bip bip bip

from there i walked a few more kilometers, was terrified by this really gnarly looking bum who was following me (i was still stoned i guess), when i get a ride from fernando, who is going all the way to culiacan, a good 600~km ride. i was worried about being dropped off in culiacan which is apparently the narco capital of mexio, and in general, sinaloa apparently isn't the nicest place. but what i didn't know is that fernando was one of the most dangerous men in mexico. on the way i tell him about how i expected to be on my knees, nose running, tears streaming, face pulsing from my first bite of mexican food. he looks at me with an impish grin and suggests we get some dinner. he pulls over at this place in some town i can't remember or maybe i never learned the name and tells me that this is where he takes his mom to eat. he orders, among other things, a huge plate of peppers which he starts picking at. "your turn!". oh fuck. well. when in rome. i pick up a medium sized pepper and bit into it. not bad. i eat it, and another, and another, and things are starting to burn... i keep eating the peppers (and these delicious onions) and i feel my face about to explode...tears are streaming, my nose is runnning, i don't think i've ever felt pain like this before...

after my nose cleared and the pulsing stopped i felt really good. like, really good. "you like?" fernando asks. i tell him in broken spanish that i loved it and i love very spicy things which honestly wasn't true before those peppers.

we arrive in culiacan and i try, without actually saying it, to crash on his couch or something. no go. he drops me off at this huge park and tells me it's safe...maybe, but there's no way i'm sleeping outside alone in the middle of culiacan. i get this shitty hotel which at the very least, has hot water. some dude knocks on two seperate occasions, creeping me out. i try to watch tv but the cable is cut. i fall asleep bored.

i wake up and get some coffee. this dude who looks like a mafia boss sits in front of me and starts speaking perfect english. i tell him what i've done so far, my plans, blah blah blah. he tells me that he has a great deal of respect for me but that i am fucking crazy, blah blah blah. then he goes on this speech for a good hour about how if i so much as talk to anyone in mexico i will be murdered, people will knife me for my underpants, you know, all that good stuff. okay, sure, whatever. he tells me where a truck stop is and asks me what the rule of latin america is. i remember raze the stray by neurosis and tell him that i must mistrust to survive, avoid being burned alive, and before i can finish quoting the song, which wouldn't have really made sense in that context anyways, he tells me that i am right, don't fucking trust anyone. i thanked him and left.

i walked for what seemed like hours out of culiacan, where i got picked up by a car full of bees.

from there i got some rides? i forget how many? all in the back of pickup trucks to mazatlan.


the best ride that went the furthest had a cooler loaded with beer. the driver told me i could have as much as i wanted, which was fucking awesome. what wasn't so awesome is every 20 minutes he'd stop and get himself one, which kind of made me want to drink them all before he could...but i was reminded of a friends words in hermosillo. "matt, i don't mean to alarm you but...we mexicans are very good at drinking and driving!". i thought about this a little bit and felt reassured, and besides, we were getting into the jungle and it was fucking beautiful, who cares if the driver is tipsy?

i get to mazatlan and it's pretty sketchy. i wish i was dropped off before but it's too late. i am a huge baby and sleep at a love hotel. i don't have anyone to love though, and the room is huuuuuge for my needs. i try to watch some pornos on the tv and get this:

well holy fuck, it's the silver surfer and his friends harry potter and optimus prime. i am randy just thinking about it.

mexico is fucking weird.

next morning i walk out of mazatlan and get a ride with a mail man, which is pretty slow for the amount of distance covered...because he's delivering mail to all these rural houses. then i manage to hitch a bus, the driver doesn't care if i don't have any money. this causes some problems when the drivers change and the new boss wants my ticket. no pase! no dinero! a man selling roasted corn comes to the drivers aid. "he's asking if you have MONEY!" i fucking know, shut up. i tell the driver again, no dinero! and the roasted corn man keeps saying the same shit over and over again. i show the driver a couple US quarters i have in my pocket and show them to the driver. he sighs. i ask the driver yo vamos? and make a gesture to the bus door and he grumbles and starts driving.

i arrive in tepic and it's getting dark. it's a beautiful city with a huge amazing mountain on the outskirts. i wander around a long time and think about going back home. i really need to take a shit and all the bathrooms are out of paper and my paper was left somewhere. i walk for hours, lost, trying to figure out the road to puerta vallarta and finally find the exit. i see a group of seven or so street kids hitching and hang out with them for a bit before finding a fantastic hill where no one can see me and i sleep under the stars on the most beautifully clear night. i wake up wet, being victim of the first and only rain i've experienced in mexico thus far. i'm lucky.

i hitch out and my ride is this guy who works in communications who knows good english and hates americans. he is pretty awesome except for when he mentions mark zuckerberg and starts stuttering about how much of a genius he is. totally taken by zuckerberg's...uhh, i don't know, some positive attributes that i can't understand, i quickly try to change the subject, which works after about 5 minutes of this guy in a religious coma for facebook. me, being me, i have had a ton of awkward experiences in my life. maybe more than most people, i don't know. but this was definitely one of the most awful. in fact, just recalling this experience was enough for me to re-deactivate my page on that awful site. nice guy though!

anyways, he drops me off in puerta vallarta and the city is stupid. it's america in a beautiful jungle. it's new years. i know there will be some big parties but i have a huge backpack and also am not too interested in bourgie raves. fuck that. i get a couchsurfing host in manzanillo and he tells me to try to go there for new years, which i am convinced i can do. i try to hitch out of town and there's only a bunch of americans in nice cars driving out, and these assholes don't pick me up in america, they sure as hell aren't doing it here. i walk a couple kms out of the city, walking past resort after resort in the dark until i give up and hop over a fence and crash on a beautiful beach. it turns out the fireworks are being launched maybe 100m away from me, which is pretty cool and though i am not very interested in fireworks, it was pretty great being the only human outside of the detonators around seeing them so close. i fall asleep with a smug smile knowing that people in the resorts have paid hundreds of dollars for their bullshit.

the next morning i hitch out on some adventure bus thing that tourists pay hundreds of pesos to ride on the back of a truck. people are in the back and i get in the drivers seat. hahaha. driving out of vallarta is incredibly beautiful, much better than vallarta itself. from there i get a series of truck rides to manzanillo. i take a bus into town, and the driver is sitting on a sub puts in a cd of ridiculous house music and tunes that were popular in the north two years ago. he then proceeds to talk on his cell phone and blast his horn at pretty much nothing, almost hits a cow in the middle of the road, and takes me to the completely wrong place (which may or may not be my fault).

i call my host again and again and it turns out the numbers he gave me were bunk. i find the internet and get him to give me the real number or his address. he gives me two more phone numbers, both different than the ones he gave me before. one doesn't work, but luckily the other one does.

his name is mike, and he's a very interesting dude. he lives he is totally into 9/11 TRUTH. oh fuck. he's a nice guy but he always goes on about how he hates america...he has similar beliefs to me, we both hate the government and corporations but...bug... he knows that america and the corporate overlords are conspiring together to bring in a fascist new world order. no, sorry mikey :(

i didn't even try to argue with him on 9/11 truth. he was a serious activist for this shit and it would have made my time there miserable to tell him that his political beliefs were actually completely ridiculous, Q.E.D.

we did a lot of fun stuff, like rock climbing and going to marvelous beaches and i met a couple of his cool friends but honestly it just wasn't my scene. but i did appreciate his hospitality, climbing rocks and the time spent high in a hammock. that was awesome.

i hitch out to colima and meet ernesto, a fine fellow who acts, translates, all this interesting stuff. he offers me some cereal which i eat, not noticing the tiny ants in it till the second bowl. when in rome.

he lends me his bike on my second day there. i ride around colima for 7 hours straight...definitely the most dangerous thing i've done in mexico yet. screw hitch hiking. biking in mexico is insane! the traffic...not to mention these grates which catch your bike and slam your crotch into the frame of the bike, oh lord

it was also one of the most awesome things i've done in mexico. how i miss bikes!

i trade ernesto a copy of travels with charlie for hopscotch by some argentinian author which is apparently a masterpiece. so far it's beautifully written but kind of really pretentious. like, pretentious even for me, and i love roberto bolano and thomas pynchon. ouch. maybe i will be able to enjoy it though.

from there i hitch to guadalajara and am there for about a week. i meet this fellow ben who i am now travelling with. we stay at two different couch surfing homes. it's okay. oh, and then we went to morelia. some beautiful people there. some beautiful architecture, i mean, it is the most beautiful city i´ve ever been to, but it confuses me why everyone clamours for european architecture in mexico. something feels a bit wrong about that i guess. oh, now i am in mexico city. staying at this squat of sorts. it's pretty rad.

etc. etc.

anyways. i need a harmonica. i have found a pin that says BLACK METAL WARRIOR AGAINST CHRIST. it's awesome and i would probably be killed here in mexico for wearing it if it weren't so small and hard to read and in english.

i am thinking of staying here till sunday or monday, where i will try to find some farm or a beach to crash on and eat cocos all day. i kind of love mexico city so far but fuck this city shit.