Chill for too long and you will simply freeze. Entirely the wrong metaphors for describing the high temperature of the southern Mexican beach life. Every day is 35 degrees and the only time I reach for something with sleeves is to watch the sunrise from my little balcony, the chai in my mug cools as the daily inescapable heat returns.
I came here to do nothing, nothing that the beach had to offer, not skydiving or sea diving, dolphin watching, or surfing. I just came to sit quietly and do some book stuff and trip preparation. ‘Book stuff?’ If it’s not pounding bass through the walls, or dogs barking through the night, it’s book thoughts going through my head that wakes me, the never ending quest to get the word out. And trip stuff the constant battle against red tape to obtain the visas for the next journey. This was, I had decided an ideal location to achieve both of the above whilst my tenant paid for this warm and frugal homeless lifestyle.
A room here for a month is £225 and I live on muesli and avocado with a treat of street tacos for dinner 5 for £1. So if I avoid the sea front posh and tempting I can live pretty cheap.
It’s so easy to form a routine regardless of location. And within a week I have one, writing, emails, Spanish lessons, siesta and down to the beach for sunset. There I was sitting on the sand with my unfeasibly large lens when a surfer dude approaches me and I jump out of my little moonrise daydream. He mistakes me for a professional, he didn’t say professional what. Can I make some photos of him surfing, he will pay me.
‘No worries if you like them buy me beer if not, no obligation. He likes them
I get fed and alcoholed and approached by his friends.
Within a week I know half the surfers who indulge in these waves, the legionary Mexico Pipeline. I’m in with the surf crowd, I know how to do the hand shake and everything; I have a constant stream of people at my door with beer and memory sticks to have their photos transferred to. Many moons ago it was Thai stick and tequila the stick is now digital the spirit of the age is simply beer. I haven’t made myself a sandwich or brought a drink all week, I have a growing pod of a belly slowly getting browner and my spare time is not spent researching visas for the ‘Stan’s’ but surfing surf photography sites.
My pictures improve, word gets out and coincidently I'm asked to submit some Mexican photos for an article in Overland Magazine. So now I must be a professional, should I declare on my tax form burritos and beer? My little routine has gone right out the fly screen in the window.
When one surfer chick asks what she owes me, I say 20 minutes of your time,
her frown soon goes when I say to go clothes shopping with me. I have no sense of style or fashion at all. And I need a style adviser, she’s good too, the right girl for the job.
‘This one is too gangster, no not that too dad, too gay’, ‘oh really I though it looked pretty good.’
‘This one brings out the colour in your eyes’
‘eyes, right, does it? Ok thanks I’ll take it.’
So now I'm the coolest dressed surfing photographer on the beach. And I can’t step outside the door without a surfer hand shake or that other sign they do with the thumb and pinky finger pointing out, it might mean hang loose but the way I do it, it’s more like hang up.
They talk waves and techniques, heroes and legends and I listen and inadvertently learn. I should be doing my Spanish. They speak of the meditation, the spiritual connection the unity with nature. It all sounds great but I'm a biker.
The day the internet crashed everyone comes out to play; the pool is crowded when the pasty surfers of cyberspace venture from their rooms. I choose to ride. Up the mountains, in 2 hours I'm at 6000ft and for the first time since Copper Canyon I experience the discomfort of a chilling temperature and the thrill of a twisting road.
The beach crowd don't believe me. Firstly that I rode that far, secondly that there are that kind of elevations so close by and thirdly that it can be so much cooler than the beach. That's when I realize that although it’s a privileged insight into their world, I'm not a surfer, bikes are my thing, all the waves in the world will leave me stagnating. I came here to do nothing, free of distractions and I've got a better social life than I do at home. I mastered some new photographic techniques and learned some new capabilities of my camera. So it’s been useful in a way but I've lost all motivation and enthusiasm for the mission I came here for. I've seen 30 sunsets, some with whales,
some with waves some in the company of a wounded surfer and some just high on my balcony. It’s time to ride again.
After all, this is a bike trip right?
I wallowed all the way here and when I got here I went to the forums in the hope someone could shed light on my confidence extracting Kenda tyres. It was suggested to vary pressures, loaded, unloaded, check bearings, spokes, and also I was reassured it’s a character of the tyre. In desperation I took off the front which had not DOR arrow and looked symmetrical in tread pattern but I turned it around anyway and what do ya know, it handled like a... well like a cheap tyre as opposed to a gyroscope. You know when you hold an bicycle wheel in your hand and spin it, then try and turn your wrists and it fights you to retain its original course of gyroscopically travel well that’s the feeling I got when I tried to lean into corners. Now that has gone and I wind my way back up to the high altitude spine of Mexico. Putting the layers back on, blowing away the malaise of the beach and remembering that I may have developed the eye for a good surf photo but I retain the mind for a good ride and this is what I do.
I'm heading for the Golf Coast now to meet a friend from my last trip here. I have 3 days to do a 2 day trip, it was exactly this scenario when my accident occurred last year and it was tyre related. So this new confidence in my rubber is tenacious. My road mind debates what I will do with this extra day, I get out my guide book the brick I have been carrying and barely looked at. I discover a cactus desert is a day’s ride away. My dithering morning turns into rushed and excited preparation.
I love being on the road. Just this, wake up warm, look at my guide book and with the freedom of a solo traveller I make a decision, load the bike, look at the map and head out.
I don’t know if it’s because the only riding I've done in the last month has been in shorts and shades to the supermarket but I suspect regardless of my previous activities it’s just one of those rare and magical days you occasionally get on the road. A dismal breakfast experience did not bode well for the day ahead. Luke warm Villella coffee a chocolate flavoured bun and 2 greasy eggs with some insipid salsa laying on the oil. Is my inability to be understood in Spanish really so bad? Or is it just the inability of this side street 2 table dinner to actually produce the very basics in the edible and drinkable. Still the food is brought with smiles and enthusiasm if not culinary skills, warmth and hygiene.
Undeterred and underfed I leave the plate much at it arrived and walk on down the street to a bakery, where I take a large round aluminium tray a pair of pincers and pick our freshly baked cheese and ham rolls and baguettes whilst trying to calculate the room in my panniers and my stomach and equating it to this ever increasing pile of pastries on the plate.
I blatantly walk past the diner of discontent stuffing my face with tasty treats. And that is where the day turned around and stayed. It takes more than a bad breakfast to break the day.
I find my way straight out of town which is always a little bonus. For a minimal charge I take a toll road to fast track me to the better scenery. The cactus desert destination is forgotten about, it’s the journey that's taking my attention, it’s all about the journey, the road twists up to 7000ft but the temperature stays comfortable, the cliffs and rocks have multiple subtle colours the dark blue high altitude sky is a complementary back drop and I know that my words and photos will never capture this day, this feeling, this next perfect bend that brings into view a whole new scene that slows me down and has me contemplating camera settings and premature camping. And that in turn has me thinking supplies, if I get water and some food now I have 24hours of self contained independence.
The town is tiny and the stares say that not many overloaded motorcycles come this way, but I find the shop and my limited pannier space it filled with the shops limited supplies. Back on the main road, as if they were stuck there, the ground becomes a pin cushion of cactus, towering bigger than any plant pot could contain; and covering the hillsides as far as I can see. They protrude out of the undulating landscape making the place a descending hot air balloonist’s nightmare.
And just as I'm contemplating a wild camp I see that little triangular sign that means I won’t be breaking any laws, a camp site is a few miles up ahead. Let’s be clear, the sign actually says botanical gardens, a phrase they must have picked up from a glossy magazine. I go to the hut that says administration, a little English is spoken. No I don't want the tour just to camp. My £2 is taken and the fridge is instantly opened and the beer it contains is distributed amongst the 3 workers/ employees/ owners. I’m shown to a space next to a newly built sleeping quarters, the boiler is lit so I can shower and the door is left open.
I have some whiskey in my panniers and soon as I can already smell it on my hosts breath I offer it and its accepted and exchanged for a short walking tour. He's very proud of his botanical garden, or at least staking his claim to this natural cactus desert and putting a few slightly inappropriate buildings on the land.
After I've set up my tent and finished the whiskey I take my camera for a walk about, there is a wooden viewing platform and the bottom ladder has been removed to prevent easy access, ‘what would Monklet do?’ I think to myself, then I climb up the framework and look down on the prickly spires of this dehydrated forest. It’s good, it’s ok, it could be better, those big cold bottles of beer that came out the fridge would enhance this scenario no end. And that's when the day went up another gear. I ride over to the admin building, ‘sorry none left, have some of ours’
The guitar is out and the laughter is unstoppable, so I share a beer,
‘Are you a musician?’ I've been hearing it all my life no I just look like I could be, no I can’t play guitar but I can pose well with it , just stand me in front of a Marshall stack.
‘But you can sing though?’
No I really can’t,
‘sing Yesterday’ he sings it. He loves the Beatles,
‘oh not Guns n’ Roses’ version then?’ The fact that I know the words and have an English accent, if not scouse, is all they need and when I get stuck on the next line they help.
‘Ok look I'm going to get some beer I’ll be right back’
The sunset was probably not going to be as memorable as this sing-along anyway. Once again shorts and shades to the shops. I put 4 cans on the table and now they sing La Bamba. They all have such good voices strong and in tune, one of the guys is younger than me has 7 kids and more hair, thicker and not a trace of grey, this is incredibly unfair.
They point at the bike ‘Mondo?’
‘No just Mexico,’
‘Where else?’
Now look this was never my intension I only wanted a beer for the sunset, but I do happen to have a map to show and tell, unfortunately it’s inside the cover of my book. I just show the map. Then the photos, its feels a little like I'm at Motorcycle Live again.
‘So that's you?’
Yes but I just wanted to show you the map. But it’s too late phones come out, photos by the bike. They insist I will eat with them.
Whilst we wait for the taxi the oldest of the 3 men who speaks no English at all tells me a story sentence by sentence. The sentenses I don't get are translated; it’s a gentle story of old time in these parts that his father and grandfather knew. It’s told proudly and with patience and it’s so in keeping with this setting.
So with my camera and valuable documents left in the tent I follow a taxi on my bike, a restaurant is opened for us, people are summoned and the book is shown round, it has at this point turned into a passport. More beer is brought I'm invited they insist, it is there treat. I've meet at least 5 of the 7 children, the wife, sisters and uncles, I have to sing Yesterday once more (not yesterday once more, by the carpenters) I must say I'm sounding pretty good, in harmony with my understudy prompter, then Hotel California. Can I leave, can I? No, the story teller has another story for me, of the sacred cactus that occasionally produces fruit, that the fruit can be fermented into an alcoholic juice, a prestigious and potent brew, but the story has an agenda, this juice is only available at a certain bar and I am invited by the story teller to come and drink 2 glasses of the juice with them.
‘Oh go on then’ Now my bike is left on a main street, my possessions are slowly getting scattered. We go into the centre of this dusty town to a building in the centre of the square, and I’m ushered in. It doesn’t look much like a bar to me and I've seen a few. No this is the president’s office; He’s a man with bulging biceps a t-shirt won’t cover, he shakes my hand
‘I am president of the town’ he tells me and in case I don't understand he adds, ‘Bill Clinton’.
‘Hi I'm Tony Blair’ I hear myself saying, it’s received with a laugh. The book which hasn’t been in my possession since it came out the pannier is now shown to Mr. Mussel and his side kick. Who they say will come and visit me tomorrow. Then to the bar. Oh for a camera. The bar man has two customers, and more character than an Oscar ceremony. A dusty demijohn is brought out from under the bar, there is the sound of shuffling, a shot glass is cleaned and put on the bar. It clearly doesn’t come out much. It’s filled with a cloudy liquid, and passed to me, would this be happening if I wasn’t travelling alone, if I hadn’t got the fucking book out?
Ok , well, here goes, I'm not going to shot it, the story was long, the fruit is rare and this drink deserves respect. I sip it, thankfully it’s palatable, and furthermore as it goes down there are no surprises. The tension in the bar relaxes, or is it me. The barman could be Benny Hill, not in a high speed chase way, but in an unfeasibly impossible hair way, I would never imply it was a wig but it needs adjusting. His contempt for me is just beneath the surface if his obligated service.
A younger man sits on a chair with his back to the wall but his body is a 45 degree ramp from his cowboy boots balanced on their heels and crossed on the floor up long thin legs covered in faded denim to a red shirt and waist coat his face obscured by a battered cowboy hat. Smoke rises from beneath it, how lawless a smoker in a bar seems now. When he leans forward to take his glass from the bar I see he has a long face, missing teeth but still strikingly handsome, sharp cheek bones covered with dark weathered skin. This guy is cool. Very cool. I just know there is a ponytail down his back; I want him to be my friend. The other customer is sitting at a right angle to him also with his back the wall but by the door. He’s wearing a 70’s brown leather jacket, he has a round face and a grey fringe hangs over a forehead of ravines which don't quite frown, he has the look of a man who has seen a lot of trouble but avoided most of it. Music plays at a level to keep awkward silence away but to invite conversation.
‘Scorpions’ says the thin dark duke
Where? my body language said but thankfully not my mouth,
‘Wind of change, they are German no?’
Yes they are, and so the ice is broken with my new cool amigo, he has seen Pink Floyd in Texas, the momentary lapse of reason tour I think we establish, and as we chat my glass is refilled. My hosts are very drunk, I don't seem to be, I do say that this is one of the coolest bars I've ever been in. There is an exhale of disbelief.
‘Don't you believe me?’ I say to the 70’s trouble avoider, ‘I believe everything’ he diplomatically says. Although I'm not sure just how good of a philosophical life choice that is. My hoists are now slurring drunk and I think perhaps a little jealous that my attention has be taken by stronger and stranger characters.
I held my drink, I've established my presence, I've met everyone and annoyed no one. This it would seem is a very good time to leave, I think I’ll just say goodnight. I leave the bar into an empty street, the kind of bar I would imagine the clientele are either thrown out of, crawl out of, or are taken out of to be relocated into a room with more bars, across the window. I must say I feared a more severe effect from this cactus juice which, if this scenario were ever turned into a cartoon would, have been poured from a jug that would doubtlessly have several X’s on it and perhaps a skull and cross bones. Which anatomically speaking is simply another X only made with femurs.
Dogs probably bark, rats may scurry and I stride purposefully in the direction of the place I last saw my bike. The author is leaving the bar.
I frequently try and occasionally succeed in living in the moment. Fully aware of what is around me, appreciative and undistracted, ‘the moment’ is a very important place to be. I spend at least half my life considering the next bit, the other half is divided between reminding myself to acknowledge the here and now and actually managing to immures myself in it. It’s a very satisfying state when it is achieved, because when it passes as it inevitable will, that moment can be recalled with perfect clarity. This particular moment is such a moment, however the cactus juice was having an effect and total recall is sketchy. The bike was where I left it. The keys are in my hand. The directions in my head. I start the bike and by about the time I've selected 3rd gear the refreshing wind that I am passing through brings me back fully aware of what I'm actually doing, riding out of a small town into a cactus desert with inadequate protection and not in the least bit concerned about it. I never ride at night so I was unaware of just how bright my full beam headlight was; it shines off the towering pillars of prickle and gives me a sense of insignificance. Taking the dirt track back to my tent, I know this is one of those moments that I just have to experience firsthand to know the feeling it brought me. I fumble with a bread roll and avocado making a ‘just got home from the pub snack’. Stumbling round the sandy ground repeating ‘Yo soy boratcho’ with increasing emphasis on the rolling of the R. ‘I am drunk’, I tell the silent night and it doesn’t disagree.
I eat my wonderful roll, drink enough water to quench and leave enough for a night of parch. And that is the end of a day that reminds me that regardless of what you call it, adventure, overlanding, touring, prolonged holiday, independent travel; it is, irrespective of the label why I do what I do.
I get fed and alcoholed and approached by his friends.
Within a week I know half the surfers who indulge in these waves, the legionary Mexico Pipeline. I’m in with the surf crowd, I know how to do the hand shake and everything; I have a constant stream of people at my door with beer and memory sticks to have their photos transferred to. Many moons ago it was Thai stick and tequila the stick is now digital the spirit of the age is simply beer. I haven’t made myself a sandwich or brought a drink all week, I have a growing pod of a belly slowly getting browner and my spare time is not spent researching visas for the ‘Stan’s’ but surfing surf photography sites.
My pictures improve, word gets out and coincidently I'm asked to submit some Mexican photos for an article in Overland Magazine. So now I must be a professional, should I declare on my tax form burritos and beer? My little routine has gone right out the fly screen in the window.
When one surfer chick asks what she owes me, I say 20 minutes of your time,
her frown soon goes when I say to go clothes shopping with me. I have no sense of style or fashion at all. And I need a style adviser, she’s good too, the right girl for the job.
‘This one is too gangster, no not that too dad, too gay’, ‘oh really I though it looked pretty good.’
‘This one brings out the colour in your eyes’
‘eyes, right, does it? Ok thanks I’ll take it.’
So now I'm the coolest dressed surfing photographer on the beach. And I can’t step outside the door without a surfer hand shake or that other sign they do with the thumb and pinky finger pointing out, it might mean hang loose but the way I do it, it’s more like hang up.
They talk waves and techniques, heroes and legends and I listen and inadvertently learn. I should be doing my Spanish. They speak of the meditation, the spiritual connection the unity with nature. It all sounds great but I'm a biker.
The day the internet crashed everyone comes out to play; the pool is crowded when the pasty surfers of cyberspace venture from their rooms. I choose to ride. Up the mountains, in 2 hours I'm at 6000ft and for the first time since Copper Canyon I experience the discomfort of a chilling temperature and the thrill of a twisting road.
The beach crowd don't believe me. Firstly that I rode that far, secondly that there are that kind of elevations so close by and thirdly that it can be so much cooler than the beach. That's when I realize that although it’s a privileged insight into their world, I'm not a surfer, bikes are my thing, all the waves in the world will leave me stagnating. I came here to do nothing, free of distractions and I've got a better social life than I do at home. I mastered some new photographic techniques and learned some new capabilities of my camera. So it’s been useful in a way but I've lost all motivation and enthusiasm for the mission I came here for. I've seen 30 sunsets, some with whales,
some with waves some in the company of a wounded surfer and some just high on my balcony. It’s time to ride again.
After all, this is a bike trip right?
I wallowed all the way here and when I got here I went to the forums in the hope someone could shed light on my confidence extracting Kenda tyres. It was suggested to vary pressures, loaded, unloaded, check bearings, spokes, and also I was reassured it’s a character of the tyre. In desperation I took off the front which had not DOR arrow and looked symmetrical in tread pattern but I turned it around anyway and what do ya know, it handled like a... well like a cheap tyre as opposed to a gyroscope. You know when you hold an bicycle wheel in your hand and spin it, then try and turn your wrists and it fights you to retain its original course of gyroscopically travel well that’s the feeling I got when I tried to lean into corners. Now that has gone and I wind my way back up to the high altitude spine of Mexico. Putting the layers back on, blowing away the malaise of the beach and remembering that I may have developed the eye for a good surf photo but I retain the mind for a good ride and this is what I do.
I'm heading for the Golf Coast now to meet a friend from my last trip here. I have 3 days to do a 2 day trip, it was exactly this scenario when my accident occurred last year and it was tyre related. So this new confidence in my rubber is tenacious. My road mind debates what I will do with this extra day, I get out my guide book the brick I have been carrying and barely looked at. I discover a cactus desert is a day’s ride away. My dithering morning turns into rushed and excited preparation.
I love being on the road. Just this, wake up warm, look at my guide book and with the freedom of a solo traveller I make a decision, load the bike, look at the map and head out.
I don’t know if it’s because the only riding I've done in the last month has been in shorts and shades to the supermarket but I suspect regardless of my previous activities it’s just one of those rare and magical days you occasionally get on the road. A dismal breakfast experience did not bode well for the day ahead. Luke warm Villella coffee a chocolate flavoured bun and 2 greasy eggs with some insipid salsa laying on the oil. Is my inability to be understood in Spanish really so bad? Or is it just the inability of this side street 2 table dinner to actually produce the very basics in the edible and drinkable. Still the food is brought with smiles and enthusiasm if not culinary skills, warmth and hygiene.
Undeterred and underfed I leave the plate much at it arrived and walk on down the street to a bakery, where I take a large round aluminium tray a pair of pincers and pick our freshly baked cheese and ham rolls and baguettes whilst trying to calculate the room in my panniers and my stomach and equating it to this ever increasing pile of pastries on the plate.
I blatantly walk past the diner of discontent stuffing my face with tasty treats. And that is where the day turned around and stayed. It takes more than a bad breakfast to break the day.
I find my way straight out of town which is always a little bonus. For a minimal charge I take a toll road to fast track me to the better scenery. The cactus desert destination is forgotten about, it’s the journey that's taking my attention, it’s all about the journey, the road twists up to 7000ft but the temperature stays comfortable, the cliffs and rocks have multiple subtle colours the dark blue high altitude sky is a complementary back drop and I know that my words and photos will never capture this day, this feeling, this next perfect bend that brings into view a whole new scene that slows me down and has me contemplating camera settings and premature camping. And that in turn has me thinking supplies, if I get water and some food now I have 24hours of self contained independence.
The town is tiny and the stares say that not many overloaded motorcycles come this way, but I find the shop and my limited pannier space it filled with the shops limited supplies. Back on the main road, as if they were stuck there, the ground becomes a pin cushion of cactus, towering bigger than any plant pot could contain; and covering the hillsides as far as I can see. They protrude out of the undulating landscape making the place a descending hot air balloonist’s nightmare.
And just as I'm contemplating a wild camp I see that little triangular sign that means I won’t be breaking any laws, a camp site is a few miles up ahead. Let’s be clear, the sign actually says botanical gardens, a phrase they must have picked up from a glossy magazine. I go to the hut that says administration, a little English is spoken. No I don't want the tour just to camp. My £2 is taken and the fridge is instantly opened and the beer it contains is distributed amongst the 3 workers/ employees/ owners. I’m shown to a space next to a newly built sleeping quarters, the boiler is lit so I can shower and the door is left open.
I have some whiskey in my panniers and soon as I can already smell it on my hosts breath I offer it and its accepted and exchanged for a short walking tour. He's very proud of his botanical garden, or at least staking his claim to this natural cactus desert and putting a few slightly inappropriate buildings on the land.
After I've set up my tent and finished the whiskey I take my camera for a walk about, there is a wooden viewing platform and the bottom ladder has been removed to prevent easy access, ‘what would Monklet do?’ I think to myself, then I climb up the framework and look down on the prickly spires of this dehydrated forest. It’s good, it’s ok, it could be better, those big cold bottles of beer that came out the fridge would enhance this scenario no end. And that's when the day went up another gear. I ride over to the admin building, ‘sorry none left, have some of ours’
The guitar is out and the laughter is unstoppable, so I share a beer,
‘Are you a musician?’ I've been hearing it all my life no I just look like I could be, no I can’t play guitar but I can pose well with it , just stand me in front of a Marshall stack.
‘But you can sing though?’
No I really can’t,
‘sing Yesterday’ he sings it. He loves the Beatles,
‘oh not Guns n’ Roses’ version then?’ The fact that I know the words and have an English accent, if not scouse, is all they need and when I get stuck on the next line they help.
‘Ok look I'm going to get some beer I’ll be right back’
The sunset was probably not going to be as memorable as this sing-along anyway. Once again shorts and shades to the shops. I put 4 cans on the table and now they sing La Bamba. They all have such good voices strong and in tune, one of the guys is younger than me has 7 kids and more hair, thicker and not a trace of grey, this is incredibly unfair.
They point at the bike ‘Mondo?’
‘No just Mexico,’
‘Where else?’
Now look this was never my intension I only wanted a beer for the sunset, but I do happen to have a map to show and tell, unfortunately it’s inside the cover of my book. I just show the map. Then the photos, its feels a little like I'm at Motorcycle Live again.
‘So that's you?’
Yes but I just wanted to show you the map. But it’s too late phones come out, photos by the bike. They insist I will eat with them.
Whilst we wait for the taxi the oldest of the 3 men who speaks no English at all tells me a story sentence by sentence. The sentenses I don't get are translated; it’s a gentle story of old time in these parts that his father and grandfather knew. It’s told proudly and with patience and it’s so in keeping with this setting.
So with my camera and valuable documents left in the tent I follow a taxi on my bike, a restaurant is opened for us, people are summoned and the book is shown round, it has at this point turned into a passport. More beer is brought I'm invited they insist, it is there treat. I've meet at least 5 of the 7 children, the wife, sisters and uncles, I have to sing Yesterday once more (not yesterday once more, by the carpenters) I must say I'm sounding pretty good, in harmony with my understudy prompter, then Hotel California. Can I leave, can I? No, the story teller has another story for me, of the sacred cactus that occasionally produces fruit, that the fruit can be fermented into an alcoholic juice, a prestigious and potent brew, but the story has an agenda, this juice is only available at a certain bar and I am invited by the story teller to come and drink 2 glasses of the juice with them.
‘Oh go on then’ Now my bike is left on a main street, my possessions are slowly getting scattered. We go into the centre of this dusty town to a building in the centre of the square, and I’m ushered in. It doesn’t look much like a bar to me and I've seen a few. No this is the president’s office; He’s a man with bulging biceps a t-shirt won’t cover, he shakes my hand
‘I am president of the town’ he tells me and in case I don't understand he adds, ‘Bill Clinton’.
‘Hi I'm Tony Blair’ I hear myself saying, it’s received with a laugh. The book which hasn’t been in my possession since it came out the pannier is now shown to Mr. Mussel and his side kick. Who they say will come and visit me tomorrow. Then to the bar. Oh for a camera. The bar man has two customers, and more character than an Oscar ceremony. A dusty demijohn is brought out from under the bar, there is the sound of shuffling, a shot glass is cleaned and put on the bar. It clearly doesn’t come out much. It’s filled with a cloudy liquid, and passed to me, would this be happening if I wasn’t travelling alone, if I hadn’t got the fucking book out?
Ok , well, here goes, I'm not going to shot it, the story was long, the fruit is rare and this drink deserves respect. I sip it, thankfully it’s palatable, and furthermore as it goes down there are no surprises. The tension in the bar relaxes, or is it me. The barman could be Benny Hill, not in a high speed chase way, but in an unfeasibly impossible hair way, I would never imply it was a wig but it needs adjusting. His contempt for me is just beneath the surface if his obligated service.
A younger man sits on a chair with his back to the wall but his body is a 45 degree ramp from his cowboy boots balanced on their heels and crossed on the floor up long thin legs covered in faded denim to a red shirt and waist coat his face obscured by a battered cowboy hat. Smoke rises from beneath it, how lawless a smoker in a bar seems now. When he leans forward to take his glass from the bar I see he has a long face, missing teeth but still strikingly handsome, sharp cheek bones covered with dark weathered skin. This guy is cool. Very cool. I just know there is a ponytail down his back; I want him to be my friend. The other customer is sitting at a right angle to him also with his back the wall but by the door. He’s wearing a 70’s brown leather jacket, he has a round face and a grey fringe hangs over a forehead of ravines which don't quite frown, he has the look of a man who has seen a lot of trouble but avoided most of it. Music plays at a level to keep awkward silence away but to invite conversation.
‘Scorpions’ says the thin dark duke
Where? my body language said but thankfully not my mouth,
‘Wind of change, they are German no?’
Yes they are, and so the ice is broken with my new cool amigo, he has seen Pink Floyd in Texas, the momentary lapse of reason tour I think we establish, and as we chat my glass is refilled. My hosts are very drunk, I don't seem to be, I do say that this is one of the coolest bars I've ever been in. There is an exhale of disbelief.
‘Don't you believe me?’ I say to the 70’s trouble avoider, ‘I believe everything’ he diplomatically says. Although I'm not sure just how good of a philosophical life choice that is. My hoists are now slurring drunk and I think perhaps a little jealous that my attention has be taken by stronger and stranger characters.
I held my drink, I've established my presence, I've met everyone and annoyed no one. This it would seem is a very good time to leave, I think I’ll just say goodnight. I leave the bar into an empty street, the kind of bar I would imagine the clientele are either thrown out of, crawl out of, or are taken out of to be relocated into a room with more bars, across the window. I must say I feared a more severe effect from this cactus juice which, if this scenario were ever turned into a cartoon would, have been poured from a jug that would doubtlessly have several X’s on it and perhaps a skull and cross bones. Which anatomically speaking is simply another X only made with femurs.
Dogs probably bark, rats may scurry and I stride purposefully in the direction of the place I last saw my bike. The author is leaving the bar.
I frequently try and occasionally succeed in living in the moment. Fully aware of what is around me, appreciative and undistracted, ‘the moment’ is a very important place to be. I spend at least half my life considering the next bit, the other half is divided between reminding myself to acknowledge the here and now and actually managing to immures myself in it. It’s a very satisfying state when it is achieved, because when it passes as it inevitable will, that moment can be recalled with perfect clarity. This particular moment is such a moment, however the cactus juice was having an effect and total recall is sketchy. The bike was where I left it. The keys are in my hand. The directions in my head. I start the bike and by about the time I've selected 3rd gear the refreshing wind that I am passing through brings me back fully aware of what I'm actually doing, riding out of a small town into a cactus desert with inadequate protection and not in the least bit concerned about it. I never ride at night so I was unaware of just how bright my full beam headlight was; it shines off the towering pillars of prickle and gives me a sense of insignificance. Taking the dirt track back to my tent, I know this is one of those moments that I just have to experience firsthand to know the feeling it brought me. I fumble with a bread roll and avocado making a ‘just got home from the pub snack’. Stumbling round the sandy ground repeating ‘Yo soy boratcho’ with increasing emphasis on the rolling of the R. ‘I am drunk’, I tell the silent night and it doesn’t disagree.
I eat my wonderful roll, drink enough water to quench and leave enough for a night of parch. And that is the end of a day that reminds me that regardless of what you call it, adventure, overlanding, touring, prolonged holiday, independent travel; it is, irrespective of the label why I do what I do.
