The climate isn't getting any cooler but our heads should. You should have a warm interest in leaving behind a healthier planet, or this article is not for you.
Showing posts with label hitchhiking. Show all posts.
Non-destructive Travel
The climate isn't getting any cooler but our heads should. You should have a warm interest in leaving behind a healthier planet, or this article is not for you.
February 23. Guesthouse Goedehoop.
We leave Gaborone today, after a lazy morning and a warm goodbye to Sheldon and Gudrun. Up on the main road with thumbs in the air and some smiling policemen take care of us. Our remaining Pulas bring us neatly to the border. Stamping and re-entering the RSA is a whistle of a cent, but catching a ride down to Gauteng is a greater challenge.
"Good-day sir, we are looking for a ride but we are really on a budget here, so we'd ask you to do us a favor."
-"A favor? No, thanks."
Rather driving with an empty seat than giving a stranger you trust (since a payed lift would have been no problem) a helping hand. However many true and justifying sentences there are to describe what is going on in that driver's mind, this does hold and is pretty ugly. Anyway, we walk into the North West province a bit and a speeding Volkswagen pulls over and rolls back towards us in a cloud of dust.
"He guys, jump in!"
Sean is doing about 3000 kilometers a week for his job, marketing copper cables and just like himself, the company is flying on the verge of the world cup. He comfortably does 160 km/h and we are in Zeerust in a wink.
"Just wait 15 minutes and you'll find a ride to Joburg."
After five hours we decide to crash in a guesthouse because it is getting dark. Goedehoop offers a comfortable room and a hot shower - we are first class hitchhikers after all.
"Good-day sir, we are looking for a ride but we are really on a budget here, so we'd ask you to do us a favor."
-"A favor? No, thanks."
Rather driving with an empty seat than giving a stranger you trust (since a payed lift would have been no problem) a helping hand. However many true and justifying sentences there are to describe what is going on in that driver's mind, this does hold and is pretty ugly. Anyway, we walk into the North West province a bit and a speeding Volkswagen pulls over and rolls back towards us in a cloud of dust.
"He guys, jump in!"
Sean is doing about 3000 kilometers a week for his job, marketing copper cables and just like himself, the company is flying on the verge of the world cup. He comfortably does 160 km/h and we are in Zeerust in a wink.
"Just wait 15 minutes and you'll find a ride to Joburg."
After five hours we decide to crash in a guesthouse because it is getting dark. Goedehoop offers a comfortable room and a hot shower - we are first class hitchhikers after all.
February 18. Hitching it off.
Charles is driving a big truck all the way down to Gaborone. The Chinese-built road cuts sharply through the endless arid plains of Botswana. He spots some elephants trotting along the road with an intense crimson sunset in the background. He arrives in Gaborone ahead of schedule, as early as 3:50 in the morning. He has to refuel once near Francistown: 400 liters of diesel fuel and 400 milliliters of redbull. Charles likes his job, driving the endless roads without a boss looking over his shoulders, listening to his favorite music as the seat of his modern truck gently moves up and down. Today is a little different though. For the first time in six years he has picked up some hitchhikers, a harmless looking couple.
It is our lucky day. We start in the rain a few blocks away from our overpriced Victoria Falls lodge, and see cars passing. We want to catch a free ride, not because we want to be stingy but because we want to promote the concept. Our umbrella doesn't keep us dry and we start singing as we hold on to our bags and slowly get soaked. A tall SUV finally pulls over and the driver introduces himself as a pastor, implying his willingness to help us. His assistant drives us to the border, where we have a déja vu on the main road that would takes us down to Gaborone. An adventurous cyclist greets us about half an hour before Charles picks us up. We greet him back when our truck overtakes him, and leave him alone with his courageous mission and the dim horizon.
It is our lucky day. We start in the rain a few blocks away from our overpriced Victoria Falls lodge, and see cars passing. We want to catch a free ride, not because we want to be stingy but because we want to promote the concept. Our umbrella doesn't keep us dry and we start singing as we hold on to our bags and slowly get soaked. A tall SUV finally pulls over and the driver introduces himself as a pastor, implying his willingness to help us. His assistant drives us to the border, where we have a déja vu on the main road that would takes us down to Gaborone. An adventurous cyclist greets us about half an hour before Charles picks us up. We greet him back when our truck overtakes him, and leave him alone with his courageous mission and the dim horizon.
February 10. Zimbabwe.
January 13-15. To the village.
An Irish priest is not necessarily a Samaritan.
We wake up in Talek and get a ride to Narok. But it is too late to hitch further to Kisumu and we are stuck for the night. A friendly guy, county clerk by profession, brings us to the house of an Irish priest. He is not there and upon hearing that there are strangers in his house he is outraged. "Throw them back on the streets!" we hear him shout through the phone. Long live Jesus Christ, Mr. Prissy Priest.
We make it to the village and spend the night at yet another cheap guesthouse. In the local bar a guy puts his leg in his neck and annoys HD. We know it is time to leave and we finish our beers in front of our room.
The next day we hitchhike to Kisumu and we have a great time. There are so many friendly Kenyans and the experience in the Maasai Mara is quickly forgotten. Philip welcomes us back home and we feel good being back in the village. The walls have been plastered and prepared for painting.
I remember taking the bike to the Kisian market to get some eggs and vegetables. Dirtroad with potholes, no light, no brakes. I am proud I only fall twice. We have omelettes.
We wake up in Talek and get a ride to Narok. But it is too late to hitch further to Kisumu and we are stuck for the night. A friendly guy, county clerk by profession, brings us to the house of an Irish priest. He is not there and upon hearing that there are strangers in his house he is outraged. "Throw them back on the streets!" we hear him shout through the phone. Long live Jesus Christ, Mr. Prissy Priest.
The next day we hitchhike to Kisumu and we have a great time. There are so many friendly Kenyans and the experience in the Maasai Mara is quickly forgotten. Philip welcomes us back home and we feel good being back in the village. The walls have been plastered and prepared for painting.
I remember taking the bike to the Kisian market to get some eggs and vegetables. Dirtroad with potholes, no light, no brakes. I am proud I only fall twice. We have omelettes.
November 19. Petra.
This is a tourist gathering, and I quickly get enough of it. Imagine me sitting there looking at the mountains, the donkeys, the waving Jordanian flags and the distant clouds, and being exposed to typical conversations like
-"Have you done Syria yet?"
"Yes, I've just completed Syria last week. It was awesome."
-"Where are you going next?"
"I want to check out Egypt, it has a lot of things to offer."
-"I did Egypt fifteen years ago. It's a great place."
"Thanks. Goodbye."
Take a homo sapiens, put him on an airplane, and put him in front of stones. Be careful alway to tell him how special and unique the stones are, otherwise he might get bored. How to make stones appear unique. 1) Tell their history in an imaginative way. Mention the many layers of ancient cultures involved. 2) Let the homo sapiens take photographs of the stones so that he feels like he is taking them in. 3) Raise an entrance fee that is high enough to make it look important.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy this place, but I have to move on. So I descend the mountain, have one more look at the Nabataean rock wonders and reach the exit on time. A taxi takes me a few meters up the road for too much money. Hitchhiking is impossible here, yet a private taxi is easy to find. And so I enjoy a beautiful ride on Jordan's road to the south, staring at the mountains one more time until the sun sets behind them. I tell my driver about my project and he gives me the story of his traveling to Israel. Of course he was harassed by the police, searched, called out of a nightclub. He knew some person working closely together with Sharon and so one phonecall was enough to make the police let him go. These stories are no exception; it happens to every Arab visiting Israel. Just to cut this short: I do not want to live in a country whose government is suporting Israel as long at the torture is going on, and that's final.
I am lucky again: there is a ferry to Egypt leaving that night and I can be on it. A visa to Egypt can be purchased at the border upon arrival. I spend a few hours in Aqaba with Mohammed whose dream it is to work in Germany of the Netherlands, yet fails to secure the necessary money due to an obstinate smoking addiction. His salary: 300 JD. His daily expenses: 10 JD. Two for the bus, three for cigarettes, one for a can of energy drink, four for lunch. I tell him to quit smoking and promise him help with documents should he really go to Rotterdam. It's easy for me to make that promise since very few people actually remember it and actually write me an email. We say goodbye and I take the bus to the ferry terminal. It is crowded. Formalities are swiftly dealt with and I sit down waiting and doing nothing. As a non-Jordanian tourist I get a carte blanche and they take me to the vessel like I'm some special person. At first I cuddle in my sleeping bag on the upper deck, then I explore the ship that will stay in the port for two more hours. I discover a hot shower and lock myself in for a while. The ticket is expensive enough so I decide it should come with a sauna and let the hot water vaporize in the shower cabin. Aaaghh.
November 2. Move it! On to Syria.
I can't make it back to Adana in time, so I won't visit an ACEV meeting myself. I kindly ask them for some photographs to publish on my website, along with their contact information because there might be visitors - occasional internet surfers - who would want to make a donation. They will provide me with footage, and I am very thankful for that. After all, ACEV is my first charity and I couldn't yet act as self-confident as I will later on.
But I feel like it's time for action. I want to get to Syria as quickly as possible. I take a bus to Antakya, where it is drizzling. They tell me to take a taxi to Aleppo which would cost me about twenty dollars. An old wound of parsimonious thrift plays up and I say no. I like hitchhiking anyway. So I try to hitchhike standing under a highway overpass my trembling thumb raised to every passing car and getting ignored. I get carried away by negative emotions. Am I supposed to do this? I am supposed to be the jolly charity adventurer? Hitching in the rain. My objective is to inspire, to make a difference in this odd world. I should think of a more professional way of fundraising instead of standing here in the rain with my trembling thumb. O, I think, if only mighty people identify with my cause and start promoting my project, start doing fundraising and getting me in personal contact with Brad Pitt, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dorothy Parker. I am being delirious. Things don't make sense now. But I know being unhappy is not a good means to achieve my goals.
So stop moaning and just move on. A servis (minibus) takes me into Antakya - I find it a terrible town. The driver speaks German and gives me a rich sample of it straight away, as we pull over where a woman is standing on the sidewalk.
"Who is that woman?"
-"Früher isch habe sie oft gebumst. Jetzt ich verheiratet. Jetzt kann ich nicht mehr bumsen. Verstehst du mein Freund?" (I ushed to shag her back in the days. Now I married. No I not shag anymore. You understand my friend?)
A driver can take me for 10 YTR to Aleppo, but I have to wait in their office. They offer me tea tough.
I worry if what I've heard about the visa issue is correct. But it is. It is better than that! Double entry seems to be no problem (fyi it is a problem, I will have to issue a new visa upon re-entering later), so I'll go to Lebanon. The people at the border are friendly. Smiles, relatively uncomplicated, I pay 34 dollars (fyi a transit visa costs 15 dollars, 3 days) and they offer me Arabic pastry greasy and glistening with sugar - I like it.
I casually disperse ash from my glowing butt into the Syrian nightsky. It's beautiful and I think I am a character to be played by a young Clint Eastwood and I feel so cool. Here I sit in that car, smoking a sweet American cigar I just bought in the taxfree shop and feeling very good. I am promising myself not to get caught in the ugly spiral of melancholy again. My driver hums a folklore melody, and I start puffing away to celebrate I managed to cross the border I deemed to hardest on my journey. It feels fantastic. This is why I travel - I know it again. We drive through the land where the "dead cities" are, a famous attraction of northern Syria I gladly add to my list of yet-to-be-done things. That Clint Eastwood-character tips his earlobes and says in a slow voice "maybe next time".
That character walks into a bar, you know, with a sqeaking swing door that you push vigorously to make it swing back and forth then walk in, giving the drinkers that curiously look up from their glasses a stern face.
"I'm looking to do something good" I say with a raw voice and spit on the ground to my right. The man bows for me and runs away, asking if anybody knows about something good. I look around with a confident, superior frown and light a cigar. I pitch the match away. The man comes back and starts stammering excuses why he took so long.
"Okay, forget it" I say and look him in his eyes, blowing smoke in his face. "What have you got?"
The man stammers about an orphanage around the corner and that the Sister has just died and they are desperate.
"Thanks" I say and drop my cigar butt, trodding heavily on it in a long slow movement of my boots while not evading the look of the man, nodding in a provoking manner.
I am nothing like that, but pretending sometimes feels good.
There is the city center, and there is the internet. I feel a bit lost now, and start thinking about moderate endorphine levels, that is applying the Aristotelian theory of the golden middle to the scientific world.
And I realize again what my idea is about. Perhaps it wouldn't remain that exciting an experience for me if I would have to take a taxi through the crowded streets of Aleppo every day to visit some poor refugee family and pay their rent. Perhaps it would be just as boring as sitting in any stifling office cubicle, and hence not appealing to the average man?
They take me to a hostel where I can lay my head down in a dorm in the dusty attic, on strong colorful carpets.
So stop moaning and just move on. A servis (minibus) takes me into Antakya - I find it a terrible town. The driver speaks German and gives me a rich sample of it straight away, as we pull over where a woman is standing on the sidewalk.
"Who is that woman?"
-"Früher isch habe sie oft gebumst. Jetzt ich verheiratet. Jetzt kann ich nicht mehr bumsen. Verstehst du mein Freund?" (I ushed to shag her back in the days. Now I married. No I not shag anymore. You understand my friend?)
A driver can take me for 10 YTR to Aleppo, but I have to wait in their office. They offer me tea tough.
I worry if what I've heard about the visa issue is correct. But it is. It is better than that! Double entry seems to be no problem (fyi it is a problem, I will have to issue a new visa upon re-entering later), so I'll go to Lebanon. The people at the border are friendly. Smiles, relatively uncomplicated, I pay 34 dollars (fyi a transit visa costs 15 dollars, 3 days) and they offer me Arabic pastry greasy and glistening with sugar - I like it.
I casually disperse ash from my glowing butt into the Syrian nightsky. It's beautiful and I think I am a character to be played by a young Clint Eastwood and I feel so cool. Here I sit in that car, smoking a sweet American cigar I just bought in the taxfree shop and feeling very good. I am promising myself not to get caught in the ugly spiral of melancholy again. My driver hums a folklore melody, and I start puffing away to celebrate I managed to cross the border I deemed to hardest on my journey. It feels fantastic. This is why I travel - I know it again. We drive through the land where the "dead cities" are, a famous attraction of northern Syria I gladly add to my list of yet-to-be-done things. That Clint Eastwood-character tips his earlobes and says in a slow voice "maybe next time".
That character walks into a bar, you know, with a sqeaking swing door that you push vigorously to make it swing back and forth then walk in, giving the drinkers that curiously look up from their glasses a stern face.
"I'm looking to do something good" I say with a raw voice and spit on the ground to my right. The man bows for me and runs away, asking if anybody knows about something good. I look around with a confident, superior frown and light a cigar. I pitch the match away. The man comes back and starts stammering excuses why he took so long.
"Okay, forget it" I say and look him in his eyes, blowing smoke in his face. "What have you got?"
The man stammers about an orphanage around the corner and that the Sister has just died and they are desperate.
"Thanks" I say and drop my cigar butt, trodding heavily on it in a long slow movement of my boots while not evading the look of the man, nodding in a provoking manner.
I am nothing like that, but pretending sometimes feels good.
There is the city center, and there is the internet. I feel a bit lost now, and start thinking about moderate endorphine levels, that is applying the Aristotelian theory of the golden middle to the scientific world.
And I realize again what my idea is about. Perhaps it wouldn't remain that exciting an experience for me if I would have to take a taxi through the crowded streets of Aleppo every day to visit some poor refugee family and pay their rent. Perhaps it would be just as boring as sitting in any stifling office cubicle, and hence not appealing to the average man?
They take me to a hostel where I can lay my head down in a dorm in the dusty attic, on strong colorful carpets.
September 5. Faster than your shadow.
Friends, tell me her story to-night
May be she is listening
Sing not about how small you are
Sing not about how frail you are
Friends, tell me her story to-night
This saturday I say goodbye to my Greek friend who takes me to what turns out to be the perfect hitchhiking spot north of Thessaloniki. After five minutes I am sitting in a Hungarian car and I am thankful to the couple that takes me straight to Szeged. We say goodbye at the border and I pen home / Berlin /Germany on a piece of cardboard. An old pesky Austrian truck driver with sparkling eyes and a cumbersome gait tells me he is stuck at the border and needs a ride though, but they don't take him. I have difficulties understanding his dialect and nod at him. Asking around - never a fine business - takes me less than an hour, then a man from Kosovo gives me a ride to Leipzig. It is almost a record breaking hitch: Thessaloniki-Leipzig in 24 hours. The Kosovo-Albanian man is working working as a cleaner in a turkey slaughterhouse near Bremen, he drives a beige Mercedes former taxi on his way home from his family in Kosovo together with his 19-year old sun who has just begun studying medicine and wants to be a gynaecologist, I mean they are on their way from south Serbia or Kosovo I don't keep track of the political correct name; it's a monster drive, 170 km/h straight, pulling over for five minutes of stretching or a quick cup of coffee I offered him and me, indulging in that particular roadside happiness you and I know all too well. My driver has paved almost every gas station of the German Republic, he tells me, and all for his children. Now what do they give back? I tell him his offspring has been raised well so they will take care of him when he gets old. A Kosovo-Albanian turkey slaughterhouse cleaner in a Mercedes taxi with a gynaecologist sun. I guess that is why I like hitchhiking.
July 28. Hitchhiking #3.
Back in Europe. We try to catch a ride to Samara, Kazan, or all the way to Moscow. It has been enough for me. The 23-year old I am hitching with naturally takes the lead and decides what we do without asking me. I like him, but there is something missing. Why do I care? It is not power that I want, it is not respect that I want. I care because what I want is being perceived as...? No, that's not it. I have other things to do and I'd love to find out what. I need to go on, my road leads to harsh places. I feel it now. I feel who I need to be. How does that sound? Pretty decisive, huh? But in life sometimes people are disappointed and decisiveness melt like snow on an overheated planet. It can be just a short conversation like:
"I want to breath my last breath between your breasts"
-"Your last breath ain't worth shit."
and the meter falls to zero. I must stop now: even the virtually infinite amount of space the internet offers doesn't justify this. It goes on and on, and you read a sentence like How friends form strong knots in the cloth of meaning we drape around our world. Is that what you are waiting for? Impotent metaphores, language that wants to be strong but instead drags itself like a lame donkey from comma to comma. Meaning gets lost before that donkey can reach a period or even a semicolon. I like that picture of the crippled old donkey marching along on the trail of sentences, I mean it's kind of lively don't you think. You can almost hear and smell the donkey dung. But that imagination cannot be too lively, or we would be facing a contradiction right here. You might think whatever at this point. And I did it, I did make you yawn didn't I?
Long story short. We get stuck in Ufa for seven hours, it seems impossible to get a ride. I take the train from Ufa to Moscow after having tea with a young father who is studying in a nearby city.
July 27. Hitchhiking #2.
Victor has been robbed. They took 2000 dollar from him, he tells us. Now he is on his way to Novosibirsk and beyond to see his family. He travels with an electric guitar and "on the road" is a nice book if you travel by thumb and I pay for his coffee that is cheap anyway. Lot of information in a sentence like that, some ironic distance, some genuine experience, hopefully some of the marches and the sloughs of being too. So, we share a coffee with him. He is a nice guy. But he travels in the opposite direction. We managed to catch a ride quickly, a man with bad teeth and a small calender with barebreasted girls on his dashboard takes us some 200 kilometers further. When we reach his village we say goodbye and have a cup of coffee in another service station. If you think this is gonna be boring, you're wrong. Next thing that happens when we install ourselves thumbs-up on the road again:
A black Audi quattro stops and we get a ride all the way to Ufa. Driver's name is Yuri and he grew up in Siberia. Because of his German ancestry, he was looked down upon and decided to move to Essen. When he comes over with his formidable vehicle, he now gets a lot of respect. The Geman, as he was called in his childhood, has been successful. A black Audi quattro means success, I guess.
A police car pulls us over and asks for a license.
I am sleeping on the backseat, but here's a reconstruction of the conversation.
"A real license please."
-"This is a valid international drivers license."
"No, we need a real license."
-"This is a real one. You can have it."
"Then you have to come to the police station, sir. And pay like 2500 rubles..."
-"...and mention one of you has been drinking?"
"How do you know?"
-"I can smell, I can tell."
"Well, in that case we don't have a problem. Have a nice day sir."
The same policemen are drinking beer at a gas station when we pass later. I am back in Europe, by the way.
July 26. Hitchhiking #1.
Morning. I try to make coffee but forget the water. Sorry. Then we say goodbye to Vera, who has been a formidable host. Then we go hitchhiking. Getting out of Novosibirsk takes a while, we take a wrong train, wait for a minibus that takes us to the highway direction Omsk. Some hours we stand there in vain. Women come, they stand maybe hundred meters up the road, stick out their arms and get picked up after three minutes. We still stand there, venting our irritation in explicit language. We get a short ride, then it starts raining. A horse walks on the road, dragging a leash behind him. Cars stop, but they don't stop for us. Finally a trucker who has seen us before pulls over and we are set for a ride to Omsk. We spend the night at a service station somewhere outside Omsk.You will miss those words when I'm gone. But don't worry I plan to be around for some more time, like 144 years. And if you don't want to believe this is coming from a man who has two masters, a phd in philosophy and a swimming diploma, don't. No matter how much I try to convince you, you will never believe a person can change. Because that would probably burst the concept of a person. See! See! He is talking about a "concept", see! see! he is still the same theoretical mind. Now we don't have a problem with that do we? Sameness can be great fun too. After all, in order to identify the sameness between two things you need at least two different perspectives.
July 25. Stalked!
A day in Novosibirsk. We hang out in the park, take photographs of this far-out metropole, and I retreat in the travelers café again to write I don't remember what. As long as what you do is spirited, there are some gods that want you to do it, they say. They? No, alright, I say it.
At night, I get a little lost and walk into a group of people sharing a beer on a bench. A woman with an overdone décolleté decides to show me where I live and buys me a beer. She doesn't know English so my idiomatic poverty in Russian decides the narrowness of our conversational interaction. We talk bullshit. She manages to bring me home and I am grateful. Our host lets her in for a moment, and then we go to the supermarket together where she advises me to buy new socks and a beer or two. I return home with the food and tell the anonymous helper that she can't come over for dinner. She doesn't seem to understand since she keeps inviting me to her place with an ever more pathetic "paschalsta". She rings the doorbell a few hundred times and then we eat in silence. Silence referring not only to the absence of noise but also to my conscience. The night that follows is good; Ralf and I are all excited about the hitchhiking we'll to tomorrow.
At night, I get a little lost and walk into a group of people sharing a beer on a bench. A woman with an overdone décolleté decides to show me where I live and buys me a beer. She doesn't know English so my idiomatic poverty in Russian decides the narrowness of our conversational interaction. We talk bullshit. She manages to bring me home and I am grateful. Our host lets her in for a moment, and then we go to the supermarket together where she advises me to buy new socks and a beer or two. I return home with the food and tell the anonymous helper that she can't come over for dinner. She doesn't seem to understand since she keeps inviting me to her place with an ever more pathetic "paschalsta". She rings the doorbell a few hundred times and then we eat in silence. Silence referring not only to the absence of noise but also to my conscience. The night that follows is good; Ralf and I are all excited about the hitchhiking we'll to tomorrow.
June 7. Mexico!
I get up at 5am again, this time to be picked up by a shuttle bus to Palenque, Mexico. It is an eight-hour busride including a long section on a bumpy dirtroad. But the scenery is simply beautiful. Busrides can be a real attraction. This one includes another exciting complication: the border to Mexico. We unload the luggage and embark on a long speedboat. The crossing of takes twenty fantastic minutes, because the Mexicans built the road several kilometers downstream (vexing the Guatemalans?). I peel a starfruit that I picked for breakfast and throw the rotten bits overboard as the boat splits the water bow high up. At the Mexican side, another bus is already waiting and immigration services work quickly. However, a few kilometers into Mexico, the trip is interrupted by the peculiar moaning of the Opisthocomus hoazin turistica. We have to cross a national park and the park official is demanding a 15 peso tax which is obligatory even if you're just passing through. The park reliess on local taxation to pay for helicopters to put out wildfires, they tell me. Some Germans in the back ask if they can camp here because "there is no way we pay this stupid rip-off tax". Other tourists join in and soon the conversation turns into a grumbling tumult with the park official. Over slightly more than one dollar. I think they should rethink their attitude, the tourists that are by definition filthy stinking rich. As for myself, I have another problem. I just left all of my remaining cash at the exit post of Guatemala so I can't pay the 15 pesos though I seem the only one willing to do it. So I step out of the vehicle, tell the park official I'm really willing to pay because I understand the cause being an environmental activist myself. What can I do? Sir, can I work, all I have to offer is what's inside my luggage and my muscular power. Can I do some work for 15 pesos? No. Then I climb resolutely on the roof of the minibus, untie my backpack and start getting out things."Un guia turistica muy buena en ingles. Muy recien."
-"No intiendo ingles."
"Pero senor, puede venderlo despues a otro turista. Tiene que pensar como un hombre de negocios!"
-"Hahaha. Pero no gracias."
"Este cuchara de una marca de alta calidad. Resiste el calor."
-"No necessitamos aqui."
"Crema de sol? Detergente? Camisa? Por favor..."
-"No, no... haha... es loco, haha...hihiahaha. Pffrrrrt..."
I am standing on the roof of the bus selling stuff from my luggage to pay for a Mexican natural reserve tax of 15 pesos and I feel so intensely happy! This is so good! Cool breeze in my hair, decisiveness in my mind and - admittedly - I'm in the center of all the attention. The roof of the bus is the stage and I'm performing.
"Quizas esta bolsa de documentos?"
-"No, haha, aqui en Mexico es diferente. No tenemos eso." He symbolizes his throat being cut by a violent thief robbing the travel wallet.
"Pero para vender a otro turista...?"
-"Ok, ok", another man says. "Compro la billetera para veinte pesos."
"Veinticinco."
A man gives me 25 pesos and I pay my taxes. I ask the park official to write down the name of the municipality so I can find it later, see on google earth if the wildfires have been put out properly. The conjuction of a German hand and a German accent urges me to get off the roof, because we are rolling on. As I get back in the bus, nobody talks with me. They have all paid their taxes because "there is no way around it". The guy next to me says it's not the money but the principle that matters. And do you want to know what I answer the guy?
"Look, I own a f.... PhD in philosophy and that's as close to principles as you can get. But I left that behind me man."
We still have 147 asphalt kilometers to go and I think about principles. All I can come up with is that I find them ugly when they are not capable of adjusting themselves to a different cultural context.
In Palenque, the tourists quickly disappear and I am alone again. I see an American couple in the bus station and decide to talk to them because the man has a pirate appearance like myself. They tell me they're on their way to Tulum (it's supposed to be a marvelous place). You could easily hitchhike in Mexico accordinig to them. I decide to try that on my way to Panchan near the historical Maya site, which is near anyway so I don't have to rely on cars. So I walk down the road and one car after another passes without responding to my stuck out thumb or the question mark I wrote in the air with my fist. I just want to know how far it is to Panchan, but no-one halts. That's good for the singing. It's great for the singing. I march singing everything between Bach and Bob Dylan. I manage more melancholical registers and even have a go at David Bowie's "Space Oddity":
"I'm sitting in my tin can
Driiiiiiving down the road
And the little feller out there
I see him sticking out his thumb
But I don't take him nowhere
Because I'm absolutely numb
Here's ground control to major Tom
Just hold on you're not alone."
Finally a car stops and the grumpy old driver tells me I'm almost there. I explain him he is the only one who pulled over and wish him all of God's love but he's already gone. Panchan is a lodging complex where you can stay in a dorm room for 50 pesos. How grateful I am for the shower! And the calory-loaded Pasta a la Carbonara! And the live music! And the delicious chocolate sold by the guy who made it himself. He has all kinds of flavors: orange, ginger, mint, chili, and pssst (whispering conspiratorially), a new one, a very special one - chocolate with hongos, mushrooms. In this region, magic mushrooms are very common. You need about fifteen for a trip and it costs you about 200 pesos. For the chocolate he used thirteen mushrooms, well ground and blended with the cacao. It's only 100 pesos for almost a full-fledged mushroom trip. Imagine how many crazy ideas you could get out of it. Imagine the hallucinations you fly through the jungle back to Maya times easily run up and down the temples, communicate with the Gods - time to make the priests redundant and wrap them in cotton - peel ripe mangos and avocados sharing them with sacral snakes that have seven head. Imagine the apotheosis of staggering bright watercolors pouring from the sky and ten thousand rainbows - I decide not to take the mushrooms because I think my imagination is doing pretty well anyway.
I can't sleep in the hot cabin and mosquitos bite me. I rub my skin with diclophenac sodium. Then I go drinking with a group of Mexican anthropology students. They are traveling around Yucatan and Tabasco, visiting Maya sites on their way. Myriam and Mario are really fond of their studies and it's good to talk with them and sharing a few 940ml bottles of delicious Corona beer.
I can't sleep still and get some fresh air outside. A strange noise from the cottage next to me. I walk closer. It's a woman screaming in the height of her pleasure. It goes on and on. I go back in my cottage but the noise is too loud. Panting, screaming, wheezing, groaning. For a short while, the man kicks in and produces a few short panting cries and then it's over. A few seconds later excited wows and satisfied wemadeits. So this is what the origin of new life sounds like, I think. And then: as a writer you can pick one little detail out of a vast range of events and mold that detail into a story. You're coiling and folding the general storyline of life you offer to your reader. Perhaps that's an important job. Perhaps this is all rubbish. When one guy decides to enlarge certain details he thinks are important, what's the big deal? Who cares? If he thinks the general storyline of life gets more streamlined, more interesting, more vital from it, good for him. Congratulations. But don't bother your neighbor with it. It's an individualist society where everybody has his or her episode of going to a romantic cottage in some beautiful country to reproduce. And the storyline remains as flat as ever.
March 19.
Daniel works at the Argentinian Correos. He is a very friendly and goodlooking guy. He travels daily between Cordoba and Buenos Aires for three months now. Before, he went to all parts of Argentina - he knows every Correos headquarter in the country. His camionette is accompagnied by a custodia-car to protect him from robbers since Argentinian highways are dangerous. On his way, he knows exactly where to stop and he eats a bar of Rhodesia chocolate during his break. He always drives at night so he doesn't see much of the countryside.We started to hitchhike late that day; took a bus to the entry of ruta 9, the main highway that connects Cordoba to Buenos Aires. We got a ride right away, in the back of a truck, to the service station where we started to ask the camiones that headed back to La Capital. Many of them had strict regulations so they weren't allowed to take anyone, but after about half an hour we were lucky with a guy who drove the Correas - Daniel. We drove the whole night. The precision of his manoeuvring around the slower camiones was intriguing. We arrived in Buenos Aires very early the next morning.
In our culture, peope are used to swallowing huge amounts of narratives. I don't want to bluntly shoot at this fact from my position here as a blog-author, but let's just consider it. All the stories, all the movies, all the news facts. It might just be too much, it becomes like fast food. We eat and eat and stuff ourselves with fats that make us only crave for more of the same. The very diversity of the cinematographical and real-life narratives we are confronted with daily might result in a very monotonous diet.
March 9. Hitchhiking to Chile.
A day of full-blown hitchhiking excitement. We started off in San Martin, took a local bus to some place in the direction of Junin that threw us out in some barrio with dusty dirt roads and a beautiful scenery. We walked back to the paved road and stuck out our thumbs the way Chris McCandles did in Alaska. A truck pulled over and let us hop on. Seen from the back of a truck the scenery of the Andean Patagonia region is a dream. The volcano of Lanin appeared on the horizon and we gazed at it with delightful respect. This is so good!Upon arrival in Junin, the last small town before the Chilenean frontera, we got off the truck and hiked a few kilometers down the road until we reached an intersection. Many cars passed, ignoring our dust-covered thumbs that must have appeared somewhere at the verge of their vision. It was damn hot and we walked with heavy packs, but that's the way it should be. It is, in some strange paradoxical manner, causing us to call things perfect. We passed a casern, waved to the guards, footbathed in a small river, and arrived at a small police station where we picked up a bottle of water. A Spanish couple brought us from there to the Chileanean border. The Mapuche village on the way was not interesting. At the border, they had to turn around because they had no allowance for their rental car to enter Chile. We waited at the border control, which has a beautiful view on the Lanin volcano that we enjoyed. A
truck took us from there to Pucon and that ride, on a bumpy dirtroad down the mountain pass with great views and the Lanin volcano in a steadily growing distance, the Villarica volcano appearing in front of us as if they were two old friends exchanging smoke signals of affection, the small shacks behind the trees surrounded by chicken and sheep, the colorful mountain slopes edging the road, the weaving people - it was one of a kind. O how we enjoyed it.We found a hostel with a fair price and a very comfortable matrimonial bed (we didn't care we surely haven't got the faintest intention of ever getting married). The place was called "El refugio". We had some quick dinner and headed to the refugium of dreams in this new town.
Perhaps I dreamt. Say the word. The word is asphyxia. Enter the room. Look around. There are many people who look like you here. It should be comfortable but it isn't. And that's exactly why you're here. They are going to cure you. I write this for people who want to read something else than X, something profoundly different from "I went to cool places and did cool things". I write for people who are headed for the cross - that is of course, the clinic.
March 8.
Making the concepts of death and peace converge, how's that for universal religion?
In the Mapuche village near San Martin de los Andes a child held the barrier for the tourists. We walked around; the people had conserved some aspects of their traditional lifestyle. A girl herded some sheep. I photographed some goats. Their was a like with a small island. We swam in the lake with part of our clothes on that didn't matter it was drying quickly anyway. It was a nice swim and I advise you to do the exact same thing if you are a) hot and b) in San Martin de los Andes. Just ask for the lake.
In the afternoon, an effort to hitchhike to Junin. It didn't work out so we ended in the other hostel of San Martin. We ate icecream too they really stuffed as much icecream in a tiny cone as they could. A guy in the hostel told us he hitched to the Chilenean border and it was easy so we decided to try that tomorrow.
Why do I like writing so much? How come that I'm so convinced words can do things beyond the obvious, beyond organizing our Lebenswelt? That they can give birth to some chaos? I want to produce a thick carpet of language, you know. The letters should be like drips of heavy liquid when I strike the keys on the keyboard, sugary inert sticky plots of ocher caramelizing in your mind to cause some mental image there like a little miracle.
This is a work of art. Instead of rough brush strokes I use unpolished words. Why is it a work of art? Because I think of it as some painting, because I think of being a pointillist of words, scattering them to mark the contours o
f some of my thoughts, the ones I want to communicate to you? Perhaps. But the status of an artwork should never be reduced to the (alleged) intention of its producer. Every fool can intent to produce art, and regardless the banality of his output, there will be museums willing to hang his pieces. So we got a bit of a problem here. Perhaps this is no art after all. But let's suppose it it. In that case it is talking about itself. "I am a mediocre chain of words" it can say. And then you go "That's weird. How can this thing reflect about itself without having a proper comparison? You have to be above average on some scale to be that reflective." And you don't believe the mediocrity thing. Maybe it's propaganda. The more you think about it, the more you associate this work of art with the word "brilliant". And from there, there's no route back. You will found a welcome committee and all kind of red carpets will be rolled out for me when I return. That's the way the system works. No-one can change that.
In the Mapuche village near San Martin de los Andes a child held the barrier for the tourists. We walked around; the people had conserved some aspects of their traditional lifestyle. A girl herded some sheep. I photographed some goats. Their was a like with a small island. We swam in the lake with part of our clothes on that didn't matter it was drying quickly anyway. It was a nice swim and I advise you to do the exact same thing if you are a) hot and b) in San Martin de los Andes. Just ask for the lake.
In the afternoon, an effort to hitchhike to Junin. It didn't work out so we ended in the other hostel of San Martin. We ate icecream too they really stuffed as much icecream in a tiny cone as they could. A guy in the hostel told us he hitched to the Chilenean border and it was easy so we decided to try that tomorrow.
Why do I like writing so much? How come that I'm so convinced words can do things beyond the obvious, beyond organizing our Lebenswelt? That they can give birth to some chaos? I want to produce a thick carpet of language, you know. The letters should be like drips of heavy liquid when I strike the keys on the keyboard, sugary inert sticky plots of ocher caramelizing in your mind to cause some mental image there like a little miracle.
This is a work of art. Instead of rough brush strokes I use unpolished words. Why is it a work of art? Because I think of it as some painting, because I think of being a pointillist of words, scattering them to mark the contours o
f some of my thoughts, the ones I want to communicate to you? Perhaps. But the status of an artwork should never be reduced to the (alleged) intention of its producer. Every fool can intent to produce art, and regardless the banality of his output, there will be museums willing to hang his pieces. So we got a bit of a problem here. Perhaps this is no art after all. But let's suppose it it. In that case it is talking about itself. "I am a mediocre chain of words" it can say. And then you go "That's weird. How can this thing reflect about itself without having a proper comparison? You have to be above average on some scale to be that reflective." And you don't believe the mediocrity thing. Maybe it's propaganda. The more you think about it, the more you associate this work of art with the word "brilliant". And from there, there's no route back. You will found a welcome committee and all kind of red carpets will be rolled out for me when I return. That's the way the system works. No-one can change that.
A hitchhiker's guide to Paris
On december 29th, I decided to hitchhike to Paris together with my brother. Just so, without any real reason (perhaps a visit to the museum Orsay, I thought). It turned out to be pretty easy: we caught our rides quick enough to arrive in the City of Love at night. Taken into account the fact that it was not hitchhiking season, and we were two not perfectly shaved guys, this was pretty good. On our way, we collected some typical hitchhiker's stories. We hitched a ride from a Belgian guy who sold Brussels sprouts picking machines and was on a two week leave to the coast. You don't make that up, I guess. After a couple of hours on a boring highway parking area, we got fortunate. An old diesel-van with friendly Dutchmen and three dogs picked us up. We ducked at the highway toll stations because officially you're not allowed to take people in the back of such a van. It was exciting in it's way. We had a pretty long road ahead, but arrived savely in Paris at about 9pm. The RER brought us downtown, and we were in time to join our American hosts for some cheese and Beaujolais. We exchanged stories and learned about life in Paris for an American expat English teacher. Since our host was from Illinois, the topic Obama was inevitable. It was a good idea to bring him up, because Americans overseas are Obamacans.
It was a nice evening, and time just slipped - we slept at 3am.
The next day we bought some breakfast and left at noon. It rained, and we walked through the Tuilleries park, saw the magnificent Louvre building, the Eiffel tower, the mysteriously lit Notre Dame, and the huge line in front of the Musée d'Orsay entrance. We decided not to visit the museum this time, and walked around instead. We saved this museum to have a reason to come back, something like that. So we walked down the Boulevard St. Germain, peeked in the cafés Flore and Deux magots, studied their pricelists too, and walked on. We ended up having a sandwich at the Seine, when we felt it was time to go back. Getting back north from Paris by hitchhiking is easy. Take the metro line 12 to its last stop, and you'll see the entry of highway A1. After half an hour, a friendly Belgian woman offered us a lift to Antwerpen. From there, it was easy to come back home, where we are going to celebrate New Year's Eve with our family.
It was a nice evening, and time just slipped - we slept at 3am.
The next day we bought some breakfast and left at noon. It rained, and we walked through the Tuilleries park, saw the magnificent Louvre building, the Eiffel tower, the mysteriously lit Notre Dame, and the huge line in front of the Musée d'Orsay entrance. We decided not to visit the museum this time, and walked around instead. We saved this museum to have a reason to come back, something like that. So we walked down the Boulevard St. Germain, peeked in the cafés Flore and Deux magots, studied their pricelists too, and walked on. We ended up having a sandwich at the Seine, when we felt it was time to go back. Getting back north from Paris by hitchhiking is easy. Take the metro line 12 to its last stop, and you'll see the entry of highway A1. After half an hour, a friendly Belgian woman offered us a lift to Antwerpen. From there, it was easy to come back home, where we are going to celebrate New Year's Eve with our family.
Heading North...
The next day I felt my time had come to finally go to Lapland. So I said goodbye to Anna-Sofia and went to the train station. The personnel told me student rebate was not available for foreign students, which was a good excuse for me to go hitchhiking. It was raining outside and I should have felt bad. Instead, I hummed some invented melodies on my way to the freight terminal. I had to wait only about 20 minutes before a truck driver took me halfway to Tampere, a bigger town 200 km north of Helsinki. Since he was younger he spoke some English, but our conversation didn't really go beyond occasional remarks about the good roads here and the bumpy once in Poland. He brought me to a gas station, where I immediately got a ride from an Estonian architect. Now this one was interesting. He drove to Tampere, where he actually showed me a larger building he had designed. It looked good, and gave me the feeling the world is not that big after all.
I didn't want to stay in Tampere though, and posted myself alongside the road to Vaasa with my ultimate direction drawn on a piece of paper a man at the gas station kindly gave me. Again, it didn't take more than ten minutes to get a ride, this time from a nice older truck driver from Vaasa, who took me all the 230 kilometers to his town.
Hitchhiking romantics has been described in many ways, and there are probably as many words about it as there are kilometers on the road. I felt like I should contribute something of my own. We sat silently next to each other and listened to the pop songs played by the local radio channel. It was so peaceful, and I felt so lively. Before darkness I reflected about the truck mirrors, which were plenty but never enough to completely overcome the blind spot. I liked the metaphore with the reflecting mirrors, and decided to do some self-reflection tomorrow. I also saw something that could really be a good candidate for the primordial hitchhiking experience. What did I see? I saw a rainbow in the exhaust vapor of the truck driving in front of us.
It got dark and I stood in the center of Vaasa. A woman told me that I was on the road directly to Oulu, which was not on the signs yet because it was too far away. I walked that road, holding up my sign, and got lucky again. First a man working for an international technical documentation company brought me to a 24 hour roadside restaurant, after a coffee there an security guard took me to a crossing, and from there, two incredibly friendly Husky-people took me and offered me a place to sleep. Their car was packed with three big friendly dogs and a laundromat, but still they could fit me in. We drove to their home in Eskola, a small town of 300, in the middle of the country. That night, I also got my first sauna experience in Finland. My new friends prepared a bed in the kitchen, where I slept really well.
I didn't want to stay in Tampere though, and posted myself alongside the road to Vaasa with my ultimate direction drawn on a piece of paper a man at the gas station kindly gave me. Again, it didn't take more than ten minutes to get a ride, this time from a nice older truck driver from Vaasa, who took me all the 230 kilometers to his town.
Hitchhiking romantics has been described in many ways, and there are probably as many words about it as there are kilometers on the road. I felt like I should contribute something of my own. We sat silently next to each other and listened to the pop songs played by the local radio channel. It was so peaceful, and I felt so lively. Before darkness I reflected about the truck mirrors, which were plenty but never enough to completely overcome the blind spot. I liked the metaphore with the reflecting mirrors, and decided to do some self-reflection tomorrow. I also saw something that could really be a good candidate for the primordial hitchhiking experience. What did I see? I saw a rainbow in the exhaust vapor of the truck driving in front of us.
It got dark and I stood in the center of Vaasa. A woman told me that I was on the road directly to Oulu, which was not on the signs yet because it was too far away. I walked that road, holding up my sign, and got lucky again. First a man working for an international technical documentation company brought me to a 24 hour roadside restaurant, after a coffee there an security guard took me to a crossing, and from there, two incredibly friendly Husky-people took me and offered me a place to sleep. Their car was packed with three big friendly dogs and a laundromat, but still they could fit me in. We drove to their home in Eskola, a small town of 300, in the middle of the country. That night, I also got my first sauna experience in Finland. My new friends prepared a bed in the kitchen, where I slept really well.
How to get to Tallinn
Now I knew the drill: bus - hostel - bus - hostel - bus - and it already had gotten a little bit boring.
So I decided to travel a bit differently from now on. From Riga I took a very slow train to Sigulda where a nice castle should be located. I didn't see much of it, but I did see some ruins that - well, judge for yourselves.
It was two PM already, so I had to really start being concerned about my trip to Tallinn. I walked back to the train station of Sigulda, and caught a bus to Saulkrasti that was already waiting. An old woman affirmed its direction and fee of 1.7 Lats (about 3 Euros). I guess I was lucky again.
The bus ride went to typical Latvian scenery I was glad not to have missed, and ended near the coast, that is the Bay of Riga. I walked down to the beach the sun set, creating startling visual dreams I pointed my Mobile's camera at.
After that short seaside delight I bought some bread and cheese, took a piece of cardboard and wrote "Tallinn" on it. At first, all the cars just drove by. Then an older couple kindly brought me to the main highway, the via baltica, where I'd have a better shot. And indeed. From a gas station a young man took me to some know hitch hiker's point, I stood there a couple of minutes holding my cardboard up, and then a friendly woman brought me to another town, 30 kilometer or so down the rode. From there, a truck driver took me straight to Tallinn. So it was pretty easy to get a ride, though uncommon in autumn times. I had been called a hippy smoking grass, and would probably have remained like that in their memories had I shown my Dutch passport.
The truck ride was beautiful in its way. We were silent most of the time, and I enjoyed the Estonian scenery bathing in the moonlight. After we reached Tallinn, we had to wait half an hour because of some company rules, the driver told me. I walked towards the Old Town, as I had done in those other cities before, and was picked up by Alar, my host from couchsurfing. Did I already mention it? Well, it is one of the greatest inventions on the Internet. Check it out.
So we went to a party(!) Yes, I ended up dancing in an apartment with really nice Estonian people, DJ-ing Depeche Mode, Shantel, Michael Jackson from a laptop computer, drinking gin-tonic and talking philosophy and art history. At four we went to Alar's place, where I slept like a little lamb. Now that's some way to arrive in a new city, don't you think?
So I decided to travel a bit differently from now on. From Riga I took a very slow train to Sigulda where a nice castle should be located. I didn't see much of it, but I did see some ruins that - well, judge for yourselves.
It was two PM already, so I had to really start being concerned about my trip to Tallinn. I walked back to the train station of Sigulda, and caught a bus to Saulkrasti that was already waiting. An old woman affirmed its direction and fee of 1.7 Lats (about 3 Euros). I guess I was lucky again.
The bus ride went to typical Latvian scenery I was glad not to have missed, and ended near the coast, that is the Bay of Riga. I walked down to the beach the sun set, creating startling visual dreams I pointed my Mobile's camera at.
After that short seaside delight I bought some bread and cheese, took a piece of cardboard and wrote "Tallinn" on it. At first, all the cars just drove by. Then an older couple kindly brought me to the main highway, the via baltica, where I'd have a better shot. And indeed. From a gas station a young man took me to some know hitch hiker's point, I stood there a couple of minutes holding my cardboard up, and then a friendly woman brought me to another town, 30 kilometer or so down the rode. From there, a truck driver took me straight to Tallinn. So it was pretty easy to get a ride, though uncommon in autumn times. I had been called a hippy smoking grass, and would probably have remained like that in their memories had I shown my Dutch passport.
The truck ride was beautiful in its way. We were silent most of the time, and I enjoyed the Estonian scenery bathing in the moonlight. After we reached Tallinn, we had to wait half an hour because of some company rules, the driver told me. I walked towards the Old Town, as I had done in those other cities before, and was picked up by Alar, my host from couchsurfing. Did I already mention it? Well, it is one of the greatest inventions on the Internet. Check it out.
So we went to a party(!) Yes, I ended up dancing in an apartment with really nice Estonian people, DJ-ing Depeche Mode, Shantel, Michael Jackson from a laptop computer, drinking gin-tonic and talking philosophy and art history. At four we went to Alar's place, where I slept like a little lamb. Now that's some way to arrive in a new city, don't you think?
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