.

Colombia seems to have four kinds of enforcers, the military, the rebels, the policia, and the street security. Police impersonation is a common thing but I can always smell a cop. They always have a tell. It’s a little threatening to see 17-year-old kids walking around with machine guns but so far they seem to only stare at my tattoos with vague interest. We will see how they become at the roadblocks when I obtain my motorcycle.

Bogotá is a giant colonial city of skinny streets and long winded turns. The buses barely slow down to pick you up and the music never sleeps. The song only changes slightly as you move from bar to room to bus to street. 2640 meters above sea level on the Eastern side of the Andes Mountain Range. A giant church and statue of the Virgin Mary tower above it to the north of the city. Illuminated they guide the way back to the hostel at night where the bathroom is so small that both your head and knees press against the wall while you sit against the toilet. The beds are clean, the bar is cheap, the hammocks swing, and the internet works. Shots of the local aguardiente cost about a buck and its a strong anise liquor. Today we head a few miles up the crease of the Andes Mountains to a local church where they make the stuff out back infused with coca leaves and cinnamon.               

Breakfast here seems to consist of eggs, two different breads, and hot chocolate for you to dip your cheese in. Up here by a village in the mountains we eat blood sausage and potatoes and you can see out over the entire city from here. The ghetto sprawls and spills from the west down into the south. Bandits patrol the roads on the mountain next to us so we don’t hike that way. A train can be seen that goes straight thru a tunnel in the range. A little girl of only about 7 breaks my heart with a smile. We stop to drink tea here.

 Me and Ben decide we need to add a butcher knife to our family. Shopping lists are made as we prepare for our 7-hour bus ride into San Gil where we will repel 60 Meters down a waterfall and sleep in the shade of it. But tonight we will drink this bottle we bought on the mountain and sing songs to the moon in the streets. Down here amongst the beggars, glue junkies, and women we howl.  Up on the right stuff. Gone with the first glimpe. Like Boteros artwork both boisterous and unaffected. Both inspired and unsuspecting. I guess kinda like that young girl. We move fluid like a bag of yogurt.

From the longest mountain range in the world. From the birthplace of coffee and cocaine. From the fingertips of the big adventure. 6 bowls of carne asada soup and a couple bottles of Club Colombia beers later. From the thick my campaneros. I see you and raise you one. 

Chapter Five: Nobody Knows What They Wont Say

What had happened to us in Austin? Stuffed like sardines into tin-can rooftop pools. Laughing at the overemotional women of sin. 105 degrees of heat. I overhear someone saying “Its hotter on the roof because we’re closer to the equator.” I disregard it into some sort of frozen sweet-tea margarita.            

My night in El Paso had been without much incident. Wandering the streets close to the freeway where plastic bags served as eerie incandescent leaves on bushes and cacti alike. Never discriminating. Running my hand across the border fence into Mexico where it reminds me of recess schoolyard fights. A Mariachi band that goes on at midnight drowns out the song I’m writing in my head. I sleep riddled with coughs so punctual they double as an alarm clock. I have a rash on my arm, it itches and worries me. I wake up on time because of both.

Billy and Mark pick me up from the Austin airport. I can already tell this is gonna be as good as bad news gets. We grab Corey from Steve’s house and head straight for the one thing Austin knows best besides BBQ and skinny chicks. Cheap Tex Mex and beers.  Summer and Murph come to join us and I can see the shit-show in their eyes. Gonna have to cut dead weight before too long. Alliances will have to be destroyed then mended down the line. Future trips for peacekeeping missions.

No exact details can quite be discerned from this weekend. A small checklist of debauchery that allowed for ample room to survive. Best-case scenarios were achieved. We allowed each other the room to maneuver when we bled in the water. When we normally would have surrounded and exploited the small weaknesses (i.e. I need to go home, or I cant do another one) like a team of sharks on a bender motorcycle.

Small white in the morning, Closed eyes at a table, toilet breaking secrets in the bathroom, wounds from fire, air raids on the mini bar. These are just a few of my favorite things. Singing voice not included. Sophia saved me from loosing and became a beautiful voice of reason. Bobby lost his shit and stayed the same. Mark still amazes me with his fearless relentless drive at insane recreation. Billy is always last man standing and has more philosophies than chest hair. It’s a lot. Corey made the trip what it was for me. A thick line in the sand.

 Austin was the closest feeling to home I was gonna get for a while. Mexico City showed me that. Truckloads of cops who never turned their sirens off. The strange mix of commerce and revolution. One of them always advertising for the other. The women were beautiful, the language barrier extensive. I wandered and wandered, sometimes like a roadrunner sometimes like a beast. Roamed and combed over the city walls looking at the graffiti. Eating tacos in the dark. I was scared I might get arrested if I pissed in the street but I did it anyway. I constantly apologized to strangers under my breath. I’ve been quiet since I got here....waiting to see Ben in Bogotá. Impatient to learn this language already. Jokes are my only line of defense against the staring eyes of foreign predators.

Here it was along with my first threat of violence.  I saw a car wreck from about 2 feet away outside of the old soldiers pavilion on revolution road. Debris smacked into the crotch of my Levis. I whistled at it like it was a gorgeous girl. Someone smiled at me. And just like that I had told my first inside joke. No language required. Only incident.

From my chicken crossing the road to yours. From ten thousand miles away. From the banks of the largest city in the world. 6 cubana tortas and a few pig skins later.

I’ll see you in the thick.  My campaneros.