sugarcanes

so i left guatemala and said goodbye to two (count em, TWO) sets of beautiful friends (did i honestly just say sets of friends?) and headed out to el salvador, the darkest, grimmest place in central america, driven by a nihilistic lack of regard for my own life and puapusas.

my first ride gave me a hat that says REDNECK VS COONASS 1989 SHOOTOUT.

my second is two brothers named jose and they invite me over to their ranch, if you could call a shack with a bunch of turkeys and cows a ranch and one jose asked me what i wanted, what was the point of travelling, one day i wake up in el salvador, one day i wake up in nicaragua, one day i wake up in colombia, why? what was i looking for? i tell him i have no idea and he says, well, come with me and maybe you will find something you like.

we go to this big field of exhausted sugar canes and set the fucker on fire.

i go back to his place and his shirtless dad is yelling raspy spanish at me and i have no idea what he is saying but he sure is friendly and awesome. later that night i get a taste of a real tropical rainstorm in this tiny shed...

in the morning the brothers jose hook me up with one of their trucks (besides professional field burners, they also own a trucking company!) and it takes me about a hundred kilometers in the most blinged out truck i have ever seen. on the side of it there is a huge picture of jesus hovering over a truck. that says everything.

i make it to honduras. the first honduran i meet is this asshole border guard who wont let me pass without three american dollars. i tell him in no uncertain words to fuck his mom, which might actually be uncertain because i only know how to curse in mexican, and find some money.

the second honduran i meet is a cop. i tell him my story and he tells me that not only can i hitch beside him, he will make the next driver going to nicaragua take me.

he pulls over mario, who is going to costa rica! alright!



driving through nicaragua i got a huge boner for all the red and black everywhere, which i know isnt anarchist in this country but come on, the fsln is pretty cool, right? well. even in socialist nicaragua they still have massive chains everywhere and beer commercials targetting nicaraguans featuring only white people. also nicaraguans hate white people more than anyone else i have met.



anyways. panama next. costa rica is beautiful and all my rides speak english. but it is expensive and all my rides speak english.


oh, and heres an irony for you: after all of el salvador, i never got an authentic salvadorean pupusa. the banks didnt work and i had only 25 cents (they use american currency, who knows why).

machetes

in oaxaca city ben and i are drinking in a bar. some dutch chica comes up to us and chats us up, and at some point she tells us she´s protestant. ben, always classy, starts telling her about his time on a creationist farm and how they were all completely fucking nuts, and i start going on about genetics and the impossibility of creationism, which leads into a conversation on freedom, brainwashing, and for the next twenty minutes we just (not so subtly) bash religion. the girl leaves and ben looks at me: ¨she saw us through the window and said ´look at those two fucking cool dudes´¨. she comes back with two beers for us. suave.

after a long ride in the back of a tomato truck i look at my arms. well holy fuck, i´m tanned! i´ve never seen my skin such a beautiful shade, i think in shock. i later learn i am just really sunburnt and dirty.

later ben and i fall asleep on a beautiful beach somewhere on the coast of oaxaca. we haven´t seen any cops for miles which is pretty strange for police state mexico so we don´t really worry. half way through the night we hear vicious dog barking. i grab my machete and rise halfway. i look over and ben is in the exact same position, machete ready. the dog comes close but turns away. we almost get to use our machetes on the first day we got them. we look at eachother, high five, and fall back asleep.

puppyz

markus, conseula, ben and i hitched out to oaxaca. we made it to puebla, where we got totally stuck in the worst place. men selling the cutest puppy dogs out of bags. one in each hand, waving them about, with extra dogs carelessly placed in a denim sack around their waist, with surplus dogs in bags hanging on trees.

i wanted to buy a couple and go home.

for hours we were stuck. no one wanted a bunch of smelly punks, not even in the back of their truck. conseula gets pissed off and demands we catch a bus...fuck. the ultimate defeat. to her, the fun and adventure is all gone, leaving a dirty sundreached husk of boredom....well isn´t that hitchhiking right fucking there? someone forgot to tell her i guess :(

then again, i can´t say i enjoyed hanging out with the puppy men.

the way to oaxaca is a windy path between beautiful mountains. kilometers of mountains covered in cactus, no life but the bugs and the plants...there´s something fantastic about that. these mountains will never be conquered. man can´t turn these mountains into anything. these cactuses will continue as they always did long after man destroys himself and the rest of the world...if that isn´t beautiful, what is? (in this, am i forced to admit the beauty of the cockroach?)

in oaxaca we find our contact´s place. ricardo flores magnon is riding a bike on the front. looks good. we are greeted by two dudes who are totally warm and open. awesome! then this other dude, some anarchist (??) named chuchu comes out and says NO THEY CANT STAY and kicks us out.

markus and consuela freak out and hightail it to the bus station to go to the coast. i guess i´ll see ´em in london. whatever!


later ben and i go down the coast. the road splits off into two and we ask five locals where to go. three say we want the left one, so we go. whoops. never trust a local to give you directions. we keep going and get this one ride that takes us onthe most amazing scenic ride through this beautiful rainforest and end up stranded in a small village of san gabriel, the most amazing place i´ve ever been. talk about paradise. small colourful village in the middle of the rainforest, strangly with a huge pa blaring some recording (¿) of some woman saying something, which is either a prayer or an advertisment, during all waking hours... the language down here is so hilarious yet so beautiful, so much easier to understand than most mexicans. i would live here.

we find a storage area for the local church and sleep in it. the roosters don´t shut up all night. the jungle is really really loud.

anyways. all day i´ve been listening to this song on repeat. it´s really good. maybe i will catch up more another day.

what to post?

what can i say? sure, i have some stories but honestly, what more do i need to say than i am in guatemala with a machete? shouldn´t that say everything?

teotihuacan

in the absence of any crazy stories, i show you a picture of some pyramids i went to. this one celebrates some lunar deity.


teotihuacan is black metal as fuck

let's blow some shit up

i arrive into manzanillo a bit late. it is new years after all, i was trying to make it in on new years eve. didn't happen, so i tried to make it in the morning. didn't happen. it might have if i wasn't called over to celebrate in this tiny pub in this rural village with this toothless old man. i have a hard time understanding spanish normally, so needless to say i have a hard time understanding spanish spoken by a toothless old drunk. he started pouring me some victoria from his big bottle and we drank and we drank and we drank. i could never tell if his name or that he thought my name was anthony. he kept talking about papas, as in potatoes, but the context i never figured out. he waved at everyone passing by and based on whether they cheered or ignored him he would tell me they were assholes or good people. he seemed to know everyone. one more bottle of beer and his friend who is absolutely wasted comes out as gives me a big hug. somehow i understand him way less than the toothless dude. another beer and i give anthony? a big hug and tell him i have to go. he looks kind of sad but i think that was one of the best new years day celebrations i've had yet.

i get to manzanillo and my numbers don't work. apparently mike is too stoned to know his phone number. i can empathize, it's happened to me before...i finally get his information and i meet him and his girlfriend and he tells me that the plan for tonight is to bomb the shit out of his friend's step mom's house. well fuck, of course i'm in! we pile into his house where there's this dude rigging up bombs that are used to blow fish out of the water together. apparently this step mom is a bitch and hates loud noises, so we're going to surround her house with these bombs and scare the living shit out of her...

i have a hard time imagining that a 33ish year old thought of this idea.

first order though, we get drunk and stoned as hell, then we all (about 13 of us?) pile into this minivan, and drive up this mountain. we surround this mansion and light bombs all around it so that the bombs will go of consecutively, so it's not just one big loud bang. we light them and run like hell to the minivan with the dog going crazy and car alarms going off...

apparently the step mom was so drunk she passed out and didn't hear a thing. so it goes--

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.