Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Hazards of Gleaning in a Gay Paradise

Sometimes you wake up with the right mix of having escaped a hang over, a cup of strong coffee coursing through your veins, listening to a perfect melody from a quality stereo system as a gust of warm wind hits your smiling teeth while overlooking a polluted city from a balcony and you feel as if you have made some right decisions in the world and that life is worth living well.
Caption, ¨Two weeks here and I did not get tired of this view.¨

It´s funny how you can fill yourself up with fake self importance by just borrowing someone else´s material possessions.

I am drinking in Buenos Aires from bird´s eye view in a gay paradise. My friend from three years ago on my last visit in BA is house sitting her gay uncle´s apt while he is away for the holidays. He doesn´t get back from Mexico until the second week of January with his younger hunky lover. You can glean how the relationship works without straining the brain; one is a 58 year old doctor and the other is the 35 year old massage therapist with well chiseled abs. I am sure it is a two-way street but the home, flow of toys, and it turns out even his job, is tied to the doctor.

When I crossed the threshold and first stepped foot in this place I immediately became dizzy. A waft of herbs and spices from other lands and a kaleidoscope of sparkles and colors lifted me off the ground. ¨What the hell is this?¨ was all I could say.

I had to investigate this place.

I set off sauntering into the dining room and I felt as if I had been transported back to a rich merchant´s house in the time of pre-eruption Pompeii, Italy in 78 A.D.. White walls? Not a single spot of white in the house. No respite. This dining room is a 4 walled mural painted with life-sized characters and two views into an imaginary past. One wall is crafted to create the illusion of looking out into a courtyard with a fountain in a foyer and on the other a peak down a medieval Italian cobblestone road lined with red-roofed houses. Coming from the IKEA generation I have never seen such a finely made dining table; two types of wood thicker than the width of my palm and lacquered to a mirrored finish. I can easily imagine a megalomaniac noble sitting at the head of the table munching on a turkey leg and waving a jester in with the his free hand for entertainment.
Caption, ¨The owner would probably be peeved that I did not straighten the candles before taking these pictures.¨

I back pedaled away with awe slowly from the illusory noble wiping grease from his cheeks and entered the living room. The walls are all painted an Egyptian orange (even the smallest detail of painting the air conditioner mounted on the wall was not overlooked) to set the backdrop for the overwhelming collection of antiques he has gathered on his world travels. It is clear that these items have been purchased on the black market. It´s a splendid collection well kept in glass cases and, of course, proper mood lighting. Most of the items are masks and clay pots from pre-colonial Latin America, but there is also intricate silver work, items from Africa and Asia and the Middle-East.
Caption, ¨This represents only a small portion of the items on display- not to mention, just like the Guggenheim, only 10% of his collection is visible at any one time. The rest is in storage.¨
Caption, ¨I noticed a running theme throughout the house; Horses.¨

Mythical and realistic horse statues from all civilizations in pewter, clay, ceramic, paintings are found in each nook and cranny. I look down and I see I am standing on a full-sized zebra skin rug complete with tail. Seriously. What the shit. I am lifting my feet up as if I stepped in dog poop and an equally disgusted look on my face. Over my shoulder I notice the door has been painted over to blend with the surrounding wall in a giant MerHorse- half fish and half horse with it´s front hooves replaced by little fish fins.
Caption, ¨Mer-horse, or do you spell that Merhorse? Notice the door handle.¨

This is all too much. I took a seat on what looks like a handwoven artisan couch to keep my head from spinning while on my feet. The coffee table is cluttered with silver-dipped candlesticks that weigh more than a new born baby, a king´s crown made of bronze and topped with a cross, intricately ornamental and completely non-functional ruby encrusted eggs on little stands, a chalice, and it goes without staying since this is a gay man´s house, lots and lots of candles. Everywhere. The coffee table itself is a work of art worthy of an Art History doctorate thesis- it looks as though it took 2 Muslims their entire life to carve the wood into such an ornate lattice work and now it is a functional part of a living room on which to rest a coffee cup.
Caption, ¨The view from the couch.¨

You could buy another house with the items filling this apt. The cleaning lady from Paraguay says one thing to us before leaving the apt, ¨How can you sleep here?¨ If it´s possible there is too much culture. The walls and furniture pulse with the dead heartbeats from times past. Each item has it´s own history and when the house is quiet you can hear the faint murmuring of the stories and memories told by each relic in their native tongue. Souls from different civilizations bump into each other in the dark. My friend could not sleep for the first two nights she spent here alone.

There is no escaping the ambiance. From the couch I can hear the calls of endangered birds from the zoo the apt overlooks. The balcony is alive with green vegetation. Griping the guardrail and looking down 11 floors I can see a lion walking amongst the trees. It´s a green oasis in the middle of the city for blocks and blocks since the zoo meets up with the largest expanse of parks in all of this sweaty seething city of 13 million. You feel above all the madness, isolated in a tree house in the amazon looking down on the jungle below.
Caption, ¨The zoo down below.¨
Caption, ¨My feet got accustomed to the glass spiral staircase. Now I simply cannot imagine exposing my feet to the horrors of carpeted, or god forbid, wooden stairs.
Up the glass spiral staircase I head to the master suite. Along the way I pass what looks to be the hatch on Noah´s Ark bolted to the ceiling with more mood lighting and the pets of the house: a snake, a ferret, and the best kept salt fish tank I have ever seen in a house. The palatial master bedroom has two wood columns flanking each side of the bed covered in gold lamé duvet and tasseled pillows. In my head I imagine the Pope and Elton John coming for a visit and looking at each other saying, ¨You know, it´s just a little too fabulous, don´t you think?¨

The uncle is a ´foodie´ and the place is filled with fine wines, cook books, herbs, spices such as: Pink Hawaiian Sea Salt, Jamaican Pepper, Coffee Merlot Chocolate Sauce, Moroccan Harissa Paste, Cape Malay Babotic, Swazi Mama Mama Ibalulekile Hot Sauce from Ukua Africa, Sun-dried Apricot and Raisin Chutney just to name a few and more in French and Italian. The soaps in the bathroom sounded equally as appetizing: Botanical Shower Body Mousse with Pink Grapefruit and Cucumber detoxifying and purifying with a stringent grapefruit peel and toning cucumber fruit extract AND Botanical Shower Body Mousse with Olive, Almond and Myrtle moisturizing and revitalizing with olive oil, oil leaf, sweet almond oil and myrtle. Coming from a backpackers mentality where my luxury items are AAA batteries and pistachios I find I am left with a tickling feeling, a giddiness brought about by the gay extravagance. The uncle must be the Truman Capote of his gay circle of friends in Buenos Aires. Imagine the parties and costumes this place has seen over the years. That spine chilling creepy scene in The Shining comes to mind when a guy in a full bear costume giving a blow job suddenly stops, and looks down the hall (The zoom-in is what really makes your elbows tingle http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=NmOoekbK6YI ). Furthering my suspicions, at the moment there is a gay couple (friends of the uncle) from Miami staying in another room here along with us. They had a visitor, a tall drink of water, come over late and spend the night. Those gay guys know how to have an unapologetic good time.
Caption, ¨Marble countertop to hold the spices from around the world. All joking aside, this kitchen does make you a better chef.¨

Caption, ¨Those are real Versace glasses, and real ugly. I think I saw one of these on the floor next to the bed in that Shining scene.¨

One of the great reasons of traveling, number 413, are the stories you come across. Nothing is how you first see it and everything has a story just beneath the surface. As cliché as that sounds this is a fine example. It is so easy to dismiss the apt as a gay whim and see the stereotypical rich old man with the gold digging younger and more attractive trophy just as I did when I assessed the situation. Over the days talking to my friend I slowly find out more of the uncle´s story. All of his 5 brothers and sisters died of cancer, one of those being my friend´s mother. Watching all of his immediate family dying at a young age he has made a conscious effort to live life to the fullest and pursue his pleasures to the fullest- and he has many- wine, food, world traveling, art collecting, and men. It is money spent but spent well. Wealth enjoyed. It makes you wonder who is using who? Really it is a symbiotic relationship with the two. Both of their needs are met and they are together as long as the both are happy, and when the wave of happiness finally breaks then they will both move on.

It´s easy to judge but I have not lived through the same pain as he has. The whole reason he is on holidays through Christmas and New Years each year is as much to see the world as it is not to be home and feel the pain of his missing family here in Buenos Aires. My friend, who finds the house equally ostentatious and curiously comical, tells me this story with caring eyes. Although she has not traveled the world she understands it and has compassion in a much more profound way than myself from losing her mother when she was 7 and her brother a few years later. It´s a profoundness I am not sure I want to know yet know it awaits.

Still looking out from the balcony of gay paradise, while sipping my morning coffee amongst the whispering souls, I think about all the chaos in the world swirling about. How one could be been born in another situation in another country with other parents or none at all. It´s hard to not infer stories from what you superfically see. Putting people in neat little categories and placing them on an organized shelf is how I make sense of this holy pandemonium in the world so it is a little more managable for my small brain.
Caption, ¨Not many people have so many scepters as to necessitate a ´scepter rack´, he does.¨

Caption, ¨What a decadent wine stopper. It´s giant red ruby.¨

Sunday, December 21, 2008

The 113 hour bu-bu-bu-bus ride

I will tell you right now that I am going to hell and that is the only reason I can share this story.

After the little bike ride of three months I had only made it through Colombia and Ecuador. There is a two month window to navigate the trails of Patagonia in Southern Chile and Argentina when the paths are clear of snow and warm. Since I am a fair weather traveler and have no desire to freeze my ass off I had to take the marathon bus ride from Ecuador all the way to Buenos Aires. It is half the price and besides, airplanes are cheating since it is like stepping into a carpeted time machine- enter a door, wait a few hours, out a door and you are there. You do not feel as if you traveled. Well, after 113 hours on the bus, wow, did I feel like I had traveled- I had traveled all the way to the very edge of my nerve endings and patience.

Luckily, or so I thought at the time, I met a Scandinavian girl, lets call her Scandi, that was idiotic enough like myself to attempt this trip to see some friends for the holidays. Ok, cool. Companionship on will be nice and we can endure the pain together in graceful sarcastic self'-depreciating conversations the whole way there. Didn´t happen.

We were equally enthralled that the other was going, but there was no fiber of my being that thought there would be anything more happening than being travel companions. She is sweeter than sweet, so much so that she has an overenthusiastic laugh born out of an innate social awkwardness and uncomfotableness with herself that she uses like a period at the end of each sentence...but that includes sentences she says and I say or anyone else says. I hardly noticed at the time since we met over drinks in a loud cafe in Cuzco that she had a slight stutter in English, but being 30 years old it seemed as though she had worked on it to a point where she had it under control. This laugh however was not in control and the more boisterious it became the faker it felt.

Day 1 and 2: 7 hour bus ride from Cuzco, Ecuador to Guayaquil, Ecuador and then a new 26 hour bus to Lima, Peru.
Ok, I am feeling good during the first 34 hours. Scandi has been learning Spanish off and on for the last 10 years and she only wants to speak in Spanish for the entire journey. Ok, fair enough. I am very patient and fill in all the missing vocabulary as she tells these long winded stories, well, not stories since ¨story¨ would imply there would be some sort of a point, but more descriptions of things, anything, that had happened in her life. The added bonus for me is that her stuttering is in full bloom in Spanish because it is her 6th language and it naturally takes more effort for her. That´s a good philosophical question actually- Would you trade the ability to speak 6 languages for a stutter? Hmmm, me either.

Caption, ¨This is the desolate martian landscape somewhere either in Peru or Chile. I could have cared less where I was. If only there was a camera for smells. Scratch and sniff pictures perhaps.¨


Day 3 and 4 and 5: We take a night to sleep in a cheesy Chinese hotel next to the bus station in Lima, Peru. Framed posters line the hallways of groups of girls in bikinis painting a wall sexually intertwined in a ladder with paint smeared bottoms pointing at you called ¨California Girls¨, another one of rock climbers nearly nude but covered in a climbing ropes and harnesses again with butts out calling you named¨Hard Climbing¨. There were more gems too. They made me smile each time I went up and down the stairs though.

We needed to rest before the 60 hour bus to Santiago, Chile.

Caption, ¨One of the two pictures I took in the week of traveling. Lets say I was un-inspired.¨


This bus proved to be the breaking point. Scandi suggested word games, in Spanish of course, to pass the time on the bus. After she took 10 painfully slow Spanish stuttering minutes to explain the rules my brain shut down. She finished the rules, or so I imagine because she stopped talking because I could not follow her train of thought with the 20 second gaps between some of the words. It requires such a huge amount of attention and patience to follow her stories and that reserve was used up on the first 37 hours of the bus ride. Within these 37 hours I honed in on the fact that the trouble words always started with the letter ¨b¨ or ¨d¨ and I knew when one was coming up and would be silently impressed when she found a work around to avoid a stuttering stumbling block word. I simply said, ¨Ok,¨ when she finished the rules and I did not say anything. In fact, I did not say anything for the next 48 hours. If I were to say anything at all it would inspire a heartly laugh that at this point sent electric shocks of wide-eyed exasperation from my tingling ass up my now scoliosis plauged spine. I was spent and needed alone ´me´ time to recharge. She got the hint after 24 hours and even she stopped talking and I could enjoy sweet sweet silence in this bus from fuqing hell. Well, not quite sweet sweet silence. An Ecuadorian Neanderthal with a crooked 5 toothed smile in the front of the bus insisted on putting her favorite music on at all hours of the morning and afternoon and night with no volume control. Volume set to FULL with a speaker, very luckily, positioned right above my head. I think they use this technique to torture POW´s in war camps to get them to snap and tell them military secrets. I was ready to snap. Music of this ear ringing volume seemed important in all of Latin America to preent any thought whatsoever. I continued my frothing silence.

I think all of my 5 senses were abused in some way shape or form on this trip. We were positioned right next to the toilet on this second class bus, and what a treat that was! MMMmmm, how can I describe this ¨flavor¨, this joyful dancing of odors on my palette for 60 hours so you can fully understand? Most scents your body gets accustomed to and they are not as strong after the initial shock, but no, each breath was like being hit right in the facial region with a 2x4 covered in rusty nails. Utterly shocking. Just imagine sitting inside of a shaking Porta-Potty used in those outdoor festivals, sloshingly filled to the brim, for 60 hours and you will start to understand my situation.

The odor/stutter/music combo along with my spine piercing my left kidney from trying to sit and sleep was making me really hate the bus, the Scandi girl, and eventually myself. No one was safe from my bitter wrath of mental insults in my fragile mental state.

I realize that my annoyance with Scandi´s stuttering has nothing to do with her and everything to do with me. My personal theory is anytime someone is getting on your nerves it is because something that is bothering you and not the external stimuli. Most of the time the personality traits you most hate about yourself annoys you when you see them exhibited in other people. So the more annoyed I was at Scandi, the more I knew I was actually annoyed with myself, for whatever reason, and that made me even more annoyed cause it was my fault and I ended up being even more annoyed with Scandi. Another example of this just happened today in Buenos Aires. I met two American Peace Core volunteers just ¨released from service¨ in their early to mid twenties. Their resume building experience rubs me the wrong way along with their need to save the world with an egotistical slant. They are better people than me, this is clear, but for some reason I cannot stand them. My only conclusion is the American attributes I see in them and detest in myself. Well, it turns out I met one of there co-volunteers in the Buenos Aires bus station. He flagged me down because he saw my bike loaded with bags and saw it as a ´sign´ that he had to talk to me because he was leaving on his own biking adventure, of course, to raise 100,000 dollars to save a Paraguayan rain forest (I am not making this shit up). So the natural question he presents me is what am I riding for? ¨Nothing. Just felt like going on a bike ride,¨ I innocently confess.
¨Ya, that´s great.¨ was his disappointed reply. ¨And why are you taking the bus?¨
¨Oh, I am no purist. I took the bus to bike in Patagonia in the summer. I figured sponsorships would hold me back from cheating,¨ was my only half-joking reply.
The American half of him was disappointed from my lack of vision and purity of the mission and my American half was detesting his idealistic eager eyes ready to save the world. ¨Here is my business card (business cards?! for biking) printed on 100% recyclable paper with vegetable based ink. Make sure you tell every one you meet about it,¨ was his over enthusiastic good bye.

Day 6 and 7: Once we got to Santiago, Chile we had to take another night to sleep horizontal. I started to think about experiments on mice. If you took these poor creatures and put them in a cardboard box continuously shaking and blasting loud bad Latin music for 6 days and then took them out of the box and analyzed their behavior I am sure you would find they were an unhappy lot compared to the ´control´ group. They would be frazzled and probably eating their neighbors ears off or something along those lines, but since we are civilized humans we can´t eat off each others ears so we deal with it in our own ways. I shut down into a silent coma with red dry open eyes staring out the window thinking of better days and the stutterer stutters approximately 50x worse than normal.

Only 20 hours on the Santiago to Buenos Aires, Argentina leg. That is nothing. HAha, I can do anything after the Porta-Potty assault on the senses journey. Here is a journal entry so you have an idea of my mental state at that moment on the last 20 hours:
¨Will you allow me the pleasure to cry? To ride my dream in the skies with pterodactyls showing teeth with rabid joy thundering down smoking mountains of Martian sunlight. A bear paw tickles my ribs as I laugh uncontrollably sitting on the handlebars of a blind man´s bike down a spiral staircase of butterfly cocoons. I wish I could transport myself to give everyone I know a hug of blue-eyed fearless happiness. The head tingling of life is all rushing up now, like a shaken bottle of champagne opened at altitude. Bubbles of foamy wide mouth open delight are streaming showers of ice, cocaine and rainbows. Love jumped up from the corner and inflated itself to a big red elephant balloon squeezing me in warm squeaky giggles. Warm squeaky giggles of pissing sprinkles in the air and eyes and silver lined mouths of reborn extinct genius unicorns. Blond bats sing honey harmonies filled with basement thoughts and the scent of dead flowers in already empty holiday room.¨

Who needs acid when you have 113 hour bus rides? It is amazing how environment, comfort really, can affect your mood. The whole range from inspiration or desperation and depression. Ah, travel is my drug of choice at the moment. People often ask, why the bus ride, why not just fly? Experience is my answer, even above being a cheap bastard. Same answer for the bike ride. Experience.

I understand why people work and have nice cozy houses and big safe cars, but for me I want these damn experiences. At the moment, and yes it can change, I do not want that Saran Wrap security to keep safely away from living. I welcome the aging and the wrinkles that come from experience. Shit, I earned them. I question a long life lived with a youthful face on elders. To all the professional non-smokers (as Bill Hicks says, non-smokers die everyday) that slide through life on transparent plastic purchased entertainment and well planned investments, I have decided to invest in myself.

Opportunity cost you say? Yes, I 100% agree. You have lost lots of opportunity. No time to waste. Start wasting on yourself until you have the weight of family and responsibility on your head and the party is over, or turn gay and keep that party going forever. People planning for events of a future that does not exist- of future fathers that have never lived outside a classroom or a cubicle- what sort of parent are you going to be? Train your kid to become one of those that sits collecting interest of the sweat of others compounding quarterly. Can I be a liver? One of those that truly lives. Live like you will die tomorrow and plan like you will live forever...impossible, maybe? We are the people we wanted to know and we are the places we wanted to go.

Enough of this idealistic egoistic American rant from just another angle...

I made it to Bu-bu-bu-buenos Aires.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Ceviche Incident

Caption, ¨Blotchy bearded bike repairman.¨

I should take a moment and add some boring updates on the biking trip (I would skip this post if I were you since I am feeling quite uninspired at the moment). After I left Montañita I biked down the coast some 50 km to a forlorn pueblo on the ocean called Ballenita. Nothing is nice about this town except for the tranquility it offers. I read 100 Years of Solitude, swam and watched fishermen pull in a catch with a net load of about a ton of fish right on the beach. That was incredible.

Caption, ¨Ballenita, this place had all the charm of the inside of a prosthetic leg.¨

I decided it would be a good idea to have some seafood since it would be my last time on the beach for a while and my friend from Guayaquil kept telling me how I have to try the ceviche of Ecuador. I have steered away from uncooked seafood since my Thailand near death experience about 5 years ago. At that time I was motorbiking through Vietnam, Laos and Thailand with a friend from home. We decided on a nice restaurant to celebrate a hard long hot day of motor biking in the north of Thailand. Long story short I ended up losing 10 pounds (4 kilos) in 3 hours when I was converted into a human sprinkler system from some rancid fish. I was so dehydrated my tongue was swollen in my throat and my kidneys were sore to the touch. Luckily I was hooked up to an IV bag or three and was saved from further suffering. A traveler friend told me that after an incident like that your body can go into anaphylactic shock and die if I get the same food poisoning from fish again. So this was going through my mind when I finally found the only restaurant in this desolate pueblo with ceviche, or any food at all for that matter. I decided to risk it.

Caption,¨Foreshadowing 101. I took this photo just an hour before eating the ceviche.¨


Again, I turned into a human sprinkler system but on a much smaller scale. The funny thing is I knew this dirty dish was going to get me sick. I could feel it. I spent the entire night vomiting up rancid fish, clams, and shrimp with a hint of lime. On the plus side I think the pissing out my butt flushed out the lingering parasites that have been dancing and squeezing my intestines for the past month here in Ecuador. My stomach finally feels better, but I still have some lingering issues, but no pain. For me this was the perfect excuse to skip riding and start taking the bus from the coast all the way to Guayaquil, Cuenca and then down to Buenos Aires. I was feeling weak from lack of sleep, dehydration and wiping your bum about 90x in 48 hours is not a good mix with 8 hours a day on a bicycle seat.
Caption, ¨This is what it felt like inside my intestines.¨

It has been decided. Due to ¨The Ceviche Incident¨ and lack of time to arrive in Buenos Aires to meet friends down there for Christmas and New Years I am hanging up the bike until arriving in Tierra del Fuego in the south of South America somewhere in Patagonia. It´s only 120 hours non-stop on the bus from Cuenca, Ecuador to Buenos Aire, and from there another 50 hours on the bus to Ushuaia. Sound like fun? Oh, it should be.

When I finally do arrive in Argentina it will be in the middle of their summer. If I wanted to be a stubborn purist and continue down from Ecuador by the time I biked through Peru, Bolivia and Chile it would already be getting cold in the south. I prefer being a fair weather biker. From the northern coast of Colombia where I started until the southern beaches of Ecuador I have accumulated a respectable, although not fast but enjoyable, 3,000 km. Now I will be heading north from the most southern tip. In all honesty I wanted to avoid being the ´dude´ that bikes all of South America and makes a mission out of it. I prefer to just travel with a direction in mind, but I have had a dying urge to see Tierra del Fuego since I was in South America three years ago, so that is how it works out. I don´t care if I make it back to the exact spot I hopped on the bus in Ecuador. I might not even make it to Peru. I might get stuck in Buenos Aires for all I know. I am open to anything that can and will happen. My plans don´t exist and is one of the reasons why I am doing this insane bus trip and why I only ever buy one way plane tickets- cause you never know. I think it was best put by a Belgium traveler I met three years ago when he told me, ¨Expections, they don´t exist.¨

Now I am in Cuenca enjoying this cozy colonial city tucked in the mountains and the hungry eyes of the local ladies I pass on the street. Not shy, they are. I get to chastise myself for being an idiot while breathing the thin clean mountain air because some where in Montañita my flash stick fell out of my pocket with three months of photos. I know, I am an idiot and deserve it. My only photos that exist are on this blog. The shame is I wanted to make a montage of all the scenery while biking alone through Colombia and Ecuador. This is cheesy but one of the reasons for me traveling is a scene in Forrest Gump. Forrest is sitting at the foot of the bed of a dying Jenny in his old house after having run across the States from coast to coast an endless number of times and he tells her all of the amazing sunsets and sunrises he saw, of the beauty and memories of when he was alone. I wanted those photos but I´ll have to just remember them. Amazingly enough I remember places and people I have met from years ago at the strangest times triggered by a scent or a sound or an angle of a tree branch. Pictures come and go and my heart swells, an impossible smile to wipe off my face and somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind there is a voice saying that these exquisite good times will end with the weight of responsibility sitting on top my head. I warned you it was going to be cheesy.

Caption, ¨If there was time I would have stopped here to get tested. I had every one of the syptoms on the list. No joke.¨

Tomorrow AM I leave for 120 hours of non-stop busing fun (I really do not enjoy buses and find them impossible to sleep on). Only thing to do is pick up the camera and start again.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Montañita, Ecuador

Have you ever noticed how lesbians, on a whole, are pretty grumpy and gay dudes are pretty happy? I guess they are called gay for a reason; gay being happy. Well, this lead me to my theory of dick. Two women, no dick and not too happy. Two guys, double the dick and an overabundance of joy for life. Then you have a normal couple where the woman is generally happy if she is getting dick and the man is too because we all know from Christmas it is better to give than to receive. So if you meet someone grumpy you can be assured they are in need some serious deep dicking, my theory goes.

Caption, ¨The Ecuadorian that posted this poster is definitely not getting enough sex. He has the time and desire to not only think of it but design it, print it, find the glue, walk out and locate a place to post it. I can almost see him patting himself on the back for a job well done.¨

I spent the last week in a joyous surfer town (you can infer why the town was joyous) called Montañita. After having spent 4 days in the sleepy coupled-out surfer town of Canoa it was a welcome change. Canoa is great if you are single and your idea of a good time is to hang out with 6 couples. Upon arriving to Montañita you feel like you are walking down the streets of a backpacker party haven in Thailand where there is a sparkle in the air that anything can happen without the slightest effort and hangovers do not exist. All you need to do is sit back, enjoy and the good times that naturally come. If you are having fun then other people that also want to have fun magically appear. Caption, The American guy flexing his abs in this photo said to me, ¨Damn, if you get laid with those swim trunks it will be a miracle,´ and I said, ¨If I don´t it will be a miracle. These are hot.¨ Although in general he is right. In Ecuador they think ´irony´ is something you do to get wrinkles out of shirts.

Caption,¨Listen buddy, have you ever heard of too much flair?¨

Montañita is not complicated- two streets and a beach. You should know everyone in the town within 24 hours and sure enough we had piled together a hodge podge of solo travelers into a surrogate family with the common bond of English. And man was it nice. At night during the weekdays you have one of one places to choose from to go out. That´s good, keep it easy. I ended up relaxing in Montañita for 9 days and with that holiday within a holiday from biking it gave life and ladies a chance to catch up with me. While always being on the move it is hard to let life live sometimes and this was a delightful change. An American couple had a joint and I was able to take a vacation within a vacation within a vacation and life became a whole lot more real. I wandered the sparkly beach and the dusty streets with childlike curiosity. Then it hit me, with the perspective change that only pot brings, what a crazy motherfuqing bike trip not only I have done but am actually doing. What in god´s name am I doing? and I shrunk and the world got big enough to swallow me whole. The next minute I was skipping along the beach enjoying how damn amazing life is and how happy I am to be alive while hugging, then giving a nice kiss, to a lava rock.

Unfortunately for us humans, we cannot sniff each others asses to see who should couple up with who and so ensues a comical fumbling social dance of courting between the sexes. It was enjoyable watching people chasing their own tails and barking up the wrong tree. By the time Friday rolled along the idiotic humans finally figured things out and managed to, for better or for worse, couple up to enjoy the animal delights along with the dogs. It is amazing how alcohol brings out those instincts. It´s a shame we have been socially conditioned to suppress them until they build up, BUT there is that one person in a thousand that is brimming with life and their eyes glow with a childlike radiance. They somehow did not get the memo of how we are supposed to act and instead act as they feel, always.

The gringo boys roll their eyes when the cute gringo girls are talking and hooking up with the local ¨Artisanas¨ aka ¨the bracelet makers ¨ because guys can smell the sleaziness of these other guys that are with 7 girls 7 days a week. Some call it jealously, and to that I say, ¨Touché¨, because they are up to same antics as the gringo guys but just with little or no shame. It makes me laugh because I assume, although I have not confirmed it, that the gringo girls can smell the ´gringo hunter´ girls from a mile away and are repulsed by their sleaziness. So completes the circle of slime that is Montañita, a microcosm of the travel circuit and life in general.

When Sunday rolls around most of the men have released their wax darts they have had pent up traveling solo and the entire town suffers from a collective sigh of relief and glowing communal hang-over. The energy of the weekend has been spent and heads can been seen resting on table tops with half eaten plates of food and half drunk bottles of Gatorade.

I took a welcomed mental holiday from good judgment and allowed myself to be easily poached by a ¨gringo hunter¨ from Guayaquil, Ecuador. She was a perfectly pretty lady with curves in all the right places but shrunken down like a Shrink-a-Dink into a 12 year old sized body. Never has something felt so good and seemed so wrong. I mean she was beyond petite. On the plus side my penis looked like a sky scrapper in her little hands.

Caption, ¨Can you guess who is who?¨

I have been lucky enough to spend time with three Ecuadorian families, and let me say it has left me very confused. I know it is a small sample size and there could be a language barrier as well, but I have to share some of my wonderings. The most important rule I picked up is ALL things are taboo and secret relating to family.

The women will be the first to tell you about machismo-ism in Latin America. They claim to hate it and in the next breath I could swear they were bragging about being choked by their jealous boyfriends and husbands. Women pay for absolutely nothing when going out with the men. The trade-off is, if they are lucky enough to be allowed to go out with their lady friends without their men, their outfits are scrutinized to the button so no boobs are showing in typical insecure Latin male fashion. Meanwhile, in a good turn of faithfulness, the men who have two children and a wife are running off to the whore house at the first chance they get. It´s always that way. The one who is cheating is the most suspicious, and so goes the Latin romance circle of jealousy. A group of ladies around a table asked me, ¨Are you jealous?¨ and while I think it is impossible to be without any jealousy, the level their men attain shows a lack of confidence. They all shared glances with each other with raised eyebrows at this revolutionary idea.

Back to the petite Ecuadorian girl and her family- Her sister was an older ex-Ecuadorian model who could have been mistaken for the petite girl´s mother. Her mind was so warped by years of people fawning over her beauty that she lives on a planet somewhere near Pluto cackling at jokes only she understands. The sister explains how she had a Rolodex of papers that men would give to her in hopes of a date. Due to the amount she would receive she would have to label them, ¨Tall, rich, ugly, businessman or ¨Short, poor, handsome, student.¨ Each weekend she would thumb through her options. Now her options are slimmer and she takes what she gets along with mounting self-esteem issues like obsessing over her giant butt, which it is not, and she requires a certain amount of boy attention at all times or she sulks in a corner. Her features are sharp and delicate, and those of an older model that has visited a surgeon to keep everything where it was 20 years ago. The eyes are large almonds with a heavy eyeliner that make them jump off her face. When the older sister takes a shot it is followed by over dramtic painful faces and a death-claw grip of my arm to hold herself steady. She turns to me, ¨I think the alcohol is going to make me puke, again.¨
¨Again? I say, confused since this is her first shot.
¨Oops, ssshhhhh, do not tell anybody,¨ she winks to me. Gotcha, she is a bulimic which makes sense. But then it gets better. The night after I rag-dolled the petite sister the older sister latches onto my arm and says in my ear, ¨Tonight I want to change men with my sister.¨
Hmmm, this is said to me while I am standing with the petite one on my arm. Next thing you know I am walking arm in arm with both girls down the main drag of the street and my gringo family is giving me eyeballs, like what did you do to that poor girl last night so the sister is hot on your ass right now? I have this look of utter confusion on my face mixed with pain from the nails of the older sister digging into my arm and occasional ass grabs. This chick is freaky.
¨What is your plan?¨ the guys in the group excitedly ask me when I have a moment alone since they are thinking sister on sister threesome action. I am thinking how am I going to ditch this older psycho.
¨My plan is to drink enough to pass out in the gutter so I do not need to make a decision,¨ was my only half-joking reply.
We were able to pawn her off on an unsuspecting dancer on the dance floor and the petite one and I made a dash for the exit. ¨So, what is up your sister?¨ was my very vague but probing question.
¨Oh, she is just joking.¨
Hmmm, not with the way her eyes were talking to me. Her eyes were showing me Kamasutra positions not yet invented and hysterical screams only heard from animals being killed on the plains of the Serengeti. I was scared yet intrigued. In the end I went with the sure bet and the right choice.

Around the lunch table with them the next day they invited me to Guayaquil to spend a day and night with them. I jumped at the chance and they were waiting for me at bus terminal in the center of Guayaquil. On the ride I attempted some small chat to get to know them and their city better.
¨So where are the nice neighborhoods?¨
¨Well, the poor people keep chasing the rich people around the city. We build one area away from them and then they move in and surround us, so we have to move again. This has happened three times now. Now we are in the North of the city. I do not have anything against the poor people, they are fine, but they rob us and make things dirty and dangerous.¨
¨Ok,¨ was my only reply. But I was more interested in this family because the sisters did not look related.
¨So how many brothers and sisters do you have?¨ I asked.
¨Hmmm, 7 I think. Wait, hmmm, yes, 7,¨ was the petite one´s response while exchanging confirming glances with the older sis. ¨You see, we have different mothers, but the same father.¨
Ok, that is normal. Nothing shocking there. ¨So how old is your father?¨
¨Hmmm, I am not sure. In his 70´s I think, right?¨ again confirming with the sister, ¨Yes, 70 something.¨
I am off put by the confusion. One of those things you should be able to figure out with a moments thought is how old your freakin parents are and how many siblings you have. That is something you only need to add up ONCE and then remember.
¨Where are we going now?¨ was my hopefully straightforward question.
¨To our brother´s house where we are staying,¨ since the older one lives in Miami (it would be a crime, so she says to tell her age, AND neither her nor her petite sister can say what she does for a living or for money, which is fine, but she has to understand that I will automatically assume the worst and that she is a prostitute until otherwise told so).
¨And your brother is how old and what does he do?¨
They of course do not know the age, 40 something, and he is a legal prosecutor for the state. Ok, finally we are getting somewhere.
The brother comes home late and I see him purposely ignore me on the way upstairs while we are all eating dinner. Strange, not even a hi to a new person that is staying in your house. Later when the petite one and I are relaxing with a movie in the guest room I notice that she is nervous. She locks one bolt of the door but is searching for the keys to lock the other bolt.
¨You worried someone is going to come in? You seem nervous,¨ was my half asleep question.
¨Well, you remember how I told you I was married to a French man for three years while I was living in France?¨
¨Yep.¨
¨Well, you see, in Latin families when you marry you are supposed to be married forever so only a few of my sisters know I am separated. My brother and my father do not know. My brother has the keys to this room so he will probably open the door at any time to check on me,¨ her emotionally twisted childlike face says.
¨Ah, am I in any danger here?¨ is my question, now being completely awake.
¨A little,¨ she shruggs. ¨But we can sleep in the maid´s quarters out back since she is off getting married at the moment.¨
Jesus christ. What is with the secrecy of these Latin families! You cannot say you are gay, your age, what you do, if you are separated, and you get choked and beaten daily. She replies to my unspoken question, ¨See, in Latin families we do not share and open up everything with strangers.¨
Ya, I am thinking, or family members for that matter. I guess the entire world is the same, but I grew up in a different environment so find this all quite foreign, literally. Caption, ¨Check out the man in the boat.¨

Friday, November 28, 2008

Booming tourism industry in Puerto de Cayo. BUY NOW!!


Caption: ¨PCH of Ecuador.¨


Caption: ¨The often stinky and unsightly roads. Sign says do not throw your trash.¨
Caption, ¨Beach pueblo.¨

All things considered I should be hating biking in Ecuador, especially after Colombia. In Ecuador the unpaved roads cover me in dust clouds leaving me with a dirt face mask at the end of each day, dogs are chasing my ass in every goddamn pueblito, on shore wind in my face, long stretches without restaurants, dirty food that has made me very very afraid to fart and left me with a feeling of an invisible hand squeezing my intestines every 15 min while biking (maybe I should get that checked), filthy roadsides covered in plastic bags of garbage, and a horrible stench of rotting fish and cow carcases decorating the roadsides. Despite those differences with Colombia I am having a better time than ever in Ecuador. The people are delightful.

Caption, ¨Tim Burton trees.¨

Caption, ¨Fellow companions in idiocy.¨

I was biking down the coast yesterday dancing in my saddle listening to some awesome Egyptian pop (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD9xXRm3Jpw, Amr Diab is one of my personal favorites). 30km (about an hour and a half) had gone by without seeing a person or a place to eat and I was famished. If you don't eat every 2 or 3 hours your body does dead like a cell phone. The amazing thing is all you need to do is eat, wait 15 minutes and you are charged up again and can go another few hours. Biking has given me a new love for fruits and veggies. I have a nearly sexual attraction to them now. Looking at a good bunch of bananas is much the feeling I get when a woman walks down the street and she passes you and you turn your head to admire. Freaking love those bananas.

I came across a cabana with a man watering a lawn of rocks and pebbles with a few sad weeds. He was a family man of 30 years and had a cute frazzle haired kid hanging on each leg. We chatted for a bit about how far it was to the next town and the weather. Being a hot day of 80km I was ready to set up camp, find some food and take a dip in the baby blue sea. "How much to camp here?" I asked him.
Caption, ¨Not Puerto de Cayo.¨
Caption, ¨Definitely not Puerto de Cayo.¨

"Free and safe. No one will bother you here," he reassures me. Ok, sounds like a deal. As with all things nothing is free. After my swim he offers me a home cooked meal with his family and then to take me into "town" to show me around Puerto de Cayo. His plan, as I found out, was to show me everything this wonderful pueblo has to offer in order for me to tell all my fellow tourist friends with pockets full of disposable income to come here, and not to places set up with tourist services such as internet and restaurants (both of which this town lacks).

Although relaxing on the beach and reading sounds appetizing I of course go with him because of the hospitality he is showing me. Now I am about to embark on the red carpet tour of his pueblo he is so full of pride about. It's only a 10 min walk in the blazing sun into the dusty center of town lacking trees big enough to give a dog shade. First stop, we get to watch a dump truck unload dirt on their un-paved road in the center of town. While squinting into the broiling heat to watch the truck unload its payload an SUV pulls up and a man hops out of the car with three other guys all holding camcorders. It's the mayor from Jipijapa coming to check on the road construction. I love saying the word Jipijapa. Anyway, he is a typical slimeball politician small talking up 'his amigos' in the streets and pressing flesh. He has a nice fake smile behind twitchy eyes that tell all his lies.
Caption: ¨The jackass mayor soaking up and loving the limelight. He smelled of a scandal.¨

He grabs an old lady and holds her over the shoulder and starts talking into the camera, "Here we are in beautiful Puerto de Cayo with this wonderful senora. As promised we are improving the roads for you, and to bring tourist and money to your town and improving your quality of life..." Just then the old lady interrupts him, he gets annoyed and grabs a more docile old lady. The mayor tells the camera man, "Ok, lets start over again," and he continues with his political campaigning. While he is talking the other two camera men are filming me talking to my new friend, Oscar. The mayor, after getting his sound bites, comes over to me, shakes my hand and wants to know how long I have been here (2 hours), how much I love it (so much) and more small talk. I think I am the first tourist in this town.

The mayor takes off as fast as he showed up and Oscar and I head down to the local free clinic. In Ecuador they provide free condoms for the people because for the average guy they are very expensive. "Oscar, why don't you get the pill instead?" I asked him.
"Oh, they do not have the pill for men here in Ecuador."
"No, No, not for you, for your wife," obviously being a language misunderstanding due to my shitty Spanish.

"My wife was not always fat," he says. Oscar is a fit and handsome Ecuadorian stud. I saw his wife and I thought, wow, she lucked out. She was fully equipped with the standard "muffin tops" that you see on nearly all Ecuadorians. "There are hormones in the pill and she will get even bigger than after the two kids." and he puffs up his cheeks and puts his arms out to his sides and starts waddling around. Haha, Oscar is awesome and men are the same all around the world.

I bought a 20 liter jug of water and a chicken for the family's dinner. We were walking back to his place on the beach and he decides to take me to the "famosos chongos". The what? Ah, the whorehouse. Gotcha.

I do not like whore houses. Maybe if I slept with whores I would like them. Never say never, I could lose a leg on this trip and it could be my new favorite hang out on Earth but until then I tend to shy away from them and it has kept me out of trouble for the most part. So Oscar and I go in and I immediately know this is a bad idea. This hut is located on the outskirts of town tucked into a hill covered with dead weeds. Under the palm frond roof there are a dozen wasted guys with piles of beers in front of them and two rollipoli looking whores that are dressed in a Borat bathing suit made out of spare fishing nets. Oh, yes. 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound sack came to mind. What a treat for the eyeballs.

Oscar looks at me and I give a cracked smile and a head nod that tells him I am not digging this place. We took a seat. I wanted to get him a beer for his hospitality and for being a great guy, but I did not want to stay long enough to finish that beer. Sitting their awkwardly, all drunk eyes are on the white boy wearing a cowboy hat. Lets go, lets go, lets go...nope, we are getting waved over by the two biggest slime buckets in the place and we have to go over and say hi. Both of them have the sweaty red bloated drinker face look going on. One guy is large and looks and talks just like Jabba the Hut so I can hardly understand his pueblo talk. On his right is sitting this little guy that has his two, possibly four, front teeth missing, a MASSIVE cold sore and is laughing away like an idiot, coincidentally just like Jabba the Hut's sidekick in the movie. What a duo.

They hit me with a barrage of questions in ghetto coastal pueblo talk. The sidekick hands me a small glass of beer that he has been filling and passing to each person in the group. It arrives to me, "No, no, I do not drink beer." Ya, that set tone. A look of horror and confusion came over their faces. "Ok, well, how about a nice muchacha for your little fishing boat?" was Jabba's question. "What?" What the hell is this guy talking about? I found out later that fishing boat means cock here in this particular pueblo. He tried to bring one of the girls over and I say, "No no, it's ok we were just going to see the rest of Puerto de Cayo. We are on a tour." The guy is trying to get me to go on his fishing boat for a discounted rate the next day, but I am explaining to him I leave at 6am. I am walking a fine line of offending Jabba and at the same time my face is giving me away that I am not enjoying his company. My face is pained in a crunched laugh with darting eyes to Oscar in hopes that he will get us out of this situation. The guys are getting more and more worked up because I have declined their generous offers of herpetic beers and even more herpetic laced lovely ladies. Ok, time to go.

Oscar finally reads my uncomfortableness and got us out of there. Jabba is noticeably annoyed and gives me this bitter sad limp handshake because he was offended, rightfully so. I was being a jackass due to my annoying sense of self preservation. I guess I should have slammed the glass of beer covered in scabs and then slammed one of the girls in one of the rooms that is set up with a mattress on the floor right off the main room where everyone is drinking and next to the shitter.

It is one thing to be in an awkward situation in English but throw in the the misunderstanding x factor and your are on uneven footing. Yes, I can communicate with the people but I cannot express myself, and that is a giant leap away. I spend days talking to pueblo folk, but at the end of the day I do not relate to these people. We run out of things to talk about because our cultures are so different. We have to talk about weathers and their, what usually ends up being, traumatic family history. We cannot talk light and fluffy with pop culture references. And I cannot stand their salsa music. Can you name your favorite 3 Raggaton and Vallanata artists please? Any music that uses a fog horn for an instrument is complete garbage. You can put on my tombstone.

Oscar and his family were a treat, but even with them we hit conversation dry spots. I played with his kids making Lego houses and guns after a warm Ecuadorian dinner of soup, lentils, rice and chicken. My tent was pitched facing the crashing waves and I passed out thinking about what a wonderfully strange life I am living.
Caption: ¨Cuidad de Manta.¨
Caption, ¨I love this photo. A giant monument in the middle of a glorieta in Manta of a tuna fish and then a can of tuna with a bar code underneith. The tuna is bigger than Shamu. The police were waving at me to move cause I stopped to take this picture in the traffic circle.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

An afternoon beer with Ted

After spending a few uneventful but relaxing days camping in a sleepy tourist beach town called Canoa I decided to head southward. I woke up late because the place I love to eat whole wheat pancakes served with mantequilla de maracuyá and homemade cane syrup does not serve until 9am. On ride days I usually get up at 5am but these pancakes were worth the delay, not to mention they are served with a great bowl of fresh fruit.

Lazily I set off for Bahia because I really wanted to see this gigantic tortoise that made the cruise from the Galapagos to the coast. The sailors would take these defenseless creatures and chuck them in the boat for long sea passages. They could live on their backs for months and would provide sailors with fresh meat later in their journey. Luckily this guy was not eaten and ended up in an ¨Eco-School¨ in a Bahia.

It was a short ride from Canoa to Bahia, 22 km, with a free boat ride over a river estuary. I checked into a 5 dollar hotel, showered up, and then ate lunch at a place filled with locals. After eating I heard a couple speaking English at a table across the way, which is strange because Bahia is not a major tourist destination. People usually go to Canoa or Montañita.

We chatted it up a bit, and they led me to their hostel while they left to go swim. Lucky for me Ted was sitting out front of the hostel sipping on boxed wine and reading a hardcover book about the history of Latin America before the conquistadors arrived. Upon first glance you know Ted is going to be an interesting guy. At 57 he has a full head of gray hair trimmed into a mullet. A fine specimen: 7.5 on the mullitude scale.

Caption "Ted, the man. And one of those hands of his."

It is just the two of us and we hit it off splendidly because he loves to talk and I love to listen after setting him up with questions that he loves to knock down. Set it up...knock it down.

I started him off slowly talking about boating since he has been on the sea since 13. From there about women, Latin America, America, etc...it goes on, and then he mentioned he had a pension back from his military days. A few minutes later after we had moved onto other topics I brought up his dangling hint again.

¨So, what war did you serve in?¨ I ask knowing full well he is a Vietnam vet.
¨How did you know?¨ he quickly asked with a raised eyebrow and a sideways glance.
¨You mentioned your pension a moment ago,¨ I replied.
He lets out a sigh, his chair squeaks back when he gets up and says, ¨Ah hell. What do you drink?¨
He comes back with a large afternoon beer and more boxed wine. ¨I usually drink rum. Rum is my drink, but today I am drinking wine,¨ as if he has to legitimatize his drink to me. Ok.
¨I served in Vietnam,¨ was his answer from no where.
¨How was that?¨
¨I don`t go there.¨
¨Gotcha.¨ A pregnant pause passes and we sipped our drinks, ¨Being a Vietnam vet do you have a theory of why we were over there?¨
¨It`s obvious, right? To stop the spread of Communism. If Vietnam fell then they would have all fallen to Communism, right?¨ he says with a sarcastic smile.
¨So why do you think it was if it was not that? Personally I think it was money. The USA needs to keep the military industrial complex going or our economy will disappear,¨ I realized I should not have said anything so he could have talked freely without being influenced but I felt I had to add something to the conversation.
¨Ya, that too, but you know 58,000 men died in that war. Now do you think that Bush would be in office today if those 58,000 men were not killed in action? They killed those good men to keep themselves in power, THAT is why we were sent to Vietnam,¨was his adamant response.
I wanted to ask him if Bush won by 58,000 votes or if they checked whether they guys that were killed we registered Democrats or Republicans, but I knew he had lost his mind and I decided to pass on rilling him up.

We changed the topic and he changed his drink to a rum, his favorite. We kept talking, only to be interrupted by him from time to time making loud inappropriate English comments to the trunky Ecuadorian women walking by. They do not understand a word he says but they know enough not to look his way.

Next he goes into a nice piece about a guy that owns an electronics store in town. I will summarize it for you. Basically the very nice man, who is friends with Ted over the past 4 years, would take his shop's earnings every Monday to the bank after work. That, according to Ted, was his first mistake. Two Colombians guys came up to him one Monday evening and demanded the money but the owner would not give it up without a fight. 4 shots to the belly later and the Colombians are off and running with the cash. They end up on a public bus and decide to rob them all as well. In the may-lay that ensued, somehow, the men were unarmed and the police show up and surround the bus. The men are taken into custody in the back of a pick-up truck and driven into the center of town where the mob patiently awaited their arrival. They men are pulled from the truck, doused in gasoline and set on fire. Ted tells this story with the utmost pride and he WISHED he could have been there to throw the match on those guys.

¨How can you be certain that those were they guys? The weapon was never found,¨ was my concerned question.
¨I am certain and I think what they did was 100% right. Those guys, if convicted, would have gotten 8 years and only served 5 years. He was a great great man that they shot,¨ was his passionate reply.
¨Ok, lets say the mob was right this time, but how about a philosophical question,¨ and this I realized was going to fall on deaf ears the moment those words fell out of my mouth, ¨Lets say the mob is right 9 our of 10 times and the 10th time an innocent man gets set on fire. Do you have a problem with that?¨
¨First of all, they had the right men. The guy that poured the gas on the guys saw him pull the trigger, and secondly let me tell you another story... (obviously not answering my question in the least but I am now curious about this new story),¨ Ted makes a long obvious pause staring at the table, he lifts his glass to eye level and says to himself and to the glass, ¨AH, HELL...I told myself I wouldn´t, but the alcohol...¨ and he trails off.

Ted is noticeably restless with himself in the chair, but he takes another sip of rum and starts, ¨35 miles outside Memphis, Tenn was living this sweet blond girl who was a friend of mine. This was in the middle of nowhere. To protect herself I taught her how to shoot a .45. I took her into the woods and got her confident enough to fully unload all the chambers in a crouched position. My instructions to her were to go to a corner and unload.

Well, I got a phone call some time later and I came over to her house. There laying on the floor was a black man filled with bullets and the only thing the girl could say in her shock was, ¨I didn`t know it was going to be so loud!¨ because we had practiced outside and not indoors. Now what do you do in that situation? Call the cops? Hell no. We took him out back and buried him, then replaced the door that had a few bullets lodged in it where she had missed. That is what you do. No questions asked. That poor girl would have gone to jail and what we did was right.¨
I took a look at Ted`s hands. What have those hands done in this lifetime? He has just admitted to a complete stranger after a few hours of conversation that he buried a man, so I am quite certain he has killed. This story was obviously not up for debate whether he did right or wrong. He did the right thing is all he wants to hear, but I cannot help myself, ¨Well, I will tell you right now. I am a pussy. I would not have buried the guy. I would have called the cops and let them sort it out. You did what you thought was best.¨
¨Damn straight, and it was right. That poor girl would have gone to jail.¨
I am thinking a blond girl killing a black guy going into her house in Tennessee would be an open and shut case, but what do I know?

I wrapped up that conversation with a comment about wanting to see the tortoise at the school and I headed off wondering how many people like Ted roam the streets. A lot.

Caption "This tortoise was my excuse for a somewhat graceful getaway from the conversation. He looks like the tortoise from The Neverending Story, right? Look at that wise old eye. His eyes are 105 years old."

Friday, November 21, 2008

Mr.Roger`s Field Trip to an Ecuadorian Prison

Yesterday morning I was carrying a new friend`s bag and hailing a cab in a dream state. Saying a `bye` just 24 hours after a `hi`. A kiss, a door slam and a plume of smoke disappears as if watching a movie in fast forward.

Lazily walking back to my hostel without a single thought in my head I ran into a fellow long haired traveler. ¨Hey, I am going to the Quito prison. Do you want to come? We just need to buy two packs of cigs and we need to hurry because to enter visiting hours we need to be there within 30 minutes.¨

This is traveling life. Whisked away to a new distracting activity before your mind can properly wrap itself around and digest the last one that just took place.

Next thing you know I am in a cab bumping along with two packs of cigs in my pockets and two beers. The beers are for me. The cigs are for the prisoner we are about to visit as a thank you. There is no entrance fee. My British traveling amigo explains to me that he got this guy`s name, Raymond, from Canadian traveler who had been last visiting hours. Twice a month the prisoners can get conjugal visits and once a week they can have family and friends. We are the friends.

Upon arriving we are searched. NO belts, cell phones, lighters. My passport is held at the gate and my forearm is covered in stamps so they know we are only visitors. I am left with 8 dollars in my pocket, my room key, two packs of cigs, two beers in my belly and an overall itchy nervous body feeling about willfully stepping into a prison.

Raymond is there to greet us. In his 60`s he has a full but slightly thinning head of gray hair with a thick yellowed mustache. His jet black eyebrows hang over droopy eyes that crave cigarettes. Raymond`s stooped over posture is that of a man that has spent a lifetime on a bar stool talking about stories with no end and no point.

He greets us in his Liverpool accent and tells us how, ¨I know the guards. He did me a favor to let me down here so I could escort you from the entrance to my room (cell).¨ Raymond shakes hands with the guard in a thankful gesture and the guard ignores him. The metal bars of the gate clank close behind us and now we are in. What the fuq are we doing in here?

It is nothing like I thought. The prisoners are walking freely among the Pabellons (cell blocks). They are not waving at you from behind their barred cells. They are brushing shoulders with you, eyeballing you, trying to extort money from you, and following you around. My only protection is this 60 year old man named Raymond that has spent 2.5 years here and does not speak a word of Spanish.

We spiral up stairs to the third floor. My head is on a swivel and I am not sure if I should be making eye contact or not. Sounds are heard while passing people to let you know they know who you are: frightened little tourists here to take a glimpse at their world. We get to Raymond`s cell. There are no bars. It is a wooden door with vents to let the air pass. Inside it is a very cramped college dorm room. A bunk bed sleeps two, and a third sleeps on the floor. It is claustrophobic, there are 6 guys crammed in there all smoking and socializing. We enter and try to make ourselves comfortable. I find a corner of a bed to take a seat and sit hunched over so the top of the bunk bed does not hit my head. One of Raymond`s roommates, Carlos, hands me a cup of Coca-Cola and a cig. I take both.


We sit and chat for a while. The usual questions: Carlos has been here for 5 years. Most of the guys are here on drug possession (minimum sentence of 8 years), but no one knows what the others are really here for. Sometimes it is found out that the guys are rapists or child abusers and they are ¨dealt with¨. The cliche is true. They are ALL innocent. Both Raymond and Carlos tell us their stories of how they were set up with their bags filled with coke in the airports. A moment later Raymond contradicts his innocence by saying, ¨Shit, they are supposed to help you and your family out if something happens. But nothing! Not even a word from them.¨ Them being the guys for whom he was obviously running the drugs.

The prisoners here have easy access to drugs and naturally, living caged up, start to lose their grip on reality. They have delusions of grandeur both about themselves and psuedo importance of their friends there in prison. Carlos explains that the prisoners run Ecuador from inside the prisons. If the prisoners call a strike the entire country shuts down. ¨How does that happen?¨ I ask.
¨Well, the prisoners kick all the guards out of the prison. Then we shut down the country. We do not do that anymore now because we rewrote the Constitution of Ecuador from inside the prison. The people voted to approve it and we will be out of prison before Christmas¨ Carlos says with raised eyebrows as if to say ¨how about that?¨.
Raymond goes on to tell us that Carlos worked on the legal changes right there in their little cell. Impressive, and unlikely.

Enough of story time hour, it is time to take a walk around the prison. Raymond brings us back downstairs to where you can eat and socialize. There is an eating area that is free. The food is so bad there that Raymond has never eaten the food there once in 2.5 years. To get decent food you have to pay for it. Cells on the bottom floor have been converted into tiny food stalls. A bakery, a Coca-Cola vendor, fried empanadas, and regular plates of food with rice, beans and carne as you would find on the side of the road. Nothing is provided for. Money is used to buy cigs, toilet paper, laundry, drugs, and betting. We leave the food area and pass a corridor that has cocks in a cages for the weekly cock fights. Now we are outside. This is Pabellon C. This is the nicest Pabellon. In order to get in you need to pay 80 dollars and then 1 dollar a week to keep your ass there. This guarantees you have a room with only three people in it. If you are a drug addict or have little or no cash you end up in Pabellon B or D. There you sleep 6 to a room. I cannot even imagine how 6 fit into a room there. I think it is impossible unless there are two in each double bed.

Outside in Paballon C there are people walking around stretching their legs. Each corner you look to there are shady conversations taking place, overly smooth handshakes and heavy rolled shoulders. The area is no larger than two basketball courts.

¨Now I am going to take you to what we call the machete ward, Pabellon B. Real bad guys there. Drug addicts with weapons. Stay close to me, do not talk or look at anyone. AND do NOT give anyone anything,¨ was Raymond's list of instructions.
¨Huh, we do not have to go there, really,¨ was my British companion´s thought. Mine too but I had some morbid curiosity.
Raymond acted like he did not hear and we walk into Pabellon B. The vibe is distinctly different as we pass the threshold, and in different I mean worse. Not even two steps in and there is a guy poking in me in the ribs asking me for a dollar. ¨No, I do not have any.¨ You know you are not supposed to give the guy anything, but your instinct is to give him something so he will go away. You also hope that the finger will not be replaced with a shiv. Next he trys the Brit. He starts nervously fumbling for some money but Raymond sees what is happening and bitches both the Brit and the crack head out.


The crack head leaves us alone but walks exactly two paces behind us for the rest of tour. I can smell him, like an LA bum covered in piss with sores all over his lips. Raymond points out the first ground floor cell. Here, like Pabellon C, there is commerce on the ground floor, but in Pabellon B it is drugs. You can get a joint for 50 cents, coke for 3 dollars a half gram, and heroin etc. can be purchased. The prison guards obviously get their cut and they turn a blind eye to it all, besides, the prisoners on drugs are probably easier to handle.


Many people buy drugs on credit. The interest rates in prison are steep. 10 dollars today and in two days you need to pay back 20. In two more days that goes to 40. In less than a week you own 80 on your original loan of 10. Trouble comes when you do not pay. As long as you pay you are valuable to everyone in prison. Do not pay and all of a sudden something can go horribly wrong. 10 people have been killed since Raymond has been there. Shot and stabbed. Those caught of killing once in prison are sent to Pabellon F. Luckily they are separated from the others, and right now us.

Coincidentally I am reading Papillon at the moment about the French murderer that escaped from prison two times in the 1930`s and 40`s. It is one of the most incredible true life stories I have ever read, so I have to ask Raymond how many have escaped. 10 people have since Raymond has been here.

Both the Brit and I are ready to get back to the sanctuary of Raymond`s room. Once back in the room I see that the Brit is ready to leave. He is sitting on the bed and nervously fidgeting with his sleeves and clasping his hands. I feel the same way, but internalize it all. Instead I have another nervous cig and wonder if my cold sweat is washing away the visitor stamps on my forearms under my jacket.


Caption: ¨Now I understand why prisoners get tats in prison; I even felt hardcore with these stamps.¨

Sitting in the corner of Raymond`s room is a new greasy curly haired character with caramel skin. Behind glassy eyes he smiles. ¨He is one of the three main mafia bosses here,¨ says Raymond with much respect. ¨You can buy whatever you want from him.¨

Mind you, Raymond just told us a moment ago that a prisoner was caught with drugs inside the jail and was given another 8 years. And that contradicts what he told us that the cops know about the drugs being sold from Pabellon B but do not care because they are paid part of the profits.

¨Do not worry. You will not not be searched on the way out. Only in,¨ reassured Raymond. Ya, fucking hell, right. I am going to take this guy`s word? A man that has obviously made some great decisions up until this point of his life. I think I will pass on buying some coke and pot IN prison surrounded by guards that can arrest you and just keep you there.
I am not sure what is wrong with some of the tourists there but I have heard of them smoking J´s and doing lines with the prisoners and buying stuff. This, in my opinion, is the least relaxing atmosphere for drugs. My heart rate never got below 150 beats a minute while there for the hour and a half, which seemed more like one and a half days. Perhaps they figured they were tourists and nothing can happen to them, but both my friend and I felt the gravity of the situation.

You always know that prison is bad. You think about ¨what if¨ I was there. But once you are inside (and this prison is one of the best case scenarios you can imagine) your body and stomach feels heavy. Heavy with realizing this is their existence. We leave and wander outside, go to bed, and hop on a bus. All the while these guys are still in prison trying to convince themselves that they have it all worked out, have the best protection and friends, and that they will be out by Christmas time (I am sure they said that last Christmas as well...but it was delayed by `lost paperwork´).

We try several times to get up and leave. We have had enough of the tour. Each time we attempt to wrap things up Raymond gives us a ¨Oh, you going so soon?¨ and guilt anchors us there another 15 min before our next attempted escape.

While sitting there waiting for the minutes to pass, small talking, I get the creeping feeling of anxiety walking up my spine. Wanting to leave but held by an unseen hand. I look at each of the guys in the cell, including my friend, and I see that in their eyes as well. There is this pent up energy waiting to be released that has no where to go. They are all mousetraps ready to snap. Raymond`s eyes seem to be more distant now as the time with him passes. He is sitting next to us but he has left us while talking about names of streets in his hometown and watering holes. Hints of his shady past are being mentioned while reminiscing.
¨Why do you like having visitors?¨ I asked him, snapping him out of his ¨stooper¨.
¨It is nice for us,¨ was the simple response. I looked around the room and all the roommates heads were nodding in agreement.

About every 5 minutes there is someone at the door asking Raymond to buy a book or a DVD or some thing or another. The more you buy the more valuable you are. It buys your safety. It is extortion. Raymond has payed 50k dollars in the 2.5 years he has been there but he lives in relative peace for it. Now this time it is a guard asking him to borrow a charger for a cell phone (cell phones can be sneaked in, for a fee). I take this opportunity to stand up and my British friend takes the hint and follows suit. ¨Ok, me must be going.¨
Raymond walks us out. We shake hands heartily and thank God it is us who is leaving and not the other way around. The metal bars closed behind us. On wobbly legs we race down the streets fueled by nervous energy. No cab is needed. We walk as free men on the streets with heavy stomachs back to our hostel bubble.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Jesus versus the devil womb of Cotopaxi

Caption: ¨Cotopaxi in all her hate.¨

Although I was a participant in this epic struggle between good and evil I felt more like an observer. What struggle, you ask? It was the climbing of the 5,897 meters (more than 19,000 feet) of pure evil and the center of hell on Earth that is Cotopaxi.

It all started off innocently enough. Backpackers talk about hiking Cotopaxi as if it were a trip to Disneyland. No one properly prepares you for what awaits. I think this was the first of many traps the Devil laid out for us that we ended up walking right into.

The players:
Jesus aka Drouyn from the land of Oz,

Gigi, Z German the German aka, me and Drouyn.

Gigi was visiting me on the typical one week American whirl-wind vacation. Being a lawyer based in SF this was her longest break from work in over three years, and you could tell. Somehow we decided hiking a mountain would be a good idea and luckily we managed to talk Z German and Jesus into it as well for some companionship on the walk to hell.

We left Baños for a long warm cramped jeep ride up to the refuge camp where we would be sleeping. We were acclimatizing in Baños at 2,000 meters for a few days before, if you can call that altitude acclimatizing. Along the way our driver explained some interesting facts about Ecuador. One, he says all the industrious indigenous people of Ecuador are immigrants from Boliva. All the lazy indigenous folk are native to Ecuador. Interesting fact. Second, the top 2 sources of income for Ecuador are its sales from petroleum AND money sent back home from Ecuadorans working abroad, mainly in Spain. That is insane.

We hike slowly up to the refuge at 4,800 meters to spend the ¨night¨ before hiking up. Arriving at 4pm we quickly eat dinner and go to sleep at 6pm to wake up at 11pm. We were tired due to the long ride and from a lack of oxygen but the cruel joke with the lack of O2 is you cannot sleep even though you are tired. Stacked bunk beds sleeping shoulder to shoulder with over 60 is our sleeping quarters. One of the special added bonuses of the altitude is it makes your intestines freak out. Trying to digest food at this height feels like two hands are kneading your innards and in the process everyone is leaking like a natural gas main. This was hell`s waiting room, and man did it stink.

After ¨waking up¨ at 11:30PM from one of the worst restless and stinkiest nights sleep in memory we all get to enjoy nice cup of tea and a fat throbbing headache. You try to choke down an apple or something even though you have no appetite, bordering on nausea, because you know you need the strength for the climb that awaits. Everyone is clomping around the wood planked floors with their hard plastic hiking snow boots, two layers of pants, three layers of jackets, two layers of gloves and a fleece hoody, snow goggles and a lantern strapped to your head.

At 12:30 we begrudgingly shuffle out the door of the refuge in pitch darkness having no clue what the next hours holds in store for us. Here is where there comes a bit of game theory. For each 2 people there is 1 guide. If 1 of the 2 gets sick both people of the group have to return with the guide, UNLESS one of them turns back before they put on their crampons (Metal teeth attached to your snow boots so you can walk on snow or ice without sliding down the hill. They look like you are wearing bear traps on your feet.)

Jesus and Z German are one group and Gigi and I are the second, each having our own guide. As we are approaching the point of no return, where you put on the crampons, Gigi tells me she is feeling nauseous and a moment later my guide says he has never seen anyone walk as slow as Gigi in his 4 years of guiding up the mountain. My fingers are crossed for Gigi to turn around before putting on the crampons because everyone in the group silently agrees there is no way she can make it to the top. Nope, she is putting on the crampons.

After walking a very slow 30 min more I ask the guide if we can make it to the top at this pace, and he flatly says no. So I suggest that just the men go and leave the the other guide with Gigi since she is now wearing the crampons and cannot be left alone. The guide explains he is fine with it but that Z German and Jesus must understand that if one of the three of gets sick we all have to go down since we are roped together in case one of us falls down a crevasse. They luckily agree and this puts pressure on me and places in an awkward position if I am to become ill. Now it would be my fault they do not make it to the top. They guys are cool and once we leave Gigi we excitedly start a jog up the hill to make our summit quest and to make up the time lost. I want to suggest slowing down in order to pace ourselves but I am now the invited guest of the group. I just hope my biker legs and lungs can keep up with their bounding energy.

At first the Devil Cotopaxi tricks us with a nice gradual incline and firm snow. Jesus is gingerly making his way up the mountain as if walking on water. We are in high spirits with our new found freedom and opportunity to make it to the top.

We settle into a good rhythm plugging along with sparse water breaks in the midnight hours. The sky is clear and starless due to the full moon washing them away with her brightness. We still have O2 and energy to enjoy ourselves and look around to appreciate the glacier that surrounds us and the desolate peaks in the distance bathing in the moon light.
Caption: ¨My headlamp lights up liquid life.¨

2 more hours pass smoothly but with strained effort. The devil sees we are approaching.

The next 2 hours becomes a monotonous existence. My reality and field of vision is reduced to the rope between my two bear trapped feet, foot holds in the snow, and the sound of my dry breath going in and out like a steam train.Nothing else exists. I could be on the moon or in a desert or on this glacier. It is now all the same to me. I ask the guide, ¨How much time until we get to the top?¨
¨2 hours,¨ was his reply and the group takes a collective sigh. Sweet Lord, 2 more hour of this?! We were already spent and I could see each of our shoulders, including Jesus`, slump forward. We all juggled the thought of quitting but no one wanted to be the one so we continued. We continued miserably and with far more frequent stops as we approached the summit. Our ice axes were used as canes to slump our bodies over to catch our breathes. The higher we get the thicker and looser becomes the snow. Often you take three steps and fall back two, but you have to quickly recover because you are anchored to the person in front of you. At times you have to take one large step instead of two small ones and this feels as if the Devil has punched you in the gut and takes all your air away. You have to struggle to regain a breathing rhythm or risk passing out.

The closer we get the more I can hear the devil womb laughing. Jesus is carrying the spiritual load of the group and thankfully he calls breaks to spare us all. ¨10 more feet then a break,¨ became our mantra. The closer we get the higher we are with less O2, deeper snow so more difficult to walk, plus each step we take the more tired we are.
Caption: ¨Our guide, and clearly one of the devil`s helpers.¨

Yes, the final hill is in site. We all joyously work our way to the summit and find out, nope! that is NOT the top. We have to go down and around a crevasse then back up another 30min. This is demoralizing. On top of it, since I have been in the caboose position, I am the one to go down along the side of the crevasse first. I took a peak over the ledge, then into Jesus`s eyes, and realized it is an endless pit. At least 7 stories deep. I assume it is Cotopaxi´s butt crack.
Conquering all we make it to within 20 feet of the top, and for some reason my body cannot catch its breath. I try to sync up my breathing to my heart rate, which has been like a hummingbird for the past 6 hours, but I cannot. The group is tugging at my cord, eager to be at the top but my legs are firmly planted and I will not move until I can breath. I can only compare it to running a full speed sprint while standing still and you have that fish trying to gulp air feeling. You cannot take in enough of what your greedy body wants.
Caption: ¨Sunrise view. We earned that monkey.¨

I recover and get to watch Jesus reign over the raging bitchface that is Cotopaxi. Z German also celebrates by collapsing on the summit top and dry heaving for 10 minutes. Oh, success. It tastes so sweet. Jesus is content and I have the face of someone that is getting a hot branding iron shoved up my ass. Not happy. I was envious of Gigi snuggling up in the refuge while we were here. Instant karma, serves us right.
Caption: ¨Type II Fun in progress. I do not recognize myself.¨

Caption: ¨Being a good friend I had to take a photo of Z German dry heaving on the summit. A form of celebration, I suppose.¨

We give each other hard heart felt man hugs. Hugs that I imagine were given after war battles to your friends when you realized you are still alive and you won. The sunrise is amazing. There are clouds but only far off in the distance that add to the landscape and help with perspective. White topped mountains are seen in the distance giving their morning stretch and clearin their eyes of clouds. It will be a nice sunny day. We feel like champions.

We made the typical error and used up all our energy for the accent. Resting on the summit we drink water with newly formed ice cubes floating in it and we try to eat frozen Snicker bars to recharge. I was desperately looking around for a teleferico or cable car to get us down. Nope, only the big gaping vagina of Cotopaxi laughing at us while belching sulfur in our faces.
Caption: ¨The sulphur belching devil vagina of Cotopaxi.¨

Time to go down. I tried to butt sled it all the way down but Z German would not have it. He walked down with the determination of Arnold Schwarzenegger. If he walked it made my balls get crushed and tied up in my harness. The truth was at this point I was willing to sacrifice my balls. I was that tired. Jesus too was knackered. He would take two steps, trip over his own feet and go down like a Godzilla character on a building in slow motion, but this happened to all of us at least a few times a minute. The sun was baking our wills and we were ´over it´ and ready to be back in the refuge to complain in comfort.

The guide must have had a hot date because he was eager to get us down and end his shift, but that was not in the cards for him. ¨On the way up, very good. On the way down, very bad,¨ was his honest and correct assessment. We were walking with rubber crutches all the way down. I could hear, ¨Fucking hell. Dammit, Fucking damn it,¨ from each slip and ass slam from the guys behind. I broke out into giggles from sheer exhaustion.
Caption: ¨The sunny and comical rubber leg walk down.¨

I am not sure if this account sounds fun to you. Personally I found not one part of the experience ¨fun¨ or enjoyable. Not the miserable sleep, not the climb up and certainly not the hike down. The only fun there could be that came out of this experience was Type II Fun. Type II Fun is the kind where you are miserable the entire time you are doing it, but you reflect back after some time (in this case perhaps years) and think about the summit or the overall experience and say, ¨That was fun,¨ even though it was far from fun. If you like Type II Fun then the devil Cotopaxi is waiting for you, my personal hell on Earth.
As for me, I made up some new rules. NO more high altitude climbing. NO going above the tree line. I figure if trees cannot breathe then neither can humans.

**note: less than 50% of the people made it up that fateful day