Mexico III: 3 / Back to Canadia

Eventually, my money came. Better late than never. By the time it came round I was really happy already. It was a real time out there. Good company, good solitude, good swimming, late night coconut runs and quality hammock-time. Later on the day I discovered I'd been paid, I met a girl who was in the process of doing up and renovating a new hostel in Tulum. Her name was Meghan. Californian. She'd met an energetic young Mexican named Sa'eed who had come into possession on a prime old block on a backstreet right near the center of town. A dream piece of real estate, but it needed a lot of work. I agreed to stay for a few days and help out while I got everything in order towards my plan to get back to Canada.
       The downtown location was ideal. I booked a flight to Vancouver from Cancun. I hung around and worked at the hostel for a few days: collecting bric-a-brac, shovelling gravel, handing out fliers, among other things. I got a fair bit of time off as well in which to get organised to go and enjoy the end of my days in Tulum. I went down to the beach one last time, and went out for a last meal with Alex and Manuela. We ate at a restaurant called "TORTA GIGANTE". We ate gigantic tortas and huge ice creams because we could and because we deserved them. The Carnaval was in town that night, too. Floats went by on the back of semi-trucks. We caught prizes from the buxom ladies on the Sol cerveza float. I never made it to Rio; but in the end it came to me. I was humbled with happiness and the significance of everything. Finally things were revealing themselves in time and clarity.
       The next day, I got up, made myself a sign pointing to Cancun and, after breakfast, headed out towards the highway. I wanted to hitch there because it's the best way to travel and I wanted to finish properly. I got a ride in no time with a middle aged Canadian couple driving a souped-up dune buggy, tearing up the highway at high speed, furious winds blowing through as I held onto my hat and we all yelled a conversation amongst ourselves. They dropped me 30 or so kilometres up the road to the highway near Akumal. I scarce had time to finish an orange before I got another ride - this time with a couple of Mexican fellas in the tray of a black ute with a cover over the top.
       Not long into the ride did I discover that I wasn't exactly alone back there. Turns out I was sharing the cab with a toucan in a cage and a huge orange iguana, who wasted no time in struggling free of his bag and roaming around, eyeing me warily as if to say "Don't even try anything, dickhead". One of the best rides ever. I got all the way to Playa del Carmen - a little over half way. I got dropped off near the huge Chedraui supermarket where I bought some fruit, bread and cheese. I dumped my bag in the outdoor parking lot and sat down for lunch. After I'd finished, I was approached by two cops. I thought they were going to bust me for smoking a Rollie; but in actual fact  I must have looked pretty hungry because one of them gave me his lunch: half a chicken with rice, salsa, and tortillas. It was starting to look like a pretty lucky day.
      I waited a while to get outta Playa, an hour at one spot and a hike to another; but eventually I got the ride I was after with an older bloke from Mexico City who hit hiked all around Mexico in his younger years. It was much, much safer back then, he told me. Ever since the war on drugs and the cartels some parts are really bad. He drove me all the way to my destination, a hostel near the bus terminal. He had offered me a room for the night but I couldn't take him up on it. I was too smelly and bearded - there was no way I could have faced his family!
       My last day in Mexico was pretty sentimental. I walked and walked and walked. I walked in on a  water-play synchronized swimming show, sat on a boat and drank a beer with chip tacos in "Tortuga Bay". Made it to Venezuela as well. It was a chewy Tuesday. On the way home I picked a last coconut, which was to be my last meal in Mexico the following morning.
      Mexico. Besides a few hard weeks, I had the time of my life down there. It really kicked my arse and pushed me in the dirt, but I'm thankful for that. There were quite a few things that I needed to learn. In the end though, my only regrets are that I made my mum and my family and friends worry about me... And that I never bought a machete. I'll be sorry about these things for a long time coming (perhaps the former slightly more so than the latter).
       Since getting back to Canada, life's been pretty excellent. I walked right into a job as a water slides attendant (Thanks Zan!), which would have to be one of the chilled-est jobs I've had. Involved a fair bit of reading. I spent some time with a lovely girl called Yuko. Drank socially with Henry and the boys. But, with spring, the time has come for me to leave my life in Banff, along with my new mates, playoff Ducks, and kitchen, for a second season in the Ontarian bush. Three more months of trees, starting tomorrow. I've been waiting and preparing a long time for this. Right now I'm on the final leg of a two-and-a-half day bus trip across this beautiful second home of mine. It's starting to look like A beautiful stinking hot buggy hard-yakka summer. Couldn't be happier.

Mexico, Round Tres, Parte Dos

... And so there I was, a ruin of my own creation, sitting there beneath the angel in the square, feeling a very long way from home or anywhere. Just then my angel of sorts arrived. A Frenchman named Stefane who I'd met at the Rainbow, and somewhere else, prior. He gave me a few pesos to check the net and try and find Soph, fed me tomales and shouted me a couple of beers and gave me a spot on his floor to roll out my sleeping bag. It was a nice night, the year was at it's end, and I was feeling O.K. again. We didn't stay out for the countdown though. When the fireworkswent off outside, I was lying in the dark, staring through the roof, reflecting on the year that was, and the serious changes I had to make in my life. New plans, new beginnings.
The next day Stefane the saint gave me a bag ful of fruit to get me going and I took my leave and headed out to the beach to try and find the cabanas Sophie was supposedly hiding out in. I wandered down to the beach, and there it was -- the Atlantic,  the Caribbean. The sea was blues and greens, the sun was high, the sand so fine and white. It smelt different to the Pacific, tasted different, too. I was pleased, splashed around. A new year, a new ocean. I stashed my bag and had a wander up and down the beach looking for Soph --  no luck, so I spent the reast of the afternoon reading Vonnegut beneath a coconut tree. As the afternoon waned, I decided to walk back to town and check if she'd been on the net at all. About halfway there, and there she was, by the side of the road, trying to hitchhike back the other way. It was a sweet reuinion, lots of screaming and hugging involved. We got a ride back to the cabanas in no time, where I met the rest of the gang and shared in a huge cheese platter and pirate rum. Home at last.
Spent a few days chilling with the gang, chilling with Soph; reminiscing on high school days, old people, etc. Plenty of good food was eaten, plenty of swimming. It was lovely. They all got on the road south five days later, bound through Belize to Guatemala, where they'had managed to line up gigs with a volunteering program. The owner of the cabanas had come around and the accommodation was no longer free. They'd been there close to three weeks already, time to move on. Since I had neither the money for the road to Guatemala, or for rent at the cabanas, I elected to take my gear out into the forest behind where they were situated and roll out the mat while I continued the wait. I chose a nice little spot in a beautiful grove beneath a patch of open sky so I could see the sky and stars. 
That little spot became my home sweet home for three weeks. I got myself into a routine, and it was here in the bush alone that I began my rebuilding process. By the end of last year, a great deal of what I thought I knew about myself and the world had been dashed to peices and all my faults and failings were stark and apparent. I'd lost it alleverything, my mind was a mess, my heart and faith in serious trouble. So I settled in, started asking questions. Now that I really didn't have anything to do, anywhere to go, anyone to talk to, I had no choice but to get settled in to living in the bush and answering the problems in my life. My routine went like this, usually: I started by getting up before the sun and going for runs, swimming, coming home and eating a breakfast of noodle soup over the campfire, excercising with a cinderblock for a bit; then the 2 hour walk to the shopping centre and back to check the ATM. In the afternoons I did whatever I felt like: whether it be swimming or going for a walk or sitting down and meditating, just listening, always thinking, writing a bit, etc. I usually ate dinner at about 5:30-6 and went to bed not long after. I had a lot of dreams always, often waking in the wee hours and just lying there thinking, thinking. I began to feel better mentally, patience creeping back in. My health and strength improved, too. I learned to accept my situation a bit better. I was obviously here for a reason, and I knew I needed to be there. It was where I deep down wanted to be. Out in the bush, with solitude, and surviving. Nothin' better on, anyways.
Sometime after midnight on my twentieth night under the stars, a big rain blew in. It had been coming for some time. I screamed and cursed and threw a jacket on and all my shit together in a hurry and trekked through the bush back to the bungalows for shelter. I arrived soaked to the skin. Tired and wishing I had a tent. I sat on the porch and watched the rain bucket down until it cleared sometime around morning. Mostly I was annoyed because it was going to be difficult to start a fire. It rained on and off over the next few days, basically cementing my move back into the cabins. But, at least now I had company. This company came in the form of an Englishman called Alex. A builder-gone-mystic, in Mexico on a path to follow his dreaming, and learn how to be a healer. Right from the get-go we became mates easy. To tell the truth I was thankful for the company. We shared a campfire and stories and cooked up some real spicy food. Have to hand it to Alex for the best and hottest salsa I'd ever eaten. What a beauty. A week went by before Alex's girlfriend, Manuela came and joined the party. We had a few blow ins: a couple of Argentines and a Mexican-born American and all-round-good-bloke, Tony. Transitional times for us all, formative times. And, through the means of fire and meals are converations shared across it, we all helped each other out and through each other we got to know ourselves better. It was a beautiful time, that campfire time... Keep an eye out for the final round, III, coming soon enough. Thanks for reading, kids. Sorry nothing ever happens around here. I never know wat to say about all that happened. I can't even convey it. Words seem superfluous almost, maybe I've just lost the knack for it, who knows. But anyways, I'll keep at it slowly and hone my skills better when I go back to school later on in the year... PAZ!
 

Mexico. Round Tres.

On the day after the Jersey Shore ended for ever (R.I.P.), the selfsame day that the Mayan longcount ticked over, Mikie and me went our separate ways. Mikie back to Canada to work, and me back down to Mexico. I just wasn't ready for Canada again. I'd been there almost a year not that long ago, wanted to catch up with old mates, wanted to at least make it out into the Caribbean. South America was shot; but so it goes. Cuba and Jamaica, Haiti and Dominica held a certain appeal. Mostly though, the Atlantic, the god-damn Caribbean Sea, man. Pirate territory. Had to do it. Funds were at an all-time low, though: I had to borrow money from my sisters just to get out of San Diego and make a run at it. Most of this money was gone within a week. Basically as soon as I walked into Tijuana, without even having to get my passport out at all, I was picked out as an easy scam and within an hour duped into giving some dirty ice-scab a thousand pesos in the belief that he could get me a ticket to Chiapas for "local price". In hindsight that dude's never had a legitimate job in his entire life. Dude had tears tattooed on his face, and an "LA" tattoo on his throat. Oh well, a fool and his money are easily parted. So it goes. The ticket I got for the next day ended up costing me 1800, in the end. After a feed, and a night in a dingy hotel, and some groceries, I had about 500 left. Spent a hundred on the three-day bus ride, and, on arrival in Tuxtla on Christmas afternoon, I discovered that the rest had been taken from my bank by a hotel in San Diego we'd done the sneaky on for a free night... or so we thought. So that left me with 11 pesos in my pocket. Then I bought water for 10, and that was that. Gone. Broke on Christmas, and still quite a ways from where I needed to be. My shot was Palenque, where I thought Soph and Pablo were at the Rainbow Gathering. No choice but to stick out the thumb and make a go of it. An hour and I got a nice ride an hour up the road to the old stomping ground of San Cristobal de las Casas. I tried to pump straight through; but the walk was long and after a lot of sweat and frustration it got dark and I had to call it. So I turned and lugged it back into the central square to have a look at Christmas. Not much happening, just standard San Cristobal scenes: Nicely dressed people getting about at slow pace. Mellow mood and live music wafting into the streets from the coffee houses. Nice, but I was broke and starving and kicking myself at my situation. Just couldnt get into it. So I stole some snacks in lack of turkey, ham, and seafood and walked out of town again. I'd read somewhere that the Pemex petrol stations let hitchhikers sleep behind them. Turned out to be bunkum - even on Chrissy. Slept the night in a wet cold and dewy ditch in a shit neighborhood. Bum Christmas. The next couple of days were also of the rough variety also. Bit of an eye-opener in terms of having to turn something out of nothing just to get food in the belly. Sold things like special coins and these shit necklaces I made from string and bottletops. Even changed all of my American ones and shrapnel. It was rag-tag, but I made enough to eat, and got myself out again on the road the day after I spent a night in a no-so-cosy-but-secure garden on Boxing Day. Stressful days and shit, but I pushed on through. Also bummed by the news that both Sophie and Pablo were by now in Tulum, which was a long way further down the line. 10 more hours so. But, my luck was in on that sunny day, and after an easy, short ride out of town to the appropriate intersection, I nabbeda brilliant ride with a lovely family. A couple of girls my age and their old man, out on a road trip from DF. Turns out that one of the girls has plans to emigrate to Oz one day, so she got a chance tpractice her Australian English, and I got a feed, a few beers, an afternoon at the waterfalls, and a ride to Palenque. Made me really happy, that day did. On arrival in Palenque, I walked out to the road to Panchan, left my bags in a paddock and walked the 9 k's out to a place where I knew I could sneak a free hot shower, did so, and slept so sweet in a baddock under a big gnarly old oak tree. The sunrise was magic. Golden light though mist and big green blades of grass. Before too long I was shooed along whilst reading, though, and I had to get a move on. Went in to Palenque and knocked about for a bit, refilled my water bottle and got given 15 pesos for the colectivo out to the Rainbow Gathering that afternoon for the night of the big fullmoon party. It turned out to be exactly the place I needed to be. I settled in, set u p the tent and sat down in the trade section, make a few sweet deals for things I needed (tobacco, cornflakes, mushies)  in exchange for things I didnt need (a map, chewie, a ticket to the museum in Mexico City), and got to know a few people. Never in my life have I seen so much nudity. So many hippies getting about with the old fellas flapping in the wind. My old man would kick my arse if he seen me gettin about like that. I didnt partake in the nudity. The fullmoon party was nice, too. Huge Om circle, much love, much dancing, great veggie meal and all free. Good vibes. Met a girl called Sparrow. She made me a man of straw. The party got wierd later on - I got invited to an orgy. Too much of a prude these days, so that bird flew. I hit the bed a bit later after heckling the koombayah singers into playing a bit of reggae and partaking in some salad and chai tea, instead of some kind of hell-for-leather sexfest. Right move, or worst move ever? Whatever. Leave the orgies for the serious freaks. The next day, I decided to chill for another day. I was tired of running, by this time. Needed a recoup bad. Had a great day. Went swimming. Again no nude prude. Met a couple of German girls, non hippies, and initiated them to the wierd and wonderful family/tribe that is the Rainbow. So much potential, but at the end of the day it's a society of people, a large one, and these things inherit problems, hippies or no. When its good, which is most of the time, it's great - but there's a fair bit of degeneracy, laziness, snobbery and disunity there, too. Just like the other society. I wont say it's better or worse, but there's things they both need to learn from each other. The next day, the rain came in. It was a mud fest, and the Germans tent and my tent were shithouse, so the time came to get out. Back to Palenque. I remembered I had 40 bucks stashed in my Canadian bank, too, so after a night at Panchan, a king-sized Victoria beer and a pack of smokes, I went into Palenque the following morning, New Years Eve, to try get to Tulum. I had just enough money. Me and Some Argentinians and the most lost person, sad crazy little Marie from Germany commandered a colectivo to take us there in time for the countdown. Poor Marie jumped the gun just before we left though, on a premonition. May the Lord watch over her soul. Anyways, the road was straight and true and we got there with plenty of time to spare, 8pm. The Argentinos continued on to Playa del Carmen, and I was left to my devices. tried to find Sophie, but no sign and she hadn't been online for a few days so I was beat. I hit up Mum for a little more money to settle in and have a small time, but I'd lost another money card in Palenque, so I was on skid row again. Broke and lost in the central square sitting under an angel statue staring at the Christmas tree, ruing my constant incompetence. Things were looking grim again. Then my guardian angel arrived. Part 2 coming soon.

Magico Mexicano

Ok. So I've been trying for weeks/months to sit down and put together a succinct and snappy account of our time in Mexico; but so far everthing I've written about it has sucked. The reasons for this are many, as are the excuses; but the time has come to churn out a brief and hopefully not-so-lackluster attempt to run through what's happened in the last couple of months... here goes.
        Our first port of call in Mexico was a little town called Sonoyta -- one of the smaller and less frequented of the US/MEX border crossings, south and a little west of Phoenix. Within 20 minutes of leaving the 'States and rumbling into Mexico in old Buie, we got pulled over for speeding. Just a casual 60 in a 20 zone. Neither of us had valid licenses on us (I'd lost mine in San Fransico along with my ATM card), and were forced to bribe the shotgun-wielding cops. The whole transaction was fast and terrifying. It was in this very instant that I realised that I was a long way from home and knew absolutely no Spanish whatsoever. Luckily, though, we managed to get away with a 500 peso bribe. Deep breath; change of undies. We immediately made our way hastily towards the west coast: where we hoped to catch onto a coastal highway of sorts and burn down as far as we could from the border in as little time as possible.
       Somewhat later that night we came across the "official" point of entry into Mexico-proper, only to be denied entry due to the paperwork of our little Buie revealing that she wasn't as registered as previously thought... not registered at all, as a matter of fact. So, in light of the revelation that we would not be driving through Mexico, we hightailed north a ways and found a sneaky place to crash for the night by some railway tracks. Our sad and lonely last night with Buie.
       The next day we cruised the last short distance back to Puerto Peñasco with the idea of trying to sell our car for whatever price we could get her for. In the end we managed it, in what could well be the dodgiest deal we will ever be involved in. The car broke down and I had to fix it, then we had interest from a guy who wanted us to use it to sling drugs to the United States for him. Thank Christ the car was too old-looking and ourt price too high to keep him in the chase. In the end, though, we managed to sell her off for 450 US dollars and 5 t-shirts to an old fella who ran a t-shirt shop.
       We got the feeliing we should scoot town pronto after all that madness, so we hopped on a bus and got out of town, bound for Hermosillo. We passed the border without stopping in a bus full of Mexicans and never got our passports stamped. Not much was going on in Hermosillo, so we ate some beers and drank some chips in front of the telly for the night and got up first thing to catch a long (22 hr) bus, all the way down to Guadalajara.
       We spent a few days in beautiful Guadalajara finally enjoying ourselves in Mexico, taking in the sights and generally just looking around at all the old churches and the beautiful girls and eating great food and drinking beers. It was beaut.
       In Guadalajara we met Pablo the Chilean clown. Pablo is a bro, and he turned out to be our travel-buddy for a while. He started us juggling. We all left Guadalajara together, with the idea to hitchhike all the way to Mexico City. We caught a ride out to the edge of the city, and then loitered around a petrol station until we eventually landed a ride with a really wealthy auto-engineer in his super flash and really fucking fast BMW. At times we got up to speeds of 180kn/h. We didn't quite end up in D.F., though. Our man's destination was a little Spanish town named Guanajuato. We got there in the middle of the afternoon and straight away fell in love with the place. It's like a little peice of old-time Europe superimposed amongst the hills of Mexico. Beautiful. We ended up stying here for ages: nearly two weeks. We walked just about everywhere there was to walk, did hours and hours of sitting and people-watching from the steps of the Teatro Juarez. In truth, we didn't get up to much. There was a fair amount of relaxing being done. We mixed it up with a bit of revelry: Chilean feasts, dancing reggae and salsa and meeting a couple of classy ladies, one of which, Briana, ended up taking a liking to Mikie and sharing the road with us further down the line.
Eventually, we got tired of our little hometown and gathered the gumption to get up and go forth to Mexico D.F., in the hopes of lining up some ork teachiing English. We had to leave Pablo behind, because he fell in love with all of the girls there, one Chilean girl in particular.
       We took the easy way out this time and caught the bus. Our couchsurfer host, Aura, and her boyfriend Christian picked us up from the station and took us in for a couple of nights. They really did look after us, taking us around to her friends house for dinner, and taking us out to try pulque -- a slimy alcohol made from the aguave plant. Aftter our short little stay there, we moved into a hostel downtown and set about trying to get jobs teaching English. We nearly succeeded, too. We were basically hired by a bloke, but the deal fell through due to him having some sort of vague troubles with the government or somesuch. I guess we'll never really know; but when the news came round that we were no longer going to get the job, we decided to get out of Mexico City. But not after having a pretty good time there. It was an insane place: home to over 20 million Mexicans. We josteled in the trains and took a ride on the serene boats of Xochimilko (Mexican Venice). We drank more Pulque. We took day trips out to the ruins at Teotihuacan and Tepoztlan (the latter being by far more beautiful and less ovecrowded). The best tacos in Mexico are in Mexico city. And then, we left for Oaxaca.
       Oaxaca city wasn't that great, really. Pretty and all; but a little uninspiring. Briana got robbed by the bloke who was working at the hostel. Her camera and ipod went missing and there was nobody else it could have been, so after some threatening and late night vigilance she eventually got all her stuff back.
Mikie and I were within a breath of leaving straight for Guatemala the next day, but the lovebirds decided that they liked each other a little too much to split up just yet, so we all decided to go to the beach together instead.
       We caught a minibus south along one of the windiest roads I've seen to Puerto Escondido. The road was so windy I was nearly sick. Might also have had something to do with the pigs-head tacos that I ate late the night before, though; but I managed to keep a hold of my guts, and we arrived at the beach just after sundown. We booked into a cheap hotel before wandering down for a night-time swim. The water was so warm -- man, was it great to be back in the ocean after over a year on dry land. In the morning we got up and had a walk up the beach to try and find one of the cheap bungalows we had heard about through Pablo's idiot Peruvian mate in Oaxaca city. After a hot and sweaty walk all the way up to La Punta, we found what we were looking for. A thatched-roofed cabin, right on the beach for 1400 pesos between the three of us for a week. It was a dream. We spent an entire week lazing about, swimming, eating healthily and hiding from the scorching sun. Time very well spent.
        The next week was even lazier, though. We booked in to another beautiful bungalow in possibly the slowest-moving town the world has ever seen... Zipolite. We arrived just in time for the towns annual festival... but, nothing really happened. It was beautiful and lovely and all, but a week here was probably overkill. We ran out of things to do pretty fast.
       We then made our way towards San Cristobal de las Casas, with a nice but fairly uneventful stopover in Tapachula. We hung around in San Cristobal for around a week, wandering the pretty streets and buying presents off the sweet little Mayans. Then came the sad time when Briana had to leave us, returning home to her life and her puppy in California. The end of the dreadlock gang, the end of an era.. A sentimental time, indeed.
       So, in the light of a new day, the two of us moved on and resolved to leave Mexico behind us at last. Onwards we rolled, into Guatemala...

The Slow Boat to Mexico

So the slow boat to China has begun her long and fateful journey.  Our new big white Buie Lesabre has got us here to Mexico in one piece. Our trip began with a couple days in beautiful Seattle. We bought a car on our 2^nd ay in America. We started off with a busy schedule to keep, and wasted no time in getting a hold of Buie, which we got for a steal in the end – 1200 and legit from a couple of Mexicans at a dealership.

       That afternoon we got her on the road, on down to Portland at nightfall, a bit of a stroll around three blocks, saw nothing too interesting except for a statue made of push-bikes, before heading across to the coast. We hit the seaside town of Seaside sometime in the gloomy night and found a place near the beach where we parked our new home. We drank wine on the beach in celebration.  We woke the next day and had a stroll around lovely Seaside, before beginning a beauty couple of days of coasting down the 101, through all those sleepy waterfront towns and beautiful headlands and unreal rocks and beaches along the way between Seaside and the Golden Gate Bridge. Picked up a couple of hitchhikers along the way to return the favour for getting out of BC, which we did pretty well in the end, truth be told. 2 days between Kelowna and Vancouver, with a long night of walking and sleeping in orchards. Good rides the whole way. Next to no waiting. Signs are way better than thumbs. 

So, we decided to rest our weary bones in SF for a short while. We spent a day wandering and digging it, making it out to Haight-Ashbury for a successful mission, which was followed by a prolonged period of pretty much doing nothing for an extended period of time, which was great, and long overdue. Just a cheeky chew on a chewsdy, watching the trains go by into the night on a wicked windy start to Wednesday cooped up in our big boat on Hyde Street. San Fran is a gorgeous place.

After one more day of walkabouts and drinking lazily watching girls in parks of San Francisco, we were tired from the hills and the general craziness of the place. We woke up in our boat sweaty, hungover and filthy and knew it was time to go South. Without further ado we revved up the old inboard and kicked the old boat out onto the highway through the golden hills and coastlines of California, all the way down the line to that big ol’ promised land; that gritty, smoggy wasteland that is Los Angeles, California. 

On our arrival we checked into a rather cheap and really quite nice hostel in Inglewood. Dr. Dre was right: Inglewood is rough. We stayed a couple of nights in the hostel there. Mostly I stayed poolside and tried to sort out my life while Mikie went to Universal Studios. I managed to lose my ATM card in San Francisco, which had to be remedied as soon as possible. So I had no money in LA, but at least I got to relax. We did have a few beers on the second night, and possibly I overdid it, but that was LA. All i saw of the city was on the drive-by on our way out to Las Vegas the next day. Sunset Strip and Hollyood be damned. Mikie seemed to have had a good day out there, though. 

Next thing we knew we were growling off into the desert, along that Bat-Country route of Hunter’s, through shithole Barstow and Baker and red rocks and shrubs and not much else before a long descent through the sands into the unexplainable mirage of gambling and smut called Las Vegas, Nevada. We checked into a wierd hostel named after some kind of sexual cat, which was right between a strip-club and a rock & roll tattoo parlour, across the road from a place where you can get married by Elvis; Old Vegas. We dropped our bags off and set to walking. And man, did we do some walking.

We first walked into a place to get a cheap pizza buffet for dinner, watching sullen gamblers drinking and playing virtual roulette. No excitement in winning, sad faces. We then hit the Strip, Las Vegas Boulevard, towards the lights and casinos of New Vegas. Past the Stratosphere, a huge spire in the cut of a spaceship, where people were bungee jumping from the towering roof, and further on to the Circus Circus, where we watched the Argentinean flying trapeze and roamed through the casino madness and  incredible theme park. Las Vegas is a mental place, as we walked further into town we were handed pocketfuls of smut cards offering cheap deals with whores with names like Brandy, Alyssa... Faith? The power bills of that Neon Babylon must be through the roof as well; but they certainly know how to throw down some entertainment, that’s for sure. 

On the streetside of the Treasure Island casino we were witness to an extravagant and impressive pirate show, complete with singing numbers, splashing water,  huge explosions. We wandered though the pink and tacky Flamingo, we walked and walked and walked until we couldn’t be bothered with walking any more, and then we walked home. I liked Las Vegas, glad I didn’t spend much money there, but it is an exciting and attractive place for sure.

After a good night’s sleep we got up and on the move, asked directions to the Grand Canyon. On the move again; this time trough the Mars-like cliffs of Arizona, past signs for Death Valley and such places. Then on through rocky plateaus and landscapes I cannot describe, all beautiful, all day, until we finally reached the gate to the national park: discovering that they wanted a fee of 25 dollars for the privilege of seeing it. This was a bummer, as dollars are many pesos. It was drawing towards nighfall anyhow, so we parked the car in the bush not far from the entryway and made camp while we mulled over the possibilities of tomorrow. There were half-hearted ideas to sneak in on foot and hitchhike the remaining distance, etc., but we didn’t. Mikie was rather deterred by the fact that he had originally thought that the Grand Canyon was a huge meteorite crater, and didn’t want to see a river (nevermind how grand), while I just didn’t want to pay the 25 bucks. We decided to go down to Mexico instead, cutting a southbound line through the cacti and dust and sweltering heat of Arizona, through Phoenix, and out... Shame we never got to check out New York and the East, but money was burning too fast already. Throught Phoenix, and out...

So stay tuned for tales of the “Free Zone”, Guadalajara and Agoonygoogoo, soon! Mexico, muy bien!

Bush craziness... sweet, sweet Jesus beams

Well troops, sorry about the long long time off the radar. Bush livin’ has left me a little pressed for time and energy, I tell you what. So, how to even begin to fill you in on the last four months in the bush, and the plans for the road ahead; given that I’m within a month of leaving Canada and heading on that long-time-coming southbound adventure?

It’s been a serious experience, living in a tent for the last four months. The first two months of my time out here in the Ontario bush were spent planting trees. It’s a seriously hard way to earn coin, at 8.5 cents a tree, but it is what it is. All the more reason to stick more of spruce trees in the muck, anyways. There was definitely a competitive side to it as well, it even felt more like a professional sport than a job at times: the van rides on the way to the block every morning with the crew; everyone going through their morning rituals, pulling on boots, duct-taping everything. After work, numbers were called out. The emphasis on numbers brought in a real sense of competition. Everyone has someone they wanted to beat on a daily basis, not in the least ourselves and our old P.B.’s. In the end, I wound up doing pretty well at it. I planted 68000 trees, with a personal best of 3400 in one day.

                Camp life was great, too. By the end of it we had become a pretty tight-knit little family/community. Every weekend we’d have our booze nights around the campfire, shit would go down, everybody had a time. We were well fed, and all of us would go through the same shit every day, which made life a little easier. At times, it was hell out here, though. Between the bugs and the exertion of the job itself and the pushing everything to the limit and the isolation of the bush, shit oftentimes got pretty rough. Especially the time it rained for eight days without break. By about day 4 of that spell, everything that everybody owned was soaked, people were sleeping in puddles in their tents (myself included), everybody was cold and miserable. And then, on the eight day, the rain turned to snow. Quite a few people left after that. And that was the end of may. No more than three days later it began to get hot. The snow that brought the summer on. Only in Canada.

                I had plenty of wildlife encounters, as well. Bear cubs, wolf cubs, a cougar, many bears, a few moose, I caught a salamander in a swamp, owls and rabbits, etc. By far the best animal encounter for me was on my birthday. Immediately following a rowdy “Happy Birthday to You”, a huge moose ran out onto the road in front of the van and just stared pegging it u the road in front of us, running away from us along the road. It was crazy.

After planting finished up at the end of June, those of us who were staying on to do thinning (less than half of us) had a week off to do whatever we wanted before going back out to the bush for some more punishment. I went with my buddies Marek and Artur to Montreal. It was pretty much a bender, Montreal is great. The Jazzfest was on, Canada day was on – although it was pretty much hijacked by the Spanish, after their Eurocup win. But, after a five days of drinking, dancing, pigs on spits (food!), and just great times with great people in a great city, it was time to get on back to the bush.

Our next job was thinning. This basically consisted of going out into older planting pieces with a big brushcutter saw and mowing down the competition surrounding the existing crop trees. A substantially more dangerous line of work than planting ( a German guy named Mike had a bad fall and chopped two of his fingers off), but actually pretty fun once you got in the swing of it – charging around and dropping poplars and balsams left, right, and centre. The pay was a little better than planting, too. Paid this time by the hectare cleared. 

And so, after two months of that shenanigans, the time has come to get on the road again. I am now on my way across to Kelowna to catch up with Mikie, who I’ve not seen in four months, and hopefully doing a couple of weeks work to buffer out the hip pocket before beginning the long and dusty trail down south. I’ve said my goodbyes to Calgary, my little home away from home, and I’m just about to the end of my solo road for some time. I’m really looking forward to seeing my bro and doing some gin-soaked brainstorming about the whole thing because, as yet, we’re rather short on plans of action and whatnot, but these things will open up as it comes. The butterflies of movement are well and truly back in business.  Party on, Wayne.

Don't feed the Bears

So, here I am again perched at the beginning of a new chapter, at the eve of another leap into the unknown. Mikie’s gone back to the Hat, and I’ve spent my last days in Calgary with my friends. The last month has been full to the bream.

I spent a full month in Medicine Hat, Alberta – a small town, about the size of Armidale – building huge power-towers. The work basically involved piecing steel together with bolts; working  out in a field for 12 hours of a day, six days a week.  The days were long and tedious: lifting steel and tightening bolts in fields, but the pay was good and plenty of overtime to be had. Me and Mikie made the most of it anyways, with a few good adventures and a couple of rowdy pub crawls, a skate and a hitch, putt-putt golf, and hitting fastballs in the batting cages out of town.

At the beginning of last week, after work shut down for a week due to lack of steel, Isaac hitched out to meet up with us for a camping trip down to the lovely Cypress Hills National Park, down on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The park has the highest concentration of cougars in the world, so nights were a little on edge haha. It was an old makeshift kind of trip, which saw us take a couple of long hikes, suck baked beans and eggs off “rock-plates”, and lying on our back blowing out at the beauty of the Northern Lights. We drank so much Whisky that Mikie fell in the creek. Chipmunks and muskrats never stop working, and eagles fly high. It was a beauty out there.

After two nights out there we went back to good old Calgary for a couple of days for Yazid’s send-off party before he left Calgary on Saturday for a job up in Fort Mac.—a job “trading futures” for an oil company, straight out of uni. He’s landed a really sweet job, and he deserves it. He’s a hard working dude and a fucking legend to boot. A couple of other parties were had as well with most of my mates from Calgary (except for the Best Western boys, which I’m spewing about). Dunno if I’ll be back that way again… it was a sad old day packing my bags today, thinking about all those people and times. Calgary’s been my home. I loved it there; but a town’s only as good as the people in it.

But anyways, now I’m in Ottawa, On-ta-Rio. Arrived at midnight and found myself a comfy lounge, so I’m going to spend the night. Tomorrow I’ll have a scoot around and check the place out, even if I only have a day here. First thing Tuesday I go out to the bush to begin a couple of months of tree-planting. Going to be living out in the wild in Northern Ontario in a tent and getting off the grid for a bit. There’s money to be made if I’m good enough, too; but at 8 or 9 cents a tree I’ll be earning my bloody money, sure enough.

Meanwhile, Mikie’s gone back to stick it out for a little while longer in Medicine Hat, before maybe going back to BC in June to do a few months cherry picking. He’s got an interview tomorrow and is from the “cherry capital of Australia” (Young); so he should be a shoe-in.

After that, who know’s what’s going to happen or when we’re going to go… depends what happens in the next two months or so… Anyways, off grid I go, starting Tuesdy. Look after yourselves!