Sunday, December 2, 2012
Late this summer in the quest for gold ...
Simian Songs
In the crystalline quiet of the black, a voice of questioning, melancholy, power and size.
“Aahhhh ooooooOO, hoo, Ooh, Hoo”
It is a long sound, lasting 50 seconds or more, ending in a deep note which no forest animal can have. The sound is pure, in perfect pitch, like the sound of an alien horn, cutting through the night like a knife. The dog erupts out of the tent like a shot, at first running to the camps edge, the black wall at the limit of light, then back between my legs. I feel the call is a question, as in, “Who are you?” But also a veiled threat, “This is my place. You are the intruder.” And yet, in the song of sound … is sadness. It is the knowledge that we are somehow the same animal, separated by the grief of genetics, without which we could be brothers.
The obvious human qualities to the voice has every hair on my body sticking straight out. I am deeply frightened. Will this hairy arthropod charge in here and demand something? The dog? Sex? My life? Visions of yellow fangs and beady eyes course my brain, with continuing thoughts of this giant sub-human tearing my limbs off. A reverse Grendel story. But I trust the Indian tales, that this is a peaceful creature. “The Man of the Woods” they called him.
Never-the-less, I don't trust the Indian tales that much. I get out the SKS, the Chinese assault rifle that will discharge 12 rounds in 30 seconds. This I lay across my lap, the dog cowered beneath. Should I fire off a shot in it's direction? A warning scare shot? It seems so crass. It's everything I hate about white men.
Instead, I choose to answer. A single loud “YO” I bellow into the blackness. The silence closes over my sound like a heavy quilt on a baby. The anthropoids song seems to linger in the valley, a sound persisting like the ringing in the ears, this call, communing with the neolithic noises of a hundred thousand years past.
For over an hour I sit at the fire, built up now, beside the hissing gas lamp, clutching the rifle. I am expecting a pair of red eyes to glow back at me from the dark … but nothing stirs. Not a breath of wind, a creaking branch, a squirrel settling in, the chirp of a bird. Nothing. It is the unnerving void of space. Here, I with my dwindling fire and gas lamp, am the space ship. Tiny. Insignificant. Vulnerable.
Eventually my pounding heart slows enough to where sleep might be possible. As if the goddamned night wasn't ridiculously long already. Would that this cursed phenomena of night be abolished. I'd rather go nuts from lack of sleep than suffer this inky horror. Now in the bed, tent zipped, dog piled on top, reading the boring engineering book. Eventual sleep. Weird dreams.
Torn instantly from a dream, I snap to sitting in raw fright. The whole valley is filled with screaming and hooting. The dog is leaping around the tent like he's on fire. Oh God, we are surrounded by a hoard of monsters! Two, three, four or more voices are going at once. There seems to be competition for who is the most vocal. It is more varied also, starting soft, going to a high note, and drifting out to a deep resonate “ooOOO” of base.
Terror is all over me like a cold water bath. But what can I do? I'm out here near the divide in the remotest place in America. The songs and howling continues on and on. It is 11PM. The moon has just come up over the ridge. As soon as one song ends, frequently with hoots and oots, another begins. At times when three or more are going at once, one will set up a Ki Yi Yi, similar to North African women wailing their group cause of grief.
I am trapped in this saran wrap bag called a tent with 5 to 50 monsters out there. The main ruckus sounds about a ½ mile down the valley, whereas the first fella was a ¼ mile up stream where I had been digging Apparently he hooked up with the gang and ratted me out. If this Neanderthal meeting is a prelude to shredding the invading white man, I am toast. All that's missing are the drums. I may get a clumsy shot off or two, but they are fast and quiet and insanely strong. I'm the pit-bulls rag doll toy. My limbs will be strewn about the valley as if I exploded.
But wait … what exactly do I need to fear? These peaceful people of the woods are gathering for what to them is a family barbeque. Who am I to be concerned with their society? Pass the mustard please. To be molested to death by their mighty prehensile paws, is surly a more romantic way to go than being in a 3 car rollover on the freeway. Here I am, pursuing my dream in the wilderness ... as are they … what could be a more natural way to go?
“YaaahaaaAhhhhooooOOOO, Who, Who”. On and on they persist. Must be 15 minutes now. My mind, unable to come to terms with a furry simian sing-a-long in the midnight woods, conceives a new idea. These are not Abominable Snowmen, these are wolves! Yes .. that's it. Moon up over the ridge and all. The eco-assholes relocation/reintroduction plan for all the extincted creatures. That's who they are. Dogs. Probably woolly mammoths out here too. If the wolves come around here to tear me apart like in the movie “Grey”, I'll empty the assault rifle into the buggers with more alacrity than the first showing of “Dark Night”.
I can settle the issue. I'll record the songs on the camera with movie mode. Then some expert from a prestigious university can tell me if it's wolves or Sasquatches. Now, where's the camera? In the pack. Where's the pack? Outside under the tree. Outside where the yellow toothed shredders are! OK, OK, I have the LED light. I make a dash for it. Outside into the howling horror. I always wonder why in the movies they go into the place where the monster is. Yet, here I am. There is no pack under the tree. Scan the whole camp. No pack. Where the hell is it? Flash the light around in the tent. No pack. Scan around the tree and camp again. Gone. The Sasquatch has taken my pack. They are known for such thieving behaviors. They must be from central America. The son-of-a-bitch snuck in here … right in front of us, and snatched it. My wallet’s in that pack. What's the Squatch gonna do with a debit card and no PIN number? Every dime I own in the world is in that wallet. I can't just go eating squirrels or roots or campers as they would do. I need cash. I'm panicking. The singing continues, the voices calmer now with more time between songs. Fuck it! They stole my wallet, I’ll blast em! I barge irrationally into the tent for the war weapon. Grab it up. It's been laying on the pack. The pack with the wallet. Hmmm … disconnect. Maybe they're not such bad chums after all. Well, at least I can take the safety off the trigger.
Ok, here's the camera. The screen is a mass of pixels since I dropped the rock on it, so I can't read the menu and change to movie mode. Mash some buttons. Think this is it. I snap some pictures of the tent ceiling. Nope. Not it. In the ethereal distance, only one animal sings a mournful howl. No Hooting after shots. Obviously wolves. Wolves with uncommonly sounding human voices. Wolves with a trachea the diameter of a bean can. A trachea that can reverberate 30 Hz at 80 dB for 70 seconds. Wolves with 20 liter lungs. 8 to 10 foot high wolves.
Yes. Now. Finally got the camera ready. I'm not going outside for purity of sound, fuck that. The experts will just have to unscramble it like a bad UFO photo. Always the techno problem with this sort of thing. I raise the tiny gizmo to the top of the tent as the last melancholy song fades softly into the night. I wait for the next one. It's been fairly continuous for 20 minutes now. Maybe it's 10 minutes? Maybe 2 hours? Seems I've been doing this all night. Silence. Not a sound. The battery icon is empty … red … blinking it's desperate warning. After flashing the roof three times, there's not enough juice to record anything anyway. In a few minutes, the camera shuts it's self off. So it is with these things. Might as well go back to sleep. Another 8 hours of black and monsters before the dawn. Only one way to get there. Unconscious.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Assorted Notes
There are those who have wondered of my whereabouts due to a dearth of blogation. Speculation runs that the great God Ixumal has riddled me with poison darts, leaving my carcass to be consumed by ants. People who know me, may reasonable rationalize that I have been incarcerated in a third world hell hole. In my cage, a bald 7 foot carib looms over me with a grin like a white pickett fence. None of this is true. Boringly, I am back in the land of the potato people. I have been back almost two weeks, since my ever changing currency dwindled to a few piddly American dollars, or 3,426 pesos. Just enough to get a chicken bus back to the Cancun airport and get one last mystery meat burrito.
Since here, I have been paddling my ass off to round up a few pennies. Not doing too good at it. The cat tussled with a Gila Monster, broke off it’s front teeth in the struggle and died from it’s toxins. Heartbreaking. A fine furry resident who lived there more than I did. Now the place will be overrun with mice again.
Kim and I have a new relationship, based on trust and love, a few of the things we forgot the first few tries. We are buying a chunk of land in Belize and will go live there forever before next winter starts. We are full of excitement, and brimming with plans. We are short about 50,000, basically all the money necessary, but have decided not to let such banal annoyances slow us down. After all, this is amerika, and something can be robbed and get punished for later. Maybe never. We are both sick to hell of the billion dollar this and that, that swirls over head like the fictional lotto winners. Never will the likes of us see a copper of this cash, only held underfoot of the belligerent banks, slaves to the monetary system. It is time to grow vegetables, fruits, fish .. get off the power grid of the powerful… barter with half naked people for small goods and services .. enjoy the thriving nature of nature. Exit concrete and ice, economic enslavement for food, warmth and shelter. All focus now is to this end, to live in love and harmony with Kim. I believe it is real. My belief will make it real.
Working on the weirdo survivalist house. A lot of almost sold hovers: an African with stolen credit cards, an Alaskan with a river full of crummy rafts, a Nigerian Mogul working through the international bank to secure a million dollar credit line for me. That for a 25 passenger hover. Everything close, but all is horseshoes an hand grenades until something explodes. Waiting .. but not waiting. Fixing more of the hover fleet. Everything’s for sale. And building mining equipment for an assault on the gold fields once the snow shrinks back a little. Even putting on a tie and groveling to sphincter pinched engineering firms for a cubical cave job. Now that would be disappearing to myself. I almost prefer the toothy guy in the scorpion nest, two fried plantains a day.
So this is my little life. Not as interesting as doing the roommate thing in the Panama Prison. That’s why the web here has been silent. If I find another of Ixumual’s foot prints, I’ll tell ya. But till then… here’s some scrap thoughts left over from the travels.
Assorted Notes
Cancun street sweepers are everywhere. Little shriveled brown 6 AM men, perseverating over a broomed square meter of pavement. The streets are very clean. Hardly any dust even. This is in contrast to the rest of the garbage pit country. Who pays them and why. Do they do it out of civic pride?
Auto and bus brakes are all bad here. They are in constant use due to the national paradigm of being in an insane hurry. The Central American Drivers manual says: “Swerve suddenly into any space half the size of a car length on either your right or left…for proper lane changing. Accelerate madly towards any intersection or pedestrian crossing if more than 20 meters of open space is available. Assume that pedestrians will scatter in terror and that panic braking in congested areas is possible.”
As I leap from curb to curb, dodging madly rushing sedans, the high pitched screeching of worn brakes surrounds me from all directions. The alto refrain in a chorus of honking horns and the mechanical mimicking of squawking corvoids.
Toilets here all have the wastepaper basket beside them for the purpose of depositing the wiped refuse. There is no Charmin south of 25 degrees latitude. Toilet paper is a rough insoluble product akin to very thin chip board. Kori is a proponent of this system, citing the fragility of third world plumbing systems. I also noticed that many systems are below the water table, confounding the flushing problem. In reality, it is quit stinky, rather like a horizontal encounter with an outhouse.
Money changing: 15 pesos to the US dollar. They call pesos dollars here. A cola .. $15, a burrito .. $50. So all numbers are on the base 15 platform. Yanks .. base 10. Maya base 20. Then this is a marriage of past and present. 14.85 exchange per US buck at a bank. 14.65 paid at a corner street shark. 20 centavos difference. Change US $20 into 300 pesos, accounts for 5 pesos difference, about 33 cents. This is like the gas station game in the US. As a rich Americano, endless thousands in debt, who gives a shit?
Vast graveyards are passed with frequency. Dormitorios del la murto – bedrooms of the dead. All the graves are above ground in gaudy colored cement boxes. The water table floats any buried coffin, sending a log jam of bones into the nearby ditch. This sea of boxes, not unlike the town architecture, cradle to the grave in sameness.
UDP – united democratic party; PUP – peoples united party – the party of hope; UPP – united peoples party. These letters spray painted large on most walls. Cheap political signs. The UDP won the last election, but despite the hollow promises, once the ruling party sit behind the desk, it is the usual graft and inaction in all matters. The military is it’s own party without need for elections. Pickup truck loads of mixed kaki machine gun malevolent careen around the narrow streets, looking for what I’m not sure. But try to be invisible anyway.
The Frigate bird. Black and white and elegant with pointed ends all, forked tail, 4 foot wing span. Aerodynamic witches hats. The pelican flaps clumsily along through the air. The Frigate bird never pumps a stroke, always gliding, banking, rising and twisting without effort.
Since here, I have been paddling my ass off to round up a few pennies. Not doing too good at it. The cat tussled with a Gila Monster, broke off it’s front teeth in the struggle and died from it’s toxins. Heartbreaking. A fine furry resident who lived there more than I did. Now the place will be overrun with mice again.
Kim and I have a new relationship, based on trust and love, a few of the things we forgot the first few tries. We are buying a chunk of land in Belize and will go live there forever before next winter starts. We are full of excitement, and brimming with plans. We are short about 50,000, basically all the money necessary, but have decided not to let such banal annoyances slow us down. After all, this is amerika, and something can be robbed and get punished for later. Maybe never. We are both sick to hell of the billion dollar this and that, that swirls over head like the fictional lotto winners. Never will the likes of us see a copper of this cash, only held underfoot of the belligerent banks, slaves to the monetary system. It is time to grow vegetables, fruits, fish .. get off the power grid of the powerful… barter with half naked people for small goods and services .. enjoy the thriving nature of nature. Exit concrete and ice, economic enslavement for food, warmth and shelter. All focus now is to this end, to live in love and harmony with Kim. I believe it is real. My belief will make it real.
Working on the weirdo survivalist house. A lot of almost sold hovers: an African with stolen credit cards, an Alaskan with a river full of crummy rafts, a Nigerian Mogul working through the international bank to secure a million dollar credit line for me. That for a 25 passenger hover. Everything close, but all is horseshoes an hand grenades until something explodes. Waiting .. but not waiting. Fixing more of the hover fleet. Everything’s for sale. And building mining equipment for an assault on the gold fields once the snow shrinks back a little. Even putting on a tie and groveling to sphincter pinched engineering firms for a cubical cave job. Now that would be disappearing to myself. I almost prefer the toothy guy in the scorpion nest, two fried plantains a day.
So this is my little life. Not as interesting as doing the roommate thing in the Panama Prison. That’s why the web here has been silent. If I find another of Ixumual’s foot prints, I’ll tell ya. But till then… here’s some scrap thoughts left over from the travels.
Assorted Notes
Cancun street sweepers are everywhere. Little shriveled brown 6 AM men, perseverating over a broomed square meter of pavement. The streets are very clean. Hardly any dust even. This is in contrast to the rest of the garbage pit country. Who pays them and why. Do they do it out of civic pride?
Auto and bus brakes are all bad here. They are in constant use due to the national paradigm of being in an insane hurry. The Central American Drivers manual says: “Swerve suddenly into any space half the size of a car length on either your right or left…for proper lane changing. Accelerate madly towards any intersection or pedestrian crossing if more than 20 meters of open space is available. Assume that pedestrians will scatter in terror and that panic braking in congested areas is possible.”
As I leap from curb to curb, dodging madly rushing sedans, the high pitched screeching of worn brakes surrounds me from all directions. The alto refrain in a chorus of honking horns and the mechanical mimicking of squawking corvoids.
Toilets here all have the wastepaper basket beside them for the purpose of depositing the wiped refuse. There is no Charmin south of 25 degrees latitude. Toilet paper is a rough insoluble product akin to very thin chip board. Kori is a proponent of this system, citing the fragility of third world plumbing systems. I also noticed that many systems are below the water table, confounding the flushing problem. In reality, it is quit stinky, rather like a horizontal encounter with an outhouse.
Money changing: 15 pesos to the US dollar. They call pesos dollars here. A cola .. $15, a burrito .. $50. So all numbers are on the base 15 platform. Yanks .. base 10. Maya base 20. Then this is a marriage of past and present. 14.85 exchange per US buck at a bank. 14.65 paid at a corner street shark. 20 centavos difference. Change US $20 into 300 pesos, accounts for 5 pesos difference, about 33 cents. This is like the gas station game in the US. As a rich Americano, endless thousands in debt, who gives a shit?
Vast graveyards are passed with frequency. Dormitorios del la murto – bedrooms of the dead. All the graves are above ground in gaudy colored cement boxes. The water table floats any buried coffin, sending a log jam of bones into the nearby ditch. This sea of boxes, not unlike the town architecture, cradle to the grave in sameness.
UDP – united democratic party; PUP – peoples united party – the party of hope; UPP – united peoples party. These letters spray painted large on most walls. Cheap political signs. The UDP won the last election, but despite the hollow promises, once the ruling party sit behind the desk, it is the usual graft and inaction in all matters. The military is it’s own party without need for elections. Pickup truck loads of mixed kaki machine gun malevolent careen around the narrow streets, looking for what I’m not sure. But try to be invisible anyway.
The Frigate bird. Black and white and elegant with pointed ends all, forked tail, 4 foot wing span. Aerodynamic witches hats. The pelican flaps clumsily along through the air. The Frigate bird never pumps a stroke, always gliding, banking, rising and twisting without effort.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Future Found
A sixty foot mountian mouth yawns before me, it's cave entrance festooned with a thousand stlagmites. A frozen fossil shark in the 500 foot limestone cliff. A crystal river pours out in emerald hues to cascading pools of inviting cool from the jungle heat. mayan children shriek and slide from one succulent stone to another.
I decide to live here amoung the paridise of growth and climate, it's people gentel and sincere. An acre I find of 300 foot old growth mohogany trees, fern palms reaching for the light. Friends also here, educated, motivated, activated. A hundred oppertunities leap to my mind, solar power, wind power, LED lighting, hovercraft coastal transport, Archetectural designs, marine mechanics, Iguana farms, fish farms, pearl oysters, electric bikes, coffee shops, archeological excursions and excavations, and many others. A house on stilts in the jungle canopy, powered by the sun, watered by the sky.
The world is new again, plans and hope abounding. Realizing now, that I am the ruby eye, plucked by paridise.
I decide to live here amoung the paridise of growth and climate, it's people gentel and sincere. An acre I find of 300 foot old growth mohogany trees, fern palms reaching for the light. Friends also here, educated, motivated, activated. A hundred oppertunities leap to my mind, solar power, wind power, LED lighting, hovercraft coastal transport, Archetectural designs, marine mechanics, Iguana farms, fish farms, pearl oysters, electric bikes, coffee shops, archeological excursions and excavations, and many others. A house on stilts in the jungle canopy, powered by the sun, watered by the sky.
The world is new again, plans and hope abounding. Realizing now, that I am the ruby eye, plucked by paridise.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Communications
Them that are here, that were there (americika), talk like they’ve been stranded on an Island for 2 years. Not only do they blither insistently with such a ferocity that precludes interaction, they rave. Every other sentence shifts subject sonorously, to lambaste government policy, proclaim national pharmaceutical farming, or expound on tourism unrealized. The declarations, denouncements and dissertations begin to lay on you like the heat of the day. You become torpid, indifferent to interaction, much less argument. What can you counter to the ministry of Agriculture’s secret plot to give Mayan children tapeworms? To what can you add to the construction of shabby hotels for laundering drug money, staffed with thorough bred thugs, killing the night club scene with gun battles. Where do you interject on that subject.
All these ex-pats are ranters. Is it because you are fresh mental meat? Their surrounding population dulled by the struggle for some chicken dollars, carrying the bags of a 1st worlder, wondering if an alley bushwhacking is possible.
The ex-pats are experts in descriptions of “I”. I ran the greatest business. I went to Zambooligia Creek. I was the MickdeMofo there. I this, I that. Pedantic. Boring Annoying.
In contrast, the Spaniard never bothers to engage you. No eye contact, no smiles, no words. As though you were invisible .. two will yammer together like the sound of hail on the roof. Entirely unintelligible.
The Carib is polite. Looks right at yo a nd says something nice like “Ow you be doing dis day siahh?” This could be genuinely polite, but usually the lead in to a tap for a few bucks. Sometimes you give in to their incessant “Plaheezz Mahn Plaheezz Mahn Plaheezz Mahn”. It sounds so desperate and sincere. Other times you tell the begger to bugg off with a breathy snarl. But the beggars are a tiny proportion. Many other interactions with fine people is more the rule. It’s obvious t5hat they clean up their language quite a bit in your company. In fact, they often repeat themselves. He asks … “How are you today Diane?” “ Be fine, be fine” and back “ How you do Mr. Larry, Mr. Larry” Like there was two of him. When two consider that they are out of English range, their lips erupt like they were spitting flies. “Oh beabya bee beep bahhabantan beyu, ball be.” Not unlike bubbles blown from beneath, rising to a froth of musical sound.
There are other communications here, fists kissed in mid air, the full box of chicklets smile, the passing nod. Even the non human talk, the screeching whistling crow relative, the lizard darting and bobbing, and even the busses.
What at first appeared to be New York cab etiquette, honking maniacally at every nano second delay. Soon a pattern emerges. 2 honks says I’m passing you at 75 on this 40 year old 10 foot wide lane. I don’t care what’s ahead. One honk says, Yeah, go ahead, I’ll let ya plaster yourself, thanks for letting me know. # honks from the panicked passer says “I can’t make it due to the oncoming fuel truck. Collision and explosion are eminent within seconds. I’m falling back.” A solo honk from the passee may respond. 4 honks is generally reserved for obstructions in the path .. like people. Frequently and excess of 4 honks is used when speeding through town at 75. They seem to be saying .. “Get the fuck out of my way! I’m insane and out of control. I’ll kill you all!”
All these ex-pats are ranters. Is it because you are fresh mental meat? Their surrounding population dulled by the struggle for some chicken dollars, carrying the bags of a 1st worlder, wondering if an alley bushwhacking is possible.
The ex-pats are experts in descriptions of “I”. I ran the greatest business. I went to Zambooligia Creek. I was the MickdeMofo there. I this, I that. Pedantic. Boring Annoying.
In contrast, the Spaniard never bothers to engage you. No eye contact, no smiles, no words. As though you were invisible .. two will yammer together like the sound of hail on the roof. Entirely unintelligible.
The Carib is polite. Looks right at yo a nd says something nice like “Ow you be doing dis day siahh?” This could be genuinely polite, but usually the lead in to a tap for a few bucks. Sometimes you give in to their incessant “Plaheezz Mahn Plaheezz Mahn Plaheezz Mahn”. It sounds so desperate and sincere. Other times you tell the begger to bugg off with a breathy snarl. But the beggars are a tiny proportion. Many other interactions with fine people is more the rule. It’s obvious t5hat they clean up their language quite a bit in your company. In fact, they often repeat themselves. He asks … “How are you today Diane?” “ Be fine, be fine” and back “ How you do Mr. Larry, Mr. Larry” Like there was two of him. When two consider that they are out of English range, their lips erupt like they were spitting flies. “Oh beabya bee beep bahhabantan beyu, ball be.” Not unlike bubbles blown from beneath, rising to a froth of musical sound.
There are other communications here, fists kissed in mid air, the full box of chicklets smile, the passing nod. Even the non human talk, the screeching whistling crow relative, the lizard darting and bobbing, and even the busses.
What at first appeared to be New York cab etiquette, honking maniacally at every nano second delay. Soon a pattern emerges. 2 honks says I’m passing you at 75 on this 40 year old 10 foot wide lane. I don’t care what’s ahead. One honk says, Yeah, go ahead, I’ll let ya plaster yourself, thanks for letting me know. # honks from the panicked passer says “I can’t make it due to the oncoming fuel truck. Collision and explosion are eminent within seconds. I’m falling back.” A solo honk from the passee may respond. 4 honks is generally reserved for obstructions in the path .. like people. Frequently and excess of 4 honks is used when speeding through town at 75. They seem to be saying .. “Get the fuck out of my way! I’m insane and out of control. I’ll kill you all!”
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Fireflies, lizards and Tilapia
A fine day in the last frontier. Belize. Here in the southern edge, I meet friends, the jungle, ideas. Working in the morning with big Larry, a displaced Canadian pharmacist, we clear his lot of hacked jungle brush. The Trade Winds play in the palms, curious lizards cling to mahogany trees, while this gentle overweight man sweats profusely. He talks of his dream here, a house on stilts in a jungle lot, as leaf cutter ants carry off his fledgling tangerine tree. He talks of his greedy consuming Canadian wife, carrying off his small wealth like another busy bug. We stack the profuse hacked vegetation, insects scurrying for some new protection, others working on a meal of leg or arm.
Then lunch of Creole beans on a cafe veranda, the sea beside us with it's beautiful endless wind. We talk of Mayan civilization, so close to us here, it's ghosts of kings and temples all around. Big Larry has a truck. I talk him into driving us into the interior tomorrow, to find the lost temples, the caves filled with jade idols. Large Larry is not hard to convince, for lonely Larry lacks sincere company. Company that is not out to extract his Belizean bucks. So HELL YEAH!!! Ruby eye here I come.
In the evening a power outage. Belize blackout. Who knows how big, why, where, or when or if it will be fixed. For hours, the hostel owner and I sit and talk of the Belizean economy. He is a self proclaimed "planner". A thousand planes woven within plans. Plans for sustainable development, Mayan land rights, agricultural development, and a thousand curses to colonial conceit controlling the country. We talk power and politicians, the poor and ponds Tilapia ponds.
The fireflies dance their blinking beauty all around us, strobing from one spot to another, flying in and through the open everywhere house. Incredible. I am transported by this luminous light show, and squeal in delight as a bright one flits by. To the local, I am obviously loco, that is of no concern of mine.
Tilapia ponds are twenty feet in diameter and a breeding pair produces 2 1/2 million offspring a year. The excess fry are fed to chickens, who's shit is flung on the pond making alge for the fish to eat. Which comes first? A pond is made by laying banana leaves down, covering with pig shit, then another few layers of the same. A glutinous impervious seal is made. Larger fish are transferred to other ponds to grow with some fin room, and sold for dollars a pound everywhere. Be-fouled pond water is pumped on gardens where the nitrogen saturated fluid blasts verdant vegetation from the jungle floor. This to feed pigs ... to make more ponds ... and round it goes to the Belizean bank.
I see other ruby's now. The opportunities’ of economy. The chance to help poor people rise from their crushing poverty with sustainable systems. Wind power in excess unthought of, undeveloped. Cyclic farms, tourist transits, and my own tangerine tree. A chance to do great things in this frontier, change myself, change this world. The ruby gleams bright tonight.
Then lunch of Creole beans on a cafe veranda, the sea beside us with it's beautiful endless wind. We talk of Mayan civilization, so close to us here, it's ghosts of kings and temples all around. Big Larry has a truck. I talk him into driving us into the interior tomorrow, to find the lost temples, the caves filled with jade idols. Large Larry is not hard to convince, for lonely Larry lacks sincere company. Company that is not out to extract his Belizean bucks. So HELL YEAH!!! Ruby eye here I come.
In the evening a power outage. Belize blackout. Who knows how big, why, where, or when or if it will be fixed. For hours, the hostel owner and I sit and talk of the Belizean economy. He is a self proclaimed "planner". A thousand planes woven within plans. Plans for sustainable development, Mayan land rights, agricultural development, and a thousand curses to colonial conceit controlling the country. We talk power and politicians, the poor and ponds Tilapia ponds.
The fireflies dance their blinking beauty all around us, strobing from one spot to another, flying in and through the open everywhere house. Incredible. I am transported by this luminous light show, and squeal in delight as a bright one flits by. To the local, I am obviously loco, that is of no concern of mine.
Tilapia ponds are twenty feet in diameter and a breeding pair produces 2 1/2 million offspring a year. The excess fry are fed to chickens, who's shit is flung on the pond making alge for the fish to eat. Which comes first? A pond is made by laying banana leaves down, covering with pig shit, then another few layers of the same. A glutinous impervious seal is made. Larger fish are transferred to other ponds to grow with some fin room, and sold for dollars a pound everywhere. Be-fouled pond water is pumped on gardens where the nitrogen saturated fluid blasts verdant vegetation from the jungle floor. This to feed pigs ... to make more ponds ... and round it goes to the Belizean bank.
I see other ruby's now. The opportunities’ of economy. The chance to help poor people rise from their crushing poverty with sustainable systems. Wind power in excess unthought of, undeveloped. Cyclic farms, tourist transits, and my own tangerine tree. A chance to do great things in this frontier, change myself, change this world. The ruby gleams bright tonight.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Sea to sea in a day
First of all, thank you beautiful Kori for your words. Yes, let us dance, dance in life.
The boat ruide across some vast gulf to Guatamala is wonderful. Beautiful flat azul sea. Tide rips. Huge mountians laying a black ragged shadow in the sky. One of the engines craps out midway. the captian kills the other so he can hammer on the agrived motor. Adrift in the Carribean. Sorta romantic. I`m the only one with a bottel of water, so I get the first pick of who to eat. Eventually he fires them both up, and just to show who`s boss, opens tham both wide and blasts across the water. The top speed of this displacement nightmare is about 30 with 400 HP.
Soon we hove into punta Barrios. Well named. The shore is a hozontal garbage pile. A hustler directs me to immagration 2 blocks away for a stamp. These guys could give a shit. i could have 20 kilos of white powder in my pack. I could have walked in without bothering their perpetual siestia. Then through a dozen blocks of destitute slum to the bus station. Open fetid sewers, crumbling one story rathole houses, starved sore covered dogs cowering along with us. This is a hungry place. I give Antonio 10 Quetzels, about a buck 25. He did me right. Hope I did him similar.
20th, I think. Maybe Friday. On the bus through Guatamala. Buss stopped at a cafertiera, 15 min. I havent eaten in a day or so. I get 3 somethings with sauce. Most delisioush shit I can remember. About 50 other things I`d like to eat there too. Parinoid that the bus will leave without me. Just rained, now warm and muggy. Nice, really. Along the way, people living in holes carved into road cuts here. A 4x4 back in 5 feet, part of a tarp for a veranda, three kids and a male, sitting, staring .. idle. I see this eveywhere. Poverty. Stupor. Everyone just lazing around doing nothing. Waiting. For what? It reminds me of jail. But at least there, a relief could be coming.
A huge beautiful river in this wide valley. The side creeks we cross are full of quartzite and quartz. There is a rounded bolder of quartz half the size of a car in one village. I know there is gold in the hills. Apparently they do not. Sitting on one of the most geologically turbulent places in the world, the crushing zone between 3 tectonic plates, rotating, grinding, and upwelling. Where worlds collide. All the treasure of the deep squezzing to the surface. I am blowing past the blue jade zone. I can communicate no better than an ape. People people everywhere, but not a word to speak. Rolling again. The mountians are magnicifiant. I would love to be in them, teasing out their secrets. But on to Curiad de guatamala. To what fate there I do not know. This is suposedly the most thug infested place in central americia. I am basically terrified.
Cactus now outside. Must be around 2000 feet elevation. Stuccato spanish all around me. I don`t have a clue. Guatamala city. 30 miles in every direction. Sprawling one story bungaloes, many made of scrap trash with smoke billiowing out of rotten board and sheet metal overlaps. Cooking some perro inside a haze, if they are lucky. Mobbed by hustlers at the final stop after weaving through endless lefts and rights of barred stucco. I pause to put together a few phrases. The bus to where I want to go is across town. Helpful bus ticket people connect me to a reputable cabby. I struggle with words with him as he tears up one street and down another, zigzagging apparently at random. He works the stick shift like an icecream churn, accererating madly at every chance. Miles and miles of endless city, crammed with teeming people. 10 near pedistrian murders, as they wrench back in horror from the speeding auto. 20 hairs breath collisions avoided with a prayer, lunging out into traffic, cutting in front of anything, blatent lane changes. For 50 Qetzels, about 8 bucks, I couldnt ask for a wilder thrill ride. I am laughing my ass off out loud, which gives him greater courage, it seems.
We enter a rough looking area of dismanteled busses, repairs ongoing on the street. Then into a jam of 10 busses, hundreds of people, cars wedged in the cracks. "Ahh, Pacificio" he utters in relief. "Su buss, Su Buss". Apparently he has been trying to beat the clock and get me here before it leaves. He blocks the bus with his cab. I am disgourged. My pack handed between scoundral types till I grab it back and climb into the conveyance.
I get a seat. barely fits me and the pack, no room for knees, shredded vinyl all around. They load as many people as are seated again. Totally mashed. I am admonished to share my tiny space, so I crush in more adjusting the pack ontop of me, enough to give a nice young fellow a square foot of butt cling seat. About 5 dozen standing, three to most seats. The horn is blaring. A pull chain for this. The bus inches forward, the knot of busses and cars slowly parts as more people climb on. Then in release from the crush, madcap through the streets, accelerating and tramping the brakes. Another many hours of insane driving, winding through this and that barrio, endlessly. Stopping every quarter mile to let people on and off. I particurally like passing into an oncoming fuel truck. Lots of these combinations for some reason. I can`t care. Must imagine my self as one of Calvins toys in the fated sandbox.
As we desend from the highlands, a massive volcano looms to our right. A 5000 foot perfect cone. Red lava glowing in the now night, smoke and ash dribbling down one side. Very awesom. Must be a lot of earthquakes here. On and on into the night. At one town we are hurridly off loaded and re-loaded through the emergency exit of another bus. Chinese fire drill sort of thing.
Now on the flats again. Palms trees all around. Sprawling civilization and heaps of trash. I am used to coming into a western town, there you are, main street. Here you go on and on through miles of packed miscallanious dwellings and gawdy businesses. After the usual 30 right and left turns through nameless streets, the bus stops. Here you are. This is it. People are nice though. One asks if I`ll be all right. I think so ... let`s see, dark, have no idea where I am, where anything is, how to get anywhere if I knew where to go, and can`t understand jack shit. Yeah .. I`m OK. With my lumbering pack, I trudge away. Make a note .. next to the ICE beer sign .. in case the bus will take me back from here.
Main street. A continious swarm of motercycles, scooters, bicycles, cars and pedistrains. Hundreds and hundreds teeming by. A fiesta in progress. A stage and a band a few blocks down blasting away. I stop at a food stand. loaded tacos for 12 bucks.. 1.50 US. With relish I sit on a stool and consume. Wonderful. No hustlers here. Everyone smiling. Nice. Accepting my weirdness, my ailen-ness. A little loath to face the melee. Coulden`t I just sit here and eat these tacos. Smile at everyone. But I get up and begin asking for a hotel or such. Donda hey casa de, in shitty spanish. Everyone can only understand hotel. My words incomprehensible. Every one directs me in a differnt direction. All indicate like it`s just a few inches this way or that. For 2 hours I walk in circles around various blocks, finding nothing. I gaze down another main street. ICE signs are every quarter block, as far as I can see. I am lost. Sometimes I am part of a Jesus suffering march, a huge idol on a cross, wailing music. Other times I think I suddenly hear gunshots, but find to everyones joy, it is exploding fireworks overhead, randomly shot, stars in the sky to the cheers of us all. Through all, constantly dodging motercycles and cars with the occasional fuel truck deciding to stampede. the only traffic control is to be in control.
A freindly motercycle guy with a kid on his lap directs me more than once in a specific direction. At last I find a big fancy hotel. 4 star. Not my way, but sure as hell going to stop here. 490 quetzels. shit. 60 bucks. Visa pulls through for me. Hell yeah. slam the card. AC .. spanish TV, light, water, bed. I lived .. and like Dan and Kori say ... with a story.
I have no idea where the sea is or how to get out of here. But that`s why they make tomorrows.
The boat ruide across some vast gulf to Guatamala is wonderful. Beautiful flat azul sea. Tide rips. Huge mountians laying a black ragged shadow in the sky. One of the engines craps out midway. the captian kills the other so he can hammer on the agrived motor. Adrift in the Carribean. Sorta romantic. I`m the only one with a bottel of water, so I get the first pick of who to eat. Eventually he fires them both up, and just to show who`s boss, opens tham both wide and blasts across the water. The top speed of this displacement nightmare is about 30 with 400 HP.
Soon we hove into punta Barrios. Well named. The shore is a hozontal garbage pile. A hustler directs me to immagration 2 blocks away for a stamp. These guys could give a shit. i could have 20 kilos of white powder in my pack. I could have walked in without bothering their perpetual siestia. Then through a dozen blocks of destitute slum to the bus station. Open fetid sewers, crumbling one story rathole houses, starved sore covered dogs cowering along with us. This is a hungry place. I give Antonio 10 Quetzels, about a buck 25. He did me right. Hope I did him similar.
20th, I think. Maybe Friday. On the bus through Guatamala. Buss stopped at a cafertiera, 15 min. I havent eaten in a day or so. I get 3 somethings with sauce. Most delisioush shit I can remember. About 50 other things I`d like to eat there too. Parinoid that the bus will leave without me. Just rained, now warm and muggy. Nice, really. Along the way, people living in holes carved into road cuts here. A 4x4 back in 5 feet, part of a tarp for a veranda, three kids and a male, sitting, staring .. idle. I see this eveywhere. Poverty. Stupor. Everyone just lazing around doing nothing. Waiting. For what? It reminds me of jail. But at least there, a relief could be coming.
A huge beautiful river in this wide valley. The side creeks we cross are full of quartzite and quartz. There is a rounded bolder of quartz half the size of a car in one village. I know there is gold in the hills. Apparently they do not. Sitting on one of the most geologically turbulent places in the world, the crushing zone between 3 tectonic plates, rotating, grinding, and upwelling. Where worlds collide. All the treasure of the deep squezzing to the surface. I am blowing past the blue jade zone. I can communicate no better than an ape. People people everywhere, but not a word to speak. Rolling again. The mountians are magnicifiant. I would love to be in them, teasing out their secrets. But on to Curiad de guatamala. To what fate there I do not know. This is suposedly the most thug infested place in central americia. I am basically terrified.
Cactus now outside. Must be around 2000 feet elevation. Stuccato spanish all around me. I don`t have a clue. Guatamala city. 30 miles in every direction. Sprawling one story bungaloes, many made of scrap trash with smoke billiowing out of rotten board and sheet metal overlaps. Cooking some perro inside a haze, if they are lucky. Mobbed by hustlers at the final stop after weaving through endless lefts and rights of barred stucco. I pause to put together a few phrases. The bus to where I want to go is across town. Helpful bus ticket people connect me to a reputable cabby. I struggle with words with him as he tears up one street and down another, zigzagging apparently at random. He works the stick shift like an icecream churn, accererating madly at every chance. Miles and miles of endless city, crammed with teeming people. 10 near pedistrian murders, as they wrench back in horror from the speeding auto. 20 hairs breath collisions avoided with a prayer, lunging out into traffic, cutting in front of anything, blatent lane changes. For 50 Qetzels, about 8 bucks, I couldnt ask for a wilder thrill ride. I am laughing my ass off out loud, which gives him greater courage, it seems.
We enter a rough looking area of dismanteled busses, repairs ongoing on the street. Then into a jam of 10 busses, hundreds of people, cars wedged in the cracks. "Ahh, Pacificio" he utters in relief. "Su buss, Su Buss". Apparently he has been trying to beat the clock and get me here before it leaves. He blocks the bus with his cab. I am disgourged. My pack handed between scoundral types till I grab it back and climb into the conveyance.
I get a seat. barely fits me and the pack, no room for knees, shredded vinyl all around. They load as many people as are seated again. Totally mashed. I am admonished to share my tiny space, so I crush in more adjusting the pack ontop of me, enough to give a nice young fellow a square foot of butt cling seat. About 5 dozen standing, three to most seats. The horn is blaring. A pull chain for this. The bus inches forward, the knot of busses and cars slowly parts as more people climb on. Then in release from the crush, madcap through the streets, accelerating and tramping the brakes. Another many hours of insane driving, winding through this and that barrio, endlessly. Stopping every quarter mile to let people on and off. I particurally like passing into an oncoming fuel truck. Lots of these combinations for some reason. I can`t care. Must imagine my self as one of Calvins toys in the fated sandbox.
As we desend from the highlands, a massive volcano looms to our right. A 5000 foot perfect cone. Red lava glowing in the now night, smoke and ash dribbling down one side. Very awesom. Must be a lot of earthquakes here. On and on into the night. At one town we are hurridly off loaded and re-loaded through the emergency exit of another bus. Chinese fire drill sort of thing.
Now on the flats again. Palms trees all around. Sprawling civilization and heaps of trash. I am used to coming into a western town, there you are, main street. Here you go on and on through miles of packed miscallanious dwellings and gawdy businesses. After the usual 30 right and left turns through nameless streets, the bus stops. Here you are. This is it. People are nice though. One asks if I`ll be all right. I think so ... let`s see, dark, have no idea where I am, where anything is, how to get anywhere if I knew where to go, and can`t understand jack shit. Yeah .. I`m OK. With my lumbering pack, I trudge away. Make a note .. next to the ICE beer sign .. in case the bus will take me back from here.
Main street. A continious swarm of motercycles, scooters, bicycles, cars and pedistrains. Hundreds and hundreds teeming by. A fiesta in progress. A stage and a band a few blocks down blasting away. I stop at a food stand. loaded tacos for 12 bucks.. 1.50 US. With relish I sit on a stool and consume. Wonderful. No hustlers here. Everyone smiling. Nice. Accepting my weirdness, my ailen-ness. A little loath to face the melee. Coulden`t I just sit here and eat these tacos. Smile at everyone. But I get up and begin asking for a hotel or such. Donda hey casa de, in shitty spanish. Everyone can only understand hotel. My words incomprehensible. Every one directs me in a differnt direction. All indicate like it`s just a few inches this way or that. For 2 hours I walk in circles around various blocks, finding nothing. I gaze down another main street. ICE signs are every quarter block, as far as I can see. I am lost. Sometimes I am part of a Jesus suffering march, a huge idol on a cross, wailing music. Other times I think I suddenly hear gunshots, but find to everyones joy, it is exploding fireworks overhead, randomly shot, stars in the sky to the cheers of us all. Through all, constantly dodging motercycles and cars with the occasional fuel truck deciding to stampede. the only traffic control is to be in control.
A freindly motercycle guy with a kid on his lap directs me more than once in a specific direction. At last I find a big fancy hotel. 4 star. Not my way, but sure as hell going to stop here. 490 quetzels. shit. 60 bucks. Visa pulls through for me. Hell yeah. slam the card. AC .. spanish TV, light, water, bed. I lived .. and like Dan and Kori say ... with a story.
I have no idea where the sea is or how to get out of here. But that`s why they make tomorrows.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Pearls Before ...
Today, the second time, pink perals leap out at me from far corners of the map. In a sidewalk crack on Park Avenue, downtown Manhatten, there is a cherry pit sized pink perfect. Some $1000 a square inch elite princess is sobbing somewhere over the loss. Now here, on a Belizian beach, a lumpy beauty presentsit's self. If I keep traveling, pretty soon I'll have a necklace.
The trade wind blows a steady 15 to 20 something. Soft with it's oisture, pelicians hanging in it's arms, rays the size of tables gliuding just under an azul surface. Fine white sand of powdered coral penatrates pleasently between the toes. Flowers and Palms rustel all around. Feral dogs pad happily from tourist to tourist, presumptivly presenting their smilein exchange for a pat and a morsel.
This is the madision avenue ad, selling everything from underware to roof shingles. Paridise. Always the palm, the white sand, usually with the perfect body maiden, leaning partially clad on a vacume cleaner .. All this can be your life if you buy this dream.
But what of living the dream. Them who were born here. No skills, no education, never a job, no oppertunity, no way out of paridise, little hope beyond begging off the opulent NortAmerikino's.
I walk the beach. Dripping form a sealife swim. A young negroid carib woman takes up the stroll with me.
"Havv yo beeen swiming?"
"Yes" I'm surf thrashed
"Where are you staying?" a polite tone
"At Thomas's" like he was an old freind, not a cheap hotel
"Do you have a wife?"
"No"
"Weeil you have sex with mee?'
"No"
"I haaff four kids. I am looking for a donation."
Of what I think. Maybe she's had enough "donations". I wonder if she get's the connection. the reason she has 4 kids.
"No, sorry. I have no money on me."
She angels off up to a bar. I am an obvious mark. White. Male. Alone. I feel very sorry for her, weather she has kids or not. So many mixed breed humans here. Going nowhere. No hope or even knowlege of elsewhere. Stuck in paridise. Paridise for those with the money.
The trade wind blows a steady 15 to 20 something. Soft with it's oisture, pelicians hanging in it's arms, rays the size of tables gliuding just under an azul surface. Fine white sand of powdered coral penatrates pleasently between the toes. Flowers and Palms rustel all around. Feral dogs pad happily from tourist to tourist, presumptivly presenting their smilein exchange for a pat and a morsel.
This is the madision avenue ad, selling everything from underware to roof shingles. Paridise. Always the palm, the white sand, usually with the perfect body maiden, leaning partially clad on a vacume cleaner .. All this can be your life if you buy this dream.
But what of living the dream. Them who were born here. No skills, no education, never a job, no oppertunity, no way out of paridise, little hope beyond begging off the opulent NortAmerikino's.
I walk the beach. Dripping form a sealife swim. A young negroid carib woman takes up the stroll with me.
"Havv yo beeen swiming?"
"Yes" I'm surf thrashed
"Where are you staying?" a polite tone
"At Thomas's" like he was an old freind, not a cheap hotel
"Do you have a wife?"
"No"
"Weeil you have sex with mee?'
"No"
"I haaff four kids. I am looking for a donation."
Of what I think. Maybe she's had enough "donations". I wonder if she get's the connection. the reason she has 4 kids.
"No, sorry. I have no money on me."
She angels off up to a bar. I am an obvious mark. White. Male. Alone. I feel very sorry for her, weather she has kids or not. So many mixed breed humans here. Going nowhere. No hope or even knowlege of elsewhere. Stuck in paridise. Paridise for those with the money.
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