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.¨

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.

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.

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.¨